JESUS CHRIST!

Aside from the usual Bolton, DeLay, Social Security and Iraq updates, a truly disturbing mix today of reports on the rising tide of theocracy and the wretched condition of the fourth estate – and some stories about both

ABC should be ashamed

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/05/religious-bigot-abc-breaks-own-rules.html
ABC refused to run a pro-diversity ad for the United Church of Christ. The reason ABC gave the UCC for denying their ad:

"The network doesn't take advertising from religious groups. It's a long-standing policy," said Susan Sewell, an ABC spokeswoman. . .

Now let's look at the latest article on ABC accepting the Focus on the Family ad:

The conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family plans to advertise its child-rearing Web site and toll-free number during the ABC reality show on Monday. . . The ad is the first national television spot purchased by the group and is part of an effort to bring its faith-based advice on parenting and relationships to younger families, said Jim Daly, the group's president and CEO. . .

Let's take a look at the Focus on the Family mission statement, shall we?

To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family.

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/05/05/abc/index.html

Kansas wants to revisit the Scopes trial

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/5/175846/9499
A six-day courtroom-style debate opened on Thursday in Kansas over what children should be taught in schools about the origin of life -- was it natural evolution or did God create the world?. . .

William Harris, a medical researcher and co-founder of a Kansas group called the Intelligent Design Network, posed the core question about life's beginnings before mapping out why he and other Christians want changes in school curriculum. . .

Harris acknowledged under questioning that there were many people who saw no incompatibility between religious beliefs that God created life and evolutionary teachings about how life evolved through natural processes.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/archives/005059.html
Bob Novak, on Crossfire:

Why don't we teach evolution and intelligent design and let students figure it out on their own?

The response from an unknown God-hating scientist: Fine. Why don't we teach students the South won the civil war and let them figure it out on their own? Why don't we teach students that the moon is made of green cheese and let the students figure it out on their own.

You won’t believe it

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/5/211218/4946
For those that thought that there has not been a full scale war lanched against liberals; for those who didn't take the radical right's promise to "eradicate liberals" seriously, I present to you, Exhibit A: East Waynesville Baptist Church has just kicked out all its Democratic members. . . Yes. You read that right. If you didn't vote for Bush, you had to "repent your sin". And finally, they figured why deal with the liberal sinners at all..

"One of the local women who got excommunicated said on TV that it was like a cult. Another man who got excommunicated said that the rest of the congregation stood up and applauded as the Democrats were told to leave."

Video: http://www.hoffmania.com/blog/2005/05/its_true.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_atrios_archive.html#111537269536303751
[Atrios] I'm sure the Justice Department will get on revoking their tax-exempt status any day now. . .

Meanwhile, over at NPR. . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200505050004
In a May 5 report about religious conservatives who believe that separation of church and state is inconsistent with the principles espoused by the country's founders, National Public Radio (NPR) religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty concluded by intoning: "While many Americans may travel a middle road, they are caught in the crossfire between those who believe that asserting Christian values is the greatest hope for America's future and those who see it as a threat." . . . Hagerty appeared to have learned nothing from her own report, on Morning Edition, which illustrated that many believe that a clear delineation between church and state is a Christian value. . .

At the 2003 Baptist Press National Student Journalism Conference, according to an October 13, 2003, Baptist Press article, Hagerty discussed with conference attendees the effect of her religious beliefs on reporting:

When you or I as Christ-followers go to work each day, we have to perform our jobs in a fundamentally different way from other people because our employer is Christ, and everything we do has to be run through the filter of this question: How does Jesus Christ view my performance? . . . I actually think that's what we're supposed to do as Christians. We're supposed to draw people, through the power of attraction, to Jesus Christ just as He drew people to Himself. . . Early in my career at National Public Radio, I decided that being true to my God had to be the nonnegotiable. If it meant losing my job, so be it. . . In the long run I had to think, is a story or even is a career. . . more valuable than my relationship with God and eternal treasure in heaven? And I think the answer is no, and the decisions we make count for eternity.

Can I get an AMEN, brother?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3063
[George Bush] And so we pray as a nation for three main reasons. We pray to give thanks for our freedom. Freedom is our birthright because the Creator wrote it into our common human nature. . . Today, we pray for the troops who are defending our freedom against determined enemies around the globe. We seek God's blessing for the families they have left behind, and we commit to Heaven's care those brave men and women he has called home. . . Finally, we pray to acknowledge our dependence on the Almighty. Prayerful people understand the limits of human strength. We recognize that our plans are not always God's plans. Yet, we know that a God who created us for freedom is not indifferent to injustice or cruelty or evil. So we ask that our hearts may be aligned with His, and that we may be given the strength to do what is right and help those in need. . .

More on the rising tide of Christian evangelicalism

http://www.pandagon.net/archives/2005/05/you_have_the_fr.html
The witch who sued to have a chance to recite the invocation at county meetings in Virginia lost her case in front of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. . .

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled a Virginia county can refuse to let a witch give the invocation at its meetings by limiting the privilege to clergy representing Judeo-Christian monotheism.

[NB: You’re from some non-Judeo-Christian religion? Outta luck, bud. How is this not a violation of the nonestablishment clause?]

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/spirituality_and_religion_/2005/05/all_religions_are_equal_.php
If a legislative body can Constitutionally insult all non-monotheists within its jurisdiction by restricting the list of clergy eligible to give invocations at its meetings to monotheists, why couldn't it also insult Unitarians, Jews, and Muslims by restricting that list to trinitarian Christians?

