30 June 2006

- Bush / Giuliani buddy Kerik pleads guilty to corruption-- avoids jail

- Another investigation into killings by GIs -- one reportedly confesses...

- Texas redistricting changes due July 14 -- 3 judge panel will decide

- WaPo claims sharp rebuke for Bush -- Bloomberg says Bush admin will spin it as a political victory..

- Former Bush aide-turned-shoplifter Claude Allen negotiating to avoid a trial...

- Bloomberg poll - Dems hold 20 point lead in control of Congress preference, 16 point lead on Iraq, immigration and ethics

- Democrat Bill Nelson holds a 33-point lead in Florida Senate race..

"We elect public officials and pay their salaries to protect us and make this country thrive. Instead, this group of losers has given us debt, deceit and death. I long for the return of diplomacy, and hope the next president can walk and talk at the same time."

-- Janet Contursi St. Paul, MN

29 June 2006

Says military tribunals are an abuse of power...

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.

- Voters lose - Supreme Court o.k.'s political gerrymandering...

- Latest Gallup Poll shows midterm elections will be influenced on national issues -- bad news for Republicans...

- Media claims Dems screwed up on Iraq plans -- poll shows overwhelming majority of Americans back Dems...

- Powerline lunatics suggest violence against NY Times reporters..

- Republican consultant made famous by smearing Clinton-Gore convicted of child abuse..

- Republican Governor encourages exercise - takes limo across the street on a daily basis..

- Republicans lose another vote - flag-burning amendment comes up short..

- Bush calls NY Times article "disgraceful", fails to criticize Wall Street Journal for similar article..

- Bush effort to break nuke treaty moves forward in the Republican-controlled House...

- Hoping to avoid another Republican embarrassment, Senate Majority Leader Frist delays Estate Tax vote...

- BTN -

3 out of 4 = Ratio of Americans who say they trust the Internal Revenue Service to safeguard their personal information, according to a survey by the Ponemon Institute.

1 in 6 = Ratio of Americans who say they trust the Department of Homeland Security to safeguard their personal information.

$3.6 million = Amount of fines that CBS and its affiliates agreed to pay for an allegedly indecent episode of "Without a Trace."

14 = Number of months after that episode of "Without a Trace" first aired that the Federal Communications Commission received its first complaint about the show, as a result of a campaign by the Parents Television Council.

4,211 = Number of complaints about "Without a Trace" generated directly from the website of Parents Television Council, which also posted a clip of the show that it found so offensive, making it available to anyone with Internet access.

23 June 2006

- Santorum makes ass of himself -- claims WMD have been found in Iraq...

- Bush says it's "absurd" to consider the U.S. a bigger threat than Iran and NK to world stability... Europeans beg to differ...

- It's not just your phones -- your financial records are also being "mined" in the name of security..

- TGIF (Thank God Iraq's Free) -- State of Emergency declared in Baghdad..

- Republicans embrace Bush's handling of Iraq war -- will they pay the price in November?

- Senate Indian Affairs Committee report ties Reed, Norquist to Abramoff money distribution... shines a light on contradictions between Ney's statements and facts... and provides plenty of ammo against Republican Rep John Doolittle...

- The Twisted Triangle -- Abramoff, Norquist and Reed...

21 June 2006

- Carville slams media over Bush approval hype.. singles out Noron O'Donnell (hilarity peaks at 1:25 mark)

- Santorum trails Casey by 18 points...

- Senate Republicans kill Democrats bill to increase minimum wage...

- House Democrats push for cancellation of Hummer Tax Break.. Republicans vow to keep it intact...

- Safavian guilty on four counts -- bad news for those linked to Abramoff...

- Congressional Democrats have healthy lead over Republicans in fundraising for '06 elections...

- Republicans push back immigration bill until post-election...

- Bush says things are improving in Iraq, the US Embassy in Baghdad begs to differ...

- Hastert's "majority of the majority" rule scuttles voting rights act extension...

