Bending the Third Rail

Just a Reminder

2007-04-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

The new blog, Tangled Webs, is over here. We'll not be blogging here any longer and have move.

Come join us!

Greyhair HERE

2007-04-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hey YOU. Yeah, YOU.

I'm over here!

Since blogger has bloggered this blog, I've had to set up shop elsewhere. I'm now here.

So if you want to see the latest and greatest greyhairness, go HERE.

Sick of It

2007-04-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I'm personally about to tell blogger to go screw itself.

Greyhair here, signed in as Lynne (the only way I can get in).

I've tried to remedy my problem for two days now in various ways. And contacting blogger help is worse than the worst computer phone system you've ever run into. I've gotten zero help.

I'm going to give it a day or so. Next stop, setting up a new blog!

Greyhair

Greyhair AWOL

2007-04-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

As soon as my coblogger gets acquainted with the new blogger, he'll be back online! :)

All Roads Lead To Rover

2007-04-12T13:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a short piece detailing more evidence that the Federal prosecutors were used to implement phony voter fraud intimidations/investigations curtailing Democratic voters.

The short version? He's done it before .... successfully.

Wankers

2007-04-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

I'm torturing myself today and watching the business news channel, CNBC.

They're currently having a hand wringing discussion about Democrats actually gaining power! Oh NO! They might not have a corporate agenda! They may favor union policies! Oh NO! Yet the story is that corporations are now giving more money to Dems than Republicans. Gee, I wonder which way big business thinks the electorate is going?

Corporations aren't stupid. They're going to put money where they think the investment will pay off. Perhaps Dems won't be quite as corporate friendly. But I don't think anyone with a brain is afraid that Dems are going to throw corporations out the door. Business folks want a guaranteed seat at the table, so they give money where power is. And politicians (of any stripe) need the mother's milk - money. It's a marriage made in heaven.

As liberals begin to regain their footing in the power game it's going to be ever more important for citizen institutions, i.e. bloggers, PAC's, non-profits, to stay all over Dems. Corporations should not be ignored. But they are one member of many players who should have an equal voice at the table. This is a weakness and the strength of liberals. We don't sing like a choir when we have power ......

A Stroll In The Marketplace

2007-04-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

Needlenose makes a good point today. I wonder how John McCain feels about today's bombing of the Iraqi parliament that is located in the "secure" green zone of Baghdad?

Another Edition Of .....

2007-04-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

What Digby said!

Just go give it a read. I'll simply add this. I heard a privacy advocate on PBS last night who capsulized my feelings on the entire issue of data gathering and privacy. He said (paraphrasing) that all gathered data is eventually used. There's no such thing as data gathered and not used. Reassurances that data gathered will be treated as "private" are always wrong.

Boom!

2007-04-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

More about the Chinese economy.

No wonder their stock market is frothy:

BEIJING - China's foreign reserves, already the world's largest, have risen past $1.2 trillion, a state news agency said Thursday, amid surging trade and plans to create a multibillion-dollar company to invest some of the stockpile.

The figure, as of the end of March, represented a 37.4 percent rise over the same period last year, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing the central bank.

China's reserves have risen rapidly as huge trade surpluses and foreign investment force Beijing to drain billions of dollars from the economy every month through bond sales to hold down pressure for prices to rise. The money is stockpiled in U.S. Treasury bonds and other foreign assets.

Their surplus is up $300 Billion in one year. The U.S. might as well be loading freighters with cash and shipping them over to China so they can then return with Wal Mart items.

This is a major ticking timebomb. What if the Chinese start putting that money in Euro's instead of Treasuries? And just what kind of leverage does our economic dependence on the Chinese give them politically? To free ourselves would require a substantial economic "readjustment" (read: meltdown). Of course a meltdown would also cause pain in China. But at least they'd have a whole bunch of cash in reserve to soften the blow. What do we have?

Excess

2007-04-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Want to see something amazing? This is an artist video rendition of a rotating building that is planned for Dubai (warning, a very short commercial is before the video).

Hope those oil sheiks are saving at least some of that money for when the wells run dry .....

Golden

2007-04-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

Some of the more conspiratorial thinking among us have suggested that the markets are really controlled to a large extent by "the big boys". I found an example of this phenomena today that is interesting. First, here's last night chart for gold:

The chart maker suggests that we're in for a "smackdown" of gold. There are no shortage of government monetary people who really would rather gold not go wild and the speculation is that they are keeping it trading in a narrow range (the blue box above). Now let's take a look at today's interday chart for gold:

My my. Down boy. Stay in the box!

That's some major hair cut about midday. Wonder what happened to make gold drop $6 dollars like that?

The point is that if you're a little guy investing, make sure you understand the agenda's of the big boys before buying/trading. If you don't follow the movement of the big boys closely, find someone who does and let them swim with the sharks.

The Nasdaq Effect

2007-04-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

Much is being made in the economic community about the Chinese stock market. It's being blamed for ups and downs. I have to admit, it seems a bit frothy. But I found this chart to be amazing. It's a overlay comparison of the Nasdaq chart during the recent internet bubble and the Chinese stock market today:

The chart asks a really good question. I'll be following this with interest to see if history is in the midst of repeating itself.

The Rose Mary Woods Affect

2007-04-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

Ah huh:

Everyone goes inside with the White House saying that e-mails relating to official government business that were improperly sent through a private system may have been lost. These e-mails, which included communication with Karl Rove and several other officials, could have included key documents in the investigation of the fired U.S. attorneys. There has been growing concern that Bush officials may have used private e-mail accounts, set up through the Republican National Committee, to avoid investigations. The White House said it will try to recover the lost messages.

Yeah, I'm sure the White House is busting it's ass to resurrect these emails.

Update: Oh. By the way. Deletion of these emails is a felony. One of many felonies perpetrated by Rove, Bush, et. al. over the years. But hey, there's been no revelations of blowjobs yet! (although, I have my suspicions about Jeff Gannon)

Update II: Let's make that 5 million felonies.

Have a Tour

2007-04-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've heard by now that the tour of duty for Army soldiers has been extended to 15 months (from 12 months) in order to fuel the escalation. I found this part to be most interesting:

Gates made sure to emphasize that although the new policy doesn't meen the troop buildup will be extended, it will allow the Pentagon the possibility to maintain current troop levels in Iraq for another year.

Another case of the Pentagon enabling Bush, or simply following Bush's orders. By taking this particular route, the military has made allowances for two full Friedman Units, reassuring the Preznit that he has the "flexibility" to do what he perceives is needed.

The Pentagon and military observers have been pointing out for some time that the military is at the "breaking point", yet it never seems to break. Rather the entire military structure is slowly crumbling to bits, much like the way the military was damaged during Vietnam. Like with everything Bush, it will take some time to rebuild (and frankly, I'm not sure if that's a bad thing?). Interestingly, I heard my first news report last night on ABC News of a wife complaining bitterly about her husband having been severely injured after being a stop-loss victim of the escalation. The husband was uninjured in his initial tour, but not so lucky later.

Trust me. At the end of the year Bush and the Pentagon will find a way to continue escalating, that is unless a significant number of Republicans turn against the President and the war. Ball's in their court .... let's see what they do with it.