Massive corruption and incompetence in handling tons of unaccountable cash devoted to Iraq reconstruction. Here’s how bad it is: so bad that even the Bush administration says it has to be investigated

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050402256.html
Investigators have opened a criminal inquiry into millions of dollars missing in Iraq after auditors uncovered indications of fraud in nearly $100 million in reconstruction spending that could not be properly accounted for.

More: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3059

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/05/05/100_million/index.html

Army lies and destroys evidence about “friendly fire” death, but that’s okay with Tucker Carlson

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050301502.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200505050005
Amid reports that the Army withheld information and destroyed evidence related to the death in Afghanistan of former Army Ranger and Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman, MSNBC host-to-be Tucker Carlson said: "I doubt anybody holds it against the Pentagon for not releasing that."

One of the higher officers in Iraq is finally disciplined for allowing prisoner abuse and torture – the woman, of course

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010600.html

Well, well, well. The point man for the “National Coalition to End the Judicial Filibuster” (one of the groups pushing hard for the nuclear option) is Manny Miranda, the former aide to Bill Frist who had to resign over the computer hacking into thousands of Democratic documents. I’m so glad to see that he’s landed on his feet and put his career back together again. And how convenient that the guy he’s dealing with on ending the filibuster is his former boss

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/5/141233/7830

Showdown coming over Bolton nomination: I know you will find this difficult to believe, but the WH is withholding information the committee has requested

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002004.html
A major showdown seems to be looming in the Senate Foreign Relations committee, as the clock ticks to the scheduled May 12 vote on Bolton's nomination. In short, the committee has still not yet received several key pieces of information from the State Department and the NSA, Sen. Lugar has suggested to Secretary Rice that certain pieces of information that would purportedly document Bolton's alleged exaggeration of Syria WMD intelligence are not priorities, and now Lugar, as well as Senate Select Intelligence committee leadership, are also getting snookered by the White House on the NSA intercepts. Steve Clemons has all the gory details. Meantime, Biden is now suggesting that if Lugar doesn't come through on his commitments to secure the material needed for a complete committee investigation by the time allowed, then he may not be held to his commitment to deliver the Democrats for a vote. Are there more shoes to drop? This is a regular centipede.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000579.html
There is real chaos about these [NSA] intercepts at this point. If the Committee Members and staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee do not get them by Friday, watch out. . . All deals will be off.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000583.html
We now have full-fledged, genuine administration resistance to requests made by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- grounds for a lot of fireworks TWN thinks. And this resistance isn't just to Biden requests, the administration is now also defying Richard Lugar -- AND LUGAR WAS TRYING TO BE NICE TO THEM.

TWN has learned the Deputy Director of National Intelligence and former NSA Chief Michael Hayden does not plan on briefing Senators Rockefeller and Roberts until Monday on the NSA intercepts and related information requested by John Bolton. . . No documents. . .No details. . .No names. . .No intercepts. . .No Bolton confirmation?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000575.html
Senator Richard Lugar's intervention in the efforts by Biden's team to request information from the administration on John Bolton's activities has had a chilling effect on the investigation. The impact on the collegiality and good will between the staffs on both sides of the Committee has been seriously wounded. . . TWN has also learned that there is tension brewing between the Majority Staff (the Republicans) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the personal staff members of the Republican Senators on the Committee. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/05/un.ambassador/index.html
Senate Democrats warned Thursday they might delay a vote on President Bush's pick for U.N. ambassador a second time unless the State Department turns over documents requested by the Foreign Relations Committee.

Pulling the Franklin thread: what more will unravel?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002000.html
I've expressed doubt here that this FBI investigation that led to charges against Larry Franklin yesterday has much if anything to do with espionage for Israel. I think it has more to do with the Washington politics and turf war of formulating Iran policy. . . [W]hat was Franklin doing with all those classified documents in his home? It is truly mysterious. One, two, three, you have a Sandy Berger situation, perhaps. But 83? Spanning intelligence collected over thirty years? That goes beyond systematic to highly suspicious. . . In the end, as my colleague Jason Vest and I wrote back in November, the Franklin affair may turn out to be a story about the intense bureaucratic struggle inside and outside the Bush administration over Iran policy. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/05/index.html#006356
[T]he interesting part of the story is that Franklin got involved in these conversations because he was apparently trying to enlist AIPAC (and possibly the Israeli government) in bolstering his side of an intra-administration fight over Iran policy. . .

Background: http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/05/follow-bouncing-ballone-of-kossacks.html
1970 - An FBI wiretap authorized for the Israeli Embassy picked up Richard Perle, then a Senator's staffer and working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, discussing with an Embassy official classified information. . . [read on!]

Labor wins, Blair loses

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/05/slow-sad-political-extinction-of-tony.html
"The slow, sad political extinction of Tony Blair"

http://slate.msn.com/id/2118210/fr/rss/
Though it's a historic third straight win for the party, Labor won only 37 percent of the vote, which the Post calls the "lowest share of the national vote of any ruling party in British history.". . . The consensus on the island now seems to be that Blair won't serve out his full term and will hand over the reins to his heir apparent, Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer (aka the money man). "This is the end of the Blair era," one prof told the NYT.

Here is the blockbuster memo that shows Blair and Bush lied to set up the Iraq war: a story still barely mentioned in the U.S. media

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

Analysis: http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/05/06/bush_blair_iraq/index.html
Are Americans so jaded about the deceptions perpetrated by our own government to lead us into war in Iraq that we are no longer interested in fresh and damning evidence of those lies? Or are the editors and producers who oversee the American news industry simply too timid to report that proof on the evening broadcasts and front pages?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006265.php
Look, I know this isn't going to change anything at this point. We've already spent months on the issue of intelligence manipulation and nobody really seems to care all that much. But it would still be nice for the American media to report this stuff just for the record.

