LAST THROES

The lie that won’t die (and an example of good, old-fashioned journalism)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#4510307658438766210
[McClatchy] Facing eroding support for his Iraq policy, even among Republicans, President Bush on Thursday called al Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, an assertion rejected by his administration's senior intelligence analysts.

The reference, in a major speech at the Naval War College that referred to al Qaida at least 27 times, seemed calculated to use lingering outrage over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to bolster support for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, despite evidence that sending more troops hasn't reduced the violence or sped Iraqi government action on key issues.

Bush called al Qaida in Iraq the perpetrator of the worst violence racking that country and said it was the same group that had carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

"Al Qaida is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike," Bush asserted. "Al Qaida's responsible for the most sensational killings in Iraq. They're responsible for the sensational killings on U.S. soil."

U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops. The group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn't exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn't pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn't controlled by bin Laden or his top aides.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11291.html
[Steve Benen] Was that so hard?

I realize it seems rather silly to praise a newspaper article for pointing out demonstrable facts about the president’s misleading war rhetoric, but pieces like McClatchy’s seem all-too-rare lately.

[NB: “Truth to Power” indeed]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014917
[Josh Marshall] For your weekend enjoyment. One of Doug Feith's stovepipers holds out for the Iraq-al Qaida relationship in a new column for the Washington Post.

BIG news, if correct

http://crocker.notlong.com
[Spencer Ackerman] As people in Washington have been saying for weeks now, the whole town is waiting with bated breath for September's Iraq-war progress report from General David Petraeus. Depending on what it says, that report will either serve as a short-term bulwark against Democratic calls for withdrawal or will make withdrawal a politically unstoppable force.

But it may be that an accompanying assessment of Iraq's political scene, to be delivered by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, will actually prove to be the more significant one -- in a way that could give a crucial political boost to the antiwar cause.

Here's why: Some recent comments Crocker made to a reporter that have gone almost entirely unnoticed suggest that he is on the verge of concluding in his report that the Iraqi political scene is flatlining and that there's really no hope for political reconciliation. And if he does say this come September, it would likely undercut Petraeus's expected plea for more time to prosecute the surge. It would also give antiwar critics much more ammo to pressure wavering Republicans in Congress into abandoning Bush and the war.

Buh-bye

http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/sunni-bloc-pulls-out-of-government-5-us.html
[Juan Cole] The Iraqi Accord Front, the Sunni fundamentalist bloc with 44 seats in parliament, says that it is withdrawing its 6 cabinet ministers from the national unity government of PM Nuri al-Maliki.

The whole concept of a 'national unity government' as thought up by then US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Iraqi president Jalal Talabani in spring of 2006 has now more or less fallen apart. The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance has lost two important components, the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) and the Sadr Movement. The former pulled their 15 MPs out of the alliance, the latter pulled its 6 cabinet ministers out of the government. Now the Sunni Arabs appear to be decamping, to protest the arrest of one of their own (on charges of having the sons of a fellow Sunni MP whacked).

The "surge" was intended to 'create political space' for 'reconciliation' between Sunnis and Shiites. Now the only Sunnis who were willing to cooperate with the political process are threatening to pull out of the al-Maliki government. Wouldn't that be going backward? Then what is the 'surge' for?

Another Iraq vote coming in July

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/30/MNGSCQONU11.DTL
Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw down a new gauntlet Friday before President Bush and Republicans in Congress, saying the House will vote in July on legislation to withdraw almost all American troops from Iraq by April.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said there also will be votes on the future course of the Iraq war next month, although he said he is consulting with other top Democrats on exactly what the legislation might entail. . .

Has Dick Cheney jumped the shark?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014905
[Josh Marshall] Yesterday David Broder wrote a column which one TPM Reader, more or less fairly, described as Broder's expression of shock, shock at just what Dick Cheney has been up to over the last six-plus years. And this is a good opportunity to say that the Post's 'Angler' series seems to be becoming the trigger for that transition moment where consensus establishment opinion goes from seeing the vice president as the powerful administration heavy with a sometimes creepy but largely comic penchant for secrecy to an altogether more nefarious force who has used his unprecedented power as vice president to advance an agenda of official secrecy, non-accountability, untrammeled executive power, legitmized torture and general degradation of the rule of law.

But this is far too easy. Because the simple fact is that we've known almost all of this for years. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702234.html
[David Broder] What Gellman and Becker have described is a decision-making process in which Bush has allowed Cheney to play a bureaucratic role inside the White House that Cheney never permitted anyone to employ when he was guarding the door as Gerald Ford's chief of staff. . . .

It was not illegal, and it was not unconstitutional, but it could not have happened unless the president permitted it and enabled it. And ultimately the president is responsible for what has become, in very large respect, the resulting wreckage of foreign policy, national security policy, budget policy, energy policy and environmental policy under Cheney's direction and on Cheney's watch. . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#1787558384974933194
[Atrios] Following up on what Josh says here, I think it's this kind of thing which has been very frustrating over the past few years. There is good reporting, and it's from that information that I form my conclusions about the Bush administration generally, but so little of it manages to penetrate the basic narratives conveyed in punditland and, more importantly, the narratives which shape much subsequent reporting.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/one-more-thing-dean-by-digby-atrios-and.html
[Digby] Broder seems to have at long last recognized that something is very rotten in Dick Cheney's office. Huzzah. But it is curious that he mentions Scooter Libby's name without addressing whether he still thinks it's such a great idea to shield one of these lying, power-mad zealots from the consequences of his actions. . .

With all the Claud Rainsing about Dick Cheney's power grab, you have to wonder when Broder will finally break to the surface of his beltway wet dream long enough to recognize that a federal prosecutor dealing with one of Dick Cheney's minions repeatedly lying to his face might have justifiably been suspicious that something more than "just politics" was going on. . . .

Broder admits that he was wrong to think that Cheney would be a good second in command and that's a big admission for him, I'm sure. But he also makes the flat claim that what Cheney has done was constitutional and legal. Again with the knee-jerk defense of the Bushies. Just because they say it doesn't make it true and there are so many secrets still unrevealed that it's impossible to properly assess that fact. It's long past time for these insiders to stop automatically giving the administration the benefit of the doubt.

Thanks to The Daily Show, I learned about Cheney’s latest trick: since he has exempted himself from the normal security and classified information system, he has invented HIS OWN security category (no, I’m not kidding), which has absolutely no official status except in his own delusional imagination

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/
Stealth is among Cheney's most effective tools. Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI." Experts in and out of government said Cheney's office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to "sensitive compartmented information," the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words "treated as," they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security." . . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/02/cheney_keeps_se.html

Too bad. Rahm Emanuel’s clever bill to pull funding for Cheney’s operation out of the authorization for Executive branch functions (since Cheney claims not to be part of the Executive branch) narrowly fails

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/washington/29brfs-cheney.html

Pundits on Cheney: do they hate him, fear him, or grudgingly admire him? They can’t decide (but I can)

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2007&base_name=post_4091

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/29/authoritarianism/index.html

Conyers, Leahy, won’t take the WH brush-off on subpoenas lying down

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003571.php
[Spencer Ackerman] The two chairman write that unless Fielding specifies the claim of privilege for each document being withheld by July 9, they'll "consider whether the White House is in contempt of Congress." A contempt vote in committee is the first step, to be followed by a vote in the full House or Senate. Experts say the process has never gotten further. But if the clash between Congress and the White House continued, the next step would be a referral to the District of Columbia’s U.S. attorney to enforce the subpoena by seeking an indictment from a grand jury. . .

Where do we go from here? http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003567.php

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070629/ap_on_go_co/congress_subpoenas;_ylt=ArFV3S5tjQDCm9LROxP3gvis0NUE

You abuse it, you lose it

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=537
Chairman Henry Waxman of the Oversight Committee was quoted, “The executive order allows the political staff at the White House to dictate decisions on health and safety issues, even if the government’s own impartial experts disagree. This is a terrible way to govern, but great news for special interests.” Now, with the Science Subcommittee on Oversight chaired by Rep. Brad Miller having reached the same conclusion through two oversight hearings, and on Wednesday night the House passed by voice vote an amendment from Miller and Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law which would prevent the White House from implementing the order, Executive Order 13422.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070630/ap_on_go_co/congress_trade;_ylt=Asbr3jpGVpbKTUlSgbCQdxWyFz4D
President Bush loses his power Saturday to seal "fast track" trade agreements without intervention from Congress, where Democrats blame recent deals for sending U.S. jobs abroad.

Since 1975, only one other president, Bill Clinton, has been stripped of that trade promotion authority, designed to speed the reduction of trade barriers and open new markets with other countries. Bush won't get it back again, and the next president might not either.

House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, whose Ways and Means Committee handles trade policy, said in a written statement Friday that their legislative priorities "do not include the renewal of fast track authority."

"Before that debate can even begin, we must expand the benefits of globalization to all Americans," they said.

In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he had other pressing trade issues, such as extending relief to trade-hit American workers. "I have always said that it is more important to get trade promotion authority done right than to get it done fast." . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003568.php
[Spencer Ackerman] It's looking grim for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The Act, one of the final masterstrokes of the GOP Congress, stripped war-on-terrorism detainees of access to U.S. courts and entrenched the Bush administration's system of military tribunals.

First, at the beginning of the month, military judges at Guantanamo Bay dismissed charges against two detainees, ruling that the detainees weren't properly classified as "unlawful enemy combatants," as the act demands. That prompted Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) to worry aloud that the commissions created "too many shortcuts in the whole process." Then, barely a week later, a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the entire legal category of "unlawful enemy combatant," a neologism crucial for the Military Commissions Act. And now, today, the Supreme Court announced it will hear a case brought by two other detainees challenging the constitutionality of the act. . .

Last week, Defense Secretary Bob Gates failed to convince President Bush to shutter Guantanamo. The court won't hear the case until at least the fall, as its term is concluding, so Gates will have several months to argue that the administration is at risk of having its entire legal edifice for Guantanamo Bay collapse.

More: http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2007/06/court_1.html

Was Bush directly involved in the US Attorney firings? Sure looks like it

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/fred-fielding-l.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/solicit.html

Sheesh

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006381.html
[Laura Rozen] Another Justice Department official resigns. Will the last person left at the Justice Department please turn out the lights?

Rove

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/29/131743/815
[Jeralyn Merritt] How close did Karl Rove come to getting indicted in PlameGate? As they say, "this close." Check out today's re-issued opinion in the Judith Miller - Matthew Cooper D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals subpoena case containing new un-redactions: the name of Karl Rove. . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/the-two-redacte.html

No surprises here, but fun to read

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/washington/30bush.html
After a string of Republican defections this week — on Iraq, immigration and domestic eavesdropping — President Bush enters the final 18 months of his presidency in danger of losing control over a party that once marched in lockstep with him. . . .

For a president who once boasted that he had political capital and intended to use it, the back-to-back desertions demonstrated starkly just how little of that capital is left. . . .

Fighting back on Republican obstructionism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062902444.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/obstruct-obstructionists-by-digby-i.html

Mitt Romney’s shaggy dog story

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/29/big_news_orgs_start_picking_up_on_romney_mistreated_dog_story

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/29/why-mitt-would-be-the-perfect-republican-rominee/

Here’s what they’re going to find, I predict—Fred Thompson doesn’t have the fire in the belly (and may not have the good health) for a long, sustained nomination and election battle – it’s not like filming a movie or show, where you can go back to your trailer in between the few minutes you’re actually in front of the camera

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014916

How caging and other GOP voter suppression strategies already put the Dems at a disadvantage in 2008 (although probably not as desperately as this claims). Thanks to Buzzflash for the links

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/6/29/124522/950

More: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/061

The media is trying hard to frame the Elizabeth Edwards/Ann Coulter encounter as just another bitchy cat fight that we should all sit back and enjoy. Both sides are politically ruthless, they suggest, and they’re just being “fair and balanced” by pointing that out. The problem is, listen to this interview and tell me by what twisted reasoning anyone can equate Edwards and Coulter

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/29/elizabeth_edwards_explains_whats_wrong_with_ann_coulter

What is the point at which right-wing “humor” gets seen for the vicious, hateful – and in this case racist – thing it is?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706290010
On the June 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck commented on a mock ad -- produced by subscribers to his website known as "Insiders" -- depicting a "giant refinery" that produces "Mexinol," which, according to the ad, is a fuel made from the bodies of illegal immigrants from Mexico. . .

Beck introduced the discussion by saying, "Sometimes the Insiders go too far," and later said, "I don't think we need to make the illegal aliens into fuel." Beck also said, "That would be evil conservative, yeah. I don't even know if that's conservative. That would be ... [p]sychotic, perhaps? Sociopathic, perhaps?" Beck's executive producer and head writer, Steve "Stu" Burguiere, added, "Just evil, pretty much." However, as of June 29, the ad was posted on the front page of Beck's website under the title "Picture of the Day," with a caption that described the "ad" as a "brilliant creation."

[NB: How DARE they equate this sort of thing with Michael Moore or Jon Stewart?]

Bonus item: A funny historical quirk – Ronald Reagan’s progressive past comes back to haunt him

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/ronald_reagan_committed_felony

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:42 AM

 
BELEAGUERED

Bush loses big time on immigration – he wants to say it’s Congress’s failure, but he took on this issue and couldn’t get more than a handful of his own party members to support it. Best of all, they STILL angered the America First crowd AND pissed off Hispanics at the same time

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/washington/28cnd-immig.html
President Bush’s effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration policy, a cornerstone of his domestic agenda, collapsed in the Senate today, with little hope that it can be revived before Mr. Bush leaves office in January 2009. . .

Mr. Bush placed telephone calls to lawmakers throughout the morning, but members of his party abandoned him in droves, with only 12 of the 49 Senate Republicans sticking by him on the key procedural vote that determined the bill’s fate . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062800963.html
The vote was a major defeat for President Bush, dealt largely by members of his own party. The president made a last-ditch round of phone calls this morning to senators in an attempt to rescue the bill, but with his poll numbers at record lows, his appeals proved fruitless. Bush has now lost what is likely to be the last, best chance at a major domestic accomplishment for his second term. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062802235.html
[Dana Milbank] For practical purposes, President Bush's domestic agenda was canceled at 11:22 yesterday morning when Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, approached the front of the chamber to vote on the immigration legislation the president had championed. McConnell caught the clerk's attention, pointed his index finger downward, walked away silently, and smiled. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11278.html
[Steve Benen] A couple of weeks ago, a confident president said his immigration package was going to pass. “I’ll see you at the bill signing,” Bush said

So much for that idea. . . .

Brilliant

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/28/231549/180
[Jonathan Singer] A lot of people spent a great deal of time both before and after the November 2006 midterm elections noting the very real possibility that the Republicans' overtly anti-immigrant rhetoric would come back to bite them in the behind eventually. Indeed, while Democratic House candidates carried the Latino vote, as defined by exit polling, but just a 55 percent to 44 percent margin, Democratic candidates in 2006 won over that same population by a significantly greater 69 percent to 30 percent margin in 2006. And judging by new USA Today polling conducted by Gallup, it appears that 2006 might not in fact have been a low water mark for Republicans. . .

Watch Bush explain his defeat

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014887.php
[Josh Marshall] It's President Bush reacting to the second and presumably final death of his rotten immigration bill. And lecturing Congress on what it needs to prove to the American people. He almost looks and sounds like someone has literally knocked the wind out of him (take a look and tell me if you don't agree) . . . [watch it!]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062802585.html
He looked uncharacteristically dejected as he approached the lectern, fiddling with papers as he talked and avoiding the sort of winking eye contact he often makes with reporters. And then President Bush did something he almost never does: He admitted defeat. . .

Now we find out why WH Counsel Fred Fielding hired all those new lawyers (and not Regent University grads, either). But in the end, this will be a political fight as much as a legal one

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/28/national/w061845D12.DTL
President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence. . .

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion." . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014878
[Paul Kiel] OK, now it gets ugly. . . .

Dems respond: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/leahy-bush-administrations-lawlessness-worse-than-nixons-2007-06-27.html
[Leahy] Certainly not since I’ve been old enough to vote have we had an administration so willing to ignore the law,” the 67-year-old senator said. “I’ve never known an administration so willing to operate outside the law, even to operate against the law, in violation of the law, as this administration. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/28/12959/6946
[Leahy] This is a further shift by the Bush Administration into Nixonian stonewalling and more evidence of their disdain for our system of checks and balances. This White House cannot have it both ways. They cannot stonewall congressional investigations by refusing to provide documents and witnesses, while claiming nothing improper occurred.

Increasingly, the President and Vice President feel they are above the law --- in America no one is above law.

[Conyers] ...the president showed "an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government."

"The executive privilege assertion is unprecedented in its breadth and scope, and even includes documents that the administration previously offered to provide as part of their ‘take it or leave it’ proposal," said Conyers, in a prepared statement. "This response indicates the reckless disrespect this administration has for the rule of law."

"The charges alleged in this investigation are serious – including obstruction of justice and misleading Congress – and the White House should be as committed to this investigation as the Congress. At this point, I see only one choice in moving forward, and that is to enforce the rule of law set forth in these subpoenas."

The Repubs respond: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003555.php
Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, says it's a low-down dirty shame that the White House had to exert executive privilege over the U.S. attorneys subpoena. If only the Democrats, promulgating a "myth of wrongdoing," hadn't opted to "shred the Constitution":

“It is unfortunate that the Majority has seen fit to turn down reasonable offers of cooperation in favor of court battles that will do nothing except draw headlines and further distract the Judiciary Committee from work that needs to be done. . . .

“Instead, the Majority has stonewalled and denied the Committee the ability to interview the White House staff with the intent to promulgate a myth about wrongdoing. The Majority’s stonewalling has led the American people down a path of ‘constitutional crisis’. We take an oath to defend the Constitution, not shred it.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19482765/
KEITH OLBERMANN: The White House responded to the subpoenas by saying, It‘s unfortunate that congressional Democrats continuing to chose—choose the route way of confrontation. But without a confrontation, was the White House simply going to comply with this? And if the White House now does not honor the subpoena, is it not being confrontational constitutionally?

JONATHAN TURLEY: Well, there‘s a lot of people chuckling when the White House said that, because it has literally been years. The members of Congress have demanded information about the domestic surveillance program. There have been hearings. I testified at some of those hearings, others have. And no information has been forthcoming.

Even allies of the administration, such as I—Senator Specter, and Senator Feinstein, who‘s been very cooperative with the administration in the past, they were stonewalled on many of these points.

And so there was a great deal of laughter when they said that, because there has been literally no avenue that has been found to get this information out of the administration. . . .

But there is one thing that might concern them about the court, and that is, you know, for many years, since we first found out about this program, some of us have said that this was clearly criminal act that the president called for, that under federal law, it‘s a federal crime to do what the president ordered hundreds of people to do. . . .

OLBERMANN: About the Addington letter regarding the vice president, it‘s beginning to sound like a game of 20 questions, like the old “What‘s My Line?” Is he, is he an agency? No. Miss Kilgallen. Is he part of the executive branch? Does Addington‘s argument now have any merit, or is it mere legalese, and are they trying to hide the definition of what he actually is, what the vice president actually is?

TURLEY: Well, I think we have a pretty darn good idea what the vice president is constitutionally. He happens to be found in Article II of the Constitution, where other executives, including the president, are found. And his duties are laid out. There‘s never been a question about that.

The position adopted by Mr. Addington and Mr. Cheney, to put it bluntly, was absurd. I mean, it was—I had—it was completely frivolous. . . .

I think that what it really shows is the lack of sort of adult supervision within the administration of somebody to come up with a coherent and single position for the president.

OLBERMANN: So that would be a no, that‘s $25, turn the cards over, and we‘ll turn to Bennett Cerf.

Last question, Jon. Some senior officials in the administration were trying to claim today that all this, this letter, everything else, amounts to the vice president‘s office throwing in the towel on the argument that he—that it‘s not part of the executive branch. But it‘s still not going to comply with the order. Is it really just a—what is—I mean, is this an attempt to stop what Congressman Emanuel talked about yesterday, cutting off the funding? Is it just more smokescreen? Is it just more delay? What is it?

TURLEY: Well, frankly, I think that it‘s opportunism. This administration, I have to say, has a certain contempt for the law. They treat it like some of my criminal defendants used to treated it, you know, that they come up with any argument that might work, and they want you to try it out with a court of law.

And it‘s a sort of shocking development, you know, it shows not just a contempt for the law, but a contempt as well for a co-branch of the legislative branch.

But at the end of the day, they will lose, and they‘re making the situation worse. They‘re giving Congress all the power it needs to push executive privilege right out of a courtroom.

OLBERMANN: Wow. The constitutional law professor, Jonathan Turley, who should know. As always, sir, great thanks for joining us.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/28/BL2007062801109.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006379.html

Interesting: the WH excuse for NOT giving documents seems to be conceding the very reason why they are necessary

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/freds-fuck-you-.html
“Among other things, these communications discuss the wisdom of such a proposal, specific U.S. Attorneys who could be removed, potential replacement candidates, and possible responses to congressional and media inquiries about the dismissals. . .” [read on]

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/back-to-the-eig.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/28/involvement/index.html

Part of a pattern

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/28/11131/5854
[Kagro X] This "administration" does not believe it is subject to the Congressional subpoena power, and it has made that clear for more than a year, to both Republican and Democratic Congresses. Can't say they didn't warn us. Can't say we didn't know. . . [read on]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003565.php
Specter: Let's Get What We Can Get

Sen. Specter has supported the Democrats' rejection of the White House's offer -- private testimony by aides with no oath and no transcript -- saying that such interviews should only be conducted with a transcript.

At a press conference today, he still insisted on a transcript, but softened his stance a little . . . [read on]

Why doesn’t the WH want transcripts? (Can you guess?)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11280.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11275.html
[Steve Benen] Yeah, I’m sure the White House is all broken up about it. They’d hoped to avoid “confrontation,” but those pesky Dems kept insisting they had some kind of oversight responsibilities or something. . . .

This was the White House’s idea of “cooperation.” To reject such generosity was to embrace confrontation. Please.

Legally, we’re in for a fierce fight in the courts. Politically, the White House is now left looking as if it has something to hide, in large part because it almost certainly has something to hide.

Some testimony they WILL hear: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003549.php
On Tuesday, Waxman wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding to detail new allegations that the WHSO -- entrusted to ensure compliance with procedures to safeguard classified information -- is dysfunctional. The heads of the office, just-departed director James Knodell and deputy Ken Greeson, took no action when presented with charges that aides to President Bush and Vice President Cheney left classified documents strewn throughout hotel rooms and across their desks, and they themselves took cellphones and Blackberries into secure facilities in violation of protocol. A frustrated Waxman told Fielding that unless House Government Oversight Committee investigators received access to interview three current and former White House officials who could speak to the alleged pattern of abuse, Waxman would ask the committee for authority to subpoena them. . . .

Fielding and Waxman have reached an agreement, averting the subpoenas for now. The White House has consented to "transcribed interviews" with Alan Swendimen, director of the Office of Administration; Mark Frownfelter, an ex-security officer; and former WHSO head Jeff Thompson.

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/today-on-hold-6.html
Q The privilege applies to the document request, but what about testimony by Taylor and Miers?

MR. SNOW: We are responding only to the subpoenas which refer to document requests.

[snip]

Q Tony, the arguments made by Fielding in the letter would apply also to this later request, right?

MR. SNOW: The Fielding letter replies only to the document requests -- again, for those they needed a response today. There is an additional one where I believe Chairman Conyers, in the case of Harriet Miers, has a July 12th date. The President has instructed both Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers -- that is, their attorneys -- that he is asserting privilege and would want them to withhold any document production.

Q What about their testimony?

Q Yes, what does that mean for testimony?

MR. SNOW: That's not one of the issues that's raised by the subpoenas today. . . [read on]

Well, it’s official. The Bush gang has now said, explicitly, that they don’t feel bound by judicial decisions that constrain the Commander in Chief in matters of national security; they don’t feel bound by legislative actions AT ALL, unless they agree to them; and they don’t even feel bound by THEIR OWN EXECUTIVE ORDERS. I think the implication is that they get to do whatever they think is best, and if you don’t like it the only alternative is to vote them out or impeach them. I say, you should get what you ask for. . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jun/28/cheney_plays_julius_caesar_and_like_then_must_be_stopped
[Steve Clemons] I have been arguing for years at TPM Cafe and in other writing that Vice President Cheney had done more than any other single person in the government -- including the President of the United States -- to plant acolytes and followers of his throughout the national security bureaucracy. He has had spies and apparatchiks in the Departments of State and Defense, in the Directorate of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and elsewhere in government. . . .

Most outrageous is Cheney's recent claim that his office is not in the Executive Branch and is not an agency of government that fits within the matrix of checks and balances that affect the presidency. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/king-dick-by-digby-man-i-just-hate-it.html
Bruce Fein, former Reagan Justice department official [calling for Cheney’s impeachment] helpfully made this nice list of some of Cheney's high crimes . . .

Another key 5-4 Supreme Court decision, and for all my friends who said there was “no difference” between Bush and Gore (or Bush and Kerry), I ask them to consider a court with two people besides Roberts and Alito in place

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/us/28cnd-scotus.html
In a decision of sweeping importance to educators, parents and schoolchildren across the country, the Supreme Court today sharply limited the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/28/92351/8761
[AdamB] In a 5-4 decision today authored by the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court told local school districts that they cannot take even modest steps to overcome residential segregation and ensure that schools within their diverse cities themselves remain racially mixed unless they can prove that such classifications are narrowly tailored to achieve specific educational benefits. . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jun/28/supreme_court_undermines_racial_integration_whats_left
[Nathan Newman] It was expected but the Supreme Court today dealt a body blow to school integration across the country. Two community plans, one in Seattle and one in Louisville, both used race as a factor in assigning students to some schools as a tool for maintaining integration of their schools. A majority of the Supreme Court decided that schools, however much done in good faith, cannot use race consciousness to achieve integration, even if people know that ignoring race will lead to more racial segregation. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11279.html

Other rulings

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/28/143118/814
[Adam B] In one full term, this Court has severely curbed local efforts to promote racial diversity in schools, upheld a right-wing ban on a necessary medical procedure for women, curbed students' free speech rights, crippled Congress' ability to keep corporate money out of political advertising, prevented taxpayers from challenging the constitutionality of Bush's faith-based initiatives, made it almost impossible for women to prevail on claims of longterm sex discrimination . . . and they're just getting started.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/business/28cnd-bizcourt.html
Striking down an antitrust rule nearly a century old, the Supreme Court ruled today that it is no longer automatically unlawful for manufacturers and distributors to agree on setting minimum retail prices. . . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jun/28/supreme_court_have_we_already_lost_america
[M.J. Rosenberg] This week has been a Supreme Court horror show. Today's decision, which comes close to overturning Brown vs. The Board of Ed, is about as horrific decision as any the Court has made since Plessy vs. Ferguson. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/justice-breyer-dissects-roberts-and.html
[Justice Breyer] “Rarely in the history of the law have so few undone so much so quickly.”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/28/shifting-the-groundwork-at-scotus/
[Christy Hardin Smith] In yet another activist court decision, the US Supreme Court conservative “Gang of Five” have issued a number of opinions this week, all of which come under the rubric of thumbing their collective noses at stare decisis.

The phrase “I told you so” leaps to mind here, but that doesn’t do us any good now. . . .

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/29/stare-decisis-v-ugly-babies/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/ace-supreme-by-digby-via-adam-b-at-kos.html

Bush once again displays his keen insight and deep understanding of the Middle East

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014900
[AP] Bush cites Israel as model for Iraq . . . [read on]

Juan Cole, of course: http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/bush-turns-iraq-into-israelpalestine.html
These words may be the stupidest ones ever uttered by a US president. Given their likely impact on the US war effort in the Middle East, they are downright criminal. . . [read on]

Pardon me?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-CIA-Leak-Trial.html
Libby Becomes Inmate No. 28301 – 016

Rove at work

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014901

Ann Coulter plays the victim (don’t miss it!)

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/28/ann_coulter_losing_it_under_pressure_calls_elizabeth_edwards_a_harridan
Ann Coulter Loses It, Calls Elizabeth Edwards A "Harridan" . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/nbcs-david-gregory-thinks-we-just-need.html
[Joe Sudbay] According to NBC's David Gregory we're all missing the very important points that Ann Coulter makes because we get caught up in her hate speech. He just said to Elizabeth Edwards "if you strip away some of the inflammatory rhetoric against your husband and other Democrats, the point she's trying to make about your husband, Senator Edwards, running for the White House is in effect that he's disingenuous..."

Okay, so much wrong with the way Gregory defends Coulter. Her hateful, inflammatory rhetoric can't be stripped away -- and let's be honest, that's why NBC and ABC put her on their t.v. shows. In typical fashion, he also tries to paint everyone with the same kind of hate speech. So, instead of putting Coulter on, NBC now has one of their top reporters defending her approach. Because, you know, if you strip away the fact that Coulter advocated the assassination of a leading presidential candidate, and mocked his dead son, there's really such an important message buried inside. . . .

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200706280004

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706280009

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/28/late-nite-fdl-crashing/
[TRex] No one can say for sure what exactly is going on with Ann Coulter’s blood chemistry, possibly not even her. Having had some of these experiences myself, though, I can’t say that her pattern of freakish, erratic behavior looks entirely unfamiliar. . . [read on!]

Wash that bad taste away: an interview with Helen Thomas

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/28/helen_thomas/index.html

Bonus item: Even Fox News can’t put a positive spin on this

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/28/bush_hits_record_low_in_fox_poll
[Greg Sargent] Another key number in the new Fox News poll we noted below: Bush's approval rating sank to 31%.

That's the lowest ever in Fox polling. Yes, in Fox polling . . .

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/28/fox_poll_more_americans_trust_dems_to_handle_world_war_iii_against_islamofascists
If there is an all-out war between the United States and various radical Muslim groups worldwide, who would you rather have in charge — Democrats or Republicans?

Democrats 41%
Republicans 38%

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:35 AM

 
HERE IT COMES

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003542.php
[Spencer Ackerman] The CIA's declassification of its "family jewels" -- decades-old files on scandals past -- may have attracted a ton of attention, but the Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon subpoenaed the Bush administration's family jewels: information on the origin and execution of President Bush's warrantless surveillance program. Circle July 18 on your calendars -- that's the compliance deadline. If it's not met, the committee will seek explanatory testimony from White House chief of staff Josh Bolton, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Cheney chief of staff David Addington, and National Security Counsel executive director V. Philip Lago.