Neoconned.

2007-04-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

"Once I was called to an explosion site," Saad, a humanitarian worker, is quoted as saying in the report.

"There I saw a four-year-old boy sitting beside his mother's body, which had been decapitated by the explosion. He was talking to her, asking her what had happened. He had been taken out shopping by his mum."
source

I don't believe in Hell but I'm wishing I did. Just for George and his neocon buddies.

Capex

2007-04-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

Nobody is positive that there is going to be a recession soon. But businesspeople are sure pulling in their horns:

Looks like a classic rollover chart to me.

Retraction

2007-04-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

Ok. So Bush didn't almost blow himself up the other day.

Interesting that the CEO of GM felt ok to make the Pres. the butt of his joke.

Death Watch

2007-04-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

Froomkin had this in his column this a.m.:

"Shawn Steele, the former Republican Party chairman in California, said the candidates were being dragged down by their associations with Mr. Bush as well as with the war. Mr. Steele and other Republicans argued that the candidates were in a difficult position as they tried to distance themselves from a president who is having so many difficulties, while at the same time not alienating Republican base voters and donors who remain loyal to Mr. Bush and his foreign policy.

"'It's a dying administration,' Mr. Steele said. 'There's a fatigue factor and there's a rubbing-off when it's not very smart to be closely associated with such low ratings.'"

I think this is the real story of this year's politics.

I was watching a retrospective on Nixon and Watergate last night. What struck me was the large and key role Republicans played in bringing Nixon down. It seems they had better instincts when it came to saving the GOP from an out-of-control President than the current GOP. It continues to be my focus to watch Congressional Republicans as we move into summer ... to see if they ever come to their senses and tell Bush NO (I'm not holding my breath).

Fortunately it appears that this misplaced loyalty by Republicans is going to have the effect of really crippling the GOP. We can only hope it has a cleansing effect.

Update: More:

"Republican leaders across the country say they are growing increasingly anxious about their party’s chances of holding the White House, citing public dissatisfaction with President Bush, the political fallout from the war in Iraq and the problems their leading presidential candidates are having generating enthusiasm among conservative voters," reports the New York Times.

"In interviews on Tuesday, the Republicans said they were concerned about signs of despondency among party members and fund-raisers, reflected in polls and the Democratic fund-raising advantage in the first quarter of the year. Many party leaders expressed worry that the party’s presidential candidates faced a tough course without some fundamental shift in the political dynamic."

HeadHunting

2007-04-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Looks like Bush is having a bit of trouble recruiting someone to add another layer of ~~blame~~ management to the war:

"The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation," they write.

"At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said. . . .

"'The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going,' said retired Marine Gen. John J. 'Jack' Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. 'So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, "No, thanks," ' he said. .

My first thought was, isn't that the President's job?

(slapping myself across the forehead) OH yeah, that's right. This is Bush.

Seriously, anyone with half a brain would be crazy to take such a job. There's zero upside and all downside. It may also be unprecedented that a Presidential request is being so roundly turned down.

Update: Just a quick note that one of the main architects of the whole ~~escalation~~ surge strategy, Gen. Jack Keane, turned down the job. I guess it's easier to shoot your mouth off than to actually stand for something.

Expansion!

2007-04-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

For some.

If you want to read a pretty good, short, post about why the average person is not particularly optimistic about the recent economic "expansion", go read this.

The short version? This economic recovery has been one of the worst in history.

Easter Egg Hunt

2007-04-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

Did you happen to see the surprising video of the traditional White House easter egg hunt?

What Are You Buying Today?

2007-04-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

Shoppers concerned with the environment (and their health) strive to make the right choices at the grocery store. Bolthouse Farms, a family-run California company whose products are often seen at organic markets and Whole Foods, seem like a good choice. But what else are you buying?
According to the Washington Spectator, the Bolthouse Foundation is underwritten chiefly with profits from Bolthouse Farms.

Bolthouse requires recipients of its grants to pledge adherence to a statement of faith that includes the declaration that "man was created by a direct act of God in His image, not from previously existing creatures" and a belief in "the everlasting blessedness of the saved and the everlasting punishment of the lost."

Bolthouse Foundation is a major contributor to the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).

Created just 13 years ago with the support of such Christian Right powerhouses as James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, it is today the nation's leading Christian Right legal organization. Through its National Litigation Academy, ADF has trained more than 900 lawyers, who commit themselves to performing 450 hours of pro bono legal work "on behalf of the body of Christ." It doles out millions of dollars a year to other Christian Right organizations—many of which are already well endowed—to cover attorneys' fees and costs.

And you thought you were just buying an organic tomato.

What A Clod

2007-04-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

Can you believe this?

The president invited lawmakers to the White House to discuss the bill but emphasized he's not willing to compromise. Democrats stood firm and said that sort of meeting would be useless.

What a clod.

Of course the point was to make the invitations and have Dems turn him down. Bush is still under the delusion that if he appears to be trying people will support him while he tries to make Democrats look intransigent. Unfortunately Bush forgot to look at the polls on the war where Dems are supported overwhelmingly. Thus, everything Bush does to try and humiliate Congress is essentially equivalent to humiliating the American public. By the Dems refusing to play, they are the proxy middle finger of the American public to the President.

Point Dems.

Rove is definately off his game. He's like a general who is fighting the last war.

Margin

2007-04-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

I just heard on CNBC that margin debt is at a new high. Margin debt is money borrowed by investors (read: speculators) to buy/short stocks. It also means that the market rally is being fueled by credit. This is ok as long as the market goes up. But if, or I should say "when", the market begins to fall (and it WILL fall), the fall could be precipitious as folks rush to the exits to cover their loans.

Imus

2007-04-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Whoa. What a big story! Not.

My only thoughts on the Imus controversy are what took so long? Imus (and many other folks) have been saying crap for years. Why the outcry now? I'm glad Imus is getting his hands slapped. But there is an element of unfairness in the application of the standard. Maybe this is the beginning of a "new era" of civility in broadcasting?

I doubt it.

Apple's Newest

2007-04-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

As a Mac user, I really appreciate this: The Apple iRack!

Hey

2007-04-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang. Not much bloggin' goin' on with my end. We've had a new addition to the family and I've been in/out of town. Hopefully back in the saddle soon! In the meantime, give em' hell!

Update: Here's the details of the new addition.

National Day of Climate Change

2007-04-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday, April 14th, thousands in all 50 states will rally for a National Day of Climate Change. Is there a rally near you?

Nothing to Add

2007-04-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

More truthiness over at Freewayblogger.

A Gentler World

2007-04-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of The New Republic features an article that caught my attention. Harvard professor Steven Pinker maintains that the levels of violence worldwide have fallen over the centuries. My first thought was, "Are you crazy?"
His article, A History of Violence, begins with this example:

In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a fire. According to historian Norman Davis, "[T]he spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized." Today such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the world.

Indeed it would. We live in an age in which every atrocity is fed live and in full color directly into our living rooms. We tend to remember the violence we see, store it up, and draw conclusions based on these pictures and stories. The news is not full of people dying of old age nor are the cameras covering the normal routines of peaceful nations. How much news coverage have you seen recently of events in Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, etc.?