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/05/05/ana05013.html
Here it is. The smoking gun. The memo that has "IMPEACH HIM" written all over it. . .

http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/secret-british-memo-shows-bush.html

Boo-effin’-hoo

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006260.php
[WP] Tom DeLay sneaks around the Capitol like a fugitive these days, using back doors and basement passages to avoid television cameras. He skips meetings where reporters might get a chance to film his answers to their questions. He makes unscheduled appearances so he won't attract a media mob and disrupt colleagues' events.

. . . Yesterday's installment of the chase began at 9 a.m., at the weekly meeting of the GOP House caucus. Last week, DeLay tried to thwart reporters by using the back door, but this backfired and he found himself cornered by cameras in the bowels of the Capitol, calling for security. Now, reporters suspect, he has aides figure out which entrance has the fewest cameras.

More: http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/05/glimpse_into_ho.html

DeLay comes out AGAINST Bush Social Security plan (no, really!)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3066
[FT] As President George W. Bush returned the focus to personal investment accounts on Wednesday, Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, said he did not consider them an essential part of a Social Security reform package. . . Mr DeLay also reacted cautiously to progressive indexing, the idea Mr Bush endorsed last week that would reduce future benefits for middle- and upper-income workers while preserving them for the poor. . . “It has no relevance as a stand-alone solution,” Mr DeLay said.

Abramoff/White House link

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/abramoff_florida_recount_bush_505.htm

John Gibson utters a stunning and revealing line

http://mediamatters.org/items/200505050006
MEHLMAN: These are important issues. The American people want to see us solve problems. The president is looking forward and hopes to work with Democrats to solve these important problems.

GIBSON: Okay, but Ken, look, you're forcing me into the position of being a Democrat here -- which is an uncomfortable shoe for me to wear, but I'll do it for the moment. [Laughter] I mean, DeLay either did something wrong, or he didn't. I mean, some Republicans are even upset at Tom DeLay's behavior.

[NB: Get it? To ask a skeptical question, to point out an obvious contradiction or misrepresentation in what a Republican says, is to take a “Democrat” position – it isn’t just what any good journalist should be doing]

Once again, using the SSA to spread Bush propaganda

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/05/index.html#006363
Last night I was looking over my annual Social Security Statement. . . I turned to the front page of the statement where I was greeted with this information in the annual section entitled "About Social Security's future...":

Unless action is taken soon to strengthen Social Security, in just 14 years we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in taxes. Without changes, by 2042 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted. . .

The statement was signed by Jo Anne B. Barhhart, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and was quite a bit more alarmist than similar sections in previous years. I went back through my files for comparison. Here's the year 2000 assessment of the situation:

Will Social Security be there when you need it? Of course it will. . .

How the GOP wants to turn “Social Security reform” into “tax reform”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/05/index.html#006369

A simple question: will it ever get answered?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3071
[Helen Thomas!] Q Has the President's campaign on selling a new Social Security approach ended now, basically in travel? How many states did he visit and how much of the taxpayers' money did he use to sell?

MR. McCLELLAN: A couple of things. First of all, I think we've visited some 25 states up to now. The 60-day push on educating the American people about the problems facing Social Security has ended.

[snip]

Q How much money did the President spend --

MR. McCLELLAN: The President will continue going out across the country reaching out to the American people. I don't have a figure on that right now, Helen.

Q Can you get it?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'll see what I can do.

(I don’t think Scotty is very happy with Helen)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3067
Press Secretary McClellan called Iraqi insurgents a determined enemy who wants to derail freedom. Coalition forces, continued McClellan, will continue with their reconstruction efforts in Iraq, while training and equipping Iraqi forces to secure their own country. Helen Thomas then asked McClellan, "Is everyone a terrorist who fights for their country?" McClellan then motioned to another reporter and stated, 'Next question."

Correction: the letter castigating Laura Bush for her unwifely humor at the expense of her husband George’s “manliness,” mentioned here, turns out to have been a spoof

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_atrios_archive.html#111529459042834412

***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.***

CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS

Douglas Feith’s colleague Larry Franklin finally gets busted. This is a potentially very big event that should have happened a long time ago (search the PBD archives for background stories on Franklin and Feith). If he plea bargains and testifies, he could bring a lot of people down with him

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001998.html

http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/franklin-arrested-pentagon-official.html

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/05/politics/05spy.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050400922.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-aipac5may05,1,2737934.story

Feith gets a New Yorker profile

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000837.html
I don't think the rationale for the war hinged on the existence of stockpiles. - Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, The New Yorker, 5/9/05

VERSUS

I'd like to spend a moment, if I can, stressing in particular the crucial task of eliminating weapons of mass destruction. We have begun detailed planning for this task, which includes securing, assessing and dismantling Iraq's WMD capabilities, its facilities and stockpiles. This will be a huge undertaking. - Feith, Senate Testimony, 2/11/03

No wonder Gen. Tommy Franks called Feith "the dumbest (expletive deleted) guy on the planet."

“Turning the corner” in Iraq

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/05/spinning-into-butter-lets-let-words-of.html

July 24, 2003. . .

August 13, 2003. . .

January 1, 2004. . .

June 2, 2004. . .

September 14, 2004. . .

February 9, 2005. . .

April 15, 2005. . .

The thing about constantly turning corners? You end up going in circles.

