Schism looms in American Baptist Church

One of the strengths of the GOP (and weaknesses of the Democratic party) is the right's willingness to stick together and vote a straight ticket (and I do mean straight). Some Dems have a very unfortunate tendency to abandon the party over whatever boutique issue they happen to champion. As with Nader's disastrous run in 2000, this doesn't lead to getting attention for their issues-- it just means that everyone loses. You know, because your party needs to actually have some power before they start shaping policy and you are able to push your own agenda.

So it's always nice to see some dissension in the Republican ranks. It's just a shame that the source is something as ugly as the desire to discriminate against a group of fellow citizens.

Delegates from the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Southwest voted overwhelmingly Saturday to recommend severing ties with the national denomination in a dispute over homosexuality.

Members from the region's 300 churches are upset American Baptist Churches, USA, has not disciplined congregations with liberal gay policies even though the denomination has a strict definition that says "homosexuality is incompatible with biblical teaching."

The matter now goes to the region's board of directors, which meets May 11 and already recommended withdrawal from the denomination citing "deep differences of theological convictions and values."

The fundamentalists are still going full-bore with their plans for theocracy, and the more so-called values voters they can alienate the better. It'd be nice to see activist Christians pay that much attention to issues like poverty and homelessness.

Bush claims authority to break 700+ laws

Well, Stephen Colbert's incredible and cutting send-up of the DC press corps and Bush was great fun, but back to reality. Bush's chummy schtick with the press and their committment to pretty much ignoring the actual impact of his draconian policies.

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

This brings back all the horror of the right-wing's deafening cries that no citizen is above the law. But Clinton was president then. Different party, different rules. The piece is a long look at the history of Bush and Gonzales pushing their 'unitary executive' theory-- long championed by the Heritage Foundation, but ostensibly only applying to a Republican president. Seriously, if Clinton had tried to assert the right to ignore a single law, the GOP would have been reaching for the torches and pitchforks. It's the ultimate example of the "Bush v Gore test." Namely, if the party affiliation of the official in question were reversed, would you still support the policy.

One other thing-- consider the time and effort that must go into outlining 750 laws that you feel shouldn't apply to you. No lawyer is going to just 'read the title,' as it were and say "Checkarooney." As is always the case with legal issues, there was undoubtedly plenty of reading of the fine print. Which means that there's a battalion of attorneys and clerks devoting their time specifically to expanding the power of the executive branch-- at the behest of the White House. Scary? Ooooooh, yeah.

Stephen Colbert makes your weekend

(UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has a lengthy Quicktime clip. 26 megs and worth it. There are definitely many members of the audience who were less than pleased, and I'm still pretty shocked that he took on so many power players.)

Just to set the stage for this late-night update, allow me to post one of the closing paragraphs from the article in question:

The president had talked to the [2,700-person White House Correspondent Dinner] crowd with a Bush impersonator alongside, with the faux-Bush speaking precisely and the real Bush deliberately mispronouncing words. At the close, Bush called the imposter "a fine talent. In fact, he did all my debates with Senator Kerry."

Just the sort of calculated, phony self-deprecation you'd expect from Fearless Leader. "Hahaha, he acknowledges his malapropisms. What a down-to-earth guy!" Painfully reminiscent of the notorious "those WMDs must be here somewhere" video produced for the same event, but without the same potential for making Bush look like a clueless dumbass-- whose quest for non-existent WMDs has killed tens of thousands.

Not so fast, right-wing "comedians." All the good-natured chuckles that undoubtedly greeted Bush's pandering, focus group-tested schtick may well have died in the throats of attendees when Stephen Colbert delivered his speech. He apparently defined scathing satire in his comments on the administration and the press.

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the [sic] Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Noting those low ratings, Colbert advised, "The glass isn't half empty - it's 68% empty. There's still some fluid in there, but I wouldn't drink it."

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “They are re-arranging the deck chairs--on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face—“and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.”

Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, as well as " Valerie Plame." Then, pretending to be worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean... Joseph Wilson's wife." He asserted that it might be okay, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was probably not there.

Colbert also made biting cracks [?] about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurriance disasters, and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face.
Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides—the president’s side and the vice president’s side." He also reflected on the good old days, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.

Addressing the reporters, he said, "You should spend more time with your families, write that novel you've always wanted to write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to the administration. You know-- fiction."

He closed his routine with a video fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with a special “Gannon” button on his podium. By the end, he runs fleeing from Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq and killed all those people.

I'll be on the lookout for a complete transcript or video, and I'm sure they'll be out there.

Anti-science Saturday

This is a lengthy article that attempts to catalogue the Bush administration's aggressive efforts to squelch hard science while limiting the discourse to corporate-funded "experts," or as Al Franken refers to them, biostitutes.

Global warming and reproductive health are the most obvious targets of their wrath, with a strong third front aimed at biologists/hydrologists/geologists who criticize the results of stripmining and mountaintop removal. It's just one more area in which the GOP is committed to shaping policy on corporate interests rather than the welfare of the nation. As the following excerpt demonstrates, the corporatist ideology of the administration extends right down the line to child lead poisoning. Great bunch o' guys.

A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, titled Scientific Integrity in Policymaking, identifies policy issues being unfairly influenced by the administration: including climate change, mercury emissions, reproductive health, lead poisoning in children, workplace safety, and nuclear weapons.

“We found a serious pattern of undermining science by the Bush administration, and it crosses disciplines, whether it’s global climate change or reproductive health or mercury in the food chain or forestry – the list goes on and on,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Knobloch says that the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on lead poisoning planned to strengthen the lead poisoning regulations in early 2004, in response to science showing that smaller amounts than previously understood could cause brain damage in children. Before the panel could act, former secretary of health and human services Tommy Thompson rejected the recommendation and replaced two members of the panel with individuals tied to the lead industry.

The Bush administration also influences policy debates by editing scientific reports to censor information that disagrees with its ideology, as was the case with two major reports from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2003.

MS governor Barbour latest GOP politico under investigation

One of the most recent developments in the New Hampshire phone jamming case was that the effort was paid for by Republican officials and mounted by a company itself funded by Republican officials, complete with ties to Tom DeLay and then White House staffer Ken Mehlman, current head of the RNC.

It doesn't stop there, though. Mississippi's governor Haley Barbour (former chief of the RNC and Bush campaign strategist) was involved as well, and might have turned a profit from the company's illegal activities.

The Associated Press is reporting that Barbour, a former Republican Party chairman, arranged the start-up financing for GOP Marketplace. Virginia corporation records show Barbour's investment company arranged a $250,000 loan to GOP Marketplace in 2000.

A spokesman for the governor says Barbour had no idea the company would engage in criminal activity two years later.

The lawyer for the now-defunct company's convicted president said Barbour wasn't consulted about its operations.

Barbour, who became governor of Mississippi in 2003, gushed over the prospects of GOP Marketplace in a company press release in 2000. The loan made Barbour and his Washington business partners part owners of the company, according to incorporation papers.

Coingate, phone jamming, Abramoff's shenanigans, voter fraud, and even the recent expansion of the Cunningham bribes into a DC prostitution ring-- the sheer depth and complexity of these scandals really demonstrates just how much organization is behind these criminal acts, from coast to coast.

Russia selling military hardware to Iran... and Israel

It's no secret that Vladimir Putin has been slowly but surely steering Russia on a course to the far right. And Russia and China have been trying to strengthen economic ties to the Middle East for at least the last decade-- they want those oil deals just as much as our government.

This op-ed from the LA Times seems to be suggesting that Russia is taking things a step further by selling arms in the region. And the author is clearly implying that it's with an eye toward further destabilizing the region.

When the war begins, it will be between Iran and Israel. Before it ends, though, it may set the whole of the Middle East on fire, pulling in the United States, leaving a legacy of instability that will last for generations and permanently ending a century of American supremacy.

Despite the high stakes, the Bush administration seems barely to have noticed the danger posed by the Russian missile sale. But the signs are there, for those inclined to read them.(. . .)

Russian leaders continue to mouth the usual diplomatic platitudes about democracy and global cooperation, but Russia is actually playing a complex double game. On Tuesday, Russia launched a spy satellite for Israel, which the Israelis can use to monitor Iran's nuclear facilities. On the same day, Russian leaders confirmed their opposition to any U.N. Security Council effort to impose sanctions against Iran, and their intention to go through with the lucrative sale of 29 Tor M1 air defense missile systems to Iran.

"There are no circumstances which would get in the way of us carrying out our commitments in the field of military cooperation with Iran," declared Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of Russia's National Security Council.

The upcoming deployment of Tor missiles around Iranian nuclear sites dramatically changes the calculus in the Middle East, and it significantly increases the risk of a regional war. Once the missile systems are deployed, Iran's air defenses will become far more sophisticated, and Israel will likely lose whatever ability it now has to unilaterally destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

The implications are enormous. With the US already committed to military action (and not just support) in the region and hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign debt we've already accrued to "pay" for it, further instability means hundreds of billions more-- all in debt owed to foreign countries. In short, a destabilized Middle East that swings toward Russia and China could mean that BushCo set us on the course of transforming the United States from a superpower to an economic and diplomatic basket case.

Costs of Iraq operations to soar in 2006

For at least a year and a half we've been seeing the occasional article about billions of taxpayer dollars going missing in Iraq-- even though the tens of billions spent on reconstruction have led to lackluster results, at best. Electricity, water, and oil production all remain well below pre-war levels more than three years after the infamous 'Mission Accomplished' photo-op.

The report details how operations, maintenance and procurement costs have surged from $50 billion in 2004 to $88 billion this year, citing rising expenditures for body armor, oil and gasoline; equipment maintenance; and training and equipping Afghan and Iraqi security forces.

"These factors, however, are not enough to explain a 50-percent increase of over $20 billion in operating costs," the report states.

War-related investment costs have more than tripled since 2003, from $7 billion to $24 billion, as money has been spent on armored vehicles, radios, sensors and night-vision goggles, as well as on equipment for reorganized Army and Marine Corps units.

"These reasons are not sufficient, however, to explain the level of increases," the report states again.

It's understandable that the increasingly hostile and unstable situation in Iraq make things more risky and more expensive-- but not, apparently, to a degree that warrants the extra $28 billion.

A few things have become pretty obvious, though: A) Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's "streamlined" military is both smaller and much less efficient. B) Vice President Cheney's friends at Halliburton have raked in billions of dollars by overcharging US taxpayers and ignoring their contractual obligations. And C) spending on Iraq, at some $250 billion and counting, still has a long, long way to go. One estimate, which I'm too lazy to look up right now, sets the final cost at $2 trillion. And just today, Bush was loudly reaffirming his opposition to raising taxes in any way, shape or form.

It's official: Dubai firm to own Pentagon defense supplier

Super-patriot George Bush has approved the sale of Doncasters, and the British-owned Company that supplied the Pentagon will now be the UAE-owned company that supplies the Pentagon.

When the ports deal was scuttled, the GOP was once again caught between their racist base and their corporatist overlords-- much as they are when it comes to immigration. But, even though the right-wing pundits tried to accuse the left of racism over the matter, it's something much less pernicious than that. The simple question is this: what is the nation supposed to think when the American government's official stance is "Screw buying American-- let's outsource!"

President George W. Bush approved Dubai's $1.24 billion takeover of Doncasters, a British engineering company with U.S. plants that supply the Pentagon, the White House said on Friday.

The decision, announced by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, followed a congressional uproar over security fears that scuttled another Dubai state-owned company's plan to acquire operations at major U.S. ports.

The interagency Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States sent its confidential recommendation on the Dubai takeover of Doncasters to Bush on April 13.

"The president this morning accepted the committee's recommendation," McClellan said. "The committee recommended approval of the transaction after closely scrutinizing it and concluding that it would not compromise our national security."

The emerging GOP sex scandal

Now that it's pretty firmly out of the rumor category, it's time to start looking in on the newly-complex story of two defense contractors hiring prostitutes and booking luxury suites for Congressmen.

The contractors are Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade have already made the news in the Randy Cunningham bribery scandal, and for making illegal contributions to the campaign of Florida's Katherine Harris. This new case is said to involve up to half a dozen more legislators, and even some top-level CIA officials-- up to and including Porter Goss, the man Bush hired to purge the agency of non-ideologues.

The basic premise is simple enough: the two paid for hospitality suites in DC hotels, including the Watergate, where these fine folks could go for 'poker night,' or alternatively 'poke-her night.'

But in a sign of just how involved this whole thing was, Harper's reports that Wilkes even hired a limousine service to ferry the officials and prostitutes back and forth from the suites. A limousine service owned by a man with a long criminal record who also happened to be awarded a $21 million homeland security contract.

Brace yourselves for yet another endless barrage of 'Chappaquiddick' and 'Monicagate' from the pieholes of right-wing shills as this story heats up.

Dennis Hastert rides in hybrid-- until photo-op is over.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has long been one of the most loathsome of Bush loyalists and a driving force for completely locking the minority party out of Congressional proceedings. Lately he's been actively trying to set up some sort of "investigation" into reports of price-gouging by big oil. Which means no Democrats, no sworn testimony, and no consequences.

But it's all about appearances with the neo-fascists, and as long as they can use propaganda to stay in power, they're completely satisfied. Exhibit 2,287:

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Ill., center, gets out of a Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile, left, as he prepares to board his SUV, which uses gasoline, after holding a new [sic] conference at a local gas station in Washington, Thursday, April 27, 2006 to discuss the recent rise in gas prices. Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive back the few block back to the U.S. Capitol.

To be fair, this could actually be a photo of the sasquatch.

Estate Tax repeal effort bankrolled by just 18 families

It's been a pretty successful campaign so far. Terming it the 'Death Tax,' convincing working-class families that it will affect them, too, and playing to the fanciful imaginations of those who just know that someday they'll be American aristocracy (in spite of the fact that real wages have been dropping annually). That doesn't change the facts of what some progressives like to refer to as the 'Paris Hilton Tax'-- it's never bankrupted a family farm, the campaign's chosen object of sympathy.

The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according toa report released today by Public Citizens and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell’s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world’s largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind – the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability.

The Smoking Gun featured a story that demonstrates the real beneficiaries of Estate Tax repeal:

Alice Walton, the Wal-Mart heir worth $6 billion, might want to shell out some of that dough for a chauffeur. The 48-year-old Arkansas woman was arrested in late-January on drunken driving charges after her Toyota ran off a road and hit a gas meter. Walton suffered a broken nose when her face greeted the steering wheel. An unruly Walton, the daughter of late Wal-Mart boss Sam Walton, refused to take a blood-alcohol test and, according to these police reports, asked officers, “You know who I am, don’t you? You know my last name?”

GOP blocks vote to end federal subsidies to big oil

Amazing. Senator Ron Wyden tried to get the measure on the floor for a vote-- you know, one of those "up or down votes" the GOP loves so much. But the Republicans aren't about to go on record as opposing any substantive measures dealing with energy prices. The goal is to avoid committing to anything until they cobble together some illusory piece of legislation that lets them crow about their strength and populism without doing a thing to address the issue. A case in point is Frist's mind-boggling suggestion that the government send out $100 checks to Americans. Ostensibly that would all be paid for in foreign debt-- and thus by taxpayers-- while keeping in place corporate welfare for big oil and their billions in tax breaks.

Under the Energy Bill signed into law last summer, oil companies were given new subsidies in the form of reduced royalty fees for the oil and gas they extract from Federal lands, including off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. What the Wyden amendment would do would be to force energy companies to pay royalties to the government on all oil and gas they produce on federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico, if the price of crude oil is above $55 a barrel.

That's federal leases, the public resource, and billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money going to oil and energy companies. The Department of Interior provides royalty relief to oil companies as incentive to prevent disruptions because of hurricanes or other natural disasters. But that "incentive" price is $55 a barrel, and oil is now selling for more than $70 a barrel--seems like incentive enough.

The subsides for oil and gas companies add up to as much as $35 billion.

Sharp reporter torpedoes GOP's "ANWR defense"

As nice as it is to hear that a journalist is doing his job in asking substantive questions, it's always a sad reminder of how rare it's become the Bush Age. But here's a reporter who cut through the spin with a scalpel and caught the White House spinning the popular-- but totally disingenuous-- line that environmentalists are to blame for high gas prices.

Reporter: The president made the point that had ANWR been approved ten years ago, you'd get about a million barrels a day. Had the Iraq production resumed to the level that had been projected before the war, how much would that contribute today?

Hubbard: I actually don't know the precise answer to that. What's really most important, though, is that we've become less reliable on overseas sources of crude oil and other sources of energy, and more reliant on energy from within our 50 states ...

Reporter: You have no estimate, though, about what Iraqi production could be?

Hubbard: I do not have it.

Hennessey: We can get back to you.

Hubbard: Yes, we can get back to you with that.

Reporter: That would be useful. I mean, just -- obviously, since the president has chosen one interesting example in ANWR, the Iraq one would be an interesting one to compare it to, whether that would be more or less than a billion -- a million a day.

Hubbard: Yes, we will have to get back to you on that.

Perhaps we can help here. Iraq's prewar oil production has been estimated at somewhere between 2.6 million and 3 million barrels per day. In July 2003 -- which is to say, two months after Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq -- the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Iraqi Oil Ministry together set goals of getting production back up to 2.5 million barrels per day by the end of March 2004 and up to 3 million barrels per day by December 2004. But Iraq's oil production averaged just 2 million barrels a day in 2004, USA Today says, and by August 2005, it had dropped to 1.86 million barrels per day. By this February, the Times of London says, production had dropped further, to just 1.5 million barrels a day.

So to answer the question: If you assume that Iraq was producing 2.6 million barrels of oil per day before the war started, then it appears that production has dropped by 1.1 million barrels per day since then. If you assume that Iraq was producing 3 million barrels per day before the war, then it appears production has dropped by 1.5 million barrels per day. In either case, the daily oil production lost to the war exceeds that which the president says would have been gained from drilling in the ANWR.

George Allen: the presidential hopeful with plenty of baggage

TNR has an interesting article about another Bush-Republican who would be president, Senator George Allen of Virginia. According to the article, Allen "has emerged as the principal conservative alternative to John McCain in the early jockeying among 2008 Republican presidential candidates." Which makes sense, with Santorum and Frist's ambitions on seriously thin ice.

But as the article notes, Allen is all too typical of today's GOP-- hiding draconian ideology behind whatever public persona is in vogue among his constituents, and possessing a lengthy personal history of extremism, racism, and violence.

In the early '90s, Allen exuded the revolutionary spirit of the Republican insurgency. His 1994 inaugural address as governor promised to "fight the beast of tyranny and oppression that our federal government has become." That year, he also endorsed Oliver North for the Senate even as Virginia Senator John Warner and others in the party establishment shunned the convicted felon. At North's nominating convention, Allen proposed a somewhat overwrought approach for beating Democrats: "My friends--and I say this figuratively--let's enjoy knocking their soft teeth down their whining throats."