The committee wants a ton of material . . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/subpoenas.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006362.html

What if the WH says no? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/27/2059/71147

http://www.ktiv.com/News/index.php?ID=14482
[AP] The White House is giving no indication as to whether it will comply with subpoenas from the Senate Judiciary Committee. . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#3031025379212314933
[Atrios] Dana Perino apparently did her concern troll thing, regretting that the Democrats have chosen "confrontation" or something like that with respect to the subpoenas.

David Broder aside, the fact is we have an adversial system of government. The system of checks and balances between the 3 branches is by its nature adversarial. While it's nice when presidents don't break the law and such confrontation is unnecessary, this is the system that was established.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19461815/
“We’re aware of the committee’s action and will respond appropriately,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. “It’s unfortunate that congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation.”

In fact, the Judiciary Committee’s three most senior Republicans — Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, former chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa — sided with Democrats on the 13-3 vote last week to give Leahy the power to issue the subpoenas.

More questions for Gonzales

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=528
[Waxman and Conyers] The Oversight and Judiciary Committees have learned that the Vice President unilaterally exempted his office from Executive Order 12958, “Classified National Security Information,” which establishes a uniform, government-wide system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information. . . . Although the Office of the Vice President initially complied with this executive order, it then refused to make required reports of classification activity covering 2003 and refused to permit a 2004 inspection based on the argument that the office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

On January 9, 2007, J. William Leonard, Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, wrote to you requesting an interpretation as to whether the Office of the Vice President is bound by the executive order. . .

Due to conflicting statements from your department, the status of your review of this matter is unclear. More than six months have passed since Mr. Leonard’s letter to you, and the Information Security Oversight Office has received no response to its inquiry. In response to a FOIA request, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel stated on June 4, 2007, that no documents exist relating to your department’s response to Mr. Leonard’s letter. A department spokesperson confirmed that no “substantive work product” has been generated by the department in this matter. . .

To help our Committees understand your actions in response to the request from the Archives, as well as the Department’s views on the legal status of the Office of the Vice President, we ask that you provide written answers and documents in response to the following questions . . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/shall.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003546.php
[Spenver Ackerman] The day just gets worse for Gonzales. If he was involved in the 2003 revision to EO 12958 (which became EO 13292), then he'd be able to speak to the question of whether the order always intended for the veep to be exempt -- which would further raise the question of whether Gonzales accepted David Addington's theory that the vice presidency is outside the executive branch. After all, the White House's fallback line in the controversy has been that president never "intended" for EO 13292 to apply to Cheney, thereby begging the question of what legal ground that contention is based upon. As White House counsel when President Bush revised the EO, Gonzales or a deputy must have looked at it; if no one from the counsel's office did, that itself is scandalous.

David Addington, architect of the “fourth branch” argument, made a public statement emphasizing that Cheney is exempted from the rules on protecting classified information because Bush exempted himself and the VP from the Exective Order (even though it supposedly covered all executive branch entities). When Addington didn’t mention the “fourth branch” argument, some people thought he had backed off the claim. But read his words carefully. . .

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0607/4679.html
[Mike Allen] Dick Cheney's office is abandoning a justification for keeping the vice president's secret papers out of the hands of the National Archives, while asserting a new argument for withholding them.

Officials working for Cheney had tried to claim he is separate from the executive branch, but they will no longer pursue that defense, senior administration officials tell The Politico. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014855
[Paul Kiel] [F]inally given an opportunity to expound on the "fourth branch" theory of the vice presidency, Cheney's lawyer backs down. Looks like Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) called his bluff. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/27/121140/936
[Addington] "Constitutional issues in government are generally best left for discussion when unavoidable disputes arise in a specific context instead of in theoretical discussions," Addington adds. "Given that the executive order treats the Vice President like the President rather than like an "agency," it is not necessary in these circumstances to address the subject of any alternative reasoning, based on the law and the history of the legislative functions of the vice presidency and the more modern functions of the vice presidency, to reach the same conclusions . . .”

What is an “agency”? http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/it-depends-on-w.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11259.html
[Steve Benen] I’m afraid we’re dealing with crazy people. The executive order, Cheney’s office now argues, makes a distinction between Bush and Cheney on the one hand, and executive-branch agencies on the other. Asked where the executive order says this, Cheney’s office refuses to say.

But here’s the thing: we can read the executive order. Sec. 6.1(b) of the document explicitly states that it applies to any “‘Executive agency…any ‘Military department’…and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.” . . .

As painfully stupid as this argument is, it’s the official new White House line. Here’s Tony Snow at yesterday’s briefing:

“Well, keep in mind, what you’re talking about here is an executive order that involves compliance within the executive branch, but it also says that basically for the purposes of the executive order, the President and the Vice President’s offices are not considered ‘agencies’ and, therefore, are not subject to the regulations.”

These folks really must think we’re idiots. They can tell us that a document says something it clearly does not say, and maybe we won’t know better. I know this gang likes to create its own reality, but this is ridiculous. It’s a written document, publicly available for anyone to read. It’s easy to prove they’re lying. . . .

[NB: Agency, shmagency. What part of “and any other entity” are they going to parse now?]

“Tricky Dick”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014858

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/klamath.html

Gonzales seems to think his problem is just a matter of better PR

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003543.php

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/27/gonzales/index.html

More evidence of interference in US Attorney cases

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702310.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/27/225732/004

I’ve been arguing that the groundswell of Republican opposition to Bush’s Iraq policies is because they no longer trust him to seriously consider a policy shift before the 2008 elections, which has them very worried. BarbinMD argues that we’re merely headed for a new “compromise.” I think they’re seriously fed up

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_42;_ylt=AgxJWwd99fgbQvUSGiPCcMsE1vAI
[AP] President Bush is sending his top aide on national security affairs to Capitol Hill on Thursday to confront what has become a tough crowd on the Iraq war.

A majority of senators believe troops should start coming home within the next few months. A new House investigation concluded this week that the Iraqis have little control over an ailing security force. And House Republicans are calling to revive the independent Iraq Study Group to give the nation options.

While the White House thought they had until September to deal with political fallout on the unpopular war, officials may have forgotten another critical date: the upcoming 2008 elections. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/27/9516/35085
[BarbinMD] Bush's grip on the GOP is slipping. The GOP is looking at Iraq with skepticism. The GOP is ready to break with George Bush and his war policies. But is it? Or is this simply setting the stage for the next great "compromise" in this seemingly endless and futile war? . . .[read on]

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4141

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006364.html

The Bush gang seems to be assuming that an imposed withdrawal date is coming

http://www.slate.com/id/2169331/
[Daniel Politi] The Los Angeles Times leads with word that U.S. troops will be focusing on rooting out al-Qaida in Iraq during their upcoming offensive operations this summer. U.S. commanders say this shift in strategy, which takes emphasis away from the initial stated goal of targeting Shiite militias and death squads in Baghdad, is in preparation for the withdrawal timeline that they see coming from Congress in the next few months. . .

U.S. officials in Iraq are increasingly becoming convinced that militias are likely to reduce their attacks once a withdrawal timeline is established, but the opposite will be true for al-Qaida in Iraq. So, while insisting that Shiite militias are still a priority, U.S. troops will focus more on al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni militias. Notably, officials don't seem to be expecting any miracles, and instead say their goal is to create enough stability so that Iraqi forces can have some hope of success once the number of U.S. troops begins to decrease. The LAT gets extra credit today for noting something that might be obvious but is often lost in the coverage: "Despite its name, the extent of [al-Qaida in Iraq's] link to Osama bin Laden is unclear."

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-strategy28jun28,1,3608305.story
U.S. commanders plan a summer of stepped-up offensives against Al Qaeda in Iraq as they tailor strategy to their expectation that Congress soon will impose a timeline for drawing down U.S. forces here. . .

Bush/Cheney (and their war) are moving young voters to the left – thanks guys!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11262.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/kids-are-alright-by-digby-im-sure-this.html

More questions about the prosecution of Dem governor Don Siegelman (D-AL), and Karl Rove’s role in it

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003541.php
This is not the first time Siegelman has called his prosecution biased. He has long maintained that the investigation was based on a Republican vendetta. He's pointed to an affidavit signed by Republican lawyer Dana Jill Simpson to support his claim.

As we've detailed before, Simpson says she heard Bill Canary, a state GOP operative, say Karl Rove had promised to get the Justice Department on Siegelman. Canary also allegedly said he'd get his "girls" on Siegelman, referring to two of the US attorneys in the state.

One of those US attorneys is Canary's wife. After launching an investigation, she was forced to recuse herself from the case after objections from Siegelman's lawyers. . . [read on]

The California GOP just looks dumber and dumber

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11271.html

Dems need to start using the word “obstructionism”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/26/17542/0361

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/27/11916/4419

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011572.php

Video: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/27/senate-obstruction/

The Republicans’ no-win dilemma on immigration (thanks George)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/27/125644/740

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062700240.html

Supreme Court watch

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/washington/28memo.html
[Linda Greenhouse] It’s not every day that one Supreme Court justice, even one as rhetorically unrestrained as Justice Antonin Scalia, characterizes another justice, let alone the chief justice of the United States, as a wimp and a hypocrite.

Yet Justice Scalia did something very close to that, not once but twice, in separate opinions on Monday. As a result, he has served to lift the curtain a bit on the differences within the powerful five-justice conservative bloc that has marched in lock step through much of the term, bent on reshaping the law and, in several important areas, well on the way toward doing so. . .

No, we’re not done kicking Ann Coulter around here

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/27/i-was-a-ghoul-for-the-gop/

Meet the Press includes a blogger for the first time in their journalist roundtable! Who breaks the barrier – Atrios, Kos, Marshall, even Reynolds – long-time bloggers with huge constituencies? Nope. . . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/27/mtp-brody/
ThinkProgress has learned that this Sunday’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press will include a journalist roundtable featuring David Brody, a blogger and news correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network. . .

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/27/religious-zealots-meet-the-press-tim-russert/

Look, the Christian Right just isn’t going to accept a Mormon candidate – the only question is whether the GOP is going to give them a veto over its presidential nominee

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/religious-right-leader-bob-jones-iii-on.html

Rudy Giuliani, as a “moderate” Republican, might have had a chance at picking up some significant black support for president. Not any longer. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014868

Fred Thompson, the next GOP “savior” – but once he’s in and under scrutiny, watch him sink just like the others

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/28/wrong-said-fred-2/

Bonus item: The kind of people they are (funny-scary edition)

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070702&s=hari070207
[Johann Hari] I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she answers. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks me. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

I am getting used to such moments, when holiday geniality bleeds into--well, I'm not sure exactly what. I am traveling on a bright-white cruise ship with two restaurants, five bars, and 500 readers of National Review. Here, the Iraq war has been "an amazing success." Global warming is not happening. Europe is becoming a new Caliphate. And I have nowhere to run. . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/hate-boat-by-digby-johann-hari-has.html
[Digby] If there is ever any doubt in your mind as to what truly gets these people up in the morning, this lays it to rest. They are so afraid of dark people they must have a supply of Depends on hand at all times. Dinesh D'Souza, who is quite dark himself, tries awfully hard to be one of the "Real Americans" but he must wonder what they think when they see him out of the corner of their eye when they are alone in a ship's corridor after a few too many martoonis. (If he doesn't, he's an even bigger fool than he seems.)

It nearly impossible to believe that these are the people who have been running the world for the last six years --- and they are. These are Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld's people. We put a bunch of rich, deluded, paranoid racists in charge of the most powerful nation on earth. It's a miracle we're still alive.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott/2007/06/in-the-latest-i.html
[James Wolcott] Although not the comedy classic that P. J. O'Rourke's picaresque tale of a trip up the Volga with the writers and readers of the Nation was ("Up the Volga on a Ship of Fools" I believe it was titled when it was first published in Harper's, then-edited by Michael Kinsley), Hari's piece captures far deeper, scarier depths of fear, prejudice, parochial ignorance, self-delusion, borderline derangement, and sheer inanity. . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:28 AM

 
IT’S OKAY WHEN I DO IT

WH spokeswoman Dana Perino: “The President and the Vice President are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material and are making sure that it is safeguarded and protected.” That’s a LIE, and Henry Waxman catches them in it

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=517
I have received information that casts doubt on these assertions. There is evidence that both the White House and the Office of the Vice President have flaunted multiple requirements for protecting classified information. . . According to current and former White House security personnel who have contacted my staff, White House practices have been dangerously inadequate with respect to investigating security violations, taking corrective action following breaches, and physically securing classified information. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014841
[Josh Marshall] How aggressively did the FBI look into which unknown and inebriated American official tipped Ahmed Chalabi to the fact that the US had broken a crucial Iranian code -- a fact he reportedly then shared with the Iranians? . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014846

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014832.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003526.php

[NB: Yes, the stunning thing about these people is that for all their gnashing of teeth over the new security needs of a post-9/11 era, they have themselves been astoundingly sloppy and lax in addressing their own mishandling of classified information – Plame of course, Chalabi, and several other instances. . . .]

Tony Snow: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/26/171457/335
Q If there is a breach, who is reporting those --

MR SNOW: This is -- I don't know.

Q Does anybody know?

Q I mean, a separate White House security --

MR SNOW: This is something that the ISOO is responsible for overseeing. I'll try to get you the procedures on it.

Q But you get the question about oversight? If you say, yes, we're handling intelligence properly, but there's nobody that says, here's a breach, because there's nobody overseeing --

MR SNOW: But the ISOO is overseeing -- what I'm being --

Q Not the President and the Vice President's office.

MR. SNOW: Well, that's -- yes, correct.

Q So, nobody's watching, basically.

MR SNOW: No, that's not what it's saying. That's not at all what it's saying.

Subpoenas coming: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11254.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/henry-gets-impa.html

Addington speaks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062602052.html

Colbert nails it (thanks to Avedon Carol for the link)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/26/colbert-cheneys-shadow-branch/

Part four of the Washington Post series isn’t quite as stunning as the first three, but it provides much more evidence of what Cheney is all about

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/leaving_no_tracks/index.html
By combining unwavering ideological positions -- such as the priority of economic interests over protected fish -- with a deep practical knowledge of the federal bureaucracy, Cheney has made an indelible mark on the administration's approach to everything from air and water quality to the preservation of national parks and forests.

It was Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, that led Christine Todd Whitman to resign as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, she said in an interview that provides the most detailed account so far of her departure. . . .

Whitman, then head of the EPA, was on vacation with her family in Colorado when her cellphone rang. The vice president was on the line, and he was clearly irked.

Why was the agency dragging its feet on easing pollution rules for aging power and oil refinery plants?, Cheney wanted to know. An industry that had contributed heavily to the Bush-Cheney campaign was clamoring for change, and the vice president told Whitman that she "hadn't moved it fast enough," she recalled.

Whitman protested, warning Cheney that the administration had to proceed cautiously. It was August 2001, just seven months into the first term. We need to "document this according to the books," she said she told him, "so we don't look like we are ramrodding something through. Because it's going to court."

But the vice president's main concern was getting it done fast, she said, and "doing it in a way that didn't hamper industry." . . .

Cheney had a clear mandate from the president on all things energy-related, she said, and while she could take her case directly to Bush, "you leave and the vice president's still there. So together, they would then shape policy."

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011567.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/06/with_the_colleagues_you_have.php
[Matt Yglesias] Mark Kleiman notes that one surprising element of the Post's recent long account of Dick Cheney's power is that "is Condoleeza Rice's passivity in the face of this interference in her communication with her own staff" which one would expect pettiness and thirst for power, if not professionalism and good sense, to keep in check.

Jim Henley counters with the observation "that Dick Cheney played a large role in selecting the Bush Administration’s cabinet and senior staff and he knew what he was doing when he gave the nod to Rice and Powell. Surely at the top of his list of criteria for NSA and Secretary of State was 'Who can I roll?'" . . .

We’ve all heard about the “Bush bubble” – now we find out that it was intentionally built and maintained by . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/26/dick-cheney-the-keeper-of-the-bush-bubble/
[Christy Hardin Smith] The thing that strikes me about the WashPost series is that Cheney was constructing Bush’s bubble from the very get go. He has managed to prevent anybody from one on one access to Bush without his approval. Nobody talked to Bush without his approval or his presence. His heavy handed presence managed to kill every effort to inject reality into the decision making process through intimidation. Just think about him staring at Bush from behind the bushes at that presser. . . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/bush-is-his-own-bush-by-tristero-i.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/well-then-well-.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11257.html
[Steve Benen, yesterday] Perhaps the most interesting anecdote in today’s piece was an instance in which Bush wouldn’t give Cheney what he wanted — so Cheney went around him. . . [read on]

Richard Lugar (R-IN) comes out against Bush’s war policies; now, George Voinovich (R-OH) adds to the list. Are we reaching the tipping point?

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/26/ap3858839.html

http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=901
[Frank Rich, last Sunday] As General Odom says, the endgame will start “when a senior senator from the president’s party says no,” much as William Fulbright did to L.B.J. during Vietnam. That’s why in Washington this fall, eyes will turn once again to John Warner, the senior Republican with the clout to give political cover to other members of his party who want to leave Iraq before they’re forced to evacuate Congress. In September, it will be nearly a year since Mr. Warner said that Iraq was “drifting sideways” and that action would have to be taken “if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function.” . . . [read on]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070626/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=AhefTuYezF_TxbRA_OEyVSes0NUE
[AP] Republican support for the Iraq war is slipping by the day. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062602056.html
Key Republican senators, signaling increasing GOP skepticism about President Bush's strategy in Iraq, have called for a reduction in U.S. forces and launched preemptive efforts to counter a much-awaited administration progress report due in September. . .

Tony shrugs: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/26/snow/index.html

If you think General Petraeus’s much-anticipated September report will be anything but an endorsement of the success of the “surge” and a plea for more time, consider this: he has a track record

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11255.html
[Steve Benen] It’s late-September 2004, just six weeks before Election Day. John Kerry is awfully close to Bush in the polls, and Americans’ concerns about the war in Iraq are escalating. An op-ed appears in the Washington Post that helps change the conventional wisdom among the DC chattering class:

I see tangible progress [in Iraq]. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up. The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously…There are reasons for optimism…Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired…Progress has also been made in police training…Considerable progress is also being made in the reconstruction and refurbishing of infrastructure for Iraq’s security forces. […]

Iraq’s security forces are developing steadily and they are in the fight. Momentum has gathered in recent months. With strong Iraqi leaders out front and with continued coalition — and now NATO — support, this trend will continue. . .

And who was the Pollyana who wrote this stunningly-wrong op-ed shortly before voters went to the polls?

It was Gen. David Petraeus.

Our guys

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062601896.html
Iraqi law enforcement officials stretched a dragnet over the Green Zone and other parts of the capital Tuesday, seeking to arrest the country's culture minister in connection with an attempted political assassination two years ago in which three people were killed, Iraqi officials said. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2169207/
[Daniel Politi] The Post goes inside with some details on a new bipartisan congressional investigation set to be released today on the state of the Iraqi security forces. As could be expected, the Iraqi forces don't appear to be anywhere near ready to take over control of the nation's security. But lawmakers appear to be particularly troubled by the lack of information from the Pentagon on the state of the forces, even though it has spent $19 billion to train and equip them. "This report details the complete lack of understanding of who we have trained and what happens to them after we train them," Rep. Martin Meehan, chairman of the armed services subcommittee, said.

The silence is deafening

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014842
[Josh Marshall] Another 'no comment', now from the White House, on Karl Rove's alleged role in targetting Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL) for prosecution.

Cricket, cricket ...

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2007/06/libby_and_siegelman.php

How did Greg Palast break the story on “caging”? You’ll laugh when you find out

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003523.php

Former #2 at the Interior Dept sentenced to prison: yes, lying DOES have consequences

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003532.php

The kind of people they are

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/rudy_giuliani_/2007/06/how_low_can_they_go.php
[Rudy Giuliani’s new South Carolina campaign chairman] “Can you believe that there are those who think that the General Assembly of South Carolina is going to . . . knuckle under, roll over and do the bidding (of) that organization known as the National Association for Retarded People? . . .

[Later] "I didn't apologize to the NAACP. I apologized to the retarded folks of the world for equating them to the national NAACP," said Ravenel. . .”

[Mark Kleiman] Forget the racism for a second: The guy has a Downs Syndrome son and makes fun of "retarded people" for political laughs. . . .

“Psychopathic Freakshow”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/psychopathic-freakshow-by-digby-coulter.html
"We need to be less concerned about civilian casualties...we bombed more people in Hamburg in two days ... I'd rather have their civilians die than our civilians... we should kill their people."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11256.html
“I’ve learned my lesson; if I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/26/edwards-coulter/
In 2003, she wrote a column claiming that John Edwards drove around with a bumper sticker saying “Ask me about my son’s death in a horrific car accident.” . . .

During an hour-long interview with Coulter today on MSNBC, host Chris Matthews announced that Elizabeth Edwards was on the line. Edwards referenced the attacks above, saying, “I’m the mother of that boy who died. These young people behind you…you’re asking them to participate in a dialogue that is based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues, and I don’t think that’s serving them or this country very well.” The live audience cheered. . .

[The full transcript] MATTHEWS: You know who’s on the line? Someone to respond to what you said about Edwards yesterday morning. Elizabeth Edwards. She wanted to call in today, we said she could. Elizabeth Edwards, go on the line. You’re on the line with Ann Coulter.

E: Hello Chris.

M: Do you want to say something directly to the person who’s with me?

E: I’m calling — you know, in the south, when someone does something that displeases us, we want to ask them politely to stop doing it. I would like to ask Ann Coulter to — if she wants to debate on issues, on positions — we certainly disagree with nearly everything she said on your show today — but it is quite another matter for these personal attacks. The things that she has said over the years, not just about John but about other candidates, lowers our political dialogue precisely at the time that we need to raise it. So I want to use the opportunity, which I don’t get much because Ann and I don’t hang out with the same people…

C: I don’t have enough money.

E: …to ask her politely stop the personal attacks.

C: Okay, so I made a joke, let’s see, six months ago, and as you point out, they have been raising money off of it for six months since then.

M: But this is yesterday morning, what you said about him.

C: I didn’t say anything about him, actually, either time.

E: But that — Ann, Ann, you know that’s not true, and once more, this has been going on for some time.

C: And I don’t mind you trying to raise money. It’s better this than giving $50,000 speeches to the poor just to use my name on the webpages. But as for a debate with me, yeah, sure. Yeah, we’ll have a debate.

E: I’m asking you politely to stop, to stop personal attacks –

C: How about you stop raising money on your web page then? No, you don’t have to because I don’t mind.

E: I did not start with that. You had a column a number of years ago where you suggested — wait till I finish talking please…

C: Okay, the wife of a presidential candidate is calling in asking me to stop speaking.

M: Let her finish the point. Let her finish the point.

C: You’re asking me to stop speaking? “Stop writing your columns. Stop writing your books.”

M: Ann, please.

E: You had a column several years ago which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean’s death and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car saying, “Ask me about my dead son.” This is not legitimate political dialogue.

C: This is now three years ago.

E: It debases political dialogue. It drives people away from the process. We can’t have a debate about the issues.

C: Yeah, why isn’t John Edwards making this call?

M: Well, do you want to respond? We’ll end the conversation.

E: I haven’t talked to John about this call. I’m making the call as a mother. I’m the mother of that boy who died. My children participate — these young people behind you are the age of my children. You’re asking them to participate in a dialogue that is based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues, and I don’t think that’s serving them or this country very well.

[Applause]

M: Thank you very much Elizabeth. You wanna respond? You have all the time in the world to respond.

C: I think we heard all we need to hear. The wife of a presidential candidate is asking me to stop speaking. No.

M: No, she asked you to stop being so negative to people individually.

C: Right, as opposed to bankrupting doctors by giving a schyster Las Vegas routine in front of juries based on science — wait, you said I’d have as long as I would have, then you instantly interrupt me.

M: Go ahead, go ahead.

C: As I was saying, doing these psychic routines in front of illiterate juries to bankrupt doctors who now can’t deliver babies, and to charge a poverty group $50,000 for a speech. Don’t talk to me about how to use language.

M: Elizabeth?

E: …the language of hate, and I’m going to ask you again to politely stop using personal attacks as part of your dialogue.

C: Okay, I’ll stop writing books.

E: If you can’t write them without them, that is fine.

M: Why do you call out Hillary’s chubby legs in your book? Why do you — this may fall under the category of personal attacks, I don’t know, but why do you do that? Why do you talkabout Monica Lewinsky’s chubbiness? If she were skinny, would it have been okay?

C: Um, I don’t know, read the sentence.

E: I read the whole sentence. I couldn’t feel the context.

C: Well you have to give it to me and I could explain.

E: Why do you make fun of Hillary’s chubby legs?

C: I don’t know, you’re going to have to give me the sentence.

M: It’s in the afterword of your book, I just read it this morning.

C: Then read the sentence.

M: We’ll be back and read the entire sentence. We’ll come right back. I don’t know why we’re reading — the full intellectual context will be coming in just a moment.

More Coulter “humor”: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/26/22326/4498

Glenn Beck is stupid and insulting and unfunny and no one’s watching his show on Headline News Network. Consequence? He’s given a gig on the parent channel, CNN

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_17_archive.html#3137637864120371234

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/cnn-to-give-sexist-homophobe-racist.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706260009

I guess this will now lead to another round of stories about the ineffectual Democrats

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/washington/26cnd-labor.html
Senate Republicans today blocked the labor movement’s top legislative priority, a bill that would have made it easier for unions to organize workers. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/26/17542/0361

Bonus item: Doh!

http://www.slate.com/id/2169207
[Daniel Politi] Meanwhile, the White House found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to say that the president "misspoke" when he said the bill would provide amnesty for illegal immigrants. "You know, I've heard all the rhetoric—you've heard it too—about how this is amnesty," Bush said. "Amnesty means that you've got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that."

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:54 AM

 
BUYING TIME

Here’s a point I haven’t seen made adequately: the real targets of this slipping “deadline” for a crucial policy shift in Iraq (“we’ll know by summer,” “we’ll know by September,” and now “we’ll know by April”) aren’t the anti-war Democrats, but the Republicans. They are the people Bush needs to keep on board into next year, and they are the people facing electoral Armageddon in 2008. And THEY must be getting pretty sick of being jerked around like this – they stuck by Bush on his veto of the funding bill with conditions, only because he promised them respite in the Fall. Now he’s saying, well, maybe by Spring – and I think we all know what the message will be come Spring . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011551.php

When you’ve lost Dick Lugar (R-IN), you’ve lost the Republican establishment

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/key-gop-senator-richard-lugar-blasts.html
In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond. Our continuing absorption with military activities in Iraq is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness there and elsewhere in the world. The prospects that the current “surge” strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited . . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/26/13032/5700
[Kos] He essentially has endorsed the Murtha plan -- redeploying some forces in Kuwait, while making a laughable call for Bush to change course . . .

What Lugar DIDN’T say: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/25/23355/4091

The real debate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501463.html
[EJ Dionne] Quietly, the real debate over Iraq is beginning.

It's not about whether the United States should pull out troops. That is now inevitable. The real challenge is to figure out the right timetable for withdrawal, whether a residual force should be left there and which American objectives can still be salvaged.

This is not the debate President Bush wants to have come September, when a slew of reports will be issued assessing the results of the troop surge. Already, the administration is preparing the ground for kicking the real choices into next year. . . .

The politics of GOP support for Bush on the war (no, it isn’t all based on support for the WAR)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11244.html

Of course

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/world/middleeast/25cnd-Iraq.html
A suicide bomber assassinated several Sunni Arab sheiks who were cooperating with Americans to fight Al Qaeda . . .

More on the shift to calling our opponents in Iraq “Al Qaeda”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/25/al_qaeda/index.html

More cover-ups of the phony case for Saddam’s WMD’s

http://www.examiner.com/a-797444~White_House_opposes_move_to_declassify_report_on_Iraq_s_WMDs.html

More on how torture became US policy

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014825

“They Were Willing To Throw Away Our Values”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/25/they-were-willing-to-throw-away-our-values/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/25/keeping-dick-safe/

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2007&base_name=post_4049
[Ezra Klein] [I]t's striking how much of the post-9/11 intelligence operations appear to be entirely under his purview.

[WP] Cheney, the president said, "has the portfolio for intelligence activities." . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/25/BL2007062500874.html
[Dan Froomkin] Yet in most decisions Gellman and Becker describe, President Bush's role is essentially to sign whatever Cheney has put in front of him. The series offers ample evidence that within the Bush administration, dissenters from Cheney's views are bullied, marginalized or fired -- with apparently no effective pushback from Bush or any of his other top aides. It's a stunning portrait. . .

What I'm most curious about right now is whether, or how, Cheney's grip is slipping.

Outside the White House, Cheney's credibility is now almost zero, due to his errors of judgment on Iraq and his nearly delusional assertions about the war, as well as the cloud over his own conduct raised by the conviction of his former chief of staff for perjury.

But is his credibility still intact inside the Bush bubble? Is he still the last one to talk to Bush before the president makes a decision? Is the Cheney machine -- a legion of loyalists in key positions throughout government, transmitting information to and orders from the vice president's office -- still functioning effectively? . . . . [read on]

Has Cheney “jumped the shark”? http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=900

I seriously doubt this

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501038.html
[Sally Quinn] The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office. Even before this week's blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.

As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration's leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party -- including the presidential nominee -- in next year's elections. . . .

I hope he’s right

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#1803569282157049012
[Atrios] I agree that the best way to get to our 3-year-old president is to start taunting him for playing second fiddle to his Uncle Dick, just like he did with dear old dad all those years before he found a new daddy figure in Dick. . . .

The man behind Cheney’s radical constitutional theories

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/addingtons-meth.html

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006341.html
"[C]ome January 20th, 2009, Mr. Addington will never again be able to leave U.S. soil. He will risk arrest for war crimes offenses and will not have the current diplomatic protections he enjoys today. . ."