How is Britain different from the US? When the leader of the nation there lies to take the country into an illegal war, the press actually tells people about it, and the people hold him accountable: Blair may leave office even if Labor wins

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

http://dailykos.com/story/2005/5/4/184723/9439

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/04/blair_iraq/index.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_05_01.php#005625

Bill Frist, still making threats

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/050405/frist.html
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) chief of staff has told conservative activist leaders and business-community representatives that Frist will soon trigger the so-called “nuclear option” to end threatened Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees this month. . . But social conservatives are anticipating from conversations with Frist’s staff that the controversial move will take place next week and are predicting a conservative backlash if Senate Republicans delay any longer.

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/05/04/frist/index.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/05/index.html#006349

[NB: One thing that is eminently clear is that Frist, a relative newcomer to the Senate, couldn’t care less about the institution and its traditions. He was hand-picked by the Bush gang and elevated far beyond his abilities and accomplishments to be Majority leader in the first place; now he is happy to serve as their instrument in ramming through their court nominees – thinking, apparently, that this will earn him their support when he runs for President in 2008. If he leaves behind a Senate discredited and wracked by bitter partisanship, eh, small price to pay.]

Five GOP senators who should know better

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/05/index.html#006350

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.22451,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
Dick Lugar of Indiana, Ted Stevens of Alaska, John Warner of Virginia, Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Pete Domenici of New Mexico.

Janice Rogers Brown: the gift that keeps on giving

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/05/the_fortas_fili_2.html

The theft of the 2004 election: longtime readers of PBD know that I am slightly obsessed by this topic (and with good reason). But like many, I am disturbed almost as much by the fact that the media coverage from day one has trivialized and dismissed even the possibility that something like this could happen. Yet the evidence that something went terribly wrong in Ohio and elsewhere is clear and overwhelming. Apparently the thought that an Administration could be so cynical and power-obsessed as to undermine the very fabric of democracy in order to hold onto power is so unthinkable to some people that it can’t even be considered. Well, watch how these guys work, here and abroad, and tell me it’s so unthinkable. A great overview (thanks to Brad DeLong for the link)

http://commonwonders.com/archives/col290.htm

Will the Foreign Relations committee crack the Bolton story?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000573.html
Lugar has written a letter today to Condi Rice praising the State Department for complying with various materials and information requests from Senator Biden. He then indicates that given the limited time, State should comply with just four of the nine information requests that the Minority on the Foreign Relations Committee has made.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000571.html
There are some Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who have stated that they will NOT vote to confirm John Bolton until a full investigation of his pattern of activities and views are known.

The new defense from Bolton’s supporters: “nothing new” has been uncovered. Talk about shifting rationales -- the original line of defense was that these were “unsubstantiated accusations.” Now that they have been copiously substantiated, the reaction is “eh, old news.” Well, new developments are still ahead. . .

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000572.html
If swiping memos from Colin Powell's briefing materials, sabotaging Jack Pritchard and Armitage on North Korea policy, keeping Rice and Powell in the dark on fundamental policy issues, being stricken from the Libya negotiating team -- and Iran team -- at the request of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and harassing intelligence analysts like Christian Westermann and Rexon Ryu is collectively not enough. . . Well. . . wait for the NSA intercepts before making your mind up. . .and wait until we have more information on Mr. Matt Freedman.

More: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000574.html

A Bolton-Plame link?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000569.html

Two members of the House Ethics committee recuse themselves from any inquiry involving Tom DeLay. This is intriguing, since it suggests that an investigation might actually be forthcoming. It also shows that the Republicans think they’re vulnerable on the sleaze issue

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/05/politics/05ethics.html

Congress finally gets around to making phony govt “news videos” illegal

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050503/pl_nm/congress_videonews_dc_1&printer=1
"It is simply not right for administration departments and agencies to try to snooker the American people, producing propaganda and passing it off as legitimate news," the West Virginia lawmaker [Byrd] said in a statement.

In the Fox News universe, terrorist captures in Pakistan make the stock market go up

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/05/04/fox_news_despicable_bushbased_reality.php#more#more

Bonus item: Texas House, working to keep our nation clean and pure

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/05/national/05cheer.html
Texas, the home of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, the National Cheerleaders Association and the Herkie jump (more on that later), may have put modern cheerleading on the map. But the Texas House of Representatives, concerned that high school cheerleading is becoming too raunchy, has approved a bill that would allow state education officials to prohibit "overtly sexually suggestive" cheering and drill team routines.

***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.***

VERDICTS

Kent State: thirty-five years ago today

http://alancanfora.com/

http://www.spectacle.org/595/kent.html
ALISON KRAUSE
JEFFREY MILLER
SANDRA SCHEUER
WILLIAM SCHROEDER

Write it down clearly: part of the Bush legacy will always be the fact that he and his gang openly tolerated (and tacitly encouraged) torture as a U.S. policy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050201264.html
[Eugene Robinson] Twenty years from now, how will we remember this "global war on terrorism''? Assuming it's over by then -- assuming we haven't escalated a fight against al Qaeda into an all-out clash of civilizations -- will we look back on the GWOT, as Washington bureaucrats call it, and feel pride in the nation's resolve and sacrifice? Or will history's verdict be tempered by shame?

More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/05/torture_is_a_sign_of_incompetence.html

More verdicts

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/03/iraq.poll/index.html
Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they did not believe it was worth going to war, versus 41 percent who said it was, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. . .