But, while Allen may have genuflected in the direction of Gingrich, he also showed a touch of Strom Thurmond. Campaigning for governor in 1993, he admitted to prominently displaying a Confederate flag in his living room. He said it was part of a flag collection--and had been removed at the start of his gubernatorial bid. When it was learned that he kept a noose hanging on a ficus tree in his law office, he said it was part of a Western memorabilia collection. These explanations may be sincere. But, as a chief executive, he also compiled a controversial record on race. In 1994, he said he would accept an honorary membership at a Richmond social club with a well-known history of discrimination--an invitation that the three previous governors had refused. After an outcry, Allen rejected the offer. He replaced the only black member of the University of Virginia (UVA) Board of Visitors with a white one. He issued a proclamation drafted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans declaring April Confederate History and Heritage Month. The text celebrated Dixie's "four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights." There was no mention of slavery. After some of the early flaps, a headline in The Washington Post read, "governor seen leading va. back in time."

Spending bill retains pork, cuts troop funding

The Washington Post points out on this issue that, it being an election year and all, we can pretty much expect a massive spike in pork barrel spending from Congress. And with the GOP in control, that means more GOP pork during a time of a two-front war and the highest deficits in history. Since the money can't come from wealthy Americans or big business, it's coming from "troop pay [and] body armor," as even Bush acknowledges.

These funds support U.S. Armed Forces and Coalition partners as we advance democracy, fight the terrorists and insurgents, and train and equip Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their sovereignty and freedom.

Where is the money in the bill going? According to the WaPo, agribusiness and "developers and casino interests," among others.

$30 million pushback from oil lobby

Committed to fighting the indignities of being denied $400 million retirement packages for executives and pressured to relinquish some of its unprecedented profits, big oil has decided to do the honorable thing-- lobby!

The oil industry is preparing a new, multimillion-dollar lobbying and educational campaign in response to growing political pressures brought on by rising gas prices, oil lobbyists said.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry’s main trade group, plans a yearlong grassroots lobbying push that could cost in excess of $30 million to explain how the industry works and what has caused pump prices to jump.

The campaign would follow a national advertising effort that has cost around $25 million so far. The API launched it in October as companies began to report record revenues and members of both parties urged punitive measures, such as new taxes on what they saw as “windfall” profits.

Jim Craig, API vice president for communications, said the group is considering new ways to communicate with the public and politicians as it continues its advertising campaign.

He said no decisions have been made about the parameters of the new effort. He described it as a continued attempt at “educational outreach.”

I hear Scott McClellan is looking for work. He has years of experience explaining regrettably misunderstood but highly moralistic policies to the public.

G-Dub... to the max.

Sidney Blumenthal has written a piece for Salon that I think nicely pulls together the conventional wisdom on Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove-- the puppet masters of the Bush presidency, driven by their decades-long ideological struggle to amass personal power and extend it to a right-wing juggernaut. All completely unfettered by regard for the consequences of their actions or the slightest regard for the well-being of the nation.

Then there's George the Second, the perfect pawn. Arrogant beyond belief but without any sane explanation, he made for the perfect candidate. A wind-up toy with delusions of autonomy, authoritatively pushing political concepts he understands only insofar as they are explained to him by his agenda-driven backers-- a disease that seems to afflict many children of privilege. And, faced with the antipathy of his own nation and the hostility of the world, he has eagerly switched his preferred personal myth. During the 2000 campaign, he was enamored of comparisons with John Quincy Adams, the only son of a president to hold the same office. These days, he's obsessed with Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman-- and the obvious theme of being exonerated by history. The only conviction Bush seems to have is that of his own greatness. But Bush isn't fighting on behalf of a strong moral conviction guided by deep personal knowledge. He just wants to convince everyone that he's a great man.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the disastrous results of their policies leave them all the more convinced that they need to spend the next few years pushing all the harder for more of the same.

For Rumsfeld and Cheney the final days of the Bush administration are the endgame. They cannot expect positions in any future White House. Since the Nixon White House, when counselor Rumsfeld and his deputy Cheney watched the self-destruction of the president, they have plotted to reach the point where they would impose the imperial presidency that Nixon was thwarted from doing. Both men held ambitions to become president themselves. The Bush years have been their opportunity, their last one, to run a presidency. Through the agency of the son of one of their colleagues from the Ford White House, George H.W. Bush (whom President Ford considered but passed over for his vice president and chief of staff, giving the latter job to Cheney), they have enabled their notion of executive power. But the fulfillment of their idea of presidential power is steadily draining the president of strength. Their 30-year-long project on behalf of autocracy has merely produced monumental incompetence.

The only problem with Blumenthal's article is that it's far too short.

The Blood-Spattered Brie: A look at American healthcare

Adam Felber writes about a recent emergency room adventure that sounds pretty familiar to me. I had a nasty run-in with a knife last year that required similar attention. Which meant hanging out in an ER waiting room for well over an hour (I was 'fast-tracked,' too) before hanging out in a viewing room for another forty-five minutes or so. Luckily, I had insurance at the time and it didn't cost me $500. But it does demonstrate how broken our system is. I'm really pleased to hear politicians start talking about national health care for the reason Felber cites:

As overworked as the phrase may sound, we really need to fix this country’s health care system. Shiftless plutocrats and their lobbyist lackeys will tell you that a plan that covers everyone will cost more, but a trip down to your local ER on a Saturday afternoon will show you that you are, in fact, already paying top dollar for a very poor form of universal healthcare. AND paying for your own on top of that. They will tell you that a socialized program will be inefficient or insubstantial, but as a guy who once blew out his knee on a Canadian stage, I can tell you that this is not the case.

Oh, and the story is pretty funny, too. 3 bonus points to anyone who gets my too-clever movie reference.

Running the CIA Bush-style

People are coming up with all sorts of clever analogies to describe the non-shakeup of White House personnel. If your team is failing, you fire the coach-- not the team. If your car is driving off a cliff, switching chauffers doesn't help. That sort of thing.

But the characteristic neo-fascist committment to ideology over reality continues to pervade every level of the government, and it's undermining the nation's security and well-being.

Which bring us to Mr. Goss. He has taken no disciplinary action against CIA personnel identified by his inspector general as having played a part in the failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He has taken no action against CIA interrogators known to have participated in the torture and killing of foreign detainees, or against those who knowingly violated the Geneva Conventions in Iraq. He has driven a host of senior managers from the agency. Now he would have the country believe that one of the CIA's biggest problems -- worthy of an unprecedented internal investigation he personally oversaw -- is unauthorized leaks to the press. His setting of priorities seems unlikely to improve the CIA's success rate in judging foreign programs of weapons of mass destruction or preventing the next terrorist attack.

Appearance is everything with the right-wing. Port security, homeland security, FEMA, No Child Left Behind, and the war in Iraq-- as many a commentator has noted, the GOP is capable of one thing only: campaigning. They are utterly incapable of governance.

All the news that isn't

Let's see here. Fox personality Tony Snow is the new White House spokesmonkey, eliminating the pesky need for the administration to phone in the official talking points. Although Think Progress (among others) has pointed out his occasional harsh words for the president, Snow's right-wing kook credibility is still high. A report on the radio this morning claimed that he's a long-standing contributor to The Free Republic-- though his writings have now been wiped from the site. (You might recall that one of the Swiftboating masterminds was also a 'freeper,' and had a long record of writing their usual type of 'pinko Commie gay traitor liberal' fare.) Snow was also a speechwriter for Bush I.

Rumsfeld and Rice took a trip to Iraq, apparently in hopes that a new backdrop is the key to convincing people that things are going well there. It also allowed Rice to take a powder from Greece, where she was greeted with a massive anti-war protest.

The FDA's drug evaluation experts have come to the scientific and highly technical conclusion that the contraceptive known as Plan B "would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults."

Karl Rove is slated to meet with Patrick Fitzgerald today in the Plame leak case, lawyers in tow.

Anti-Clinton book publisher uses fabricated quotes to defend book's quality

There's obviously plenty of money to be made in right-wing attack books. I've even seen one or two in the homes of conservative friends who really should know better. While Clinton hatred may still be a big seller, they don't seem to be getting any more accurate than they were in the days of Jerry Falwell accusing the Clintons of being murderous cocaine smugglers.

From the author's defense of his book:

"I compiled quotes from 63 books and over 100 different articles, so Hillary's apologists have their work cut out for them," adds Thomas Kuiper, the book's editor. "Was Chris Matthews's statement that he saw Hillary make Secret Service agents carry her bags a lie? How about Hillary's widely quoted claim to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who climbed Mt. Everest years after she was born? Or her statement on Dateline that Chelsea was jogging near the World Trade Center on September 11th, a story which Chelsea herself later contradicted?"

Incredibly--no, strike that-- predictably, Media Matters has found that each of these ironclad examples involves selective quoting, misrepresentation, and plain ol' lying. I'm sure the author will be, to paraphrase Liberace, crying all the way to the bank.

Bush goes Clintonian

For the president who spends more on polling and focus groups than any in history-- and denies using polling and focus groups more than any in history-- this sort of revelation is never a surprise. But it's still funny in a pathetic sort of way.

In September 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush criticized President Clinton for proposing to use the strategic oil reserve in response to high prices: "The Strategic Reserve is an insurance policy meant for a sudden disruption of our energy supply or for war. Strategic Reserve should not be used as an attempt to drive down oil prices right before an election. It should not be used for short-term political gain at the cost of long-term national security."

Today:

President Bush will direct the U.S. Energy Department on Tuesday to temporarily halt deliveries of oil to a strategic reserve in order to get more fuel on the market and help reduce rising gasoline prices, a senior administration official said.

The official said Bush in a morning energy speech, will tell the Energy Department to suspend deliveries this summer while supplies are tight "and defer the deposits until the fall, and then you have more oil on the market."

GOP: Environmentalists to blame for gas prices

Though this article is about Missouri's corporatist Congressman Roy Blunt, this talking point is making the rounds in the right-wing spin machine. Fortuntately, the public isn't stupid enough to by this nonsense.

Blunt, a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, said, "We did not arrive at this energy crisis overnight; it is a direct result of years of unreasonable, burdensome regulations and obstruction on the part of radical environmentalists.

"The same Democrats who voted against increasing our energy supply, expanding our refining capacity, and exploring alternative sources now have the audacity to point fingers and place blame. Opposing responsible plans to increase our energy supply is reckless, and Americans will pay the price at the pump this summer."

In case you hadn't noticed, the magic word is 'supply.' One of the main accusations, of course, is that drilling in ANWR would solve the problem. Strange, considering that it would take some five years to produce anything and the oil companies have already announced that they would sell the oil in Asia. Oh, and it wouldn't produce enough oil to provide the US with a year's supply.

I suppose there wouldn't be much point in reminding the GOP that oil is a finite resource anyway. As long as those checks from big oil keep coming in-- and they're in office-- they'll fight tooth and nail against a realistic energy policy.

Big Pharma buying off generics

Just in time for seniors across the nation to be locked into the GOP's notoriously labyrinthine and highly inequitable Medicare Drug Plan, we have word that the drug companies are finding a new way to increase their already-sizable profits.

Under federal law, drugmakers are allowed to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for generic versions of brand-name drugs before a drug's patent expires. They must certify that the patent is invalid or will not be infringed by the new generic version.

However, in one key decision last year, an appeals court in Atlanta overturned an FTC ruling that said Schering-Plough Corp. had illegally kept cheaper versions of its blood pressure drug K-Dur off the market through patent settlements with generic competitors.

Months later, another federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision throwing out a similar case involving AstraZeneca Plc's cancer drug Tamoxifen.

The FTC has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Schering-Plough decision. The court has not yet decided if it will review the case.

The FTC has monitored drug patent settlements closely since 2004, when Congress passed a law requiring drug companies to notify the FTC about them in advance.

In the report issued on Monday, the FTC found that in fiscal 2005, three of 16 drug patent settlements included payments to the generic drug and restrictions on when it would become available, according to the FTC report.

It was the first time since 1999 that drug companies entered in such agreements, the FTC said.

During the past six months, Leibowitz said, at least seven of the 10 settlements reported to the agency included those kinds of provisions.

CNN has Bush approval at 32%

Although most polls have had Bush floating around the mid-30s for quite a while now, the recent Fox poll and this CNN poll indicate that the preznit continues to lose ground.

Considering that this number is about as close as you can get to losing everyone who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool ideologue, it's more frightening than ever to note that, as Salon pointed out today (summing up an article in Time) the White House game plan is more of the same crap that's made them as despised as Nixon ever was.

Josh Bolten's plans for the White House don't have much to do with reaching across the aisle or reaching out to the American people. They're all about holding tight to Bush's base in the hopes of holding on to Congress come November. As Time explains, Bolten's five-point plan for refreshing the Bush White House mostly involves persuading conservatives that the president is still on their side -- and that they ought to be on his.

The plan: Seek more money for immigration enforcement, then pose for lots of pictures with new agents in uniforms. Put smiles on the faces of Wall Street pundits by pushing through extensions of tax cuts for stock dividends and capital gains. Talk more about the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the stock market and the economy generally. Talk more with the press. Talk tough with Iran.

Josh Bolten: Spinmeister of the People.

Salon catches Newsweek still playing stenographer to the White House spin machine, and if Time's account is accurate it demonstrates a complete load of crap on the order of 'Bush is a regular guy.'

Newsweek got the talking points: "No matter how powerful he grew inside the Bush White House," the magazine says as it begins its report on Bolten's White House plans, "Josh Bolten always came off as just one of the guys, a smart, hardworking wonk who ducked publicity and rewarded his staff with a night at the bowling alley."

But it seems that somebody forgot to tell Time: "At the George W. Bush campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas, in 1999, policy director Josh Bolten was a low-key Washingtonian in a building full of brash Texans," the magazine says as it begins its report on Bolten's White House plans. "He assembled a best-and-brightest team with resumes bristling with brand names like his own -- Princeton, Stanford, Goldman Sachs. 'He used to brag that he had all these Supreme Court clerks from Harvard working for him,' recalled a campaign veteran."

Ahhhh, yes-- the era of the insufferable prick as regular Joe. I'll bet Karl Rove collects Precious Moments figurines, too.

Drumheller on 60 Minutes

The site's been acting a little goofy today, so I'm overdue in getting this post up. Last night Ed Bradley interviewed the CIA's former top dog in Europe, and he pretty much confirmed every report of an administration determined to start a war and willing to lie to do it.

BRADLEY: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

DRUMHELLER: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice…

BRADLEY: And at that meeting…?

DRUMHELLER: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

BRADLEY: And what did this high level source tell you?

DRUMHELLER: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

BRADLEY: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam’s inner circle that he didn’t have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?

DRUMHELLER: Yes.

BRADLEY: There’s no doubt in your mind about that?

DRUMHELLER: No doubt in my mind at all.

BRADLEY: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

DRUMHELLER: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.

Think Progress also has a link to the full transcript.

Dean in New Orleans

Adam Nagourney's piece on Howard Dean's visit to New Orleans is a strange one, and disturbing in a couple of ways.

First, the title (and yes, I know that editors are usually responsible for them): "Democrats Try to Use Katrina as GOP Used 9/11." You could write an entire essay on that line alone. First, it pretty much undercuts everything in the story by immediately supporting the GOP's predictable accusation of 'political stunts.' Yet it also suggests that Republicans 'used' 9/11 for political gain, which no rightie would ever admit to publically. We all know by now that they shamelessly pimped the attacks and continue to do so, but that doesn't do anyone any good now, does it? At least it shows that the accusations of being 'anti-American' for not wholeheartedly supporting the Bush agenda are no longer effective.

The article isn't quite as blatant in its findings, although the snarky tagline makes it pretty clear that Nagourney accepts the notion that politicians could never do anything out of genuine concern.

In the Lower Ninth Ward, Mr. Dean put on a white hazardous-materials suit and, more than a little winded, helped gut a house. He needed barely a nudge from reporters to declare the federal effort here a disgrace that would cost Republicans control of the government.

"This is a searing, burning issue," Mr. Dean said, "and I think it's going to cost George Bush his legacy, and it's going to cost the Republicans the House and the Senate and, maybe very well, the presidency in the next election. People will never forget this."

Pointing to two abandoned hulks of cars, he added, "I hate to be partisan at a time like this, but this is why the Republicans are going to be out of business."

I was really glad to see Dean in New Orleans. A Democrat couldn't have gotten within 500 miles of New Orleans without being accused of pulling a political stunt, so why not march right in and demand that the press show America what a mess the place still is, more than six months after the storm?

As I mentioned in my last post, political discourse has been so cheapened by the righties that this national disgrace has become nothing more than another chance for the media to smugly assert that they're way too sophisticated to but into it-- as though the abandoned autos and rotting houses of a city in ruins are somehow props placed there by campaign workers.

What's gotten lost in the shuffle is the fact that this security-obsessed administration, when faced with a massive crisis, found their own restructured Homeland Security Department totally unfit to deal with it then, and totally unwilling to deal with it now.

The phone jamming case explained

This piece by Eleanor Clift claims that the New Hampshire phone jamming case "has legs." As much as I'd like to agree, I can't. At least not in the sense that the public will pay much attention. And that's pretty disgraceful. Unfortunately, it's a byproduct of the way the right-wing has been running the show for the last decade. Starting with New Gingrich's absurd 'Contract With America,' we have been so mercilessly flogged with cries of wolf from every corner, from the corporatists to the fundamentalists and every right-wing shill in between, that nothing seems to anger people anymore. Except for the right-wing base-- everything seems to fill them with bile. The thing is, righties have cornered the market on outrage. They regularly scream themselves hoarse, while ironically claiming that any dissenting view is nothing more than the insane ravings of America-hating radicals. (Even worse, they seem to have found an ally in the DLC.)

So even though the New Hampshire case pretty clearly involves a concerted effort, White House included, to illegally throw a state election to the Republicans, things are so bad that we can't expect the press to pay any attention.

At any rate, Clift provides a concise picture of how the case is shaping up.

Initially dismissed as a petty political trick, it led to the trial and conviction for telephone harassment last December of the New England political director for the Republican National Committee, James Tobin. That in itself would barely register on anybody’s radar except Tobin was represented by one of Washington’s white shoe law firms, Williams & Connolly, and his legal fees were $2.5 million. The Republican National Committee picked up the tab, which suggests this may not have been a rogue operation. Was Tobin’s high-priced defense an effort to keep him from ratting out his contacts in the Bush White House? The RNC has said it paid Tobin’s legal fees because he is a long-time supporter and because he has maintained his innocence. Tobin is appealing his conviction.

Meeting with reporters over breakfast Wednesday morning, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said an examination of Tobin’s phone records revealed “hundreds of calls” between the White House and New Hampshire party operatives at the time of the phone-jamming on Election Day 2002. “I don’t think they were discussing the weather,” Dean said. The stakes were high in ’02. Democrats controlled the Senate by one vote and the White House was determined to regain the majority. In New Hampshire, Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Republican John Sununu were in a tight race for the Senate. Get out the vote operations were critical to both sides, so when Democratic workers arrived at five key centers to find their phone lines jammed, they suspected dirty tricks.

They were right. The jamming was traced to an Idaho telemarketing firm. The fee for the jamming service, reportedly $15,600, was paid by the New Hampshire Republican Party through a Virginia consulting firm. Public records filed by the state GOP show three checks, each for $5,000, conveniently arriving to cover the charge just before the election. One was from Tom DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority; the others from Indian tribes that were clients of the now indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Shaheen lost to Sununu by just under 20,000 votes.

Thanks to PS for the link.

Horton Humiliates a Hu

Thanks to OD1 for the story link. I caught some of this yesterday on the radio, but missed the citation.

The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin has a massive round-up of the coverage of Hu's visit that I'd highly recommend. The long and short of it is BushCo made for inconsiderate-- if not downright rude-- hosts, and came away from the meeting having accomplised pretty much nothing. A low point from Dana Milbank:

"It took so long to silence [the heckler] -- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.

" 'You're okay,' Bush gently reassured Hu.

"But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the 'national anthem of the Republic of China' -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child."

To think that there are people out there who aren't charmed by Bush's "aw,shucks" schtick.

Dick Cheney in 'The Bad Sleep Well'

As a meeting between administration officials (including Bush and Rummy) and Chinese president Hu Jintao concluded, Dick Cheney took an extra moment or two to "read his notes," according to the White House.

Oh, and the White House also assures us that Cheney's shoe was the source of that farting sound.

Hang on to your Ferragamos-- Rice faces criminal investigation

Just when you thought the GOP couldn't look any more like Romper Room (with felonies), the earth went and spun on its axis again.

Earlier today, MSNBC reported that a CIA agent had been fired for leaking information to the press, and that the case had been referred to the Justice Department. Man, when the administration says they hate leaks, they mean it!

Unless the leaker is Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, or.... Condi Rice.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday.

Prosecutors disputed the claim.

The allegations against Rice came as a federal judge granted a defense request to issue subpoenas sought by the defense for Rice and three other government officials in the trial of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two are former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged with receiving and disclosing national defense information.

Defense lawyers are asking a judge to dismiss the charges because, among other things, they believe it seeks to criminalize the type of backchannel exchanges between government officials, lobbyists and the press that are part and parcel of how Washington works.

During Friday's hearing, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said he is considering dismissing the government's entire case because the law used to prosecute Rosen and Weissman may be unconstitutionally vague and broad and infringe on freedom of speech.

Rosen's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the testimony of Rice and others is needed to show that some of the top officials in U.S. government approved of disclosing sensitive information to the defendants and that the leaks may have been authorized.

Prosecutors opposed the effort to depose Rice and the other officials. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin DiGregory also disputed Lowell's claim, saying, "She never gave national defense information to Mr. Rosen."

The issuance of subpoenas does not automatically require Rice or anybody else to testify or give a deposition. A recipient can seek to quash the subpoena.

Whew. Well, at least we still live in a country where government officials can... uhhh, 'quash subpoenas.'

Howard Dean: The Other Great Satan

Take pity upon Fox News viewers. This is what they're served up as 'news,' and the poor dopes swallow it like a fried baloney sandwich.



A) "Did Howard Dean Threaten the Entire Religious Community?" This is a reference to Dean pointing out that churches aggressively involved in partisan politics are at risk of losing their tax-exempt status, in accordance with the law. Somebody stop that madman!

B) "Me am smart." Man, check out that Cavuto egghead. He's a-sittin' down in fronta books 'n stuff. Mus' be smart. Dean ain't got no books. He mus' be dumb.

C) "Dean is the Devil." Ol' Nick always has red skin in them cartoons, right? Dean has red skin, too. Get thee behind me, Satan!

Nobel laureates speak out against Bush's nuclear ambitions

It's happened before, as the article points out, and this won't make any difference to the administration either. But it's good to see even more people with clout take a stand against their disastrous policies.

Thirteen of the nation's most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran "gravely irresponsible" and warning that such action would have "disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world."

The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the American Physical Society, the nation's preeminent professional society for physicists.

Their letter was prompted by recent articles in the Washington Post, New Yorker and other publications that one of the options being considered by Pentagon planners and the White House in a military confrontation with Iran includes the use of nuclear bunker busters against underground facilities. These reports were neither confirmed nor denied by White House and Pentagon officials.

The letter was initiated by Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, who last fall put together a petition signed by more than 1,800 physicists that repudiated new U.S. nuclear weapons policies that include preemptive use of nuclearweapons against non-nuclear adversaries. Hirsch has also published 15 articles in recent months documenting the dangers associated with a potential U.S. nuclear strike on Iran.

Wouldn't it just be super-neato to have a president who thought that military leaders and top scientists might be worth listening to? At least he still has that charming sense of humor.

Top CIA official: Iraq intel was fixed

Having so many highly-credentialed witnesses has got to be a prosecutor's wet dream. For the rest of us, seeing anything come of the White House's dishonest war is still just a pipe dream. On 60 Minutes this weekend, Tyler Drumheller, "former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe," will add his voice to the case against the White House.

Drumheller, who retired last year, says the White House ignored crucial information from a high and credible source. The source was Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, with whom U.S. spies had made a deal.

When CIA Director George Tenet delivered this news to the president, the vice president and other high ranking officials, they were excited — but not for long.

"[The source] told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs," says Drumheller. "The [White House] group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested. And we said 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.' "

They didn't want any additional data from Sabri because, says Drumheller: "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy."

The White House declined to respond to this charge, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated that Sabri was just one source and therefore not reliable.

Drumheller says the administration routinely relied on single sources — when those single sources confirmed what the White House wanted to hear.

"They certainly took information that came from single sources on the yellowcake story and on several other stories with no corroboration at all," he says. The "yellowcake story" refers to a report the CIA received in late 2001 alleging that Iraq had purchased 500 tons of uranium from Africa, presumably to build a nuclear bomb.

The Rove 'demotion': Is indictment looming?

This story is just starting to make the rounds, and although I'd caught a passing reference to it, OD1 was kind enough to provide a link.

Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.

The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.

In an interview Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject" of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.

"Mr. Rove is still a subject of the investigation," Luskin said. In a previous interview, Luskin asserted that Rove would not be indicted by Fitzgerald, but he was unwilling to make that prediction again Wednesday.

"Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't made any decision on the charges and I can't speculate what the outcome will be," Luskin said. "Mr. Rove has cooperated completely with the investigation."

I'm not drawing any conclusions yet. Plenty of red herrings have come out of Fitzgerald's tightly-run investigation. But it sure would be nice to see Rove take a fall. Libby won't even have a court date until next year, so it probably wouldn't keep Rove from warming up his slime machine for the elections. But we can always hope.

Dip, dip, dip, Bush's sinking ship

Whie Fearless Leader's approval ratings have been hovering in the mid-30s for quite a while now, the most recent wave of polls is showing a slight drop. While it's often just been a one or two point slip, which I would disregard if it were just in one or two polls, it seems to be constant across the board: the president's numbers are still dropping.

President Bush’s job approval rating slipped this week and stands at a new low of 33 percent approve, down from 36 percent two weeks ago and 39 percent in mid-March. A year ago this time, 47 percent approved and two years ago 50 percent approved (April 2004).

Approval among Republicans is below 70 percent for the first time of Bush’s presidency. Two-thirds (66 percent) approve of Bush’s job performance today, down almost 20 percentage points from this time last year when 84 percent of Republicans approved. Among Democrats, 11 percent approve today, while 14 percent approved last April.

As I've mentioned before, the conventional wisdom seems to be that a president is unlikely to drop below 29%, that number representing what you could call the right-wing blog crowd-- those who will blindly support him no matter what he does. So the significance of sliding slowly down through the thirties means that he's gradually losing every moderate member of his own party.

TNR and Lieberman, BFF.

As much as this year's elections are shaping up to be an ugly, nasty affair, the DLC fans at The New Republic seem to be doing their part to drive a wedge between Democrats. A pair of recent articles on McCain presented, in pretty wishful terms, the case for John McCain ("He used to say he's pro-choice. Now he says he's anti-choice. I choose to believe the former, and support him.") Now they're setting their sites on Lieberman's Democratic challenger for the senate seat this fall.

What do they have to say? Lamont seems nice. But those supporters of his? Mean, nutty, radical. And actually, Lamont seems like a wishy-washy, spoiled elitist. And his supporters are rabid leftists. Oh, and his supporters are insane. And (gasp!) they blog, which TNR still considers to be a litmus test for mental health. (Hey TNR, circulation still down 60% this decade?)

What they don't point out is that one of Lieberman's potential Republican challengers intended to run to the left of Lieberman. They don't have any explanation to offer as to why Lieberman is still such a staunch defender of Bush's Iraq policy-- not even William F. Buckley goes that far anymore.

Apparently some at TNR feel just as Lieberman himself seems to these days-- Joe shouldn't be subjected to the democratic process. He just deserves the seat. I get it, already. You really, really like Lieberman. I figured that out when the magazine endorsed him for president in 2004. But smarmy innuendo pieces like this aren't going to help your case. And something like a million people a day check in with Daily Kos, whereas you have about 40,000 subscribers. If the 'lefty fringe' outnumbers you by 25 to 1, are they actually the fringe? This article is pure, unadulterated smarm. And although I still subscribe, every new issue causes me to think wistfully of the day when I looked to TNR for intelligent discourse and insightful commentary. Now they just keep telling me that, as a progressive blogger, I also qualify as a lunatic.

Thank you for your continued support. You dumb son of a bitch.

Funny stuff. Some as-of-yet unidentified party decided to do a little editorializing on a letter from the office of Missouri Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, concluding the letter with the heartfelt message "i think you're an asshole." Which Emerson then signed, even adding a hand-written 'PS.'

And here I always thought that members of Congress carefully scrutinized each and every letter sent out to constituents. I'm so disillusioned.

UPDATE: OD1 rightly reminds me that although I admitted the culprit hasn't been identified, I suggested that the signature and end-note came after the rude comment had been added. Which isn't necessarily the case. A very valid point, even if it does spoil the fun I was having with the prank.

The profound dishonesty of the attacks on Rummy's critics: revealed!

Hearing the administration describe their military critics as doddering retirees who don't know the first thing about Iraq has been very, very aggravating-- if predictable. Especially in light of the fact that several of the generals were ground commanders in Iraq.

This lenghty post points out just how disingenuous the administration's (and the right-wing blogs') attacks have been.

It was the 82nd Airborne, after all, under the command of Charles Swannack, that took the lead on some of the most critical missions of the Iraq War, like establishing a training post for both Iraqi police and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps under very difficult conditions in Ramadi around September of 2003. In addition, the 82nd was involved in some of the most difficult battles of the Iraq war, like that of Fallujah, in case anyone is keeping score, as we scandalously go about accusing people of being cowards. (. . .)

Indeeed, Swannack personally escaped injury, when the convoy he was traveling in was attacked in Fallujah. Remember, all of you now, Judith Klinghoffer has described the man who led these men into battle, on the ground in Iraq under perilous circumstances, as being "gutless."

Everything you need to know about the men that the neo-fascists are working overtime to discredit, in one information-dense article.

Hardball lives up to its name. Finally.

Chris Matthews has something of a history as a 'Bush-enabler,' offering unsolicited testimony such as he's a nice guy that only wackos dislike. Apparently the trick is not to accuse him of having his facts wrong-- that's when he turns on you. As with White House Counselor Dan Bartlett on Hardball yesterday.

BARTLETT: That’s not correct, Chris. The president or no one else ever said that this war was going to result in cheaper gas prices…

MATTHEWS: Ok, so just to make it official, Dan, no one in the administration has ever said that we would have cheaper gas because of war in Iraq, just to make it official?

BARTLETT: I don’t recall anybody ever saying that, Chris.

Later in the show, Matthews felt compelled to set the record straight by pointing out that then-senior economic advisor Laurence Lindsay said just that:

As for the impact of a war with Iraq, “It depends how the war goes.” But he quickly adds that that “Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits that would come from a successful prosecution of the war.”

“The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,” which would drive down oil prices, giving the U.S. economy an added boost.

Rolling Stone: Worst President in History?

I was really hoping they would post the article online, and they have. Hooray!

In almost every survey of historians dating back to the 1940s, three presidents have emerged as supreme successes: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. These were the men who guided the nation through what historians consider its greatest crises: the founding era after the ratification of the Constitution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and Second World War. Presented with arduous, at times seemingly impossible circumstances, they rallied the nation, governed brilliantly and left the republic more secure than when they entered office.

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

Highly recommended, although it's tough to see Fearless Leader's name even appear in print next to the names of actual leaders.

A very good question

Salon came up with this obvious, but very troubling, observation. Just think of it as the 1,543rd way the White House has found to screw the nation.

Here's another, more obvious, question to ponder: If Rove is really going to spend the next seven months concentrating on partisan politics, why, exactly, should American taxpayers be footing the bill?

Good point. Just this morning it was anounced that he was being "demoted." That's a joke, of course, but the reason was-- and they fully admitted it-- so that he could work on winning elections this year. Which, as Salon notes, means that the public is paying for Direty Trickster Number One to put Christ-fascists in power.

The un-overhaul

I wish news outlets would stop talking about "shakeups" and "makeovers" at the White House like something's actually happening. Just a day after Bush made it very clear that Rumsfeld-- an actual policy-maker-- had his full support in spite of a no-confidence vote from the public and military, Scott McClellan steps down. Whoop-dee-doo. That's as significant as being told that from now on your going to be flipped off by someone's right hand instead of the left.

And Karl Rove is going to start focusing on the mid-term elections? Give me a break-- the guy's career was built on dirty electioneering.

I'm not even going to print an excerpt from the story. That'll learn 'em.

One more thing-- recall how difficult it's been for the White House to find a new FEMA chief, and how long they've been trying to replace John Snow as Treasury Secretary. Nobody wants these jobs, ostensibly because things are so screwed up-- and the administration has no interest in seeing them fixed. They want yes-men. People who will find inventive ways to deny that anything's wrong in the first place. Nope, there's not going to be any substantive change at the White House until things are so incredibly bad that Bush, Cheney and Rummy all have their necks on the line with no other option for saving their own hides.

Another classic Lieberman moment

This is another item I kept forgetting to write about-- it's a very busy week for me.

For the second time in about a month, Joe Lieberman has hinted that in the event of a Democratic primary loss, he'll run as an Independent. His language is breathtaking:

First of all, I'm very confident about the primary. Ultimately, I want to give all the voters in the state a chance to say whether they want me to continue to serve Connecticut. I feel very strongly that I have a lot I could give this state--I've built up my seniority, my independence--over the next six years.

This strikes me as the equivalent of "Look here, Democratic establishment-- you guarantee me a victory or I'm going to ruin this for everyone." Then there's the pathetic whining about seniority. Lieberman is literally suggesting that the democratic process is for lesser people.

I'm embarrassed for the guy.

Republican Congress makes another play to expand debt limit

Maybe all is not lost at the Washington Post. This editorial seems eminently sensible.

To make their budget-busting tax policy appear less costly than it is, the lawmakers are resorting to a gimmick that is even more egregious than their usual tactics.

This one would, as usual, hide the cost of tax cuts that primarily benefit upper-income Americans. But it would accomplish that budgetary smoke and mirrors with a new tax provision, involving retirement savings accounts, that also benefits the well-to-do. And, to top things off, this new tax provision, while masking the cost of the tax cuts by bringing in more revenue in the short term, would in the long run worsen the fiscal situation by piling on more debt. (. . .)

Bottom line: A Senate rule designed to make it harder to increase the deficit would be circumvented with a maneuver that would end up increasing the deficit. And a tax cut for wealthier Americans that would cost $50 billion over 10 years would be "paid for" in part by another tax cut for the well-off, which would end up costing billions more. That's amazing -- even from this Congress.

It's pretty difficult to sum up this double whammy, so I'd recommend reading the full article.

Dick Cheney: tax cheat

Well, not really. Let's just say 'tax dodger.' Like his five Vietnam deferments make him a 'draft dodger.' You know, sleazy but not illegal.

I'm sure you recall the recent story about Barbara Bush funneling money into her son's business vis a vis a tax-deductible contribution for "hurricane relief." Apparently Big Dick is getting in on the act, too, thanks to the Katrina tax relief act--

Despite the importance of the Katrina legislation to his tax return, it looks like none of the charitable contributions actually went to Katrina-related charities (the press release lists the 3 charitable recipients, all of which were designated in the original 2001 gift agreement). While there's nothing inappropriate about that from a legal perspective, it does demonstrate how the legislation, which was sold to the public as providing relief to Katrina victims, provided significant tax benefits to the VP (and potentially other wealthy individuals) in situations that have nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina.

I'm not a religious guy, but at times like this I sure hope there's a hell for every 'compassionate conservative' who's cashed in on the human suffering of the wars and disasters we've had to face .

I am the decider. Koo-koo-ka-choo.

Bush predictably went of the offensive with Rumsfeld today, making it clear that the opinion of military leaders was as irrelevant to him as that of anyone else.

"I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision," he said. "And Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He's not only transforming the military, he's fighting a war on terror. He's helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld.

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

This is sure to please Bush's hardcore supporters, but what do they have to celebrate? "Hooray, more violence in Iraq!"

For the rest of the country-- and the globe-- it means more negative feeling about the administration. And increased determination to keep the US from starting a war with Iran. Not that the administration gives a damn. Just keep your mind on getting out the vote in November. It's closer every day.

The White House's war on science marches on

We've been hearing accounts for months from the lone scientist here and there claiming that the administration is enforcing gag rules, limiting access to the media, and occasionally even rewriting their work (remember the young Bush ally and college dropout who was caught asking that creationist language be inserted into NASA reports?).

The scientists are making another push, and hopefully they can present a united front against the White House's science policy. It would be a nice combo with our generals uniting against their military policy, conservationists arguing against their energy policy, and so on.

Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.

Employees and contractors working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with a U.S. Geological Survey scientist working at an NOAA lab, said in interviews that over the past year administration officials have chastised them for speaking on policy questions; removed references to global warming from their reports, news releases and conference Web sites; investigated news leaks; and sometimes urged them to stop speaking to the media altogether. Their accounts indicate that the ideological battle over climate-change research, which first came to light at NASA, is being fought in other federal science agencies as well.

These scientists -- working nationwide in research centers in such places as Princeton, N.J., and Boulder, Colo. -- say they are required to clear all media requests with administration officials, something they did not have to do until the summer of 2004. Before then, climate researchers -- unlike staff members in the Justice or State departments, which have long-standing policies restricting access to reporters -- were relatively free to discuss their findings without strict agency oversight.

Right-wing fires back at generals

From the White House to the littlest of right-wing bloggers, the attempt to discredit military critics of Rumsfeld is well underway. Trying to do that to seven generals isn't easy, and the arguments reflect it. From what I've seen there are three approaches:

1. They're trying to sell books. What books? No one can say. Next.

2. This is a small number of retirees. Old and out of the loop. What do they know? Well, anyone watching the news can see that these are not doddering old men. They're pretty young, actually, and in several cases newly-retired. Weak.

3. It's Clinton's fault. You knew that classic had to be part of it, and the magic words are "Clinton general." But the public isn't going to just accept the argument that top military officials are partisan operatives. In fact, Bush has been spending the last three years drawing that very distinction ("I don't listen to politicians, I listen to the commanders in the field"). Besides, as Think Progress points out, while the Secretary of Defense has "the prerogative to nominate four-star generals and admirals," the only one of the seven that ranks that high is Zinni.

General Peter Pace, on the other hand, is one of those four-star types promoted by an administration-- the Bush administration. Does that make him a "Bush general"? Not in right-wing world.

Former Illinois Governor faces sentencing

I was only familiar with Republican governor George Ryan for his decision to postpone all executions pending a review of the state's application of the death penalty. Now he's been sentenced for all manner of wrongdoing, largely involving (what else?) corruption.

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan has, for the past six months, been on trial for racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, obstructing the IRS, tax fraud and lying to FBI agents. Today, the jury in his corruption trial has reached a verdict. Ryan has been found guilty of all counts.

On trial with Ryan was lobbyist Larry Warner. Warner was also found guilty of all counts.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald took over the investigation into corruption in the Governor's office in 2002,indicting him in December of 2003 (Fitzgerald indicted some 73 Ryan administration officials before he made his way to the top). "I submit that the citizens of this state expect honest government from the secretary of state or the governor," Fitzgerald said at the time. "They deserve nothing less." (Fitzgerald was in the courtroom while the verdict was read).

For those not familiar with Illinois state politics, George Ryan was a Republican who was governor from 1999 to 2003. Before that, he was Secretary of State, from 1990 to 1998. A Republican powerhouse, his actions mirror those of Republicans on the national scene: cronyism, rewarding campaign donors, free trips to Jamaica, accepting gifts from lobbyists, and more.

NH phone jamming case heats up

With the conviction of New England GOP heavy Jim Tobin late last year, I assumed the story was over. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Tobin is now being linked to RNC chairman Ken Mehlman (then in the White House), Jack Abramoff, and Tom DeLay by communications and finances.

The latest twist us a real 'follow the money' moment, too. Although I hadn't given it any thought, jamming a phone bank requires a lot of coordination. And cash.

New Hampshire Democrats pored over the filings of the New Hampshire Republican Party and found three contributions for $5,000 each, all shortly before the election. One was from Americans for a Republican Majority, Tom DeLay's political action committee. The other two were from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, tribes that were clients of Jack Abramoff. Those checks add up almost exactly to the cost of the phone jamming.

Malkin hits a new low

Some students at UC Santa Cruz decided to protest the presence of military recruiters on campus. The group Students Against War was, by all accounts, non-violent. They had also sent their contact information to the press, in case anyone wanted quotes for a story, naturally.

Then along came Michelle Malkin. She decided to take the press info and post individual protestors' names and phone numbers on her site. Those of you who've spent any time at all on right-wing blogs know what comes next.

You will pay for your seditious activities. It is only a matter of time...We are retired military snipers & we are watching you...

a fine young American very, very soon puts his shiny gun barrel up to your left temple and pulls the trigger. Now THAT will make America a much, much better place to live for the rest of us, you utterly disgusting piece of shit

You intolerant left wing socialist fucking cock-suckers. We're coming to get you and when we do we'll hurt you.

And that doesn't even get into the "non-stop" phone calls. When the students contacted Malking asking her to remove the information from her page--and certainly apprising her of the death threats they were getting-- she decided to post it again. Doesn't that amount to knowing encouragement of a potentially violent situation?

UPDATE (4/18): Keith Olbermann awards Michelle Malkin (also known by the less GOP-friendly surname Maglalang) the title of "World's Worst" for her antics yesterday. Nicely done. Crooks & Liars has the video. And here's some timely bonus fun with Olbermann.

White House: One egg roll, please-- and hold the gays.

I noticed a story a few days ago about gay and lesbian couples with kids determined to get tickets to the White House's annual Easter Egg Roll (a tradition for more than a century). You know, a nice way to show that homosexuals can have a nice, stable home life. Smart move, I thought, but I didn't fall off the mobile chemical weapons production facility yesterday. I knew the White House would manage to avoid the icky people somehow.

And indeed they did. The tickets were first-come first-served as always, but with a catch: they included entry times. Since journalists out for a feel-good story wanted to have footage ready to go on the morning or noon news, all the White House had to do was give gay and lesbian families tickets with 11:00 am entrance times-- after the reporters had long since packed up and left. They aren't denied entrance, but no one in the media is the wiser. Some enterprising staffer is due for a big, fat, anti-gay raise.

NY Times gives the WaPo a smack

The WaPo's editorial 'A Good Leak' was an attempted justification of the administration's actions in the run-up to war in Iraq. But it didn't address the basic problems-- that the White House's attacks on Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame were disingenuous and malicious, and the cherry-picking of intelligence (including the continued use of information known to be unreliable, if not absolutely false) meant misinfoming the public and legislative branch about the reasons for war. The New York Times points this out, and it's highly recommended.

President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist. This would be a noble sentiment if it actually bore any relationship to Mr. Bush's actions in this case, or his overall record.

Mr. Bush did not declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq — in any accepted sense of that word — when he authorized I. Lewis Libby Jr., through Vice President Dick Cheney, to talk about it with reporters. He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report. The declassification came later.

And this president has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his political purposes. He has run one of the most secretive administrations in American history, consistently withholding information and vital documents not just from the public, but also from Congress. Just the other day, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee that the names of the lawyers who reviewed Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program were a state secret.

The day I agreed with William F. Buckley, Jr.

Since the announcement that Zacharias Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty, news of the case has been making me increasingly queasy. On one hand, there were reports of his self-incriminating statements and nutty behavior. He's either totally crazy, guilty, or both.

So why are the prosecutros subjecting the jury to a horror show? Do they really need to play flight recorders of the screams of the dying when it's obvious that Moussaoui isn't innocent? Isn't there something perverse about dragging all of the gory footage from 9/11 out and forcing a group of people to watch it for no apparent reason?

Of course, there is a reason. It's just a very petty, and sleazy reason-- the prosecution wants to do whatever it takes to get a death sentence.

It pays not to try to understand the thinking behind the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui in Virginia. Thought renders unintelligible what the prosecution is up to in describing the luridities of 9/11 on Flight 93. The only explanation for what they are doing is that they are covert agents for the movie "United 93," which is simultaneously going out from Hollywood.

Look. Nobody doubts that Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan heritage, was an agent of al-Qaida. No one questions that he was in the United States for nefarious purposes. It happened -- miraculously -- that the FBI actually picked him up before 9/11, so that on the fated day, he was in jail, removed from mandibular contact with people actually tortured, burned or propelled to suicide. (. . .)

Why is it so important to the prosecution to go to such lengths to prove that Moussaoui deserves to be executed? Damage is done by this undertaking, because if the government fails, then the aroma of the trial will waft toward an ambiguity concerning the entire business. If Moussaoui "prevails" in the Virginia trial -- if execution is not ordered by the jury -- loose-minded analysts will arrive at the conclusion that he was finally not guilty of atrocious deeds, although he has admitted that he'd happily have been a member of the suicide team if he hadn't been detained by the FBI.

And then adding to the confusion, the public is slowly alerted to the generic question of capital punishment. The practice survives in many states, as also in the federal system. But a long, hideously detailed trial designed to do just one thing -- to raise the sentence from a lifetime in prison to capital punishment -- has the effect of elevating the one remedy to a distinctiveness that believers in capital punishment reject.

Mixin' it up with Oprah

Oprah has really been on a tear lately. She took some time to rip the current state of education (Salon has a clip here) at a time when Bush's "No Child Left Behind" has meant decreased funding for schools and led school districts to falsify records, seek loopholes, and otherwise invest time and resources in everything but education.

Now she's done a show on the minimum wage. At $5.15 an hour, it hasn't been increased in a decade-- not even to keep up with inflation. This table suggests that the real value of minimum wage in 2005 was $4.15 an hour-- the lowest it's been in fifty years.

The excerpt on Think Progress isn't terribly enlightening, but it's good to know that someone with the massive audience of Oprah Winfrey is raising awareness on some of these issues.

Christian Coalition on shaky ground

This article is from last Monday, but somehow I kept forgetting to write about it. It was a pretty big week for news, after all.

The once-mighty Christian Coalition, founded 17 years ago by the Rev. Pat Robertson as the political fundraising and lobbying engine of the Christian right, is more than $2 million in debt, beset by creditors' lawsuits and struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters.

In March, one of its most effective chapters, the Christian Coalition of Iowa, cut ties with the national organization and reincorporated itself as the Iowa Christian Alliance, saying it "found it impossible to continue to carry a name that in any way associated us with this national organization."

"The credibility is just not there like it once was," said Stephen L. Scheffler, president of the Iowa affiliate since 2000. "The budget has shrunk from $26 million to $1 million. There's a trail of debt. . . . We believe, our board believes, any Christian organization has an obligation to pay its debts in a timely fashion."

Hopefully this is more evidence that the reactionary fundamentalists realize that their influence is on the wane. That would certainly explain the recent wave of state legislation attacking science and reproductive rights. Not that they'll ever stop pushing creationism, etc., but maybe the fall of corrupt GOP neo-fascists will also deal a major blow to the End Times crowd.

UPDATE: The fundamentalist push continues, and they're really leaning on Congressional Republicans to start pushing their agenda. And they've finally realized that the GOP has just been making empty promises when it comes to religion-based laws:

"It seems like for only six months, every two years — right around election time — that we're even noticed," said Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council.

"Some of these better pass," he added. "You notice when it's just lip service being paid."

The upside is that is that everyone except reactionary fundamentalists hates their ideas (Terri Schiavo, anyone?). And if the GOP has to spend the summer tossing more bones to religious whackos, the more they'll suffer at the polls. My guess is that the double whammy of anti-immigrant and anti-gay stances by the Republicans isn't going to pay off again. Too many non-kooks are now fully aware of what's going on. Still, I stand by my prediction that it's going to be an election season that plumbs new depths of dirty campaigning and right-wing mudslinging.

60% of Americans say the rich aren't pulling their weight

Although Bush has spent most of his time in recent months talking about our success in Iraq-- to no avail-- he doesn't have much of anything left to sell the public on. So his second favorite talking point is tax cuts. No matter what economic news emerges, if it isn't bad news it's all thanks to his tax cuts. And how they have to be made permanent, naturally.

Democrats haven't had much success in getting people to acknowledge that they are tilted heavily in favor of the super-rich. Or that corporations are finding more and more ways to dodge tax payments even as they're making higher profits and receiving ever more in government subsidies.

But it could be a good thing to talk up in this fall's elections. An Ipsos poll finds that, as with all the other policies of the neo-fascists, the public isn't on board:

More than half in the poll, 58 percent, said middle-income families pay too much income tax. People were almost as likely, 54 percent, to say that about low-income families.

Six in 10 said high-income families were paying too little in taxes. Two decades ago, almost eight in 10 said high-income families were paying too little.

UPDATE: I just spotted this post from Daily Kos, which sez that Bush used today's radio address to push his tax cuts. The author also points out the various ways in which Bush's voodoo economics come entirely at the expense of the working class-- and future generations. As well as Bill Clinton's words from last September:

I would repeal the tax cuts for upper-income people. I myself have gotten 4 tax cuts while young Americans have gone off to risk their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, while we've had this massive natural disaster. We've run up this huge deficit. How are we covering this money? We are borrowing the money from China, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia to pay for the suffering of our people in the Gulf area, to pay for the Iraq War, and to cover my tax cuts -- and we are expecting our children to pay the bill. We've made a decision to lower the living standards of our children and grandchildren and to soak other people around the world who don't have the money we do, by and large, to cover our self-indulgence.

It's a real shame that we never had the chance to see Clinton debate Dubya. It would have been a verbal massacre.

GOP uses Spanish-language radio to attack Dems. On immigration. Seriously.

I keep hearing about this story, but I haven't come across a comprehensive article, just a Nevada local news story about ads attacking Harry Reid on the issue.

The gist of it is that the RNC is dumping cash into spots that accuse Dems of 'playing politics' with the issue and killing legislation.

What the RNC clearly fails to realize is that Latinos A) aren't stupid, B) don't live in a news vacuum, and C) care enough about it that they're actually paying attention to what happens in Washington. Hundreds of thousands of people weren't rallying in the streets in support of Republicans-- they were fully aware that a sizable Republican contingent was trying to cater to their racist base with punitive laws. The GOP torpedoed the rather sensible Kennedy-McCain bill, and their infighting killed the senate compromise.

Like I said before, the Republican party's pitiful attempts at 'minority outreach' have ended in failure, with no hope of recovery until the neo-fascists are sent packing. This embarrassingly inept move just screams "brought to you by a bunch of rich, old white guys."

UPDATE: The story is continuing to emerge, and although I was under the impression that the ads were being aired in several states, they might just be attacks on Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada. That said, the ads are even more retarded than I first thought. From the Las Vegas Sun:

"Reid's Democrat allies voted to treat millions of hardworking immigrants as felons," the ad says, "while President Bush and Republican leaders work for legislation that will protect our borders and honor our immigrants."

That statement alone more than justifies my initial assessment that the RNC is banking on Latino ignorance. The suggestion that the Democrats were the ones pushing to classify undocumented immigrants as felons is shocking even from Ken Mehlman's RNC*-- it's an aggressive, intentional lie being repeated with the party's approval. The push to classify them as felons was spearheaded by the likes of GOP Reps. Jim "Babyman" Sensenbrenner and Tom Tancredo. And on top of that, it even hews to the neo-fascist line of childishly refusing to use the word 'Democratic,' which shows you who's in control of the party's pursestrings. (Assuming this isn't an error on the part of the author.)

The only positive note here is that the GOP is so pitifully worried about this year's elections that they're already dumping millions of dollars into propaganda and dirty tricks more than six months away from the elections.

*Mehlman is facing his own scandal. It won't gain any traction with the public, but he's been linked to the mastermind behind the New Hampshire GOP's infamous phone-jamming campaign to suppress voter turnout in 2002. Two Republican operatives have already been convicted over the incident, and the current defendant, James Tobin, was making dozens of calls to Mehlman's office during the time in question. Oh, and the RNC has put up a couple million dollars for Tobin's legal defense. Probably not a coincidence.

The Gilded Age presents: The 450 MIllion Dollar Man

Heavyweight companies like GM continue to announce layoffs and other giants are working to be released from their pension agreements to long-term employees.

Meanwhile, in the boardroom, things are going pretty well.

Exxon is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes. (. . .)

That was before new corporate documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that revealed Raymond's retirement deal and his $51.1 million paycheck in 2005. That's equivalent to $141,000 a day, nearly $6,000 an hour.

I suppose the laws of voodoo economics would mean that the $450 million will go back into the economy and mean countless new jobs for average Americans. My guess is that it sits around earning millions more in interest.

Exxon defends Raymond's compensation, pointing out that during the 12 years he ran the company, Exxon became the largest oil company in the world and that the stock price went up 500 percent.

And in these tough times for the oil industry, it really takes a mastermind to turn a profit.

US military secrets for sale in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is off the radar in the news these days, in spite of the fact that swathes of the country are under the control of the Taliban, warlords, and heroin producers. Like Iraq, the country isn't what you'd call 'secure.' Neither, apparently, are our military bases.

"Just outside the main gate of the huge U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, shopkeepers at a bazaar peddle a range of goods, including computer drives with sensitive — even secret information — stolen from the base.

"This week, an NBC News producer, using a hidden camera, visited the bazaar and bought a half dozen of the memory drives the size of a thumb known as flash drives. On them, NBC News found highly sensitive military information, some which NBC will not reveal." Earlier, the Los Angeles Times had published what indeed appeared to be sensitive material.

“This isn't just a loss of sensitive information,” Lt. Col. Rick Francona (ret.), an NBC News military analyst, said. “This is putting U.S. troops at risk. This is a violation of operational security.”

Some of the data would be valuable to the enemy, NBC related, including names and personal information for dozens of interrogatorsm and interrogation methods; and IDs and photos of U.S. troops. With information like this, “You could cripple our U.S. intelligence collection capability in Afghanistan,” said Francona.

NBC added: "Among the photos of Americans are pictures of individuals who appear to have been tortured and killed, most too graphic to show. NBC News does not know who caused their injuries. The Pentagon would not comment on the photos.

"The tiny computer memories are believed to have been smuggled off base by Afghan employees and sold to shopkeepers. Whoever buys one can simply plug it into another computer, and in a couple of minutes, see thousands of files.

"Other reporters have bought drives at the bazaar containing classified information, including names and photos of Afghans spying for the U.S. and maps revealing locations of radar used to foil mortar attacks.

Generals Against Rumsfeld... and nukes?

The number of retired generals calling for Rumsfeld's resignation is up to five, reports Think Progress (the NY Times has the number at six now)). I caught Major General John Batiste on the News Hour this evening, and it was an odd interview. The general repeatedly cited 'military culture' when pressed with questions he didn't want to answer. It called to mind movies about cops or military academies-- you know, 'no squealers,' you don't break ranks, etc. And discipline and uniformity are, of course, necessary to any functioning military anywhere, at any time.

The other thing about the interview is that their criticism (Batiste says he hasn't spoken with any of the other generals and this isn't any sort of a concerted effort) is focused squarely and solely on Rumsfeld. He wouldn't even use the names of any other officials.

But here's why I mention the Iran/nuclear connection. Later in the evening, I ran across an interview with Seymour Hersh, of which there have been many this week. And something he said made me wonder if the generals' timing is about more than just Iraq.

It's pure speculation on my part, but Hersh has plenty to say about some administration officials' long-standing eagerness to develop "tactical nuclear weapons," and Bush has been promoting them himself. It's very Carlyle Group, you could say-- right-wingers with connections to defense contractors get to live out a Rambo fantasy and score a few million bucks at the same time. He also states in this interview that it's the military who have tried to keep the Bushies from following this path.

Many of them also work for large defense contractors. There’s a lot of inherent problems in that, too, but nonetheless, in this case the board is headed by a guy named Dr. Bill Schneider, William Schneider, a former -- very conservative guy, very outspoken. Schneider is among a small group of very influential members of the Bush government, who in 2001 produced a paper, just as Bush was coming into office for the first term, they produced a paper advocating or saying, ‘Let's not rule out the use of nuclear weapons. There is a need for tactical nuclear weapons, and they should be in the arsenal and accepted as a rational part of the arsenal, particularly when you're going after hard targets like the underground nuclear facilities in North Korea and Iran, if you were to target them.’

And the people that signed that report include Schneider, as I say, but also Stephen Hadley, who is now the National Security Adviser, Stephen Cambone, who’s the head of the intelligence for the Pentagon and one of Rumsfeld's closest advisers, and also Robert Joseph, who’s the Under Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Affairs, the man who replaced John Bolton in that job and who's been very much a hawk and very tough on Iran in public and even tougher in private. And so, you have these very influential people advocating that tact nukes have some sense and some bearing in the policy.

And I've been told that in the last few months a debate has been sort of ongoing inside the highest levels of the military, and the debate is simply between those senior generals and admirals -- who think using and even planning or talking about using a nuclear weapon in Iran is wacko -- and the White House, because the White House wants it kept in the plan. There's a lot of tension there.

So that's what I'm getting at. Our top military men might have been unhappy with the Iraq situation for years, but decided that the saber-rattling over Iran meant it was time to try and stop the Bush war machine in its tracks.

As for Fearless Leader, what will become of his familiar refrain that he ignores polls and politics but always listens to military commanders? Sure, Rove's playbook accounts for the occasional Cleland, Kerry or Murtha, but there aren't enough Swift Boaters out there to smear a half dozen generals at the same time.

How to sell a war

Seeing the right-wing hacks already eagerly pushing military action against Iran is disturbing. Especially since it's being done in the same way they sold Iraq-- fear and misrepresenting the intelligence.

Behold Matt Drudge's headline:

Iran 'Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days'

There's one very significant problem with this assessment-- Iran would need 54,000 centrifuges to reach that rate of production. They have fewer than 200.

While Iran claims they fully intend to acquire the other 53,800 centrifuges, the estimates that it will be five to ten years before Iran has enough weapons-grade uranium to produce one atomic weapon take that into account. But a headline screaming "Iran could produce nuclear bomb in five years and sixteen days" just isn't as scary.

UPDATE: I probably should have pointed out from the start that the man making the '16 days' claim is Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Rademaker. He's already drawing some scrutiny on the blogs for his rhetoric on Iran, and I came across an online State Department Q&A he's done dealing largely with Iran.

The measured tone of his responses is a pretty stark contrast to the urgency he expresses today. It's all about bilateralism, UN involvement, and resolution through diplomacy. Yet he always adds a caveat about the grave consequences of an uncooperative Iranian regime. It will all sound eerily familiar to those who recall the president's rhetoric prior to Iraq, and the insistence that he didn't want to invade, but was left with no choice. Yet a mountain of evidence has piled up that he wanted to invade in a bad way, and was ready to trick Iraq and the UN to get his justification.

Bill Scher has written a brief piece at HuffPost pointing out a few ways in which the administration is already making misleading claims about their dealings with Iran, and Rademaker is right at their side. While I don't know much about him, he does appear to be a loyal Bushie. And that doesn't say much for his credibility on the issue.

Financial Report of the United States Government: "Ka-Boom"

Never heard of it? Neither had I. But Broder points out that you shouldn't feel bad about that:

The report had been completed early in December but was issued on Dec. 15. The Treasury Department, which compiled it, did not even put out a press release announcing its existence. [Tennessee Rep. Jim] Cooper said the total press run was 1,000 copies, and they have become such rarities that he suggested I could probably take the one he procured for me and put it up for auction on eBay.

Hardly surprising, considering the contribution from Treasury Secretary and Bush booster John Snow (emphasis mine):

The cover letter in the report from Treasury Secretary John Snow contains the bad news. Whereas the budget deficit for fiscal 2005 was officially given as $319 billion, "the government’s accrual-based net operating cost . . . was $760 billion in 2005."

That $760 billion is the real difference between the money the government received and the obligations it added in the last year; in other words, the unfunded costs being passed on to our children and grandchildren. (. . .)

David Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office, the official bookkeeper for Congress, said at a briefing last week that the $760 billion accrual deficit "amounts to $156,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in America. For a family, it’s like having a $750,000 mortgage – and no house."

Raising the debt ceiling, borrowing unprecedented amounts from other countries, starting wars.... and cutting taxes. Smart.

Many thanks to OD1 for scaring the hell out of me with this story.

GOP breaks own federal spending record. Again.

It's one thing for economically unsustainable government spending to take place, but quite another for the alleged party of fiscal responsibility to hold every record in the book. Suffice it to say that this isn't the sort of record you want to see broken with each passing month.

Government spending hit an all-time high for a single month in March, pushing the budget deficit up significantly from the red-ink level of a year ago.

In its monthly accounting of the government's books, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday that federal spending totaled $250 billion last month, up 13.7 percent from March 2005.

Government receipts also were up, rising 10.6 percent from a year ago, to $164.6 billion. That left a deficit for the month of $85.5 billion, a record imbalance for March.

Treasury Department officials said that half of the growth in outlays for March represented a $15 billion shift in payments for certain government benefit programs, including Medicare, into March rather than April. The benefit payments were made early because April 1 fell on a Saturday.

The March outlay record of $250 billion surpassed the old mark of $232 billion set in February.

Even though the deficit was a record for March, it was below the all-time monthly high of $119.2 billion, which was set in February.

Keep in mind that the president has yet to veto a single spending bill-- or any bill for that matter-- even though he insists that the multi-trillion dollar tax cuts are making our economy stronger than ever.

Just to drive the point home, one last sentence from the article:

Spending during this six-month period totals $1.34 trillion, up 8.7 percent from the same period in 2005.

The two-front war and upper-class taxcuts were in effect last year, too. Any right-wingers out there care to explain why the GOP is spending even more this year?

Iran's nuclear boasts anything but a bombshell

Between Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece on Bush's desperate desire to look heroic before leaving office and this week's panicked headlines about Iran's ability to enrich uranium, this article on the science of Iran's capabilities should provide some measure of comfort.

The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.

Think Progress highlights an analysis that says Iran is (at the very, very least) five years away from producing weapons-grade uranium.

The good news, obviously, is that Iran is still very, very far away from constructing a nuclear bomb. The bad news is this administration's track record of going to war on phony intelligence. This is just the sort of revelation that didn't prevent Iraq, but sure as hell should have. And three years after that disastrous invasion, the press at large still doesn't have the guts acknowledge that it was built on lies.

UPDATE (4/13): For the second time in a week, a Washington Post editorial goes against reporting that appeared in its own pages. This time, the spooky op-ed states the following:

Some in Washington cite a U.S. intelligence estimate that an Iranian bomb is 10 years away. In fact the low end of that same estimate is five years, and some independent experts say three.

In the next sentence the piece suggests that it could be as soon as the the end of 2007. But according to a WaPo article from last fall:

A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.

What's going on at the paper? Another editorial favors the White House line and turns out to be full of dubious claims. Between that and their right-wing blogger mishap, you've got to wonder if they're just 'going Fox' to increase market share.

Another "screw you" from Antonin Scalia

Conservatives love to sarcastically deride 'big government,' and talk about how much better individuals can do when DC isn't poking its nose in their business. Which is a cruel joke, considering the current GOP's unparalleled love of government power. You've got Bush and Gonzales pushing the unitary executive theory, which boils down to "the president is above the law." The White House has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal government policy from the public, like re-classifying documents that have been public for decades, or Dick Cheney concealing the minutes from his 'energy policy' meeting with oil execs. Congressional Republicans have gained notoriety for using procedural measures to block debate on bills that favor their party and locking Democrats out of the legislative process.

Antonin Scalia is right at home with the neo-fascists. And he's just about outdone himself this time. Just a few weeks after proudly telling his critics that they can get fucked ( in Italian), he's now come clean on just how much he's enjoying his lifetime appointment.

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday called his 2004 decision not to recuse himself from a case involving his friend Vice President Dick Cheney the “proudest thing” he's done on the court.

Scalia's remarks came as he took questions from students during a lecture at the University of Connecticut's law school.

The case in question involved Cheney's request to keep private the details of closed-door White House strategy sessions that produced the administration's energy policy. The administration fought a lawsuit brought by watchdog and environmental groups that contended that industry executives, including former Enron chairman Ken Lay, helped shape that policy. (. . .)

“For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life,” he said Wednesday.

He told students he would have recused himself if the case had involved Cheney personally, but that he viewed the situation differently because the vice president was acting in his official capacity.

“I think the proudest thing I have done on the bench is not allow myself to be chased off that case,” Scalia said.

That's right, his proudest moment was when he bravely stood up against impartiality. And if you don't like it, you know just what you can do. And you've got to love that 'your Supreme Court justice' line. It's frighteningly reminiscent of Bush's insistence that 51% of the vote constitutes a broad popular mandate.

With friends like these: Santorum edition

Wow. Things are looking mighty grim for Rick "Spreading" Santorum when one of the state's party leaders can only muster the following in support of the guy.

In the course of a one-minute speech delivered recently at the Abington Township Rockledge Boro Republican Organization Annual Dinner this past Friday, Renee Amoore, co-chair of the state GOP committee, stated:

"...Regarding Santorum, I know some of you may want to just hold your noses, but please vote for him anyway!"

McClellan demands apology for weapons-lab story. Why? Uhhh, why not?

The story has really caught on, I'd say, if McClellan is making such a stink about it.

You know, I saw some reporting talking about how this latest revelation — which is not something that is new; this is all old information that’s being rehashed — was an embarrassment for the White House. No, it’s an embarrassment for the media that is out there reporting this. (. . .)

I hope they will go and publicly apologize on the air about the statements that were made, because I think it is important given that they had made those statements in front of all their viewers. So we look forward to that happening as well.

What McClellan doesn't seem to have is a rationale for these apologies. Think Progress states that it's because the story points out that Bush might have been aware of the report stating that the trailers were absolutely not weapons-labs.

But as the site pointed out in a prior post, Bush wasn't the only one making the claims after the report was filed-- Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice, Cheney and even John Bolton were also claiming that the trailers were the big WMD score. And they kept at it for months after the claim had been disproven.

It's just one more instance of the burning question: liars, incompetent, or both?

UPDATE: Salon highlights another section from today's press gaggle with McClellan angrily demanding apologies while refusing to explain why anyone should apologize. It's breath-taking stuff.

Reporter: So was the president made aware of the fact ...

McClellan: And are you all going to apologize?

Reporter: Was the president made aware of the faxed field report?

McClellan: Are you all going to apologize for that?

Reporter: Was the president aware of the faxed field report?

McClellan: Is that a correct statement?

Reporter: Scott, was the president made aware of the field report that was faxed?

McClellan: Jessica, I just told you, I've asked the intelligence community what they based this paper on. I can't tell you what they based their paper on. You have to. We're not an intelligence-gathering agency.

UPDATE: Well, now we know why McClellan continues to act like a Soviet-era propagandist-- the mainstream media is willing not only to give him a pass, but to do his work for him. Media Matters has the story:

CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported that White House press secretary Scott McClellan had said "very clearly" during an April 12 briefing that President Bush did not see a May 27, 2003, intelligence report that contradicted his declaration two days later that the United States had discovered biological weapons labs in Iraq. In fact, McClellan said no such thing during the briefing.

Reading any portion of the transcript made it glaringly obvious that McClellan spent the entire episode not commenting on the intelligence report. That was the whole point. Yet a professional journalist managed to fill in the blanks with her own imagination. Just how much of an insurance policy is a pretty face in the news biz these days?

KY Governor uses 'Diversity Day' to legalize discrimination

Kentucky's Ernie Fletcher is pretty much your classic Bush Republican. The governor's administration was hit by a wave of indictments last year for illegal hiring policies, and the governor's response was to pardon a handful of indicted underlings as well as "any and all persons who have committed, or may be accused of committing, any offense up to and including the date hereof, relating in any way to the current merit system investigation."

With a disapproval rating of 61%, Fletcher is one of the least popular governor's in the nation. You know what that means-- time to pander to extremists.

Gay state workers and job candidates have lost anti-discrimination protection as a result of an order that Gov. Ernie Fletcher issued yesterday as part of the state's "Diversity Day."

Fletcher replaced the 2003 employment policy of former Gov. Paul Patton with one that bans employment discrimination because of "race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, veteran status and disability."

It makes no mention of sexual orientation.

Patton's policy included protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. (. . .)

But Fletcher spokesman Brett Hall said the governor has no intent to discriminate against gay workers. Rather, the new order mirrors federal affirmative action policy and is meant to prohibit all discrimination, he said.

"This is in no way to discriminate against anyone," Hall said.

Hall said the administration was concerned that the Patton policy on sexual orientation was too broad and extended to others, such as transgender people.

That caused a dispute at the state Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet over which restroom an employee undergoing a sex change should use, he said.

"These types of special privileges are not only difficult to comply with, but it's very expensive," Hall said, saying it could lead to lawsuits or require the state to build additional restrooms.

The meeting where the governor's staff came up with that justification must have been an incredibly surreal event. "All right, folks. We need to get rid of this equal rights stuff-- now how're we going to sell it?"

Winnebagos of Mass Destruction

Only the looniest of right-wing shills are still pushing the WMD line. And even they have long been limited to the "Saddam smuggled them into Syria" line. Which could become the "smuggled into Iran" line soon, now that I think about it.

In other words, stories like this are old news. Most of us have been aware for years that the whole WMD line was bogus from day one. The only problem is that mainstream pundits seem to have forgotten Condi's 'mushroom cloud' warnings, and Cheney's assurances that a Kerry victory would mean terrorists on our doorsteps. Now the WaPo, by way of further stripping the White House of credibility, prints a memorable quote from Bush himself (emphasis mine):

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it.

Every justification the Bushies ever set forth for starting a war in Iraq has been blown to hell-- and a thousand times over, at that. But the chattering class still pretends that objectivity and fairness mean reporting the administration's appalling lies as "one side of the story."

Bush's too-typical visit to Missouri

I'm surprised that Bush doesn't head to my home state more often. Missouri's Blunt family should really remind Bush of his own, just on a smaller scale.

There's the patriarch, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt. He's been around forever, but really hit his stride in the neo-fascist era as Tom DeLay's lieutenant. Acting pious while raking in the special interest dollars his benefitted him almost as much as "The Hammer" himself. But Roy has more of an edge than Bush the First. He's sorta Bush I with Barbara's mean streak thrown in. Bush the Second is a lot like Missouri's current governor Matt Blunt. Matt is kind of a dumbass, and coasted to his prominent position solely on his father's name, only to find himself in completely over his head and among the least popular governors in the nation. Roy Blunt's other son is a lot like Neil Bush. He isn't in politics per se, but family connections have landed him a cushy lobbying job for Phillip-Morris-- a big contributor to Daddy's campaigns. He's content to make a living saying "I'm Roy Blunt's son" while passing the hat.

Anyway, Bush headed to the capital yesterday to pitch his failed healthcare policies, and did it in his usual style:

Both events are closed to the public. The state Republican Party distributed most of the roughly 500 tickets for the Arts Center event, which are primarily going to party loyalists, a spokesman said.

The thing is, the governor took a powder. Blunt is facing an uphill re-election battle this year, and apparently he's joined the growing ranks of Republicans who'd rather not be tied to the White House.

Never fear, though. GOP activists were on hand to do the heavy lying... errr, lifting.

State GOP spokesman Paul Sloca said Bush selected Missouri as a backdrop to promote [Medicare] Part D because "it's been a total success here. In Missouri, about two-thirds of those eligible have applied for it."

You can guess what's coming next. Although embattled Missouri Republicans have been boasting about this 66% success rate, it's apparently total horseshit.

Only 17%, not 66%, of Eligible Missourians Have Self-Enrolled in a Part D Plan. As of March 18, 2006, only 157,088 Missourians had self-enrolled in a stand-alone Part D plan, despite what [Senator] Talent has claimed. That is 17% of all Medicare beneficiaries. [Kaiser Family Foundation, "State Health Facts," 3/18/06]

Cheney pimps the troops at Nationals game-- and still gets booed

Cheney, wearing a red Nationals warmup jacket, tossed a pitch that reached Nationals catcher Brian Schneider on one bounce.

The vice president, whose popularity is slumping along with that of President Bush, walked out on the field to cheering and booing from the near-sellout crowd. The boos appeared to be little louder than the cheers at RFK Memorial Stadium.

On the field with him were three U.S. servicemen, two of whom had been wounded in Iraq and a third who was injured in Afghanistan.

With public disapproval for Dick at more than 70%, I guess we should just be content that he wasn't kissing a baby, waving a giant flag, and wearing a NASA spacesuit at the same time.

UPDATE: Wow. I just watched this video clip of Cheney's appearance at Crooks & Liars, and I think the article was much more than fair in suggesting that "the boos appeared to be a little louder." I almost felt sorry for the guy. Think Progress reports that Fox News nixed the crowd noise in their report, opting to play it without sound. Big surprise there.

UPDATE (4/12): Several people who were in attendance are saying that the video does misrepresent the boo/cheer ratio of Cheney's appearance. You'll notice that the cameraman is with Cheney as he leaves the dugout and heads to mound. They're saying that the only cheers in the park were coming from right behind the dugout-- in seats reserved for Cheney's crowd. In short, the cheers actually sounded louder than they were because the mics were positioned there.

Also, the Washington Post reported that Cheney was booed for failing to get the pitch over the plate. The video (which also appears on their site) demonstrates that this is patently false. What's so hard about relating the facts, guys?

UPDATE (when will it end?): Think Progress writes that the WaPo has changed the article to acknowledge that the catcalls began before the pitch. But they still suggest that the boos were motivated by Cheney's bad throw. And they even managed to smuggle in a Bush compliment. Bizarre.

The GOP's lose-lose immigration problem

One thing I keep forgetting to mention in my (admittedly sparse) posts about the immigration issue is a minor, but significant byproduct of the debate. But Salon has gone and written an entire article about it, so here goes:

The immigration issue is destroying the GOP's recent efforts at 'minority outreach.'