No one really knows why humans are becoming less violent but it appears to be a worldwide trend. Pinker states, "The leading edge has been in Western societies, especially England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth century."

I have long suspected that reason and secular societies are the beacons that will light our way toward a kindler and gentler world. Phil Zuckerman, associate professor of sociology at Pitzer College in California, questions whether religious societies are safer and more stable than secular nations. He writes

In reality, the most secular countries—those with the highest proportion of atheists and agnostics—are among the most stable, peaceful, free, wealthy, and healthy societies. And the most religious nations—wherein worship of God is in abundance—are among the most unstable, violent, oppressive, poor, and destitute.

Morality is not dependent on religion. In fact, it is observed in the animal world. A recent New York Times article begins:

Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.

Regardless of what is changing, we should not give up hope when we see all of the violence in the news. Pinker ends his article with this thought:

Whatever its causes, the decline of violence has profound implications. It is not a license for complacency: We enjoy the peace we find today because people in past generations were appalled by the violence in their time and worked to end it, and so we should work to end the appalling violence in our time.

Keep fighting the good fight.

No Dissent Allowed

2007-04-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

"...the Senator [Norm Coleman R-MN] is avoiding a conversation because he is headed into a difficult, uphill reelection bid. He does not want to speak publicly about how he has supported the Bush Administration at every opportunity because his constituents have opposed President Bush's destructive War Policy.
So his office decided to have us arrested instead.

I Wonder?

2007-04-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

With several prominent Democrats (Edward, Obama) holding firm to staying off Fox News, I wonder if Fox is starting to shift a bit. Chris Wallace today called Newt Gingrich on his hypocrisy regarding the Pelosi visit to Syria.

I'm not holding my breath. But I think it bears watching and can be used as encouragement for other Dems to stay off Fox until they are really fair and balanced.

Just Like Any Other Two Year Old

2007-04-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

From Think Progress:

Ford CEO saves President Bush’s life.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally tells reporters that he had to run over and stop President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of a hybrid car at the White House last week.

“I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness!’ So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front,” Mulally said. “I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?”

We were seconds away from Presiden Pelosi.

Meanwhile, In Iraq ...

2007-04-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

The war continues. Headlines:

64 Dead in Iraq; 4 US Troops Killed;
Bombings in Baghdad, Bodies in Baquba;
US vs. Mahdi Army in Diwaniya

Friday Came, Friday Went

2007-04-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

The reported attack by the U.S. on Iran that was supposed to happen on Good Friday didn't. Yet another report that turned out to be wrong.

Interestingly, it didn't happen because of restraint as the U.S. tried really really hard to start a battle .....

The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has learned.

Retrospective Freidman Unit

2007-04-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

Via Atrios:

One F.U. and two days ago George Casey said:

This is a decisive period for everyone and everyone knows it. The next six months will determine the future of Iraq.
Any idea what we've decided?

Atrios keeps a running commentary on those who invoke Friedman Units and puts those statements up when the Unit is over. It's funny to watch just how ridiculous these folks are .... and tragic.

Day 2

2007-04-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

The carcass of a harp seal pup is left on an ice pan after it's pelt was removed by sealers in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence April 5, 2007. The northern Gulf is in its second day of the annual seal hunt. REUTERS/Paul Darrow (CANADA)

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."—Gandhi

DOJ In Disarray

2007-04-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a shock for you, a slew of managers in the Minneapolis Federal Prosecutors office have resigned after one of Gonzales's 35 33 year old crony's was ~~coronated~~ appointed to the post.

The DOJ is in disarray. I wonder if any work is getting done.

Update: Doesn't look like much work is getting done:

The U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota demonstrates the havoc that ensues when the Bush administration places politics over justice. Four top staffers to Rachel Paulose, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, have voluntarily demoted themselves in protest of Paulose’s “highly dictatorial style” of managing. Paulose has also “earned a reputation for quoting Bible verses and dressing down underlings.”

According to news reports, the staffers’ dramatic moves were “intended to send a message to Washington — that 33-year-old Paulose is in over her head.” The Bush administration tried to prevent the resignations by sending a “top justice official to Minneapolis Thursday to mediate the situation. The mediation failed.”

Who Really Know's?

2007-04-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

There is new evidence that the British soldiers who were detained by the Iranians were on an intelligence mission.

Jobs

2007-04-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

The latest jobs report actually shows an increase in net jobs:

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 180,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 4.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.

The details seem to point to some seasonal factors, but we'll take a net increase in employment anytime.

The stock market is closed today, but I'd bet that the report would be seen as negative to the market as it would indicate further inflation fears and, thus, Fed rate increases. But remember, jobs are a "lagging" indicator meaning that it's one of the last sectors of the economy to improve, and one of the last to decline, trailing the economic trend.

Big Bidness

2007-04-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that Kirk Kerkorian has put a bid in on Chrysler. The deal likely hinges on cooperation (meaning pay cuts) from the auto workers. On the same day, there's this story:

The Ford Motor Company paid its new chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, $28.18 million in his first four months on the job, the automaker said in a regulatory filing yesterday.

His compensation included an $18.5 million bonus that Ford, which reported a record $12.7 billion loss last year, disclosed in September when it hired him from Boeing.

Figures in Ford’s annual proxy statement show that his pay was more than three times that of any other executive at the company. That includes the executive chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., who has kept a 2005 promise not to accept any new salary, bonus or stock awards until Ford consistently earns a profit.

The second-highest pay, $8.67 million, was also for only a few months’ work; it went to James J. Padilla, who retired as president and chief operating officer in July.

Three executives received bonuses for their roles in reducing manufacturing capacity, cutting costs and achieving other goals as part of Ford’s overhaul plan, known as the Way Forward. The awards were part of a retention program that the company recently abandoned.

Ford is giving the usual excuses about acquiring talent, the market rate blahblahblah. The news channel I was watching interviewed a few Ford autoworkers who looked like someone had stuck a really sour lemon in their mouths.

Good luck Chrysler in your negotiations. I hope the unions hang tough. They're already losing jobs at a prodigious rate so they really don't have a lot to lose.

Slow Week

2007-04-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

You know it's a very slow newsweek when the big story on CNN is Susan Malveaux complaining about Nancy Pelosi visiting Syria. Or when the rightwingnuts go ga ga over Pelosi wearing a headscarf out of respect for their traditions. Or how about Orrin "Utah snake oil salesman" Hatch's typical lying b.s. on Timmeh's show this last Sunday. It's all hypocritical blowhard nonsense, which is why you know it's a slow week for news.

I think I'd rather hear about Anna Nicole's breast than this hypocritcal crap.

Yawwwwwwn ................

Your Tax Dollars At Work

2007-04-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

But then what will the minutemen do?

USAT also fronts a piece on an invasive plant species that can grow 18 feet high along the Mexican border, allowing drug- and/or people-smugglers cover as they sneak across. The United States plans to spend $1.5 million to bring in European bugs to eat the vegetation.

We should give the minutemen a hoe and let them do their part to protect Amurika.

The Proof Is In ......