Their dirty little war

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/05/03/dirty_war/index.html
"The template for Iraq today is not Vietnam, to which it has often been compared, but El Salvador. . . “

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_atrios_archive.html#111520067131944377
[Atrios] Presumably part of the reason for having 130,000 odd troops in Iraq is to maintain security. For whatever reason, we're failing to do that. I don't know what the solution is - more troops, less troops, a greater willingness to accept US military casualties, etc... But, we've turned every corner that there is to be turned and the light still isn't at the end of that damn tunnel. At every artificial moving goalpost we were supposed to engage in the Tinkerbell Gambit and clap louder in hopes that things would improve, but they don't.

In an administration where loyalty is always rewarded, another member of the Office of Special Plans is promoted – that nebulous, half-secret center of lies and intelligence manipulation under Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz that did so much to advance the war and to try to manipulate the political outcome in Iraq (aka Chalabi’s boys). Here is one of the big stories that the mainstream media just never took much interest in, even though the basic facts and the importance of this shadow unit were widely known. It’ll make a great book some day: a cabal of kooks and zealots in the DoD who developed and pursued an independent foreign policy (and, yes, in case you’re wondering, John Bolton over at the State Dept often conspired with them)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001992.html

Some background on OSP:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/12/163445/117

http://www.answers.com/topic/office-of-special-plans

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold11.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0807-02.htm

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8725

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/govt/osp.php

Speaking of loyalty, Bush is apparently “stunned” that the Senate hasn’t just rolled over and approved Bolton for the U.N. This will be an interesting test of how he balances loyalty to one of his most ferocious footsoldiers with a concession that politically this has become a big loser for him

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000563.html

A consensus seems to be emerging on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Bolton just isn’t the kind of guy you send to the U.N. The big remaining question is will the GOP change the rules (again) and send his nomination to the full Senate anyway?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001995.html

Transcripts from committee interviews are leaking out: and the picture of Bolton that is emerging is bad and getting worse

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000565.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000566.html

Frist is 0 for 2: he doesn’t have the votes to pass the nuclear option, and he hasn’t gained any favor from the Religious Right despite all his pandering and bluster. Like his boss, he has carved out an extreme and unpopular position and is trapped in either following through on his threats, which people will hate, or backing down, which will lose him the support of the groups he’s been currying favor with

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/05/index.html#006325
"I don't think Frist has the votes," a GOP aide said. "He's now in his own corner. If he doesn't have the votes, he's really screwed."

Janice Rogers Brown: an embarrassment to the bench

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2005/05/janice_brown_vs_the_enlightenment.php

Another one of the filibustered judges has ties to the Swift Boats Vets (the donations came under his wife’s name, which is a standard way of cutting out a personal link – but either way, judges and their families should be above the appearance of partisanship)

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/3/165833/5890

Once again, when it suits them, Republicans say, “hey, the courts have ruled, game over” (while of course at other times. . . )

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/3/201338/7509

Juan Cole on bigotry in politics

http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/is-bigotry-all-right-in-politics-john.html

How the GOP does budgets: first pass a dishonest budget. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006209.php
The House and Senate broke a lengthy impasse over federal spending Thursday night, narrowly adopting a $2.56 trillion federal budget for 2006 that aims to trim the growth of Medicaid by $10 billion over five years, add $106 billion in tax cuts and clear the way for oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge.

[Kevin Drum] Attaboy! Reduce the deficit $10 billion by cutting back on healthcare for the poor, and then turn around and increase the deficit $106 billion by approving additional tax cuts for the rich. . .

. . . THEN pass an additional $82 billion in “emergency” spending for the war (I don’t think the war counts any more as an unpredictable surprise, does it?)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spend4may04,1,4629302.story

I know Mississippi is 47th or 48th in the education rankings, but they’re too smart for this

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3041
[Bush] You pay into the system -- some people say, well, there's a Social Security trust, we'll just take your money and hold it for you and give it back to you when you retire. That's not the way the system works. Part of my responsibility as your President is to tell you exactly what's going on, to lay it right out there for you to hear. The way it works in Social Security is your payroll taxes -- and you pay a lot of payroll taxes -- go into the system, and we're paying for retirees, like two of the people sitting up here today. And if we have any money left over, it goes to fund government programs. And all that's left is an IOU. That's how the system works. And so you're paying in, and it's going out. Nobody is -- you're not paying in and we're holding the money for you. You're paying in and it's going out. . .

You know, you hear all this talk about benefit cuts; we're talking about making sure benefits grow at the rate of inflation -- that's what we're talking about. You've been promised something; it ought to grow at the rate of inflation. Today, if you're an upper-income worker, it grows at the rate of wage growth. What I'm telling people is, is that ought to be applying for younger -- lower-income workers, but not all workers, so that the system can take care of those at the lower income scale. That makes sense to me.

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3042
[Bush] This is part of a retirement plan, and so you'll be given the options to choose a conservative mix of bonds and stocks. If you don't want to take any risks, you can put it in government-backed Treasury bills. But a government-backed Treasury bill gets a greater rate of return than the money that we've got in the federal government. In other words, this is a chance to earn more -- watch your money grow in a better way through a conservative mix of bonds and stocks.

The facts: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000820.html

How dumb does he think we all are?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush4may04,1,1999791.story
"The current system today, by the way, doesn't say that…. I think Franklin Roosevelt would be proud to make sure of this: If you work your entire life and pay into Social Security, you should not retire into poverty," Bush said.

