Miss Otis Regrets

An old song by Nat King Cole. I know the version sung by Ella Fitzgerald. I kept thinking of this song today as I read and re-read this unbelievable article that was on the front page of the Washington Post today:

Amid Outcry on Memo, Signer's Private Regret
Friends Say Judge Wasn't Proud of Outcome

"I've heard [Jay S. Bybee] express regret at the contents of the memo," said a fellow legal scholar and longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while offering remarks that might appear as "piling on." "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context -- of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety."

Maybe Judge Bybee could express his regret to the family of Alyssa Peterson, the young soldier who killed herself in Iraq in September of 2003 after refusing to torture prisoners.

[I]n the years since the original Bybee memo was made public, his misgivings appeared evident to some in his immediate circle.

"On the primary memo, that legitimated and defined torture, he just felt it got away from him," said the fellow scholar. "What I understand that to mean is, any lawyer, when he or she is writing about something very complicated, very layered, sometimes you can get it all out there and if you're not careful, you end up in a place you never intended to go. I think for someone like Jay, who's a formalist and a textualist, that's a particular danger."

Blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit. You know, I once risked being fired because I refused to file a motion in Superior Court that I felt was unjustified in law. I refused to do that because a) it was unethical, and b) I took an oath as an officer of the court to follow the rules. Apparently Judge Bybee was more interested in getting the federal judgeship he so desired than in upholding his oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution:

Bybee's friends said he never sought the job at the Office of Legal Counsel. The reason he went back to Washington, Guynn said, was to interview with then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales for a slot that would be opening on the 9th Circuit when a judge retired. The opening was not yet there, however, so Gonzales asked, "Would you be willing to take a position at the OLC first?" Guynn said.

Sign the bullshit memo, allow thousands to be tortured, sully the reputation of America around the world, sell your immortal soul for a federal judgeship. That's Republican cronyism at it's finest. Heckuva job, Jay.

Oh yeah, Miss Otis Regrets. Roger Ailes (the good Roger Ailes) had the same thought, and he wrote some new lyrics. Miss Bybee Regrets

Blogtopia* Roundup, Saturday, August 4, 2007

From the Mel Kelly Life List

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
The Starry Night
Senate Democrats cave to Smirky McEavesdropper, give him even more power to wiretap, and unbelievably, put Serial Liar Alberto Gonzales in charge of oversight. 16 Democratic fools voted for this: thank heavens my Senators are more sane than these:

Evan Bayh (Indiana); Tom Carper (Delaware); Bob Casey (Pennsylvania); Kent Conrad (North Dakota); Dianne Feinstein (California); Daniel Inouye (Hawai‘i); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Nancy Mary Landrieu (Louisiana); Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas); Claire McCaskill (Missouri); Barbara Mikulski (Maryland); Bill Nelson (Florida); Ben Nelson (Nebraska); Mark Pryor (Arkansas); Ken Salazar (Colorado); Jim Webb (Virginia).

Were they that desperate to go on vacation?

Wish you were at YearlyKos? (I do! Maybe next year.) TPM has videos of interviews with some of the attendees.

The Jose Padilla trial plods on; the government's evidence is so very weak that Padilla's attorneys put on no case. Not surprising since Bush's DOJ has a 29% conviction rate on terrorism prosecutions, compared to 93% elsewhere; they're all smoke and mirrors. Kind of like the entire Bush Administration. As Will S. said, all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The Bush Administration killed a 4 cents a gallon gasoline tax in 2004 that would have gone to fixing the country's decaying roads and bridges. Heckuva job, George.

Speaking of Heckuva Job George, Monday is the 6th anniversary of the PDB that George ignored: "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US". There'll be a blogswarm on the topic.

Main St. USA News, from BoingBoing: Bubblegum rocker Bobby Sherman has built a replica of Disney's Main St. USA in his backyard.

Since Congress, George W. Bush, and the Iraqi Parliament are all on vacation, I'm gong too. Posting will be rare for the next two weeks.

FBI Searches Senator Ted Stephens Home [Updated, below]

Anchorage Daily News: AL GRILLO / The Associated Press
Armed with a search warrant, agents from the FBI and IRS spent much of the day July 30, 2007, in, around and on top of Sen. Ted Stevens' Girdwood home, which was extensively remodeled in 2000. Investigators want to know whether the project was handled lawfully, an unnamed law enforcement official said.
WaPo: Alaska Senator's Home Is Raided
Stevens Scrutinized In a Wide Inquiry Into Corruption in the State

How will we remember Ted Stephens? For the Bridge to Nowhere? For "the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes." Or as a powerful man who let his powerful position as Chair of the Appropriations Committee corrupt him? He let an oil services company DOUBLE the size of his home. Nice work if you can get it.