Alberto Gonzales, another enabler

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19391241/site/newsweek/

I didn’t know this! The spy in Cheney’s office . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014831
[Josh Marshall] It seems now largely to have been forgotten. But let's not forget the case of Leandro Aragoncillo, the naturalized US citizen of filipino descent who engaged in espionage on behalf of opposition leaders in his native country while worked as a Marine security official in Vice President Cheney's office. To the best of my knowledge this is the only known case of espionage taking place within the White House. And it happened in Cheney's operation. . . [read on]

Don’t forget Chalabi: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014832

Part three of the Washington Post series

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/a_strong_push_from_back_stage/index.html
Scores of interviews with advisers to the president and vice president, as well as with other senior officials throughout the government, offer a backstage view of how the Bush White House operates. The president is "the decider," as Bush puts it, but the vice president often serves up his menu of choices.

Cheney led a group that winnowed the president's list of potential Supreme Court nominees. Cheney resolved a crisis in the space program after the Columbia shuttle disaster. Cheney fashioned a controversial truce between the legislative and executive branches -- and averted resignations at the top of the Justice Department and the FBI -- over the right of law enforcement authorities to investigate political corruption in Congress.

And it was Cheney who served as the guardian of conservative orthodoxy on budget and tax matters. He shaped and pushed through Bush's tax cuts, blunting the influence of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a longtime friend, and of Cabinet rivals he had played a principal role in selecting. He managed to overcome the president's "compassionate conservative" resistance to multiple breaks for the wealthy. . . .

On the home front, the vice president is well known for leading a secretive task force on energy policy. But in a town where politicians routinely scurry for credit, Cheney more often kept his role concealed, even from top Bush advisers.

"A lot of it was a black box, and I think designedly so," said former Bush speechwriter David Frum. "It was like -- you know that experiment where you pass a magnet under the table and you see the iron filings on the top of the table move? You know there's a magnet there because of what you see happening, but you never see the magnet." . . .

Speaking of Bush "choosing from a menu of choices Cheney provides him," let's not forget how Cheney BECAME Vice President

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/07/24/bush.vp/index.html
Texas governor George W. Bush will ask former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney this morning to be the Republican vice presidential nominee, GOP sources tell CNN. . .

Cheney himself told several associates Monday that he was certain he was Bush's pick, the GOP sources said. . .

Cheney, who has spent the past several weeks conducting Bush's search for a running mate, emerged as the front-runner for the position late Friday. An announcement was expected Tuesday in Austin, but the governor's top aides cautioned Monday that nothing is definite until Bush says it's definite. . . .

We’ve known for a while that the main duty of Press Secretary is to NOT answer questions – but Dana Perino moves the art to a new level

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/25/perino_cheney/index.html
[Tim Grieve] The Washington Post says in its four-part series on Dick Cheney that the vice president and his legal team purported to gut the rules on how the United States treats detainees in 2001 -- and that neither then Secretary of State Colin Powell nor then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice even knew what had happened until nearly two years later.

Asked about the charge today at the White House, Dana Perino pulled off an incredible hat trick of spin. All at once, she declined to comment on the report, insisted that it wasn't true and declared that she knew nothing about what had actually happened.

Behold this thing of beauty . . . [read on]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/25/perino1/index.html
[Tim Grieve] So what does the White House think of Dick Cheney's argument that his office is part of the legislative branch, not the executive branch, and therefore not subject to the reporting requirements of an executive order governing the protection of classified national security information?

Dana Perino was asked variations of that question repeatedly at the White House today. Her answer: I don't have an opinion, so you should ask somebody else. . . . [read on]

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/helen.html
[Helen Thomas] We should get someone out here who can answer our questions

More nonsense: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/today-on-hold-3.html
MS. PERINO: I'm not opining on that, and I'm not going to comment on it. But what I'm saying is that I think that it's irrelevant in this regard. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/25/184639/518
Q Okay. And just lastly, it's a little surreal -- I mean, how is it possible --

MS. PERINO: You're telling me. . . .

Watch it: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014826

How long can Rove keep ducking the questions?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014813

I’ve been wondering about this for a while now too: Why the timing of this major document dump on old CIA operations? What are they meant to distract us from?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/public_management_/2007/06/misdirection.php

5-4 Supreme Court review

Theocracy wins: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Scotus-Faith-Based.html
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that ordinary taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious charities get a share of federal money. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11240.html

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2007&base_name=post_4052

“Bong Hits”: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/25/122322/380

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/25/132410/220

Corporate campaign ads: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus26jun26,0,5372063.story
The Supreme Court gave President Bush and Republican leaders two important victories today by clearing the way for corporate-funded broadcast ads before next year's election and by shielding the White House's "faith-based initiative" from challenge in the courts. . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/free-speech-by-digby-so-supremes-took.html

“Caging”: it didn’t just happen in Florida

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11237.html

Here’s a challenge to reporters across the country: given the Rovean US Attorney scheme, EVERY major new indictment between now and the 2008 election needs to be scrutinized for potential partisan impact. Here’s a start

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011554.php

Ex-Bush aides come out against NCLB

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501897.html

The last refuge of scoundrels. How Christine Todd Whitman, head of the EPA that modified post-9/11 safety reports under WH pressure, defends her decision

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070625/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/attacks_health;_ylt=Aok.KeEo1llY6gpG.V73R5Ws0NUE
"There are indeed people to blame. They are the terrorists who attacked the United States, not the men and women at all levels of government who worked heroically to protect and defend this country," Whitman said. . . .

Here’s how David Broder and the Washington establishment infantilize the popular understanding of how the DC process works: the use of “political” as a pejorative

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11243.html
[Steve Benen] Broder wants leaders who won’t “worry about politics” and will “do the nation’s business.” What a great idea! Why didn’t anyone else think of this?

Broder probably hasn’t thought about this way, but he’s actually showing a certain disdain for politics. Through overly-simplified analysis, he’s suggesting that all policy problems have a solution, and were it not for the political process, leaders would get together to embrace that solution.

None of this makes any sense. . . [read on]

John McCain, on the ropes

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1977477.ece
THE former presidential front-runner, John McCain, may drop out of the 2008 race by September if his fundraising dries up and his poll ratings continue to drop, according to Republican insiders. . .

Rudy’s old campaign chief in South Carolina, cocaine criminal. His replacement? This guy (his father) . . .

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/25/rudys_new_sc_chair_has_history_of_racially_charged_remarks
[Jason Horowitz] On October 18, 2006 The Post and Courier of Charleston, SC wrote " Arthur Ravenel Jr., who is running for an East Cooper seat on the board, caught flack 16 years ago when he was in Congress and made a comment about white committee chairmen who operated on 'black time,' which he said meant fashionably late."

As recently as January 2000, the Post and Courier reported in an article headlined "Ravenel stepped outside 'civility,'" that Ravenel called the NAACP the "National Association For Retarded People."

When asked about the comment in the story, Ravenel said that he misspoke. "It was a slip of the tongue. I have never said the NAACP was retarded," he told the Post and Courier. "I made a rhetorical slip, and they want to lynch me for it." . . .

The Dems have learned it from the GOP: put the press on the defensive whenever possible

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/25/edwards_campaign_blasts_new_york_times_over_poverty_story

But watch the pros do it

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/white-house-correspondents-association.html

Fox News: Civil rights leaders are “racist” (thanks to Avedon Carol for the link). Don’t miss this!

http://www.thepoorman.net/2007/06/21/the-conservative-soul-2/

ABC pulls a Fox

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014816
ABC News has apologized for mistakenly running a picture of former Washington Mayor Marion Barry when it was promoting a "World News" story about a man suing a dry cleaner for $54 million for losing his pants. . . .

More BS from PBS

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#5829726423311733604
[Atrios] Did you know that Frank Luntz will be the analyst for PBS's coverage of the next Democratic debate in the presidential race?

Bonus item: More on the illegal immigrant hired to head the California GOP; you couldn’t make it up

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014814
The guy who ran Arnold's reelection campaign, Steve Schmidt, calls Kamburowski's hiring "almost a parody of incompetence and malfeasance." . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:37 AM

 
WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?

What the first installment in the Washington Post Cheney series tells us about Cheney and Bush’s relationship

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11232.html
[Steve Benen] The article is not explicit, but an underlying theme of the Washington Post’s profile on Dick Cheney is that his unprecedented power is only possible because Bush is anxious to get out of the way. . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11231.html
[Steve Benen] Today’s profile helps document the scope and breadth of a Vice President with unprecedented (and largely unchecked) authority. Cheney wanted a “mandate that gave him access to ‘every table and every meeting,’ making his voice heard in ‘whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in,’” and, naturally, Bush gave his VP what he requested. . . [read on]

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/cheneys-method.html
[Emptywheel] Cheney is not the shadow president, they say. Bush has taken (some) actions independent of Cheney, they say. Cheney is implementing Bush's goals, they say. But then they say, "Their one-on-one relationship is opaque, a vital unknown in assessing Cheney's impact on events." None of the other claims made in the paragraph stand in the presence of that fact. So long as no one knows what happens between Bush and Cheney, we can never say whether Cheney is serving Bush's aims or Bush is serving Cheney's. . . .

Cheney was forcing Bush's hand. It's the same thing he did in August 2002, when he persuaded Bush (after Powell had persuaded him to the contrary) to push for war no matter what. At that point, Cheney spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In both cases, I suspect, Cheney deliberately selected a group that could pressure Bush from the right to enact policies he appears not to have supported of his own accord.

The president had not yet made that decision. Ten weeks passed, and the Bush administration fought one of its fiercest internal brawls, before Bush ratified the policy that Cheney had declared: The Geneva Conventions would not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters captured on the battlefield.

It's a remarkable article. For it shows that Cheney controls all of the information getting to Bush, which provides the Vice President a way to intercept even the most important legal advice (such as, that Bush will be committing war crimes). And when that doesn't work by itself, Cheney works the refs, using conservative groups to pressure Bush to implement Cheney's plans.

Which makes you wonder. Why is it that these people believe that Cheney is not the one leading? What about this portrait suggests Cheney is anything but a shadow President?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011547.php
[Kevin Drum] There's nothing wrong with the fact that Dick Cheney is a powerful vice president. . . . Since the vice president is the guy who takes over the country if the president dies, we're all better off if the VP is deeply involved in the operations of the executive. The Washington Post's series on Dick Cheney, however, describes a man who's not just involved, but nearly pathological. The most telling moment comes in a passage that involves Condoleezza Rice, back when she headed up the National Security Council, and her top lawyer, John Bellinger. The subject is Cheney's belief that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to the war on terror:

[WP] At the White House, Bellinger sent Rice a blunt — and, he thought, private — legal warning. The Cheney-Rumsfeld position would place the president indisputably in breach of international law and would undermine cooperation from allied governments. Faxes had been pouring in at the State Department since the order for military commissions was signed, with even British authorities warning that they could not hand over suspects if the U.S. government withdrew from accepted legal norms.

One lawyer in his office said that Bellinger was chagrined to learn, indirectly, that Cheney had read the confidential memo and "was concerned" about his advice. Thus Bellinger discovered an unannounced standing order: Documents prepared for the national security adviser, another White House official said, were "routed outside the formal process" to Cheney, too. The reverse did not apply.

The article doesn't explain how this process happens, but it's astonishing that even the NSC director and her top aides are not allowed to exchange private memos in the Bush/Cheney White House. Apparently the West Wing has been transformed into a panopticon for the benefit of Dick Cheney and his staff: they can watch you, but you can't watch back.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2007/06/resignation_in_personal_protest.php
[Mark Kleiman] I have to disagree with Kevin Drum. I don't find it even mildly surprising that Dick Cheney was spying on his White House colleagues. Disgusting, yes. Surprising, no. It's part of his fundamentally totalitarian mind-set.

What I do find surprising is Condoleeza Rice's passivity in the face of this interference in her communication with her own staff. Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have gone to Bush and said, "This stops from right now or I'm out the door." . . .

[NB: Well, Mark, I in turn do not find THAT surprising at all. It fits with everything we have seen from Rice at every stage. If she had any self-respect or strength of character she would have fought these people or quit a long time ago, She has been nothing but an enabler.]

More on Cheney: http://roziusunbound.blogspot.com/2007/06/maureen-dowd-vice-president-without.html
[Maureen Dowd] I’ve always thought Cheney was way out there — the most Voldemort-like official I’ve run across. But even in my harshest musings about the vice president, I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet — a separate entity from the White House.

I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it’s quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution. . . .

Cheney and Cheney’s Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch. . . .

A little word about WP editorial policies

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006337.html
[From an editor friend] A careful reading of the story of Cheney's coup against a feeble executive reveals that paragraphs 7 through 10 were written and inserted in haste by a powerful editorial hand. The banging of colliding metaphors in an otherwise carefully written piece is evidence of last-minute interpolations by a bad editor whom no one has the power to rewrite. . . .

That in turn suggests that this piece has been ready to run for some time. Insertions like the one about the veep's office not being part of the executive branch and seriatim "softenings" show that jamming it into the paper at the end of June, when only cats and the homeless are around the read the paper, was made at the last minute.

Why? My guess is that this series ready to go during the debate over the supplemental funding of the Iraq war and that Downie or someone at the top held it back . . .

A key element of the coup is also ignored: the role of the press as revealed in the Libby scandal ... : Note in particular paragraph seven the phrase that Cheney's subversive roles "went undetected." The correct verb is "unreported."

This series is a landscape of an internal war. Parts of it are still smoking and some reputations are visibly dying--anonymously, for the moment. The journalistic graves registration people will go in later and tag the corpses.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/operational-world-by-digby-laura-rozen.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/24/214027/649

Part Two

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html

What the second installment tells us about Gonzales

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/msm-1-digby-0-by-digby-well-when-im-ass.html
[Digby] Alberto Gonzales is, as everyone has long suspected, nothing more than a glorified houseboy. But I was surprised to learn that he acted on behalf of Dick Cheney and not George W. Bush. Apparently, even Bush's long time loyalists treat him like a mentally disabled child:

[WP] One lawyer in his office said that Bellinger was chagrined to learn, indirectly, that Cheney had read the confidential memo and "was concerned" about his advice. Thus Bellinger discovered an unannounced standing order: Documents prepared for the national security adviser, another White House official said, were "routed outside the formal process" to Cheney, too. The reverse did not apply.

Powell asked for a meeting with Bush. The same day, Jan. 25, 2002, Cheney's office struck a preemptive blow. It appeared to come from Gonzales, a longtime Bush confidant whom the president nicknamed "Fredo." Hours after Powell made his request, Gonzales signed his name to a memo that anticipated and undermined the State Department's talking points. The true author has long been a subject of speculation, for reasons including its unorthodox format and a subtly mocking tone that is not a Gonzales hallmark.

A White House lawyer with direct knowledge said Cheney's lawyer, Addington, wrote the memo. Flanigan passed it to Gonzales, and Gonzales sent it as "my judgment" to Bush. If Bush consulted Cheney after that, the vice president became a sounding board for advice he originated himself. . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014808
[Steve Benen] As pathological as Dick Cheney comes across in today's much-discussed Washington Post profile, our notorious Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, hardly comes across looking good. (Barton Gellman and Jo Becker confirm that the president calls his long-time friend "Fredo.") . . .

So, on top of everything we've already learned with regards to Gonzales' on-the-job performance, we now also learn that our AG was looked down upon by his White House colleagues, and was given a nickname belonging to the feeble, incompetent brother from The Godfather. . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/24/223354/628
[WP] On June 8, 2004, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell learned of the two-year-old torture memo for the first time from an article in The Washington Post. According to a former White House official with firsthand knowledge, they confronted Gonzales together in his office.

Rice "very angrily said there would be no more secret opinions on international and national security law," the official said, adding that she threatened to take the matter to the president if Gonzales kept them out of the loop again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19391241/site/newsweek/
Cheney's position so frustrated J. William Leonard, the chief of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which enforces the order, that he complained in January to Gonzales. In a letter, Leonard wrote that Cheney's position was inconsistent with the "plain text reading" of the executive order and asked the attorney general for an official ruling. But Gonzales never responded, thereby permitting Cheney to continue blocking Leonard from conducting even a routine inspection of how the veep's office was handling classified documents, according to correspondence released by House Government Reform Committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman.

Why didn't Gonzales act on Leonard's request? His aides assured reporters that Leonard's letter has been "under review" for the past five months—by Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). But on June 4, an OLC lawyer denied a Freedom of Information Act request about the Cheney dispute asserting that OLC had "no documents" on the matter . . .

Too extreme for John Yoo?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006340.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html#827838312985101818

No limits

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006340.html
[Laura Rozen] Addington's and his client's and cohort's deliberate intent on finding ways to authorize cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment seems demonstrably and comprehensively provable from the documents and witness testimony the Washington Post has assembled. Am curious if legal liability is a totally abstract issue especially as, this series demonstrates, these interpretations of the laws are so influenced by the unusual reining political environment of the moment, and could conceivably revert back to something approaching normal at some point. Is their immunity so absolute? The US is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, after all, and Congress ratified it, and Addington schemed and conspired in secret to suspend a law passed by Congress. . . .

And this just blows your mind:

[WP] . . . When a U.S. District Court ruled several months later that Padilla had a right to counsel, Cheney's office insisted on sending Olson's deputy, Paul Clement, on what Justice Department lawyers called "a suicide mission": to tell Judge Michael B. Mukasey that he had erred so grossly that he should retract his decision. Mukasey derided the government's "pinched legalism" and added acidly that his order was "not a suggestion or request."

Cheney's strategy fared worse in the Supreme Court, where two cases arrived for oral argument alongside Padilla's on April 28, 2004.

They tried to strong arm a judge to retract his ruling? In what kind of countries does that happen?

We can only hope

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011550.php
[WP] "The irony with the Cheney crowd pushing the envelope on presidential power is that the president has now ended up with lesser powers than he would have had if they had made less extravagant, monarchical claims," said Bruce Fein, an associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan. . . [read on]

September can’t come soon enough

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/world/middleeast/25cnd-iraq.html
Iraq faced more troubles on the military and political fronts on Sunday: American commanders expressed doubts about the ability of Iraqi troops to hold the gains made in areas north of the capital last week, and two Sunni Arab blocs boycotted a Parliament session, demanding the reinstatement of the speaker. . .

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070625/1a_lede25.art.htm
The U.S. military is exploring creative ways to offer financial aid and other support to tribes that have turned against al-Qaeda or want to protect their neighborhoods. . . .

American officers have encouraged Iraq's government to expedite the process of bringing tribes into Iraq's security forces by waiving some usual requirements. . .

Welch acknowledged that some Americans remain wary of supporting former insurgents.

"Not all in the coalition are thrilled to be working with people that we have fought, who are responsible for killing U.S. soldiers," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-iraqdeal25jun25,1,1529505.story
The Bush administration has begun exploring ways of offering Congress a compromise deal on Iraq policy to avert bruising battles in coming months, U.S. officials said.

With public support of the war dropping, President Bush has authorized an internal policy review to find a plan that could satisfy opponents without sacrificing his top goals, the officials said.

The president and senior officials "realize they can't keep fighting this over and over," said one administration official, who along with others declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly or because decisions were pending. . . .

Among other ideas, they have discussed whether the United States should advocate a sharply decentralized Iraq . . .

[NB: Call it “decentralization,” call it “federalism,” or call it “partitioning,” this is a STUNNING reversal by the Bush gang.]

Good versus evil

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/cuz-were-so-good-by-digby-after-911-i.html

David Broder, still for some reason taken seriously as a commentator, tells us that the failure of the immigration bill is the Democrats’ fault

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014805
[Steve Benen] This strikes me as wrong for two reasons. First is the obvious problem with the observation: blaming Senate Dems for failing to pass the immigration bill is kind of silly. Dems worked with the White House on a compromise, brought the bill to the floor, and about four-in-five Senate Dems voted to support it. In contrast, 85% of the Senate GOP caucus voted against it, and the president apparently couldn't move a single Republican vote. Broder finds Reid, Durbin, & Co. a convenient scapegoat, but if he's looking for a party to blame, he's got the wrong one. . . [read on]

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/25/61241/2895

The NYT responds, weakly, to criticisms of its hatchet job on Edwards

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/24/new_york_times_responds_to_our_criticism_of_edwards_hit_piece

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/24/13215/2933

As expected, Bill Kristol and his crowd find a way to violate every principle of conservative constitutionalism, in order to concoct a justification of Cheney’s unprecedented self-exemption from the law

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11233.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011548.php

Sean Hannity, fair and balanced

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/06/24/new_low_for_sean_hannity_and_fox.php
[Crallspace] Never impressive or short of manipulative fearmongering and disinformation, Sean Hannity of Fox "News" and right-wing AM radio sinks to a new low just about every time he opens his mouth. Last Sunday evening (6/17/07), he had a segment on his solo TV program "Hannity's America," that actually put the blame for the Iraq War on an American politician. Forgetting the long string of rhetoric and "factual" reporting that led his audience to believe Saddam or Al-Qaeda was to blame, he put the blame on Hillary Clinton. Yes. Hillary Clinton. He even called it "Hillary's war." . . .

What Americans don’t know (thank you, Fox News)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19375611/site/newsweek/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/714.html

Bonus item: Look who’s running the GOP’s California operation

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_24.php#014797
[Josh Marshall] According to this quite hilarious article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the California GOP has hired as its chief operating officer, an Australian national who the Department of Homeland Security has been trying to deport for repeated immigration violations. . . [read on]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:25 AM

 
BIG RICHARD

Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), clever fellow, takes Dick Cheney at his word

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_17_archive.html#4420515904221461998
Washington, D.C. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the executive branch. The legislation -- the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill -- will be considered on the floor of the House of Representatives next week.

"The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President's funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue to pursue this measure in the coming days."

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/now-thats-reall.html
More like that, please. Stand up to them, ridicule them, use the levers of government against them. It draws from their power. Sooner or later the conventional press will see what's going on and maybe, just maybe, concern will spread from beyond the blogosphere . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011543.php
[Kevin Drum] This is excellent political theater. It's not going to win any elections or anything, but it's a clear and graphic way of exposing both Cheney's chronic contempt for the rules everyone else has to follow and George Bush's inability to stand up to him — and that's never a bad thing.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11224.html
[Steve Benen] For a White House that has offered a bountiful stream of substantive scandals for six years, the latest dust-up might be the most bizarre. . . .

Look, I can appreciate the fact that the White House is in a jam here. Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the gang repeatedly mishandled classified materials during a time of war, got caught, ignored their own rules, and is now struggling to rationalize their conduct. When the federal agency responsible for oversight tried to do its job, the Vice President reportedly tried to abolish the agency. This isn’t a fact-pattern that’s easy to spin. . . .

Perhaps it’s best to take a moment to summarize the questions that need answers:

* Why did Bush and Cheney abide by the executive order in question in 2001 and 2002, and then stop in 2003? Is it a coincidence they started ignoring the E.O. on handling classified materials just as they started mishandling classified materials?

* Why did Cheney abide by the E.O. in 2001 and 2002 if he’s not part of the executive branch?

* Why did the President exempt the Vice President from an executive order he was already following? Why did he later exempt himself?

* When, precisely, did the White House decide that Bush and Cheney should exempt themselves from their own rules?

* Does Bush consider Cheney part of the executive branch? Why has the White House thus far refused to respond to this question? Does the President consider this a trick question?

* In its response to questions about the E.O., why did the White House point to a provision of the E.O. that doesn’t exist?

* The White House insists, “There’s no question that [Cheney] is in compliance” with the E.O. If there is no oversight, and Cheney is unaccountable, how does the White House know?

* In yesterday’s press briefing, the president’s spokesperson dismissed the oversight provision of the E.O. as “small” six times. Does the White House believe only “big” provisions need to be followed? How does the administration make the distinction?

And now, it appears, Bush isn’t part of the Executive Branch either

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/23/bush-claims-hes-not-part-of-the-executive-branch/
[LAT] The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, President Bush’s office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information.

An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn’t specifically say so, Bush’s order was not meant to apply to the vice president’s office or the president’s office . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/23/10439/9566
[Kagro X] Does anyone else find it extraordinarily dangerous that both the President and the Vice President say they don't have to comply with their own orders regarding the tracking of classification and declassification of information that passes through their hands?

Does anyone else find it extraordinarily suspicious that this was exactly the kind of activity they claimed rendered the whole Plame outing and National Intelligence Estimate leaking a non-issue? It was all "legal" because it had all been declassified -- instantly and on the spot by unilateral decisions of the President and Vice President. Or so they claimed. Of course, there are no records of any particular procedure being followed in those cases. And now there never will be. . . .

Lies and b.s. from Dana Perino

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/23/141536/661
Cheney is not subject to the executive order, she said, "because the president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014781
[Steve Benen] In yesterday's painfully-amusing White House press briefing, spokesperson Dana Perino argued, without explanation, that the president exempted Dick Cheney from an Executive Order on preserving classified materials. In fact, she got rather specific about it, telling reporters that on page 18 of the E.O., "There's a distinction regarding the Vice President versus what is an agency." Perino added that this is "clear."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's staff looked at page 18. Take a wild guess what they found.

"No exemption at all for the Vice President on page 18. So we emailed the White House, which referred us to section 1.3 -- which is about something else altogether -- and 5.2 -- which makes no mention of the Vice President. In fact, there is no exemption for the President or the Vice President when it comes to reporting on classified material.”

Faiz added that the language of the E.O. is rather sweeping: "Sec. 6.1(b) of Bush's 2003 executive order governing classified material explicitly states that it applies to any 'Executive agency...any 'Military department'...and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.'"

Sounds "clear" to me.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006330.html
[Laura Rozen] It seems this is Nixon's "if the president does it, it's legal" excuse all over again . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/23/192751/663

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/shorter-bush-i-.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/and-while-were-.html

A massive review of Cheney’s unprecedented role

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/

http://www.slate.com/id/2169002
[Roger McShane] In 2001, shortly after Dick Cheney took the oath of office, Dan Quayle tried to explain to him that vice presidents don't really do much. As Quayle recalls, Cheney smirked and explained that he had "a different understanding with the president." Indeed, he did. The WP notes that from the start, Cheney has had an unprecedented mandate to play a role in whatever areas of the administration he chooses. In this report, the Post goes behind the scenes and explains how Cheney's secretive maneuvering allowed him to guide the administration's policies in the war on terror. Most striking is how potential dissenters are left out of the loop. For example, as Cheney's small cadre of legal experts was drafting plans for a domestic surveillance program, they bypassed the ranking national security lawyer in the White House (as well as Congress).

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006335.html
[Laura Rozen] The world is full of examples of powerful people who think they are exempt from the laws because of some self justifying logic. But too bad for us tough guy Cheney with his impassioned commitment to torture and secret power couldn't get bin Laden and failed to win the war in Iraq with his friend Rumsfeld. His sense of a higher purpose that justified circumventing the law and the deliberative process is totally divorced from the simple reality of the total ineptness of the administration's service to America from Katrina to Iraq to its failure to get bin Laden and finish al Qaeda. We didn't get a better policy because Cheney thought he knew better and was hostile to process, we got failed one after failed one after failed one. Even with all that secret extra-legal power he yielded and bestowed for all these years, he couldn't show success on any front when it mattered.

The end of the Imperial Presidency?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/06/21/bush_torture/index_np.html
In private, Bush administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal "war paradigm" acknowledge that their efforts to create a system for detainees separate from due process, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed. One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. If he were to speak up, given his seminal role in formulating the policy and stature among the Federalist Society cadres that run it, his rejection would have a shattering impact, far more than political philosopher Francis Fukuyama's denunciation of the neoconservatism he formerly embraced. But this figure remains careful to disclose his disillusionment with his own handiwork only in off-the-record conversations. Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration's policies are largely discredited. . . .

The resistance within the administration to Bush's torture policy, the ultimate expression of the war paradigm, has come to an end through attrition and exhaustion. More than two years ago, Vice President Dick Cheney's then chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and then general counsel David Addington physically cornered one of the few internal opponents, subjecting him to threats, intimidation and isolation. About that time, the tiny band of opponents within approached Karen Hughes, newly named undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, hoping that the longtime confidante of President Bush, now assigned responsibility for the U.S. image in the world, might be willing to hear them out on the damage done by continuation of the torture policy. But she rebuffed them. . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/court-defectors-by-digby-sidney.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/sidneys-imperia.html
[Emptywheel] [W]ho are the two officials Sidney mentions? . . . [read on]

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006332.html
[Laura Rozen] It underlies so many recent news stories, from the anxiety over having it disclosed that the administration is debating shutting Guantanamo, to the OVP claims it is not subject to the rules that govern the executive branch, to the federal appeals court throwing out the White House's legal opinion on enemy combatants. What will be Bush's legacy in the history books? Disaster in Iraq after the relatively quick toppling of Saddam Hussein. Being the president on 9/11, and the subsequent expansive powers the Bush White House claimed, some in secret, to conduct its war on terror. Warrantless domestic spying on Americans. Hurricane Katrina and the impossibly slow, third world federal response and the loss of much of New Orleans, and only partial recovery. Cheney, and the controversial powers and exemption from rule of law his office claimed, and advocacy for torture. Cheney's chief of staff convicted of lying and obstructing justice, and sentenced to prison. Perhaps a presidential commutation of his sentence. The connected story of the administration's faulty claims on WMD in Iraq, and the unresolved question of how that came to be. Overthrowing the Taliban, but failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the chief architect of 9/11, and continued instability in Afghanistan. The capture of several al Qaeda terrorists. Guantanamo Bay and the controversy over the administration's shucking the Geneva Conventions, habeus corpus and the rules of war. Abu Ghraib, and the black site prisons. Early talk of promoting democracy in the Middle East followed by US-occupied Iraq slipping into civil conflict and the exponential metastisis of terrorism and al Qaeda in Iraq, and the US working with corrupt and autocratic old stand-by regimes, including two whose citizens perpetrated the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks, to counter a newly dominant Iran, and we haven't seen exactly how that will all play out yet. Denying global warming for most of his two terms, and bucking Kyoto and serious commitments to reduce global carbon emissions. A Constitutional crisis as the courts pushed back on Bush's claims of unlimited executive authorities to declare US citizens enemy combatants with no Constitutional rights and other issues; and, after the Dems took both houses of Congress in 2006, between the legislative branch and White House that had gotten used to no oversight. Perhaps the US attorneys scandal and the erosion of legitimacy at the Justice Department as the degree of partisan politicization that took hold in Gonzales' Justice Department and other federal agencies was exposed in a series of Congressional hearings and resignations playing out for the last months of Bush's term in office. . . .

[NB: These stories make an essential point. While the Bush gang has, on the whole, successfully implemented a lot of policies that would NEVER have been endorsed if they’d been open about them during the election campaigns – and have probably done even worse in secret which we haven’t learned about yet – they have actually made the prospects for permanent changes along the lines they favor (surveillance, secret detention, unitary executive, a Korea-like longterm presence in Iraq, and so on) IMPOSSIBLE for any future administration, of either party. No one can run on these principles, and in fact they will have to explicitly disavow them when asked.]

Losing the faith

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/23/AR2007062301125.html
A federal judge who used to authorize wiretaps in terrorism and espionage cases criticized yesterday President Bush's decision to order warrantless surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," said Royce C. Lamberth, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington and a former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court . . .

More signs that are our enemies are getting desperate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6730846,00.html
Roadside bombs killed seven American troops in Iraq on Saturday, including four in a single strike outside Baghdad . . .

Hmmm. . . is this really the way to demoralize an insurgency? Call them gutless cowards because they run away and hide when we chase after them?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/ye-olde-trash-f-alke-by-digby-if-it.html

No, we STILL don’t have enough troops In Iraq to do the job being asked of them

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/23/112923/208

http://www.slate.com/id/2169002
"The reality," officials told the Times, "is that starting around April the military will simply run out of troops to maintain the current effort. By then, officials said, Mr. Bush would either have to withdraw roughly one brigade a month, or extend the tours of troops now in Iraq and shorten their time back home before redeployment."

Yep, let’s muddy the waters

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/world/middleeast/24policy.html
Last month, Congress set a deadline for the American commander in Iraq, declaring that by Sept. 15 he would have to assess progress there before billions more dollars are approved to finance the military effort to stabilize the country. The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said in recent days that his report would be only a snapshot of trends, strongly suggesting he will be asking for more time.

But even before he composes the first sentences of the report, to be written with the new American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan C. Crocker, the administration is commissioning other assessments that could dilute its conclusions about the impact of the current troop increase. The intent appears to be to give Mr. Bush, who publicly puts great emphasis on listening to his field commanders, a wide range of options . . .

The blame game

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011542.php
[Kevin Drum] You can almost smell the stink of desperation from the pro-war crowd. The next couple of years is going to be a nonstop frenzy of books, articles, TV shows, op-eds, radio segments, blog posts, and white papers about how everyone except George Bush and his enablers were responsible for our catastrophe in the Middle East. Anyone will do, as long as it's not them.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014789
[Steve Benen] Since the outset of the war in Iraq, Bush and his administration have enjoyed almost unfettered control over policy. Everything the president has asked for, the president has received.

Of course, more than four years after Bush launched the war, we now know that every decision the administration has made falls into one of three categories: a) wrong; b) tragically wrong; or c) you've-got-to-be-kidding-me wrong.

Therefore, when searching for someone to blame for the failures, it's only natural to target the one group of Americans who've had no influence on administration policy whatsoever. . . [read on]

Sigh

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/even-flag-on-their-uniforms-is-lie.html
[John Aravosis] The war based on a lie, whose progress updates are a lie, run by a bunch of liars, now has one more lie to add to the mix: The flags on our troops' uniforms say "Made in USA," but they're really "Made in Thailand."

William Mercer, the latest resignation from the DOJ, is an interesting case – he’s leaving Washington, but KEEPING the US Attorney post in Montana that he’s been neglecting while serving in the DC headquarters

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/mercers-non-mov.html

Interesting: for all of McCain’s suck-ups, is Fred Thompson going to become the anointed successor of the Bush gang? Will that help or hurt him?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006333.html
Politico's Mike Allen told NPR that Fred Thompson has a notable foreign policy advisor: first daughter of the OVP, Liz Cheney. . . .

Let’s hope for Giuliani

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/that-thing-of-theirs-by-digby-im-now-at.html

Survey shows that reporters give to Dems by a ratio of 9 to 1! More proof of liberal bias in the media. . . . except that it’s not

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706220012

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/23/1964/70129

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/24/sunday-talking-head-thread-58/
ABC’s “This Week” - Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; actor David Hyde Pierce.

CBS “Face the Nation” - Former New York Mayor Ed Koch; political consultant Ed Rollins; actor Sam Waterston.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” - Former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan; Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

CNN’s “Late Edition” - Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet; Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Dennis Ross, former U.S. Mideast envoy; Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy; Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor.

“Fox News Sunday” - Sens. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Cal Ripken Jr., former Baltimore Orioles shortstop.

Bonus item: Jonah Goldberg, like several other right-wing pundits, is paid attention to only because he’s a second-generation knock-off of an Establishment rightwing parent. On pure merit, who would pay any attention to him at all? Check out this amazingly stupid argument for why the press should cover up news that might “undermine the war effort”

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/06/early_warning.php
[JG] There were more than 35,000 pictures of FDR taken. Two show him in a wheelchair. Why? Because the press almost unanimously agreed that — despite the huge news value — depicting FDR as a cripple would be bad for the war effort. The few dissenting photographers from that consensus were routinely blocked or deliberately jostled by the senior photographers so as to shield FDR from embarrassment and the public from its "right to know."

[Matt Yglesias] Okay, this is a subject I know virtually nothing about. I do, however, know that FDR became president in 1933 after winning the 1932 election. The war in Europe didn't begin until 1939, and the United States didn't enter the war until 1941. Under the circumstances, that "depicting FDR as a cripple would be bad for the war effort" can't be the primary reason nobody ever did it.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11228.html
[Steve Benen] [A]s long as we’re having fun at Goldberg’s expense, let’s also take a second look at his recent LA Times op-ed, in which he recommended eliminating the national public school system and replacing them with a private system, subsidized through vouchers. . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:04 AM

 
NO SURPRISE

Kagro X shows us how they play the expectations game: Just when the courts and bipartisan opinion start to turn against them on Guantanamo and their extra-legal tribunal system, they leak a story saying they might be prepared to shut it down – then a story saying no, they might not – then a story saying, well they’re considering it. We’ve seen the same nonsense over troop withdrawals: predictions that “in six months” withdrawals might begin, “depending on conditions on the ground,” but then those conditions never come to pass – so don’t get your hopes up, but they might be considering withdrawals next spring, maybe.

This is just called “buying time.” If someone owed you a lot of money and they kept feeding you these lines (“I’ll have the money next month, I’ve got a check coming in”), after the third or fourth time you’d ignore anything they say and demand instant results. But the press and media breathlessly report these stories because, you know, we’re always just about to turn the corner. . . . maybe. . . . next time . . . perhaps . . . or then again, maybe not

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/washington/22cnd-gitmo.html
President Bush’s top advisers have reopened an internal debate over how quickly to close the American detention unit for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014765
[Paul Kiel] Not only is the Guantanamo Bay detention facility not on the verge of closing, but the Defense Department announced this morning that it's gained its first new prisoner in months. . .

Now this: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006328.html
[AP] The United States is helping build a prison in Afghanistan that would take some prisoners now at Guantanamo Bay, but the White House said Friday that it was not meant as an alternative to the detainee facility in Cuba. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003512.php
[Spencer Ackerman] It's been a banner week for Guantanamo Bay. First the Bush administration nixes reports that it plans to close the facility. Then the Defense Department announces a new detainee is on his way there. If that wasn't enough, according to a declaration filed in D.C. Circuit Court by a U.S. Army Reserve intelligence officer, the hearings that determine whether a detainee is properly classified as an "enemy combatant" are riddled with flaws. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/22/105648/938
[Kagro X] What's the proper movie reference here? Is it Groundhog Day? Or is it the scene from Speed, where they use the video loop playback to fool the terrorist and allow everyone to escape the bus? . . . [read on!]

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/now-pentagon-is-claiming-again-that-we.html
[John Aravosis] Now the Pentagon is claiming, again, that we just *might* reduce forces in Iraq next spring . . .

Actions speak louder than words

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/22/habeas-reform/
Last month, the House Armed Services Committee “dealt a blow to the human-rights community” by failing to include a provision restoring habeas corpus rights in the 2008 defense authorization bill. At the time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the House would address habeas reform in a stand-alone bill.

Today, House chairmen Ike Skelton (D-MS) of the Armed Services Committee and John Conyers (D-MI) of the Judiciary Committee announced legislation that would finally restore habeas corpus rights to U.S. detainees being imprisoned indefinitely without trial. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed habeas legislation earlier this month. . . .

Ahem. I made this point here a couple of days ago

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014771
[SM] It's a curious thing that, over the past 10 - 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as "al-Qaida" fighters. When did that happen?

Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were "insurgents" or they were referred to as "Sunni" or "Shia'a" fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as "al-Qaida".

Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda. . . [read on]

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/23/al_qaeda/index.html

The only surprise, the ONLY one, is that this is a surprise to anyone

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/world/middleeast/23iraq.html
The operational commander of troops battling to drive fighters with Al Qaeda from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Qaeda leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week. He compared their flight with the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004. . . .

“Frankly, I think they knew an operation was coming . . .”

More: http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2007/06/knock-me-over-with-goddamn-feather.html

Yes, it still needs to be said: for all of Bush’s posturing about supporting the troops, the fact is that he HASN’T listened to his military leaders – instead, he has consistently CHANGED the leaders to fit the message he wants to convey

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11214.html

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11210.html
[Steve Benen] Shortly after Dems reclaimed the congressional majority, the White House said it was hard at work on a “big, big” policy agenda for the president’s final two years in office. “There will be no cruise control,” one Bush aide said. “These are big, big ideas and we will be pushing them with all our might and energy.” Shortly before the State of the Union in January, Tony Snow added that Bush cannot “cease to be bold.”

That was then. Now, here’s a quick quiz: name three “big” things the president wants to get done before leaving office. Maybe immigration reform would make the list, but what else? Maintaining the status quo in Iraq? That’s not exactly a “big idea.”

It’s little wonder, then, that the White House seems to not only be hemorrhaging staff, but also suffering some morale trouble. . . .

One former official told the Financial Times, “What is the point of sticking around in an administration that isn’t going to accomplish anything significant?”

It’s a good question. As more people ask it, expect the exodus to get worse.

More analysis, critique, and well-deserved scorn for Dick Cheney’s unprecedented seizure of vice-presidential power

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/21/cheney/index.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney22jun22,1,5735364,full.story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/22/AR2007062201809.html

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/22/the-imperial-vice-presidency/
[Eli] Cheney must be in one branch or the other (or both) but there’s no way he can be in neither. And if he has to pick just one branch to belong to, I would think it would behoove him to pick the one controlled by his own party. Not to mention, y’know, the one that his nominal boss is in. Because, call me crazy, but Cheney’s claim that he does not belong to the executive branch sounds like an admission that he does not work for the President. Or, indeed, for anyone. While this is probably accurate, I’m pretty sure it was never intended to be common knowledge. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/22/BL2007062201022.html
[Dan Froomkin] Cheney's refusal to abide by reporting requirements that apply to everyone else in the Bush administration -- and the audacity of his excuse, that because he is also president of the Senate, his office is not really within the executive branch -- led to a bunch of unflattering front-page headlines this morning.

But let's assume there's a method to his madness. Perhaps Cheney is rejecting this oversight because he doesn't want people to know what he and his aides have been doing with classified information. Or perhaps he believes in principle that he shouldn't be subject to constraints that apply to others in the executive branch. Maybe both. I'm betting on both.

Cheney's particular sensitivity to releasing information about his handling of government secrets is not exactly surprising. And while he apparently had no problem filing reports in 2001 and 2002, he stopped doing so in 2003 -- a game-changing year in a lot of ways. . . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/watching_conservatives_/2007/06/the_solution_to_the_imperial_vice_presidency.php
[Jonathan Zasloff] This absurd notion, of course, undermines the entire Federalist Society/Nino Scalia theory of executive power, i.e. a strict separation of powers and a "unitary executive" theory. It also undermines strict construction of the Constitution. . .

More madness: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/06/law-honor-vice-president-and-our.html

What does the White House say?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11216.html
[Steve Benen] Reporters finally pushed the White House today on the Vice President’s belief that his office is some kind of fourth branch of government — not executive, not legislative, not accountable to anyone. WH spokesperson Dana Perino’s responses were almost comical . . . [read on]

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/22/wh-order/

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/today-on-hold-2.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/23/olbermann-fact-check-isoo/

The last word, from Digby

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/now-they-notice-by-digby-i-really-dont.html

Here it comes: contempt of Congress

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/white-house-contempt-2007-06-22.html
House Judiciary Committee Democrats warned yesterday they would pursue a contempt of Congress motion if the White House fails respond to subpoenas for testimony and documents related to the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.

The deadline for a response is Thursday, June 28 . .

[NB: Well, you might say, we ALREADY know they have contempt for Congress, don’t we?]

ANOTHER senior Justice Dept staffer quits over the US Attorney scandal, and it still isn’t the one who deserves to quit

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/22/mercer-resigns/

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003511.php

Wyoming has a new senator – and it isn’t Lynne Cheney

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011539.php

Why did Giuliani bug out on his obligations as a member of the Iraq Study Group? Two takes

http://www.slate.com/id/2168858/pagenum/all/

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/rudy_giuliani_/2007/06/against_the_greedhead_giuliani_theory.php

You’ve got to read this series of posts about Mitt Romney campaign aide, Jay Garritty. This stupid man is in BIG trouble

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014758.php

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/22/romney_aide_under_investigation_disappears_himself

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014768

The New York Times certainly deserves to be slammed for this story – and boy, have they been. This is what the blogosphere does so well

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/us/politics/22edwards.html
Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show. . . .

The organization became a big part of a shadow political apparatus for Mr. Edwards after his defeat as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and before the start of his presidential bid this time around. Its officers were members of his political staff, and it helped pay for his nearly constant travel, including to early primary states. . . .

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2007&base_name=post_4042
[Steven White] A rather provocative article in The New York Times today makes John Edwards seem fairly shady. . . .

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/22/edwards_campaign_times_refused_to_talk_to_beneficiaries_of_his_anti_poverty_programs
[Greg Sargent] The Edwards campaign is pushing back hard against today's enormous front-page New York Times piece alleging that there was something untoward about the fact that the antipoverty programs set up by John Edwards provided a "bridge" to his Presidential campaign. . .

http://dailyhowler.com/dh062207.shtml
[Bob Somerby] Edwards didn’t do anything wrong! But we get this statement in the next-to-last paragraph, after 1700 words of insinuation. By the way, you should always be suspicious of formulations about “working right up to the line.” Guess what, readers? Legislatures draw legal lines so citizens will know where their efforts must stop. When you drive 65 in your car, you’re “working right up to the line.” . . .

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2007&base_name=post_4046
[Ezra Klein] The piece uses a lot of ominous adjectives and innuendo to note that though Edwards' Poverty Center was a "a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty," the center raised funds that "paid Mr. Edwards's expenses while he walked picket lines and met with Wall Street executives. He gave speeches, hired consultants, attacked the Bush administration and developed an online following . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/22/131548/144
[Big Tent Democrat] Leslie Wayne of the New York Times breaches the most important rule of journalism - report facts as facts, not the reporter's opinions as facts. Wayne's lede is simply intolerable . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/22/91512/0322
[Aldon] The problem with the New York Times article is manifold. It suggests that the rich cannot care about poverty, that throwing money at a problem is the only solution and that candidates cannot care about issues. . . .

That 26% approval rating Newsweek came up with for Bush isn’t an outlier: ARG has 27%

http://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/

Bill O’Reilly, asshole

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11218.html

Theocracy watch: In what civilized society is a man like this given any public platform to spew his brand of bigotry and hatred?

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/nbcs-today-show-features-bigoted.html

Bonus item: James Inhofe (R-OK) is an idiot

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014774

More: http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/22/inhofe

And the OTHER senator from Oklahoma is even worse

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/shameless-by-digby-if-there-is-hell.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:00 AM

 
ULTRA VIRES

Where do we begin, today? Let’s start with Old Reliable, whose striving for secret and unaccountable powers seems to know no bounds. As regular readers know, Cheney has been floating this “novel” interpretation of the Constitution for a while now – that the Vice Presidency is a distinct, unique branch of government, in the netherworld between the Executive and Legislative branches, and accountable to neither. Now we learn that he has been ACTING on this assumption

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/washington/22cnd-cheney.html
For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested that the oversight office be shut down . . . [read on]

[NB: Possible implications of this thesis are that the VP isn’t bound by the same rules about dealing with classified information (Plame, anyone?), nor is bound by the Presidential Records Act (RNC emails, anyone?)]

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006319.html
[Laura Rozen] It is hard as an American to not be frankly suspicious of public officials who clearly are so hostile to public scrutiny, Congressional oversight, the National Archives, and the like. What are they so anxious to hide? History suggests we will find out, whatever their legal theories of the moment (the office of the vice president is not part of the executive branch?), just like we learned about Cheney's chief of staff whispering in a friendly New York Times's reporter's ear in a hotel lounge, at Cheney's direction, and with the president's apparent nod, and Libby leaking Wolfie the still classified NIE to give to the Wall Street Journal editorial page. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011531.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/21/BL2007062101075.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/21/cheney/index.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/cheney-power-gr.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11199.html

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/21/rahm_emanuel_to_cheney_please_move_out_of_white_house
[Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) tells Cheney: If you aren't part of the Executive Branch, then get the hell out of the White House ]

An upsurge in American deaths in Iraq? It’s not a bad sign, says General Pace

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070621/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070616155358;_ylt=Ar3I2Ap2XBPKKfDOIZB0udwE1vAI
The U.S. military said 14 American troops have died in multiple attacks, including five killed Thursday in a single roadside bombing in Baghdad. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062101204.html
The recent rise in U.S. troop deaths in Iraq is the "wrong metric" to use in assessing the effectiveness of the new security strategy for Baghdad, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday . . .

Despite military reports to Congress that use numbers of attacks and overall levels of violence as an important gauge of Iraq's security status, Gates and Pace told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that violence is not a useful measure of progress. Setting the stage for mandatory reports to Congress in September, both officials said violence could go up in the summer months as troops try to give the Iraqi government time to set the country on the right track.

"If you had zero violence and people were not feeling good about their future, where are you?" said Pace, emphasizing that the sentiment of the Iraqi people is a much better measurement than the number of attacks. "So it's not about levels of violence. It's about progress being made, in fact, in the minds of the Iraqi people. . .

[NB: Excuse me? I’ll take zero violence every time]

September? Who ever said anything about September?

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/petraeus-septem.html
[Andrew Sullivan] The commander in Iraq has no intention of doing anything in September but continue what he's doing. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/patraeus-deluded-about-iraq-factors.html
[AJ] This Times of London interview with General Petraeus is extraordinarily disturbing, both for the implications of administration goals and for how badly General Petraeus misunderstands the driving forces of the current conflicts in Iraq.

There is clearly no intention of redeploying troops, or even planning for any kind of withdrawal. When asked if he would like the "surge" to continue indefinitely, Petraeus responds, "It depends on what the sense is for the prospects of achieving Iraq’s constitution." It depends! Whether he wants the surge to continue indefinitely. . .

Just as worrisome from an analytical standpoint is the unrelenting -- and wholly misplaced -- focus on the so-called al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Priority of the surge? "To disrupt al-Qaeda . . ." Timeframe of the surge? "Al-Qaeda is keenly aware of the Washington clock." Political progress? "[T]ribes changed from being on the fence or tacit support for al-Qaeda to active opposition."

The vast, vast majority of the insurgency in Iraq is driven by native Iraqis, primarily Ba'athist party members and/or sympathizers. AQI activities are almost exclusively limited to suicide bombings, which get attention because they are high-profile, mass-casualty events, but these attacks are in fact a relatively small part of the overall picture. AQI is regularly estimated at 3-5% of the overall insurgency, and its members will be quickly expelled or killed following a U.S. withdrawal. Current cooperation between AQI and the Iraqi-based insurgency is a matter of temporary convenience, not long-term ideological confluence. . . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/21/petraeus-liberators-again/
[Satyam] Petraeus argued there was a “golden hour” of “omnipotence” in the early stages of the war where the U.S. was “viewed as a liberator.” He then claimed the U.S. is being perceived as “liberators” once again in Iraq . . .

This is a very clever move

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062102188.html
The Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel that mapped out an alternative U.S. strategy for Iraq last December, may be reconstituted for a sequel.

In a sign of the growing public pressure on Congress, the House voted 355 to 69 yesterday to revive the 10-member panel chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) to again review U.S. policy and offer new recommendations. . . .

Will the Bush gang close Gitmo? It’s good news, if true – but how will they explain it after telling us for years what an important and necessary thing it is?

Maybe: http://cbs13.com/topstories/topstories_story_172173626.html

Maybe not: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11271155

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19358932/
"No decisions on the future of Guantanamo Bay are imminent, and there will not be a White House meeting tomorrow," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in response to a report by the Associated Press.

The Associated Press quoted Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, as saying the meeting was "no longer on the schedule for tomorrow."

[NB: Hmmm. . . a pretty iffy “denial”]

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/not-everything-.html
[Sid Blumenthal] In private, Bush administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal 'war paradigm' acknowledge that their efforts to create a system for detainees separate from due process, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed. One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. If he were to speak up, given his seminal role in formulating the policy and his stature among the Federalist Society cadres that run it, his rejection would have a shattering impact. . . .

Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration's policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, 'Not everything we've done has been illegal.' He adds, 'Not everything has been ultra vires' -- a legal term referring to actions beyond the law. . . .

A strong bipartisan majority tells the WH – give up those NSA documents!

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/21/nsa-docs-supoena/
[Pat Leahy, D-VT] Why has this Administration been so steadfast in its refusal? Deputy Attorney General Comey’s account suggests that some of these documents would reveal an Administration perfectly willing to ignore the law. Is that what they are hiding?

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11202.html

Your Department of “Justice”

Yesterday we learned a great deal more about “caging,” the Republican practice of selectively challenging minority voters to deprive likely Democratic voters of their legal rights. We learned that it’s a felony. We learned that Tim Griffin (Rove’s boy, rewarded with a US Attorney post) headed up the effort. And we learned that Paul McNulty, number two at the Justice Dept, couldn’t care less about it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11197.html
[Steve Benen] If you put aside the Republicans’ law-breaking, cynicism, racism, and assault on democracy, caging is fairly clever. They target eligible voters for disenfranchisement, send them mail knowing it’ll be returned, and then use the “caged” mail to limit those voters’ access to the polls. This is particularly easy for the GOP when targeting soldiers — remember, that’s the pro-military party — who can’t check their mailboxes. . . [read on]

More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5M-2m2ce7o&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Espeaker%2Egov%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D509

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594

Paul McNulty, just another poor shlub who didn’t know what was going on with the US Attorneys, politicized hiring, caging, or politically timed investigations intended to affect elections

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/21/mcnulty2/index.html

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/06/dag_iv_mcnulty_returns.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062102291.html

Video clips: http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=509

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014740

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014739

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014745

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014743

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014747

Another Gonzales lie: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/21/18754/5301

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062101022.html

Another Schlozman lie: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003492.php
[Paul Kiel] If Monica Goodling "crossed the line," as she famously admitted during congressional testimony last month, Bradley Schlozman appears to have flown over it. . .

ANOTHER document dump: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014755
Kyle Sampson was apparently fond of referring to Bradley Schlozman as "the Schloz". . .

The Republican mantra on the US Attorneys scandal is that there is no “smoking gun” on anything illegal. But here is what we know. We KNOW that almost every person who has testified, including the Attorney General himself, has lied repeatedly under oath. We KNOW that illegal questions and criteria were used in screening job applicants. We KNOW that some investigations were timed to coincide with elections, in violation of the DOJ’s own rules. We KNOW that caging happened, which is a crime. Now, we have good reason to believe that much, much more was going on, but at least this much has already been established. But the Republicans’ new tack is, apparently, that lying under oath and these other things aren’t really such a big deal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014736

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20070621-1626-firedprosecutors.html
“Frankly, I'm not interested in seeing people hurt,” said Cannon [R-UT]. “And I do not want the department hurt, as it is as a byproduct of these inexhaustible hearings.” . . .

[NB: I think he is deeply confused about WHAT is hurting the Justice Dept right now]

Right after 9-11, the EPA issued a report warning residents and workers in Manhattan about serious health risks from asbestos, etc. A group from the White House ordered changes to the report (on “national security” grounds), removing the warnings and watering down the conclusions. Who ordered it? Why? How could they justify putting people at risk? After testimony before Congress, we’re still searching for answers

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014738

Corporate news updates

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003500.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Last year, Halliburton lost billions of dollars of revenue with the U.S. Army discontinued a worldwide supply contract with the oil-and-defense-services company. Yet Halliburton continues to report massive profits. What gives? A new reported column by Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil proposes an answer: Halliburton may be cooking its books. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/21/133454/026
[USAT] Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a $32 billion package of tax breaks for renewable energy that would have been financed mostly by new taxes on major oil companies. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2168925/fr/rss/
[Daniel Politi] The New York Times leads with a look at how the Supreme Court continued with its pattern of awarding pro-business decisions yesterday when it made it more difficult for investors to sue companies and their officials for fraud. . .

The recent string of pro-business decisions, which the LAT looked at yesterday, comes at a time when the Bush administration is trying to use its remaining months in office to water down business regulations and make it harder for people to sue companies. One of the main targets is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which imposed new regulations after a series of accounting scandals.

The kind of man he is

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/21/22292/3158
Yesterday the House passed landmark civil rights legislation, H.R. 923, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, by a vote of 422-2. The bill, sponsored by Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and Kenny Hulshof (R-MO), would re-open hate crime cases during the Civil Rights Era, focusing on investigating and prosecuting murder cases occurring prior to 1970.

The two votes against? Georgia's Lynn Westmoreland and that darling of people who aren't paying close enough attention to reality, Ron Paul.

The legislation was expected to sail through the Senate via unanimous consent today, which marks the anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of three young civil rights workers (Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner) in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and is also the anniversary of Edgar Ray Killen’s conviction for those crimes two years ago. But Senator Tom Coburn wrecked that plan by placing a hold on the bill, purportedly for budgetary reasons. He isn't willing to spend less than $10 million to see justice done . .

Theocracy watch: blatant hypocrisy edition

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/ethical-compost-by-digby-i-hate-to.html
[Bush, on stem cells] Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical . . .

[Digby] Right. That's a perfectly respectable philosophy that's been held by many great people for centuries. It's called pacifism and it's about as far from the philosophy of this bloodthirsty boor as you can get.

In fairness, he may not realize that because when his briefers discuss the wanton killing of little Iraqi or Afghan children, it's not called "destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life" it's called "collateral damage."

This man led an invasion of a country that posed no immediate threat in the name of "giving birth" to a new democracy and saving the Iraqis from a madman. He is responsible for a whole lot of killing of fully formed human lives which he constantly claims was in the hopes of saving other human lives. In fact, he continues to insist that all this Iraqi carnage will be worth it one day because the US will have brought all the survivors freedom . . .

Bush: 26%

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19352087/site/newsweek
How Low Can He Go?

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:10 AM

 
I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY . . .

Very, very bad news

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014725
[Josh Marshall] The Post has a fascinating and very sobering article about the Maliki government . . . It describes the centrifugal forces pulling away at the Iraqi state which have the Maliki government bobbling between impotence and irrelevance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002489.html
Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Other senior Iraqi officials have considered resigning in recent weeks over the failures of their government to make progress after more than a year in power, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Abdul Mahdi said he was provoked by the second bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra on June 13, in which he said corrupt police abetted Sunni insurgents. . . . [read on]

[NB: What!? You mean it WASN’T Al Qaeda, as our government claimed? No one has noted it yet, but there’s an active effort by the Bush gang and their mouthpieces to erase the word “civil war” and replace it with “Al Qaeda” in all discussions of Iraq – and they’re succeeding, despite the facts]

This is not only a questionable move – it’s an indictment of Condi Rice’s ineffectiveness, if you think about it

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/bush-wants-blair-to-be-middle-east.html
Bush wants Blair to be Middle East peace envoy . . .

No, she just can’t get any respect. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011528.php
[Kevin Drum] Ryan Crocker gets results! At least, he does after his cables get published in the Washington Post. . . . [read on]

The mainstream media still seems to be taking a ho-hum attitude to the devastating report that Rudy Giuliani blew off his responsibilities as a member of the Iraq Study Group. I can’t imagine why

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014709

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014720

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11190.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11192.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/20/184143/155
[Big Tent Democrat] Rudy, as he is on most things, is just making stuff up. Will the Media call him on it? Is a haircut involved? No? Then no.

Monica 2.0 called Paul McNulty a liar during her testimony. He gets his turn today, but it doesn’t appear that he’s willing to participate in that food fight

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002234.html
The prepared remarks indicate that McNulty, 49, will attempt to hold a middle ground as he responds to sharp congressional questions, by defending his statements without leveling accusations at the administration officials who have accused him of giving inaccurate testimony. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003489.php

Bradley Schlozman’s lies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002543.html
Schlozman has acknowledged in sworn congressional testimony that he had boasted of hiring Republicans and conservatives, but he denied taking improper actions against the division's career officials. That account was challenged by six officials in the division who said in interviews that they either overhead him making brazen political remarks about career employees or witnessed him making personnel decisions with apparent political motivation. . . .

Schlozman made little effort to hide his personal interest in the political leanings of the staff, according to five lawyers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because -- like most of those interviewed for this article -- they still work at the department. He and his aides frequently asked appellate supervisors whether career lawyers handling politically sensitive cases were "on our team," the lawyers said.

Schlozman raised the question of partisan politics bluntly in the fall of 2004, they said, when asking appellate supervisors about the "loyalty" of division lawyer Angela Miller, who had once clerked for David. B. Sentelle, a conservative federal appeals judge. He told Miller's bosses that he learned that she voted for McCain in the 2004 Republican primary and asked, "Can we still trust her?" . . .

"When he said he didn't engage in political hiring, most of us thought that was just laughable," said one lawyer in the section, referring to Schlozman's June 5 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Everything Schlozman did was political. And he said so."

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006318.html
[Laura Rozen] What's hard to understand reading this is why Schlozman and the DOJ haven't been sued by more of the people he discriminated against in the department because he didn't judge them to be on his political team. . . .

Looking for whistleblowers: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003488.php
[Paul Kiel] Did your supervisor at the Justice Department tell you that he was looking to hire a Republican? Or maybe he altered your performance evaluation in order to punish you for not toeing the line? Or maybe he inexplicably eliminated a large number of job applicants because they're Democrats?

