From Holden: Safavian Found Guilty A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty Tuesday of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government’s chief procurement officer. No date was immediately set for sentencing. Continue reading One Down
From Holden: Jay Cost examines the truism that competing opinions among Democrats will sabotage the party in November, and finds it wanting. His last graph sums it up rather nicely. Generally speaking, the “division means defeat” argument does not operationalize very well. It is one thing to claim it in the abstract, as so many do. It is another thing altogether to explain how it actually works. Which candidates are harmed by Democratic pluralism, how are they harmed, why are they harmed? These are the questions that need to be answered, and answered with specificity, for this presumption to stand. … Continue reading Diversity: It’s Good For You
From Holden:
The NSA’s warrantless eavedropping and tracking of all your telephone call is just the tip of the iceberg.
Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans’ personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.
These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.
The law enforcement agencies include offices in the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department — including the FBI and U.S. Marshal’s Service — and municipal police departments in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.
Continues, Read More…
From Holden: Iraq’s Defense Ministry says the two soldiers captured by insurgents southwest o Baghdad last Friday are no longer missing. Two missing U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been killed and their bodies were found, the spokesman for Iraq’s Defense Ministry said today. “The two soldiers were killed and they were found in Yusufiya near an electricity plant,” Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed told a news conference in Baghdad. He did not say when the soldiers were killed or when their bodies were found. Meanwhile Japan shows us how it’s done, declaring victory and leaving. Japan ordered the withdrawal of … Continue reading Two More Numbers for Bush
From Scout: Oh MAN watch Jon Stewart on Congress and the Iraq Debate… Continue reading Skull F#@*ing Hitler
What the hell, Durbin? Obama? For those outside the Beltway who think the country needs a 180-degree turn, “challenge everywhere” sounds like common sense. (After all, Karl Rove made a career of attacking the opposition at its strongest point.) But will Illinois and national Democratic power brokers back this long shot? Does Mayor Daley even want them to? Does Daley want to cross a speaker of the House who has supported his O’Hare expansion plan? Illinois has two popular Democratic senators who aren’t facing reelection campaigns in 2006. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama have campaigned with Laesch’s fellow “fighting Dem,” … Continue reading Democrats Should Help Other Democrats
From Scout: Mayor Nagin requested the National Guard be deployed to NOLA… NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Mayor Ray Nagin asked the governor Monday to send National Guard troops to patrol his city after a violent weekend in which five teenagers were shot to death and a man was fatally stabbed in argument over beer. SNIP Nagin said the weekend’s slayings were unspeakable and he wouldn’t allow criminals to take over at a time when it’s trying to rebound from its worst disaster. He said he had spoken to the governor about his request for as many as 300 National Guard … Continue reading Blanco sending National Guard to NOLA
From Holden: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Norman Mineta. REUTERS/Jason Reed Andy Card does not look thrilled either. Continue reading The Unhappiest Little Cabinet Member
From Holden: That Bush Boom is a bitch, ain’t it? As more hybrid adjustable rate mortgages adjust upward and housing prices dip, many Americans can’t refinance out of this squeeze. They are finding themselves trapped in too-high monthly payments, and some face foreclosures. [snip] This year, more than $300 billion worth of hybrid ARMs will readjust for the first time. That number will jump to approximately $1 trillion in 2007, according to the MBA. Monthly payments will leap too, many beyond what homeowners can afford. [snip] “ARMs are a ticking time bomb,” said Brad Geisen, president and chief executive of … Continue reading Lay Down Your ARMs
From Holden: More war crimes. Three members of the 101st Airborne Division have been charged in connection with the deaths of three detainees during an operation near in southern Salaheddin Province, Iraq, on May 9, the U.S. military announced Monday. A military news release said the charges in the case include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat, and obstructing justice. Continue reading I Blame Jack Murtha
From Holden: Chimpy’s just not into the big hairies. REUTERS/Jason Reed Continue reading Gotsta Be Bald To Get Some Presidential Lovin’
From Holden: Is it because we have yet to insitute a flat tax? FORBES: “… But the fact of the matter is what I think is going to hurt the Republicans is, one, the feeling they’ve been in power too long and they need to be punished but also, the economy is gonna look worse than it really is and that’s what’s gonna bite them in November.” [snip] “[T]he sad fact” [is] that American voters will cast their ballots based on “what the Republicans have done and have not done.” Continue reading Why Does Steve Forbes Hate America?