2007-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

Anyone (looking at your pundits) who thinks that the 2006 election has made Bush in any way more accountable or ethical need only to read this to know otherwise:

It cost fund-raiser Sam Fox more than $4,600 for the ambassadorship to Belgium. Fox, a top Republican donor, gave $50,000 in 2004 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that helped sink John Kerry's presidential campaign and spawned its own verb. That was enough for Democrats to vow to block his confirmation to the post. Bush withdrew his nomination last week, only to bring it up again while the Senate is out of session, allowing him to bypass it. Though USAT points out below-the-fold that the move will cost Bush in terms of his relationship to Congress, he may have figured he had little left to lose.

So that wackjob Sam Fox is our new ambassador!

Who Represents You?

2007-04-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

David Sirota has a good rundown on who the politicians represent: you or K Street.

He specifically looks at the Democratic candidates here.

Hostages Release?

2007-04-04T08:54:00.000-07:00

Iran has announced that they will release the hostages.

I'll believe it when they're in Britain.

If they do, this "crisis" will have been resolved without the west declaring war on Iran! Imagine that?

Hidden in the back pages of the news it was also announced that Iraqi officials released an Iranian diplomat .... no quid pro quo.

Right.

There's much more to the resolution of this issue than we know. Who knows if we'll ever find out the whole story. One thing is for certain. Iran got the message across that if "you take our folks, we'll take yours".

Netroots

2007-04-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

It looks like the netroots have reared their heads again. I don't normally comment on this type of stuff so early, but this is impressive:

Over 100,000 People Donate to Obama Campaign in First Quarter

Campaign Raises At Least $25 Million, At Least $23.5 Million for Primary

Chicago, IL- The Obama for America campaign today announced that it will report raising at least $25 million from more than 100,000 people in the first quarter of 2007, with at least $23.5 million eligible to be spent in the Democratic primary.

“This overwhelming response, in only a few short weeks, shows the hunger for a different kind of politics in this country and a belief at the grassroots level that Barack Obama can bring out the best in America to solve our problems,” said Obama for America Finance Chair Penny Pritzker.

The Obama campaign raised $6.9 million over the Internet from more than 50,000 donors.

The money figure is impressive itself. But from 100,000 donators? That's huge and very grassrootsy.

Conyers to Goodling

2007-04-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

John Conyers sent a letter to Monica "I'll take the fifth" Goodling. The short version is that Conyers doesn't think she has the grounds for the fifth, but either way he wants her to come over and tell the committee about it.

We have reviewed Ms. Goodling's declaration and the letters you sent to us and Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we are concerned that several of the asserted grounds for refusing to testify do not satisfy the well-established bases for a proper invocation of the Fifth Amendment against self- incrimination. In addition, of course, the Fifth Amendment privilege, under long-standing Supreme Court precedents, does not provide a reason to fail to appear to testify; the privilege must be invoked by the witness on a question-by-question basis.

Ask a question, get the fifth response. Lather, rinse, repeat.

FWIW Department

2007-04-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Andrea Mitchell has been saying for a few days that the Republicans in Congress have given Bush until August to get Iraq squared away.

First, does anyone really believe Andrea Mitchell anymore? Second, does any really believe that there won't be a case made for giving the Preznit another Friedman Unit in August?

From the Non-News Department

2007-04-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

Bush is held a news conference today to attack the Dems on the war legislation. Blah blah blah blah. But you just watch the news media parrot his every ~~tantrum~~ word.

Dems need to be very loud and very proud in asserting that Bush is blocking the will of the people. They need to say it loud, often and ad nauseaum.

Update: Harry Reid in response to Preznit pissypants:

The President today asked the American people to trust him as he continues to follow the same failed strategy that has drawn our troops further into an intractable civil war. The President's policies have failed and his escalation endangers our troops and hurts our national security. Neither our troops nor the American people can afford this strategy any longer.

Democrats will send President Bush a bill that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices. If the President vetoes this bill he will have delayed funding for troops and kept in place his strategy for failure.

More like that please.

It Helps To Have Friends In High Places

2007-04-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

I read about this the other day, but the more I think about it the madder I get.

David Hicks, and Aussie, has been held by the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay for a long time. It appears he was a crappy foot soldier for al Qaeda. Hicksw finally came up for a tribunal hearing and was looking at some serious longer confinement. Then suddenly, in the middle of the hearing, a plea bargain was reached that resulted in a very short prison term for Hicks and a return to Australia. Everyone, including the defense attorney's, were flumoxed at exactly what happened.

Turns out that Cheney had a little meeting with Australian prime minister John Howard awhile back. Howard, who's a rabid Bush supporter and facing a tough re-election, apparently lobbied for Cheney to intervene for Hicks .... which Cheney obviously did. Voila', Hicks is off the hook and heading home!

Does anyone really think such an intervention would ever happen for someone who is Arab? Boy, those American tribunals are really carrying out an even-handed justice aren't they! The U.S. has zero moral authority in the world when it comes to promoting freedom and justice.

Itching For A Fight

2007-04-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sadr had better tread carefully or he'll lose his troops:

The LAT off-leads with a scoop from Iraq, reporting that militants formerly loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr are being siphoned off by other militant groups, some of which may have Iranian backing. Sadr is losing support because he urged his followers to freeze their activities at U.S. behest. Officials worry that if Sadr loses control of his people, it will be much harder to influence Shiite militants.

Cooperating with the U.S. in the Middle East makes anyone automatically radioactive.

Missing/Man/Iran

2007-04-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

This is connected in some way to the other Iran stories:

April 2, 2007 — An American citizen is missing in Iran, the State Department said today.

Sources tell ABC News that the missing American was a former FBI agent, although they stressed that he was now a private citizen and that his trip to Iran was on "private business" and not associated with official U.S. matters.

State spokesman Sean McCormack said that the United States had been monitoring this case for several weeks and today had sent a message to Iran through diplomatic channels for more information on his whereabouts.

State Department officials say that Iran has yet to respond with any information. Because the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, the message was passed on by the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.

Why has this been so quiet? Do you believe this is not connected to the British hostages? What would an "former" FBI agent be doing in Iran? He was their on "private" business? Or was he there on "company" business.

Just another note on my earlier "let's bomb Iran by Friday post" .... ABC News led tonight with a fear-mongering story of Iran having nukes as early as two years from now. Everything credible, (meaning not administration) that I've read says ten years is more like it and that this estimate may be on the early side. Wonder where ABC got the story and the information? (Hint: there are several anonymous sources). The one semi-credible source was this:

"If they continue at this pace, and they get the centrifuges to work and actually enrich uranium on a distinct basis," said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, "then you're looking at them having, potentially having enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 2009."

Note all the qualifiers and if's in the quote. Methinks the administration is ginning things up again.

Allies

2007-04-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

What would happen if Iran and Saudi Arabia sign a mutual aid peace treaty?

The live wire at last week’s Arab League summit in Riyadh was undoubtedly the non-Arab guest of honor, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

He breezed around the Arab delegations hard-selling the notion of a mutual defense treaty between Iran and the Arabs on the lines of the Tehran-Damascus pact. Mottaki argued that a treaty of this kind would allay Arab fears of an Iranian nuclear threat, put a stop to a Middle East nuclear arms race, provide the Arabs with a protective umbrella against Israeli aggression and set up an Arab-Islamic front against US and other foreign intervention in the region.