Republicans are pretty much at a stalemate on the issue, as last week's failed legislative attempt demonstrated. They're trapped between two groups who vote Republican: corporatists and nationalists (I'll use that term instead of racists). The former group wants the issue to disappear because illegal workers mean higher profit margins. The latter favors moronic "solutions" like a walled border and a mass-deportation program. Either way, a big chunk of the base gets riled up. And either way, Latinos get kicked in the pants by the GOP.

Members of the nation's fastest growing ethnic voting bloc had gathered to sing the praises of a political party that they had been deserting for a decade. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled off a little-noticed coup among Hispanics, by winning 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls, about twice as much as GOP nominee Bob Dole earned in 1996.

Ever since Bush's 2004 breakthrough, Democratic campaign consultants have been panicked over projections that show that the Hispanic vote will become increasingly decisive in swing states. If Republicans are able to increase their showing by 2 or 3 percentage points nationally, said Joe Garcia, a Democratic consultant at the Hispanic Strategy Center, "the Democrats will not take the White House again in my lifetime." But the coast-to-coast wave of massive street rallies in the last few days has been raising the hopes of the liberal-minded members of the political prognosticating class like Garcia. "This is just like Tammany Hall signing up the Irish as they got off the boat," he said. "The guy who sows this issue well is going to reap a good harvest."

The national protests represent a major setback for the Bush wing of the Republican Party, which has courted immigrant voters with a welcome message of economic opportunity in exchange for hard work. This carefully calibrated Republican appeal may now fall on deaf ears, especially among young voters whose political allegiance is still unformed. "There are voters-in-waiting who may be getting their political consciousness because of this," said Gabriel Escobar, the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center.

Republican strategists like Karl Rove and party chairman Ken Mehlman have been fighting a losing battle within the Republican Party, hoping to isolate outspoken GOP opponents of Hispanic immigration, like Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, who talks about running for president in 2008 on a protest platform.

Ken Blackwell: A too-typical story of today's GOP

I'm late in getting this post from OD1 up, but it's pretty timeless. And shows once again that this fall is going to be a referendum on GOP corruption-- DeLay might be gone, but his eager successors are all over the electoral map. And they stink.

It was recently announced that Blackwell held Diebold stock while he was encouraging state officials to purchase their voting machines. And all it took to show just how morally bankrupt the guy is was another peek at his financial dealings.

Although he opposes potential November ballot initiatives to permit slot machines at Ohio’s horse-racing tracks, Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell holds stock in the world’s leading maker of slot machines. (. . .)

Blackwell, who opposes abortion rights, also holds stock in Barr Pharmaceuticals, maker of the controversial Plan B, or the morning-after pill, to prevent pregnancy.

The Nation recently ran a story suggesting that fundamentalists are starting to wake up to Republicans who pander to their religion while violating their most cherished beliefs. It can't happen soon enough. Actually, that story is well worth reading. It's on the rapid decline of Ralph Reed, the career Republican operative who has made a living on the corporatist/fundamentalist alliance.

How not to fix the White House

Anytime is a good time to talk about how things wouldn't be so bad if you'd been in charge. This TNR article links to an absolutely hilarious piece by National Review's extra-hacky Rick Lowry talking about what Bush needs to do to win broad popular support. Here's a surefire winner:

Give some speeches denouncing eminent domain abuse. He can't do anything about it, of course, but the Republican base will love it and it's a broadly popular issue, so no one else will be offended.

Eminent domain as the defining issue of 2006? Wow.

Sit-down with conservative bloggers. They are some of his most loyal supporters--include them in the media out-reach.

Why in the world would Bush waste his time sucking up to the only people guaranteed to support him no matter what he does wrong? They're the only ones he doesn't need to wheedle for support.

Talk about the economy as much as possible, and get a new treasury secretary to try to shift the conversation onto this topic

Yes, Fearless Leader. Remind us of the massive national debt at a time when energy & health costs are soaring-- yet wages aren't even keeping up with inflation.

Ryan Lizza's piece is funny, too, but for a very different reason. His suggestions for the White House might help the president a bit, but every last one of them is so completely contrary to Bush's core beliefs that they're inconceivable (as he seems to acknowledge in his final sentence). If Bush did any of these things, ever-- bipartisanship, political reform, accountability-- he wouldn't be Bush. The guy in the White House has crafted his entire persona and presidency on the image of weathering the storm, staying the course, and ignoring outside opinion. Trying a new way of governance would just make him a failure and a spineless flip-flopper. And he's all about that 'legacy' of his.

60% of the public blames Bush on Plame leaks

This story is making a splash on the progressive blogs, so I might as well cover it. too.

The latest USA Today/Gallup poll finds more than 6 in 10 Americans critical of President George W. Bush on the leak controversy. The more closely people are following the issue, the more likely they are to say he did something illegal rather than unethical. The poll also shows that 37% of Americans continue to approve of Bush's job performance, unchanged from last month. While that is a low rating -- and among the lowest of the Bush administration -- it represents no change in four Gallup polls conducted since the end of February. (. . .)

Overall, 63% of Americans believe Bush did something either illegal (21%) or unethical (42%), while 28% say he did nothing wrong. (. . .)

Views are highly correlated with party affiliation. Sixty-one percent of Republicans say Bush did nothing wrong, while only 18% of independents and 8% of Democrats agree. On the other hand, 30% of Republicans say Bush did something unethical or illegal, compared with 70% of independents and 85% of Democrats.

What I find interesting about the whole matter is that it isn't really about the legality of the leak, although that's been the focus of the media. What's significant is Bush's history of claiming that he was determined to find out who leaked the information, that anyone involved would be fired, and that he had no clue who was responsible. All lies repeated frequently to the public. But as I've said before, the real legacy of the Bush Republicans has been to turn lies into accepted political dialogue.

Illegal aliens hit the streets to foment civil war!

They're brown. They're anti-American. They're a violent menace. They're.... Mexican. Disgusting, isn't it? It's a slap in the face to the United States that Mexicans have come to our country and been given illegally low wages from corrupt businessmen-- only to sneeringly wave their Mexican flags in our faces! Today! In Philadelphia, no less! They have only one goal, and that's to put vast chunks of the United States back under Mexican control. Dirty, racist bastards....





This post brought to you by Fox News, the GOP, right-wing talk radio, and especially Michelle Malkin, for her vitriolic assertions that anyone marching for the tolerance of immigrants was a Mexican revolutionary. The blogs have been flooded with people of every background hitting the streets today and carrying (gasp!) American flags. Let me guess-- it's all a clever Bolshevik ruse.

Is Lieberman calling in the Beltway cavalry?

Every once in a while I take a potshot at Joe Lieberman, although it's invariably for the same thing-- going on TV (often Fox News) to talk about some new way in which he thinks the Democratic party is totally misguided. And I do it because, you know, breaking with your party and voting your conscience is fine (although not permitted in today's GOP), but actively seeking out venues in which to undermine your party over a single policy difference seems excessive to me.

If you watch the blogs, you've seen articles from Connecticut about Lieberman's apparent peevishness that a Democrat has decided to run for his seat this year. In fact, if the accounts of Lieberman's behavior at campaign events are true, he's straight out pissed that Ned Lamont is challenging him.

This story from Crooks & Liars managed to nudge me a little closer to believing that Joe views the senate seat as his and his alone. Which brings me to the title of my post. Considering the establishment's active opposition to Paul Hackett's Ohio senate candidacy, you have to wonder if Lieberman isn't hoping for a similar intervention.

Lieberman: I'll always be a member of the Democratic party. I hope there's not a primary. I'm confident if there is one, I'll win it, but I'm not gonna rule out any other option for now because I feel so strongly that I can do better for the State of Connecticut for the next six years in the United States Senate that I want to give all the voters a chance to make that decision on Election day in November. I want to do it as a Democrat. If I didn't want to do it as a Democrat, I would choose to run in some other party, trust me. But I want to do it as a Democrat because I believe in the Democratic party, so really the choice is up to my fellow Democrats...

Doesn't that sound like a (very squishy) ultimatum? As in, 'DC Dems better step in and squash this Lamont guy or I'm going to cause trouble'? At the very least, he's claiming that the democratic process is a nuisance that he shouldn't have to deal with. But maybe I shouldn't be too harsh on ol' Joe-- as that creaky political chestnut goes, the only known cure for the presidential bug is embalming fluid. And even a tough fight to keep his seat this fall would be trouble for Joe in 2008.

DeLay's campaign fund now a defense fund-- K Street is not amused

The accepted take on DeLay's abrupt decision to drop his re-election bid after winning the Republican primary is that it provided the indicted Texan with a handy way to keep fundraising for a while longer-- so that he could channel whatever he made to his attorneys.

A Roll Call article (subscription required) quotes several career lobbyists fuming that they've been had.

"If I wanted to give to a legal fund, I would've done it directly," snarled one GOP lobbyist who refused to have his name attached to such callous-sounding sentiments, even if DeLay is leaving Congress.

Another lobbyist who gives to Members on both sides of the aisle said, "It's nauseating to think about" his campaign contribution going to fund DeLay's legal team. "I'm realistic about it. He wouldn't resign for no reason," this lobbyist said, noting that the timing of DeLay's departure came awfully close to the announcement of a plea agreement by his former aide Tony Rudy. "That all this money will go to the legal defense fund, it sickens me," he added. "I have to pay for that?"

"C'mon, DeLay, we're giving you all this money to rip off other people!"

Bush turns SAIS appearance into stand-up routine

Speaking at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies today, G-Dub "answered" a number of student questions that should utterly shame the Washingtom press corps-- who should have been asking them for years now.

As you can see from the brief clip linked to above, he used his brilliant comedy to avoid addressing the questions, opting instead for hilarious laugh lines like "Help." Then there was "kind of rambling here," and the timeless classic "I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case." He even manages to blame Clinton for 9/11-- using language just slippery enough that he could deny it.

If you're really a glutton for punishment, you can read his evasive non sequitirs and faux-hayseed babbling unabridged (except for the stutters and countless 'uhhhh's) here.

The one thing that's clear after the event is that the president of the United States doesn't know a thing about foreign policy on any front. Not only are many of his responses bordering on completely incoherent, but he repeatedly states to questioners that he'd have to talk to another White House official about the matter before responding. Isn't that just another way of saying "I can't address that issue until I've been informed of my position"?

I'd call this a must-watch, but it's genuinely chilling. Not for the faint of heart.

Corporate profits up 21.3%, executive pay up 25% in 2005

The USA Today article also points out the miniscule 3.1% pay increase for "typical American workers." What the paper fails to do is account for the impact of inflation on these numbers-- lowering them by 3.1%.

The actual figures, adjusted for inflation: executive pay is up 21.9% (still outpacing profits), while workers are sharing in the profits to the tune of 0.0%.

Bush's new tactic on Plamegate

The polling numbers on the president's Valerie Plame leak must not be good-- the White House is already shifting its position since last week. After ending last week with the usual macho "I did it, I'd do it again, and it's perfectly legal" posturing, it looks like Bush is ready to shift the blame anyway.

A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice PresidentDick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters.

The statement by the official came after the White House had declined to confirm, for three days, Mr. Libby's grand jury testimony that he had been told by Mr. Cheney that Mr. Bush had authorized the disclosure. The official declined to be named, because of an administration policy of not commenting on issues now in court. Confirmation that Mr. Bush ordered the declassification was published late Saturday by The Associated Press, which quoted "an attorney knowledgeable about the case." Once it appeared, the administration official was willing to confirm its details.

See? Now it's "I authorized the declassification, but didn't do the leaking." AKA the overzealous staffer defense. My guess is that Bush wants to look resolute while actually passing the buck.

WaPo editorial contradicts front page story-- in same issue

Joseph Wilson is still a target for Bush's supporters. In case you've forgotten, he's the Middle East expert sent to investigate the 'Niger documents' that the White House wanted to use as evidence of Saddam Hussein's quest to build nuclear weapons. When Wilson reported that they were forgeries, the White House retaliated by exposing his wife's status as a covert CIA agent-- giving us Plamegate, the indictment of Scooter Libby, and the revelation that this personal attack came from Bush himself. The administration's continued attempts to discredit Wilson have also been debunked. Yes, the documents were without a doubt fakes (evidence is still emerging on that front, too). And their claim that Wilson lied about being sent there was a smokescreen dependent upon misrepresenting his story of why he was sent to investigate. (Wilson: "I was told by the CIA that Cheney had approached them about it, and they asked me to go." White House: "Wilson falsely says Cheney sent him." Pitiful, but it's played for years in Foxland.)

Yesterday, the Washington Post had two pieces about Wilson. One was a news article that included the following passages:

As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide [Lewis Libby], Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq. (. . .)

United Nations inspectors had exposed the main evidence for the uranium charge as crude forgeries in March 2003, but the Bush administration and British Prime Minister Tony Blair maintained they had additional, secret evidence they could not disclose. In June, a British parliamentary inquiry concluded otherwise, delivering a scathing critique of Blair's role in promoting the story. With no ally left, the White House debated whether to abandon the uranium claim and became embroiled in bitter finger-pointing about whom to fault for the error. A legal brief filed for Libby last month said that "certain officials at the CIA, the White House, and the State Department each sought to avoid or assign blame for intelligence failures relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

It was at that moment that Libby, allegedly at Cheney's direction, sought out at least three reporters to bolster the discredited uranium allegation. Libby made careful selections of language from the 2002 estimate, quoting a passage that said Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium" in Africa.

The othe WaPo piece was an editorial (titled "A Good Leak") that defends the White House's campaign to blame Wilson, sell the public on phony intel and the decision to leak the name of a secret agent to the press for political payback. It included the following sentence:

After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge.

I don't know what's going on at the top in the WaPo offices, but on the heels of their right-wing blogger debacle, you'd think they might be a little more cautious in their dissemination of debunked right-wing talking points. Or at least read their own paper. The idea that they're going all Fox News to boost circulation is still a bit too cynical for me, but I'm coming around.

Bush reportedly eager to strike Iran

Articles like Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece are cropping up like kudzu. And they're all eerily similar to pre-Iraq war pieces. The intelligence is sketchy, but it's likely that Iran is years away from acquiring the technology for nuclear weapons. But the Boy-King in the Plastic Bubble appears convinced that another Iraq-style strategy is what's needed. Send in a small force, overthrow the government, and the grateful populace will welcome us as liberators and unite to form a theocracy. Oh, and hail Bush as their savior. Third time's the charm, right?

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Bush wants a legacy. He's blown it as far as stopping Al Qaeda. Aghanistan and Iraq are in chaos. But how can he sell war on a third front to a nation that's exhausted, broke, and increasingly views him as the president who cried wolf? Especially considering that we will face stronger and more united international opposition than ever. Even if the public doesn't give a damn what our allies think, it means that we'll be shouldering the cost in money and lives all by ourselves. Will even his most fervent supporters in Congress be willing to risk their political futures by continuing to push his 'war spending + tax cuts' economic model? They're already worried about losing the majority because of unhappy constituents back home-- and three more years of increased energy, health and education costs, thousands more dead American troops, and another $200 billion in national debt isn't going to help.

Has the president gone mad? The nation is in a perilous economic position, looked at unfavorably by even our closest allies, the previously fractured Middle East is increasingly united in a common hatred of the US and Israel, and terrorist recruitment is by all accounts skyrocketing. And he thinks that more spending, more unilateralism, and more violence in the Middle East is the best solution?

Third gov't. official arrested on pedophilia charges

The good news: it wasn't another Homeland Security official.

The bad news: it was a Defense Department official.

A high-ranking Defense Department IT official has been arrested and indicted on child pornography charges.

Charles Lynch, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Internet Protocol version 6 transition program, was arrested March 8 and indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia the next day on one count of possessing child pornography.

According to a statement by the DOD Inspector General’s Office, court documents allege that Lynch had been operating a peer-to-peer file-sharing program on a computer in his office at DISA. Agents confiscated several computers and more than 1,000 CDs from Lynch’s office. Agents found child pornography in computer file folders, the IG’s statement said.

Political/religious attack kills 80 in Iraq

This is troubling news on several levels. Not only was it a highly-coordinated and deadly attack, and not only are there the obvious religious issues, but this particular mosque-- according to the article-- had a strong link to the current government. It doesn't bode well for establishing a stable, functioning government.

Three suicide bombers on Friday struck a Baghdad mosque affiliated with a major Shiite political party, killing at least 74 people, according to the Iraqi Health Ministry.

Another 136 people were wounded, authorities said.

The attack occurred a day after a bomb killed 10 people and wounded a few dozen others near the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, the holy Shiite city in south-central Iraq.

Friday's blasts went off more than three hours after noon prayers at northern Baghdad's Buratha mosque, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The group is a part of the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition that won a plurality in the December 15 parliamentary elections.

The mosque's imam is Sheikh Jalaluddin al-Saghir, a member of parliament affiliated with the United Iraqi Alliance.

Gonzales: Pres has right to spy on anyone

Stories have been making the rounds for months now about government abuse of warrantless wiretapping and other surveillance measures taken in the name of fighting terror. The most prominent were reports of federal agencies spying on pacifist groups and other anti-war advocates after adding their names to the lists of suspected terrorists.

Remember all those firm denials from the White House? The insistence that there was nothing to worry about, because only foreign calls were being tapped, and only the calls of enemy agents? Well start worrying, if you haven't already.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggested on Thursday for the first time that the president might have the legal authority to order wiretapping without a warrant on communications between Americans that occur exclusively within the United States.

"I'm not going to rule it out," Mr. Gonzales said when asked about that possibility at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

The attorney general made his comments, which critics said reflected a broadened view of the president's authority, as President Bush offered another strong defense of his decision to authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls and e-mail messages to or from the United States.

Mr. Bush, in an appearance in North Carolina, told a questioner who attacked the program that he would "absolutely not" apologize for authorizing it.

"You can come to whatever conclusion you want" about the merits of the program," Mr. Bush said. "The conclusion is I'm not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program."

Actually, this isn't the first time Gonzales has gone this route. After making the same claims as Bush before a Senate committee looking into the wiretapping program (while not under oath), Gonzales afterward contacted its members to say that his only-foreign-calls testimony shouldn't be considered binding.

Campaign Finance Reform, GOP style

It's a classic. House Republicans decide to look all tough on Issue X and draft a bill with a snappy title like "The Republicans' Very Tough Issue X Bill." Then it passes strictly along party lines, because it's actually a partisan snowjob designed to maintain Republican power.

Today's example: "The Republicans' Very Tough Campaign Finance Reform Bill."

The House approved campaign finance legislation last night that would benefit Republicans by placing strict caps on contributions to nonprofit committees that spent heavily in the last election while removing limits on political parties' spending coordinated with candidates.

The bill passed 218 to 209 in a virtual party-line vote.