[NB: Uh, didn’t he just get finished saying we don’t “pay into” anything? And FDR specifically said he DIDN’T want Social Security to become a welfare program]

Oops! Trent Lott goes off-message

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3043
Sen. Trent Lott. . . says this about the Chimpster's proposed "progressive indexing":

“I'm not overjoyed about that because I think it does begin to move it toward a welfare system.''

Ahhh, our plans are going perfectly. . . PERFECTLY

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3038
Q Trent, some Republican senators have expressed reservations openly in the last few days about the indexing plan that Bush announced on Thursday. . . Given the narrow divide in the Senate, how can you push it through if you don't even have full support of all the Republicans in the Senate?

MR. DUFFY: Well, the Senate Finance Committee is just getting started. And the President proposed his plan, which he believes is the best way to go about protecting lowest-income workers, and making sure that we are dealing with the solvency in Social Security. But he welcomes the discussion. It's the exact kind of reaction that the President sought to spark when he provided his proposal.

Two schoolteachers were not only excluded from a Bush “meet the people” rally -- they were detained and strip-searched

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#111515015990439256

No words are accidents: Cheney refers to the Dems as people of another faith

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3033

Bonus item: “Christian Reconstruction” – a phrase I fear we will be hearing a lot more often in months to come

http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/05/gods-willinteresting-piece-from.html

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THE APPEARANCE OF COMPETENCE

One of the interesting things to follow in the press coverage of the Bush years is how they started by reporting that (in contrast with the Clinton White House), whatever you think of the Bush Co. policies, at least they were running a tighter ship managerially. This reputation for gravitas and competence (centered strongly in their characterizations of Cheney) was very reassuring to people after 9-11, especially in the realm of foreign policy “maturity.” But now it can hardly be denied that their approach to foreign policy has produced failures upon failures – and the more we learn about people like John Bolton, a key actor (and people like Doug Feith, who have always flown under the press’s radar) the more we see them for the stubborn, ill-informed doctrinaires they are. They have a simpleminded view of the world that drives their choices, and their responses to failure have typically been “do more of the same”

We knew this already, but it’s nice to see the proof: Bush and Blair decided to go to war very early on, THEN manipulated circumstances to make it inevitable (so much for the notion of war as a “last resort”)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/05/blair-and-bush-decided-to-invade-iraq.html

A sharp upturn in Iraq violence reminds everyone that guerilla insurgencies are almost impossible to defeat militarily (if only people in the Bush WH bothered to read history). And by the way, in case you’re counting: over 1500 US troops are dead, over 30,000 wounded, crippled, and/or psychologically traumatized

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/30/142246/550

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=c35f3f6969ead0dc
Ten U.S. troops are dead as a result of bombing attacks from Thursday night through to Saturday. . . At least 50 Iraqis, mostly police and Iraqi soldiers have also died as a wave of bombings have swept the war-torn country.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_atrios_archive.html#111502296378897190
[Bob Herbert] The officer's comment was a harbinger of the gratuitous violence that, according to Mr. Delgado, is routinely inflicted by American soldiers on ordinary Iraqis. He said: "Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads.". . . Mr. Delgado said he had witnessed incidents in which an Army sergeant lashed a group of children with a steel Humvee antenna, and a Marine corporal planted a vicious kick in the chest of a kid about 6 years old. There were many occasions, he said, when soldiers or marines would yell and curse and point their guns at Iraqis who had done nothing wrong.

This is what happens when you put old Reagan-era architects of Latin American policies (John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams, Otto Reich) in charge of your foreign policy

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1333
Remember the controversy when Newsweek wrote in January that the U.S. was thinking about supporting a "Salvador option" in Iraq? Remember a month later, when the Wall Street Journal wrote about "pop-up militias" there, which I promptly surmised might be the "Salvador option" put into motion?. . . Well, today Peter Maass has a massive report in the New York Times Magazine that essentially confirms this. Here's his account of visiting the head of the Special Police Commandos death squad militia. . .

Bush and his gang continue to give tacit approval to torture and rendition policies (while also denying that we would EVER do such a thing)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3012&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Thursday, April 28, 2005:

Q Mr. President, under the law, how would you justify the practice of renditioning, where U.S. agents who brought terror suspects abroad, taking them to a third country for interrogation? And would you stand for it if foreign agents did that to an American here?

THE PRESIDENT: That's a hypothetical, Mark. We operate within the law and we send people to countries where they say they're not going to torture the people.

Sunday, May 1, 2005:

Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors. . . The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights.". . . Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.

More (and more and more): http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/bush-still-having-prisoners-tortured.html

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/4433066/detail.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/national/nationalspecial3/01gitmo.html

Could this be true? Rumsfeld offered to free Saddam if he would help suppress the insurgency?!

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010553.html
US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld paid a secret visit to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and offered him freedom and possible return to public life if he made a televised request to armed groups for a ceasefire with allied forces, a media report said. . . Saddam promptly rejected the offer, Ynetnews reported quoting a London based Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily.

Well, at least their “get-tough” policies have worked with rogue nations like Iran and North Korea, right? Uh. . . right?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/international/asia/01cnd-korea.html
North Korea apparently launched a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan today, a move likely to raise tensions on the eve of a United Nations conference on nuclear nonproliferation. . . Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, warned Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea had the ability to mount a nuclear-tipped missile on a long-range missile able to strike American territory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/international/middleeast/01nuke.html
Just 48 hours before representatives of 189 nations meet at the United Nations to review the flaws in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran threatened Saturday to resume producing nuclear fuel, and North Korea dismissed President Bush as a "philistine whom we can never deal with."