I'll freely admit I don't know this news source so I take it with a bit of salt. But it is quite intriguing to think of the impact on the U.S. if this is true. A treaty between the two countries would represent an impressive counter force to the U.S. in the region, and a very significant threat to world oil supplies. And I'm not even thinking about the impact on Israel ........

Quote of The Day

2007-04-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yep:

I would suggest that it was when the Democrats finally took the issue of Iraq seriously that the country began to take them seriously. And it wasn't because it was a "daddy issue." It was because it was the most important issue on the table. It still is.

Digby, discussing the nonsense meme of the "mommy/daddy" political parties.

When the politicians lead, people respect them. When they pander, they're seen as sissies. If you want a prime example, look at St. John's tanking poll numbers since he's been the Preznit's bootlicker-in-chief vs. his popularity when he really did take a stand.

The Big Week

2007-04-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

Some of the overseas news media have been reporting that this is the week that the U.S. will bomb Iran. A third carrier group has left San Diego for the Persian Gulf. Pentagon folks are saying that it's a replacement deployment, not an additional deployment. But would they announce it if it was permanent? The Iranians are holding firm on the hostage crisis with Britain, perhaps as an insurance policy against attack (Iranians read the papers). Meanwhile, the U.S. may be routinely violating Iranian airspace.

Should be an interesting week in Iranian news! We shall see just how reliable those "foreign sources" are!

Run Sister! RUN!

2007-04-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

Desperate military recruiters.

The New Yorker has a column on some of the nonsense going on with trying to get folks to join the military:

Susan Kahane, who is twenty-two, graduated from Columbia last spring. When she took the MCAT, in August, she checked a box to signal that she wished to receive information about outside sources of financial aid. Soon, she was inundated with e-mails from the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force (“FREE MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!”). One, sent on January 31st by Captain Christopher D. Mayhugh, of the Army Medical Service Corps, stood out. “Upon finishing your residency,” the message read, “you will be assigned to one of a variety of locations including Germany, Italy and Hawaii and your obligation will be complete.” (The Medical Service Corps’s Web page, in contrast, notes prominently that its officers have participated in combat operations in Korea, Kosovo, Somalia, Panama, and Iraq.)

Mayhugh’s omission of Iraq, Kahane recalled last week, “seemed a little bit strange.” Still, she said, “These e-mails were often slightly tempting to me, because of my worries about paying for medical school.”

On March 14th, Kahane received another e-mail from Mayhugh, with the subject “Medical school scholarships still available.” This time, rather than invoking European and tropical destinations, Mayhugh addressed the prospect of being posted to a less than desirable locale. “What if you get sent to Iraq?” he wrote in the letter’s final paragraph. He continued:
Well, consider this: there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. The rate in Washington, D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation’s Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.
Kahane recalled, “After reading it once, I felt strongly that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what.”

Ah. Yeah.

Of course that old canard about Washington is totally wrong (read the article to find out how).

Wonder why they're having problems getting recruits?

What Gives?

2007-04-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post takes on the heady subject of throwing out the first pitch on baseball's opening day:

Today is Washington's 65th Opening Day since 1910, when William H. Taft gave us a tradition: the ceremonial first pitch by the president. Taft threw the inaugural one for the Senators that year. In the local club's 63 home openers since, a dozen presidents have done the honors 45 times, from front-row seats or from the mound, making them 46 for 64 overall (.719). Pretty reliable.

President Bush kept up the tradition in 2005, celebrating baseball's return to the nation's capital after a 33-season absence. But he missed last year's home opener -- and he'll miss today's, too, when the Nationals host the Florida Marlins at 1:05 p.m. Except for when the world was at war, only two other presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Richard M. Nixon, missed Opening Day ceremonies two years in a row. And Wilson had suffered a stroke.

What gives?

Gee, I wonder?

Last year Bush sent Cheney to do the honors. And he was roundly booed. Wonder who he'll send this year?

Dear leader can't stand the thought that there may be a full round of boos coming from the stands. Wouldn't want anything to burst that bubble he lives in.

What Next

2007-04-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that it should be interesting to see what the Republicans do in the face of Bush's intransigence. But just now it appears that the Dems are at a crossroads. With an impending Bush veto of the Iraq legislation, there appear to be mixed signals:

In anticipation of a Bush veto and the likelihood that they won’t be able to summon enough Republicans who care about the troops or public opinion sufficiently to override that veto, Senate Democrats are already rolling out a contingency plan that puts the GOP on notice about something very important: That they are going to be forced over and over again to be on the record as voting to strand our military men and women in the middle of a bloody civil war.

vs.

(AP) If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker "wants to play chicken with our troops," Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.

Methinks someone has their story wrong. Which is it?

The New, Improved Al Qaeda

2007-04-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

Unforseen consequences (except they weren't unforeseen):

U.S. intelligence officials now have a better understanding of what the leadership of a revamped, decentralized al-Qaida looks like, says the NYT. It is younger, better trained, less likely to have ties to the struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and more likely to include members from a variety of nations. Authorities say camps in remote tribal areas of Pakistan were key to the network's resurgence.

Isn't it interesting how the thing you resist, persists? Couldn't be more true with Bush. The more he fights against al Qaeda, the bigger and better it gets.

One Picture ... and all that

2007-04-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Heckuva economy we got goin' here.

What's really fasinating is that despite the reality of falling wages for the middle class and poor, spending continues to power forward.

The Peaceful Iraq

2007-04-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Talk about teetering on a cliff ....

Iraq's government has endorsed plans to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to force ethnic Kurds out of the oil-rich city, in an effort to undo one of the former dictator's most enduring and hated policies.

The contentious decision was confirmed Saturday by Iraq's Sunni justice minister as he told The Associated Press he was resigning. Almost immediately, opposition politicians said they feared it would harden the violent divisions among Iraq's fractious ethnic and religious groups and possibly lead to an Iraq divided among Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiites.

The plan was virtually certain to anger neighboring Turkey, which fears a northward migration of Iraqi Kurds — and an exodus of Sunni Arabs — will inflame its own restive Kurdish minority.

. . . Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the Ottoman Empire, has a large minority of ethnic Turks as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. The city is just south of the Kurdish autonomous zone stretching across three provinces of northeastern Iraq.

Iraq's constitution sets an end-of-the-year deadline for a referendum on Kirkuk's status. Since Saddam's fall four years ago, thousands of Kurds who once lived in the city have resettled there. It is now believed Kurds are a majority of the population and that a referendum on attaching Kirkuk to the Kurdish autonomous zone would pass easily.

This means that Kirkuk becomes a de facto Kurdish city in an autonomous Kurdistan. It also means that national Iraqi reconcilliation is further unlikely as the Kurds solidify power and control over an autonomous region.

We Are One World

2007-04-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

St. John In Baghdad

2007-04-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

St. John McCain visited Baghdad today and extolled the virtues of the escalation. His big claim is that the media is not reporting all the improvements in Iraq and that the surge is working.

Further reading into the article reveals the truth:

One shopowner in Shorja, which was closed to traffic after the February bombings, said there had been a heavy security presence, with many U.S. soldiers on the ground and U.S. helicopters overhead.