I think the Tubes comment will win out.

Anchorage Daily News: Warrant served at Ted Stevens' Girdwood home
FBI, IRS examine residence; remodeling job under scrutiny

Stevens' Girdwood house

• 10 rooms, 2,471 square feet

• Assessed value in 2007: $440,900 (includes 1/4-acre lot)

• Extensive remodel in 2000 that involved jacking existing dwelling up and constructing a new first floor beneath it to roughly double the square footage.

• Investigators are looking into the role of oil field services firm Veco in the remodeling project.

UPDATE: An astute blogger notes that Senator Stephen's attorneys were tipped off about the search. Alberto Gonzales' DOJ strikes again.

Bush's Lawyer Liar

Photo by Matthew Bradley
flckr
Out west, when they say "lawyer", it comes out sounding like "liar", which always makes me laugh. I think Albert Gonzales is from west Texas, and he certainly is a liar. The Wapo documents some of his greatest hits whoppers.

WaPo: Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed
Claims of Misstatements to Shield Bush Stretch Back a Decade

Updates

A211243, Double bird and Owl Effigy Pipe, Virginia, Scott County (Smithsonian)

Courtney Prince, the former New York Rangers cheerleader, has filed her response to MSG's third motion for summary judgment. She says MSG told her to tell the other cheerleaders to act sexy; she also says she did not realize she had been fired for several months. MSG must have raised a statute of limitations defense. Discrimination claims have some of the shortest time limits of any civil claim. You have three years to file suit if you slip and fall or get hit by a car; for sexual harassment, it's six months. MSG immediately issued a press release saying that her claim is baseless and without merit, but as the article notes at the end, George Bush's (read, very conservative) EEOC "has recommended that MSG have its employees undergo sexual harassment discrimination training and pay Prince $800,000 in damages."

The albatross released on Sunday was found waddling on Route 25 in Plymouth yesterday; it's been returned to the Tufts wildlife rescue facility where it was initially nursed back to health.

A reporter for the LATimes tried the Food Stamp Challenge as a vegetarian; she ended up snacking at the sample tables of Whole Foods. Excellent column in the Worcester Telegram lauding Congressman McGovern and his efforts to fight hunger.

Yesterday, while George W. Bush was defending Abu Gonzales, a bird shit on his suit. You cannot make this stuff up.

Republican Memory Loss

hat tip to Americablog

Another Modest Proposal

DOJ Barbie: I don't know nothing 'bout vote caging!
In Re Monical Goodling's testimony yesterday (Monical is a typo, but I'm inclined to let it stay) I must apologize for my aborted attempt at liveblogging. I think I was distracted by the prospect of the Champions League final in the afternoon, and didn't want to get tied down to the computer.

But I did listen to much of the testimony, and it struck me once again that most members of Congress couldn't cross examine their way out of a paper bag. Watching the rows and rows of Congresscritters lined up to question DOJ Barbie reminded me of the Watergate hearings, back in the day. Remember when the committee investigating the breakin used staff to do the questioning? Remember attorney Sam Dash, who was appointed committee counsel by Senator Sam Ervin? It was Sam Dash doing the questioning the day Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of Nixon's secret taping system.

I wish the Congressional committees questioning these witnesses would appoint a professional to assist them. Now, who is both qualified and has the time? How about recently fired New Mexico USAG David Iglesias? He's not working and he certainly knows the issues here. He's handsome and telegenic. There may be complaints that he's partisan, but he's a Republican. Besides, this isn't a criminal trial. It's a political hearing, and both sides are allowed to be as political as they want.

John Conyers, hire David Iglesias. Let him question. Would there be any
better showdown ever, than to watch Iglesias question Karl Rove? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! (A Few Good Men was based on a case tried by Iglesias.)

US Attorney News

LATimes: 'Cowboy up,' Alberto Gonzales
A fired U.S. attorney calls on the attorney general to serve the people, not politics.

LATimes: Goodling: a Power player behind Justice's scenes
The former Justice insider, a mystery to many, is set to testify under immunity in Congress on the U.S. attorneys' firings.