Well, the House Judiciary Committee wants you to know that your complaint is safe with them. The committee has launched an effort to get into contact with Department employees who want to blow the whistle but are afraid they'll pay for it. . .

How they do it

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003485.php
[Paul Kiel] On June 5, less than thirty minutes before the North Carolina State Senate was scheduled to vote on a bill that would allow voters to register up until three days before an election (down from 25), the Republican state auditor sent out an email to legislators saying that he had "sensitive information" about voting irregularities. Lawmakers agreed to delay the vote. . . .

The Department of Justice also got into the act, writing the board of elections about the state's voter list maintenance on April 18th. The letter seemed a precursor to other actions taken by the Civil Rights Division to force state's to purge voter rolls of illegitimate voters -- most notably in Missouri, where the Division lost its lawsuit.

But the director of the state election's board, Gary Bartlett, a Democrat, hit back, detailing in a 10-page letter how little the auditor, Less Merritt, appeared to understand election laws or process . . . The auditor so far doesn't have an answer to Bartlett's response. . . .

So much for widespread fraud. The state senate is scheduled to vote on that registration bill today.

But suspicions remain about why the efforts of the Justice Department and state auditor seemed to ramp up simultaneously -- and as the state legislature was considering a bill to expand voter registration. . . .

How the Bush gang handles emails – and how the Clinton gang did

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Democrats_say_Tony_Snow_wrong_about_0620.html

It’s very simple, isn’t it? Libby lied to protect Cheney. Cheney is now pressuring Bush to pardon him (and he probably will). Can ANYONE in the media connect these obvious dots?

http://www.democrats.com/cheney-is-trying-to-silence-the-star-witness-to-his-felony

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-libby16apr16,1,3910587.story
[April 16] In the nearly six weeks since his close friend and former chief of staff was convicted of lying and obstructing an investigation, Vice President Dick Cheney has not once spoken to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"Well, there hasn't been occasion to do so," Cheney said when asked why Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

[NB: What about before the conviction, but during the indictment and trial? Anybody curious?]

What will happen with Libby’s appeal? Here’s a guess

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/20/luck-of-the-draw/

Bush vetoes stem cell bill, again

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/20/141233/845
[MSNBC] In his veto threat, the president accused Democrats of recycling an old measure that he already vetoed . . .

[Big Tent Democrat] The bill passed with significant Republican support. Does Bush have anything to say about them?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/20/145627/372

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/20/181549/583

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11189.html

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/bush-vetoes-stem-cell-bill.html
[John Aravosis] The only good thing to come from this travesty is that Republicans in Congress will yet again be forced to defend Bush's veto, they will yet again be forced to choose whether they side with Bush or the American people. And the more of these votes we have, the more the American people will hold the Republicans responsible at the ballot box, yet again.

Bush plans his strategy to start vetoing everything the Dems pass

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070620-9.html
And so, to this end, the members of Congress delivered me a letter -- 147 signatures on it that said they will support me on any veto of a bill that is -- exceeds the spending limits that we collectively think is necessary for the good of the country. . . .

Tortured answers

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014707
[Paul Kiel] [W]as there ever such a coy witness as CIA general counsel-designate John Rizzo? With lawyerly exactitude, Rizzo spent two long hours yesterday evading senators' questions on what interrogation techniques the agency permits, whether the CIA can detain U.S. citizens overseas, and much more. . . [read on]

Do you remember all those obligatory promises by the radicals Bush has put on the Supreme Court to “respect precedent”? Well, don’t be surprised, but: not so much

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/20/23552/5411

Digby’s speech: read it!

http://flprogressive.blogspot.com/2007/06/digby-speaks.html
“[T]he Netroots is a revolution – a revolutionary, participatory democracy.

And for that purpose, the Left is more effective than the Right. Whether by temperament or philosophy, we are simply better suited to the freeform, constantly changing nature of these new political communities. Each of us finds our niche: I’m a blogger-pundit, a role for which I am eminently qualified since, exactly like pundits on television and in newspapers, I have opinions, I write them down, and a lot of people read them. Yes, that’s all there is to it. Sorry, Mr. Broder.”

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/20/liberalism/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Before I began blogging in October, 2005, I was an avid reader of blogs. What motivated me to begin blogging was that the most insightful and informed political analysis was to be found, far and away, on blogs, and I wanted to be part of that discussion.

How bad is right-wing talk radio? Worse than you think

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11191.html

More man-crushes

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11184.html
[Steve Benen] Last week, Chris Matthews got a little creepy in praising Fred Thompson, going so far as to compliment the former senator’s odor.

“Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man’s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of — a little bit of cigar smoke?”

On Monday, viewers of CNN’s American Morning heard a similar comment about Mitt Romney from anchor Alina Cho. (C&L has the video)

ROBERTS: And later on this morning, I’ll ask Mitt Romney about the defining moment in his presidential run. Tell you a little bit more about him. Let you get to know him a little bit better. . .

CHO: He looks great, sounds great, smells great.

And just for good measure, the New York Times noted last week:

Mitt Romney loves the word “great.” As in, “Have a great day,” “Things are going great,” “I’m feeling great.” Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, also looks great, sounds great and smells great, like shaving cream. . . . [more! read on]

Theocracy watch: “PBS airs special it knows to be false”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11185.html

Get angry. For all of Bush’s goofs, malapropisms, factually challenged assertions, and outright lies, no major media outlet at any point of his campaigns or term as President ever thought to bestow a trivializing, disrespectful nickname upon him, much as he deserved it (“Incurious George”? “Flubya”? We could have a contest – though it will be hard to top Molly Ivins’ “Shrub,” which was never picked up in the mainstream).

But they did give us “Slick Willy,” and they’re already test-marketing “Slick Hillary”

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/20/associated_press_clever_new_coinage_slick_hillary

Bonus item: McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder) has a new website: it shouldn’t be remarkable that a major media outlet says this – but, rather, sad that it’s so extraordinary

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014721
"Truth to Power"

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:36 AM

 
A MATTER OF PRIORITIES

Josh Marshall is right. This is the sort of thing that should finish off any presidential candidacy, especially one supposedly being run on “national security credibility”

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-usrudy0619,0,2577021,print.story
Rudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.

Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.

He cited "previous time commitments" in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why -- the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani's lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.

Giuliani failed to show up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure, the sources said -- and both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances shown on his recent financial disclosure. . .

Well, you would think so anyway

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014692.php
[Josh Marshall] How did we not learn about this sooner? . . .

That's the kind of story that ends a campaign, especially one like Rudy's based on standing up to terrorism and hanging tough in Iraq. . . .

[T]hat's probably why the campaign put out this statement. . .

As someone considered a potential presidential candidate, the Mayor didn’t want the group’s work to become a political football. That, coupled with time restraints led to his decision.

But wait. If being a presidential candidate was the issue, why'd Rudy accept the appointment in the first place? And did the possibility of running for president make him blow off all the meetings? Was he informally recusing himself? C'mon. In any case, the statement concedes that 'time restraints' (does he mean 'constraints'?) were an issue. So he's not even really denying the claim.

So Rudy's running on terrorism and Iraq. But he got booted off a congressionally-mandated blue ribbon panel because he couldn't be bothered to show up for the meetings. It conflicted with his for-a-price speaking gigs. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014697
[Greg Sargent] If a newspaper breaks a story that by all rights should be damaging to Rudy's "national security credentials," and the rest of the media fails to pick up on it, did the story ever break at all?

[NB: This morning I did see stories in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, but nowhere else]

And as if that weren’t already enough!

http://www.thestate.com/136/story/96446.html
Gov. Mark Sanford has suspended state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel after it was announced Tuesday the Charleston Republican had been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to possess with the intent distribute cocaine. . . .

Ravenel in April was named the state chairman for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s presidential campaign, but he resigned that post this evening. . .

Rudy’s excuses merit only scorn

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014704
Giuliani camp on Ravenel: we didn't know he was a crack dealer. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11179.html

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/19/rudys_justification_for_leaving_iraq_study_group_shown_to_be_bogus

More on the Bush gang’s illegal (and missing) emails

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/19/BL2007061900924.html
[Dan Froomkin] How did such casual lawbreaking come to be so widespread? And why was it tolerated? Those are among the questions the White House has yet to answer satisfactorily. . . . [read on]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/19/154929/001
[TChris] The argument that officials used RNC accounts so that they wouldn't violate the Hatch Act is difficult to understand, because the Hatch Act prevents federal employees from engaging in political activity while on duty. Whether the officials used a White House account or an RNC account is less significant than whether they were using the accounts for a forbidden political purpose while they were supposed to be earning their federal salaries. Of course, whether they engaged in improper activities is difficult to judge when the emails that may answer that question can't be found.

Did officials use RNC accounts to conduct public business to avoid making the public record that the Presidential Records Act requires? Or did they use RNC accounts solely to engage in political activities while they were on duty in their government jobs? . . . [read on]

More: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4703#more-4703

Watch Tony Snow try to explain

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11169.html
[Steve Benen] Snow’s response is completely ridiculous. Let’s unpack it a bit.

First, the Bush gang’s model is not “based on the prior administration.” This is Clinton-did-it-too-ism to a comical extent. The Clinton White House created a separate email system for staffers to use for political business, which they insisted be kept separate from government business. For that matter, to avoid any possible conflicts, access to external email was shut off from White House (eop.gov) computers. Is this the Bush model? Not so much.

Second, Snow seems to be arguing that the Bush gang violated the Presidential Records Act in order to avoid violating the Hatch Act. But this, too, doesn’t make any sense. To violate the Hatch Act, WH staffers would have to do political work with government resources. Snow has it backwards — WH staffers did government work with political resources.

Snow said the Hatch Act “prohibit[s] the use of government assets for certain political activities.” That’s largely true, but it doesn’t apply here at all. This White House used private political email accounts to conduct practically all of its work. I know Rove & Co. blurred the political/official line out of existence, but to hear Snow tell it yesterday, the Bush gang made no distinction between the two at all. That’s not much of a defense; it’s actually more of an admission. . .

Ahem. . . Clinton’s emails? (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.teambio.org/2007/06/bill-clinton-presidential-library-will-contain-39999998-e-mails/
Bill Clinton Presidential Library Contains 39,999,998 e-mails

Every single e-mail sent during his presidency, including the only two e-mails Bill Clinton ever sent. This much cannot be said about the Bush administration who seems to have lost or can’t account for thousands of e-mails and quite possibly has broken some laws in the process. . . .

More on Bush’s signing statements

http://www.slate.com/id/2168718/fr/rss/
[Dahlia Lithwick] There are two ways President Bush likes to wage war on your civil liberties: He either asks you to surrender your rights directly—as he does when he strengthens and broadens provisions of the Patriot Act. Or he simply hoovers up new powers and hopes you won't find out—as he did when he granted himself authority to order warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. The former category seems more benign, and it's tempting to lump Bush's affinity for "presidential signing statements" in that camp. It's tempting to believe that with these statements he is merely asking that the courts take his legal views into account. But President Bush never asks anything of the courts; he doesn't think he has to. His signing statements are not aimed at persuading the courts, but at reinforcing his claim that both courts and Congress are irrelevant. . . .

It never ends

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/19/national/w130223D87.DTL
[AP] The Army is considering whether it will have to extend the combat tours of troops in Iraq if President Bush opts to maintain the recent buildup of forces through spring 2008.

Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren testified Tuesday that the service is reviewing other options, including relying more heavily on Army reservists or Navy and Air Force personnel, so as not to put more pressure on a stretched active-duty force. . . .

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4126
[Swopa] How about a new slogan: "The Army -- it's not just a job, it's a life sentence." (Unless you join the 3,500-plus for whom it became a death sentence.)

Our friends

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21933125-38201,00.html
MORE than 20 boys have been found, starved and naked, at a government-run orphanage for special needs children in Iraq.

The scene at the Baghdad facility reduced some of the US and Iraqi soldiers who found the children to tears.

The 24 boys were found naked and lying on concrete floors, covered in their own excrement, flies and sores. Some were near death. . .

Only the best

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003476.php
[Spencer Ackerman] There are about 200 Foreign Service Officers in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. How many of them do you figure are fluent in Arabic? . . .

Hans von Spakovsky, nominee for the FEC, may have lied during his testimony about his vote suppression efforts (gee, really?)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003464.php
[Paul Kiel] Last week, Hans von Spakovsky testified before the Senate Rules Committee that he'd been something of a wallflower when he worked at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. His critics had it all wrong, he said. Despite claims that he'd led the Department's efforts to overturn the voting rights section's traditional work protecting African-American voters -- using the division's power instead to spread the myth of voter fraud and purge state voter rolls -- von Spakovsky said that he'd merely been there in an advisory capacity. People asked his opinion and he gave it, that's all.

But those who actually worked under him in the voting rights section say otherwise, calling him the de facto head of the section.

And in a letter to the Senate Rules Committee yesterday (the committee is considering von Spakovsky's nomination to be a commissioner at the Federal Election Commission), a group of former voting rights professionals in the Department laid out the numerous areas where von Spakvosky had been less than forthright in his testimony. . . .

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4900516.html
His critics allege that, while serving as a Bush administration voting rights lawyer at the Justice Department, von Spakovsky overruled a unanimous recommendation by eight career staff lawyers that the Texas redistricting map be considered a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act because it diluted minorities' voting power.

The rejection of the staff recommendation — one of several seemingly partisan actions attributed to von Spakovsky and other Bush administration appointees by their former Justice Department colleagues — paved the way for courts in Texas to approve the redistricting map, handing then-House Majority Leader DeLay, R-Sugar Land, a major victory and costing five Texas Democrats their jobs in the U.S. House.

The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld most of the redistricting plan. But on the key point of minority voting rights, it ruled that indeed, the voting power of Latinos had been illegally diluted.

From the very start, Josh Marshall and the gang over at TPM have said that the Carol Lam firing is the one that shows the whole agenda of the US Attorney purge, laid bare. They are being proved right

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003470.php
[Paul Kiel] When a Justice Department official asked eight U.S. attorneys for their resignations last December, most of them went quietly (initially at least), agreeing to resign on relatively short notice and with no public fuss. But one U.S. attorney, Carol Lam in San Diego, had contentious private exchanges with Department officials about her end date.

An email released to Congress last week shows just how heated those discussions got. When Lam delayed announcing her date of resignation -- wanting more time to tend to several high profile cases, the expanded Duke Cunningham investigation among them --, Justice Department officials prepared to have the president fire her immediately. . .

What do you get when you combine Senatorial arrogance, massive oil interests, and Republican values? You get Ted Stevens (R-AK), who’s in big trouble now

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/19/183839/881

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801159.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070619/ap_on_go_co/stevens_investigation

Is this what we want to hear from our Supreme Court justices?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/19/11445/8105
[Globe and Mail] Senior judges from North America and Europe were in the midst of a panel discussion about torture and terrorism law, when a Canadian judge's passing remark - "Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra 'What would Jack Bauer do?' " - got the legal bulldog in Judge Scalia barking.

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.

"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes." . . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11177.html
[Steve Benen] Remember, in some legal circles, Scalia is considered one of the giants in conservative intellectual thought.

It’s likely that Scalia was using a cultural reference to prove a broader point about torture and the rule of law, but I’m not entirely sure what that point is. It seems to have something to do with Scalia’s apparent belief that those U.S. officials who commit torture deserve legal amnesty, just so long as the ends justify the means.

Just think, having this guy sitting on the Supreme Court was disconcerting before he started using fiction to rationalize torture. . . [read on]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/judge-cutie-by-digby-did-you-all-hear.html
[Digby] I assume he was just being his usual rollicking, hilarious self, but I do worry just a tad that he fails to understand that in real life there is no narrative arc and you can't change the script if it doesn't work. And I worry even more that he and his philosophical brethren forget that sometimes the "good guys" are actually the "bad guys" and when the "good guys" are given total latitude to decide what is and is not a "crisis" we will tend to find ourselves in one all the time.

This Jack Bauer phenomenon is getting out of hand. It's bad enough that average Americans get off on the idea that sometimes you just have to take the gloves off and pull somebody's fingernails out. And it's even worse that right wing talk show hosts believe that because "24" gets good ratings it should be taken as a national referendum in support of torture. But I guess I expect something a little bit more serious from Supreme Court judges -- even adorable pranksters like Scalia. . .

Richard Cohen shows once again how the corporate media tilts the playing field against challenges to establishment power

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801366.html
[Cohen] With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off. . . .

The upshot was a train wreck -- mile after mile of shame, infamy, embarrassment and occasional farce. . . The special counsel used the immense power of the government to jail Judith Miller and to compel other journalists, including Time's Matt Cooper, to suspend their various and sacred vows of silence just so they could, understandably, avoid jail. . . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/19/cohen/
[Glenn Greenwald] Richard Cohen's Washington Post column this morning is a true tour de force in explaining the function of our Beltway media stars. Cohen's column -- which grieves over the grave and tragic injustice brought down upon Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- should be immediately laminated and placed into the Smithsonian History Museum as an exhibit which, standing alone, will explain so much about what happened to our country over the last six years. It is really that good. . . .

When it comes to the behavior of our highest and most powerful government officials, our Beltway media preaches, "it is often best to keep the lights off." If that isn't the perfect motto for our bold, intrepid, hard-nosed political press, then nothing is. . . . [read on!]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/061907.html
[Robert Parry] [B]eyond a talent for reprising the conventional wisdom from Washington dinner parties, it is hard to tell what justifies Cohen’s long career as a political columnist. On nearly every major development over the past couple of decades, Cohen has missed the point or gotten it dead wrong. . .

Meet Digby (don’t miss it -- a great speech on progressive blogging, and a welcome antidote to Cohen’s idiocy)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=860546376283859020&hl=en

Michael Moore’s new movie, “Sicko,” looks to become another discourse-changing success

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011518.php

Decline and fall

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/06/bush_empire.html
"If there’s one empire I want built, it's the George Bush empire," said former Bush adviser and Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman in 2005 [One Party Country, p. 102]. In this effort to spawn an empire in the federal government, the White House and the RNC have opened up unprecedented lines of communications and have potentially violated federal law in doing so . . .

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0607/4538.html
Recent polls have shown Bush's popularity -- which has long been in the tank with independents -- suffering significant erosion even among GOP base voters, largely due to a backlash over the president's stance on immigration.

The decline, according to some Republican strategists, has flashed a green light for lawmakers on Capitol Hill and presidential candidates to put distance between themselves and an unpopular president -- a politically essential maneuver for the 2008 general election that remained risky as long as Bush retained the sympathies of Republican stalwarts.

Now that those sympathies have somewhat cooled, the effects are visible: Republican House members upset about immigration policy have spoken of Bush in disparaging terms. And presidential contenders like Rudy Giuliani are striking change-the-course themes in their rhetoric, even while continuing to back Bush over the Iraq war.

The change, say GOP operatives, is the absence of fear about being perceived as something less than an ardent Bush backer. "What's the penalty now, Karl being mad at you?" Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio asked with a laugh, referring to Bush political adviser Karl Rove. "Who cares? Even his former chief strategist (Matthew Dowd) walked away from him and pissed all over him." . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/19/8534/16488

Theocracy watch: I would agree that Glenn Greenwald has put his finger on the central failing of Bush’s character and the policies and strategies of his administration: EVERYTHING is “you’re either with us or against us”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/19/failed-presidency-failed-states/
At the heart of this process lies a binary moralistic view of the world, one which seeks to define every conflict and political challenge, both foreign and domestic, as a battle of Good versus Evil. The crux of this mindset is the continuous identification of an Enemy, one which embodies Evil and which must be stopped, typically destroyed, at all costs. No competing considerations, no rational arguments, no counter-balancing objectives, not even constraints of reality or resources, can compete with the moral imperative of this mission. The mission of destroying Evil trumps all. . . .

This Manichean mentality not only drives George W. Bush personally, but it also consumes our political discourse almost entirely. It is this mindset, more than any other single cause, that has driven us to embrace extraordinary policies and truly radical beliefs that are as ill-considered and incoherent as they are destructive. . . .

Bonus item: Thank god you live in America

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/19/snow/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Asked today whether the Bush administration "feels any responsibility" for the split among Palestinians, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said that what reporters "really need to be thinking about" is that "the president of the United States did not bind people's hands behind their back and throw them from rooftops. The president of the United States did not masquerade around with masks pulled over the face and slay people who disagreed with Hamas."

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:33 AM

 
GOTCHA!

“The most serious breach of the Presidential Records Act in the 30-year history of the law”

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003458.php
[Laura McGann] Email messages sent by White House officials using Republican National Committee addresses have been extensively destroyed, according to an early report on the ongoing investigation released today by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. . . .

Waxman's committee is investigating whether RNC email addresses were used for official work to avoid a record required by official email addresses and to what extent those acts violate the Presidential Records Act. Democrats were tipped off to the use of the off the record email system from emails revealed during the Jack Abramoff and U.S. Attorney firings investigations. Waxman has asked 25 federal agencies to scour their records for email that has been lost by the White House and the RNC.

Investigators now plan to pursue Alberto Gonzales' actions while White House counsel. The early report shows Gonzales likely knew Rove was using RNC accounts for official work, but that Gonzales did not intervene to keep records of those messages. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11162.html
[Steve Benen] * “The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed.” The White House initially said only a “handful of officials” used private, unaccountable RNC email addresses. Then the Bush gang conceded that, over the course of the last six years, 50 officials used the accounts. The Oversight Committee has now found “at least 88 White House officials” who took advantage of RNC email, including Karl Rove, Andrew Card, Ken Mehlman, and “many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.”

* “White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts.” According to the emails preserved by the RNC, Rove used his private, unaccountable email address over 140,000 times. Sara Taylor had over 66,000 emails, while Scott Jennings had over 35,000 emails. “These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.”

* “There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC.” On the one hand, the RNC didn’t preserve any emails for 51 of the 88 White House officials who used RNC email accounts, including Ken Mehlman, the former RNC chairman, who used his account for official WH business on a “daily” basis. On the other hand, for the accounts the RNC did preserve, there are large gaps. “The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush’s first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006.” . . .

If this interim staff report is any indication, Waxman is just getting warmed up.

The report: http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070618105243.pdf

The law: http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1362
The Presidential Records Act requires the President to “take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented … and maintained as Presidential records.” To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account.

The evidence obtained by the Committee indicates that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements. At this point in the investigation, it is not possible to determine precisely how many presidential records may have been destroyed by the RNC. Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.

There are several next steps that should be pursued in the investigation into the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials. First, the records of federal agencies should be examined to assess whether they may contain some of the White House e-mails that have been destroyed by the RNC. The Committee has already written to 25 federal agencies to inquire about the e-mail records they may have retained from White House officials who used RNC and Bush Cheney ’04 e-mail accounts. Preliminary responses from the agencies indicate that they may have preserved official communications that were destroyed by the RNC.

Second, the Committee should investigate what former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales knew about the use of political e-mail accounts by White House officials. If Susan Ralston’s testimony to the Committee is accurate, there is evidence that Mr. Gonzales or counsels working in his office knew in 2001 that Karl Rove was using his RNC e-mail account to communicate about official business, but took no action to preserve Mr. Rove’s official communications.

Third, the Committee may need to issue compulsory process to obtain the cooperation of the Bush Cheney ’04 campaign. The campaign has informed the Committee that it provided e-mail accounts to 11 White House officials, but the campaign has unjustifiably refused to provide the Committee with basic information about these accounts, such as the identity of the White House officials and the number of e-mails that have been preserved.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061800809.html
Citing executive privilege, President Bush has refused to let any of his West Wing advisers turn over government documents or e-mails to congressional committees conducting investigations of his administration. The RNC has stated its intention to first provide White House officials' e-mails to White House Counsel Fred Fielding to determine whether Bush will want to withhold those as well.

Despite the huge cache of Rove's e-mails that were preserved, the House committee questioned whether Rove and other White House officials complied with federal laws. According to today's report, more than 75,000 of the preserved e-mails of Rove's were sent or received from officials with e-mail accounts ending in ".gov"--the sign of a federal government employee.

"These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies," Waxman's report stated.

The RNC said it is still searching its servers and that the remaining e-mails all may be political in nature. That would mean they have no relation to the records preservation act, it said.

"It is troubling that Henry Waxman's committee jumped the gun and appears to be representing Democrats' partisan spin as fact," said Tracey Schmitt, spokeswoman for the RNC. "Not only have we been clear that we are continuing our efforts to search for e-mails, but there is no basis for an assumption that any e-mail not already found would be of an official nature,"

[NB: That's going to be pretty hard to prove, if they've been DESTROYED. And who ordered that? Who decided that certain emails, from certain people, during certain periods of time, would be destroyed, but not others? And if all these RNC emails were political, not official business, but going back and forth to government offices, isn't there going to be a Hatch Act problem there? They're really caught on the horns of a dilemma, it seems to me]

In early March, when the RNC e-mail trail first was raised during investigations of the U.S. attorney dismissals and the alleged politicization of the General Services Administration, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said "a handful" of White House advisers used the private accounts. That number was upgraded to about 50 a few weeks later. The RNC and White House initially said that almost all of Rove's e-mails were destroyed. . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/more_details_fr.html
[Emptywheel] Apparently, the RNC only has emails dating to after the Plame investigation began. . . Not to mention much of the Abramoff scandal. . .

This is a really interesting "coinkydink" that Jeff noticed:

The first e-mail sent by Mr. Rove that the RNC has preserved is dated November 26, 2003.

Hmm. Hubris, p. 377-78:

A hard copy of the Hadley-Rove e-mail turned over to Fitzgerald (which was independently obvtained by the authors) showed that it had been printed out of Rove's White House computer on November 25, 2003. One of Rove's assistant's, B.J. Goergen, had searched the computer that day at the request of Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence. After all, as Isikoff and Corn's book tells us (pp. 401-2), Rove's office gave Luskin a folder full of emails that included the Hadley-Rove one in late November 2003, and Luskin just hadn't noticed the Hadley-Rove email until october 2004, right before Rove was going to go back in front of the grand jury, right after Cooper had been held in contempt and was headed for trouble, i.e. likely testimony.

But, wait: there’s more! The Waxman report also discloses a preliminary deposition from Susan Ralston, former Rove (and Abramoff) aide. Emptywheel reads the tea leaves

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/ralstons_deposi.html
Oh, this is getting good. As part of his interim report on RNC emails, Waxman released Susan Ralston's testimony before the committee. Reading the deposition, it becomes pretty clear why Tom Davis was trying to warn Rove of the danger of Ralston's testimony. Because even what she was willing to testify to makes it clear that Rove is in some deep legal trouble. And then when you look at the areas where she carves out immunity for herself, you realize that if she were ever to testify under immunity, Rove would be in deeper trouble. . . [read on!]

Ralston deposition: http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070618105351.pdf

Doan tell me!

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/more_details_fr.html
[Emptywheel] Waxman's committee has gotten emails that are a clear follow-up on Lurita Doan's effort to politicize GSA. . . . While the report doesn't say it, this suggests they've got some follow-up evidence against Doan, in addition to the testimony of her subordinates.

The corruption of the US Attorney system starts to have real consequences in terms of prosecutions and convictions

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11159.html
[Steve Benen] Way back in March, when the U.S. Attorney purge scandal was front-page news, Kagro X wrote a great piece that touched on a likely trend: a new opportunity for defense attorneys. “Defense attorneys across the country are doubtless exploring the possibility of demanding new trials for their clients,” KX wrote, “and those awaiting trial will be seeking dismissal of charges, all because the Department of Justice has been exposed as a political attack machine”

As it turns out, that’s exactly what’s going on. Bush, Gonzales & Co. politicized the criminal justice system, public confidence in the political impartiality of federal prosecutors has taken a serious hit, and defense attorneys are now able to argue with a straight face that prosecutions that might look political are political. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys18jun18,0,5473289,full.story

Subpoena update

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/NYT_Bush_strangely_quiet_on_Attorneygate_0616.html
In a column slated for Sunday's New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg notes that "President Bush was strangely quiet last week," even though he "had been quite vocal, and perfectly clear, back in March when Democrats first delivered their subpoena threat."

Bush had said, "I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials," and added that he was "absolutely" willing to fight over subpoenas in court.

"But when the subpoenas actually arrived on Wednesday, for Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former White House political director, Bush said nothing," Stolberg observes. "The current White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding -- who recently beefed up his staff by hiring additional lawyers to handle the growing demands for documents and testimony -- has yet to offer a response."

Stolberg continues, "Those sounds of silence suggest that the White House is grappling with a dilemma. If Bush reaches an accommodation with lawmakers on testimony from Miers and Taylor, Democrats will inevitably demand similar terms for Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser. The last thing Bush wants is Rove going up to Capitol Hill to submit to questions from Democrats." . . .

The transcript doesn’t do justice, but the interview with Ryan Crocker, ambassador to Iraq, on Meet the Press, revealed someone (to my eyes) really in over his head. Now we learn that the pattern of sending inexperienced loyalists over skeptical pros to Iraq has caught up with them

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19229645/
TIM RUSSERT: Mr. Ambassador, good morning and welcome.

Let me ask you about the Pentagon report that has just come out regarding the violence in Iraq. And I’ll read it to you and our viewers. “No drop in Iraq violence seen since troop buildup. Three months into the new U.S. military strategy that has sent tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, overall levels of violence in the country have not decreased, as attacks have shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar, where American forces are concentrated, only to rise in most other provinces, according to a Pentagon report. . . .

AMB. RYAN CROCKER: I think it very much has, and the portion of the report you just cited notes that, that violence has indeed shifted away from the two areas where the surge is directed, that’s Anbar and Baghdad. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But isn’t it the equivalent of playing Whack-a-Mole? You whack them one place, and put your troops in, and they go to another area.

AMB. CROCKER: As, as the administration said at the beginning of this effort, the president’s speech in January, Baghdad is central. It is really very difficult to imagine any meaningful political progress being made if security is not imposed in Baghdad. So just to use your own image there, what we are now positioned to do with the surge at full strength, is whack a whole lot of moles simultaneously. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But isn’t the Maliki government upset with us for, for providing arms and munitions to Sunnis, who they believe are the enemy of their government?

AMB. CROCKER: With respect to the dealing with those in Sunni areas who have decided that al-Qaeda is the enemy and wish to support us and the Iraqi government, in Anbar, we’ve seen a tremendous shift. And there, of course, the strategy is that these tribes are not going to operate independently, they’re forming into what are called provisional police units that are going to be linked to the central government of Iraq, both for organizational and for payroll purposes.