Another member of McCain's delegation said the group had traveled in armored Humvees with the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who had encouraged them to take off their helmets as they chatted to locals and bought carpets.

HEY MA! Look at this. I can take my helmet off! The escalation is really working! Can't you imagine the scene as all these big-wigs slowly, carefully, take their helmets off while anxiously looking all around ..... If you have enough troops, helicopters and VIP's traveling around in an area, you can go anywhere relatively safely!

If/when St. John ever goes out into Baghdad without a military escort, without body armor and in a normal car and gets out to visit with locals, then I'll be impressed.

Barns and Horses

2007-04-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Matthew Dowd, a former Bush advisors, joins the chorus of those recognizing that Bush is an idiot:

The chief strategist for President George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign wrote an editorial that said Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry was right in calling for a withdrawal from Iraq -- "Kerry Was Right" -- but never submitted it, according to an article to be published in Sunday's New York Times.

Much is being written, pro and con, about Dowd coming to his senses. I'm feeling both pro and con. Pro because it's always nice to have someone come to their senses. What is disturbing is that it took so long.

Our country depends on leaders to have good judgement. To have taken this long to recognize that Bush is a disaster is not a good indicator of Dowd's judgement. We needed patriots, with good judgement, to come forward years ago. The fact that so many didn't (talkin' to you Colin Powell) has been devastating to America and these national leaders are largely to blame. This is a classic example of being blinded by loyalty to the party tribe rather than the national ideals.

Surge Watch

2007-04-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Casualties are up 15% in Iraq since the beginning of the escalation. Things are looking up alright .....

Meanwhile, American soliders are dying at twice the rate of Iraqi soldiers. Sounds like they're standing down while we stand up.

Waxman To Rice

2007-03-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

A wonderful letter indeed:

Dear Madam Secretary:

On March 12, 2007, I sent you a letter renewing, as formal requests of the Committee, prior letter requests that I sent to you between 2003 and 2006. These requests sought information on the claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, White House treatment of classified information, the appointment of Ambassador Jones as “special coordinator” for Iraq, and other subjects. My March 12 letter is attached.

The March 12 letter requested a response by March 23 to several of the inquiries, but the Committee received no response from you.

I now request your appearance before the Committee at a hearing on Wednesday, April 18, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building. At this hearing, you will be asked to provide testimony and respond to questions on the subjects outlined in the March 12 letter and the original request letters. …

Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman

Kudo's to Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi and all the Dems who are really trying to exercise appropriate government oversight.

Vote Influencing

2007-03-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Here's an LA Times story on exactly what was wrong with the prosecutors firings. Despite the "they serve at the pleasure of the President" mantra, this story outlines exactly what the Rove operation was all about:

THE SCANDAL unfolding around the firing of eight U.S. attorneys compels the conclusion that the Bush administration has rewarded loyalty over all else. A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest.

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

This is written by Joseph D. Rich, who was chief of the voting section in the Justice Department's civil right division from 1999 to 2005. He now works for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Indeed, there have never been limits on the Presidents ability to fire Federal prosecutors. But then, they've never been needed as Presidents have historically respected the spirit of an independent justice system.

Until now.

Ironically, one outcome of the Bush presidency may be a weaker President, not a stronger one.

A hallmark of a sociopath is the willingness to test, or break through, all limits. Throughout the six years Rove, with the backing of the stupid-ass preznit, has turned the government into a political operation with the sole goal of maintaining Republican supremacy. This is no surprise when you combine the Republican contempt for government with their thirst for power. We're seeing some of it exposed, but I seriously doubt we'll be able to find all the metastases, there's simply not enough time or investigators.

Conserving?

2007-03-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

In the past, when gasoline prices rose significantly drivers responded by conserving. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be occurring lately.

It appears that the process of adaptation is firmly in place for gasoline up to $3.50/gal. and will take much higher prices, or shortages, to get consumers attention again.

Wasting Time

2007-03-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here the real data on how Americans feel about Congressional oversight:

Compare and contrast with the bobblehead talking points that America doesn't want investigations, it wants legislation! Note that even Republicans nearly equally support investigations over not.

Quick Hits

2007-03-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Here are two examples of the corruption of the media/punditocracy.

One is Margaret Carlson commenting on her former boink-mate Fred Thomson, and the other is James Carville doing political analysis without a disclaimer that he is a Hillary Clinton advisor (Paul Begala, ditto)

T. Boone

2007-03-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

You all may remember T. Boone Pickens, the oil mogul. There's a blog post at "The Mess That Greenspan Made" with an interview of Pickens on the oil situation. Take a moment and give it a read.

The short version is that peak oil is likely here and oil prices will hit $75/barrel before going back to $55/barrel.

Time to buy more oil futures.

Wandering Thoughts

2007-03-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

Last night on the Lehrer Newshour, panelists were discussing the confrontation between Congress and Bush over war funding/timetables. Judy Woodruff asked the question, what happens if they don't reach an agreement, particularly to the troops stuck in Iraq? No one on the panel really answered her citing that it's unprecedented.

I just wanted to comment that in any and all negotiations with Bush, Congressional Dems must keep in mind that Bush will not compromise and won't back down. He'll take himself, the Republican party and the country right over the cliff in his attempts to prove his manhood and resolve. He's pugilistic to the max, meaning that Dems had better have a plan for what their strategy will be after a veto, and with Bush willing to allow funding to lapse for the war.

The Pentagon can keep the war going for some time without official funding. But the P.R. campaign by the administration of a lack of funding will be enormous and viewed by Rove as an opportunity to slam the Democrats. The Dems need to prepare for this eventuality rather than running on conventional wisdom that reason will intervene and that Bush will ultimately negotiate.

The Riddle

2007-03-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I need a few minutes of "nice".

This Means War!

2007-03-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

This does not surprise me in the least.

Does believing that "God is on our side" make it easier for us to inflict pain and suffering on those perceived to be our enemies? If we think God sanctions violence, are we more likely to engage in violent acts?

The answer to both those questions, according to new research, is a resounding "yes," even among those who do not consider themselves believers.
source

Shamelessly stolen from Gryphen. And just to prove the point, there's this.

Still Standing Up

2007-03-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Remember the post the other day about Iraqi policemen running around shooting civilians? Here's the latest on that story:

MOSUL, Iraq, March 29 (Reuters) - Policemen who took part in the reprisal shootings of scores of men in northwest Iraq this week were arrested but then freed again to prevent unrest, the provincial governor said on Thursday.

Hours after truck bombs killed 85 people on Tuesday in a Shi'ite area of Tal Afar, up to 70 Sunni Arab men were shot dead in a town which only a year ago was held up by U.S. President George W. Bush as an example of progress towards peace.

Sigh.

Can You?

2007-03-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

I can't.

Should've Known

2007-03-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

The GOP is running attack ads against one of the fired U.S. prosecutors, David Iglesias.

Talk about kicking a guy when he's down.

Oh.

And of course everything in the ad is bullshit.

So Much

2007-03-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'm out of town right now, so light blogging.

The scandals keep on a comin'. Today it's the Government Services administration (GSA) being used by Rove to win Senate seats. This is a total violation of the Hatch act.