WaPo: Officials Describe Interference by Former Gonzales Aide [Monica Goodling]

Out Long National Wait Is Over

Monica Goodling, the former Justice Department's White House liaison, arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 23, 2007, to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

A new photo of Monica Goodling.

We're all so tired of the old one:



Looks like she's had an extreme makeup makeover.

"In a World Where Law Is Meaningless...."

Yes, you've entered Bushworld. The Godfather, Part IV: Fredo's Revenge.

Newsweek Gives Right Wing Fruitcake Forum to Attack Title IX

This book, and its author, tilts to the right.
Newsweek: Is Title IX Sidelining the Boys?
While federal law made sports more accessible to women, critics charge it works against male athletes.

Jessica Gavora's at it again. This time on the pages of Newsweek magazine, where she is described as "the vice president for policy of The College Sports Council and author of 'Tilting the Playing Field'". In reality, Gavora is a former speechwriter for radical conservatives Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, and Alberto Gonzales. Five years ago when Kathy Jean Lopez was reviewing Tilting the Playing Field on NRO, Gavora was described much more accurately: "Today, Gavora is chief speechwriter to attorney general John Ashcroft (and wife of NRO editor Jonah Goldberg)".

[Yes, that's NRO editor Jonah Goldberg, the famous chickenhawk who, while exhorting soldiers to the killing fields of Iraq, said he can't go because "I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry"; so Jessica Gavora, Title IX-attacker, is the mother of said daughter. Sad.]

Of course, Newsweek provides none of this biographical information. She's the vice president of The College Sports Council. Doesn't that sound all even-handed and above-board? The fact that this is a group advocating for the interests of wrestling, swimming and gymnastics (small, expensive sports that get cut so schools can have 85 or 95 or 105 man football squads) is not mentioned. That would have involved reporting rather than stenography.

But I digress. Back to Jessica Gavora. The wingers' first attempt to dismantle Title IX failed miserably; public blowback ended their chances of eliminating equality by legislation. So the Bush Administration put out regulations that allow schools to say girls aren't interested in sports by administering a survey; these regulations were roundly and soundly criticized, but they're still in effect. They've only got 1 3/4 years left to attack Title IX, so they're trotting out the new tactics.

Jessica sounds so pro-equality as she attacks Title IX. She's just a pal trying to make things even more equitable:

Do you advocate getting rid of Title IX?

I do think we still need title IX. I think that everybody in our educational institutions deserves protection against sex discrimination. I think that’s an important part of equality in this country. But we need to change the way we are judging schools. They need to be able to offer sports on the basis of student interest. That’s why we applauded the student interest survey, [which surveyed the student body based on interest in athletics, allowing for representative sports teams] because right now we have this very arbitrary numerical formula that we are applying and it’s hurting athletes. Not just male athletes, but female athletes on small roster squads. Women who play smaller roster sports don’t get the same opportunity.

Who's radical? It's all us equality folks, that's who! We're out there trying to brainwash women into thinking they're athletic or something:

What do the people on the other side of the issue argue?

The people on the other side of this believe that it isn’t the role of the university to accommodate the interests of women; they believe it’s the role of the university to create interest. They believe it is the role of the university to educate women on how athletic they are.

No one on the equality side of the ledger has ever said or advocated any such thing, but Newsweek lets it go.

Jessica blames everything on us old women (as Gloria Steinem said, women may be the one group that grow radical with age):

What do female athletes say?

I know that I’ve heard from lots of female athletes who are starting to say that this law has outlived its purpose. They don’t understand what this law means because they’re seeing it limit the opportunities of the men they travel and train with and who make them better athletes. And they think it’s insane. There’s a big generational divide here. Some of the women who are of the “if you build it they will com”’ mentality are older women and they lived at a time and went to college at a time when women were being given the short end of the stick in a major way. But these women today have had a very different experience and they don’t agree with what this law is doing to their male colleagues.

See, from Jessica's perspective, these young women, they're being given the short end of the stick in a minor way, and that's all right. If only us old women would only shut up and know our place. We say it's all about football. What does Jessica think of this argument?

What about the big-money sports, like college football teams, that have 80 players [n.b., actually, there are Division I schools with over 100 men on the football team; the University of South Dakota has 113) when they only really need 30. Do you think they are taking up spaces for smaller men’s sports?

Some people like to say it’s all football, because schools are spending all their money on football teams, but that’s not what this is about. Those football players aren’t taking any opportunities away from females. The money they spend on football is not the reason they can only have 15 guys on their baseball team, when if they took their walk-ons they could have 50. Women don’t come out and play for the team without scholarships the way men do. Women have a lot more things they want to do. Look at the gender balance for every extracurricular activity and they’re all dominated by women, except sports. Women have more diverse interests; men are more maniacally interested in sports. Some people say that’s gender heresy but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

"Those football players aren't taking any opportunities away from females." That's the crux of the Title IX haters argument: Just take football out of the equation, and you'll see that men are getting screwed. Like it isn't male athletes who are playing football. They're an alien race of large-boned androids, or something. That's what they'd like to have us believe, but football players are indeed male athletes, and get counted toward Title IX compliance.

"Women have a lot more things they want to do. Look at the gender balance for every extracurricular activity and they’re all dominated by women, except sports. Women have more diverse interests; men are more maniacally interested in sports. Some people say that’s gender heresy but I don’t think that’s a bad thing." Gavora used to call this "The sportsmania gap"; but she's abandoned that and other incendiary phraseology like "affirmative androgyny" for more palatable, but still sexist, words:

This mostly applies to college sports, but how is it relevant to high schools?

This proportionality has so far been pretty much confined to colleges and universities and it would really be a tragedy if it were applied to high schools. Like I said, look at who’s doing what extracurricular activity in high schools and then tell me we need to force equality of participation in sports. You’re going to hurt a lot of boys because a lot of girls are busy after school doing other things, so I think it would be terrible if we expanded this to high schools.

"[T]hen tell me we need to force equality of participation in sports...". That's what she's against. She's against equality. Newsweek doesn't hear that dog whistle, but we do. Gavora is for Title IX, but against forced equality. But you can't have it both ways. Either you're for equality, or you're not. She's clearly in the anti-equality camp, and Newsweek should have called her on it. But that would have involved journalism. And this is just stenography, letting another right-wing fruitcake have her say in the corporate media.

US Attorney Purge: Stealing Elections

Must-read article:

buzzflash.com: Greg Palast, Author of Armed Madhouse, on How Rove May Have Already Stolen the 2008 Election

BuzzFlash: You’re having incredible success with the new expanded paperback edition of Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. Of course, the electronic voting machines and how they function is a very significant issue, but your specialty has really been how the Bush/Rove GOP political machine keeps persons who are likely to vote Democratic or Independent from voting.

Greg Palast: Yes. People ask me: Are they going to steal the 2008 election? No, they’ve already stolen the 2008 election. We still have a chance of swiping it back, but the reason I’ve expanded and put out the new edition of Armed Madhouse is to tell you how they will steal in 2008, and what to do about it. That’s one of the main new things. Plus a special chapter on New Orleans and my bust down there.

Of course, I was very flattered that the first review of the new edition of Armed Madhouse was written by Karl Rove and the Rove-bots -- it was subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee -- I can’t make this up. On February 7th, the Rove team, which had been writing several e-mails screaming about Armed Madhouse and "that British reporter," Greg Palast, were gloating that no U.S. media had picked up my stories. And they had a .pdf file attached. Of course, the reason my book was subpoenaed is that it has to do with the US prosecutor firings. The prosecutor firings were 100% about influencing elections -- not about loyalty to Bush, which is what The New York Times wrote. The administration team couldn’t tolerate appointees who wouldn’t go along with crime. In the book I present the evidence that Karl Rove directed a guy named Tim Griffin to target suppressing the votes of African American students, homeless men, and soldiers. Nice guy. They actually challenged the votes and successfully removed tens of thousands of legal voters from the voter rolls, same as they did in 2000. But instead of calling them felons, they said that they had suspect addresses.

BuzzFlash: In which election cycle?

Greg Palast: 2004. And in 2006 and 2004, they challenged tens of thousands of black soldiers. They stopped their votes from being counted when they were mailed in from Baghdad. Go to Baghdad and lose your vote -- mission accomplished.

BuzzFlash: How did they do that?

Greg Palast: By sending letters to the homes of soldiers, marked "do not forward." When they came back undelivered, they said: Aha! Illegal voter registered from a false address. And when their ballot came in from Fallujah, it was challenged. The soldier didn’t know it. Their vote was lost. Over half a million votes were challenged and lost by the Republicans -- absentee ballots. Three million voters who went to the polls found themselves challenged by the Republicans. This was not a small operation. It was a multi-million dollar, wholesale theft operation.

They’re right that I’m a British reporter, because I put this story on British TV, not on American TV, which won’t touch it. [BuzzFlash note: Palast writes for British papers and reports on the BBC, but he is a product of the San Fernando Valley and the University of Chicago, 100% American.] But our election was a complete, total fraud. This is grand theft -- no question. It’s not a dirty trick; it’s a felony crime.

I’m working with Bobby Kennedy, who is a voting rights attorney. He said, “This is not just an icky, horrible thing that people do wearing white sheets. This is a felony crime.” [paraphrase] And the guy they put in charge of this criminal ring to knock out voters is a guy named Tim Griffin. Today, Tim Griffin is -- badda-bing -- U.S. Attorney for Arkansas. When they fired the honest guys, they put in the Rove-bots to fix the 2008 election. That’s what I’m saying -- it’s already being stolen, as we speak. Tim Griffin is the perpetrator who’s become the prosecutor, and that’s what’s going down right now.

BuzzFlash: You have been questioned about prosecutor-gate and about the theft of the election of 2008. But these replacement prosecutors are still in place, not to mention the ones who have cooperated with Bush. Gonzales has basically told the House Judiciary Committee, make my day. I’m staying on. It’s over with. You asked me questions. I didn’t give you answers, but you don’t have the courage to impeach me, so I’m staying.

Greg Palast: That’s the game, too. Congress is shooting at the glove puppet. I shoot at the puppeteers. It’s not Gonzales. He’s meaningless. He’s a nothing. He should go because he allowed it to happen, and that’s a crime. When I was a racketeering investigator, we used to call it “willful failure to know.” He can’t just say to his staff, I know what Rove is doing, but don’t tell me about it. He would still be liable for criminal conspiracy of obstruction of justice. That’s why Monica Goodling took the Fifth. Not knowing doesn’t mean you’re not guilty, especially when you went out of your way not to know.

Gonzales should be read his rights and carted away. But it’s the puppeteers behind him -- Rove and Harriet Miers -- who were deeply involved in the prosecutor hits. No one’s talking about her. This is the woman who went from head of the Texas State Lottery to nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by George Bush, and no one asked how that happened. They said: Harriet who? But they didn’t ask how that happened. They said, oh, she’s loyal to Bush. She’s the one who did the payoffs to cover up the fact that George Senior got George Junior out of the war in Vietnam. Do you think that that was done just by daddy making a call? Money had to be paid -- lots and lots of money to keep people quiet -- $23 million. That is something I reported on BBC Television and in the Guardian newspaper. We’ve given them plenty of time to challenge that story about the payoffs. We’ve never gotten a peep from these guys. And unlike CBS, the BBC has not withdrawn the story that the fix was put in to get Chicken George out of Vietnam. No one has challenged our story, nor have we withdrawn a comment on our story that the payoffs were made to keep it quiet.

BuzzFlash: Let’s focus for the moment on voter suppression, and we'll return later to other elements of the voter manipulation story.

Greg Palast: I have it all in Armed Madhouse, including in the three new chapters. First and foremost, is that it’s not one thing. It ain’t just electronic voting, guys. You go, oh, we have paper ballots, we’re saved, we’re saved. Bulls***! Wake up! Hello! Let’s remember that in Florida and Ohio, they didn’t have computer voting. So all the stuff about Diebold -- Ohio was not stolen by computers, because they didn’t have computers there. In fact, they were thrilled when people complained about computers because they could keep the junky punch cards in. That doesn’t mean that computers are safe. As I point out in the new chapter, the Republicans held on to Katherine Harris’ seat -- and we don’t want to think too carefully about that image -- they held onto Katherine Harris’ seat with 300 votes, while 18,000 votes disappeared in the computers. So they do use computers. That was a pure, straight-up, shoplift of the Congressional seat.

BuzzFlash: A House committee just voted not to pursue an investigation of that election, despite the disappearance of 18,000 votes.

Greg Palast: That’s sick -- deeply, deviously sick. First of all, in New York and other states, when votes are in question, they simply redo them. People talk about recount -- forget it. Redo the vote. When the machines collapse, then there’s no question that there was monkey business.

The Imperial President Prizes Loyalty Above All

This article is worth watching an ad on salon.com to read:

salon.com: All hail the king
Under Bush, loyalty has reigned supreme. But as his presidency unravels, his obligation to his faithful servants -- from Gonzales to Wolfowitz -- has become perilously relative.
By Sidney Blumenthal

Gonzales Puts The Squeeze on Ashcroft in ICU

The big political news yesterday was James Comey's astonishing testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (watch it on the YouTube video, above), in which he told the incredible story of Abu Gonzales and Andy Card making a late night run to the intensive care unit room of John Ashcroft, trying to get him to do an end-around around Acting US Attorney Comey's refusal to reauthorize the illegal NSA wiretap program. And then Bush went ahead and authorized the program anyway, even though the Justice Department had told him explicitly: IT WAS ILLEGAL. That's called a felony, folks. Probably multiple felonies.

Watch that YouTube video. It's like a scene from a film, except it's real.

Gonzales was White House counsel when he tried to put the squeeze on critically ill Ashcroft. It is incredible that he is now Attorney General. I am amazed that the US now has a worse AG than Witchcroft himself, but clearly that's the case.

I didn't have to time to do this story justice, so read these excellent analyses around blogtopia:

Glenn Greenwald, salon.com: Comey's testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal

TPMuckraker.com: Comey Details White House Attempt to Force Approval of Secret Program

ThinkProgress: Comey Breaks Silence: White House Tried To Force Incapacitated Ashcroft To Back Spying Program

Front paged here:

WaPo: Gonzales Hospital Episode Detailed
Ailing Ashcroft Pressured on Spy Program, Former Deputy Says

NYTimes: President Intervened in Dispute Over Eavesdropping

Abu Gonzales Testimony: A Joke

So we must turn to Jon Stewart for analysis:

Karl Rove Running Justice Department

The Bush political team has been running the Justice Department as their own political witchhunting organization. Karl Rove's little minions are calling US Attorneys right and left. No wonder there were so many investigations of Democrats, and so few investigations of corrupt Republicans (of 309 politicians investigated by US Attorneys 2000-2006, 262 were Democrats, 37 Republicans, 10 Independents)

Need proof of this? Look at the chart Rhode Island Senator (and former US Attorney) Sheldon Whitehouse used in his questioning of Alberto "Mini-Chimperor" Gonzales. The US Attorneys are supposed to be independent. Under Bill Clinton, there were only four people who were allowed to contact US Attorneys regarding cases: the President, the Vice President, the White House Counsel, and the Deputy White House Counsel. No one else was allowed to contact US Attorneys.

Under the Bush Administration, 447 officials -- mostly staff -- are allowed to contact US Attorneys; as ThinkProgress points out, that is a 10,325 % increase. 417 loyal Bushies White House officials (many working from their RNC email accounts, I suspect) and 30 loyal Bushies Department of Justice officials were allowed direct contact with US Attorneys.

The corruption of this administration is unparalleled.



dailykos: "The Chart" is the smoking gun of WH/DOJ political Influence

News Round-Up, Thursday, April 12, 2007

Thick smoke rises from the site of an explosion at Baghdad's Al-Sarafiyah bridge where a suicide bomber blew up a truck, 12 April, 2007. A suicide bomber has blown himself up in the Iraqi parliament canteen in Baghdad's Green Zone, killing three people in a major breach of security at the country's most heavily guarded site.(AFP/Ali Yussef)

A suicide/homicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria this morning. That would be in Baghdad, which the surge is supposed to be making safe, and within the heavily fortified U.S. Green Zone. George Bush's disaster continues.

The real story behind the US Attorney Purge, from Talking Points Memo. It's a giant Karl Rove operation designed to keep poor and black and Democratic voters from exercising their right to vote:

Republican party officials and elected officials use bogus claims of vote fraud to do three things: 1) to stymie voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts in poor and minority neighborhoods, 2) purge voter rolls of legitimate voters and 3) institute voter ID laws aimed at making it harder for low-income and minority voters to vote.

The White House claims that all those off-the-books emails on the RNC/GWB43 servers have just disappeared. How convenient. Jesselyn Radack, a Justice Department lawyer who was hounded out of the department for challenging the prosecution of John Walker Lindh, has a dailykos diary on how emails are forever. (She found emails the Justice Dept. had erased in order to keep from producing them in response to a federal discovery order; when she revealed this, she was fired! Justice, Bush style.) 50 White House officials have used the RNC accounts; of course Karl Rove is one of them.

George Bush's Pentagon announced yesterday that EVERY U.S. Army soldier's tour will be extended from 12 to 15 months. George Bush is breaking the Army.