- Murder charges for 8 U.S. soldiers in Iraqi's slaying...

- Size of government has exploded under Bush, yet the number of private contracts have increased by 86%...

15 June 2006

Jokes about LA Times reporter Peter Wallsten wearing shades -- Wallsten suffers from Stargardt’s disease and is legally blind...

Turn "honest debate" on Iraq into partisan hackery...

"To me, the administration does not act like there's a war going on. The Congress certainly doesn't act like there's a war going on. If you're raising money to keep the majority, if you're thinking about gay marriage, if you're doing all this other peripheral stuff, what does that say to the guy who's about ready to drive over a land mine?"
-- Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.)

14 June 2006

The latest NBC/WSJ poll shows the advantage Democrats hold over Republicans when it comes to which party should control Congress has almost doubled... death of Zarqawi results in a one-point bump for Bush (margin of error is 3 points)...

The big question is... "which one looks more frightened, Snow or Bartlett?"...

- House committee proposes minimum wage increase -- Republican Howard McKeon vows to kill it...

- Meanwhile, House members voted themselves a pay raise of $3,300 per year, no doubt as a reward for their "glowing" approval ratings....

- Rove decision shows there are no consequences for misleading the public / White House...

- FEMA fraud goes unpunished -- up to $1.4 billion used to pay for Saints season tickets, an all-inclusive vacation in the Dominican Republic and a sex change operation...

- ACLU sues the Pentagon for information on their "TALON" database of information obtained from spying on anti-war groups...

- The economy is booming, resulting in states selling off roads to private firms in order to raise much-needed cash...

09 June 2006

- Specter blasts Cheney over NSA program

- Gay Marriage amendment soundly defeated... due to reappear before the '08 elections

- Zarqawi finally killed... after Bush had passed up several opportunities in the past...

Marines' story in Haditha killings looking less credible..

- Common sense prevails - Estate Tax vote comes up short...

- AP/IPSOS poll finds a new high of 59% believe it was a mistake to invade Iraq, 52% want a Democrat-controlled Congress, 32% want a Republican-controlled Congress

- McClellan's mom wants to be listed as Carole Keeton 'Grandma' Strayhorn on Texas ballot

- Clooney puts his money where his mouth is

- Abramoff has ties to John Gotti

- Pawlenty leads Minnesota on a race to the bottom

02 June 2006

The Decider is the hands-down winner in a Quinnipiac poll of the Worst President, post WWII. Bush raked in 34%, with Nixon coming in a distant second at 17%...

Olbermann with a terrific dressing-down of Faux's poster boy regarding his repeated Malmedy smear, and the scrubbing of the transcript. An excerpt...

The rewriting of past reporting -- worthy of Orwell -- has now carried over into such on-line transcription services as Burrell's and Factiva. Whatever did or did not happen **later**, in supposed or actual retribution... the victims at Malmedy, were **Americans**, gunned down while surrendering -- by **Nazis** in 1944 -- and again, Tuesday Night and Wednesday Night -- by a false patriot who would rather be loud than right.

"In Malmedy, as you know" Bill O'Reilly **said** Tuesday night, in some indecipherable attempt to defend the events of Haditha, "U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and were unarmed and they shot them dead, you know that. That's on the record. And documented."

The victims at Malmedy in December, 1944... were Americans. **Americans** with their hands in the air. **Americans** who were unarmed. That's on the record. And documented.

And their memory deserves better than Bill O'Reilly.

We **all** do.

Crooks and Liars has the must-see video...

The May job numbers were released, and fell far short of predictions. To compound the problem... March and April numbers were revised downwards. Pretty much takes the steam out of the Republican strategy of talking-up the "sizzling" economy...

The count of new jobs generated last month — 75,000 — was the smallest since October, when hiring practically stalled as companies were jolted by fallout from the Gulf Coast hurricanes. Job gains for March and April turned out to be weaker than previously reported.

The government wants internet service providers to retain web usage records for longer periods of time...