I kn0w it was said that a cancer was growing on the Nixon Presidency. But doesn't it seem as if there's a metastatic quality to Rove's involvement in virtually every arena of government?

You've gotta watch this clip of Lurita Doan of GSA being "interviewed" on her role promoting GOP goals through the GSA:

Libby disease, it's rampant.

Allies UPDATED

2007-03-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

Good friends:

WP columnist Jim Hoagland wonders why Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said no when the White House invited him to a gala in his honor. It's a story that has received scant attention in the papers, but an official flew to Washington last week to explain the cancellation as a scheduling conflict. No one is buying that. Hoagland says it's "one more warning sign that the Bush administration's downward spiral at home is undermining its ability to achieve its policy objectives abroad." And Saudi Arabia's king is not alone. Jordan's King Abdullah, who has never been shy about visiting Bush, said he won't be able to make a state visit that was being discussed for September.

It has nothing to do with Bush's popularity at home. It has to do with Bush's popularity in the world!

Of course not visiting Bush is just smart policy. Bush specifically and America generally, are so radioactive in the middle east, coming here and kissing Bush's ring would be political suicide.

Update: Put this is your pipe and smoke it Mr. Bush:

One day later: “The king of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, condemned the presence of American forces in Iraq as an ‘illegitimate foreign occupation‘ in a speech today, and said the withholding of aid to Palestinians should end.”

More Chicken

2007-03-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Yet another game of chicken with the administration. As you likely know, the Congress is going to pass a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq with the most recent appropriations bill. Then:

The WSJ points out Bush and Congress must reach some sort of compromise by mid-May because that's when the military will start facing major money problems.

Get ready for a full metal jacket, red white and blue whine-a-thon from Republicans about Democrats not supporting the troops. How the Dems navigate this is going to be very important.

Standing UP

2007-03-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Iraqi style:

BAGHDAD - Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents in the northwestern town Wednesday, killing as many as 60 people, officials said.

The gunmen began roaming Sunni neighborhoods in the city, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician.

Great Visuals

2007-03-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

By now you've likely heard that Department of Justice Aide Monica Goodling plans on taking the fifth rather than testifying in front of Congress.

Can you imagine the visuals?

Senator: Ms. Goodling, can you tell us what was said at your meeting with Attorney General Gonzales on blah blah date?

Goodling: Senator, I refuse to answer on the grounds that the answer may tend to incriminate me.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat over and over again.

If the Senators have their act together, they'll ask her questions for a couple of hours. This would complete the accurate depiction of the Bush administration as a mob family pulling the levers to stay out of jail.

As I understand it. You can only take the fifth if you have reasonable belief that you've committed a crime. Certainly she's implying that there is wrongdoing going on and that she might get caught in a "perjury trap". Ok. Then give her immunity and voila', immunity doesn't apply. I don't think that any wrongdoing by Monica Goodling is the goal of the investigation. You know, small fish/big fish.

Just A Thought

2007-03-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

Suppose that the Iranians use the same interrogation techniques on the captured British soldiers used by the U.S. in Iraq and GWOT?

How would America and Britain respond if these boys are ~~tortured~~ interrogated?

One Ugly Chart

2007-03-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Just to give you some perspective on how bad the housing market has become .... goes back 10 years ....

Punditidocy

2007-03-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

Just take three minutes and watch this clip of the kewl kidz at work:

This is high school inside gossip at it's best. And remember, those being interviewed here are the Washington Press Corps!!! No discussion of lying, the impact of those lies, or policy implications. No references to illegalities, to the undermining of the freaking Constitution. No, just a bunch of fun fun fun bullshit political guesses. It's all just fun whispering about the cocktail weenie crowd. These are serious thinkers?

Is it any wonder that Bush has been so successful? One thing I may actually share with the Preznit is a complete disdain for the chattering class. They are shameful.

Oh My

2007-03-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

Indeed:

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using "targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country."

Isn't that, .... like .... illegal?

Hang Tough

2007-03-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Go ahead Bush, just keep on hanging tough with Abu and the subpoenas. We like it that way.

White House still supporting Gonzales.

Even though both liberal and conservative lawmakers, pundits, members of the media, and the American public are pushing for Gonzales’s resignation, the White House refuses to budge. “We are not negotiating,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We are where we are, which is where we were last week. I can understand why people would think we have not made the right decision, but we think we have.”

Oh, and you other Republicans? Just keep on supporting your fearless leader. We like that too.

Family Values Party

2007-03-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

The "family values party" has brought not only the carnage of civil war to Iraq, but also skyrocketing levels of prostitution. These young people have nothing left.

Bigger Fish

2007-03-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

This story has sort of gotten lost somewhere along the way. As I mentioned awhile ago, this is really the big story. And it wouldn't surprise me if all the stonewalling is designed to firewall Bush from inquiry into this little activity where we have evidence of obstruction of justice by BUSH!

Yesterday I reported that the Justice Department had written Congress that, against the advice of Alberto Gonzales, the president had shut down an internal department investigation into the administration's wireless wiretapping program. Bush's was an unprecedented and arbitrary (and still unexplained) move.

Democrats in the Senate want to know more. So yesterday Sens. Russ Feinfold (D-WI), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter following up.

Here's the releveant graf from my previous blog post:

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

Looks like some Senators are interested in looking at this further.

Dots Dots Everywhere

2007-03-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

There are so many dots just laying around, waiting to be connected by some smart, hungry journalist. Bloggers are doing their part too.

Flocking

2007-03-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

Baghdadians are flocking, FLOCKING back to their homes!!!

So proclaims Gen. Petraeus in pointing to the success of the escalation. The only problem with it is ..... you guessed it .... like everything else coming out of the mouth of anyone who swears allegiance to Bush, it isn't true.

A Quicker Solution

2007-03-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

If Abu won't resign, and if Bush won't cooperate in Congressional oversight by playing out the clock, why not impeach administration officials like Abu Gonzales?

"The Constitution's Impeachment Clause applies to all 'civil officers of the United States' - not to mention the president, vice president and federal judges," Dean wrote. "It is not clear who, precisely, is among those considered 'civil officers,' but the group certainly includes a president's cabinet and sub-cabinet, as well as the senior department officials and the White House staff (those who are issued commissions by the president and serve the President and Vice President)."

Dean writes on the precedent: "Impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap, in the aftermath of the Civil War, is the only precedent for using these proceedings against subordinate executive officers. Belknap was said to be involved in a kickback scheme involving military contracts. Just hours before the House was to vote to impeach him, Belknap resigned. Nonetheless, on March 2, 1876, the House impeached the former cabinet officer, and the five articles of impeachment were presented to the Senate."

There's little doubt that Bushies have used every possible innovation of the Constitution to take power. Why not be innovative in using obscure provisions, not usually needed when people play nice, to exercise oversight?

How's That Surge Goin'?

2007-03-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Surge in troops or surge in violence?

Two US troops were announced killed on Saturday.

AP reporter Kim Gamel details a wave of bombings and mayhem across Iraq on Saturday. The deadliest attack was a suicide truck bombing at a police station in Baghad, which killed 20 and wounded 28, many of them police. Guerrillas bombed a pastry shop in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar, killing 10 and wounded 3. A truck bomber killed 11 and wounded 45 in Haswah, south of Baghdad. Suicide car bombers killed 20 and wounded 30 in attacks on police at Qaim near the Syrian border.