George Bush is looking for a 'war czar', but three generals he's approached have turned him down. As many bloggers have pointed out, isn't that his job? Or the Secretary of Defense? For a guy who complains about the bureaucracy all the time, Dubya sure does love to create it.

Media Matters for America has a timeline of the decline and fall of Don Imus. It took seven days. I think the timeline shortchanges the impact of the Rutgers women's basketball press conference. They made a powerful statement.

BoingBoing has some good links to audio and video of the late Kurt Vonnegut.

Too Dumb To Get His Lies Straight

MSNBC: Gonzales Crams for a Senate Grilling

At a recent "prep" for a prospective Sunday talk-show interview, Gonzales's performance was so poor that top aides scrapped any live appearances. During the March 23 session in the A.G.'s conference room, Gonzales was grilled by a team of top aides and advisers—including former Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie and former White House lawyer Tim Flanigan—about what he knew about the plan to fire seven U.S. attorneys last fall. But Gonzales kept contradicting himself and "getting his timeline confused," said one participant who asked not to be identified (So Easter.)talking about a private meeting. His advisers finally got "exasperated" with him, the source added.

And this guy is the highest law enforcement officer in the land? His holding such a high office is just a further humiliation of the United States in the eyes of the world. But at least George W. Bush could snap his towel at Abu and call him names (nickname Fredo). He's so dumb he made Georgie feel smart.

I saw this on TalkingPointsMemo, the source for all things Purgative.

Speaking of how dumb the guy who appointed DummyGonzales is, did you see this story?

The CEO of Ford Motor Company stopped George The Lesser from plugging a live extension cord into the hydrogen tank of a hybrid vehicle (which would have a caused an explosion and immolated Curious George). He grabbed the commander in chief's arm and directed him to the front of the vehicle so this photograph could be taken:


Our President. What a maroon.

Good Friday News Dump

Monica Goodling at a Regent Law School picnic
MSNBC reporting that Abu Gonzales aide Monica Goodling to resign -- tomorrow. Probably busy with some Good Friday reenactment today.

Goodling, graduate of the famed Pat Robertson law school Regent, has asserted Fifth Amendment rights to avoid testifying before Congress. Neither the Fifth Amendment nor this resignation will take the focus off the Bush Administration's relentless politicizing of the Justice Department.

Just today we learn that Rachel K. Paulose, the new US Attorney for the District of Minnesota, was BFF with Monica Goodling. Maybe that's why a 33-year-old with minimal legal experience (here's her resume, pdf doc, page 11) was appointed to this position, after the former US Attorney mysteriously resigned without explanation. And before she was appointed she was -- wait, wait -- a senior aide to none other than Abu Gonzales. Today the four most senior members of Paulose's office resigned en masse from their supervisory positions, bumping down to regular trial attorneys in protest of her management style.

Four of her top staff voluntarily demoted themselves Thursday, fed up with Paulose, who, after just months on the job, has earned a reputation for quoting Bible verses and dressing down underlings.

A Bible-quoting bitch. Must have been a real treat to work with.

Then there are the other US attorneys. Not the ones who got purged; not the young Christian zealots who replaced them. No, I'm speaking of the 85 or so US attorneys who kept their jobs. The ones who went along with the Bush Administration's demands for bogus voting rights cases. The ones who investigated Democrats, not Republicans. Like the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic, who brought a bogus case against a state purchasing supervisor (a woman) for steering a state travel contract to a political contributor of the Democratic governor. The Republican candidate for governor in 2006 hammered away on this case in political ads. (Fortunately for the citizens of the state of Wisconsin, the Democrat won anyway.)

And yes, this was a certifiably bogus case. Yesterday the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case and set the poor woman free. That's almost unheard of in appeals cases. On the very day they heard the arguments they issued their opinion that she was innocent. The three-judge panel ordered her set free immediately. The Seventh Circuit is no land of liberals. It's a strongly right-leaning circuit. And they found this case thin as tissue.

The Carpetbagger Report lists other US Attorneys who may have been bringing political hitjob cases for the Bush Administration.

The incompetence, the cronyism, and the corruption are now joined by the criminality of using the impartial justice system for partisan, political ends.

Gonzo's Deputy Testifying Now

You can watch Kyle Sampson's testimony on C-SPAN3 live, or later.

He has already testified that Gonzo lied (or in his weaselly words, "was inaccurate") when he said he wasn't involved in the process.