It occurs to me it’s been a while since we pointed out a couple of things. And in that time, we’ve got some n00bs, and they probably need some help figuring out how things work. To the left, you’ll see a box titled “Current Draft.” There’s a FAQ in it. Read the FAQ. It’ll tell you how to arrange comments to your liking and change color schemes if you don’t like our red-white-gray thing. You can also now e-mail all of us separately as well as using the general blog e-mail address up top to get in touch. Again, look … Continue reading N00b Post

A. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging: Joeyface

From Scout: In today’s Congressional hearings on Katrina response Norm Coleman (R-MN) got slapped around by Michael Brown arguably the most inept and incompetent man to hit government in some time. As Josh Marshall wrote ….. That’s a singular accomplishment. Norm took his big swing and when Brownie swung back Norm used the bell. Here’s the video. Continue reading Norm…. Wankerweight Champion of the World!

From Scout: On September 2, 2005 Bush told Michael Brown…”Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” Today before Congress Brownie gave his belated response when he said this dripping with sarcasim and obvious irritation….”Unfortunately he called me Brownie at the wrong time. Thanks alot sir” That was the best line of the hearing. I think Brown’s testimony on what the White House knew and when they knew it is (see live blogging post below) is what was significant in the hearing. Brown testified that the White House knew Monday afternoon that the levee had been “breached.” According to what … Continue reading Brownie’s Belated Respose to Bush’s Compliment

From Holden: Last year the US trade deficit reached an all-time high for the fourth consecutive year. The U.S. trade deficit soared to an all-time high of $725.8 billion in 2005, pushed upward by record imports of oil, food, cars and other consumer goods. The deficit with China hit an all-time high as did America’s deficits with Japan, Europe, OPEC, Canada, Mexico and South and Central America. The Commerce Department reported Friday that the gap between what America sells abroad and what it imports rose to $725.8 billion last year, up by 17.5 percent from the previous record of $617.6 … Continue reading Four Years Running

From Scout: Brown when informed of flooding in New Orleans on Monday he believes he called Joe Hagan who was with Bush at Crawford telling them NOLA was Flooding and the worst case scenario was occuring. (Lieberman asked if he was trying to get word to the President by this and Browne said yes) He later states in speaking to Joe Hagan he knew he was iin effect speaking to the President. UPDATE: Brown said he was on conference call with Bush on Sunday and described what was to come as a “catastrophe within a catatrophe” UPDATE: Norm Coleman is … Continue reading Liveblogging Brown Testimony

From Scout: Brownie stated he is not sure if he can answer questions due to executive privelege. Sen Collins stated she gave WH cousel Harriet Meyers the opportunity last night to assert the privelege and they did not so she has directed Brown to answer questions about who he spoke to at the White House regarding FEMA problems months prior to Katrina. He named Josh Bolton and Andrew Card among others. UPDATE: Patrick Rhode top FEMA official in DC as Katrina hit just testified he learned of levee break 9-10 am on Monday August 29 and he emailed the info … Continue reading Executive Privelege Dust Up at Katrina Hearings

From Holden: With each passing hour it looks like Chimpy’s Liberty Liberry Library Tower terror story is fictional. John Aravosis points out that neither Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nor the FBI’s counterterrorism director, John Pistole, were familiar with the plot. Yesterday a gaggler pointed out that the plot itself makes no sense. Either the terrorists were intent on blowing their own feet off or they planned to remove the shoebombs from their feet and set them off, bringing the plane down instead of allowing them to take control of the cockpit. Q Scott, I wanted to just ask a … Continue reading Bush’s ”Liberty Tower” Story Is A Lie

From Holden: With each passing hour it looks like Chimpy’s Liberty Liberry Library Tower terror story is fictional. John Aravosis points out that neither Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nor the FBI’s counterterrorism director, John Pistole, were familiar with the plot. Yesterday a gaggler pointed out that the plot itself makes no sense. Either the terrorists were intent on blowing their own feet off or they planned to remove the shoebombs from their feet and set them off, bringing the plane down instead of allowing them to take control of the cockpit. Q Scott, I wanted to just ask a … Continue reading Bush’s “Liberty Tower” Story Is A Lie

Yesterday I went looking for the Muhammed cartoons because I wanted to see what they looked like. (This link goes to a right-wing blog, found courtesy of Michelle Malkin, so don’t click on that link if you’re offended by depictions of the Prophet or wingnuttery in general.) And in doing some reading, and finally reading what everybody’s reading about, I come around to a take pretty similar to tristero’s. By contrast, the Muhammed cartoons are, morally dull, even by their own admittedly less high-falutin’ standards. And the reason is obvious after a bit of thought. The intention behind them is … Continue reading Cartoon Justice

From Holden: Oh hell, it’s a long gaggle today. Let’s kick it off with Helen. Q You — this is supposed to be a war on terrorism, and by his own admission, the President has said there’s been — there was no link between Iraq and terrorists. So why are we still in Iraq killing and being killed? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the President talked about it earlier today. The stakes are high in Iraq. And he talked about where we are focused — Q — why were they high — MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Iraq is the central front … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Scout: From KBTS TV More than 10,000 FEMA mobile homes are still sitting empty in Hope, Arkansas. They are fully furnished and ready to move in. However, they have been sitting empty in the cities airfield since October. The trailers are costing tax payers $25,000 dollars a month. Dennis Ramsey is the mayor of Hope. His city has a two-year contract with FEMA to use the airport as a staging ground for the mobile homes. Hope is guaranteed $600,000 dollars in the deal. While Mayor Ramsey likes the money, he’d like to see the mobile homes move out. FEMA … Continue reading A FEMA Trailer From A Place Called Hope

From Holden: Thanks to either Atrios or Kos spreading the word on my post earlier today the AP just published a story about Karen Hughes’ Public Diplomacy program at State receiving a “Not Performing” rating by the White House. Continue reading AP Picks Up On “Fire Hughes” Meme

From Holden: Thanks to either Atrios or Kos spreading the word on my post earlier today the AP just published a story about Karen Hughes’ Public Diplomacy program at State receiving a “Not Performing” rating by the White House. Continue reading AP Picks Up On ”Fire Hughes” Meme

From Holden: I thought a Guardsman who deserted during war time would be source of shame for the National Guard Association. Silly me, they commission busts of deserters now. And, in case you missed it, here’s a snippet from the official White House transcript of Chimpy’s “Be afraid, be very afraid!” speech before the Guard today. We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad — the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks — had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door, and fly … Continue reading The National Guard Pays Tribute to It’s Most Famous Deserter

From Holden: More details about the missing e-mail messages related to the Valrie Plame case. Unka Karl’s days are numbered. More than two dozen e-mails related to CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, are missing, according to investigative reporter Jason Leopold. The messages were sent to several senior members of the George W. Bush administration between May 2003 and July 2003. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald suspects these messages may have been destroyed. [snip] Knowledgeable sources close to the investigation said the e-mails were sent by Libby, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, then … Continue reading Fitzgerald Knows Rove Destroyed Evidence

From Holden: Part of the message Chimpy wanted to deliver in New Hampshire yesterday was that government programs that are performing poorly should be “eliminated and/or trimmed back”. The White House has even established a web site where you can check out their evaluation of myriad programs. Last four years we’ve had what we call the President’s Management Agenda. Employees have been working to help ensure that the programs are doing what we expect them to do. That’s what they do. They spend a lot of time on this. We ask federal managers to achieve good results at reasonable costs, … Continue reading Bush Says: Fire Karen Hughes!

From Holden: By almost every metric available, the reconstruction of Iraq is a miserable failure. Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq’s oil, electricity, water and sewerage sectors has fallen below preinvasion values even though $16 billion of American taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the Iraq reconstruction program, several government witnesses said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday. Of seven measures of public services performance presented at the committee hearing by the inspector general’s office, only one was above preinvasion values. Those that had slumped below those values were electrical generation capacity, hours of … Continue reading Better Off Under Saddam

If anybody wants to hear me boring on about the book to Madison, Wis. radio listeners, you can download the show here. It’s the last item on the list, at the bottom. I’m about halfway through, after the guy talking about the Denmark situation. Be sure you listen all the way through my disconnected ramblings and make it to the guy who calls in to accuse me in some vague way of helping to cover up the U.S. government’s complicity in 9/11. A. Continue reading Erm

Word, crack den. Mr. A and I have actually discussed funerals quite a bit. When my grandfather died I got stuck in the “anger” stage of grief for a good long time, and most of that anger ended up directed towards the priest who conducted Grandpa’s funeral. Father Oblivious said not a word about the man himself, not one kind word. He phoned it in like the ecclesiastical equivalent of Ashlee Simpson and it nearly drove me nuts. The whole service was stilted and awful and nothing like this warm and wonderful and humorous and kind man we knew and … Continue reading Tied In

From Scout: Desperate people take desperate measures. From the Times Picayune…… NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Tired of waiting in the dark for the lights to come back on, Walter Vine took matters into his own hands: He unscrewed his electrical meter and rigged it to bring power into his flood-damaged home. Vine, a building contractor, broke the law and risked serious injury or death. But like so many others in this hurricane-ravaged city, he figured it was the only way to avoid the red tape and hair-pulling frustration so many have faced in trying to get their electricity restored. “People … Continue reading Getting Juiced

As usual, what Oliver said. A. Continue reading Pie Hole

From Holden: Business Week: The contrast in President Bush’s new budget could not be more stark. On one hand, he wants to eliminate what he likes to call the “death tax” — a levy imposed on a handful of the nation’s biggest estates. On the other, he wants to end Social Security’s lump sum death benefit — a $255 check that the families of many of the nation’s poorest use to help pay for their funerals. Continue reading Good Deaths and Bad

From Holden: From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by way of Dan Froomkin. “My remarks were spiritual,” adding that he was speaking from Matthew 25. “[Bush] must have known when he came into King Country he would hear the word of the Lord,” Lowery said. Continue reading Lowrey Explains

From Holden: Today the Granite State was blessed with a visit from His Royal Lieness. Scoring Some Saw Grass But I want to spend a little time — I mean, a little time — on making sure that you understand that I am serious when it comes to spending money so that — to be able to develop the technologies necessary to be able to convert saw grass and wood chips and refuse into energy. Adventures in Grammar, Part I It’s exciting times. Crazy Economic Talk The tax relief on dividends and capital gains has also helped families that don’t … Continue reading Your President Speaks!

From Holden: Little Scottie won’t criticize Coretta Scott King’s family and friends for the manner in which they choose to observeher passing — he’ll let the press do that. Q Did you talk to the President at all about the political overtones of yesterday’s ceremony, at the funeral? And if you didn’t talk to him, what do you think about it? Was it the place for that sort of criticism? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the President and Mrs. Bush were very honored to attend the celebration of Mrs. King’s life. This was a time to pay tribute to her … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Holden: All tied together. A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader John Boehner helped plan a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from Abramoff’s firm show. Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove, accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan in April 1996 but later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday. [snip] According to bills from Abramoff’s former lobbying firm to the Marianas government, Abramoff’s staff contacted Boehner’s office … Continue reading Abramoff- Boner-DeLay- Jackson- Safavian- Rove

From Holden: Nice reform-oriented Majority Leader you got yourselves there, Republicans [via Kos]. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee. Continue reading A Boner Problem Viagra Won’t Cure

From Holden: When Evangelical Christain leaders band together to fight global warming will Chimpy stay true to his fake religious beliefs or his faith in corporate profits? Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying “millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors.” Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and … Continue reading What’s A Fake Born Again President To Do?