Holden, they’re being mean to Helen. Make them stop. Two veterans of the White House beat — NBC’s David Gregory and CNN’s John King (himself a former AP reporter) — disagree with Thomas’ assessment of how the press corps did during the buildup to the war. But both emphasize the respect they have for Thomas, 85, who has covered every president since Kennedy. “I just don’t buy it, but I say this carefully because Helen is a god in our business, a pioneer,” says King, a longtime White House reporter who is now a national correspondent for CNN. “Were we … Continue reading Tattling
From Holden: Another inflight gaggle today, held aboard Air Force One en route King’s Point, New York where the Seinfeld President is speechifying on nothing. In any event, the President will be speaking to the Merchant Marine Academy, the first President to have done so. He obviously will be saluting the graduating class; in addition, reiterating the administration’s position on Iran as the President gets ready to head off for consultations with the European Union later this week. [snip] Q What is he going to say about Iran that we haven’t heard? MR. SNOW: Not much. I mean, it’s going … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle
From Holden: Careful you don’t get any on you. When registered voters polled were asked if they were more or less likely to vote for a candidate Bush supported, 47 percent said they were less likely, while only 27 percent said they were more likely. Twenty percent said it made no difference. The sampling error for the question was plus or minus 4 percentage points. Continue reading The Bush Stank
From Holden: Screw you guys, I’m goin’ home. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, the department’s No. 2 official, is resigning, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Monday. [snip] In his resignation letter, dated June 15, Zoellick, 52, did not say why he was leaving. A former U.S. trade representative, Zoellick reportedly wanted to be promoted to treasury secretary to replace departing secretary John Snow, but President Bush nominated Goldman Sachs executive Henry Paulson instead. Continue reading No. 2 at State Department Resigns
From Holden: Pony Blow can’t open his yapper without shoving his foot into it. Yesterday on CNN he compared the War on Iraq with the Battle of the Bulge, an argument Juan Cole eviscerated today. Blow was interviewed on Fox yesterday as well where he downplayed the importance of the two US soldiers kidnapped in Iraq. WALLACE: What do you say to the people who may be holding these soldiers? SNOW: Give them back. WALLACE: And what about the U.S. and its efforts to free them? SNOW: Well, I think, Chris, you’ve got to understand that we’re involved in a … Continue reading Pony Blow Steps In It
From Holden: Dude’s been tea-bagging employers since he entered office. This says it all. Between 1999 and 2003, worksite enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has been merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 to four, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics. In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three. Continue reading Chimpy’s Immigration Record
From Scout: Numerous sites have written about the Washington Post’s Al Kamen’s story of a June 6 cable sent from the American Embassy in Iraq to the Secretary of State on “the hardship faced by its Iraqi employees” which WaPo received. The name Khalilzad appears at the bottom of the cable. On June 7th I linked to another Al Kamen story in which he reported details from a “May 6 cable we got the other day from Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.” So it appears that is TWO cables that WaPo has received. (Topics and details quoted from the May 6th cable … Continue reading WaPo, Khalilzad and the TWO Cables…
Because he said some things that needed saying today. A. Continue reading Happy Dem Photo: MURTHA! Edition
But at some point you have to start asking yourself why reporters are grasping at signs, any sign, of a Bush resurgence here: Bush’s popularity has steadily fallen as the war has dragged on. However, the recent killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, and the formation of an Iraqi unity government, boosted the administration. Yeah, it’s boosted the living shit out of the administration: President George W. Bush’s job approval rating is at 37 percent, up 1 percentage point, in a NBC News and the Wall Street Journal poll taken after the death of terrorist … Continue reading Look, I Don’t Want To Be This Girl
Crack den: So, Joe Biden’s running for president. He says Democrats need to show strong leadership on national security and be less condescending to people of faith. Of course no elected Democrats are condescending to people of faith and Joe’s been in the Senate for quite some time showing piss poor leadership on national security. But, hey, Joe knows what those other Democrats need to do. One wonders why he doesn’t do it. Well, you can’t defy the stereotype if you don’t first reinforce the hell out of it. After all, how’s he going to prove he’s not just another … Continue reading Selfish
