From Scout: From the Times Picayune A firefighter search team found the body of an unidentified Hurricane Katrina victim Saturday morning at a Banks Street home in Mid-City. The discovery came about 9:45 a.m. at 3008 Banks St. as 16 firefighters from the New Orleans Fire Department and Southeast Louisiana Task Force 1 checked houses on a list of missing persons. The list was prepared by the Louisiana Family Assistance Center in Baton Rouge. There are 47 addresses on an updated search list now in use by the search team, according to the New Orleans Fire Department. Other details about … Continue reading 2 More Bodies Found in NOLA

From Scout: Tony Blair’s visit prompted this video of past press conferences including yesterday’s with Bush’s (rehearsed?) take on his Iraq mistakes. Music: Marcia Ball Warning: Graphic video included Continue reading Friday Video

This is really sad. I’m totally on Willy Stern’s side with this: Yes, the numbers are boring, Mr. Dubow, but you ought be laughing all the way to the bank. Your operating profit margin last year was a whopping 30.6 percent, significantly better than your elitist competition, those who snicker behind your back at Gannett’s all-color weather maps and 3-inch fluff stories. Herewith, the competitions’operating profit margins, as reported by Value Line: Dow Jones (13.6 percent); New York Times (14.9 percent); and Washington Post (20.1 percent). While these bastions of journalistic excellence are laying off their bow-tied-wearing, leftward-tilting, Ivy League-educated … Continue reading When Good Media Crit Goes Bad

Fox peeks out from behind the plastic box he and his brothers use as a hideout. A. Continue reading Friday Foxblogging

From Holden:

Pathetic. Pa-fucking-thetic. The big story of the day is that Chimpy’s former BFF and largest contributor Kenneth Lay was found by a jury of his peers of committing multiple felonies and yet the name Lay did not grace the lips of any of today’s gagglers.

This is as close as they came.

Q Tony, the President often mentions corporate crime in his speeches, as recently as yesterday. We’ve had the Enron convictions now over the noon hour. Any comment from the White House?

MR. SNOW: Well, any comment is that the Justice Department — you know, we congratulate the Justice Department on successfully concluding a highly complex conviction, a set of legal proceedings that led to the convictions today in the Enron case. I mean, the administration has been pretty clear there is no tolerance for corporate corruption. And furthermore, the Justice Department has been going aggressively after those who are involved in corporate corruption.

[snip]

Q Can I ask one more on Enron? Does the administration favor compensating the victims now in some way?

MR. SNOW: I honestly don’t know. I mean, I don’t know.

What a fucking waste of space, our press corps.

Obsession grudgingly continues, Read More.

Continue reading “Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle”

From Holden: Chimpy dropped 8 points in the latest Diageo/Hotline poll to 37%, which happens to be 2 pts. below his previous low for this poll. Overall, the president’s current approval rating is 37%, with 61% expressing disapproval of his job performance. In the February Diageo/Hotline Poll, 45% of respondents expressed approval of the president’s job performance, with 52% disapproving. The president’s job approval has dropped 13 points among Republicans (70% approval in May vs. 83% in February) and 8 points among Independents (33% approval in May vs. 41% in February). “A thirteen point decline in Republicans who approve of … Continue reading Yet Another All-Time Low

From Holden:

Another blockbuster from Murray Waas on the Plame case.

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.

The excerpts continue, click Read More…

Continue reading “Conspiracy and Obstruction of Justice”

From Holden: January 10, 2002: Q When was the last time you talked to either Mr. Lay or any other Enron official, about the — about anything? And did discussions involve the financial problems of the company? THE PRESIDENT: I have never discussed, with Mr. Lay, the financial problems of the company. The last time that I saw Mr. Lay was at my mother’s fundraising event to — for literacy, in Houston. That would have been last spring. I do know that Mr. Lay came to the White House in — early in my administration, along with, I think 20 … Continue reading Down Memory Lane

From Holden: What a lovely couple. Chimpy with his one-time largest political contributor. Poppy with convicted felon Ken Lay. That’s Chimpy in the foreground while convicted felon Ken Lay shakes hands with Poppy Bush in the background. UPDATE: historyman directs me to The Smoking Gun’s collection of Bush/Lay letters. Continue reading Bush Gets Lay-ed!

From Holden: Wouldn’t it be sweet if Court TV was allowed to televise the Scooter Libby trial? Vice President Dick Cheney could be called to testify in the perjury case against his former chief of staff, a special prosecutor said in a court filing Wednesday. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggested Cheney would be a logical government witness because he could authenticate notes he jotted on a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece by a former U.S. ambassador critical of the Iraq war. Fitzgerald said Cheney’s “state of mind” is “directly relevant” to whether I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the … Continue reading The Snarl Takes The Stand

Via the crack den, Hell yeah, my bitches! That’s how we do things downtown. A. Continue reading Happy Democrat Photo: TIM RYAN! Edition

From Holden:

Wait a minute, Helen Thomas and Pony Blow are getting a bit too chummy for me. Don’t fall for his huge head, Helen!

Q The President apparently has gotten several messages, underground, back-channel and so forth, through intermediaries for direct talks with Iran. Surely he is not going to blow a — speaking of opportunities with Iraq, this is an opportunity to talk directly to Iran. And why doesn’t the President do it? And don’t give me the — I’m sure the three other allies and so forth would be very happy if we talked directly to Iran.

MR. SNOW: Well, if you don’t wish me to answer the question, then I’ll just move to the next questioner.

Q I want you to answer after I’ve told you what my premise is. (Laughter.)

MR. SNOW: This from Secretary of State Helen Thomas. The position has always been clear. We are not going to divide —

Q If elected I will serve. (Laughter.)

MR. SNOW: Boy, that’s going out everywhere today.

Obsession continues, Read More!

Continue reading “Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle”

From Scout:

Oliver Willis linked to a story yesterday by Lou Dolinar that is getting picked up by right wing blogs. The story basically says the White House needs to rehabilitate their Katrina reputation and Dolinar found the way to do it by arguing the Katrina response wasn’t so bad…. It was the media coverage that was bad. There was too much focus on the bad stories of Katrina and the media missed the good one involving the National Guard. He focuses primarily on the rescue operations of the National Guard and to a lesser degree that of the Coast Guard as stories not covered by the media.

The crux of Dolinar’s argument is based on these stats (and often cited in linking blogs)…

Jack Harrison, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Virginia, cited “10,244 sorties flown, 88,181 passengers moved, 18,834 cargo tons hauled, 17,411 saves” by air. Unlike the politicians, they had a working chain of command that commandeered more relief aid from other Guard units outside the state. From day one.

Snip

Let’s try that again: The cavalry wasn’t late. It didn’t arrive on Thursday smoking a cigar and cussing. It was there all along.

Thus the disaster response was not late or lacking according to Dolinar. The media was. General Honore really wasn‘t that John Wayne dude to the rescue. And by extension the White House really should not be blamed.

My question is what is the time frame for the above stats? It is never stated and given the DoD stats below I suspect those numbers are the totals for all National Guard operations over weeks not in the critical first week which Dolinar would want you to believe because without that timeframe his whole argument sinks.

The Department of Defense reported these numbers from the National Guard Bureau (the same Bureau that Dolinar references) on Sept. 3 which would have been the Saturday after Katrina hit…. that important time before the “Cavalry“ arrived.

The Air National Guard flew 721 sorties in the past few days, evacuating over 11,000 people to safety and delivering 3,600 tons of life-saving supplies and equipment into the devastated area, National Guard Bureau officials reported.

(Click Read More for the rest)

Continue reading “People Get Ready….Katrina’s Got A Brand New Bag or Rehabing Bush’s Katrina”

From Scout: Just need to point out that WaPo appears to be using the updated Katrina death toll figures…. Mindful of Katrina’s toll of more than 1,800 lives, Continue reading WaPo gets it right

From Holden: Former Republican Congressman/US Trade Representative/Current Condi Deputy Robert Zoellick is about to throw a tantrum. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick is close to quitting after failing to be promoted to Treasury Secretary and has been in talks about a job with Wall Street firms, newspapers reported on Wednesday. Zoellick is seeking to exit after growing frustrated with the No. 2 job at the State Department, where he has overseen the Darfur peace negotiations for the Bush administration, the newspapers said. In addition, he was disappointed after President George W. Bush failed to name him to succeed … Continue reading Trouble in Paradise