Now, it is an issue of concern, and the Iraqis are right to focus on it. As one moves to other areas, different conditions may dominate, and they and we will have to look very carefully at who we might be dealing with. The prime minister has ordered the formation of a—of a committee that will be chaired by a senior Iraqi government official. It’s kind of going to look at these issues as they emerge, so there’s a kind of a careful, coordinated process of evaluating what we’re dealing with before we move too far down the road. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801503.html
Ryan C. Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, bluntly told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a cable dated May 31 that the embassy in Baghdad -- the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy -- lacks enough well-qualified staff members and that its security rules are too restrictive for Foreign Service officers to do their jobs.

"Simply put, we cannot do the nation's most important work if we do not have the Department's best people," Crocker said in the memo. . . .

"In essence, the issue is whether we are a Department and a Service at war," Crocker wrote. "If we are, we need to organize and prioritize in a way that reflects this, something we have not done thus far." . . .

"He's panicking," said one government official who recently returned from Baghdad, adding that Crocker is carrying a heavy workload as the United States presses the Iraqi government to meet political benchmarks.

"You could use a well-managed political section of 50 people" who know what they are doing, the official said, but Crocker doesn't have it because many staffers assigned to the embassy are "too young for the job" or are not qualified and are "trying to save their careers" by taking an urgent assignment in Iraq. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011517.php

See? If you look at it the right way, we CAN’T lose in Iraq

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11166.html
[Steve Benen] Let me see if I have all the good news straight. When Sunnis attack Shi’a, we should consider it encouraging. . . .

When we help Sunnis attack other Sunnis, that, too, is encouraging. . . .

And when Sunni and Shi’a are attacking Americans, that, too, is encouraging. . . .

If I didn’t know better, I might think that no matter what happens on the ground in Iraq, war supporters in the administration are going to tell us that it’s an encouraging sign.

More from the Seymour Hersh story on Gen. Taguba and the truncated investigation into who knew about and directed US torture policies

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003459.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Buried within three of the Pentagon's official investigations into torture, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the answer is a separate, harsher set of rules for detainee and interrogation operations led by Special Operations Forces -- the elite units specializing in unconventional warfare -- than those that apply for the rest of the U.S. military. . . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/rummys_plausibl.html
[Emptywheel] I wanted to make a point about Sy Hersh's latest that I haven't seen anyone make. What General Taguba described to Hersh was how Rumsfeld and his top aides provided themselves plausible deniability when word of Abu Ghraib first surfaced. . . [read on]

What did Bush know? http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/what_did_the_pr.html
The White House on Sunday insisted that President George W. Bush first learned about abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison from media reports, contrary to assertions by a former top general that Bush likely knew about the scandal before it broke.

"The President said over three years ago that he first saw the pictures of the abuse on television," said White House spokesperson Scott Stanzel . .

[NB: For those wise to the ways of these White House wordsmiths, shifting the question from “When did he first learn about it?” to “When did he first see the pictures?” must be significant]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/18/BL2007061800791.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/of-course-they-knew-by-dover-bitch-in.html

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801695.html
Eight months after President Bush signed a bill authorizing the CIA to resume using "enhanced interrogation techniques" on terrorism suspects, the administration has been unable to agree on what constitutes "humiliating and degrading treatment" of detainees.

The CIA program remains in limbo, awaiting an executive order about the techniques that has become the subject of tense discussions within the administration and between the White House and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. . .

Pakistan: just another mess we’ve created in the region (and guess who’s responsible?)

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/dick_blows_paki.html
[WP] Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. . . .

With Cheney in charge and Rice in eclipse, rumblings of alarm can be heard at the Defense Department and the CIA. While neither agency is usually directly concerned with decision-making on Pakistan, both boast officers with far greater expertise than the White House and State Department crew. These officers, many of whom have served in Islamabad or Kabul, understand the double game that Musharraf has played -- helping the United States go after al-Qaeda while letting his intelligence services help the Taliban claw their way back in Afghanistan. The Pentagon and the CIA have been privately expressing concern about the lack of an alternative to blind support for Musharraf. Ironically, both departments have historically supported military rulers in Pakistan. They seem to have learned their lesson. It's a pity that those calling the shots have not. . .

Some might have thought that Bush’s “signing statements” were just a token effort to signal that the administration wanted to keep its options open, and to make a symbolic point about the “Unitary Executive.” Now it turns out that government agencies have in fact been applying the laws as Bush interprets them, not as Congress intended

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801412.html
President Bush has asserted that he is not necessarily bound by the bills he signs into law, and yesterday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003457.php
[Paul Kiel] President Bush has claimed that his executive powers allow him to bypass more than 1,100 laws enacted since he took office -- in what are called "signing statements." But what has been unclear ever since The Boston Globe's landmark story on the statements (which won Charlie Savage a Pulitzer) is just what effect these obscure little statements, published in the federal register, have.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) wanted to know just that, so they asked for an analysis by the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, of last year's appropriations bills. The report, released today, is sure to lead to further investigation.

The agency examined a sample of appropriations bills from last year, focusing on 19 provisions that were affected by a presidential signing statement added to a bill -- in each case, Bush invoked the "unitary executive" theory or some other justification for disputing the bill. The result: of the 19 provisions, six were not executed as authorized by Congress. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=495

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11163.html

He can’t govern, he can’t lead, he can’t form compromises or coalitions to get things done – but he has a pen (thanks to Steve Benen for the link)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061700942.html
[Bob Novak] Addressing a Republican fundraising dinner at the Washington Convention Center on Wednesday night, President Bush declared: "If the Democrats want to test us, that's why they give the president the veto. I'm looking forward to vetoing excessive spending, and I'm looking forward to having the United States Congress support my veto." That was more than blather for a political pep rally. Bush plans to veto the homeland security appropriations bill nearing final passage, followed by vetoes of eight more money bills sent him by the Democratic-controlled Congress.

That constitutes a veto onslaught of historic proportions from a president who did not reject a single bill during his first term. Of the 12 appropriations bills for fiscal 2008, only three will be signed by the president . . .

The embattled Tony Snow soldiers on. . . .

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/today_on_holden_6.html
Q We have been through this, but you were saying at the time there were, like, 50 staffers -- Waxman is saying, no, it's more like 88, and there are indications -- I mean, 140,000 emails is a lot of emails.

MR. SNOW: That is a whole lot of email.

Q And that's just Rove, that's not all the other folks.

MR. SNOW: That's a whole lot of email, absolutely right. . . [read on]

Abortion is going to be a decisive issue in the 2008 campaign – for the Republicans (and this is very, very bad news for Romney and Giuliani)

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/18/romney

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/us/politics/11record.html

Bonus item: Quote of the day

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/in-bushs-dc-lying-is-standard-operating.html
[Frank Rich] “[T]here's been so much lying surrounding this war from the start that everyone is inured to it by now. In Washington, lying no longer registers as an offense against the rule of law.”

[Joe Sudbay] The Bush team sees no consequences to lying. The media dutifully report the lies as truth, or at the very least, report the lies unchallenged, even if they know that they're not true, or at the very least know some other facts that contradict them (facts the media will never mention when reporting the lies).

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:55 AM

 
WHO’S HOLDING THE LEASH?

Seymour Hersh does it again. General Antonio Taguba, author of the Abu Ghraib report, tells Hersh that he was ordered not to investigate higher-ups – and that he’s convinced that knowledge about these “interrogation” techniques went all the way to the top

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061601074.html
The Army two-star general who led the first investigation into detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq believes that senior defense officials were involved in directing abusive interrogation policies and said that he was forced to retire early because of his pursuit of the issue, says an article to be published tomorrow in the New Yorker magazine.

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba said that he felt mocked and shunned by top Pentagon officials, including then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, after filing an exhaustive report on the now-notorious Abu Ghraib abuse that sparked international outrage and led to an overhaul of the U.S. interrogation and detention policies. Taguba's report examining the 800th Military Police Brigade put in plain terms what had been documented in shocking photographs.

In interviews with New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh, Taguba said that he was ordered to limit his investigation to low-ranking soldiers who were photographed with the detainees and the soldiers' unit, but that it was always his sense that the abuse was ordered at higher levels. Taguba was quoted as saying that he thinks top commanders in Iraq had extensive knowledge of the aggressive interrogation techniques that mirrored those used on high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that the military police "were literally being exploited by the military interrogators."

Taguba also said that Rumsfeld misled Congress when he testified in May 2004 about the abuse investigation, minimizing how much he knew about the incidents. . . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/17/hersh-taguba/
[New Yorker] A few weeks after his report became public, Taguba, who was still in Kuwait, was in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan with Abizaid. … Abizaid turned to Taguba and issued a quiet warning: “You and your report will be investigated.”

“I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,” Taguba said. “I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia.“ . .

The former senior intelligence official said that when the images of Abu Ghraib were published, there were some in the Pentagon and the White House who “didn’t think the photographs were that bad” . . .

The full article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh

Video: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/17/sy-hersh-on-tagubas-abu-ghraib-investigation/

Having already told us that his September report on the success of the “surge” will emphasize signs of progress (three months before the fact) General Petraeus now says that whatever the conditions are, don’t expect any troop reductions

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061700830.html
Conditions in Iraq will not have improved sufficiently by September to justify a draw-down of U.S. military forces, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said today. . . .

Claiming steady, albeit slow, military and political progress, Petraeus said the "many, many challenges" would not be resolved "in a year or even two years." Similar counterinsurgency operations, he said, citing Britain's experience in Northern Ireland, "have gone at least nine or 10 years." . . .

Will Republicans bail or hold firm in September? http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014667

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/what-petraeus-is-planning-to-do-in.html

It should have been predictable, but the US’s pro-Sunni tilt in regions where their militias are willing to help against Al Qaeda has angered and alienated the Shiites and Kurds. The US is turning tribal militias into “police forces” without the direct involvement of the Iraqi govt. Brilliant!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061700762.html
One of the main unanswered questions for American commanders leading these efforts has been to what degree the Iraqi government would support their plans to fashion local Sunnis into these neighborhood defense forces.

In an interview Friday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told Newsweek magazine that some American field commanders "make mistakes since they do not know the facts about the people they deal with." . . .

Lurita Doan seems to have a troublesome habit that might get her prosecuted, not just fired (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2830775
Before her appointment to head the General Services Administration, Lurita Doan pledged to use a prospective position atop another agency to help the Republican Party.

In a draft of a May 2005 e-mail to a Republican official pitching her credentials to head the Small Business Administration, Doan, who is black, wrote: “I believe that the part[y] has a unique opportunity to make about a 5 percent swing of black votes to the GOP. One of the largest concentrations of wealth and influence lies in the black business community of small black business owners who represent the participants in various SBA programs.”

The Office of the Special Counsel reported to President Bush on June 8 that Doan violated the Hatch Act at a January meeting of GSA political employees. At that meeting, a White House political aide gave a presentation on congressional races that Republicans planned to target in 2008. After the briefing, Doan, a Bush appointee, said something like, “How can we help our candidates,” according to multiple witnesses. . . .

“As the [Small Business Administration] Administrator, I would have an unparalleled ability to serve as an articulate and passionate ambassador for the President’s Agenda and at the same time be in a position to encourage both funding and votes to the GOP,” Doan wrote . . .

They won’t stop (until we stop them)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11154.html
[Steve Benen] Given what we’ve seen and learned over the last several months, one might assume that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would go out of his way to avoid anything that even came close to politicizing U.S. Attorneys’ offices.

But Gonzales is apparently incapable of restraint. Knowing that there is literally nothing he could do to get fired, our embattled Attorney General is reportedly “tightening the leash” on federal prosecutors. . . .

As of Friday, the Justice Department said it is considering one-on-one meetings between Gonzales and every U.S. attorney . . . As Gonzales describes it, these meetings will offer him an opportunity to let prosecutors know what they’re doing wrong, what lawmakers on the Hill are complaining about, what the DoJ’s expectations are of them, etc.

Except, as the Chicago Tribune’s Andrew Zajac explained, “[T]here’s already an evaluation process run by the Justice Department’s executive office for U.S. attorneys. But that only measures how well a prosecutor runs the office, not how loyal he or she is to the administration’s agenda.” . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_17.php#014660
[Steve Benen] In April, we learned about a disconcerting controversy out of Wisconsin in which U.S. Attorney for Milwaukee Steve Biskupic brought highly dubious charges against Georgia Thompson, the state purchasing supervisor for Gov. Jim Doyle's (D) administration, accusing Thompson of corruption. By all appearances, it was one of the more shameless politically-motivated prosecutions of the year.

The last time we checked in on the controversy, a federal appeals court swiftly rejected the prosecution and admonished Biskupic for filing the charges in the first place. Thompson was released, but the imprisonment and wrongful prosecution has left quite a scar on her career.

Given the circumstances, it's not surprising that Thompson expects reimbursement. . .

Hold onto your hats: Republican mouthpieces think it’s a “mistake” for the Democrats to subpoena testimony and documents from the White House

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/18/04246/1163

Will the Democrats approve vote-suppression operative Hans von Spakovsky for the Federal Election Commission?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061701083.html

Theocracy watch: Machiavelli on the dangers of born-again Presidents (thanks to Chris H. for the link)

'Don't let these people into politics! They don't care enough for the world! People who believe that the world is mortal and they themselves are immortal, are very dangerous characters because we want the stability and goodness of this world."

Bonus item: The new era of politics

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/06/14/campaign_tip_of_the_day.html
[Republican campaign guide] "Always assume you’re being recorded, and always record your opponent."

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:51 AM

 
UNDERREPORTED

The infamous Lurita Doan briefing at GSA (“How can we help our candidates?”) was only one of nearly twenty similar briefings given to other government offices. No shenanigans at stake? The Office of Special Counsel wants to know

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/16/counsel-hatch-probe/
[Govexec.com] Eighteen agencies have been asked by the Office of Special Counsel to preserve electronic information dating back to January 2001 as part of its governmentwide investigation into alleged violations of the law that limits political activity in federal agencies.

The OSC task force investigating the claims has asked agencies, including the General Services Administration, to preserve all e-mail records, calendar information, phone logs and hard drives going back to the beginning of the Bush administration. The task force is headed by deputy OSC special counsel James Byrne.

[Nico] The White House has admitted that roughly 20 agencies have received a PowerPoint briefing created by Karl Rove’s office “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.”

Politicization of the federal government has been illegal for decades. The 1939 Hatch Act specifically prohibits partisan campaign or electoral activities on federal government property, including federal agencies. But in 2005, Ken Mehlman, formerly one of Bush’s top political advisers, outlined the White House’s strategy of utilizing government resources for partisan gain. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11151.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/finished_with_d.html

P.S. Who is James Byrne? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/28/2517/19873

OK, we now know that Schlozman, Goodling and others were actively involved with systematically getting rid of career DOJ staff and replacing them with “loyal Bushies.” Just having served during another administration made you suspect. Bush partisanship was a job requirement, outweighing other qualifications. Inappropriate and illegal questions were asked during interviews. Schlozman openly bragged about it. The obvious question that still hasn’t been answered is, “These weren’t isolated acts, but part of a systematic effort. Whose plan was it? Who said it was okay to ask these kinds of questions?” These willing accomplices certainly didn’t come with the idea on their own – nor do I think that Gonzales initiated it

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003436.php
“Bradley J. Schlozman is systematically attempting to purge all Civil Rights appellate attorneys hired under Democratic administrations," the lawyer wrote, saying that he appeared to be "targeting minority women lawyers" in the section and was replacing them with "white, invariably Christian men." The lawyer also alleged that "Schlozman told one recently hired attorney that it was his intention to drive these attorneys out of the Appellate Section so that he could replace them with 'good Americans.”

The ruination of the Dept of Justice

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061601080.html
The Justice Department is scrambling to find willing replacements for nearly two dozen temporary U.S. attorneys. . . The developments add to growing personnel problems at the Justice Department in the wake of last year's firings of nine U.S. attorneys, which led to a political confrontation with Congress, lowered morale and contributed to an exodus of officials from the upper ranks of the department. . . .

A quarter of all federal prosecutors are now on the job on an interim or acting basis -- reflecting a vacancy rate that is much higher than normal, according to department statistics. Five senior Justice Department officials have also resigned since March, including one who announced his departure Friday. . . .

The vacancy problems underscore the broad sense of tumult at the Justice Department. . . .

As you know, Mike Elston, senior DOJ official implicated in the US Attorney firings, quit suddenly last week. The question is, Why?

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/the_last_of_the.html
[Emptywheel] Why is resigning now? Perhaps because of McNulty's upcoming testimony. Perhaps because things are about to blossom, not least with Brad Schlozman (Elston is said to have intervened in the MO Civil Rights case).

Tony Snow, then and now

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11148.html
[March 15] “[W]hat the President has — the Department of Justice has made recommendations, they’ve been approved. And it’s pretty clear that these things are based on performance and not on sort of attempts to do political retaliation, if you will.”

[June 13] Q: Okay, but at the beginning of this story, the President, you, Dan Bartlett, others said on camera that politics was not involved, this was performance-based.

MR. SNOW: That is something — we have never said that.

How does he get away with these lies?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/16/15342/6514

Steve Benen reminds us of ANOTHER important scandal, still flying under the radar, given the attention to Abramoff, Plame, Gonzales, etc.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014657
In many ways, it was the scandal that got away. In March, we learned that Bush Justice Department, more specifically the FBI, was engaged in widespread, illegal misuse of "national security letters" (NSLs). . . . [read on]

Yes, time IS running out

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_10_archive.html#2923944709737661563
[January 15] In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, says the current surge of 21,500 troops is not "open-ended" and warned that "time is running out" for the United States to turn things around in Iraq.

[June 16] As he boarded the helicopter after his afternoon trip he said that Washington politicians need needed to give the effort more time.

"We need more time, they've got to give us time here," he said. "It's just too early."

How’s it going?

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-surge17jun17,1,4350973.story
[LAT] The U.S. military says it will be months before the plan's effect is felt. Publicly, it remains optimistic. But some military analysts, soldiers and civilian advisors say the number of U.S. troops and qualified Iraqi forces won't be enough to pacify Iraq for many years. And with Iraq's political, sectarian and economic woes, that makes this a no-win mission unless drastic tactical changes are made, they argue.

One solution being proposed by advisors to those running the war is finding a way to convince all parties, from insurgents to stubborn politicians, that they have more to gain by cooperating with U.S. forces and one another than by fighting. . .

Stephen D. Biddle, a counterinsurgency expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and other military leaders, advocates negotiating bilateral cease-fires with different groups and trading weapons, money, equipment and other forms of support for cooperation. . . .

Hoping for a political solution to take hold as violence subsides, as the surge strategy intended, is futile given the distrust among the different groups, who fear annihilation if they forfeit any power, said Biddle . . .

The Pentagon, in a report issued last week, said the monthly rate of suicide bombings was nearly double that in January, when the military reported 26. And while civilian casualties have dropped in the capital, where most extra soldiers are deployed, they have increased nationwide, the report said.

Politically, none of the legislative benchmarks that the White House considers essential for reconciliation has been met. The one considered most attainable, passage of a law to open Iraq's oilfields to outside investors and to share the nation's oil wealth equitably among its provinces, has yet to be considered by parliament. Economically, the biggest goal — reviving the oil industry — remains stalled because of the delayed bill.

There are signs of progress. . . .

In much of Iraq, though, the picture is grim, and analysts say optimism in the early days of the security plan was misplaced and based upon a decline in killings that had no bearing on the operation's long-term success.

"Even if violence goes down, so what?" said Marr, the Iraq expert. "The real issue here is Iraqis have to move toward some kind of accommodation that will get them to permanently reduce violence, not temporarily."

Biddle said the temporary drop in civilian deaths was not a direct result of the military plan. Instead, he noted, the radical Shiite leader Muqtada Sadr reined in his militia, which had been widely blamed for the deaths, in a show of cooperation with the Shiite-led government.

"We got a gift of a few months of free breathing space, but this issue confronted us when the surge started, and now it confronts us still," Biddle said, referring to the resurgence in death squad killings.

U.S. officials have cited the decline in bloodshed in Baghdad and Al Anbar, where the extra troops are concentrated, as powerful evidence of progress. Biddle, however, said it was normal that violence would decline in pockets where there were additional forces. "The problem is where you don't have the surge," he said. "It's the rest of the country that is the issue, and the rest of the country is the majority of the country."

Even in the capital, there is frustration with the security plan's setbacks among U.S. troops as well as Iraqis. . . . [read on]

I don’t know about the UK, but over here we need to take a closer look at how Tony Blair gave legitimacy to Bush’s abuses of intelligence and bull-headed determination to start a war with Iraq – Blair, who certainly should have known better

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Iraq.html
Prime Minister Tony Blair committed British troops to Iraq even though he despaired at the failure of the United States to plan adequately for the aftermath of the invasion, a newspaper reported Sunday. . .

More: http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/blair-says-democracy-not-so-important.html

This is important. The big underreported story about Iraq is the heavy turn toward privatization and outsourcing of military and intelligence activities to unaccountable corporations like Blackwater

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061502602.html
Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11149.html

Rice versus Cheney: it ain’t over

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11152.html
[Steve Benen] Just two weeks ago, Condi Rice insisted that the entire Bush administration is absolutely united behind a single policy when it comes to Iran. Never mind all those rumors about Cheney’s team actively circumventing the president’s team in order to instigate a U.S. conflict with Iran, Rice said, everyone is on the same team: “The president of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course. That policy is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States.”

Two weeks later, Rice’s comment almost appears quaint . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/16/iran/index.html

Why – WHY – is Tim Russert parroting Fox News agitprop?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014649

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/16/112959/513

Theocracy watch: It’s pathetic, really, how PBS, CNN, and other networks get browbeaten into correcting for their “liberal bias” by running shows that don’t even remotely deserve to be on national television. The other night we were treated to Glenn Beck earnestly interviewing wacko Tim LaHaye about the end of times on CNN Headline News (the kind of thing that belongs on Sunday afternoon local programming)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014659
[Steve Benen] Two months ago, PBS gave Richard Perle a whole hour to repeat discredited neocon arguments about Iraq and the Middle East, including the notion that Saddam Hussein had a working relationship with al Qaeda, and the bizarre argument that Osama bin Laden's "network has been destroyed." As Media Matters noted, Perle's PBS special "made a series of assertions about the Iraq war that have already been shown to be false."

It appears that PBS is going down a similar road this month, with a special on religious liberty called "Wall of Separation." . . .

"Wall of Separation" is a production of Boulevard Pictures, which explained on its website that this PBS special will explain that the Founding Fathers had "a radically different definition" of religious liberty than what we have today, and that "the modern understanding of the role of religion in the public square is exactly the opposite of what the Founders intended."

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/16/233643/597
* Meet the Press: US Amb to Iraq Ryan Crocker; roundtable of WaPo's E.J. Dionne, National Review's Kate O'Beirne, WaPo's Eugene Robinson, National Review's Byron York
* Face the Nation: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI); Iraq Study Group member Lee Hamltion
* This Week: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE); Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Martin Sheen; roundtable of Martha Raddatz, The Nation's David Corn, and George Will
* Fox News Sunday: Gen. David Petraeus; NYT's Tom Friedman
* Late Edition: Iraqi FM Hoshyar Sebari; Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX); Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI); Seymour Hersh; Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA); roundtable of Ed Henry, Donna Brazile (D), Terry Jeffrey (R)

Bonus item: This IS strange

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014647
[Dan Bartlett, outgoing Counselor to the President] "[T]he good thing about this president -- and I think this is the reason why he was re-elected, is that, when he's finished here, and at the same time I'm finished here in a couple of weeks, I can look in the mirror and say, I think we did what was best. I think we looked at all the issues. We tried our best to do the right thing for the country.

"And I think the president will have the same mindset when he returns to Texas at the end of his presidency. And at the end of the day, that's all you can expect.

"You may not always agree with him. But I think he's demonstrated that he's doing something -- the things that he is doing, however bold or aggressive or wrong-headed that some people think they are, he's doing what he thinks is best for this country."

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:17 AM

 
DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH

Does anyone still believe that they cut loose Joint Chiefs head Gen. Peter Pace because they were afraid of his confirmation hearings?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501063.html
In his first public comments on the Bush administration's surprise decision to replace him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace disclosed that he had turned down an offer to voluntarily retire rather than be forced out.

To quit in wartime, he said, would be letting down the troops.

Pace, responding to a question from the audience after he spoke at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday evening, said he first heard that his expected nomination for a second two-year term was in jeopardy in mid-May. . . .

Good question: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11138.html
[Steve Benen] Which is worse, a senator’s mild, one-sentence criticism of a general’s judgment, or the president firing that general in the midst of a war?

Another senior DOJ official involved with the US Attorney purge quits. The only one left is the one who should have quit first

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003450.php
[AP] A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys said Friday he is resigning.

Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors. . . . [read on]

Steve Benen argues that Bush simply isn’t going to let Gonzales go, no matter how bad it gets. He might be right – certainly a confirmation hearing for a replacement would be a wild ride (since any nominee would be grilled over which investigations they will be willing to pursue, whether they share the Bush gang’s view of the Constitution, etc)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11132.html
By late April, Gonzales’ resignation was a foregone conclusion. A Republican with close ties to the White House said Bush and Gonzales were “the only two people on the planet Earth who don’t see” the need for the AG to step down. The Senate hearing in which Gonzales was supposed to save his skin turned out to be a disaster.

But the Bush gang rejects political norms. Our political system is supposed to follow certain unwritten political “rules.” When a cabinet secretary screws up, creates a scandal, becomes a distraction, loses the nation’s confidence, and possibly engages in criminal behavior, he or she is supposed to resign. If a resignation isn’t offered, a president is supposed to ask for it.

But this president doesn’t concern himself with these “rules.” Donald Rumsfeld, Alphonso Jackson, and Rod Paige proved that the president is more than willing to tolerate cabinet secretaries staying on far too long.

Gonzales has become the most reviled man in the administration, after having been caught lying and losing control of the Justice Department. The rules say Gonzales has to go. Bush, meanwhile, is The Decider — and The Decider doesn’t much care about the rules.

A month ago, the New York Daily News quoted a “senior Republican” saying, “[Bush] wants to fight, but that will change because it has to.”

But it doesn’t “have to.” It only “has to” if the president wants to be a responsible leader in a political system in which conduct has meaning.

Slate concluded, “It is just about universally agreed upon that Gonzales will go down in history as the attorney general who helped the president: 1) torture, 2) wreak havoc on civil liberties, 3) fire U.S. attorneys who didn’t prosecute along preferred political lines, 4) demoralize the Department of Justice, 5) worsen Bush’s already dismal relationship with Congress, and 6) relentlessly hector a man in the intensive care unit.”

Just the way the president likes it.

A new interview with John McKay, one of the ousted US Attorneys, draws the line of decision-making straight into the White House

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/15/some-believed-i-should-convene-a-federal-grand-jury-and-bring-innocent-people-before-the-grand-jury/
[Phoenix Woman] McKay thinks that Alberto Gonzales knows, but is lying like a rug in order to protect that person or persons. Which makes sense, considering how Bush and Rove are flatly refusing to cut Gonzo loose in the face of growing and bipartisan calls for his ouster: He’s their firewall, the person standing between them and justice.

The kind of man he is

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003436.php
[Paul Kiel] During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Bradley Schlozman, the controversial former senior political appointee in the Civil Rights Division, was battered with questions about his efforts to politicize the division.

A number of those questions from senators centered on Schlozman's efforts to purge the appellate section of the Civil Rights Division -- the small, but important section that handles civil rights cases in the court of appeals. What were they getting at? An anonymous complaint against Schlozman sent to the Justice Department's inspector general in December of 2005 spelled out the allegations. . . .

"Bradley J. Schlozman is systematically attempting to purge all Civil Rights appellate attorneys hired under Democratic administrations," the lawyer wrote, saying that he appeared to be "targeting minority women lawyers" in the section and was replacing them with "white, invariably Christian men." The lawyer also alleged that "Schlozman told one recently hired attorney that it was his intention to drive these attorneys out of the Appellate Section so that he could replace them with 'good Americans.'"

The anonymous complaint named three female, minority lawyers whom Schlozman had transferred out of the appellate section (of African-American, Jewish, and Chinese ethnicity, respectively) for no apparent reason. And in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week in response to questions from senators, the Justice Department confirmed that all three had been transferred out by Schlozman -- and then transferred back in after Schlozman had left the Division. . . .

It’s even worse than that

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003440.php
[Paul Kiel] We know what the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department hasn't been doing under the Bush administration: protecting African-American voters from discrimination. And much of our coverage at TPM has tended to focus on the division's voting rights section, and the voter suppression efforts of two figures in particular, Bradley Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky.

Add that to charges of racial discrimination by employees of the section, the section's failure to bring only a couple suits on behalf of African-American voters over the past several years (while bringing the first ever Voting Rights Act suit alleging discrimination against white voters), and Schlozman's and von Spakovsky's efforts to intimidate career employees who didn't toe the line, and you've painted a pretty dim view of the Civil Rights Division.

But as The New York Times detailed yesterday, where the political appointees defanged the division's efforts on behalf of African-Americans, it shifted resources to causes near and dear to conservatives, like religious discrimination and human trafficking cases. They are the sorts of cases, the Times reports, that the new hires in the Civil Rights Division -- generally very conservative lawyers who were dubbed by some career lawyers as "holy hires" -- prosecuted with zeal. . . .

And they’re STILL doing it (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://www.charlotte.com/politics/story/160851.html
State and federal officials are mounting two broad challenges to the way North Carolina maintains its voter rolls. . . So far, though, the officials have not made public any evidence of irregularities, and N.C. election officials argue that the state's maintenance of voter rolls is among the most careful and comprehensive programs in the country.

The dispute comes amid growing national attention to suspected voter fraud. The U.S. Justice Department has devoted more resources to that area -- a decision that voting advocates say could disproportionately affect minorities and the poor ahead of the 2008 election.

In a letter two months ago, the Justice Department said it was reviewing North Carolina's voter rolls and that it found irregularities in the number of people registered to vote. Similar reviews have led to lawsuits against election officials in seven other states, including Georgia. . .

Tony Snow, caught in a lie

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/16/4623/05551

Can the DOJ investigate itself?

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/shorter_schloz_.html

Bush (finally) signs the revocation of his power to appoint US Attorneys without confirmation AFTER using it one last time. Very nice

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/15/bush-law/

They’ve found the RNC emails (supposedly “missing”)

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/14/leahy-emails/

Well-said (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070615/OPINION/706150302/1018
Sen. Patrick Leahy stated it plainly. "The White House cannot have it both ways: It cannot stonewall congressional investigations by refusing to provide documents and witnesses, while claiming nothing improper occurred." . . .

What’s going on? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/washington/15brfs-SENATORBLOCK_BRF.html
A Republican senator blocked a vote in the Judiciary Committee on whether to authorize subpoenas to the Justice Department to obtain secret legal opinions and other documents related to the National Security Agency’s program of domestic eavesdropping. The action by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona will block the vote for a week. After the vote next Thursday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the committee, can decide whether to issue the subpoenas or use them as leverage in negotiations with the Bush administration over access to the documents.

Something the Bush gang has to be very worried about is what will happen to the records they have worked so hard to keep out of the public view, once a new administration (especially a Democratic administration) comes in. Impeachment for what they’ve done just isn’t going to happen, but the disclosure of even more serious, and probably illegal, misconduct AFTER they leave office is (I think) quite likely. They are already doing what they can to make that difficult – but it may not work (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/06/15/15records_edit.html
With the strong support of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, Congress may repeal one of the worst abuses of power in the Bush administration.

In his first year in the White House, Bush issued an executive order giving presidents, vice presidents and their heirs the power to block the release of White House records. That order sealed White House records that have been public dating back to the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon administration in the 1970s.

Acting on the public's right to know what government is doing, Cornyn, a Senate committee and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives support a repeal of Bush's order making White House records secret. The repeal act passed the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee this week and goes before the full Senate next.

Bush, whose administration embraces secrecy at every turn, has vowed to veto the repeal act. But the House version of the law, HR 1255, was approved by a veto-proof 333-93 vote in March. Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said the bill may have to be amended in the Senate but it could pass by a veto-proof margin as well. . . .

Looks like Scooter’s going to the clink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/15/BL2007061501193.html
The White House has officially ruled out the possibility of a presidential pardon for Scooter Libby until he exhausts the appeals process -- a timetable that is all but certain to lead to significant prison time for the former top aide to Vice President Cheney.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton yesterday ordered Libby to start serving his 30-month sentence in a matter of weeks. Libby's appeal will presumably take months if not years.

Libby can avoid prison time only if one of two things happens soon: A special panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overrules Walton and allows Libby to remain free pending appeal; or Bush goes back on his word and grants a pardon while the appeal is still pending. Both are highly unlikely. . . .

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/15/the-next-step/

Paul Wolfowitz tries to help Libby, actually makes things worse (isn’t that the Wolfowitz way?) – thanks to Avedon Carol for the link

http://www.spicejar.org/asiplease/archives/000609.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/bill_moyers_say.html

Oh christ

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070615/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_mental_health;_ylt=AkK1R.ayIAt68x7AdfLqKR.s0NUE
[AP] Overwhelmed by the number of soldiers returning from war with mental problems, the Army is planning to hire at least 25 percent more psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/15/211627/013

Boiling the frog, moving the goalposts, bait-and-switch, changing the rules. . . how many ways can we describe the manipulation of time frames that continually put off when a “critical” decision about Iraq needs to be made?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_10_archive.html#4134476480313274787
[ABC News, January 15] In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, says the current surge of 21,500 troops is not "open-ended" and warned that "time is running out" for the United States to turn things around in Iraq. . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11142.html
[Steve Benen] I guess we won’t hear any more of the rhetoric about “the surge hasn’t even been fully implemented yet.” As of reports this morning, the “full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq…was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country.” . .

[NB: Uh, sorry, nope]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BUL522174.htm
[Reuters, June 15] All U.S. troop reinforcements heading to Iraq to help restore security have now arrived, but it could take several more months before their weight is fully felt, the U.S. military said on Friday. . . .

It will take 30 to 60 days for the new arrivals, who have taken total U.S. troop levels in Iraq to 160,000, to win the confidence of residents and start getting the intelligence needed to counter insurgent and militant attacks, Garver said.

Don’t think for a second that the Cheney gang has given up on attacking Iran (will Rice lose this battle too?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/washington/16diplo.html
A year after President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a behind-the-scenes debate has broken out within the administration over whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran’s nuclear program, according to senior administration officials.

The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011501.php

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/15/iran/index.html
Writing in the British newspaper The Times, highly regarded British journalist and economist Anatole Kaletsky today aptly describes the most pressing political crisis we face, in a column headlined "Why we must break with the American crazies" . . .

Bonus item: Don’t make me laugh

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/15/sen-trent-lott-r-ms/
“Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.” — Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), who supports comprehensive immigration reform, explaining why right-wing conservatives were able to torpedo the legislation last week.

The only possible response. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/humanity-by-digby-hahahahahaha-talk.html
[Digby] Hahahahahaha!. . . .Excuse me. Give me a minute.... sorry ... ohjesus, I can't....

hahahahahahahahahahah!

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11136.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/15/bloggers.bush/index.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:04 AM

 
ADIOS

The lies finally catch up with Gonzales – sooner or later he will HAVE to step down

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061400809.html
The Justice Department is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sought to influence the testimony of a departing senior aide during a March meeting in Gonzales's office, according to correspondence released today.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the two officials who are leading an internal Justice Department investigation of the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys last year said their inquiry includes the Gonzales meeting, which was revealed during testimony last month from former Gonzales aide Monica M. Goodling. . . .

The disclosure could represent a serious legal threat to the embattled attorney general. Fine's office is empowered to refer matters for criminal prosecution if warranted. . . .

In a May 23 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Goodling testified that Gonzales had laid out his general recollection of events surrounding the prosecutor dismissals during a meeting between the two in March, as Goodling was preparing to leave the department. Gonzales asked whether Goodling "had any reaction to his iteration," and she said the conversation made her "a little uncomfortable" because of ongoing investigations into the issue, according to her testimony.

"I didn't know that it was maybe appropriate for us to talk about that at that point, and so I just didn't," Goodling testified. "As far as I can remember, I just didn't respond."

Gonzales has said in a statement that he "never attempted to influence or shape the testimony or public statements of any witness," including Goodling, and that his comments "were intended only to comfort her in a very difficult period of her life."

The meeting occurred several days after OPR had begun its probe into the U.S. attorney firings on March 14. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee in April that he had not talked to any potential witnesses about the firings "because of the fact that I haven't wanted to interfere with this investigation and department investigations." . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/14/gonzales2/index.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/gonzales_may_be.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11127.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011494.php
[Kevin Drum] Apparently Alberto Gonzales is trying to set a record for the number of different things any government official not named Nixon has been under investigation for at the same time . . .

“Media drama”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/14/BL2007061400838.html
[Dan Froomkin] President Bush last month complained that the congressional probes into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys were being "drug out . . . for political reasons." White House spokesman Tony Snow yesterday dismissed the issuance of congressional subpoenas to two former White House aides as an attempt to "create some media drama."

But if anyone is to blame for the dragging out of the probes and the drama, it's Bush himself. He and his aides have consistently refused to tell the American people why those federal prosecutors were fired.

Democrats have reason to suspect that at least some of the firings were set in motion by Karl Rove's White House political staff and were intended to affect politically charged cases in ways that would benefit the Republican Party.

Those are serious allegations. But the official White House response has been a non-denial. That U.S. attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president" is immaterial. And the absence thus far of definitive evidence of wrongdoing at the White House level may be due more to effective stonewalling than to any lack of actual wrongdoing.

There's certainly a growing body of evidence to suggest that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has essentially turned over control of the traditionally independent Justice Department to political operatives.

If Bush wants this media drama to go away -- and if there is, in fact, an innocent explanation for the firings -- then it's in his best interest to come clean, in public, and sooner rather than later. Why wait for a congressional hearing?

But that's not what's happening. Instead, the White House's carefully parsed and entirely unforthcoming statements on this matter are reminiscent of the response four years ago to allegations that White House aides had leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

Back then, Bush could well have demanded an answer from his staffers and then shared it with the American people. He chose not to. Whether he chose not to because he knew that two of his top aides were involved in the leaking is still, to this day, not entirely clear. By stonewalling, Bush was able to postpone that revelation until after getting reelected. . . .

What will happen next with the subpoenas for WH staffers?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061407J.shtml

Another DOJ official who just doesn’t know who made key decisions or why – but it sure wasn’t him

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003426.php

As you know, Congress revoked the Patriot Act provision that allowed the appointment of US Attorneys without confirmation. It was an inexcusable change, slipped secretly into the original Patriot Act. I guess they thought it was a power Bush wouldn’t abuse. . .

Well, they certainly know better now, and they’ve passed new legislation pulling that power from Bush. Thing is, gee, he hasn’t gotten around to signing it yet. In the meantime, he’s still using that authority

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Gonzales_uses_Attorney_appointment_power_that_0614.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/cardonas_appoin.html

Judge sends Scooter Libby to prison (he’ll appeal)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070614/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_trial;_ylt=Ak5UoqrgliGGOlTvNLXPCgus0NUE
A federal judge said Thursday he will not delay a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the CIA leak case, a ruling that could send the former White House aide to prison within weeks.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton's decision will send Libby's attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and could force President Bush to consider calls from Libby's supporters to pardon the former aide. . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/reggie_is_not_a.html
[Emptywheel] [I]t certainly seems like Judge Walton is getting fed up with having to deal with rich bullies. One of the first things he said at the hearing today is that he has received threats. . . .

Libby’s planning to take this all the way to the Supreme Court

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/team_libby_hire.html

What did Judge Walton think of the amicus brief sent by Robert Bork and other luminaries, laying out a possible groundwork for a Supreme Court appeal?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_10_archive.html#3161224045317018719
Walton: With all due respect, these are intelligent people, but I would not accept this brief from a first year law student. I believe this was put out to put pressure on this court in the public sphere to rule as you wish.

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/14/judge-walton-sends-libby-to-jail/

The lies we (still) hear about poor old Scooter Libby

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4114

John Dickerson: why a pardon is inevitable

http://www.slate.com/id/2168450/fr/rss/
It has always been the view among Cheney loyalists and former Bush administration officials who have followed the case closely that the president would never allow Libby to spend a single day in an orange jumpsuit. The few people who may have held serious conversations with the president about a pardon are staying mum (this is the Bush administration, after all). But those I've talked to who know the president well and have worked for him predict a pardon for two reasons. . . .

The emergence of Hamas and the collapse of the Abbas government is a burning indictment of the Bush administration’s neglect of the Israel-Palestine issue. Condi Rice’s belated and half-hearted attempts at intervention are typical for her (has a Secretary of State ever accomplished less?). Most of all, the perception that the US is backing Fatah has been one of the main rallying cries for Hamas – what does that portend for Iraq?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006278.html
[Ami Isseroff] "The era of Islamic rule has apparently arrived." . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/world/middleeast/14cnd-mideast.html
The territories that President Bush said he wanted to see become a state before he left office appeared torn asunder. . .

Hey, Sid, just tell us how you REALLY feel

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/06/14/bush_foreign_policy/
[Sidney Blumenthal] Bush's procession through Europe was a pageant of contempt, disdain, delusion, provocation and vanity masquerading as a welcome respite from his troubles at home. . . .

Bush's foreign policy has descended into a fugue state. Dissociated and unaware, the president and his administration are still capable of expressing themselves as if it all makes complete sense, only contributing to their bewilderment. A fugue state should not be confused with cognitive dissonance, the tension produced when irreconcilable ideas are held at the same time and their incompatibility is overcome by denial. In a fugue state, a trauma creates a kind of amnesia in which the sufferer is incapable of connecting to his past. The impairment of judgment comes in great part from a denial of distress. Bush's fugue state involves the reiteration of a failed formula as though nothing has happened. So he proudly reasserts the essence of his Bush doctrine: Our acts are independent of other countries' interests. And he adds new corollaries: Other nations must forgive our unacknowledged mistakes even if we threaten their national security. To this, Bush overlays cognitive dissonance: Our policy is working; it just needs more time. Thus the incoherent becomes coherent.

Bush's amusing gaffes should not divert attention from the gravity of his underlying decline. Though his verbal hilariousness has been present since the beginning, his miscues, misstatements and mistakes now highlight a foreign policy in utter disarray. . . .[read on]

The Politico, sometimes cited here, is developing a bad reputation for reliability: yesterday they claimed that Harry Reid disparaged Gens. Pace and Petraeus during a conference call, precipitating a predictable right-wing firestorm of outrage. Here’s what he actually said:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/14/20598/8075
REID: Look what this Justice Department has done. And now, with the Surgeon General, we have a man here who has written articles that I think are a little questionable as to in our modern society. He's a medical doctor. And don't worry, he's gonna be looked at very closely.

BLOGGER QUESTION: What's the next step on Gonzales?

REID: Well, I guess the President, he's gotten rid of Pace because he could not get confirmed here in the Senate. Pace is also a yes-man for the President. I told him to his face, I laid it out last time he came in to see me. I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was. But he got rid of his Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, but he still hangs on to this failed Attorney General. And I guess he's gonna [inaudible]. We're gonna keep focusing on it.

[NB: It is far from clear, in context, whether “he” refers to Pace, Gonzales, or even to Bush himself]

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/14/reid2/index.html

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/14/republican_party_chairman_blasts_reid_over_politico_story
[GOP chair Robert Duncan] “Harry Reid doesn’t understand that there are some lines you just don’t cross. There is room for him to express reasonable disagreement about our path forward in Iraq. But to attack our military is unacceptable. To attack General Petraeus, the man actually leading our troops on the ground, is reprehensible. And to call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, someone who has served our nation for his entire adult life with honor and distinction, ‘incompetent’ is beyond the pale. Harry Reid once said ‘This war is lost.’ What he’s really lost, apparently, is any semblance of respect he might have once had for the best and bravest armed forces in the world.”

And even if he did say it . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11128.html
[Steve Benen] First, Reid may have questioned Pace’s competence on a private conference call, but it was Bush who fired Pace rather then have him defend the administration’s war policy. All things being equal, if conservatives have formed a We Love Peter Pace Fan Club, they should direct some ire towards the White House and the Pentagon, not Reid’s office.

Second, Reid’s comments — which, again, amount to a one-word quote — were not a “personal attack.” He questioned Pace’s competence. He’s not the first. It’s hardly scandalous.

Third, since when is it heresy to question the competence of military leaders? Pace’s tenure has, at times, been rocky. His relationship with congressional leaders has, at times, been awkward. For that matter, Petraeus’ judgment has come under question of late. There need not be a rule that military leaders must remain criticism-free at all times. As Kevin Drum explained, “General officers who support lousy policies deserve brickbats, and plenty of them have done just that in the Iraq war. If Reid has legitimate criticisms to offer, there’s nothing out of line about offering them.”

And fourth, if generals must be exempted from criticism, and those who spend their lives in military service should not be questioned, why is it that John McCain offered some harsh words, in public, for the last general to command U.S. troops in Iraq?

Opposing Gen. George Casey’s confirmation as the Army’s chief of staff, McCain cited the general’s “unrealistically rosy” assessments and “failed leadership” and told him: “I question seriously the judgment that was employed in your execution of your responsibilities in Iraq. And we have paid a very, very heavy price in American blood and treasure because of what is now agreed to by literally everyone as a failed policy.”

Was this outrageous, too? Did conservatives condemn McCain for levying a “personal attack” on a general “in a time of war”? Was it “inappropriate and regrettable” for McCain to publicly blast a man who spent his entire life in service to his country?

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/14/192754/484

And, by the way. . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/white-house-spokesman-tony-snow.html
Yesterday, White House spokesman Tony Snow is now flatly contradicting General Petraeus . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/new-pentagon-report-contradits-petraeus.html
A new report from the Pentagon flat-out contradicts the rosy view of Iraq that top-US general David Petraeus tried to peddle only a few weeks ago. . .

Ed Gillespie joins the WH staff (nope, no problems here)

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/the_presidents_.html
[Emptywheel] Despite the potential for conflicts of interest, Gillespie won't be forced in his new role to recuse himself from all matters related to the companies he has lobbied for, said Ken Gross, a Washington-based attorney and former associate general counsel with the Federal Election Commission.

Instead, Gillespie will have to decide on a case-by-case basis if his activities could violate federal ethics standards. . .

The Bush gang’s contempt for their supporters

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/06/well_yes.php

[NB: You can’t fool all the people all of the time, but you can do a pretty good job on about 30% of them]

Nothing to hide?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061402514.html
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has asked the Senate ethics committee to review his finances from last year, allowing him to delay filing his official disclosure forms and making him one of four lawmakers receiving such extensions amid investigations involving their personal dealings. . .

Other lawmakers who have faced financial scrutiny and received extensions include Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is under federal investigation for renting property to a nonprofit organization while also pushing for federal grants for the nonprofit, and Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), who is under investigation for his wife's firm doing unspecified work for imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff while her husband performed legislative favors for him.

Also, Rep. Rick Renzi's suburban Phoenix home was raided by the FBI as part of a probe examining connections to a $200,000 payment the Arizona Republican received from a business partner who would have benefited from federal land-swap legislation sponsored by Renzi.

I’m with Mark Kleiman here: the return of the immigration bill is a big problem for the Republicans – it extends a debate over which there are irreconcilable differences within the party, it gives the Lou Dobbs/Rush Limbaugh brigade more weeks of GOP-bashing (and even Bush-bashing), and whatever compromise gets hammered out in the Senate still has to pass the House, where the Dems have zero interest in yielding to a bill the Right can live with

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/immigration_/2007/06/the_undead.php

Chris Matthews just can’t get over his man-crushes – this time for Fred Thompson

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/14/matthews/index.html
Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever. . . . [read on!]

Baghdad Tony, at his best

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/14/105832/130

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/today_on_holden_4.html

George Bush, war hero

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/14/16535/9386
Q: Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?

SNOW: Yeah, the President. The President is in the war every day.

Q: Come on, that isn’t my question –

SNOW: Well, no, if you ask any president who is a commander in chief –

Q: On the frontlines, wherever...

SNOW: The President.

Bonus item: Part two of Josh’s interview with Al Franken

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014615

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:12 AM

 
ON THE DEFENSIVE

Here it comes: subpoenas for WH aides Taylor and Miers, plus emails and documents – but not for Rove (yet)

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/13/breaking-top-white-house-officials-subpoenaed/
Former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former top Karl Rove aide Sara Taylor, who served as White House political director before resigning last month, have been issued subpoenas over their connections to the U.S. attorney scandal. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003419.php
[Paul Kiel] The subpoenas follow fast on Justice Department emails turned over to Congress last night that fattened the already substantial case that the White House was intimately involved in installing Timothy Griffin, a former aide to Karl Rove as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

The Justice Department, in a letter vetted by the White House, wrote Congress back in February that Karl Rove didn't play "any role" in Griffin's nomination -- a statement the Department has since admitted was false. And how: emails have shown that Rove's aides worked closely with Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson at the Justice Department to get Griffin in the spot, and that Sampson, working with Rove's aides, plotted to keep Griffin in place despite objections from Arkansas' senators, stringing them along with the promise that another nomination would be made if Sens. Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) objected. A little-noticed provision in the USA PATRIOT Act enabled the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys for indefinite terms without Senate confirmation. . . .

Rove? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11109.html
[Steve Benen] Rove was not listed among those who will receive subpoenas today. Given what we’ve seen, that seems preliminary — the new evidence released last night bring Taylor and Miers into the controversy, so Dems are subpoenaing Taylor and Miers. Should their testimony further implicate Rove, one suspects Rove will be the next to get a subpoena. It’s incrementalism at its finest.

That is, if there’s actual testimony. As I understand it, CNN reported that the White House will invoke executive privilege for both Taylor and Miers, even though both have already left their positions at the White House and are no longer part of the administration. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11106.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/13/14325/4787

The fight ahead

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003422.php

A possible deal on testimony? http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003428.php

He’s selling, but we’re not buying

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/today_on_holden_3.html
Q But, Tony, on March 14th, the President was in Mexico, he was at a press conference and said, "I've heard those allegations about political decision-making in this matter. It's just not true." How can that be true when now there are emails showing that the White House Political Director was involved in the firings? Wouldn't that suggests politics --

MR. SNOW: No, the White House Political Director -- I think if you take a look at the White House Political Director, these most recent emails I believe took place after the personnel action had taken place. And furthermore, look, you can assume that when you have political appointees, the Political Office is certainly going to have some conversations. And I believe that the emails you're talking about involve Tim Griffin.

Q Okay. But you're saying you would assume that politics would be involved because there's a political -- but at the beginning of this story --

MR. SNOW: No, no, no, I said the Political Office would have some knowledge of it.

Q Okay, but at the beginning of this story, the President, you, Dan Bartlett, others said on camera that politics was not involved, this was performance-based.

MR. SNOW: That is something -- we have never said that. I think you'll have to take a look at comments that have been made by the Justice Department. What we've said is that people serve at the pleasure of the President. That's the operative principle here.

Q The President said, I've heard those allegations about political decision-making and it's just not true. I mean, he clearly said politics was not involved, right?

MR. SNOW: Right.

Q So now politics was because the Political Director --

MR. SNOW: No. Just because the Political Director is weighing in on something does not mean that this is politics involved. . . [read on!]

E-mails we STILL haven’t seen

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/the_secrets_the.html

A standard line on the Gonzales no-confidence vote was that it was “just politics.” The right answer is, “Yeah, so?”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/13/america-under-seize-but-its-just-politics/

DOJ vote suppression operative Hans von Spakovsky testifies

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/13/von_spakovsky/index.html
Hans von Spakovsky . . . tried to win the Senate's sympathies Wednesday by presenting himself as a poster boy for American democracy. "I grew up listening to stories of what it's like to live under a dictatorship," said the nominee, the child of Nazi refugees, at a Senate hearing. . . .

Spakovsky . . . is most well known for pushing a controversial voter photo identification law in Georgia, despite being told by civil rights groups and government attorneys that the law would suppress minority voters. He is also thought to have been strongly influential in the Justice Department's decision to approve a 2003 redistricting plan in Texas that the Supreme Court later ruled was a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Six of von Spakovsky’s former colleagues at the Justice Department have penned a letter opposing his confirmation because of his "major role in the implementation of practices which injected partisan political factors into decision-making on enforcement matters and into the hiring process." They also accused him of "repeated efforts to intimidate career staff." . . .

Today, a visibly agitated Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., questioned von Spakovsky on his support for four different election and redistricting proposals that were later proved by courts to have suppressed the minority vote.

When pressed to explain his actions at the Justice Department, von Spakovsky was mostly nonresponsive. "That is privileged information," he said in response to more than one question. When asked about conversations he had with colleagues that would indicate he supported a Republican agenda, von Spakovsky replied, "I do not recall."

"Your memory has failed you," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "We've seen that this is an affliction that many in the Department of Justice suffer from." . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011486.php
[McClatchy] Asked about the Georgia ID law, von Spakovsky declined to disclose the legal advice he gave his superiors, saying it was privileged, but he maintained that the department took the correct position because the courts didn't find that the law violated the federal Voting Rights Act. In overturning the law, the federal courts cited the 14th and 24th Amendments to the Constitution, he said.

[Kevin Drum] So I guess as long as the law is only unconstitutional, that's OK. Your Bush Justice Department at work. . .

Theocracy watch

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/washington/14discrim.html
In recent years, the Bush administration has recast the federal government’s role in civil rights by aggressively pursuing religion-oriented cases while significantly diminishing its involvement in the traditional area of race. . . .

Another attack on the Askariya Shrine: the Bush gang wants to say it was Al Qaeda, fomenting more Shiite-Sunni violence. But there’s plenty of evidence otherwise. Either way, it’s not good news

http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/samarra-shrine-attacked-golden-dome-or.html
[Juan Cole] The shrine is among the holiest in the Shiite world. . . US officials blamed "al-Qaeda." But it is just the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement or rather one of its cells, which is trying to throw the country into turmoil as an insurgency strategy.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11113.html
CNN added, “Authorities have evidence that Wednesday’s bombing of Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra was an inside job, and 15 members of the Iraqi security forces have been arrested, a U.S. military official said.” . . .

Worse and worse: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4109

But here is a familiar refrain from the WH: attacks like these just show the desperation of our enemy, because he knows we’re winning (uh-huh)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070613-7.html
Q I think some American officials have called this an act of desperation. And I'm wondering how this is seen as an act of desperation. Does that mean that the terrorists are so concerned that they're sort of being shut down, and that the surge is so effective that they're now desperate to make a statement?

MR. SNOW: Well, I think, again -- a couple of things. It does fit a pattern that we see throughout the region, which is that when you see things moving towards success, or when you see signs of success, that there are acts of violence. . . .

What you have seen in the last couple of months -- it's well documented -- is, increasingly, Iraqis are turning against al Qaeda. And that has been one of the sort of heartening developments. You've not only seen it in Anbar Province, but you've seen it elsewhere.

So one of the responses one might expect for al Qaeda at a time like this -- when the Iraqi people are turning against them as foreign fighters, essentially invading the country and trying to commit acts of bloodshed against innocents in order to blow the country apart -- that it would be one of those acts of desperation once again to try to get the Iraqis to fight one another, rather than training their sights on al Qaeda.

Q This could actually be read, then, as a sign of success for the American --

MR. SNOW: I don't think you ever call an act of terrorism and act of success. What you have to do is to realize that maybe al Qaeda is understanding that it does not have the kind of freedom of motion or action that it used to. Not only have there been the apprehensions and killing of key members of al Qaeda within Iraq, but, again, most significantly, the Iraqi people themselves -- tribal leaders in Anbar, insurgents and others -- are now making it clear to al Qaeda that they look upon al Qaeda as the enemy of peace and security in Iraq and they're going after them.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/13/202920/930

This is unbelievable

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/13/iraqi-security-forces-lose-equivalent-of-nypd-in-18-months/
Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey yesterday told a congressional committee that approximately 18,000 members of the U.S.-trained Iraqi police “had been lost from the newly trained force of 188,000 in the 18 months before January. … Between eight to 10,000 are believed killed in action and six to 8,000 more have been wounded severely enough so they cannot serve. Dempsey also says possibly 13,000 more have deserted or are unaccounted for.” . . .

Just the facts, ma’am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061302357.html
Three months into the new U.S. military strategy that has sent tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, overall levels of violence in the country have not decreased, as attacks have shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar, where American forces are concentrated, only to rise in most other provinces, according to a Pentagon report released yesterday. . . .

September? Who said anything about September?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/13/sitroom.01.html
BLITZER: Ed, a lot of people have been suggesting this report that General Petraeus was going to release in September was going to be decisive and critical.

What are they saying now?

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Congress certainly still thinks it will be decisive and critical. The president has been using this September promise as a way to buy more time with restless Democrats and Republicans. But all of a sudden it seems like the White House is backpedaling. . . .

HENRY (voice-over): After weeks of the White House promising a major September progress report on the increase of U.S. Troops in Iraq, Spokesman Tony Snow is trying to dial that back.

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What I would suggest is rather than it's sort of a pivotal moment, it's a -- it is the first opportunity to be able to take a look at what happens when you've got it up and running fully for a period of months.

HENRY: The president repeatedly said the opposite last month in a Rose Garden news conference.

GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This summer is going to be a critical time for the new strategy. . . .

HENRY: Snow faced a barrage of questions about whether he's pulling back expectations. QUESTION: Right now you're saying it's not a pivotal moment. I mean you don't seem on the same page with the president on that one (INAUDIBLE)...

SNOW: No, I...

QUESTION: Is it going to be pivotal or not?

SNOW: ... Characterizations. I'm just -- I think when he's talking about a critical moment because it allows people, again, to take a look at what's happening with the security plan.

QUESTION: He has said we'll know whether it's working in September.

SNOW: OK. But what I'm -- OK.

QUESTION: Is that what you think (INAUDIBLE)...

SNOW: No, I think my concern is that the expectation that seems to be raised is that suddenly in September there -- there may be an expectation that the report says, OK, all the problems are solved. No.

HENRY: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just emerged from a meeting here at the White House with the president and other lawmakers and she lashed out at Tony Snow's comments, saying that given what she considers to be a lack of progress on the ground in Iraq, she's not surprised that the White House is trying to push back the date for a report card. . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/13/september/index.html

The Dems have other plans

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/13/135535/583
Following up on the supplemental fiasco, Senate Dems are regrouping for a new round of Iraq votes in the coming weeks. In a conference call with bloggers yesterday, Sen. Reid laid out the four pronged approach they are planning to take as they consider the Defense Department authorization bill.

Most of these measures are intended to keep the pressure on Republicans, forcing them to vote again and yet again on Iraq, since obviously they will all be opposed by the majority of Republicans and, in the unlikely event they make it through the Senate, vetoed. Nonetheless:

The first is a new take on timelines being developed by Senators Kerry and Reed. Given Bush's allergy to timelines, it's likely to be little more than an opportunity for the Dems to have another responsible, reasonable approach to ending this fiasco to present to voters in '08. Second, Reid will again bring Feingold-Reid to a vote, and he promises more than 30 votes this time. Third, Webb is leading an effort on troop readiness, that would require troops to have as much time at home as in theater. Finally, they will consider rescinding or revising the AUMF that took us to Iraq. . . .

Reid also broke the news that the Magical September was likely to bring just one thing--another supplemental request by Bush. So we can look forward to another round of the "fund the troops" canard timed for exactly the moment at which Republicans keep telling everyone they're going to give up on Iraq if it's "not working."

Leaving a long-term US force in Iraq will merely extend further attacks against them

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4110

We all understand that control over oil fields has always been one of the driving factors in Iraq. Here’s the latest

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/43045/
The Iraqi government faces a December deadline, imposed by the world's wealthiest countries, to complete its final oil law. Industry analysts expect that the result will be a radical departure from the laws governing the country's oil-rich neighbors, giving foreign multinationals a much higher rate of return than with other major oil producers and locking in their control over what George Bush called Iraq's "patrimony" for decades, regardless of what kind of policies future elected governments might want to pursue. . . .

Fox News explains why it’s a GOOD thing that they devote less coverage to Iraq than other networks

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11114.html
[Bill O’Reilly] defended his lack of Iraq war coverage, stating that the only reason CNN and MSNBC “do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration”:

“Now the reason that CNN and MSNBC do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration. Both do. And all their reporting consists of is here’s another explosion. Bang. Here’s more people dead. Bang. . . .