More: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3014&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000550.html

US military redacts report on the shooting of the Italian journalist and her car: but forgets that pdf text can be easily recovered

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006221.php

More damaging news today on Bolton’s shenanigans. Would any administration less committed to its own infallibility have left him hanging out there this long? But one good thing about these stories is that they reveal how duplicitous and brutal the internal power struggles over Bush foreign policy have been. Fun!

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000545.html
Eventually, Colin L. Powell, secretary of State at the time, ordered his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, to keep tabs on Bolton and prevent him from alienating allies, three current and former State Department officials said. One of the officials said that he was specifically assigned to "mind" Bolton and report back if the undersecretary's activities were creating problems.

"John was a super-frustrated guy, pinioned at the wrists by Rich [Armitage], held down and clubbed regularly by his own people, and generally nullified by the secretary's skills at thwarting him," said one of the former senior officials, a lifelong Republican who said he "despised" Bolton.

Foreign diplomats who have made no secret of their dislike for Bolton said they were told by other State Department officials that they should not assume that Bolton's hard-line pronouncements on issues such as North Korea or Iran represented administration policy.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001981.html
It all goes to something one sees again and again with Bolton, and his supporters. Their sense that he and they are representing the real Bush administration foreign policy to places like Iran and North Korea, while everyone else at State was working against the President's policies. But that's not how it works in an administration that has a strong sense of what the President's policies are to places like Iran and North Korea. Bolton's supporters, some of them anyhow, want Bolton to represent the real Bush foreign policy to Iran and North Korea, one that is uncompromising, that refuses to negotiate with dictators, that sees the real solution to those countries' nuclear programs as being changing those countries' leaders. Advocating that inside and outside the bureaucracy is one thing; simply conducting one's own foreign policy as if it were the President's policy is another -- as Bolton apparently was in the habit of doing.

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3010
A. Elizabeth Jones, is a veteran diplomat who stepped down in February as assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia. . . "I don't know if he's incapable of negotiation, but he's unwilling," Ms. Jones said in an interview. She said she believed that "the fundamental problem," if Mr. Bolton were to become United Nations ambassador, would be a reluctance on his part to make the kinds of minor, symbolic concessions necessary to build consensus among other governments and maintain the American position.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000549.html
[Newsweek] Bolton's request for 10 intercepts with U.S. names has set off a D.C. guessing game: Did he want info to undermine bureaucratic rivals like Korea expert Jack Pritchard, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage or even Colin Powell? Was he trying to check up on U.S. representatives to nuclear talks between Iran and European governments?

Hoping to find out what two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said to Iran's U.N. ambassador? Wondering what the NSA had on an unnamed U.S. journalist? The NSA indicates it will this week deliver documentation on Bolton's requests to the Senate intelligence committee, which then will have to figure out how to publicize contents without leaking sensitive intel. Bolton supporters say his requests will prove to be legit.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001982.html
There is much worth contemplating in Sonni Efron's LAT review today of John Bolton's being dropped behind enemy lines in the State Department: that Bolton proved himself so untrustworthy that Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage appointed a full time minder to watch him and required that all his speeches be vetted; that foreign officials had to be told to not accept that Bolton's pronouncements represented Bush administration policy towards Iran and North Korea; that Condoleezza Rice has personally called Senate Republicans to say Bolton would be carefully "scripted" at the UN and that if "he goes off the reservation, he's out"; that one key reason Bolton got the UN nomination is because Rice wouldn't accept Bolton as her deputy secretary but thought she could manage him in a position less to do with policy than following instructions; and this:

Some U.S. officials complained that Bolton's undiplomatic style sometimes backfired, harming U.S. interests. . .

Meanwhile, back on the home front, the Bush approach and rationale on Social Security are becoming so scattered and inconsistent that his supporters are reduced to babbling nonsense

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_atrios_archive.html#111496955775549061
[George Allen R-VA] “And moreover, in the event that a personal savings account approach is taken, allowing them to invest in a home in addition to right now it's stocks, bonds and other financial instruments, if people can invest in their own home, they'll know it. They'll understand it. They'll take care of it. And they'll enjoy it and they don't have to worry about mergers and acquisitions and scandals and market share. And by the time they retire, they're going to have a pretty good nest egg there and they don't need as big a house, usually, because they don't want to be cutting grass and trimming hedges, and that is good for the economy as well.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/politics/01social.html
"I know some rich people, and if you ask them whether they would rather have a tax increase or their benefits cut, they'll immediately say, 'Cut the benefits,' " said Representative Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

[NB: “I know some rich people.” I’ll bet you do, Chairman Thomas]

Turning Social Security from a broad-based social insurance program into a welfare program: and why? Certainly not because George Bush has suddenly become a redistributionist. It’s because then down the road it will be easier to cut it

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/opinion/02krugman.html
[Paul Krugman] By now, every journalist should know that you have to carefully check out any scheme coming from the White House. You can't just accept the administration's version of what it's doing. Remember, these are the people who named a big giveaway to logging interests "Healthy Forests.". . . Sure enough, a close look at President Bush's proposal for "progressive price indexing" of Social Security puts the lie to claims that it's a plan to increase benefits for the poor and cut them for the wealthy. In fact, it's a plan to slash middle-class benefits; the wealthy would barely feel a thing.