Aimlessness: This is a “war” in which the United States drops two 500-pound bombs with the express intent of assassinating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that wouldn’t have existed if Bush hadn’t decided to invade. But when the world learns that Zarqawi briefly survived the bombing, and rumors circulate that U.S. forces shot him dead, officials rush to release an autopsy report showing that the butcher with a $25 million bounty on his head died from blast injuries. An American medic, we are told, was about to administer first aid when Zarqawi mumbled something … Continue reading Eugene Robinson
When I was reporting, I wrote a story about a woman named Mary Gardner. The story got started because she’d left a donation — small by philanthropic standards, maybe $100,000 or so — to the local public library and the library had had no idea who she was. One call led to another to another, and what emerged was a story about an elderly lady who had no children nor husband, who inherited a chunk of money from real estate investments and who gave all that cash — more than a million that we knew about — away. And she … Continue reading True Wealth
Robert: This is what the pursuit of power over our enemies has wrought: we aren’t even arguing anymore about whether or not we should be torturing people, but about who should be involved. It strikes me, reading Robert, reading all around about the Ann Coulter debacle, just how much we’ve managed to expand the topics of acceptable conversation. If the Clenis introduced the idea of blow jobs to the national news, now we sit around and talk about whether the bereaved have a right to their grief, what level of torture is justified, at which number of dead servicemen we … Continue reading Power and Its Corruptions
From Holden: CNN has a new poll out: A narrow majority of Americans — 53 percent — favors setting a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, with 47 percent saying the deadline should be in a year or less, according to a CNN poll released Friday. A “narrow majority”, eh? Chimpy only received 51% of the popular vote in the 2004 election, but somehow I don’t recall CNN describing his victory as a “narrow majority”.</p The Chimpster’s job approval rating in this CNN poll rose to 39%. Still under 40%, still an unpopular president. Continue reading Majority Favors Pull-Out Date for Iraq War
From Holden: Remeber Brian Doyle, the Department of Homeland Security press spokesman who got caught trying to cyber-seduce someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl? In Internet and phone chats with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl, a Department of Homeland Security press aide talked about underage sex, boasted about his job and called President Bush a “liar,” according to transcripts released by prosecutors. [snip] The transcripts say Doyle wrote to the fictitious girl: “hey it is illegal … and it would be exciting and forbidden … you are young — illegal — and gorgeous. and it would be … Continue reading Heeeeee’s Back!
From Holden: Nothing opens the doors of opportunity like a degree from Yale. Sources say Barbara Bush, 24, recently applied for a position at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum on Fifth Avenue after spotting a job listing on the Web site. Neither the first lady’s press secretary, Susan Whitson, nor Cooper-Hewitt returned calls, but a check of Craigslist shows the museum was advertising at least one spot earlier this month – a sales associate gig in its gift shop. Continue reading Paper or Plastic
From Holden: This should cheer you up. John Bolton became the US Ambassador to the UN via recess appointment. According to Article II, Section 2 of the US Consitution… The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session. So Bolton’s commission as our ambassador to the UN ends in January, 2007, less than a year from now. Bush will have to renominate him, and then he will have to be approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee … Continue reading Happy Thought of the Day
From Holden: Not much in today’s gaggle as Chimpy wings westward for a series of fundraising events and Pony Blow appears tohave the weekend off. However, there is this exchange. Q Can you tell us who will be at the ranch for Father’s Day? Will 41 be there and the daughters? MS. PERINO: That is a great question. I haven’t been able to find out the answer yet, but I will try to get back to you on that, yes. You’re right — remember, everyone, it’s Father’s Day. It will be interesting to see if the twins awaken from their … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle