31 May 2007

Me Tarzan....

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

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Suicide bomber kills 25...

A suicide bomber hit a police recruiting center Thursday in Fallujah, killing as many as 25 people, police said. The U.S. military said only one policeman was killed and eight were wounded.

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Apparently the PM is worried, which is ironic, since he predicted Iraqi security forces would be ready to take control by June...

Crooks and Liars has the video...

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- Griffin resigning to head Thompson's campaign
- Latest target of WH smear campaign -- Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius
- Sleepy Joe sees progress in Iraq
- DeMint blames soldiers deaths on the Iraq debate
- U.S. edges Iran in the least-peaceful nations (96 vs 97 for Iran.. out of 121 countries)
- Heffelfinger targeted for defending the voting rights of Native Americans
- Abu facing disbarment?
- Amputees returning to combat?

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Time for another round of tax cuts for the rich...

US economic growth slowed to 0.6 per cent last quarter in the worst performance for the economy in four years, according to the latest government estimates.

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Conservative talking heads climb aboard the ship of fools...

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Takes heat from his constituents for backing Bush's immigration plan, and now is caught covering for the DoJ by having placed a secret hold on the Open Government Act...

Think Progress brings the goods...

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Letters urging a light sentence to be made public...

Former White House and State Department officials and military commanders are supporting former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as he asks a federal judge to spare him prison time in the CIA leak case.
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Fitzgerald said last week that Libby showed no remorse for corrupting the judicial system.

Walton, who has a reputation as a strict judge who hands down tough sentences, has broad discretion over Libby's fate. If he sends Libby to prison, he also must decide whether to put that sentence on hold until the appeals run out.

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Five Britons kidnapped in Baghdad...

Hundreds of Iraqi and U.S. troops cordoned off sections of Baghdad’s Sadr City slum Wednesday and conducted raids in an apparent effort to find five British citizens who Iraqi officials believed were abducted by the Shiite Mahdi Army militia.
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If the work of the Mahdi Army, the kidnappings could be retaliation for the killing by British forces last week of the militia’s commander in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

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Lotsa troops for a long, long time...

President George W. Bush would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea to provide stability but not in a frontline combat role, the White House said on Wednesday.

The United States has had thousands of U.S. troops in South Korea to guard against a North Korean invasion for 50 years.
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White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea.

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Just what we need... another internal investigation of the DoJ...

The Justice Department said on Wednesday it will investigate whether its hiring practices were improperly tainted by politics after a former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted posing political questions to job applicants.
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"It is unacceptable that a senior Justice Department official was allowed to screen career employees and some judicial appointments for political loyalty, and it confirms our worst fears about the unprecedented and improper reach of politics into the department's professional ranks," he (Leahy) said.

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Violent crime increases, despite his making it a top priority...

Violent crime kept climbing in 2006, a top FBI official said Wednesday, previewing a report detailing nationwide increases in murders, robberies and other felonies for a second straight year.

The rising crime rate, in an FBI report expected next week, counters Justice Department attempts to tamp down violence by sending more funds to local police and studying U.S. cities for clues on how the increase began.
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The crime hike marks the latest blow to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has targeted neighborhood violence as a top priority. Gonzales took office in early 2005, when violent crime rose by 2.2 percent in the first annual increase since 2001.

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A must see...

And a bonus... Olbermann On Family Guy

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Not very subtle about his feelings regarding Deadeye Dick's involvement in the Plame smearing...

Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
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Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions."

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Ordered the Secret Service to eliminate records logging visitors to his residence...

via Think Progress

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30 May 2007

Local oil company arranged for the expansion of his home..

via Think Progress

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29 May 2007

Ten U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq on Memorial Day...

Ten American soldiers died in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash on Memorial Day, the military reported Tuesday, making May the deadliest month of the year for U.S. troops in Iraq.

In other violence, five Britons were kidnapped Tuesday from an Iraqi government office in Baghdad, driven away in a 19-vehicle convoy filled with men in police uniforms who headed toward a Shiite stronghold in the capital, the British government and an Iraqi official said.

The American deaths raised the number of U.S. forces killed this month to at least 112, according to an Associated Press count assembled from U.S. military statements.

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Former long-time State Dept media affairs director explains the difficulty in selling the Bush agenda...

We have eroded not only the good will of the post-9-11 days but also any residual appreciation from the countries we supported during the Cold War. This is due to several actions taken by the Bush administration, including pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol (environment), refusing to take part in the International Criminal Court (rule of law), and pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (arms control). The prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib and the continuing controversy over the detainees in Guantanamo also sullied the image of America.

Collectively, these actions have sent an unequivocal message: The U.S. does not want to be a collaborative partner. That is the policy we have been “selling” through our actions, which speak the loudest of all.

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The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has no clue as to the casualties in Iraq...

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (General Peter Pace) dramatically underestimated the number of deaths of US Armed Service-members in the Iraq War.

"When you take a look at the life of a nation and all that's required to keep us free, we had more than 3,000 Americans murdered on 11 September, 2001. The number who have died, sacrificed themselves since that time is approaching that number," General Pace told CBS Early Show's Harry Smith. "And we should pay great respect and thanks to them for allowing us to live free."

-- so far 3,467 soldiers have died... well beyond the 3,000 figure Pace claims we are approaching

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A disagreement over the caving of Democrats on the supplemental...

Update: Looks like Alter and Glenn Greenwald also disagree...

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Newsweek's Isikoff and Thomas provide a comprehensive review of the mess the DoJ is in, and how they got there...

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Think Progress has a nice graphic detailing congressional progress so far..

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26 May 2007

Paired up with Gretchen Wilson to cover Heart's Barracuda

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Cuz he reads the intel. The problem is... he doesn't act on it...

Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released Friday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.

The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings"
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They also said that competing Sunni, Shiite and Kurd factions would "encourage terrorist groups to take advantage of a volatile security environment to launch attacks within Iraq." Because of the divided Iraqi society, there was "a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict with each other unless an occupying force prevented them from doing so."

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Authorizes defense contractor to recruit border patrol agents for use in Iraq...

The Bush administration’s attempts to “skim off Border Patrol agents” for duty in Iraq is made worse in light of the recent decision to withdraw half of the 6,000 National Guard troops temporarily stationed at the border.

The Bush administration had promised to replace the Guardsmen with an “equal number of new Border Patrol agents,” but “fewer than 350 new agents have been hired.”

via Think Progress

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Atrios reminds us two more Friedman Units have arrived...

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Draws a laugh from the crowd of fellow attorneys when repeating Gone-zales' claim that he didn't have prior prosecution experience...

Think Progress has the video...

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Always on the verge of troop reductions.. always seeing the first signs of progress... always depend on the media to eat it up and spit it back out to a doubting public...

For four straight years, the same set of war supporters have constantly and repetitiously given the same exact false assurances about Iraq -- virtually verbatim -- in order to protect themselves politically. It is hard to know what is more amazing about this ritual -- (a) how stupid they believe Americans are that they can make the same commitments over and over which never transpire, or (b) that the press jumps each time to proclaim the imminent troop reductions as though it never happened before:

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He does a perfect job exposing the shame of the actions of the Dems on the blank check they gave Dubya...

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The internal inquiry has expanded....

The Justice Department has broadened an internal investigation into whether aides to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales improperly took into account political considerations in hiring employees, officials familiar with the probe said Thursday.

The expanded inquiry, conducted by the department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility, comes after testimony Wednesday by former Gonzales aide Monica M. Goodling.

She told a House committee that she had considered party affiliation in screening applicants to become immigration judges.

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She provided some of the funniest testimony I've ever seen.. let's hope she lives up (down) to expectations again...

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Devoted nearly 3 times as much coverage to the Anna Nicole saga than to the Iraq war, and one-fourth the coverage of Purgegate compared with MSNBC...

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McCain criticizes Obama's vote against the Iraq supplemental -- Obama returned fire referring to McCain's heavily defensed stroll through a Baghdad market -- McCain mocks Obama's Senate tenure, then plays teacher.. pointing out that it's not "flack", it's "flak". The problem is.... both spellings are accurate..

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25 May 2007

The more years in prison, the more likely Scooter is to flip...

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, in a sentencing memo, has recommended that former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.
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Judge Walton is not compelled to follow federal sentencing guidelines and could impose either a stronger or weaker sentence on Libby.

Fitzgerald wrote in the 18-page memo, "Particularly in a case such as this, where Mr. Libby was a high-ranking government official whose falsehoods were central to issues in a significant criminal investigation, it is important that this court impose a sentence that accurately reflects the value the judicial system places on truth-telling in criminal investigations."

The Special Counsel said that the "deliberate" outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame was a very serious breach, "The allegations underlying this investigation were serious: that high-ranking government officials, in the course of responding to political criticisms of the present administration by Ms. Wilson's husband, had deliberately, recklessly or negligently compromised her identity as an intelligence agent, posing risks to intelligence assets and operations."

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24 May 2007

Not so good...

From the beginning of May until Tuesday, 321 unidentified corpses, many dumped and showing signs of torture and execution, have been found across the Iraqi capital, according to morgue data provided by a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The data showed that the same number of bodies were found in all of January, the month before the launch of the Baghdad security plan.

-- more graphics...

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Heffelfinger says he was smeared...

“I did spent a lot of time on it,” Heffelfinger said of the American Indian issue. “That’s what I was instructed to do” by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Given the higher rates of violence suffered by American Indians, Heffelfinger said, the time was warranted, but it didn’t take away from other priorities.

“I had to work hard, but I was comfortable with the mix of my local responsibilities and my Native American responsibilities,” said Heffelfinger. … “I was very pointed in my dealings with main Justice to continually bring to their attention the need for focus on Native American public safety issues, because of the level of violence.”

Think Progress brings the goods...

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Every member of Congress who is about to vote yes on the war funding bill should read this...

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ABC News has a video of a bird shitting on Bush during his news conference...

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Via TPM Muckraker

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Yet they still decide to cave in to the worst.president.ever...

Issue.................Dem...GOP...Advantage
National Security.....46...43......+3
Taxes.....................47...42......+5
Abortion.................45...38......+7
Economy...............48...40......+8
Ethics & Corruption.43...32.....+11
Iraq........................49...37.....+12
Immigration............47...33.....+14
Education..............50...35.....+15
Soc Security..........50...34.....+16
Health Care............57...30.....+27

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But he sounds sure of himself, which of course is all that counts....

rnative” intelligence assessment, Feith asserted that Osama Bin Laden’s al-Hijra Company had business “contacts” with a Dutch company, Vlemmo N.V. and that Vlemmo was a “front for Iraqi military procurement“:
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Dick Cheney “publicly praised” the Feith assessment as “the best source of information on the topic.”

Yesterday, however, the Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen explained that Feith had apparently invented the company, saying “Vlemmo is unknown to the Netherlands“:

via Think Progress

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Seems like we've heard this before, too...

"Millions of taxpayer dollars went out the window, given to companies who did nothing in return," said Eugene L. Waszily, a former deputy GSA inspector general who reviewed spending under the boat-barrier contract. "This was particularly disturbing because it was a national security project."

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Seems like we've heard this before...

"If there's wrongdoing, it will be taken care of," Bush told reporters at a Rose Garden news conference.
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The Democrat-led Senate, meanwhile, scheduled a no-confidence vote on Gonzales in mid-June.

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Calls Rudy's claim of Clinton wanting to invade Iraq as "Absolute B.S."...

Crooks and Liars has the video...

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Will McCain respond with another expletive?

Phoenix-area Republican legislator called on Sen. John McCain to resign from his seat Tuesday if he continues to miss votes while campaigning for president.
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According to the Washington Post, McCain has missed 43 votes, nearly 50 percent of the current Congress' votes. In comparison, Hillary Clinton has missed less than 2 percent of votes and Barack Obama has missed 6.4 percent, according to the Post.

"We need a senator," Pearce said. "I think if McCain wants to be a full-time candidate and not be at the Senate, he ought to consider resigning."

nod Cliff Schecter

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Does this qualify him to become another one of Bush's controversial recess appointments?

A manufacturing industry lobbyist withdrew his nomination to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission Wednesday amid strong opposition from some Senate Democrats and criticism from consumer groups.

President Bush had named National Association of Manufacturers lobbyist Michael Baroody to head the commission, which oversees product recalls and helps enforce federal consumer safety rules. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., moved to block Baroody's confirmation, joined by Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama.

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Quite a day for the House Judiciary Committee. It started off quickly, with Goodling's opening statement, where she strongly suggested that the names on the firing list generated from the White House.

Goodling then repeatedly, yet reluctantly, admitted to having violated the law by screening applicants for civil jobs based upon their political affiliation. Despite her admission to having repeatedly violated the law, republican members of the committee had no reservations when it came to lavishing her with praise.

Goodling didn't waste much time in accusing McNulty of intentionally providing false and incomplete testimony... a charge that McNulty strongly denies.

But the best was saved for last, when Democrats pursued a line of questioning suggested to them by Goodling's lawyer. That questioning led to the most damaging testimony of the day. Shortly after both Gone-zales and Goodling were both named to be key witnesses in the investigation, Gone-zales attempted to sync up his story with Goodling's...

So, just how did Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) know to ask all those probing, dramatic questions about the mid-March meeting between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Monica Goodling?

Her lawyer told him to ask, that's how. And now Democrats are questioning whether Gonzales misrepresented the facts to them less than two weeks ago.

Goodling today recalled her last conversation with Gonzales and said she felt uncomfortable when Gonzales began recalling for her his understanding of the process that led to the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year.
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This is a critical point because, in many respects, the questions about the mid-March conversation between Gonzales and Goodling are the most damning revelations today, certainly the freshest new allegations to emerge. And, in the final minutes of the hearing, Davis read verbatim from the transcript of Gonzales when he appeared before the same panel May 10.

During that hearing, the attorney general cited ongoing investigations internally at Justice and on Capitol Hill as the reason why he uttered so many "I don't recall/I don't know" answers, because he was unable to speak with his top aides about their recollections.

"I have not gone back and spoken directly with Mr. Sampson and others who are involved in this process in order to protect the integrity of this investigation and the investigation of the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of Inspector General," Gonzales testified under oath May 10. "I am a fact witness. They are fact witnesses."

Davis and other Democrats believe that the Goodling-Gonzales conversation contradicts the attorney general's sworn testimony.

"It's very clear the attorney general was not fully accurate," Davis contended.

So now it looks like Abu was trying to sync up his story with Goodling's prior to their testifying, in violation of the law. And for icing on the cake, he repeatedly lied under oath about having not talked to anyone on his staff in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation.

It wasn't long ago that we found out Rove coached DoJ officials prior to their testifying, and fed them incorrect and incomplete info while doing so, causing them to provide inaccurate and misleading testimony.

Nothing to see here... move along. Much ado about nothing...

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Blasts the Democratic leadership for caving in to the worst.president.ever...

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The House wants to prevent price-gouging when it comes to gasoline prices.. Bush says price-gouging is good.. it helps ensure we won't run low on gasoline reserves..

The House, eager to do something about record high gasoline prices in advance of the Memorial Day weekend, voted narrowly Wednesday to approve stiff penalties for those found guilty of gasoline price gouging.

The bill directs the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department to go after oil companies, traders or retail operators if they take “unfair advantage” or charge “unconscionably excessive” prices for gasoline and other fuels.

The White House called the measure a form of price controls that could result in fuel shortages. It said President Bush would be urged to veto the legislation should it pass Congress.

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23 May 2007

Market bombing in Baghdad kills 25, injures 60...

A car bomb exploded Tuesday at an outdoor market in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 25 people and wounding at least 60 — the deadliest in a string of attacks that stoked sectarian tension in and around the capital.

The blast occurred in Amil, one of a cluster of neighborhoods in southwestern Baghdad where Sunni-Shiite tension is running high three months after the start of the U.S.-led security crackdown.
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In north Baghdad, gunmen wearing army uniforms stopped a bus carrying college students to a Shiite neighborhood, entered the vehicle and sprayed the passengers with gunfire, police said. Eight students were killed and two were wounded.
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In all, at least 100 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide Tuesday, according to police. They included 33 people found shot execution-style — presumably by sectarian death squads — and their bodies scattered across Baghdad.

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There are some positives that look to come out of it.. but above all.. it appears like a short-term loser for the Dems

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I saw it live... he seemed a bit pissed at Romano's "attitude"...

-"How many days of the year are they actually together in the same roof overnight, if you will?"
-"Well, how many is it? Is it 20 days a year?"
-"What's their deal? What is their deal, Jonathan? ... Are they in, like, what you'd call a long-distance marriage, where one person works in one city, the other works in another? How often do they actually see each other?"
-"What does it mean to say you talk to your spouse almost every day?"
-"Are they living on the same planet? Do they ever see each other physically?"

Update: Tweety also got pissed when Kornblum jokingly accused him if finally being "fact-based" when he flip-flopped on the meaning of the Iraq Authorization bill...

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TPM Muckraker has the goods on former Abramoff/Rove aide Susan Ralston...

Update: Think Progress reports Ralston has been denied immunity.. at least for now...

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As mentioned previously... GSA Chief Lurita Doan is in a heap of trouble...

An Office of Special Counsel report has found that General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal officials from partisan political activity while on the job, sources say.

The report addresses a Jan. 26 lunch meeting at GSA headquarters attended by Doan and about 40 political appointees, some of whom participated by videoconference. During the meeting, Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable in 2008, a map of contested Senate seats and other information on 2008 election strategy.

According to meeting participants, Doan asked after the call how GSA could help “our candidates.”

Doan has until June 1 to respond to the OSC report, which was delivered to her May 18, according to officials. The officials asked to remain anonymous because the report has not been made public.

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Atrios reminds us that Maliki's prediction of Iraqis taking control of security by June 2007 is just around the corner...

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22 May 2007

One of his students was arrested with a trunk full of explosives on his way to the funeral...

And Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.

The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service. The devices were made of a combination of gasoline and detergent, a law enforcement official told ABC News' Pierre Thomas. They were "slow burn," according to the official, and would not have been very destructive.

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21 May 2007

Bush signed a directive that he and he alone will be running the show in case of a catastrophic emergency...

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Liars...

What it essentially envisions is a series of military installations around Iraq, maybe five or six of them, a total of maybe 30-40 thousand U.S. troops in Iraq for a long period of time, lasting, maybe a few decades.

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Think Progress has the video and background...

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[youtube]qWE0A4KgZBw[/youtube]

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[youtube]mGlOBPNr7Kg[/youtube]impeachgonzales.org

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18 May 2007

Success is just around the corner...

More than 60 people were killed and dozens wounded in mortar strikes, drive-by shootings, roadside explosions, suicide bombings and other violent attacks in Iraq on Thursday, as a new study warned that the country was close to becoming a "failed state."
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Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that a recent mortar attack on a U.S. Air Force base in Taji, just north of Baghdad, had damaged about 10 helicopters, most lightly. No one was injured in the attack.

A mortar shell landed inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, headquarters of the Iraqi government and U.S. forces, in central Baghdad on Thursday for the third day in a row. No one was reported injured. About a dozen mortar shells hit the Green Zone on Wednesday, killing two Iraqis and wounding 10 people.

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Concede nothing, express disappointment in anything less than total concession by others...

In a closed-door meeting with Bush’s top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they’d strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals.

But no deal was struck.

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Time takes a look at the legality of the ICU showdown...

When then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales went to John Ashcroft's hospital room on the evening of March 10, 2004 to ask the ailing Attorney General to override Justice Department officials and reauthorize a secret domestic wiretapping program, he was acting inappropriately, Ashcroft's deputy at the time, James Comey, testified before Congress earlier this week. But the question some lawyers, national security experts and Congressional investigators are now asking is: Was Gonzales in fact acting illegally?
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"Executive branch rules require sensitive classified information to be discussed in specialized facilities that are designed to guard against the possibility that officials are being targeted for surveillance outside of the workplace," says Georgetown Law Professor Neal Katyal, who was National Security Advisor to the Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton. "The hospital room of a cabinet official is exactly the type of target ripe for surveillance by a foreign power," Katyal says. This particular information could have been highly sensitive. Says one government official familiar with the Terrorist Surveillance Program: "Since it's that program, it may involve cryptographic information," some of the most highly protected information in the intelligence community.
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The penalty for "knowingly and willfully" disclosing information "concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States" carries a penalty up to 10 years in prison under U.S. law. "It's the one you worry about," says the government official familiar with the program.

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WaPo has a graphical timeline of the evolution of "the list"...

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As mentioned earlier... Bush nominated a fox to guard the Consumer Product Safety Commission henhouse...

Two Democratic senators said Thursday the White House should withdraw the nomination of manufacturers' lobbyist Michael Baroody to run the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

A third senator, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said Baroody has pursued a number of anti-consumer activities with the National Association of Manufacturers, which will pay the lobbyist $150,000 when he leaves for his new government post.

Baroody's background clearly illustrates that he cannot provide needed leadership at an agency "serving a critical child safety and public health mission," Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida and Richard Durbin of Illinois wrote President Bush.

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If the Senate complies... looks like Bush will have another veto opportunity...

Shrugging off a possible veto from President Bush, the House demanded that the administration develop a plan to transfer detainees from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The 220 to 208 vote came on an amendment to a bill authorizing defense programs that the Democratic-led House passed overwhelmingly.

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Why have an Ethics Committee?

The House ethics committee has declared that an earmark requested by Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) to build a commuter transit center near a handful of properties he owns would not be an impermissible financial conflict because any benefit to Calvert would be shared by other similarly situated landowners.

TPM Muckraker brings us the goods, via Roll Call

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Deadeye Dick's lawyers argue that he can't be held liable for "doing his duty"...

Attorneys for Vice President Cheney and top White House officials told a federal judge yesterday that they cannot be held liable for anything they disclosed to reporters about covert CIA officer Valerie Plame or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
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Cheney's attorney went further, arguing that Cheney is legally akin to the president because of his unique government role and has absolute immunity from any lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates asked: "So you're arguing there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- these officials could have said to reporters that would have been beyond the scope of their employment," whether the statements were true or false?

"That's true, Your Honor.

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Think Progress has a great analysis of Rumsfeld's latest endeavor...

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17 May 2007

Hate to say I told you so....

Offering another sign that the administration plans to continue its escalation of the war in Iraq into 2008, U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus now says that he will not have “anything definitive” to say about the war in his September review.
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In recent weeks, senior conservatives have said that President Bush had until September “to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner.” Petraeus’ announcement throws a major wrench in that plan.

Think Progress has the goods...

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Three soldiers still missing, coordinated attacks and kidnappings, Green Zone mortar attack...

About 4,000 U.S. troops and 2,000 Iraqis are searching for the three U.S. soldiers feared captured by al-Qaida during the ambush, which also killed one Iraqi soldier.
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At 6 p.m. Wednesday, about 10 gunmen hijacked a bus in Baqouba that was traveling from Baghdad to Kirkuk in northern Iraq, police said. The attackers took 20 women and an unknown number of children off the vehicle, then left with 23 male passengers as hostages, apparently heading toward a nearby al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold, police said.

An apparently coordinated attack by five suicide car bombers and scores of militants backed by mortars and bombs killed four policemen in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday night and injured 30 other people, including 14 police officers, police said.
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On Wednesday, mortar rounds hammered the U.S.-controlled Green Zone for a second day, killing at least two people, wounding about 10 more and raising new fears for the safety of workers at the nerve center of the American mission in Iraq.

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Think Progress has the video of Bush dodging the question of his participation in the Abu/Card confrontation with Ashcroft while he was in the ICU...

“Sir, did you send your then Chief of Staff and White House Counsel to the bedside of John Ashcroft while he was ill to get him to approve that program,” she asked, “and do you believe that kind of conduct from White House officials is appropriate?”
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"As i say, I’m not going to move the issue forward by talking about something as highly classified subject."

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Try as they might.. this isn't going away...

Two Senate Democrats said Thursday they will seek a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over accusations that he carried out President Bush's political agenda at the expense of the Justice Department's independence.
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Their announcement is the latest in a series of blows suffered by Gonzales this week, including new criticism from Republicans and the prediction of one GOP veteran that the investigation into the firings of federal prosecutors would end with the attorney general's resignation.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that the Justice Department can't properly protect the nation from terrorism or oversee Bush's no-warrant eavesdropping program with Gonzales at the helm.

"I have a sense that when we finish our investigation, we may have the conclusion of the tenure of the attorney general," Specter said during a committee hearing. "I think when our investigation is concluded, it'll be clear even to the attorney general and the president that we're looking at a dysfunctional department which is vital to the national welfare."

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As mentioned previously, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed his willingness to respect the wishes of the Iraqi gov't if they request that we leave. It appears as though he's not alone in that thinking...

Some key Republican supporters of President Bush's Iraq war policy said this week that if the Iraqi parliament calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, their position could change dramatically.

"I suspect we would respect their wishes," said Florida Rep. Adam Putnam, the third-ranking Republican in the House.

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As mentioned earlier... the WH announced their opposition to a Democratic-supported pay raise for our troops. Now it appears that's not all they oppose...

– a $40/month allowance for military survivors, saying the current benefits are “sufficient”

– additional benefits for surviving family members of civilian employees

– price controls for prescription drugs under TRICARE, the military’s health care plan for military personnel and their dependents

nod Think Progress

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Contract calls for one year's salary if fired or if he resigns...

Update: Wolfy resigns, effective the end of June

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As mentioned previously... McCain is acting more as candidate McCain than Senator McCain...

Sen. John McCain (R-Campaign Trail) missed another vote today on a resolution related to the Iraq war, skipping a procedural move on a war funding measure in favor of hitting the campaign trail in New York.

In fact, McCain's missed vote today marked his fifth straight week without casting a vote on the Senate floor, with this morning's vote marking the 42nd straight roll call that he has missed.

Since the first-quarter fundraising period for presidential candidates ended March 31, McCain has made just three floor votes. He hasn't cast a single vote since the full details of his wildly disappointing presidential campaign's fundraising report were revealed in mid-April.

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GOP replaces the crooked replacement of a crooked Congressman with another crooked replacement...

Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff may yet help the political fortunes of U.S. Rep Tom Feeney of Florida.

The Oviedo Republican said today he would take over as GOP leader on the space subcommittee, part of the overall House science committee.

Why the open slot?

The previous GOP leader, U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert of California, left his "ranking member" post to fill a vacant seat on the appropriations committee.

That seat was available because its former occupant, U.S. Rep. John Doolittle of California, stepped down from the appropriations committee following an FBI raid on his Virginia home in connection to the Abramoff corruption scandal.

Feeney has had his own troubles with Abramoff, stemming from a 2003 golf junket to Scotland the two men took. When Feeney first told Congress about the trip, he reported that a conservative think tank paid for it. But later, investigators found Abramoff footed the bill through a "slush fund" worth millions.

Lobbyists are forbidden to pay for congressional travel. Abramoff pleaded guilty last year of bribing public officials.

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As mentioned earlier, the Comey testimony has generated many more questions.. and Congress wants answers...

- Is Mr. Comey’s testimony about the events of March, 2004 as provided this week to the Senate Judiciary Committee (a copy of which is enclosed with this letter) accurate and, if not, please explain your version of what happened?

- Was the classified program referred to by Mr. Comey the Terrorist Surveillance Program, as it existed prior to the changes made according to the Justice Department’s recommendations and, if not, what was the classified program that Mr. Comey was referring to?

- Who was involved in deciding to seek approval from Attorney General Ashcroft from his hospital bed and who made the telephone call to arrange your visit to his bedside?

- What was the basis for the Administration’s decision on March 10-11 to continue with the program despite the Department’s objections, how long did it so continue? Please provide copies of any legal or other memoranda on the subject.

- What was the basis for the Department’s objections to the program. Please provide copies of any Office of Legal Counsel or other documents relating to those objections?

- What changes were made to the program to resolve the Department’s objections?

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Two former Marines speak out...

We have served in combat; we understand the reality of fear and the havoc it can wreak if left unchecked or fostered. Fear breeds panic, and it can lead people and nations to act in ways inconsistent with their character.
...
These assertions that "torture works" may reassure a fearful public, but it is a false security. We don't know what's been gained through this fear-driven program. But we do know the consequences.

As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture -- only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works -- the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real "ticking time bomb" situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of "flexibility" about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone -- the rare exception fast becoming the rule.

To understand the impact this has had on the ground, look at the military's mental health assessment report released earlier this month. The study shows a disturbing level of tolerance for abuse of prisoners in some situations. This underscores what we know as military professionals: Complex situational ethics cannot be applied during the stress of combat. The rules must be firm and absolute; if torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality.

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Think Progress has the info...

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Wonders why Democrats aren't asked about the lack of women and minority presidential candidates...

You can count on it in every -- just like there's a template developing for the Republican debate last night. "How come there are no women and minorities on stage?" I guess you forgot about 2004. And I guess -- you know, the Democrats never get those kinds of questions because it's always assumed that they're fair and just, and not discriminatory and all that.

Media Matters has the goods...

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The beat goes on...

The legal battle in the CIA leak case continues today in U.S. District Court where outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, have filed a lawsuit against four current or former top Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

This morning the lawyers for the Vice President, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; White House political adviser Karl Rove; and former State Department Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage will attempt to get the lawsuit thrown out of court.

Plame and Wilson accuse Cheney and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy Plame's career at the CIA.

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It's hard to keep them all straight...

In very dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified that in March 2004, when you served as White House Counsel, you were involved in "an effort to take advantage of a very sick man," referring to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
...
In addition, on April 6, 2006, in answer to a question from then House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner about the hospital visit, which had been reported in the press, you responded: "Mr. Chairman, what I can say – and I'm sure this will not be acceptable, but let me say it anyway – is that I have testified before that the disagreement that existed does not relate to the program the President confirmed in December to the American people."

We ask for your prompt response to the following question: In light of Mr. Comey's testimony yesterday, do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?

Update: The DoJ will not retract Abu's false statement -- that would go over big with the Judiciary Committee

The Justice Department said yesterday that it will not retract a sworn statement in 2006 by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that the Terrorist Surveillance Program had aroused no controversy inside the Bush administration, despite congressional testimony Tuesday that senior departmental officials nearly resigned in 2004 to protest such a program.

The department’s affirmation of Gonzales’s remarks raised fresh questions about the nature of the classified dispute, which former U.S. officials say led then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey and as many as eight colleagues to discuss resigning.

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Apparently covering the staggering medical bills of returning vets is reward enough...

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

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Apparently you can't be a Bush appointee without a major conflict of interest involved with your new position...

Michael Baroody, a senior lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers nominated by President Bush to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission, “will receive a $150,000 departing payment from the association when he takes his new government job, which involves enforcing consumer laws against members of the association.”

Mr. Baroody said in the letter that the payment would not prevent him from considering matters involving individual companies that are members of the manufacturers’ association, many of whom are defendants in agency proceedings over defective products or have other business before the commission.

Think Progress has the goods...

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CREW informs us that the Dept of Education is also using private email accounts for official business in violation of the law...

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Lectures Republican Rep Jack Kingston about his "lazy and dishonest" comparison of Iraq and peaceful occupations of Germany and South Korea...

Matthews: Will the people of Georgia support ten more years of American involvement, military involvement in Iraq?

Kingston: Well, people know we're still in Germany and in South Korea…

Matthews: Yea, but..no no no no no. I won't let you get away with that. That's not a fair comparison. We do not have a war in South Korea. There's no German that's fired on an American since 1945. That's not a fair comparison…That is not an acceptable argument! These comparisons to previous eras…it's lazy thinking, Congressman. It's the kind of propaganda that does not help this country understand the situation. You stepped into a dishonest comparison. Some people come on this show over and over again saying things that-JUST-aren't-true.

Crooks and Liars has the video...

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Again from Josh... this could spell doom for the WH and their connection to Abramoff...

Also... Goodling To Testify May 23

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Josh picks up an interesting item regarding the resignation of the former USA of Minnesota, Tom Heffelfinger...

But McClatchy is saying -- and even rather offhandedly -- that he was told to resign and that he was pushed because he wouldn't go along with the voter roll purges that the Department of Justice was pushing in swing states around the country. If I'd had to guess what happened. Something like that would be my top guess. But who found this out? And why is the first we hear of it so deep down in this article about two other US Attorneys?

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Wants to resign without it looking like he's being forced to resign...

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz sought a face-saving agreement Wednesday that would allow him to resign under his own terms and escape some blame for the conflict of interest involving his girlfriend’s generous pay deal.
...
Riza worked for the bank before Wolfowitz took over as president in June 2005. She was moved to the State Department to avoid a conflict of interest, but stayed on the bank’s payroll. Her salary went from close to $133,000 to $180,000. With subsequent raises, it eventually rose to $193,590.

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16 May 2007

Scores dead or wounded in possible chlorine gas attack...

A bomb in a parked car exploded near a market in a Shiite enclave northeast of the capital, killing at least 32 people and wounding 50, police said Wednesday. Hospital officials and some of the wounded said it appeared that chlorine gas was used in the attack, but police denied the reports.

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15 May 2007

Despite his refusal to disclose the clients he has represented, they continue to leak out. My latest favorites...

- Lobbied the Department of Health and Human Services on Medicare coverage of power scooters and wheelchairs from The Scooter Store. The Scooter Store agreed Friday to pay a $4 million fine and surrender $43 million in Medicare claims over allegations by the Justice Department that it had defrauded the government.
...
- A Drug Enforcement Administration inquiry concluded Naturex had, over a period of years, imported and exported benzaldehyde more than 100 times without notifying the government. In 2004, Giuliani was hired by the pharmaceutical industry to study - and testified before Congress on - the dangers of importing prescription drugs.

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Apparently they're not exactly rolling out the red carpet for the Republican debate tonite...

There's another big difference between this debate and the one two weeks ago: It's how the non-FOX News media have been treated here. For starters, the media filing center didn't even have outlet chords for our laptops when we first got here (although that seems being taken care of as we speak).

But the more surprising treatment ocurred when we tried walking into the large, air-conditioned Koger Center to use one of the bathrooms. Yet we were told that only FOX employees were allowed into the building, and that we'd have to use one of the porto-a-potties outside. Nice.

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Some of his testimony regarding the rush to confront Ashcroft in the ICU would make for a great mini-series...

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey detailed the desperate late night efforts by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card to get the Justice Department to approve a secret program -- the warrantless wiretapping program.

According to Comey's testimony this morning, only when faced with resignations by a number of Justice Department officials including Comey, his chief of staff, Ashcroft's chief of staff, Ashcroft himself and possibly Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, did the White House agree to make changes to the program that would satisfy the requirements of the Justice Department to sign off on it (Comey refused to name the program, but it's apparent from the context and prior reports that this was the warrantless wiretapping program).

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Found unresponsive in his office...

Update: While interviewing Tweety, Contessa Brewer quotes not once, but twice, a comment she found on Whitehouse.org about Falwell's influence on the Bush administration. I wonder how long it will take for someone to tell her that Whitehouse.org is a comedy site..

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Think Progress has the video of Abu's latest funny -- claiming his Chief of Staff and Deputy AG should not be considered his "top aides". If not them... who?

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U.S. confirms Al Qaeda may be holding troops hostage...

An al-Qaida front group that claims it has captured American soldiers warned the United States on Monday to stop searching for them and suggested it attacked the U.S. convoy as revenge for the rape and murder of a local teenager last year.

The U.S. military also said for the first time it believes the three missing soldiers were abducted by al-Qaida-linked militants after an attack that included three roadside bombs.

“What you are doing in searching for your soldiers will lead to nothing but exhaustion and headaches. Your soldiers are in our hands. If you want their safety, do not look for them,” the Islamic State of Iraq said on a militant Web site.

“You should remember what you have done to our sister Abeer in the same area,” the statement said, referring to five American soldiers who were charged in the rape and killing of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killings of her parents and her younger sister last year.

Three soldiers have pleaded guilty in the case — one of the most shocking atrocities committed by U.S. troops in the Iraq war.

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Everything he touches is tainted...

Nearly half the U.S. attorneys slated for removal by the administration last year were targets of Republican complaints that they were lax on voter fraud, including efforts by presidential adviser Karl Rove to encourage more prosecutions of election- law violations, according to new documents and interviews.

Of the 12 U.S. attorneys known to have been dismissed or considered for removal last year, five were identified by Rove or other administration officials as working in districts that were trouble spots for voter fraud -- Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; New Mexico; Nevada; and Washington state. Four of the five prosecutors in those districts were dismissed.

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That makes 4...

The White House was hit by two sudden resignations late Monday when Paul McNulty, a top Justice Department official, and Lanny Davis, the only Democratic member of the president’s civil liberties watchdog board, announced they were stepping down. Both resignations are likely to fuel allegations of White House political meddling in law enforcement and national security issues.

McNulty, the deputy attorney general, cited the “financial realities of college-age children” as the reason for his resignation. But a close associate, who asked not to be identified talking about private conversations, said that McNulty’s decision to leave now was prompted in part by his disenchantment with both Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and top White House officials over their handling of the U.S. attorney controversy.

In particular, McNulty was stunned last March to discover that Gonzales’ former top aide, Kyle Sampson, and White House officials—including deputy counsel Bill Kelley in a crucial March 7 strategy session—had failed to inform him and one of his deputies about the early White House role in the decision to remove the prosecutors, the associate said.

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As mentioned previously, republican Rep Ken Calvert has a history of bad behavior. Add one more example of poor judgement to the list...

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), recently appointed by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to the House Appropriations Committee, has a history of ethics violations that is stirring up battle cries even from his own conservative base. His ethics violations also extend into attempts to dodge the law and lie to the public about his behavior.

In 1993, Calvert was caught by police with a prostitute in a parked car in California. Subsequently, Calvert repeatedly attempted to cover up the incident for nearly a year, publicly denying that it ever occurred.

Think Progress does the heavy lifting...

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Not so good.. unless you're a member of a death squad...

The US military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in the victims of death squads in Baghdad.

In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies - men murdered by death squads - dumped around the capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of 25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive next month.

In a further setback, the US military announced yesterday the loss of an entire patrol south of Baghdad, with five soldiers dead and three others missing, after they were ambushed by insurgents in the town of Mahmoudiya.

The new figures emerged as the commander of US forces in northern Iraq, Major General Benjamin Mixon, admitted he did not have enough soldiers to contain the escalating violence in Diyala province, which neighbours Baghdad and has become the focus of the heaviest fighting between largely Sunni insurgent groups and the US army, which has seen casualties increase by 300 per cent. Sixty-one US soldiers have been killed in Diyala this year, compared with 20 in all of last year.

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As mentioned previously, Nevada Governor and former Representative Jim Gibbons has been in his share of hot water. Now, he's refusing to provide receipts to prove he paid for a vacation to Turkey, paid for by an arms contractor...

Lawyers for Governor Jim Gibbons say they won't release documents that they say show the governor and his wife paid their share of a vacation the couple took with a federal defense contractor to Turkey.

A spokesman for the lawyers confirmed Gibbons and his wife Dawn traveled to Turkey in 2000 with three other couples, including Fatih and Eren Ozmen.

The Ozmens own a military defense firm that sought millions in federal contracts while Gibbons was a congressman serving on the House armed services and intelligence committees.

Less than a year before the Turkey trip, the Ozmens' company, Sierra Nevada Corporation, received a $12 million contract to build an aircraft landing system for the US Marine Corps.

The company later paid Dawn Gibbons about $35,000 for public relations consulting work. Gibbons' relationship with another defense contractor, Reno-based eTreppid Technologies, has been the subject of the federal corruption probe.

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This time, family and friends benefit from a bridge to Knik Arm...

If the area is successfully developed, that could mean a significant windfall for a number of people close to the Congressional delegation — including Young’s daughter, Joni, Stevens’ chief of staff and campaign manager and Murkowski’s state director — some of whom purchased land in the area just a few months before then-Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Young began substantive work on a massive highway bill in early 2003.

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Crooks and Liars has the video of McCain blaming General Petraeus for over-defending his Baghdad market photo-op...

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, you had an armed escort…

SEN. McCAIN: I had an armed escort because, because that's what General Petraeus thought we ought to have.—I didn't call for the kind of, quote, protection that was around me…
...
And I'll be glad to go back to that market with or without military protection and, and humvees, etc

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Think Progress has the goods on the ineffectiveness of the attacks against Pelosi following her trip to Syria...

Despite weeks of relentless right-wing attacks, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) latest approval ratings are virtually unchanged from results taken during the first week of April, a new AP/Ipsos poll shows.

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He assures us that he will gladly withdraw our forces if the Iraqi gov't requests us to...

Citing media reports, McConnell said some lawmakers in Iraq's parliament wanted a vote to ask the United States to leave.

"I want to assure you, if they vote to ask us to leave, we'll be glad to comply with their request," he said.

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“It seems ironic that Paul McNulty who at least tried to level with the committee goes while Gonzales who stonewalled the committee is still in charge. This administration owes us a lot better.”
-- Sen Chuck Schumer

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No.. not Shias vs Sunnis... the Pentagon vs the State Dept...

“Paul Brinkley, a deputy undersecretary of defense, has been called a Stalinist by U.S. diplomats in Iraq. One has accused him of helping insurgents build better bombs. The State Department has even taken the unusual step of enlisting the CIA to dispute the validity of Brinkley’s work. His transgression? To begin reopening dozens of government-owned factories in Iraq.”

Think Progress has the goods...

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As mentioned previously, republican Rep Patrick McHenry lost his cool on the House floor. Now we might know why he was agitated...

The CBS News Investigative Unit has learned a man who was a field coordinator in Congressman Patrick McHenry's (R-NC) 2004 campaign has been indicted for voter fraud in North Carolina.

The indictment charges that Michael Aaron Lay, 26, illegally cast his ballot in two 2004 Congressional primary run-offs in which McHenry was a candidate. The charges indicate that Lay voted in a district where it was not legal for him to vote.

At the time Lay was listed as a resident in a home owned by 32-year-old McHenry but campaign records indicate Lay's paychecks were sent to an address in Tennessee. McHenry won the primary by only 86 votes.

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Accuses rebellious republicans of inviting a "Tet Offensive"...

HUME: It’s been said that the setting of a timetable for withdrawal is the worst idea. If that’s true, the second worst is the announcement by Republicans and others that September is the drop-dead date for serious and major progress. That places an enormously useful bit of intelligence in the hands of the enemy and allows the enemy to mount possibly around that time something on the order of the Tet Offensive, which was a major defeat for the insurgent forces in Vietnam,

Think Progress has the video...

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As mentioned previously, the Iraqi gov't appear to be quick learners. Unfortunately, they're learning the wrong things...

“Iraq’s interior ministry has decided to bar news photographers and camera operators from the scenes of bomb attacks, operations director Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said on Sunday.”

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Think Progress lists the various reasons given by CBS for his firing...

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The popular right-wing blog Redstate declares war on republican "perverts, louts, and corrupt common criminals"...

This war is not about Ken Calvert. The people of his district elected him and he has every right to represent them. He should not, however, be on the Appropriations Committee. Already on the Appropriations Committee -- that committee which doles out taxpayer funds -- Republicans have seen Duke Cunningham go to jail, John Doolittle resign because of a federal investigation, and Jerry Lewis most likely to soon be indicted. Calvert is just the most recent unfortunate example of why this war is necessary.
...
If the House Republican leadership is so out of touch and willing to blatantly ignore their base — a group of men and women across this nation who are tired of defending a party that continually puts into positions of power *known* perverts, louts, and corrupt common criminals — we must be willing to wage war upon them until they bend to common sense and decency.

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Rick "Taser" Sanchez has the solution for the insurgency...

HOLMES: There are some good things happening here. There's - you know, Petraeus is -- General Petraeus is a smart guy. He's a scholar of counterinsurgency. Written books about it. And he's doing some very good things, but I wonder whether they're a couple years too late.

SANCHEZ: I'm just thinking that is there a way to win? And what is the definition of winning? Mine would be -- I'll share mine with you. Mine would be, A, stop killing them, thereby they'll stop hating you and wanting to kill you, or B, kill them all.

HOLMES: Well, the problem with this war is it's - there's more...

SANCHEZ: Are any of those options?

HOLMES: Well, no, because ultimately, you want to kill the bad guys. And this is the first war I've ever been in where there is no front line. And the bad guys don't wear uniforms.

So it's very hard for the U.S., for example, to pick out who you're going to shoot at. You know, you could be driving down the street, or walking down the street, and the guy standing right there is a senior member of the insurgency. You don't know. And the guy over there is a baker. And how do you pick? It's a very hard battle to win.

The key to winning a counter - winning an insurgency is to get the people on the side. And that's a slow process. You've got to bring back that tribal fabric that existed before and get the shakes involved, and get them to fight the bad guys.

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Only a matter of time before he ditches the act and announces he's gone completely to the dark side...

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) is never going to win any popularity contests among his party's liberal base -- a fact he seems decidedly unconcerned about despite his 2006 Democratic primary loss to Ned Lamont.

Democrats' 2000 vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, left, is helping raise money for Republican Susan Collins of Maine, right. (Getty Images)Not only has Lieberman endorsed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine.) -- one of Democrats' biggest targets in the 2008 cycle -- but he's planning to co-host a fundraiser for her on June 21 in Washington, D.C.

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Fair and balanced?...

Fox News just ran a segment reporting on potential illegal "double-voting" in South Carolina.
...
Notice anything missing? As in, non-black voters?

Ahhh. A segment on illegal voting that only features B-roll of African Americans...great job, guys!

TPM Cafe has the info...

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As mentioned previously, Gibbons has plenty of experience dealing with ethical problems...

The key facts are familiar. A politician gets a fancy vacation and perhaps other lucrative benefits. And a defense contractor gets multi-million-dollar government contracts. The question now: Was any of it criminal?

The new governor of Nevada, Jim Gibbons, is being investigated by the FBI because of alleged gifts and payments from Warren Trepp, a defense contractor whose Nevada firm received tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

The FBI wants to know if Gibbons, while a member of Congress, improperly used his influence to help Trepp get those contracts.

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As mentioned before, the Cunningham scandal nabbed more than one crook...

Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and Brent Wilkes head to federal court today where they will likely plead not guilty to new conspiracy and money laundering charges.

Indictments against the pair came Friday that expand the charges filed against them in February.

In addition to the old charges, in the new indictment, Foggo, former executive director of the CIA, is accused of slipping his lifelong friend, Wilkes, a $132 million federal contract to “provide commercial cover for CIA air operations.”

TPM Muckraker has the goods...

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Who said chivalry was dead?

A World Bank investigating committee sharply rebuked President Paul D. Wolfowitz, concluding that he broke ethics rules and undermined the integrity of the institution in engineering a hefty pay raise for his girlfriend.
...
In a written response, Wolfowitz maintained that he acted in good faith in seeking to resolve an obvious conflict of interest. He accused the bank's ethics committee of forcing him to oversee the raise for his longtime companion, Shaha Riza, as compensation for her transfer to a different job. The ethics panel was afraid to confront her, Wolfowitz said, because its members knew she was "extremely angry and upset."

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Does Pat Robertson run a school for psychiatry, too?

Radio relationship guru Laura Schlessinger, in Salt Lake City on Friday to speak to Army families at Fort Douglas, said she was tired of hearing the complaints of lonely and overwhelmed military wives whose husbands are deployed.

"He could come back without arms, legs or eyeballs, and you're (whining)?" Schlessinger asked before taking the stage at the base theater to host her daily program on ethics, morals and values. "You're not dodging bullets, so I don't want to hear any whining -- that's my message to them."

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Katrina aid program as far behind as the VA...

The massive federally funded program for rebuilding Louisiana homes is short nearly $3 billion, administrators told a state legislative panel here today, leaving uncertain for now how the owners of roughly 100,000 flood-wrecked houses here will be compensated.
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More than 20 months after the Katrina catastrophe, tens of thousands of houses remain vacant, in part because of administrative delays in the aid program, the largest single source of direct federal help for homeowners. To date, only 16,000 of 130,000 applicants have received money.

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14 May 2007

Hours of fun, for all ages...

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11 May 2007

Ole Dickie Boy is a stand up guy...

"Well, obviously, any casualty is to be regretted. Nobody likes to be in the position where they have to make those kinds of decisions. Obviously, the President bears the major part of the burden. He's the man with the authority to commit the force.

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Troop readiness target seems to be a slippery one...

5/25/06
"our security forces will be capable of taking over the security portfolio in all Iraqi provinces within one year and a half"

11/30/06
"I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007"

5/10/07
“I think that in one or two years we will be able to recruit our forces, to prepare our forces and say goodbye to our friends"

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Says the Iraqi gov't isn't moving fast enough...

The U.S. commander in northern Iraq said Friday that he doesn’t have enough troops for the mission in increasingly violent Diyala province.

Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon also said that Iraqi government officials are not moving fast enough to provide the “most powerful weapon” against insurgents — a government that works and supplies services for the people.

Mixon commands the area that includes Diyala province, north of Baghdad. It was a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency before the start of the Baghdad security crackdown and has worsened since militants fled there to avoid the increased U.S.-led operations started in the capital in February.

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Apparently having friends in high places helps even the soulless...

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been cleared of allegations that she falsified her Palm Beach County voter's registration and voted illegally — this, after a high-level FBI agent made unsolicited phone calls to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office to vouch for Coulter.

The caller wasn't just any G-man. According to PBSO documents, he was Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, of the FBI Academy's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Va. — the closest reality gets to the serial-killer catchers on CBS' Criminal Minds.
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"This doesn't bode well in terms of the public's impression that celebrities receive preferential treatment," Anderson said. "I'm curious about how anyone can justify the FBI's intrusion."

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Think Progress has the video...

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Next stop -- Senate Judiciary Committee...

A federal judge approved an immunity deal Friday allowing former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling to testify before Congress about the firing of eight federal prosecutors.
...
"Monica Goodling may not refuse to testify," Hogan began his brief order, which said that Goodling could not be prosecuted for anything other than perjury in connection with her testimony.

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Says there's a one-in-three chance of a recession...

Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Friday he still believed there was a one-third chance that the U.S. economy would slip into recession this year, reiterating a statement made in March.
...
The United States economy grew at a tepid 1.3 percent annualized rate in the first quarter -- the weakest pace in four years.

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Which puts him at odds with the prez and vice prez...

The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.

"This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we -- not our enemies -- occupy the moral high ground,"
...
He rejected the argument that torture is sometimes needed to quickly obtain crucial information. "Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary," he stated.

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Think Progress brings the goods on the hypocrisy CBS has engaged in when it comes to it's policy banning "advocacy"...

When asked what standards Batiste violated, Genelius said he participated in “advocacy,” but noted that she had not seen the ad to verify the charge. Batiste’s only “advocacy” in the ad might be found in this statement: “Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril. Our only hope is that Congress will act now to protect our fighting men and women.”

While CBS claims it will not tolerate consultants engaging in outside advocacy, it apparently has no problem paying a former White House communications director to engage in the Bush administration’s advocacy on air. While being billed as CBS News’ “political consultant,” Nicolle Wallace has propagated talking points advanced by her old colleagues in the White House communications office.
...
It’s apparently only advocacy when you’re opposing Bush.

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Charges that Martinez violated multiple FEC regulations...

The complaint is based primarily upon the Commission’s recent audit on April 17, 2007 of Martinez for Senate, which revealed that the campaign committee failed to comply with the most basic disclosure provisions of FECA and FEC regulations. During the course of the ten-month campaign, Martinez for Senate received no fewer than three written warnings from the Commission.

The FEC’s Audit Division found that Martinez for Senate violated several statutes by failing to disclose occupation and/or employer information for an astonishing forty-six percent (46%) of the individuals who contributed to the campaign, and by failing to provide any contributor identification information at all for approximately $320,000 in contributions.

The Audit Division also found that Martinez for Senate accepted $313,325 in excessive contributions. Virtually all of those illegal funds were spent by Martinez for Senate in order to win the 2004 general election when, in fact, they should not have been available for use. Additionally, in the twenty days before the 2004 general election, Martinez for Senate received, but failed to disclose, $140,514 in contributions.

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An "imminent" threat against U.S. civillians and/or military in Germany has been announced -- which means there must be bad news about the Bush administration coming out this afternoon..

U.S. and German officials fear terrorists are in the advanced planning stages of an attack on U.S. military personnel or tourists in Germany.

Law enforcement officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com that U.S. air marshals have been diverted to provide expanded protection of flights between Germany and the United States.

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Will balance budget by 2012, restores "pay-go"...

A Democratic blueprint taking shape in House-Senate talks would balance the federal budget within five years, promising higher spending but also expiration of many of the tax cuts passed in President Bush's first term.
...
The measure would also restore a "pay-as-you-go" rule that requires tax cuts or spending increases in benefits programs -- such as Medicare, children's health care or farm subsidies -- to be financed by spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere to avoid worsening the deficit.

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Half up front, half in two months if progress is made...

The Democratic-controlled House voted Thursday night to pay for military operations in Iraq on an installment plan, defying President Bush’s threat of a second straight veto in a fierce test of wills over the unpopular war.
...
A few hours later, the House passed legislation providing funds for the war grudgingly, in two installments. The first portion would cover costs until Aug. 1 — $42.8 billion to buy equipment and train Iraqi and Afghan security forces.

Under the bill, it would take a summertime vote by Congress to free an additional $52.8 billion, the money needed to cover costs through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

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Intentionally misleading Congress is very serious, and it appears that Gone-zales is well-aware of the coverup, yet continues to claim ignorance..

The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
...
The senior official said that Gonzales, in preparing for testimony before Congress, has personally reviewed the withheld records and has a responsibility to make public any information he has about efforts by his former chief of staff, other department aides, and White House officials to conceal Rove's role.

"If [Gonzales] didn't know everything that was going on when it went down, that is one thing," this official said. "But he knows and understands chapter and verse. If there was an effort within Justice and the White House to mislead Congress, it is his duty to disclose that to Congress. As the country's chief law enforcement official, he has a higher duty to disclose than to protect himself or the administration."

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First he was for'em... (10/25/06)

Then he was agin'em... (4/30/07)

Now he's for'em agin... (5/10/07)

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Less than a month after promising that our troops would have a minimum of twelve months of downtime between rotations, the 1st Armored Division’s 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, Company A were informed they would be heading back to Iraq after only nine months at home...

The Army is sending a company of Europe-based soldiers back to Iraq before the unit has had a full 12 months of “dwell time,” or at-home rest.

Members of the 1st Armored Division’s 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, Company A, learned Tuesday that they are scheduled to head back to Iraq in November, just nine months after the 150-soldier company left the combat zone in February after a 13-month deployment.

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From Bernard Kerik, to Chavez, to the Delta Airlines/CSC bankruptcy, and now the OxyContin outrage...

Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting company, Giuliani Partners, have served as key advisors for the last five years to the pharmaceutical company that pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin.

Federal officials say the company, Purdue Frederick, helped to trigger a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the time-release painkiller by failing to give early warnings that it could be abused.

Prosecutors say "in the process scores died."

---
And for icing on the cake... $200k worth of World Series rings for the discounted price of $16k

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Think Progress has the goods on Boehner's screwups while speaking on the House floor...

Decrying the “political games” being played, Boehner said, wagging his finger, “I’m going to remind all of my colleagues that all of our members in this chamber, except one — all of our members in this chamber, Democrat and Republican, except one — voted to send our troops to Iraq.”
...
Fully 133 members of the House voted against the Iraq war authorization.

and this whoops...

“The Senate leaders, Democrat and Republican, have made it clear that [Bush’s escalation] plan has no chance.” Actually, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports the escalation.

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TPM Muckraker has everything you need to know... plus video...

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Well.. more like bombs than fireworks...

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Wednesday to press government leaders to reconcile their political differences. His arrival occurred on a day when violence in normally placid northern Iraq killed 19 people, injured 70 and demonstrated the uncertain security situation even in sections of the country long considered relatively safe.
...
Later in the day, an explosion rattled windows in the building where Cheney continued at work. Lea Anne McBride, Cheney's spokeswoman, said the vice president's "business was not disrupted. He was not moved."

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Sez only liberals compare people to Nazis... except when he does it...

Think Progress does the heavy lifting...

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John Boehner (OH), Mike Castle (DE), Charlie Dent (PA), Tom Davis (VA), Jo Ann Emerson (MO), Mark Kirk (IL), Jim Gerlach (PA), Ray LaHood (IL), Todd Platts (PA), Jim Ramstad (MN), and James Walsh (NY)

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Assuming you're worth over $1 million...

Did Rudy Giuliani's campaign snub an Iowa farmer couple because they weren't millionaires and hence wouldn't be a suitable prop for Rudy's anti-"death tax" campaigning? And will the haircut-obsessed political media cover it?

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Doolittle replaced on Appropriations Committee with Ken Calvert... one of CREW's 20 Most Corrupt Politicians...

Yesterday, the House Republican Steering Committee voted to seat Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) on the Appropriations Committee, “filling the vacancy left by embattled Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA),” who is under investigation by the FBI for his longstanding ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
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But Boehner’s rhetoric is merely a PR stunt. Named one of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s “20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress,” Calvert has a history of abusing his power just as much as Doolittle:

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10 May 2007

Timmeh describes it as a possible "defining moment"...

The group of Republicans was led by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Charlie Dent (R-PA), and the meeting included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, and Tony Snow. One member of Congress called the discussion the “most unvarnished conversation they’ve ever had with the president,” and NBC’s Tim Russert said it “may have been a defining pivotal moment” in the Iraq debate.

Think Progress has the video...

Think Progress has the video...

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Nothing to see here... move along...

Two former U.S. attorneys said today they believe ongoing investigations into the dismissals last year of eight federal prosecutors could result in criminal charges against senior Justice Department officials.

John McKay, the former U.S. attorney for Western Washington, and David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, also said they believe White House political operative Karl Rove and his aides instigated the dismissals and ultimately decided who among the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys should be fired. But the White House on Wednesday flatly denied the firings were instigated by the White House.
...
McKay said he believes obstruction-of-justice charges will be filed if investigators conclude that the dismissal of any of the eight prosecutors was motivated by an attempt to influence ongoing public-corruption or voter-fraud investigations.

McKay said he believes the strongest evidence of obstruction is related to the dismissals of Iglesias and Carol Lam, the former U.S. Attorney in San Diego.
...
"His first speech to us was a 'you work for the White House' speech," McKay recalled. " 'I work for the White House, you work for the White House.' "

McKay said he thought at the time, "He couldn't have meant that speech," given the traditional independence of U.S. Attorneys. "It turns out he did."

nod TPM Muckraker

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Talking Points Memo has the details of the ninth purged attorney.. Todd Graves...

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Oops...

On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.

It's a hugely significant development. Lawmakers demanding an end to the occupation now have the upper hand in the Iraqi legislature for the first time; previous attempts at a similar resolution fell just short of the 138 votes needed to pass (there are 275 members of the Iraqi parliament, but many have fled the country's civil conflict, and at times it's been difficult to arrive at a quorum).

Bush Flashback...

But asked if, as a matter of principle, the United States would pull out of Iraq at the request of a new government, he said: "Absolutely. This is a sovereign government. They're on their feet."

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I always said it wasn't a surge.. it was an escalation...

The Pentagon announced yesterday that 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades will begin deploying to Iraq in August as replacements, making it possible to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year.

U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008.
...
"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," he said in an interview in Baghdad last week.

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Flak jackets and helmets are now in style...

A sharp increase in mortar attacks on the Green Zone — the one-time oasis of security in Iraq’s turbulent capital — has prompted the U.S. Embassy to issue a strict new order telling all employees to wear flak vests and helmets while in unprotected buildings or whenever they are outside.

The order, obtained by The Associated Press, has created a siege mentality among U.S. staff inside the Green Zone following a recent suicide attack on parliament. It has also led to new fears about long-term safety in the place where the U.S. government is building a massive and expensive new embassy.

The situation marks a sharp turnaround for the heavily guarded Green Zone — long viewed as the safest corner of Baghdad with its shops, restaurants, American fast-food outlets and key Iraqi and American government offices.

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Fighting the war against oversight...

Four of the federal government's top watchdogs have found themselves under investigation recently, a trend experts call unprecedented and troubling.
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Four IGs under simultaneous investigation "would be a record," confirmed Paul Light, a professor of government at New York University who wrote the definitive tome on the role and history of inspectors general. "They're supposed to be a bulwark against this stuff."

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A sample of her character...

The trustee, Henrietta Holsman, a 1970 graduate of Wellesley who runs a manufacturing concern in Los Angeles, resigned from the board last weekend after apologizing for her comments, which also cast aspersions on the work ethic of Hispanic and white employees. But in a letter to the college newspaper, Ms. Holsman reiterated her statement that she had trouble keeping black assembly-line workers from going “back to the street to earn more money” selling drugs

In her lecture, Ms. Holsman also said she had found Hispanic workers to be lazy, white workers resentful of having to work with machines, and Asians, while very productive, likely to move on to professional or management jobs.

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09 May 2007

When a top aide receives immunity -- which usually spells doom for the boss...

One source familiar with the investigation said federal officials have given immunity to at least one senior member of DeLay’s political circle who may now be cooperating with investigators. Former associates of the majority leader say investigators are apparently attempting to indict DeLay for corruption by proving that Buckham sought to influence him with unearned payments to his wife.

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08 May 2007

One in eight Iraqi children don't reach the age of 5...

The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.

One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Save the Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the least progress toward improving.

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Pools of blood..

"He tried to park the vehicle and then it exploded," Mohan Ali told Reuters. "There were many bodies."

The blast destroyed the restaurant, blowing out the windows, knocking over tables and scattering body parts.

"At least five or six people were killed inside the restaurant," the owner, Ali al-Hamadani, said. "There are pools of blood on the floor."

A crowd gathered at the scene of the attack afterwards and began chanting "No, No, America!"

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Turns out the scandal wasn't so one-sided..

Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.

The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public.

And look who got sucked up into the mess...

According to the Volcker report, surcharges on Iraqi oil exports were introduced in August 2000 by the Iraqi state oil company, the State Oil Marketing Organization. At the time, Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, was a member of Chevron’s board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.

Ms. Rice resigned from Chevron’s board on Jan. 16, 2001, after being named national security advisor by President Bush.

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Oops...

MORRIS: I think that withdrawal from Iraq — it obviously gives al Qaeda a huge victory. Huge victory. On the other hand, if we stay in Iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like.

One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we’re putting the Americans right within their arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

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It appears as though the only ethical people in the DoJ were the ones who were purged...

Lawmakers want to question Schlozman, who now works for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, about a voter fraud lawsuit he filed against Missouri in November 2005.

Committee members said they wanted to know whether U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of Kansas City, Mo., was forced out for not endorsing that lawsuit, which was ultimately dismissed. Graves resigned from his post in March 2006 and Schlozman replaced him as interim U.S. attorney.

Five days before the November 2006 election, Schlozman filed another lawsuit, this time accusing members of a liberal activist group of voter registration fraud. Justice Department policy discourages such lawsuits so close to the election.

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Congress is beginning to target the post-Labor Day period for measuring the effectiveness of the "surge" -- I'm not holding my breath...

Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline.

In that month, political pressures in Washington will dovetail with the military timeline in Baghdad. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, has said that by then he will have a handle on whether the current troop increase is having any impact on political reconciliation between Iraq's warring factions. And fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1, will almost certainly begin with Congress placing tough new strings on war funding.

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One guess as to the party the quoter belongs to...

Roll Call reports today that a House Republican delivered a foreign policy speech yesterday in which he quoted Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK.

On Monday, Rep. Ted Poe took to the House floor to discuss foreign policy matters. To make a point, the Texas Republican invoked the words of Civil War Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest: “Git thar fustest with the mostest.”

The quotation got some floor watchers’ attention pretty quickly. Forrest is a controversial figure who was one of the Klan’s first grand wizards. Although the Civil War hero (if you were a Confederate, that is) ultimately abandoned the Klan for its violent tactics, he continues to kick up dust.

“Controversial figure” doesn’t quite cut it. Most lists of the worst Americans in U.S. history include Nathan Bedford Forrest near the top.

Think Progress has the video...

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As usual.. Glenn nails it...

Brit Hume -- "news anchor" -- just comes right out and proclaims that Jack Murtha is senile and the Democratic Party is not "serious about national defense." That rant was as bitterly partisan as it was factually false. And he just candidly revealed that he believes the entire Democratic Party cannot be trusted on national security -- a view shared by a minority of Americans but one which is the old reliable propaganda slogan wielded by the hardest-core Republican operatives.

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I know Franken will hammer that point home, as will Ciresi. Jeebus... even Pawlenty is in favor or reimportation...

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Democratic Rep Tom Allen has filed for a run for Collins' senate seat...

Rep. Tom Allen (D) of Maine today filed his statement of candidacy to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R), setting up what promises to be one of the top Senate contests of 2008. And as Allen made clear in a video statement on his Web site, he will make the Iraq war a chief issue in the race.

"From the beginning, when President Bush rushed to invade Iraq, Susan Collins has supported his misguided policy. I fought to stop it."

"She voted for the Iraq War. I voted against it."

"Susan Collins continues to vote with the Republicans against a timetable to end the War in Iraq. I voted for a responsible change of course to bring our troops safely home."

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The House is considering a short-term funding bill for Iraq... possibly through July. My guess is that September would be a more popular target...

House Democratic leaders planned to brief party members Tuesday on new legislation that would fund the Iraq war through July, then give Congress the option of cutting off money after that if conditions do not improve.

If members agree to back the plan as expected, a vote on the new war spending bill could come as early as this week. The proposal, pitched last week by Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., was first disclosed Thursday by The Associated Press.

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Revelations of repeated donations to Planned Parenthood won't do him any good with his base...

“Federal tax returns made public by the former New York mayor show that he and his then-wife, Donna Hanover, made personal donations to national, state and city chapters of Planned Parenthood totaling $900 in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999. The returns have been on the public record for years, but the detail about Giuliani's support for Planned Parenthood -- along with e-mailed copies of the returns -- was provided to The Politico by aides to a rival campaign, who insisted on not being identified.”

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Claims Iraqi WMD having been smuggled into Syria is "entirely possible"...

On Syria, the report said that “no information gleaned from questioning Iraqis supported the possibility” that weapons were moved out of the country before the invasion, which was one theory about why no unconventional weapons were found. … Mr. Duelfer reported that his group, the Iraq Survey Group, believed “it was unlikely that an official transfer of W.M.D. material from Iraq to Syria took place.”

via Think Progress

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07 May 2007

Eight U.S. soldiers, one journalist ,and 95 Iraqis killed Sunday...

Roadside bombs killed eight American soldiers in separate attacks Sunday in Diyala province and Baghdad, and a car bomb claimed 30 more lives in a wholesale food market in a part of the Iraqi capital where sectarian tensions are on the rise.

In all, at least 95 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide Sunday, police reported. They included 12 policemen in Samarra, among them the city’s police chief, who died when Sunni insurgents launched a suicide car bombing and other attacks on police headquarters.

The deadliest attack against U.S. forces occurred in Diyala, where six U.S. soldiers and a European journalist were killed when a massive bomb destroyed their vehicle, the U.S. military said. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded, the military said.

Two other American soldiers died Sunday in separate bombings in Baghdad.

The military Sunday also reported three other deaths — two Marines in a blast Sunday in Anbar province and a soldier who died Sunday in a non-combat incident in northern Iraq.

The deaths raised to at least 3,373 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
...
Dozens of al-Qaida linked insurgents — some wearing masks and carrying video cameras and black banners — also paraded through the streets, arriving in about 40 cars, in a show of force against the U.S.-Iraqi efforts to tame the Tigris River city.

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The latest Newsweek poll has his approval at 28%... all-time low...

It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir.

Head-to-head presidential matchups (look at the Dem vs Romney numbers... Mitt is in Deadeye Dick territory)...

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Nothing like playing both sides in a court case...

A pair of companies owned by Rudy Giuliani represented both a debtor and a creditor in a recently concluded bankruptcy proceeding, a potential conflict of interest that wasn't disclosed to the federal judge overseeing the case, records show. The matter could heighten pressures on Mr. Giuliani's presidential campaign to be more forthcoming about the candidate's stable of businesses, their clients and the services they provide.

In September 2005, a subsidiary of closely held Giuliani Partners LLC signed a consulting agreement with Delta Air Lines Inc. to provide restructuring advice during the carrier's bankruptcy reorganization, drawing more than $5 million in fees for the service. Then, in January 2006, a separate Giuliani Partners division -- Giuliani Security & Safety -- signed a $2 million consulting deal with Command Security Corp., a tiny provider of security-guard services that had been left with $1 million in unpaid bills when Delta and Northwest Airlines Corp. filed for bankruptcy-court protection in September 2005.

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Sweet... you can lock someone up indefinitely without access to a lawyer... just don't take away their right to buy weapons...

The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms.

Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects.

In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat."

"As many of our friends in law enforcement have rightly pointed out, the word 'suspect' has no legal meaning, particularly when it comes to denying constitutional liberties," Cox wrote.

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As mentioned previously, the radical right went ballistic when Rosie O'Donnell ridiculed the phrase "War on terror", even though it was previously criticized by General Myers, Rummy, and Dubya, himself. Now it appears as though Republican Rep John Hoekstra has jumped on the bandwagon...

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, a Bush loyalist and ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Examiner he has lobbied the White House to follow the British lead.

“Language is important, and I’ve told [National Security Adviser Stephen] Hadley and the president the past year and a half that I think the ‘war on terror’ is a terrible idea,” Hoekstra said.

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Crucial National Guard equipment is in Iraq...

In Kansas, the governor said the state’s response was limited by the shifting of emergency equipment, such as tents, trucks and semitrailers, to the war in Iraq.

“Not having the National Guard equipment, which used to be positioned in various parts of the state, to bring in immediately is really going to handicap this effort to rebuild,” Sebelius said.

Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the adjutant general’s office, which manages state resources during emergencies, said the state has a shortage of heavy equipment transport trailers, pallet-sized loading systems, Humvees, dump trucks and other large equipment that would be help move massive amount of debris.

“We are never at 100 percent because we are allocated a certain amount from the National Guard Bureau. With the war, we are much shorter than we would be. We have about 40 percent of what is allocated,” Watson said.

Think Progress has more, including video...

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"The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed."
-- Dubya 3/17/03

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-- Limbaugh in hot water over racist Obama song

-- Rudy sez Dubya will be thought of as a "great president"

-- Wall of the Fallen runs out of room.. names of soldiers killed haven't been updated since November

-- Romney sucks up to Roberston

-- AP calls Olbermann "partisan", overlooks Scarborough campaigning for Bush in 2004

-- Surge architecht resigns

-- Bush wants retroactive immunity for phone companies who aid in illegal domestic spying..

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As metioned previously... the WH is still on the hunt for a puppet Commander-In Chief...

Now that the White House is searching for a "war czar," it begs the question of who has been coordinating U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan the past four years.

A team of West Wing players led by national security adviser Stephen Hadley has tried to keep turf-conscious agencies marching in the same direction on military, political and reconstruction fronts. A few Bush aides say privately, however, that the White House probably should have recruited someone to oversee the war effort a year ago.
...
So far, there have been no takers for the job.

"It's the nuttiest idea ever," said James Carafano, a defense expert at Heritage Foundation.

He said a war coordinator at the White House would be outside the regular chain of command. "It confuses lines of authority. It's like adding a fifth wheel on a car."

Trying to integrate government operations inside the White House is a prescription for disaster, he added.

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Looks like the Senate is ready to begin to undo at least part of Bush's prescription drug blunder...

The Senate votes today on whether to allow lower-priced prescription drugs to be imported from Canada and more than 30 other countries.
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The administration has pledged to recommend the president veto the bill if the drug reimportation provision survives.

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TPM Muckraker, along with Charlie Savage, break down the politicization of the DoJ's Civil Rights Division....

Under Schlozman, the profile of the career attorneys hired by the section underwent a dramatic transformation.

Half of the 14 career lawyers hired under Schlozman were members of the conservative Federalist Society or the Republican National Lawyers Association, up from none among the eight career hires in the previous two years, according to a review of resumes. The average US News & World Report ranking of the law school attended by new career lawyers plunged from 15 to 65.
...
The department said Schlozman's office got permission from headquarters for the election-eve indictments. It added that the department interprets the policy as having an unwritten exception for voter registration fraud, because investigators need not interview voters for such cases.

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Atrios has the goods on Boehner's sliding timeline...

Boehner today:

"Over the course of the next three to four months, we'll have some idea how well the plan's working. Early signs are indicating there is clearly some success on a number of fronts," he said.

Boehner, 1/23/07:

BOEHNER: I think it will be rather clear in the next 60 to 90 days as to whether this plan is going to work. And, again, that's why we need to have close oversight, so that we just don't look up 60 or 90 days from now and realize that -- that this plan is not working. We need to know, as we -- as we're -- we move through these benchmarks, that the Iraqis are doing what they have to do.

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Wow... $1.5 million to resign in the middle of his investigation and to join his defense team?

Ms. Yang was investigating Jerry Lewis, who was chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Ms. Lam and most of the other purged prosecutors were fired on Dec. 7. Ms. Yang, in a fortuitously timed exit, resigned in mid-October.
...
The new job that Ms. Yang landed raised more red flags. Press reports say she got a $1.5 million signing bonus to become a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a firm with strong Republican ties. She was hired to be co-leader of the Crisis Management Practice Group with Theodore Olson, who was President Bush’s solicitor general and his Supreme Court lawyer in Bush v. Gore. Gibson, Dunn was defending Mr. Lewis in Ms. Yang’s investigation.

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What happened...

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

Now --
Gasoline prices have surged to a record nationwide average of $3.07 per gallon, nearly 20 cents higher than two weeks earlier, oil industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday.

The previous record was $3.03 per gallon on Aug. 11, 2006.

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At least Bush won't accuse them of not supporting our troops...

An al-Qaida video released Saturday mocks President Bush and a bill requiring withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Osama bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri asks "Allah that they [U.S. troops] only get out . . . after losing 200,000 to 300,000."

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Judging by the universal condemnation of VTech by the radical right.. I guess Falwell's Liberty U and Robertson's Regent U are just as guilty...

courtesty of Kagro X at Dailykos..

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One in three suffer from brain injuries...

The military is putting already-strained troops at greater risk of mental health problems because of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pentagon panel said Thursday in warning of an overburdened health system.

Issuing an urgent warning, the Defense Department's Task Force on Mental Health chaired by Navy Surgeon General Donald Arthur said more than one-third of troops and veterans currently suffer from problems such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
...
Among members of the National Guard, the figure is much higher - 49 percent - with numbers expected to grow because of repeated deployments.