Reuters gives other incidents and estimates that 25 bodies were found in Baghdad on Friday, 8 in Fallujah, and another 4 in Mosul. The found-body count, of nearly 40, is much higher than in the AP story. Al-Hayat estimated the day's death toll from political violence at 90.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the British made a security sweep in the southern, largely Shiite port city of Basra on Friday, killing one Iraqi and arresting 28. The fighting was with Shiite militiamen, presumably.

Immigration

2007-03-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

More from Kevin Drum here analyzing the Friday doc dump.

Looks to me like they were searching for a presentable reason for the firings to cover the real reason.

Rover Political Operation

2007-03-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

From the doc dump on Friday:

In a Dec. 3, 2006, e-mail released Friday night, Scott Jennings, one of presidential adviser Karl Rove's aides, asked Sampson if he had a list of "all vacant, or about-to-be vacant, US Attorney slots." Jennings' request came on a Sunday, so Sampson offered to send it to him the next day.

Jennings, a political operative, had earlier passed along complaints from Republican Party activists about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired from his job in New Mexico. Some Republicans were angry that Iglesias hadn't been more aggressive in investigating Democrats.

Karl baby. Let's see your list. Gee. I wonder who else is on it?

Lying SOB

2007-03-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

Think Progress:

ABC News reports: “New documents show Gonzales approved firings of U.S. attorneys, contradicting earlier claims he was not closely involved.”

UPDATE: The AP reports:

Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting. …

The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late Friday.

There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week in the wake of the political firestorm surrounding the firings.

UPDATE II: On March 12, Gonzales denied any involvement in the prosecutor purge:

I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on … That’s basically what I knew as attorney general.

From yesterday's document dump.

Here It Is

2007-03-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

McClatchey is starting to smell the coffee. Someone has finally written about Rover's speech to attorney's where he spells out the plan:

WASHINGTON - Under President Bush, the Justice Department has backed laws that narrow minority voting rights and pressed U.S. attorneys to investigate voter fraud - policies that critics say have been intended to suppress Democratic votes.

Bush, his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, and other Republican political advisers have highlighted voting rights issues and what Rove has called the "growing problem" of election fraud by Democrats since Bush took power in the tumultuous election of 2000, a race ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department's civil rights division when it was rolling back longstanding voting-rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.

Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock, Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while he was a research director for the Republican National Committee. He's denied any wrongdoing.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the four U.S. attorneys weren't chosen only because of their backgrounds in election issues, but "we would expect any U.S. attorney to prosecute voting fraud."

Taken together, critics say, the replacement of the U.S. attorneys, the voter-fraud campaign and the changes in Justice Department voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration may have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political purposes.

...

Last April, while the Justice Department and the White House were planning the firings, Rove gave a speech in Washington to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states that he said could be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those fired.

Rove thanked the audience for "all that you are doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the integrity of the ballot is protected." He added, "A lot in American politics is up for grabs."

The department's civil rights division, for example, supported a Georgia voter identification law that a court later said discriminated against poor, minority voters. It also declined to oppose an unusual Texas redistricting plan that helped expand the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. That plan was partially reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Frank DiMarino, a former federal prosecutor who served six U.S. attorneys in Florida and Georgia during an 18-year Justice Department career, said that too much emphasis on voter fraud investigations "smacks of trying to use prosecutorial power to investigate and potentially indict political enemies."

Several former voting rights lawyers, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of antagonizing the administration, said the division's political appointees reversed the recommendations of career lawyers in key cases and transferred or drove out most of the unit's veteran attorneys.

As they say, go read the whole thing. I've been saying it and I'll say it again, it was a Rove political operation to use U.S. prosecutors to intimidate Democrats in key states. It's has Rove's typical fingerprints alllll over it.

Michael Kinsley, We Hardly Knew Ye

2007-03-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

What in the world has happened to Michael Kinsley?

Here's the short version. Kinsley wrote a column the other day condemning Democrats for making a big deal out of the prosecutor scandal. Kinsley seems unable to distinguish the difference between the normal appointive turnover of prosecutors and using the U.S. Justice Dept. as a political arm of the Republican party. Josh Marshall to Kinsley:

The firings were not the offense. They were the clue that suggested the offense. As the Congressional Research Service has shown, over the last twenty-five years only ten US Attorneys have been dismissed other than at the beginning of a new president's term of office. And of those, eight were for clear cause. For instance, one of them bit a stripper on the arm in a night club. And that, not surprisingly, led to his ouster.

To quote the CRS report ...

In virtually all of those 10 previous cases, serious issues of personal or professional conduct appeared to be the driving issue. Prior to December, for example, only two U.S. Attorneys were outright fired for improper, and in one case criminal, behavior. The CRS report identifies six other U.S. Attorneys who resigned during the 25-year period who were implicated in news reports of “questionable conduct.” For two others, the CRS was unable to determine the cause.

(For more details on this key element of the firings story, see this discussion by Scott Lilly.)
In any case, ten times over twenty five years and in eight of those cases for clear and publicly aired reasons.

And then on one day, secretly and with no explanation, seven get canned. And several are involved in corruption investigations targetting Republicans. The first public explanation is that they were fired for poor performance. But then it turns most were among the highest performing US Attorneys in the country. Add in the fact that one of the eight was overseeing one of the broadest ranging and historic public corruption cases in US history and ... well, it all got our attention.

Then, only a little digging revealed clear evidence that two of the US Attorneys were dismissed for not pursuing bogus claims of Democratic 'voter fraud'.

In addition to Marshall, as I often say, just go read Digby on the matter. As usual, Digby does the thorough knockdown of Kinsley as well, but points to the larger issue of what is now a thirty year tradition of Republican corruption in government. And like Digby, I'm sick of being labeled a dirty f$%king hippie because I squeal at the abject corruption right under my nose. I'm not a leftist firebrand. Much of the rest of the country have left American traditions to become reactionaries, blithely following the slick P.R. marketing plan of the GOP.

What I would like to add is, what's up with these guys? People like Kinsley, Broder, Klein, Roberts, Friedman, Donaldson, and on and on .... folks that I used to think of as being bonafide progressive thinkers and guardians of the Jeffersonian wing of the American tradition, what happened to them?

Is the explanation simply that all of these folks have gotten old? Has aging influenced them in a more cynical and conservative direction, as it does with many people? Where are their ideals? I used to love to watch Kinsley on crossfire, his sharp wit cutting conservatives to ribbons. Now he's saying that Bush's behavior is simply, "bidness as usual"?

I don't know. It's all so disillusioning. Interestingly, it's the generally younger blogosphere that is calling these folks on the carpet. I mourne for these thinkers, for the loss of their wisdom, idealism and sense of right and wrong in government. And I mourne for the impact of their loss on the nation.

DHS to Move

2007-03-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Department of Homeland Security will be moving its headquarters to a former lunatic asylum. How fitting.

The $3 billion move will begin in 2011, according to a plan prepared by the DHS, once a new building is ready in the grounds of the former mental hospital, St. Elizabeth's.

You can't make this shit up.