Lifting party spending limits would aid Republican candidates because the GOP has consistently raised far more money than the Democratic Party. Similarly, barring "527" committees from accepting large unregulated contributions known as "soft money" would disadvantage Democrats, whose candidates received a disproportionate share of the $424 million spent by nonprofit committees in 2003-2004.

The 527 committees, named for a section of the tax law, are tax-exempt organizations that use voter mobilization and issue-based ads to influence federal elections. They grew in importance after the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law barred federal candidates and national parties from accepting unlimited donations from individuals, unions and corporations.

In 2003-2004, for example, international financier George Soros broke all contribution records by giving a total of $27 million to pro-Democratic groups such as America Coming Together and the Media Fund.

Although the measure's prospects for approval in the Senate are considered slim, House Republicans wanted a vote on what they could describe as "reform" legislation. At the same time, GOP leaders sought to embarrass Democrats by making them vote in apparent support of the use of soft money in federal campaigns.

Yep. Classic stuff. And by 'classic,' I mean partisan, sleazy and calculated. Watch for GOP Reps to tout this vote as evidence of their strong committment to reforming Washington. Right after they continue to cash those fat lobbyist checks.

DeLay goon squad mobilized to "wreck" press conference

This story has been slowly emerging over the course of the day, but it's gone from rumor to documented event. So here goes.

Nick Lampson is the Democrat running for DeLay's seat. Lampson was one of the Congressmen ousted by DeLay's gerrymandering of Texas. He was also announcing today that DeLay should step down immediately, and that a special election should be held to fill the seat.

DeLay's campaign manager disapproved, and decided to call out the dimwits and thugs still stupid enough to endorse the indicted Representative. This is an e-mail he sent out yesterday (emphasis mine):

We would meet tomorrow morning at 9:45 am on the first floor of the parking garage attached to the Marriott. Please get folks to call our campaign office 281.343.1333 and let us know they can do it – or e-mail Leonard Cash (in the cc field above) so that we can get some head count. Let’s give Lampson a parting shot that wrecks his press conference.

The site that's been posting about the event now has some pictures up, and it's pretty appalling. The photos clearly show the DeLay boosters actively muscling their way behind Lampson so that their anti-Pelosi (huh?) signs will be in any media images, and one of the goons apparently brought an airhorn to use whenever Lampson tried to make his statement.

The latest report is that a 69 year-old woman present was roughed up by one of the DeLay fans and intends to press charges.

Libby: Bush, Cheney authorized Plame leak

The New York Sun is reporting the latest big development in the 'Plamegate' case.

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter.

This means Bush would be in the clear, legally speaking. As the prez, he can de-classify whatever he wants. It would, however expose him as a liar (since he has always denied any knowledge of how the leak occurred). Which is nothing new, and unlikely to change a thing. The age of the Bushies has managed to accomplish one thing in politics-- it's become perfectly acceptable to the public to be lied to on a regular basis.

UPDATE: Although the legal ramifications for the White House are still minimal, I'd guess, this piece points out that even though A) the president may have the right to de-classify anything he wants, and B) even if the standard is nothing more than 'if I say it, it's automatically de-classified,' the administration has then de-classified information, shared it with a reporter, then re-classified it. There won't be any accountability, but it's of dubious legality and certainly unethical.

Chris Matthews and Tom DeLay: "Nothing worse than a woman know-it-all."

Harry Shearer produces some 'found Hardball' of what Chris Matthews was saying to Tom DeLay just before their big interview. And darn it if Matthews doesn't look like an ass-kissing sycophant. Follow the link to see the video.

MATTHEWS: Have you seen this new focus group stuff on the candidates?

DELAY: No I haven't

MATTHEWS: It's great stuff. I'll send it to you -- it's great -- yeah it's great stuff. Hillary, John Kerry. All these guys, all these democrats, and how they do. And, uh, Frank Luntz did it...

DELAY: who I like

CM: ...and Hillary did not do well. Kerry did well.

DELAY: You're kidding.

MATTHEWS: I am NOT kidding. They didn't like Edwards -- they thought he was a rich lawyer, pretending to care about poor people...

DELAY: Too slick. Too slick.

MATTHEWS: ...and Hillary was a know-it-all.

DELAY: Nothing worse than a woman know-it-all

[...]

MATTHEWS: Thanks. I owe you one. I owe you two -- today and last night.

The blow-dried punditocracy hearts the snap-on hair neo-fascists. Or maybe I'm being too harsh-- maybe today's wealthy tele-journalists are just willing to kiss serious butt for ratings. That's not so bad... right?

The 2006 Election Apocalypse has begun.

Just yesterday I made an armchair prediction that this year's election cycle would be one of the ugliest we've ever seen in terms of negative campaigning. Today, I wrote that DeLay-style politics will continue to be the standard among DC Republicans until they are removed from office to a man (and that includes Ohio's Jean Schmidt, recently caught falsifying her resume). The GOP has little to run on policy-wise, and that means character assassination in spades. And just a few minutes ago, I came across this story on Pennsylvania Republican Curt Weldon, "the second ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee."

Under scrutiny from the national media because of his family’s ties to lobbyists, Weldon is running an aggressive campaign. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) flew in to campaign for him Saturday, and Weldon said he has raised $430,000 in the past two weeks. (. . .)

Weldon attacked Sestak’s decision to continue owning a home in Virginia while only renting in Pennsylvania and questioned why Sestak did not move back to Pennsylvania when he was working at the Pentagon. Weldon commutes from Pennsylvania each day.

Why does Weldon's opponent, Admiral Joe Sestak, rent a Pennsylvania apartment yet currently reside in Virginia? What sleazy, underhanded political trick does Sestak think he's trying to pull?

. . . on Jan. 19, retired Adm. Joe Sestak and his wife, Susan, awaited the doctors’ verdict about the condition of their 5-year-old daughter, Alexandra.

She had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last summer and given three to nine months to live. The Sestaks lived for four months in the ward. They watched as their daughter survived three surgeries, and as she endured chemotherapy.

With a full seven months to go before election day, a staunch Bush Republican has decided that a child's battle with cancer is the perfect opportunity to paint his opponent as a phony. Our long, national nightmare has just begun.

Oh, and McCain? Screw you for campaigning on behalf of this scumbag.

Belated Funny: Bush Top Ten

This is from last Thursday, but still plenty funny. From Letterman's Late Show.

Top Ten Things Overheard During George W. Bush's Trip to Cancun

10. "Feels great to get away after three straight weeks of work"

9. "As president of the United States, I pledge to do whatever's necessary to help the Cancunians!"

8. "Couldn't we have stayed home and gone to Chi-Chi's?"

7. "Cozumel? Isn't that the chick I made Secretary of State?"

6. "When do I get to meet Zorro?"

5. "Holy crap, how'd they move these pyramids from Egypt?"

4. "I'll have a non-alcoholic pina colada...just kidding, juice me up, Pepe!"

3. "NAFTA? Don't they make auto parts?"

2. "Secret service! He's choking on a nacho"

1. "Once you get a little buzz going, my poll numbers don't look so bad"

DeLay gets standing-O on Capitol Hill (plus Wednesday funny)

Talk about a video clip that Democrats should use as a bludgeon this fall... There are 'Beltway insider' reports that the Republican establishment is relieved to be rid of Tom "The Slammer" DeLay, but old habits die hard. Like lockstep party discipline.



DeLay has given money to (and received legal defense contributions from) an incredible number of current Republican Congressmen. Which means they were willing to deal in dirty money in order to win elections. Which means that nothing is going to change in DC until they're swept from office. A standing ovation for an indicted felon. Welcome to the neo-fascists.

Meanwhile, The Onion has this morsel:

Tom DeLay to Pursue Corruption in Private Sector

STAFFORD, TX—Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is facing several ethics violations and felony charges, announced Tuesday that he will resign from Congress in order to concentrate on corruption in the private sector. "I can say with a clear lack of conscience that, after 21 years of public disservice, I have done everything I could to the American people," DeLay said in a televised statement to constituents. "I have a lot to offer the corporate world, such as money laundering and influence-peddling." DeLay added that, before assuming his new irresponsibilities, he looks forward to spending more time alienating his family and cheating on his wife.

Second Homeland Security official nabbed on child sex charges

Even worse-- he's the former head of Homeland Security's "Operation Predator," a task force that dealt with kiddie porn.

[Frank] Figueroa, once one of Florida’s highest-ranking federal law enforcement officers and the former head of a national program formed to target child sex predators, was arrested Oct. 25 at The Mall at Millenia in Orlando.

He was charged with exposure of sexual organs and disorderly conduct, which carry a potential punishment of more than a year behind bars.

Today he changed his plea from 'not guilty' to 'no contest.'

It's a great thing that these people are being caught, but isn't it a little strange that Homeland Security has a program to nab sex offenders when they've proven so inept on matters of actual national security, like the low standards of our ports and the disastrous response to Katrina? For that matter, in a week when child prostitution rings were reported on in Atlanta, is Homeland Security accomplishing anything? After all, Homeland Security didn't actually catch Doyle or Figueroa, did they? They just hired the pair. Maybe DHS should address their 'core competencies' before they try to tackle other areas. Someday they could even get something right.

Ohio's Ken Blackwell owned shares of Diebold, wrangled to purchased machines

Ohio's Secretary of State became known as 2004's Katherine Harris for his efforts to suppress Democratic votes in the state during the election. In addition to his aborted attempt to use an antiquated statute that would disqualify all registrations not printed on a certain weight of paper, he was a fierce proponent of Diebold voting machines with a history of being easily hacked and providing no verifiable record of ballots. As predicted, a number of problems with the machines were reported, and most-- if not all-- of them favored Republican candidates.

Oh, and Blackwell owned stock in Diebold. He's adopted the Frist defense, after the senator who made lucrative trades in his family business while pushing legislation that directly affected the company and subsequently denied he had any knowledge of owning the stock. Twice. Then admitted he actually did know about it. Blackwell won't be getting to that last stage anytime soon.

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell revealed yesterday that he owned stock in Diebold, a voting-machine manufacturer, at the same time his office negotiated a deal that critics have said was an attempt to steer business to the company.

But Blackwell said his investments were handled by a financial manager without his advice or review, and after he discovered during the past weekend that he owned stock in Diebold Inc., he sold his shares yesterday at a loss.

Controversy has swirled around Ohio-based Diebold and its voting machines since its former chairman pledged to deliver victory for President Bush in Ohio in 2004 and Blackwell’s office changed directions last year about which voting devices could be used. Blackwell also was Bush’s Ohio co-chairman.

Thanks to OD1 for the story.

Dems get smart on abortion issue?

It sounds pretty good to me-- with the fundamentalists openly opposing access to birth control and every instance of abortion (like rape and incest), the Dems seem to have come up with a pretty smart way to force the GOP to go on record saying that they're all for yet another massively unpopular policy position.

The Senate Democratic leadership says it has found a wedge issue to strengthen the party’s position on abortion rights, which top strategists think has become a liability in recent years.

The wedge is legislation expanding access to contraceptives and sex education, which polls show a majority of Americans support but which Democrats are betting will be difficult for social conservatives in the Republican base to accept. (. . .)

The Prevention First Act is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), one of few congressional Democrats considered anti-abortion. The bill, which Reid introduced at the start of the Congress, has the support of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), presumptive front-runner in the 2008 presidential primary and 21 other Democrats.

The bill would prohibit group health plans from excluding contraceptive drugs, devices and outpatient services if they cover the cost of other prescription drugs and outpatient services. It would also require the secretary of health and human services to disseminate information on emergency contraception to healthcare providers and require hospitals receiving federal money to provide emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault.

The rationale makes perfect sense: reduce the number of abortions through education and contraception. This wil play well with the public, since it's completely sensible and has an admirable goal. The right-wing alernative, to criminalize abortion and outlaw birth control and education, is insane.

Bizarroworld Dispatch: DeLay to file ethics charges

What a week DeLay is having in Bizarroworld. His best pal and several of his top staffers are convicted felons (each one having confessed), his wife is implicated in a slush-fund scheme, and he's been forced to resign pending his own trial for felony offenses. You know what that means-- he's the victim here!

Now DeLay is responsibly using his final days on Capitol Hill to establish himself as a paragon of ethical behavior.... in Bizarroworld.

“If nobody in this House files an ethics charge, I am,” DeLay said in response to a question about McKinney. “Her behavior is outrageous. And it’s not the only time.”

DeLay was asked if he supported the Capitol Police’s actions following the incident with McKinney, which took place last week when she bypassed a metal detector and a police officer stopped her.

“You bet,” he said.

“It’s outrageous behavior,” he said about McKinney. “Had it been Tom DeLay, the Ethics Committee would have met the next day.”

Funny, this doesn't strike me so much as 'DeLay the fighter for justice' as 'DeLay the strutting demagogue.'

UPDATE: DeLay has apparently reiterated his position on Fox News, where he actually went so far as to accuse Rep. McKinney of being a racist.

Today show's Kouric congratulates Matthews on "breaking" inaccurate story

The story is an elementary one to anyone who knows a thing about DeLay's past. His unscheduled gerrymandering of Texas congressional districts caused Texas' congressmen to actually flee the state in order to prevent a quorum on the measure, which would be approved on a party line vote. This prompted DeLay to ask that federal officials be dispatched to Oklahoma to round up the congressmen and escort them back to Texas.

An unethical redistricting plan that threw five Democrats out of office and remapped their districts into solid Republican strongholds, compounded by DeLay's willingness to use federal money and manpower to interfer in partisan state politics.

Quite a shocker for many, but business as usual for the disgraced Texan. But Hardball's Chris Matthews, in a Today show appearance, managed to get the lone fact in the case he cited completely wrong:

Chris Matthews falsely claimed that Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) -- "quite sacrificially" -- engineered a redistricting in Texas that reduced his home district to "only about a 55 percent Republican district now," in order to raise GOP percentages in other districts and strengthen the Republican majority in Congress. In fact, the congressional district that DeLay represents is 65.9 percent Republican following DeLay's redistricting plan.

If neither of these millionaire 'journalists' can get the basic facts straight before an audience of millions, why are they millionaire journalists?

Son of Arizona Senate President to walk on 17 charges of kidnapping, assault.

This story has apparently been out there since at least the beginning of this year, and hopefully the blogs will turn it into national news. Not because it's another tale of a staunch right-winger caught up in a kinky sex scandal, but because it's just one more example of the sickening depths to which the Republican party is willing to stoop to protect one of their own. And his twisted psycho of a son. [Emphasis mine]

The son of state Senate President Ken Bennett admitted in court Monday to assaulting middle school boys with a broomstick in their rectal areas, but a judge allowed charges against him to be reduced from 18 to one, and he may avoid jail.

Three of the 18 victims, all boys between the ages of 11 and 15, are from Tucson, and the families are angry that 18-year-old Clifton Bennett and co-defendant Kyle Wheeler, 19, were not charged with sexual assault.

Also, the families said Bennett is being treated favorably by the court system because of his father's position in the Legislature. Bennett's plea would allow the court to classify the aggravated-assault conviction as a misdemeanor, which means he could go on to become a teacher or counselor and would never have to disclose the so-called "brooming" incident.

Bennett and Wheeler pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in court Monday. Bennett pleaded to one count and Wheeler to two.

"I think he got a sweetheart deal," said the father of one of the three Tucson victims, a 12-year-old boy who attends a local Catholic school. "I'd like him to get a year in prison. The victims should have been heard from before the plea was agreed to. If this was 18 girls who were victims, it would have been sexual assault."

There's even more to it than that. Young Bennett was a devout Mormon, and his father was considering a run for governor-- 'till this came along. So the proud, Christian son of a connected Arizona Republican ass-rapes eighteen kids with brooms and flashlights, and he'll apparently walk away with a warning. Because the sick piece of shit waited until afterward to rub one out. Now that's what I call an 'activist judge,' but I'm guessing the fundamentalists won't have any harsh words for the serial rapist in their midst. If only their eye-for-an-eye concept of justice extended to Bennett.... I suspect that when fellow inmates learned he was doing time for raping 18 children, he'd really learn a thing or two sodomy.

Breaking: Homeland Security official arrested for soliciting sex with minor

When it rains, it pours. No, scratch that. It vomits magma and brimstone onto an unsuspecting Republican party.

Brian J. Doyle, DOB 4/7/50, the Deputy Press Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., was arrested this evening at his residence in Silver Springs, Maryland, on 23 Polk County charges related to the use of a computer to seduce a child and transmitting harmful materials to a minor. Doyle's arrest is the result of a joint investigation by the Polk County Sheriff s Office, working with Florida’s 10th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Jerry Hill s office, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General s Office. (. . .)

On many occasions, Doyle instructed the victim, whom he believed to be a 14-year-old girl, to perform a sexual act while thinking of him, and described explicit and perverse sexual acts he wished to have with her, in addition to sending her numerous obscene .mpg files (digital movies). He also had sexually explicit telephone conversations with a detective posing as a child on his office line and cell phone. He attempted to seduce the girl during their online chats, encouraging her to purchase a web cam so that she could send graphic images of herself to him, and promised her that he would likewise send nude photos of himself. Many of the conversations he initiated with the victim are too extraordinary and graphic for public release.

They've got him absolutely, flat-out nailed-- there are 23 felony charges against Doyle stemming from evidence that went straight from the police to a judge. And hopefully he hasn't destroyed the lives of any children. Although this reminds me of the case of the homophobic Washington state mayor who was using his office computer to do the exact same thing-- but with underage boys.

I can't find much information on Doyle's record, but as with yesterday, bloggers will be on the story like Tom DeLay on a fundamentalist's wallet.

Jack Cafferty rips DeLay a well-deserved new one

Crooks & Liars has the footage from Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room. A must-see on this very special day. Think of it as a brief respite as we gird for a fight that'll last all the way through November.

Cafferty: "He would strut around on Capitol Hill like a cocky little bantam rooster, but today he slithered away from Congress."

Anatomy of an e-mail forward

It's been a while since I posted a nice debunking of a right-wing e-mail forward. So with no further ado, selections from a piece that's been circulating since Katrina struck New Orleans:

Let me tell you a few things about the wonderful group of evacuees we received here in Utah. The first plane arrived with 152 passengers. Of the 152; 10 were children. 3 of these children had been abandoned by their parents. As these passengers attempted to board the plane, the National Guard removed from their person; 43 handguns (it is Illegal to own a Handgun in New Orleans), 20 knives, one man had 100,000 dollars in cash, 20 pounds of Marijuana, 10 pounds of Crack, 15 pounds of Methamphetamines, 10 pounds of various other controlled substances including Heroin. Upon their arrival here in SLC, two people immediately deplaned and lit up a joint.

During the course of medical evaluations, it was discovered that parents were using their kids to carry loads of looted Jewelry (price tag still on), and other items. One third of the people who got off the plane were angry that they didn't get to go to Houston or San Antonio. Over the course of the next 36 hours we received an additional 430 evacuees. Most of these, like their predecessors had to be relieved of illegal items. Additionally, most of them, were the owners of exceptionally prolific criminal records, just like those in the first flight. By the second night in the shelter, there was one attempted rape of a relief worker, sales of drugs on going and a gang had begun to rebuild.(. . .)

Poverty is not an excuse to behave like animals. Difficult situations are not an excuse to loot your neighbor 24 hours before the storm even hits. I have always said New Orleans was a toilet; now everyone has proof that not only was it a toilet, but a toilet long overdue for a flush !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scary stuff, huh? Ten pounds of crack! (!!!!!!!!) Too bad none of it is true. Unless you consider 'anonymous Internets author' to be a more reliable source than the governor of Utah and the Utah police:

"Guests on the base have displayed exemplary behavior and been cooperative with volunteers and law enforcement," said Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. in a September 8, 2005 statement. "No major crimes or incidents have been reported at Camp Williams since the arrival of our guests. None of the guests at Camp Williams have criminal records that would justify booking them into jail."

Police said there had been no appreciable increase in the crime rate following the influx of refugees.

Sadly, the site's host says that similar hate letters popped up "in every part of the country where [evacuess] were given shelter." At least the victims of Katrina can feel better knowing that whitey's wrath is shifting to Latinos. What a relief!

BOGUS BONUS: In December, 2005, famed Nixon supporter and movie extra Ben Stein delivered a commentary in which he said he wasn't, as a Jew, offended by the display of Christmas trees. And that he can understand why the 80% of the country that consider themselves Christians are "tired of being pushed around." But someone out there in the Land of the 80% Minority wasn't satisfied and tacked on a lengthy screed-- falsely attributed to Stein and filled with misquotes and other phony attributions-- on the concept that banning religion from the classroom caused Katrina. It's been making the rounds for the last three months.

GOP applauds Capitol Hill police for altercation with Democrat

The story of Cynthia McKinney's scuffle with a Capitol Hill police officer got its share of attention on the liberal blogs, but the concensus seemed to be 'wait and see.' The most basic facts were disputed, and McKinney has something of a reputation for flying off the handle and even citing racism when it isn't really appropriate. Simply put, we don't know what happened yet. I haven't seen any blanket defenses of McKinney, but I haven't seen any attacks on the officer. Pretty even-handed, huh? Moderate, even.

But this is chicken soup for Republicans' charred souls. It's guaranteed to rile up the base, and it provides an instant platform for attacks on overly-PC liberals that are destroying the nation. And yes, as stupid as it is, it will be expanded into a claim that all Democrats are soft on security. For instance:

House Republicans pushed a resolution Tuesday commending the Capitol police force for professionalism after a confrontation between an officer and Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

"I don't think it's fair to attack the Capitol Police and I think it's time that we show our support for them," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a sponsor of the measure. Ignoring a police officer's order to stop or hitting one "is never OK," McHenry said of the incident. (. . .)

A spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., pointed out that a Democratic lawmaker hitting an officer does not support the minority party's claim of commitment to security.

The GOP is a nothing more than a horrific joke at this point. Their policies are reviled by the public, and they have nothing to run on this year. Unfortunately, they're in power and they mean to keep it. Expect them to arm their legion of swiftboaters with nukes this time around-- it's going to be one of the most savagely negative campaign seasons we've ever seen. That's the only weapon left in the Republican arsenal.

"Reform-minded" John Boehner says he stands by DeLay

I was surprised to see on the Washington Monthly's blog an optimistic suggestion that DeLay's resignation will be met by a horde of Republicans tripping over themselves to throw him to the lions.

My guess is that DeLay's new status as behind-the-scenes kingmaker (until he goes to jail, anyway) will make it easier for Republicans to stand by him and benefit from his ability to take in vast sums of money from America's fundamentalists.

Exhibit A: John Boehner. The man who replaced DeLay as Minority Leader by touting his history of reform (he didn't have much to say about the time he passed out checks from big tobacco while a referendum on tobacco was up for a vote).

Boehner demonstrated again today what a stand-up guy he really is:

"The country owes Tom a great debt of gratitude for helping lead America in a new direction — a direction outlined in the Contract with America that saw balanced budgets, historic welfare reforms, lower taxes, regulatory relief, and a renewed respect for the sanctity of life.

He has served our nation with integrity and honor, and I'm honored to call him my colleague and friend."

There isn't going to be any break from pay-for-play politics, legislation written by lobbyists or graft until the Bush Republicans are swept from office. That's DeLay's legacy-- he used his skill as a politician to install an openly corrupt Congress, and he's still the GOP's godfather.

EPA to permit increased lead, mercury, arsenic levels

Plagued by scandal, a disastrous war, a crushing national debt, and a looming election, the corporatist GOP seems determined to enact every looney plan they can get away with. The election this November is looking more important with every news cycle.

A proposal to revise how the Environmental Protection Agency regulates airborne toxic emissions from industrial plants has sparked an outcry from the agency's regional offices, with a majority suggesting that the change would be "detrimental to the environment."

The proposed rule, whose wording was disclosed yesterday by the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), would change the emissions standards for oil refineries, hazardous waste incinerators, chemical plants, steel mills and other plants that discharge thousands of pounds of airborne toxins such as arsenic, mercury and lead. (. . .)

An internal EPA memo summarizing the position of eight of the agency's 10 regional offices, dated Dec. 13, contended the change could conceivably result in an increase in toxic emissions. Seven of the offices agreed that the proposal would allow polluters to "virtually avoid regulation and greatly complicate any enforcement."

Individual regional offices occasionally object to proposed policy shifts by EPA headquarters, but it is rare for such a large number of regional offices to join forces in such a forceful rebuke.

Breaking: Tom DeLay won't seek re-election in November

There doesn't seem to be an in-depth explanation yet, but there'll be plenty of speculation starting tomorrow.

DeLay has already won the Republican primary in his district, and he still has an alarming ability to raise buckets of cash. And he certainly has no conscience. So what gives? New damning evidence of his past misdeeds? Some horrendous new tale from Jack Abramoff? Has his former campaign aide (the one who just confessed to conspiracy charges) decided to squeal? The thing is, DeLay has so many ties to so many crooks it's impossible to know. But like I said, the blogs will be flooded with stories about this tomorrow, so stay tuned.

UPDATE: The title link will take you to the first article I've seen on the story. It also reports that DeLay is actually resigning his House seat. Good riddance. DeLay is a vile human being (as demonstrated by the huge number of attempts to sound pious in his announcement), a criminal, and a blight on our nation.

One burning question has already emerged in the wake of DeLay's announcement: will he once again game the system to influence national politics? DeLay has apparently mentioned that his method for getting out of the election, having won the primary, will be to change his legal residence. The question is whether that will force a special election that could throw the House seat to whatever Republican candidate gets the nod. Since someone would have to win 51% of the vote, and independents could join the fray, it seems designed to splinter opposition to DeLay.

What ELSE $250 billion on the Iraq war could've purchased

It's been ages since I linked to Something Awful, but this article is as funny as it is depressing.

Since $250,000,000,000 is well over the amount where our actual comprehension takes a powder and it's just "a vast sum," the author of the piece has decided to give it "The Moon and Back" treatment. Which is a term I just made up to describe examples that allow us to get a handle on concepts like how much Spam is eaten every day by putting them in terms of laying the cans end-to-end and seeing how far they'd go. Moving on.

Some highlights/lowpoints:

*298,412,466 Sony Wega 23" LCD HDTVs

*Full ride 4-year college scholarships for 7,260,000 students

*Give every adult man and woman in Iraq 16,000 dollars and a plane ticket to the United States

Monday Funny: War on Christianity Edition

Crooks and Liars posted a very funny bit from Bill Maher's show in which his 'New Rules' segment focuses on the resignation of Andy Card and the mythical American oppression of Christians.

Good stuff. (11 megs)

I'd like to use the term racism... if that's okay.

Media Matters posted a pretty telling clip of Michelle "I supported Ben Domenech and his editing of my latest book before I was against him" Malkin (formerly Maglalang, which I dare say is a bit less Republican-friendly) appearing on The O'Reilly Factor recently. Not only did she angrily decry the appearance of Mexican flags during the recent pro-immigration rally in LA (the video footage shown during her rant hilariously shows the crowd exhibiting a number of over-sized American flags), but she apparently decided to base her argument on an issue described as something of an anti-Latino version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Naturally, the fact that her most public appearances are on Bill O'Reilly's show mean that she isn't qualified for status as a 'public intellectual,' but it's important to remember that her venomous race-baiting is being presented as serious political debate.

On The O'Reilly Factor, Michelle Malkin declared that Latinos protesting the recent House bill aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration believe in "reconquista," or the theory that "the American Southwest belongs to Mexico." Malkin added that "the intellectual underpinnings of reconquista are embraced by the vast majority of mainstream Hispanic politicians."

It took the technologically-savvy folks at Media Matters about 37 seconds to uncover the following thanks to their double-secret informant, "Google."

A simple Google search shows that the people talking about Aztlan and reconquista are predominantly not Mexican (though there are some radical fringe groups) but white supremacists.

Quite a shock coming from a woman who wrote an entire book defending the detention of Japanese- (but not German- or Italian-) Americans during World War II. Fine, fine, maybe she isn't familiar with the exploits of the most decorated military unit in the history of the nation-- the 442nd Regiment, composed entirely of Japanese-Americans. Or maybe she's just way smarter than the rest of us in realizing that their so-called heroism was nothing more than a sneaky 'yellow' plot (no offense, Michelle-- my racial epithets apply only to Asians to the left of Donald Rumsfeld) to trick the American public into thinking that their ilk shouldn't have been put in internment camps.

Just a friendly reminder...

By way of pointing out Ohio's long-running Coingate scandal and its direct link to the White House, MyDD also brings up a troubling set of GOP not-so-fun facts (check out the Toledo Blade story here):

Senior presidential advisor Lewis Libby, indicted.
Chief procurement official David Safavian, indicted.
Senior domestic policy aide Claude Allen, indicted.
Treasury Department appointee Tom Noe, indicted.

Let's not forget House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, California GOP Rep. Randy Cunningham, or uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

And don't forget the fine Republicans under investigation for (or just plain implicated in) corruption-- Senator Frist, Representative Ryun, Representative Harris, Karl Rove, etc.

But, amazingly, neither the media nor the public seem to consider this a big deal. And the White House, as I wrote in my previous post, has decided that laughter is the best medicine for corruption.

Team Bush unveils squirting flower leadership strategy

This article is the type to make dyed-in-the-wool righties go ballistic and the other 70% of the country cringe in embarrassment. Naturally, it's a must-read. The new White House strategy for uniting the nation? Operation: Shecky.

As he takes to the road to salvage his presidency, Bush is letting down his guard and playing up his anti-intellectual, regular-guy image. Where he spent last year in rehearsed forums with select supporters, these days he is more frequently throwing aside the script and opening himself to questions from audiences that are not prescreened. These sessions have put a sometimes playful, sometimes awkward side back on display after years of trying to keep it under control to appear more presidential.

Call it the let-Bush-be-Bush strategy. The result is a looser president, less serious at times, even at times when humor might seem out of place. Aides used to dread such settings, worried about gaffes or the way Bush might come across in spontaneous exchanges. But with his poll numbers somewhere south of the border, they concluded that Bush handles back-and-forth better than he once did -- and that they have little left to lose.

"It shows the range of his personality, the humor," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. He said the White House has worked to put Bush out in public more, noting that he has had news conferences twice as often in his second term as in his first. "In a couple different ways, we've expanded his exposure," Bartlett said.

Yes, White House staffers are proudly congratulating themselves on the bold decision to have Fearless Leader speak without a script or a hand-picked audience. After a mere five years in office, we're able to see the 'range of his personality.' All the way from arrogant to ztupid.

What sort of knee-slapping hilarity can we expect from the Borscht Belt President?

At the same session, sponsored by Freedom House, a group promoting liberty around the world, a diplomat from Mali mentioned Bush's Millennium Challenge program to help poor countries develop democracy and complained that "we haven't seen any money yet." Bush responded with a joke. "I like a good lobbyist," he said, then acknowledged the program "was a little slow to get going" without explaining whether Mali could expect to receive funding soon.

Ha ha! Way to sock it to, uhhhh... emissaries from impoverished Third-World countries? No, wait--elite Beltway lobbyists! Yeah, awesome! Tell it again!

McCain in Flippity-Floppity Land

It's official. John McCain, the man who desperately wants the presidency, was on Press the Meat today and retracted his statement that Jerry Falwell is 'intolerant.' In spite of his earlier declaration that he would never retract it. Hey, just because a guy thinks that every last human being on earth who isn't a fundamentalist Christian should be denied their civil rights in life and then roast in hell for eternity doesn't mean he's intolerant. Just choosy. A connoisseur of souls, if you will. God's actuary.

Back in 2000, when McCain was asked whether he stood by his description of Falwell, he said, “I must not and will not retract anything that I said in that speech at Virginia Beach. It was carefully crafted, it was carefully thought out.” (Hardball, 3/1/00)

RUSSERT: Do you believe that Jerry Falwell is still an agent of intolerance?

MCCAIN: No, I don't. I think that Jerry Falwell can explain to you his views on this program when you have him on.

"Man, what was I thinking running on that whole integrity thing? Sheesh." Hopefully the Democrats had their Tivos running. Stringing together clips of McCain's initial statement, his Hardball quote backing up the statement, and his recent change of mind would be a great weapon to have in a campaign arsenal. Of course, using the clip of a tuxedo-clad Bush referring to "the haves and the have mores" as his base would've been nice, too.

Halliburton overcharged gov't, ingored reporting requirements

What a fun bunch of guys-- and isn't Cheney still getting more than a hundred grand a year from them? The massive defrauding of the US taxpayer in Iraq isn't a new story. Not by a longshot. Neither is the fact that the media is giving these crooks a pass. It's just a few billion dollars more on the US credit card in the sky that will fall squarely on the shoulders of working-class Americans. After the Bushies leave office, of course.

Frustrated government auditors pleaded, cajoled and finally threatened Halliburton Co. executives who repeatedly failed to comply with government reporting requirements under a key Iraq contract with a $1.2-billion potential price tag, newly released documents show.

The documents, along with a report, were issued Tuesday by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Government Reform. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) had requested the report on the contract, considered crucial to the restoration of oil production capacity in southern Iraq.

The 15-page report cites findings by auditors that Halliburton overcharged - "apparently intentionally" - on the contract by using hidden calculations, and attempted in one instance to bill the government for $26 million in costs it did not incur. Auditors also challenged $45 million in other costs, labeling them as "unreasonable or unsupported," the report said.

The report blamed the Department of Defense for awarding the contract despite warnings from auditors that Halliburton's cost estimating system had "significant deficiencies." Although federal officials have criticized the company and threatened to cancel its contracts, Halliburton remains the largest private contractor in Iraq.

The contract, awarded in January 2004, was one of three Iraq pacts for the company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

I can't remember what government accountability tastes like, but I suspect it's pretty delicious. but fraud hasn't tasted this bitter since the Reagan-era's notorious five hundred dollar toilet seats.

Katherine Harris 'till the wheels fall off

Florida's queen of funny-yet-sad could be history after this weekend. In spite of Harris' determined battle to guarantee that every photo taken of her accentuates her boobs, the rumors of her staff on the verge of jumping ship continue to grow.

The last of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris' key staffers appear ready to abandon her campaign for the U.S. Senate in a wave of resignations expected to start this weekend.

Sources close to the campaign said Friday that the defections would touch virtually every level of her operation.

Harris, who is running against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, is likely to lose her chief political strategist, her campaign manager, her spokeswoman, her director of field operations and even a traveling aide who helps hand out stickers at campaign appearances.

It is the latest and most dramatic indication so far that her campaign is on the verge of collapse.

"I've never seen staffers go like this," said David Johnson, a Republican pollster and consultant. "It's just imploding."

Calls and e-mails to the campaign were not returned Friday night, but sources said Harris met with staffers earlier in the day to tell them she would be hiring new people to replace those who had already left.

Campaign workers could stay, she said, but they would have to recommit themselves to the Senate race. She gave them until 5 p.m. Sunday to decide.

It's kind of sad, really. I can just picture the scene: a dusty phone, a cowebbed skeleton and two bags of silicone.

Economy booming, thanks to more work for less pay

It seems as though America really is turning into a Bushie wonderland. Great news for those at the top, not so good for wage earners, whose "incomes have not kept pace with inflation."

U.S. corporate profits have increased 21.3% in the past year and now account for the largest share of national income in 40 years, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Strong productivity gains and subdued wage growth boosted before-tax profits to 11.6% of national income in the fourth quarter of 2005, the biggest share since the summer of 1966.

For all of 2005, before-tax profits totaled $1.35 trillion, up from $1.16 trillion in 2004 and just $767 billion in 2001.

Meanwhile, the share of national income going to wage and salary workers has fallen to 56.9%. Except for a brief period in 1997, that's the lowest share for labor income since 1966. (. . .)

While profits are up 21.3% in the past year, labor compensation is up just 5.5%. After adjusting for inflation, population growth and taxes, real disposable per capita incomes are up just 0.5% in the past year.

Highly recommended reading.

Nation's emergency planners take a pass on FEMA post

The White House seems to be having a difficult time filling ol' Brownie's position with FEMA. Understandable, since anyone familiar with the Katrina response (to this very day we're paying some $20,000 a month for unused trailers parked in Arkansas), or with Michael Brown's testimony regarding the hellish bureaucracy of FEMA and Homeland Security, would run screaming in the other direction when the offer came in.

The calls went out across the nation, as Bush administration officials asked the country's most seasoned disaster response experts to consider the job of a lifetime: FEMA director. But again and again, the response over the past several months was the same: "No thanks."

Unconvinced that the administration is serious about fixing the Federal Emergency Management Agency or that there is enough time actually to get it done before President Bush's second term ends, seven of these candidates for director or another top FEMA job said in interviews that they had pulled themselves out of the running.

"You don't take the fire chief job after someone has burned down the city unless you are going to be able to do it in the right fashion," said Ellis M. Stanley, general manager of emergency planning in Los Angeles, who said he was one of those called.

Now, with the next hurricane season only two months away, the Bush administration has finally come up with a convenient but somewhat embarrassing solution. Mr. Bush, several former and current FEMA officials said, intends to nominate R. David Paulison, a former fire official who has been filling in for the past seven months, to take on the job permanently.

The Thousand Faces of April 1

It's a slow news day, but you can amuse yourself with any of hundreds of April Fool's pranks on the Web through Wikipedia, where users have been hard at work compiling them.

Mildly entertaining.