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Whispers of a fall recession, April job numbers about half the growth of the workforce (smallest gain since 2005)...

Nonfarm payroll employment edged up (+88,000) in April, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 4.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job gains continued in several service-providing industries, including health care and food services, while employment declined in retail trade and manufacturing.

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Ole Turdblossom is neck-deep in another controversy...

Deputy chief of staff Karl Rove participated in a hastily called meeting at the White House two months ago. The subject: The firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year. The purpose: to coach a top Justice Department official heading to Capitol Hill to testify on the prosecutorial purge on what he should say.
...
The problem, according to the Democratic aide, is that Rove and Kelley never told Moschella about the White House’s own role in pushing to have some U.S. attorneys fired in the first place. Moschella followed the coaching by Rove and others—and made no mention of White House involvement in the firings during his March 6, 2007, testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. “They let Moschella come up here without telling him the full story,” said the Democratic staffer.

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03 May 2007

Saw this headline on CNN...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been placed under the protection of the U.S. Secret Service, reportedly because of a threat against him, the Secret Service said Thursday.

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Goes on a two-minute rant questioning the sanity of a ferret owner...

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Commander Guy

The man who last year proclaimed “I’m the decider,’’ in response to a question about whether he would fire Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, came up with this latest moniker in explaining why he vetoed an Iraq war spending bill that dictated a timeline for troops to withdraw from Iraq.

"The question is, ‘Who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?,’’ Mr. Bush said. “As you know, my position is clear – I’m the commander guy.”

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Try as they might, the Bush administration just can't seem to honor the law...

"Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January. Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants."

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As usual, TPM Muckraker is all over it, with commentary and video, including this testimony by former deputy AG James Comey, describing what steps he took to fire two USAs during his tenure, this testimony that counters Sampson's claim that USAs need to be "loyal" to the administration, this testimony where Comey described Carol Lam as a "fine" USA and that gun numbers tell you nothing about the performance of a USA, this testimony where Comey indicated that his list of "weak" attorneys only had one name common with Sampson's list, and this gem where republican Rep Chris Cannon describes the attorney purge as being a "fairly thoughtful, competent process"...

And Think Progress adds this from Comey's testimony...

SANCHEZ: OK, but in your view and to the best of your knowledge were there valid performance-based reasons to terminate any of these six US Attorneys?

COMEY: Not in my experience with them.

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As mentioned previously, the Iraqi parliament's plans to take the summer off could the the tipping point for many republicans to switch over from "stay the course" to "timeline for redeployment"...

Lawmakers divided over whether to keep U.S. troops in Iraq are finding common ground on at least one topic: They are furious that Iraqi politicians are considering a lengthy break this summer.

"If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight - that would be the outrage of outrages," said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn.

The Iraq parliament's recess, starting this July, would likely come without Baghdad politicians reaching agreements considered key to easing sectarian tensions. Examples include regulating distribution of the country's oil wealth and reversing measures that have excluded many Sunnis from jobs and government positions because of Baath party membership.
...
"That is not acceptable," Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said of a two-month recess. "An action of that consequence would send a very bad signal to the world that they don't have the resolve that matches the resolve of the brave troops that are fighting in the battle today."

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Another damaging revelation about the dismissal of USA Bud Cummins has emerged -- the DoJ claimed to have bypassed Cummins' deputy in favor of Rove underling Tim Griffin because the deputy was pregnant (a violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act)..

Think Progress has the goods...

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References to President Bush will be removed from highway signs welcoming drivers to Texas...

Two years after writing a law requiring highway "Welcome to Texas" signs to tout the state as the home of President Bush, state Rep. Ken Paxton today passed a bill that will remove the designation once the 43rd president leaves office.

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02 May 2007

Leahy and company continue to push on...

TPM Muckraker has a copy of the subpoena...

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By a vote of 222-203

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As always.. the guys at TPM Muckraker are all over the story.... including this admission by a DoJ official that the WH planned to use the secret Patriot Act provision to bypass Senate confirmation, this story describing how fired U.S. Attorneys were pressured to remain quiet about their dismissal, this contradiction by McNulty about what role performance had in Bodgen's dismissal, and this bit of hypocrisy regarding "absentee attorneys"

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Another DoJ official testifies to not having knowledge of which attorneys were on the list to be purged, or why...

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told congressional investigators he was surprised to learn in late October of a plan to fire U.S. attorneys and didn't know why they were targeted for removal, Senate aides said.

McNulty, questioned in private on April 27 by House and Senate lawyers, said he never asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or his former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, the reasons for the eight dismissals, said one aide. The two aides spoke on condition of anonymity.

Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that seven U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign on Dec. 7 were drawn from a ``consensus'' of senior Justice Department officials. Neither Gonzales nor Sampson, who also testified before the committee, could say why individual prosecutors were singled out.

House and Senate committees are questioning whether aides to President George W. Bush ordered the dismissals for partisan motives, such as to spur investigations of Democrats or thwart prosecutions of Republicans.

"We are pursuing all of the leads to figure out who was responsible," said Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat. "All signs point to the White House and particularly Mr. Rove, in terms of choosing the victims of their purge."

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Think Progress has the details of an Indiana University study...

A new study by Indiana University media researchers finds that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly calls “a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.”
...
Some findings from the study:

– Fear was used in more than half (52.4 percent) of the commentaries, and O’Reilly almost never offered a resolution to the threat. For example, in a commentary on “left-wing” media unfairly criticizing Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales for his role in the Abu Ghraib scandal, O’Reilly considered this an example of America “slowly losing freedom and core values,” and added, “So what can be done? Unfortunately, not much.”

– The researchers identified 22 groups of people that O’Reilly referenced in his commentaries, and while all 22 were described by O’Reilly as bad at some point, the people and groups most frequently labeled bad were the political left — Americans as a group and the media (except those media considered by O’Reilly to be on the right).

– Left-leaning media (21.6 percent) made up the largest portion of bad people/groups, and media without a clear political leaning was the second largest (12.2 percent). When it came to evil people and groups, illegal aliens (26.8 percent) and terrorists (21.4 percent) were the largest groups.

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Looks like Dubya is hunkered down, with paranoid visions dancing through his head...

The story goes that they got out exactly one question, and the rest of the meeting consisted of The President in an extended whine, a rant, actually, about no one understands him, the critics are all messed up, if only people would see what he’s doing things would be OK…etc., etc. This is called a “bunker mentality” and it’s not attractive when a friend does it. When the friend is the President of the United States, it can be downright dangerous. Apparently the Texas friends were suitably appalled, hence the story now in circulation.

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Think Progress remembers a time when then Governor Bush was all in favor of timelines when it came to Clinton withdrawing troops...

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.”

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Media Matters reminds us once again how deeply Tweety can fall for a macho republican...

An excerpt...

We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like [former President Bill] Clinton or even like [former Democratic presidential candidates Michael] Dukakis or [Walter] Mondale, all those guys, [George] McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president.

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As mentioned previously, it appeared as though Maliki was indirectly allowing sectarian forces within the gov't and military. It appears as though it wasn't so indirect afterall. And just as importantly.. it was with U.S. approval...

Iraq's prime minister has created an entity within his government that U.S. and Iraqi military officials say is being used behind a smokescreen to carry out an extreme Shiite agenda that is worsening the country's sectarian divide.

The "Office of the Commander in Chief" has the power to overrule other government ministries, according to U.S. military and intelligence sources.

Those sources say the 24-member office is abusing its power, increasingly overriding decisions made by the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior and potentially undermining the entire U.S. effort in Iraq.

The Office, as it is known in Baghdad, was set up about four months ago with the knowledge of American forces in Iraq. Its goal is ostensibly to advise Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki -- the nation's new commander in chief -- on military matters.

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When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.
-- Thomas Sowell

nod to Washington Monthly

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On the fourth anniversary of Mission Accomplished, Bush opposes benchmarks for the Iraqis...

President Bush used his veto pen for only the second time Tuesday after Congress sent him a war spending bill that would impose timelines to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, which he called a “prescription for chaos.”
...
“There are some types of benchmarks that might well achieve bipartisan support and might actually even conceivably be helpful to the efforts in Iraq,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

But Republicans were reluctant to say whether they supported benchmarks with real consequences. Some said they would support tying benchmarks to foreign aid to Iraq totaling more than $5 billion but nothing that would tie the hands of military commanders.

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Dropping like flies...

An Interior Department official accused of pressuring government scientists to make their research fit her policy goals has resigned.

Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, submitted her resignation letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a department spokesman said Tuesday.

MacDonald resigned a week before a House congressional oversight committee was to hold a hearing on accusations that she violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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With each passing day, it seems more and more likely that politics was the single most important qualification for employment with the Department of Justice...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides -- who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys -- extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal.

In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison "the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration" of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department's political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

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Gotta love it when a cross-dresser speaks tough about a South American President...

Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, whose law firm represents an American subsidiary of a Hugo Chavez-controlled oil company, said Tuesday that the socialist Venezuelan president is dangerous to U.S. interests.

And this...

"Who would listen to Chavez if he didn't have all this oil money? Nobody would listen to him," Giuliani said.

Just a guess.. but I doubt Rudy would take him on as a client if he didn't have all of that oil money...

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Senate stands tall in domestic wiretap hearing...

Citing FBI abuses and the attorney general's troubles, senators peppered top Justice and intelligence officials Tuesday with skeptical questions about their proposal to revise the rules for spying on Americans.
...
But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., responded, "We look through the lens of the past to judge how much we can trust you." Like other senators, he said that trust was undermined by recent disclosure that the FBI had abused so-called National Security Letters to obtain information about Americans.

Whitehouse added another factor. "The attorney general has thoroughly and utterly lost my confidence," he said in reference to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' shifting explanations for the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys.

Rockefeller pressed a demand for documents in which he was joined by Republican vice chair Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri.

"There is simply no excuse for not providing to this committee all the legal opinions on the president's program," Rockefeller said.

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As mentioned previously, Republican Rep Rick Renzi recently has found himself in a load of trouble. In his first step towards salvation, he agreed to pay $323k in back taxes...

Arizona Rep. Rick Renzi avoided federal campaign penalties by paying $323,830 in back taxes last year to reassure regulators that loans to his political committee came from his own pocket.

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It would be nice to hear his explanation for the differences of attorney rankings...

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Apparently he's a closet Scientologist...

As we mentioned earlier today, Romney told FOX yesterday that L. Ron Hubbard's "Battlefield Earth" is his favorite novel.

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Couldn't happen to a nicer guy...

The political action committee for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was quietly closed last week after a decade-long run as one of the most influential - and infamous - PACs run by members of Congress.

With a final $1,400 payment to the Federal Election Commission last month settling an audit dispute, Americans for a Republican Majority then filed its termination papers with the commission April 24.

Thus ends one more chapter in the storied political rise and fall of DeLay

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