Top U.S. law enforcement officials have told Internet companies they must retain customer records longer to help in child pornography and terrorism investigations, and they are considering asking Congress to require preservation of records.
...
The subject has prompted alarm from some executives and privacy advocates, especially after Gonzales' Justice Department took Google to court earlier this year to force it to turn over information on customer searches.

Civil liberties groups also have sued Verizon and other telephone companies, alleging they are working with the government to provide information without search warrants on subscriber calling records.

Despite a furious attempt to void all lawsuits pertaining to the illegal NSA domestic wiretapping... one brave judge stood up to The Decider...

A federal judge will go ahead with hearings in a legal challenge to a warrantless domestic surveillance program run by the National Security Agency.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor also criticized the Justice Department for failing to respond to the legal challenge, The Detroit News reported Friday.
...
The government filed a motion saying that no court can consider the issues because of a privilege against revealing state secrets, if doing so harms national security. The judge said she will hear the government's motion only after proceeding with a June 12 hearing on the plaintiffs' motion to summarily declare the spying illegal.

No description necessary....

The real danger is that we who support the war will reach the point that we say “we might as well be taken as wolves then as sheep”. At that point the left can celebrate that they have made our military and those who support it the people they claim we are. Once that happens however any compunction about respecting them will be gone, and remember one side is armed and one is not.

via This Modern World

California Republican congressional candidate Jim Galley, running as a "pro-family" candidate, turns out not only to be a bigamist, but also as a child support cheat, and an accused spousal abuser...

Republican Jim Galley, who is running for Congress as a “pro-traditional family” candidate, was married to two women at the same time, defaulted on his child support payments and has been accused of abuse by one of his ex-wives.

The San Diego Union-Tribune discovered the personal history in making public-records checks on Galley, who is making his fourth run for elective office in four years. These checks are part of the newspaper's election reporting process.

While the gov't seems more than capable of find $billions for incentives to entice Big Oil to continue drilling, despite record profits... they don't seem to be as motivated to advance alternative energy sources...

Xcel Energy electricity customers have paid millions of dollars for wind energy that was never produced, according to documents filed with state regulators.

The utility guarantees payments to wind farm owners whenever their machines produce electricity, but it doesn't have enough transmission lines to deliver all of that power to consumers. As a result, wind machines have been routinely disconnected, sometimes on the windiest days, when the most power could be generated.
...
The developers have contracts that require Xcel to buy the power when it's available. In early 2004, wind generators were capable of producing 466 megawatts of electricity on the ridge, but Xcel could accept only about 56 percent of it.

The wind developers set up a rotation system in which they took turns reducing output or turning off their generators.

Bush nominee for Secretary of the Treasury could receive a $48 million tax break if he is confirmed....

Because of a little-known provision in the federal tax code, Mr. Paulson, the departing Goldman Sachs chief executive, could receive a tax break of at least $48 million if he is confirmed.

The tax rule, Section 1043 of the Internal Revenue Code, allows individuals who are forced to sell stock to meet federal conflict-of-interest rules to defer paying capital gains tax, so long as the proceeds are reinvested in government bonds, diversified index funds and other similar instruments. The provision applies only to employees in the Executive Branch (Congressional lawmakers, Supreme Court justices or ordinary taxpayers need not apply) and is intended to "minimize the burden of government service" resulting from a forced divestiture.

If confirmed, Mr. Paulson is expected to give up control of at least $700 million, a fortune built largely from Goldman Sachs stock, by putting those assets in a blind trust. Then, it is likely that Mr. Paulson will be required to sell his Goldman Sachs shares to avoid any conflict of interest. The tax provision, accounting specialists said, represents an opportunity for Mr. Paulson to use the sale to diversify his holdings without paying capital gains tax on the bulk of those Goldman shares, which have almost tripled in value since the investment bank's initial offering in May 1999.

"If you do that, the gain you diverted from the Goldman sale will never be taxed," said Robert Willens, an accounting expert at Lehman Brothers. "This has got to be part of the inducement that allows them to take these positions."