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/05/universalism_an_1.html
Steven Bainbridge, a conservative blogger. . . suspects hopefully that maybe, maybe it's just possible that Bush's proposal to convert Social Security into a welfare program might actually have less to do with saving it that with undermining its long-term political support

GOP plays the race card on judicial nominations (because, you know, racial diversity in the judiciary is such a high priority for them)

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/1/225323/5346

Ashcroft cashes in

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/11540159.htm
John Ashcroft plans to use his expertise as the nation's former top cop and his political connections as Missouri's former U.S. senator in a business venture that will offer a mix of lobbying savvy and law-enforcement know-how. . . The firm will aim to help "big companies with big problems," Glover Weiss said. That means they will help businesses do everything from push legislative wish lists on Capitol Hill to navigate the new post-Enron laws governing corporate malfeasance. . . "Ashcroft and Ayres have overseen a $20 billion law enforcement entity and they've led teams that have set new precedents in ... the drug enforcement area, terrorism protection and a new corporate governance regime," she said. "The model with the Ashcroft team will be to advise corporate officers or board members on how to address company difficulties with integrity and wisdom."

Remember when the tv networks refused to run an ad from the United Church of Christ they said was “too controversial” (one that said to gays and minorities, "No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here”)? Well, guess what happens when the far-right Family Research Council wants to run one?

http://maxblumenthal.blogspot.com/2005/05/abc-to-run-focus-on-family-ads-during.html

Background: http://mediamatters.org/items/200412010005

http://crookedtimber.org/2004/12/08/national-council-of-churches-statement-on-ucc-ad/

Republican head of PBS plans to whip it into shape

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/arts/television/02public.html
Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."

In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. . . And while a search firm has been retained to find a successor for Kathleen A. Cox, the corporation's president and chief executive, whose contract was not renewed last month, Mr. Tomlinson has made clear to the board that his choice is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who is now an assistant secretary of state.

Mr. Tomlinson said that he was striving for balance and had no desire to impose a political point of view on programming. . .

In California, the Governator, whose supporters were prepared to rewrite the Constitution so that he could run for President, comes crashing down to reality (gee, when a state’s problems get bad, you can’t send the script to Rewrite)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/national/02arnold.html

An update on that wacky story about Ohio GOP officials investing millions of the state retirement fund in rare coins. Now it turns out they don’t know where more than a hundred of those coins are!

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/05/ohio-gops-coin-gate-scandal-grows-and.html
The Blade first reported April 3 that since 1998 the bureau has invested $50 million in rare coin funds controlled by Mr. Noe, a local coin dealer and frequent contributor to local, state, and national Republican campaign committees.

He was President Bush's northwest Ohio campaign chairman in last year's presidential race and because of the contributions he raised for the President, he earned the coveted status of a Bush "pioneer.". . .

Democrats in the legislature have claimed that the bureau gave Mr. Noe $50 million to invest because of his generous contributions to state GOP campaign committees and Republican candidates. . .

An accounting firm hired to check the inventory of rare coins purchased by Mr. Noe or his associates for the state found last year that not only were the coins missing, but 119 coins were possibly stolen by a Colorado coin dealer, according to a 2004 audit report released last week.

Mr. Noe hired the dealer to run a coin subsidiary funded with money from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, the agency charged with paying the medical bills and providing income to workers injured on the job.

The 119 missing coins are in addition to two coins worth $300,000 owned by the state that were lost in the mail in 2003, confirmed Jeremy Jackson, press secretary for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

The state doesn't know what happened to any of the coins, Mr. Jackson said.

[The original story: http://pbd.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_pbd_archive.html#111314153073380174]

Helen Thomas on why the WH press corps is so bad

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21904/

Bonus item: Laura Bush – gotta give credit, she’s got better comedy writers than her husband has (or maybe she just has better material to work with)

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-05-01-laura-bush-comments_x.htm
Ladies and gentlemen, I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. Well, I've got a few things I want to say for a change.

This is going to be fun because he really doesn't have a clue about what I'm gonna' to say next.

George always says he's delighted to come to these press dinners. Baloney. He's usually in bed by now.

I'm not kidding.

I said to him the other day, "George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later."

I am married to the president of the United States, and here's our typical evening: Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep, and I'm watching Desperate Housewives— with Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife. I mean, if those women on that show think they're desperate, they oughta be with George.

One night, after George went to bed, Lynne Cheney, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes and I went to Chippendale's. I wouldn't even mention it except Ruth Ginsberg and Sandra Day O'Connor saw us there. I won't tell you what happened, but Lynne's Secret Service codename is now "Dollar Bill."

But George and I are complete opposites — I'm quiet, he's talkative, I'm introverted, he's extroverted, I can pronounce nuclear —

The amazing thing, however, is that George and I were just meant to be. I was the librarian who spent 12 hours a day in the library, yet somehow I met George.

We met, and married, and I became one of the regulars up at Kennebunkport. All the Bushes love Kennebunkport, which is like Crawford, but without the nightlife. People ask me what it's like to be up there with the whole Bush clan. Lemme put it this way: First prize — three-day vacation with the Bush family. Second prize — 10 days.

Speaking of prizes brings me to my mother-in-law. So many mothers today are just not involved in their children's lives — Not a problem with Barbara Bush. People often wonder what my mother-in-law's really like. People think she's a sweet, grandmotherly, Aunt Bea type. She's actually more like, mmm, Don Corleone.

Cedric, am I doing all right?

I saw my in-laws down at the ranch over Easter. We like it down there. George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don't have a real strong ranching program. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse.

Now, of course, he spends his days clearing brush, cutting trails, taking down trees, or, as the girls call it, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw — which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.

It's always very interesting to see how the ranch air invigorates people when they come down from Washington. Recently, when Vice President Cheney was down, he got up early one morning, he put on his hiking boots, and he went on a brisk, 20- to 30-foot walk. . .

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