From Holden: Durable good orders experienced a steep, unexpected drop in April. New orders for U.S.-made durable goods tumbled an unexpectedly large 4.8 percent in April while mortgage applications fell last week, a pair of soft economic reports showed on Wednesday. Orders for durable items, those meant to last three years or longer, staged their largest fall since January on big declines in civilian aircraft and computer and electronic products orders. Even when transportation was stripped out, orders for durable goods were down 1.1 percent. [snip] Analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast a 0.5 percent drop in durable goods … Continue reading My Bush Boom Is Not A Durable Good

From Holden: Jeb Bush is horning in on her dream job. While U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has publicly flirted with the idea of becoming the next commissioner of the National Football League, [Florida Governor Jeb] Bush has been privately approached to gauge his interest in the job. Bush, who spends his Sundays each fall watching pro football, acknowledged Tuesday that the NFL job was broached during a recent meeting with Patrick Rooney Sr., owner of the Palm Beach Kennel Club. Rooney is the brother of Dan Rooney, who owns the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers and co-chairs the … Continue reading Condi Will Just Plotz

From Holden: Holy shit, what an idiot. Q The U.S. has the most powerful military in the world, and they have been unable to bring down the violence in any substantial way in several of the provinces. So how can you expect the Iraqis to do that? PRESIDENT BUSH: If one were to measure progress on the number of suiciders, if that’s your definition of success, I think it gives — I think it will — I think it obscures the steady, incremental march toward democracy we’re seeing. In other words, it’s very difficult — you can have the most … Continue reading The Word of the Day is “Suiciders”

From Holden: Holy shit, what an idiot. Q The U.S. has the most powerful military in the world, and they have been unable to bring down the violence in any substantial way in several of the provinces. So how can you expect the Iraqis to do that? PRESIDENT BUSH: If one were to measure progress on the number of suiciders, if that’s your definition of success, I think it gives — I think it will — I think it obscures the steady, incremental march toward democracy we’re seeing. In other words, it’s very difficult — you can have the most … Continue reading The Word of the Day is ”Suiciders”

From Holden: Remember last October when Harriet Miers was proclaimed to be the best qualified person in the land to take Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court? Chimpy rolled out a pack of Texas judges to vouch for her including Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht. Nathan Hecht, the Texas Supreme Court justice who publicly supported the nomination of his close friend Harriet Miers for the U.S. Supreme Court last year, has been admonished by the Commission on Judicial Conduct for using his office to promote her nomination. By telling White House staff to send media inquiries about … Continue reading No Ethics To Be Found

And you’re looking for a way that doesn’t make you a hateful, bigoted ass, a way that is based on something, anything other than that you don’t like gay people, give up. There isn’t one: When I was in the military, I thought one of my friends might be just trying to live a decent, honorable life with his partner of 10 years when you and your military police friends pulled him into an interrogation room and accused him of sodomy because he was living with a guy and not dating women. When you kicked him out of the service … Continue reading If You Are Looking For A Way To Be Against Gay Marriage

From Holden:

Helen Thomas takes Pony Blow to school in today’s gaggle.

Q Does that mean apart from Abbas, the President will urge Olmert to move away or abandon his convergence plan?

MR. SNOW: Well, at this point, again, I’m not going to tell you what he is going to say in upcoming talks with the Prime Minister. That would be inappropriate —

Q But you said you’ve been in meetings with him, so, to date, in meetings with him, has he expressed an interest in Olmert’s —

MR. SNOW: I’ve not been in those meetings with him today, so I will not try to blow smoke on you. I will repeat what I’ve said before. What we have tried to do is to talk about the importance of working toward a two-state solution; to have a two-state solution you have to have people on both sides talking toward doing this. And so I’m not going to address the specifics of the convergence plan.

Q What’s the U.S. role in all this?

MR. SNOW: Well, the U.S. role is one of working with Israel and, when possible, with the Palestinians to try to generate a peace — the same it’s always been, Helen —

Q Then why is it bankrupting the Palestinians?

MR. SNOW: The Palestinians are not being bankrupted, Helen. What’s happening, as you know, is that there is — Hamas is a terrorist organization. We do not give money to terrorist organizations. What has happened is that this government has tried in a number of ways to make humanitarian aid available to the Palestinian people. We draw a distinction between Hamas, which is —

Q And they were democratically elected.

MR. SNOW: They were democratically elected and they’re still a terrorist organization.

Q By your designation.

MR. SNOW: Yes. Thank you very much, Helen. They are, in fact, by the designation of this government, this administration, and prior administrations. So let me continue my answer.

Q Go ahead.

MR. SNOW: Thank you. (Laughter.)

Q You’re welcome.

MR. SNOW: By the way, that’s a nice apple, and congratulations on the book. I want to get all that done. But, look —

Q Here. (Laughter.)

MR. SNOW: Come here. (Laughter.) Whoever thought Helen Thomas would kiss up to me. An apple for the teacher. (Laughter.)

Q Hardly. Hardly. (Laughter.)

MR. SNOW: Now, where was I in this? Okay, what we —

Q Still spinning.

MR. SNOW: — what we are trying to do is to make humanitarian aid available to the Palestinian people, because they need it. They need food aid, they need medical aid, they need money for other basic needs, and we’re trying to make that available to them.

Hoo-hoo, she got the best of him in that exchange. Obsession continues below, Read More…

Continue reading “Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle”

From Holden: I just heard Al Franken defend the latest US bombing of civilians in Afghanistan (something Unocal puppet Hamid Karzai says his government will investigate) “something we just have to do.” You see, Al likes to burnish his “reasonable liberal” cred by voicing his whole-hearted support for whatever we do in Afghanistan. However, we actually do not have to bomb Afghani women and children in order to kill the Taliban fighters hiding among them. In fact, such an attack is prohibitted by a laundry list of international laws. The (invaluable) Cursor has compiled a dossier of US airstrikes against … Continue reading No, Al We Don’t Have To

From Holden: OK, so that’s not quite the way Amnesty International put it. Amnesty International today assailed the United States’ use of military contractors in Iraq as “war outsourcing” and said the behavior of some contractors had diminished America’s moral standing. “War outsourcing is creating the corporate equivalent of Guantnamo Bay — a virtual rules-free zone in which perpetrators are not likely to be held accountable for breaking the law,” Larry Cox, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in Washington as the human rights body presented its annual report in London. [snip] Of the estimated 25,000 military contractors … Continue reading Ted Koppel Can Stick His Mercenaries In His Ass

From Holden: The only hope for some embattled Republikkkans seems to lie in cutting all ties with the Chimpster. President Bush goes to Pennsylvania tomorrow to campaign for embattled Republican House members in the Philadelphia suburbs. But one of the candidates isn’t expected to be there. Mr. Bush “is really doing poorly in our state,” says Rep. Curt Weldon, explaining why he won’t be on hand and hasn’t asked for the president’s help. “I’ve got to win this by myself.” [snip] At a Friday fund-raiser for one embattled Republican lawmaker, freshman Rep. Geoff Davis of Kentucky, Mr. Bush even joked … Continue reading Running Away from Bush

From Holden: Christian Wright blogs his protest of Poppie and the Horrid One’s address during the 2006 commencement ceremony of the George Washington University. Origionally, 4 of Chris’s friends were going to protest with us, but when the moment came they all chickened out and stayed seated. So all it was was Chris and myself standing up when the Bushes (first his wife, then the former president) were introduced. We stood up and turned our backs to him. We were nervous but we backed each other up. Looking in front of us we saw an army of elite, wealthy, and … Continue reading More Rudeness from the Angry Left

Those of you who were worried about Douglas Feith starving can relax now: Georgetown announced yesterday that former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith (LAW ’78) will join the faculty of the School of Foreign Service next semester as a visiting professor. Feith, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy from July 2001 to August 2005 under President Bush, will serve as a visiting professor and distinguished practitioner in national security policy, the university announced Monday in a press release. Feith said that he will teach a course next semester about the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terrorism … Continue reading Down And Out Doug Gets A Job

From Scout: The Independent Levee Investigation Team which released its stinging report yesterday on NOLA’s levees held a town hall meeting Monday evening…… “I myself, personally, wouldn’t purchase property and move into New Orleans if the intent of the nation, the state and the locals is to keep doing things the same way,” team leader Ray Seed, a geotechnical engineer from the University of California-Berkeley, said at a New Orleans town hall meeting Monday. SNIP The town hall was called to give residents and elected officials a chance to ask questions about the report. The audience was short on officials … Continue reading Town Hall Meeting on Levees Held in NOLA