As mentioned way back when, the Bush administration ordered the suppression of information that warned of toxic conditions for 9/11 workers. Newsweek has the sad story of the consequences of the Bush administration's actions...

Feal, now 39, has had surgery on his foot more than two dozen times and still walks with a lopsided gait. But he’s developed other health problems, too, including gastroesophageal reflux disease, posttraumatic-stress disorder and respiratory problems. His lung capacity has diminished to the point that he occasionally stops to gasp for breath midsentence. Unable to work, and struggling to cover his mounting medical bills, Feal says at times he's felt like he's “slipping through the cracks.”
...
Only one responder’s death—that of New York City police detective James Zadroga, who succumbed to respiratory failure in January—has been directly linked by a medical examiner to his exposure to environmental toxins at Ground Zero. But at least six other deaths (from causes ranging from heart failure to lung cancer) have been reported among responders in their 30s and 40s who worked at the World Trade Center site. And thousands more are struggling with health problems far worse than officials initially anticipated. “People think that it’s just a few guys from 9/11 suffering,” says Feal, “but there are literally thousands of us.

Read more! »

Eight troops face kidnapping, murder and conspiracy charges... unrelated to the Haditha massacre. Why are we there again?

Not particularly big, in comparison to his insider-trading investigation, but an $11,000 fine levelled by the FEC doesn't help his chances in '08...

Compelling...

Media Matters has the video of former CBS and current CNN political reporter John Roberts still advancing the bogus "Iraq possessed WMD" argument...

Per theater sales was 5 times that of X-Men 3....

01 June 2006

Will this make the front page of the NY Times, or the lead story on Tweety's Hardball?

ZAHN: You did some very interesting analysis of the time they spend together, the time they spend apart. But when you crunch those numbers, are those really any different from members of Congress whose families stay at home in the home district and the -- the working member of Congress stays in Washington?

HEALY: Sure, it's pretty -- it's pretty similar. And that's a very fair point to make.

nod to Media Matters

This from the same clown (John Solomon) who failed miserably in trying to tie Harry Reid with Abramoff...

Media Matters

TPM Muckraker

A look at the unrealistic expectations of the illegal NSA data-mining program...

Let's look at some numbers. We'll be optimistic -- we'll assume the system has a one in 100 false-positive rate (99 percent accurate), and a one in 1,000 false-negative rate (99.9 percent accurate). Assume 1 trillion possible indicators to sift through: that's about 10 events -- e-mails, phone calls, purchases, Web destinations, whatever -- per person in the United States per day. Also assume that 10 of them actually indicate terrorists plotting.

This unrealistically accurate system will generate 1 billion false alarms for every real terrorist plot it uncovers. Every day, the police will have to investigate 27 million potential plots in order to find the one real terrorist plot per month. Clearly ridiculous.

The Boston Globe continues their hard work in highlighting the absurdity of Bush's use of signing statements...

The office of Vice President Dick Cheney routinely reviews pieces of legislation before they reach the president's desk, searching for provisions that Cheney believes would infringe on presidential power, according to former White House and Justice Department officials.

The officials said Cheney's legal adviser and chief of staff, David Addington , is the Bush administration's leading architect of the ``signing statements" the president has appended to more than 750 laws. The statements assert the president's right to ignore the laws because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution.

The Bush-Cheney administration has used such statements to claim for itself the option of bypassing a ban on torture, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and numerous requirements that they provide certain information to Congress, among other laws.

A new study shows your mortgage interest rate varies depending on the color of your skin...

Black and Hispanic home buyers are more likely to pay high mortgage rates than white borrowers with similar credit ratings and income levels, an advocacy group found.

The Center for Responsible Lending said either loan sellers are charging higher rates to the minority customers or those borrowers are being steered to loan sellers that specialize in higher rates.

Bush claims to have first learned of the slaughter in Haditha from a Time reporter....

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said President Bush learned of the killings only after a reporter from Time magazine asked questions. Time published an article in March that said the Pentagon was investigating the incident.