They’re not doing it to inform anybody about anything. The terrorists are going to set off a bomb every day because they know CNN and MSNBC are going to put it on the air. That’s a strategy for the other side. The terrorist side. So I’m taking an argument that CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions.

Do you care if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No! It doesn’t mean anything.” . . .

[Steve Benen] I probably shouldn’t be, but I’m a little surprised O’Reilly would make this argument out loud.

I’m not going to question O’Reilly’s patriotism, but thousands of Americans are sacrificing an awful lot — including, in too many instances, their lives — for this war. The least O’Reilly and his network can do is bother to report on the conflict costing the country so dearly. FNC does, after all, claim to be a news network.

As for whether bombings in Iraq are “useless” and “meaningless,” O’Reilly is just embarrassing himself. When an IED kills an American, it has meaning. When a suicide bomber detonates inside the Green Zone, it has meaning. When most of the Golden Mosque is left in ruins, escalating already tragic violence, it has meaning. . . .

One final thought: I wonder what conservatives would say/do if a liberal news personality said that bombings in Iraq that kill Americans don’t “mean anything.” One has to assume he or she wouldn’t be employed for very long.

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/12/oreilly-pej-iraq/

Still building a case against Iran (kinda maybe)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014608
[Josh Marshall] State Dept.'s Nick Burns: "Irrefutable evidence" Iran is arming the Taliban.

Sec. Def. Bob Gates: Iran kinda maybe arming the Taliban. . .

Gee, nobody’s perfect

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061302453.html
An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism. . . .

“Draining the swamp,” as Pelosi called it, is proving tougher than promised

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/13/152956/530

Lurita Doan testified yesterday about her suggestion that GSA employees use their procurement policies to benefit Republican candidates. Bush’s own Office of Special Counsel has called for a severe penalty – while we wait to see what Bush does, let’s revel in the stupidity of her excuses

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/lurita_doans_ho.html

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003427.php

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=481

Sliding down the polls

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/13/poll_bush_approval_at_28_lowest_ever_in_survey
Bush Approval At 28%. . . That's what the new Quinnipiac poll released this morning finds. The number represents the "lowest score ever in a Quinnipiac University national poll," Quinnipiac says.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aPacZNPAToiU&refer=home
A new Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll . . . shows a slight decline in President George W. Bush's approval rating to 34 percent, a record low for the survey . . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19209733
[T]he latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Republicans are abandoning the president, which has dropped his job-approval rating below 30 percent -- his lowest mark ever in the survey. . . .

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_updates/president_bush_job_approval
Approval ratings have tumbled to match the lowest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports.

Just 33% of Americans approve of the way that George W. Bush is performing his role as President. . . .

More: http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/13/election_central_morning_roundup
[The Hill] "Financial projections for the President’s Dinner tonight confirm that Republican confidence in the president is in a state of collapse” . . .

Bad news for Rudy McRomney

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/06/12/social_conservatives_speaking_out_against_giuliani.html
"A growing number of influential social conservatives are speaking out against Rudy Giuliani, with some threatening that they will take flight from the Republican Party in 2008 if the former New York mayor is the GOP nominee," reports The Politico. . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/06/13/novak_mccain_in_deep_trouble.html
The latest Evans-Novak Political Report: "While Sen. John McCain claims that everything is 'fine' in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, events strongly suggest otherwise. The former frontrunner is now in deep trouble. With respect to the positive signs a presidential campaign can point to at this early stage -- fundraising, national polls, state polls, endorsements -- McCain finds himself almost empty-handed.” . . .

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/06/flipping_flopping_romneying.php
John McCain's campaign has put together this video of Mitt Romney, apparently still pro-choice, some six months after his alleged conversion to the anti-choice cause . . .

Bonus item: Josh talks with Al Franken, running for Senate in Minnesota

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014606

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:41 AM

 
NO RESPECT

Could anyone have anticipated that Republican senators would talk about Bush this way?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1848957/posts
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a fellow Republican, made it clear Tuesday that he will not be swayed. "Frankly, I think the president is wrong to push this piece of legislation so hard. . . He needs to back off." . . .

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19191564/site/newsweek/
[Howard Fineman] Bush is in the midst of what may be a suicide mission on immigration policy—embarrassing for him and ruinous for his party. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/12/Dobbs.June13/index.html
[Lou Dobbs] President Bush is building his legacy, adding another unfortunate line of hollow bravado to his rhetorical repertoire. To "Mission accomplished," "Bring it on," "Wanted: Dead or alive," and of course, "I earned ... political capital, and now I intend to spend it," he has added "I'll see you at the bill signing," referring to his own ill-considered push for so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation. . .

Isn't there anyone in this administration with the guts to say, "Give it a rest, Mr. President"?

Yeah, but what have you done for us lately?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/13/23021/2725
[Jonathan Singer] As of the last campaign finance filing period, which covered contributions and spending through April 30, the National Republican Congressional Committee trailed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by $7.75 million in cash-on-hand -- $9.87 million when debts and obligations are included. But if House Republicans were banking on President Bush to bail them out of this financial mess they're going to have to think again. . . .

Putting the screws to Maliki (sovereign leader, right)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/12/11316/8591
Adm. William J. Fallon, lead military commander for the Middle East, took Maliki to the woodshed Sunday in a closed door session . . . [read on]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/world/middleeast/13benchmarks-iht.html
Iraq’s political leaders have failed to reach agreements on nearly every law that the Americans have demanded as benchmarks, despite heavy pressure from Congress, the White House and top military commanders. With only three months until progress reports are due in Washington, the deadlock has reached a point where many Iraqi and American officials now question whether any substantive laws will pass before the end of the year. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011478.php
The Pentagon said today that Iraq's security forces are still incapable of keeping order and need to be expanded yet again . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11100.html

Why McCain has lost any credibility on Iraq

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/12/mccain-months-iraq/

And if the Democrats aren’t careful, they will too

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014591

Their plans: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/12/224944/197

Meanwhile, over in the “good war” . . .

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1631858,00.html
Mistaking each other for the enemy, Afghan police fired four dozen grenades and U.S.-led coalition troops fought back with helicopter gunships in a fierce battle that left eight officers dead . . .

Tony Snow CAN’T BELIEVE that anyone could think that the Bush policy on detainees is “anti-democratic”

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003417.php

Now that the no confidence vote on Gonzales has failed, what next?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/12/74340/5143
[Kagro X] That's why impeachment immediately became the next topic of conversation among observers here at Daily Kos. And just as quickly, the prospect was dismissed as all but impossible given the outcome of the vote. Just 53 Senators voted for cloture today, far short of the 2/3 necessary for conviction.

But it's worth considering . . . [read on]

http://www.americablog.com/2007/06/specter-gonzales-vote-will-make-bush.html
[NYT] Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania was among the few Republicans to vote to allow the resolution to proceed to a vote. “There is no confidence in the attorney general on this side of the aisle,” said Mr. Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. Even so, he predicted that the push to take the no confidence vote would just increase President Bush’s resolve to stand by the attorney general. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003411.php
[Paul Kiel] The investigation will churn on regardless. Next week, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty will appear before the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing will be an opportunity for McNulty to hit back after former DoJ aide Monica Goodling publicly accused him last month of not being "fully candid" in his February testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The following week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will focus their sights on William Mercer, the high ranking DoJ official who's pulled double duty as the U.S. Attorney for Montana for two years -- and yet had the nerve to tag one of the fired U.S. attorneys, New Mexico's David Iglesias, as an absentee landlord because Iglesias served in the Navy reserve for a month each year.

Not only that, but the Justice Department's Inspector General, in tandem with the Office of Professional Responsibility, continues to conduct its investigation of the firings and politicization at the department. Democrats expect the report, which will be made public when it's completed (probably sometime later this summer), to be bad news for the administration.

In other words, despite the contrary claims of victory and defeat, expect things to move along much as they have. . . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/12/mcnulty2/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Word just in from the House Judiciary Committee: The Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law will hold a hearing next week related to "The Continuing Investigation Into the U.S. Attorney Controversy and Related Matters."

The witness: Paul McNulty, who has announced his resignation as deputy attorney general and -- in the wake of attempts by Gonzales and Monica Goodling to implicate him in the U.S. attorney mess -- may suddenly be feeling a little talkative. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11094.html

The investigation continues

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003415.php
[Paul Kiel] Following Bradley Schlozman's memorable performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, former senior Civil Rights Division Hans von Spakovsky will be appearing before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration tomorrow. The occasion is a confirmation hearing for a spot as commissioner at the Federal Elections Commission, but the senators (the committee is chaired by U.S. attorney firing bloodhound Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is a member) are sure to spend plenty of time grilling von Spakovsky about his past at the Justice Department.

A group of former voting rights attorneys in the Division put it most succinctly in a letter to Sen. Feinstein yesterday urging rejection of his nomination: von Spakovsky was "the point person for undermining the Civil Rights Division's mandate to protect voting rights." Von Spakovsky reported to Schlozman, and the two worked together to purge voters from the rolls, ensure that voter ID laws were approved with no fuss, and punish lawyers who did not toe the line. . . .

More on von Spakovsky: http://www.civilrights.org/press_room/buzz_clips/civilrightsorg-stories/who-is-hans-von-spakovksy.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003413.php
[Paul Kiel] In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) last night, Bradley Schlozman wrote to "clarify" his testimony before the committee last night.

Grilled by a number of senators over his decision as U.S. attorney for Kansas City to bring four voter fraud indictments just days before last year's election, Schlozman repeatedly testifed that he'd brought the indictments "at the direction" (he used the phrase ten times) of the director of the Election Crimes Branch in the Public Integrity Section. That raised more than a few eyebrows on the panel since that director, Craig Donsanto, is the man who wrote the DoJ manual discouraging such investigations close to an election.

Schlozman's story had the effect of distancing himself from the controversial decision and pinning it on a Department veteran.

Now Schlozman is changing his story . . . [read on]

A little too cute: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/well_that_clari.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11101.html

Still dribbling out emails on the US Attorney purge. Here’s the pattern – someone resigns (or cuts a plea deal), THEN we get the emails finding out what they did

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/12/new-justice-dept/
[Nico] Justice Department documents released tonight include new emails linking Karl Rove’s top aides — former White House political director Sara Taylor, who resigned last month, and her deputy Scott Jennings — to the U.S. attorney scandal. Congressional subpoenas have been authorized, but not approved, for both Taylor and Jennings. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/12/AR2007061202090.html
Several high-ranking White House officials were closely involved in crafting a public response to the uproar over the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys, according to documents released late yesterday.

Then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and aides to presidential adviser Karl Rove were deeply enmeshed in debates over how to respond to the controversy . . .

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17360352.htm
The White House's former political director was furious at Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, according to documents released late Tuesday. . .

Rove, Rove, Rove: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/12/late-nite-fdl-i-normally-dont-like-attacking-our-friends/

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/new_emails_tayl.html

It’s what they do

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003414.php
[Laura McGann] Another proud moment in government brought to you by the Bush administration: the Department of Transportation has been accused of working as an auto lobby. . . .

Don’t miss it: Mary Matalin’s melodramatic, whiny appeal letter for the Scooter Libby defense fund

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/12/125857/321

Theocracy watch

http://www.slate.com/id/2168276
[Daniel Politi] The NYT fronts an interesting look at the history of two ships that lawmakers gave a faith-based organization through an earmark. The ships were supposed to be used for medical missions in the South Pacific, but Canvasback Missions, which does both secular and religious work, sold them and kept the money. Coast Guard officials and the lawmakers that inserted the earmark said they had no idea that the ships had been sold. Although Canvasback insists the money from the sales was used for secular purposes, the events raise questions about whether the federal government inadvertently ended up funding evangelism activities.

Quotes of the day

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2007/06/hitting_back_dept.php
[Barney Frank] The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsover. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics. . . .

[Harry Reid] [T]he one fact I’ve learned, I can’t get out of my mind, is that Rudy Giuliani has been married more times than Mitt Romney’s been hunting.

Bonus item: They LOVE Bush in Albania

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/world/europe/10cnd-prexy.html
[Sunday] His poll numbers may be in the tank at home, but when he zipped through this tiny, relentlessly pro-American nation today, President Bush was received like a rock star. . . . The superlatives flowed so freely that Mr. Bush looked a tad sheepish when Prime Minister Sali Berisha proclaimed him “the greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times.” . . .

Now we know why

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/06/albanians_swipe.html
[Holden] One moment President George W. Bush was glad-handing Albanians on Sunday, proudly sporting a watch with a dark strap on his left wrist. Moments later, it was gone. . . . [watch the video]

http://sideshow.me.uk/sjun07.htm#06122038
[Avedon Carol] They've already shown a clear clip of this happening, but of course, the White House is already lying about it. . . .

http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1241310.html
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush's watch was not stolen by someone in the crowd. "The president put it in his pocket and it returned safely home," Snow said Tuesday. . . . [Nope, not true]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011474.php
[Kevin Drum] Bruce Schneier has collected three different denials that Bush was robbed. Denial 1: At about the one minute mark Bush put his hands behind his back so a bodyguard could remove his watch. Denial 2: It fell off. Denial 3: Bush took it off himself. . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:08 AM

 
FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME

Republicans block vote on Gonzales no-confidence resolution

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/11/vote2/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Senate Democrats needed 60 votes to prevail on a cloture motion and bring the no-confidence resolution to the Senate floor. In the end, they got 53. Republicans voting with the Democrats: Specter, John Sununu, Gordon Smith, Norm Coleman, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Among the senators voting no: Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014582
]Josh Marshall] So senate Republicans 'blocked' a Gonzales no-confidence vote. Didn't we use to call this a filibuster?

Joe, you ass: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/joe_chooses_his.html
[Emptywheel] Between Joe Lieberman's calls to bomb Iran over the weekend, and his no vote on the no confidence resolution against Alberto Gonzales today, we have hit the final straws in Joe Lieberman's little dance with the dark side.

When a man cannot vote the no confidence that the entire Senate, save Orrin Hatch, implicitly shares, that says his interests lie with the party that is covering its ass rather than with the party with which he caucuses. It says his interests lie with protecting Karl Rove from the scrutiny a real AG would bring, over the rule of law.

And if Joe Lieberman won't vote with his former party on this vote, along with seven Republican Senators (Scottish Law Specter, Snowe, Collins, Hagel, Smith, Sununu, and Coleman), that says he won't vote with Democrats, ever, when it counts. If Norm Coleman--as much a flunkie of Karl Rove as anyone in the Senate--votes for the no confidence resolution, and Joe Lieberman does not, we have no further use for Joe Lieberman in our caucus.

What happened to . . . http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/11/125019/189
* Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS): "When you have to spend more time up here on Capitol Hill instead of running the Justice Department, maybe you ought to think about [stepping down]" (AP, 5/16/07)
* Senator John McCain (R-AZ): "I am very disappointed in [Alberto Gonzales'] performance . . . I think loyalty to the president should enter into his calculations. . . . I think that out of loyalty to the president that [resigning] would probably be the best thing that he could do." (Washington Post, 4/25/07) . . .
* Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK): "But to me, there has to be consequences to accepting responsibility. And I would just say, Mr. Attorney General, it's my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled. And it was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It's generous to say that there were misstatements. That's a generous statement. And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered. And I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation." (Judiciary Committee Hearing¸ 4/19/07) . . .
* Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL): "There are some problems that he just hasn't handled well, and it might just be best if he came to a conclusion that the department is better served if he's not there." (AP, 4/20/07) . . .
* Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC): But at the end of the day, you said something that struck me, 'That sometimes it just came down to these were not the right people at the right time.' If I applied that standard to you, what would you say? (Judiciary Committee Hearing¸ 4/19/07)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014585
[Josh Marshall] Not that it would have altered the final result. But one of the reasons for the relatively low vote tally in favor of the Gonzales no-confidence resolution was that presidential candidates Biden, Dodd and Obama didn't bother to show up.

Brownback and McCain didn't make it either. But then McCain seldom votes at all these days.

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/profiles_in_cou.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/11/20472/1712

Next?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/11/18297/2743
[McJoan] [L]ook at which Republican Senators voted aye: Coleman, Collins, Hagel, Smith, Specter, Snowe, Sununu. Ok, so five of them are clearly looking ahead to saving their political skins in November of '08, nonetheless, they should be applauded for putting their votes where their mouths have been in recent months.

However, this vote should be considered just the beginning, more than just a procedural vote to put some Republicans on the spot. It should be considered a critical step forward in building the case to remove Gonzales from office. Senators Schumer, Whitehouse and Reid laid out a clear and empassioned case for Gonzales's removal. It can't end here. We can't have another colossal Dem cave-in to match the Iraq supplemental.

If they are serious in having no confidence in Gonzales (and who couldn't be, outside of Bush?) then it's time to begin the process for the next step: impeachment.

Gonzales: fact versus fiction

http://democrats.senate.gov/journal/entry.cfm?id=276253&

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/washington/entries/2007/06/09/former_justice.html
[A] former senior Justice Department official says the attorney general ran the department like “a political arm of the White House.”

Daniel J. Metcalfe, the former director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information and Privacy, said he resigned in January because he could no longer tolerate the “sheer political expediency, avoidance of individual responsibility, defensive personal aggrandizement, irresponsible ‘consensus’ decisionmaking (and) disregard for longstanding practices and principles.”

And that was before the controversy erupted over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year. . . .

“I think the way in which the firings themselves were handled was abominable, the way in which the ensuing controversy was handled was abysmal, and the way in which Gonzales has handled himself is absolutely appalling,” Metcalfe said. “As a long-term Justice Department official, I am embarrassed and increasingly incensed that he is still in there.” . . .

It ain’t over

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014569
[Josh Marshall] Near as I can tell the DOJ and the White House are still refusing any comment on Karl Rove's alleged role in siccing the DOJ on former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL). . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/11/19366/8129

The Constitution wins, Bush loses

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/washington/11cndcnd-combatant.html
In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held as an enemy combatant.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, “even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”

“We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.” . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011469.php
[Kevin Drum] Will the Bush administration allow al-Marri a trial, or will they appeal this to the Supreme Court and risk an adverse ruling? In the past they've played every legal game in the book to avoid the possibility of a definitive decision, but time may be running out. Eventually the Supremes are going to rule on this, and this might be the time. Stay tuned.

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/11/important-court-ruling-on-habeas/

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/11/breaking-bush-administration-loses-major-terror-case/

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/06/al-marri-reactions-i-hidden-alternative.html

How’s it going?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4104
[LAT] Two U.S. generals gave poor marks Sunday to Iraqi security forces for a lack of readiness, assessments that bode ill for Iraq's ability to fend for itself as pressure builds in Washington to draw down American troops.

Though both military leaders said Iraqi soldiers had made progress in recent months, one said the Shiite-led Iraqi army lacked top-notch senior officers. Both described the national police force as riddled with corruption and sectarianism. One general told reporters that in his area of command, the situation was so dire that the U.S. military was looking to fill the void by arming Sunni Arabs linked to tribal sheiks and militant groups who were willing to work with Americans enforcing security. . . .

Speaking separately, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands a region encompassing four provinces south of Baghdad, said Sunday that about 10% of the territory had no Iraqi police whatsoever. "And in many areas where we do have police, we have corrupt police," said Lynch, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

As a result, the U.S. military is planning to establish "provisional police forces" that would arm men affiliated with Sunni tribal sheiks and militant groups who are willing to assist American forces, Lynch told journalists. He said that U.S. generals were trying to persuade the Iraqi government to support the plan, but that the American military was determined to pursue it, even without government backing. . . .

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4105
[WP] A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq's troubled Anbar province, is beginning to splinter, according to an Anbar tribal leader and a U.S. military official familiar with tribal politics.

In an interview in his Baghdad office, Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, 35, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, said that the Anbar Salvation Council would be dissolved because of growing internal dissatisfaction over its cooperation with U.S. soldiers . . .

Bush vows to keep the immigration issue alive, not realizing that like Social Security, each day of debate is poison to his party

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/world/europe/11cnd-prexy.html
As he heads home from an eight-day European swing to face a hostile Congress, President Bush . . . vowed to get his stalled immigration legislation passed, saying, “I’ll see you at the bill signing.” . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_10_archive.html#1757952712232347016
[Atrios] Awesome! Let's extend the immigration debate as long as possible. . .

The dumbest Senator? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/11/13148/4114

Quack!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/11/19366/8129
[Dan Froomkin] After the apparent collapse of the compromise immigration bill in the Senate last week, the political obituaries for the Bush presidency started rolling in.

President Bush himself isn't giving up quite yet -- he's headed to Capitol Hill tomorrow in a last-ditch attempt to revive the legislation. He'll be having lunch with Republican senators.

But it's not clear that he still has the ability to change anyone's mind -- even members of his own party. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/11/AR2007061101995.html
For the first time in five years, President Bush will attend the Senate Republicans' weekly policy lunch today as he pushes to revive his moribund overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.

But even before he set foot in the Capitol, several Republican senators issued a terse warning yesterday: Don't expect much. . . .

Besides, the GOP is furious with him over two decisions: to hang onto Gonzo, which is killing them, and NOT to pardon Libby. They aren’t in the mood to do him any favors at all

http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/422202,CST-EDT-novak11.article

Pardon Libby. . . . or else

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/set-scooter-free-or-country-gets-it-by.html
[Digby] Gosh, I'm not sure who these people are who will never --- never --- accept that Scooter merits punishment and so will profoundly criminalize and poison the country's political process with calls for retribution, but they sound like a bunch of lawless thugs. In fact, they sound like terrorists, what with their apparent willingness to take down innocent people in senseless acts of revenge and all. But no, apparently these aren't thugs and terrorists --- these are Republican politicians. Go figure.

This is one of my favorite right wing gambits: threatening to pitch such a sustained and over-the-top partisan tantrum that the whole country will regret not letting them have their way. For instance, this was the subtext of the Florida recount.

"You thought impeachment was bad... if Al Gore moves into Bush's house we will make his life --- and the country's --- so miserable they will rue the day he took the oath of office. We will never --- never --- accept that Gore won this election. Make it easy on yourselves, people. Do the smart thing. Let the Republicans have their way."

The media, of course, fed into this with all their hand wringing about how we needed to hurry up and decide because "god knows what will happen if we don't." Of course, we knew exactly what would happen: the right wing would have an epic fit that made the Clinton years look like utopia. I think for a lot of people it was a sense of relief that the Republicans would finally be appeased, (which is, of course, impossible.) Certainly, the punditocrisy sold that idea but instead of presenting it honestly, they wrote columns about how Bush was the right choice because he was a uniter not a divider, forgetting to mention that he and his cronies were the ones who created the divisions in the first place and threatened to deepen them if they didn't get their way. . .

The media enablers: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/11/perjury/index.html

http://sideshow.me.uk/sjun07.htm#06111432

Poor Dick

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/11/AR2007061100868.html
[Peter Baker] These must be lonely days in the White House for Vice President Cheney. So many of his favorite fellows are gone. He's taken to waxing nostalgic for his old friend, Donald H. Rumsfeld. And he even talked recently with his former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. . . .

After the indictment, Cheney invited Libby to his Christmas party in December, but he did not call Libby after his conviction in March. . . . "I just -- haven't had occasion to do that," Cheney told CBS's Bob Schieffer on April 15, although he saw the case as "a great tragedy" and described his former chief of staff as "one of the most dedicated public servants I've ever worked with." Nor did Cheney write a letter to the judge on Libby's behalf, even though Rumsfeld and scores of other Bush administration figures did.

Rest assured, though, the veep's office says they are still pals. A spokeswoman disclosed Friday that Cheney recently spoke with Libby, but that's as much as she would say about the matter. No word on whether it was before or after the sentencing. No word on whether the P-word came up during the conversation. (Which word? Oh, pardon me.) . . .

A story that still hasn’t received national scrutiny: the increased reliance on private companies for intelligence and military services – at a greater cost to the taxpayer and with far less accountability

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_06_10.php#014567

Unanswered questions about the forged Niger uranium document

http://tableforone.tpmcafe.com/blog/tableforone/2007/jun/11/forget_the_truth

Good!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/11/AR2007061102169.html
The U.S. special counsel has called on President Bush to discipline General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan "to the fullest extent" for violating the federal Hatch Act when she allegedly asked political appointees how they could "help our candidates" during a January meeting. . . In a June 8 letter to Bush, Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch accused Doan of "engaging in the most pernicious of political activity" . . .

Later, after the special counsel's office received a complaint about the episode and began investigating, Doan showed "a proclivity toward misrepresentation and obstructing an official investigation," Bloch told the president . . .

Atrios on the state of contemporary politics

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_06_10_archive.html#3825261109168476416
We do seem to operate in a world where there's something unseemly about intra-party political disagreement and we somehow lack the appropriate discourse for it. Mostly there seems to be an inability to acccept the fact that different candidates do have different priorities and different visions for the world and that their desired policies and expressed priorities would likely have different impacts on different segments of the population.

There's a tendency to see political differences as simple rankings ("my health plan is better than yours!") instead of seeing them as... genuine differences. And consequently disagreements tend to be painted as fights about who is more awesome rather than just disagreements . . .

We haven’t done nearly enough dumping on Mike Huckabee (R-AR) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), second-tier GOP presidential aspirants

Brownback: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11089.html
[LAT] Sen. Sam Brownback, campaigning for president before the National Catholic Men’s Conference, questioned whether rape victims should get abortions.

“Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that’s been raped?” the Kansas Republican asked at the St. Joseph’s Covenant Keepers gathering in Taylors.

Huckabee: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/huckster-by-digby-there-was-time-when.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/rash-devious-incapable-of-admitting.html

Theocracy watch

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11087.html
[Gallup] The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain. . . 30% believe in evolution, 68% do not . . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/back-to-dark-ages-by-digby-can-you.html

War? What war?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/11/133127/372
[ABC] Fox spent half as much time covering the Iraq war than MSNBC during the first three months of the year, and considerably less than CNN, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The difference was more stark during daytime news hours than in prime-time opinion shows. The Iraq war occupied 20 percent of CNN's daytime news hole and 18 percent of MSNBC's. On Fox, the war was talked about only 6 percent of the time.

[Kos] Remember, there is no more reliable constituency for Republicans than Fox News viewers (they went for Bush 88-7, more so than conservatives, gun owners, evangelicals, and war supporters).

And the network that caters to these deluded can't possibly show them what reality looks like.

Bonus item: For thee, but not for me

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11086.html
[Tom Schaller] So, when it comes to policy-making over at the so-called Justice Department, a Regent University law degree, like the one held by Monica “I may have crossed the line” Goodling and a battalion of other fundies, suffices. But when it comes to protecting the president’s backside, apparently a divine legal degree is no substitute for an East Coast elite Ivy School pedigree.

[Steve Benen] That’s true, but Tom might be understating the case a bit. Bush doesn’t just tap Regent grads to handle Justice Department policy; in the big picture, he’s hired Regent grads to represent the electorate. The Justice Department includes the lawyers for the nation. They’re protecting integrity of our laws and our system of justice, and acting in our interests.

In other words, when it comes to protecting us, Bush wants lawyers educated by TV preacher Pat Robertson. When it comes to protecting himself, Bush wants only the best.

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:30 AM

 
THE SMELL TEST

Everyone is debating whether Bush will or won’t pardon Scooter Libby. It’s a real dilemma for him. But Bill Kristol floated an idea on Fox News that I hadn’t heard before: keep the conviction and the fine, but commute the sentence. Neocons are very unhappy with this “compromise,” but if Kristol is floating it they’d probably be ready to accept it. Bush can say he supports the “rule of law,” and Scooter can still appeal the rest of it . . .

On the pardon: http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=879
[Steven C. Day] So, my first bet is that Bush will pardon Libby. My second bet is he’ll live to regret it.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11078.html
[Steve Benen] First, Bush has said repeatedly that he’d just love to talk about what transpired in this scandal, but darn it all, he just can’t. It’s an “ongoing legal matter.” If he pardons Libby, it officially wraps up the controversy. His one and only dodge would no longer work.

Second, a pardon would bring the scandal into the Oval Office (even more so). It would necessarily give the impression that Libby lied and obstructed justice in order to shield Bush and Cheney from their role in an even bigger crime. Even now, it’s frustratingly unclear why, exactly, Libby decided to lie so brazenly, which suggests that he’s covering up a more serious matter that might involve his only two WH bosses (the president and vice president). A pardon would exacerbate these suspicions.

On commuting the sentence: http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2007/06/commute_libbys_.html
[William J. Dyer] Assuming Libby is denied bail pending appeal, an immediate presidential commutation of Libby's 30-month prison sentence would leave Libby and his team free (literally, in the case of Libby himself) to continue challenging his conviction through the normal appellate processes. The fine, the two years of supervised release, and the other disabilities associated with a felony conviction would leave Libby with ample legal standing and practical motivation to continue to do so. If Libby's appeals are then successful, no further presidential action need be considered; and if they are not, either President Bush or his successor might then consider whether further relief, in the form of an outright pardon, would be appropriate.

David Broder dependably channels beltway conventional wisdom – whether it makes sense or not

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060802398.html
[Broder] Despite the absence of any underlying crime, Fitzgerald filed charges against Libby for denying to the FBI and the grand jury that he had discussed the Wilson case with reporters. Libby was convicted on the testimony of reporters from NBC, the New York Times and Time magazine -- a further provocation to conservatives.

I think they have a point. This whole controversy is a sideshow -- engineered partly by the publicity-seeking former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife and heightened by the hunger in parts of Washington to "get" Rove for something or other.

Like other special prosecutors before him, Fitzgerald got caught up in the excitement of the case and pursued Libby relentlessly, well beyond the time that was reasonable. . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/9/231659/4425
[Big Tent Democrat] Earth to David Broder. Obstruction of justice blocks the investigation of the underlying crime. Libby's perjury was part of obstructing Fitzgerald's investigation of the underlying crime. We will not know if there was an "underlying crime" (Broder's phrase for knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence officer in violation of the IIPA) BECAUSE of Libby's obstruction. . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/10/11953/1598
[Big Tent Democrat] David Broder would have done himself a favor if he had read the Washington Post reporter who actually covered the Scooter Libby trial, Carol Leonnig before he penned his embarrassing regurgitation of