Asked when Bush was first briefed about the events in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq, Snow replied Tuesday: "When a Time reporter first made the call."

Bush was briefed on the incident and investigation by his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, Snow said. He would not detail Bush's personal involvement since.

Things aren't looking good for Safavian, Ney, and a host of other Republicans...

A partner of Abramoff’s at the time, Neil Volz also outlined in U.S. District Court how the Abramoff team received assistance from several Republican congressmen or their aides including Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Rep. Don Young of Alaska and Rep. Steven LaTourette of Ohio.

TPM Muckraker has photos of the junket to Scotland...

Apparently Abu Gonzales didn't get worked up all that much over his influence in the Abu Ghraib debacle, illegal domestic spying, or lying multiple times to Congress, but the Jefferson case is enough to make him threaten to resign...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and FBI Director Robert Mueller indicated they would resign if forced to give the seized materials back, the officials said.

Surprise, surprise... they lose...

It’s Hoenig that’s living in a dream land. Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity.

Think Progress does the dirty work...

Taranto is no match for Media Matters...

And The Clocks Were Striking Thirteen has put together a pretty impressive list of Republican lies...

Pull a page out of Britt Hume's playbook.. claim Iraq is safer than DC....

Think Progress does the debunking...

Apparently Republicans value subsidies for Big Oil over our safety....

The Homeland Security Department said Wednesday that the cities of New York and Washington will get less money in this year's allocation of grants, drawing harsh criticism from politicians in both areas.

The department announced the recipients of $1.7 billion distributed through various programs to help states and cities help prepare for potential terror attacks and natural disasters.

Courtesy of Daily Kos

Not exactly the kind of statements Republicans want to hear from other Republicans a few months before the election...

The Duke Cunningham scandal is swallowing up an even larger chunk of the Republican majority...

I admire anyone who takes that little putz down a notch or two...

Bush fundraiser, Tom Noe, pleaded guilty to illegally funneling campaign donations....

A coin dealer and prominent GOP fundraiser at the center of an Ohio political scandal pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges he illegally funneled donations to President Bush’s re-election campaign.

Tom Noe, once a powerful political figure who also raised money for Ohio Republicans, still is charged with embezzlement in an ill-fated $50 million coin investment that he managed for the state workers’ compensation fund.

The investment scandal has been a major embarrassment for Ohio’s ruling Republicans and given Democrats a better shot at winning state offices this year, including the governor’s office that has been under GOP control since 1991.

Embattled Kentucky Governor, Republican Ernie Fletcher, will have to find a new person to fill the position of Lt Governor...

Kentucky's lieutenant governor, a former corruption-fighting federal prosecutor, announced Wednesday he won't seek re-election with Gov. Ernie Fletcher, whose administration has been caught up in state hiring scandal.

Time's Michael Ware checks in with Kilo Company...

Another reason to pursue alternative energy sources...

"The river used to be blue. Now it's brown. Nobody can fish or drink from it. The air is bad. This has all happened so fast," said Elsie Fabian, 63, an elder in a native Indian community along the Athabasca River, a wide, meandering waterway once plied by fur traders. "It's terrible. We're surrounded by the mines."

From her home on the bluff of the river, she can see billowing steam rising from a vast strip mine 10 miles away. There, almost 200 feet below what was once a forest, giant machines cleave the earth into a cratered moonscape. Immense shovels plunge into the ground, wresting out massive chunks. Trucks the size of houses prowl the pit. They deliver the black soil to clanking conveyers and vats that steam the tar from the sand.

The miners have created a marvel of human industry that takes a spongy muck once considered worthless and converts it into oil for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. But the price of that alchemy is high: Each barrel of oil requires two to five barrels of water, carves up four tons of earth, uses enough natural gas to heat a home for one to five days, and adds to the greenhouse gases slowly cooking the planet, according to the industry's own calculations.

How Katrina contractors are overpaid, and under-supervised...