At the End of the Day - February 4, 2007

[Hey all - Blue Girl here, standing in for the inimitable Apollo 13 who is under the weather with the gawd-awful bug I had a couple of weeks ago. Besides that, everyone was great about keeping the lights on while I was off-line due to the second major hardware catastrophe in six months...so covering the End of the Day is the least I could do. Send Apollo good thoughts and I'll turn the reins back over as soon as the master is on the mend.]

CREW is calling for the Attorney General to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the millions of missing emails that the White House failed to archive, in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

Why did Israel bomb Syria last September? Seymour Hersch probes that puzzler as only he can in the latest issue of the New Yorker. One of the conclusions he makes early on? The M$M proved to be useful idiots in promoting an improbably, if not impossible, meme.

Lo, and Behold! Another Bush administration in need of a criminal defense attorney! According to the Washington Post, HUD secretary Alfonso Jackson (he of the partisan litmus test for awarding contracts) tried to strongarm the housing authority of Philadelphia into giving a piece of publicly owned property to a crony.

Bush submitted his final budget today, and true top form, he is planning to spend $3.1 Trillion dollars, while steadfastly adhering to his theory of economics that, apparently, hinges on the premise that as taxes rates approach zero, receipts will approach infinity. In the Bush budget, military spending will be higher than at any point since World War II, while effectively freezing or eliminating 151 domestic programs. Democrats reacted angrily, and even some Republicans were unable to suspend disbelief and get on board. “They’ve obviously played an inordinate number of games to try to make it look better,” said Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. The picture becomes even more surreal when we stop to think about the deficit spending that is financing aWol's excellent Iraqi misadventure.

Palestinian suicide bombers struck in Dimona, Israel today, killing one woman at an open-air mall. It was the first suicide attack in Israel in over a year. The attackers came from Gaza, and served to point up that Palestinian Authority President Mahmood Abbas, on whom the Bush administration is relying heavily to lead the Palestinian peace process, has little if any control over the Gaza Strip, which remains under Hamas control.

The United States military is blaming faulty communications between U.S. forces and Iraqi militia allies for a helicopter strike in which at least nine Iraqi civilians were killed.

Tomorrow the Senate is set to take up FISA and telecom immunity while they think we are distracted by Super Tuesday. Make your calls in the morning and remind your senators that you are watching and paying attention, and passing the buck to the taxpayers for damages won't cut it, either. No immunity. No how, no way. And if our Senators don't stand up for the Fourth Amendment, right now, when they come asking for our support for their reelection campaigns, they shall be met with the mantra "not one dime and not one moment of our time."

Wikileaks has posted a real mind-blower. Here is the link to the 2005 Rules of Engagement for Iraq. Paul Keil said it best: "At the very least, if the Bush Administration expires and we are still at war only in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can count ourselves lucky." (Cross border incursions, including into Iraq and Syria? Laos, anyone?)

But hey, you've still got Turkey throwing the chessboard in the air and attacking Kurdish terrorists in Iraq, with brutality and extreme prejudice. As a good friend said, this is exactly what we don't need right now. Says a whole helluva lot about Iraqi sovereignty, doesn't it?

Attention California Voters: If you are a "Decline to State" voter, you have to take a unique and unusual step in order for your vote to count! It is not enough to ask for and cast a Democratic ballot! There is a place on the ballot that you must mark "Democratic" in order for your vote to count. And the scan machines do not return your ballot for correction!

At the risk of starting a firestorm (I have not officially endorsed any primary candidate, although I have made up my mind who I will cast my secret ballot for tomorrow) I found an interesting post by Stanley Fish at the New York Times Blogs in which he peeks behind the curtain into the dark, dark psyches of the hard-core Hillary Haters - the ones who make Sully look silly and trifling by comparison.

[That's a wrap, folks - there's nothing below the fold.]

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White House visitors logs are public records

A Federal Judge on Monday dealt a blow to the pathologically-secretive Bush administration and ruled that the visitors logs created and maintained by the Secret Service are public records. Turns out that the people have a right to know who is dropping by to call on the president and vice president. Those records have traditionally been reviewed by the media and watchdog organizations to keep tabs on who is bending the president's ear. Leaders of the so-called "Christian right" like Gary Bauer, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell were among the visitors the judge ordered be revealed yesterday.

The case stemmed from the Abramoff corruption scandal. Recall that aWol tried to deny he knew the super-lobbyist; then moved to classify the records that would show how many visits Jack A. had paid to the peoples house.

To that end, the current cabal tried to float the ludicrous notion that the visitors logs were "presidential records" and thus are not available under the Freedom of Information Act.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth rejected this argument, saying the records qualify as "agency records" subject to disclosure. He also rejected the claim that the records should be kept secret to preserve the confidentiality of presidential and vice presidential deliberations, noting that even a Cheney aide testified that the purpose of the visits is not apparent from the documents.

"Knowledge of these visitors would not disclose presidential communications or shine a light on the President's or Vice President's policy deliberations," Lamberth wrote in his opinion.

Melanie Sloan, Executive Director for CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) issued the following statement: "CREW is pleased that the judge saw through the White House's transparent attempts to hide public documents from the American people. We look forward to sharing the documents we obtain through this lawsuit."

The White House, meantime, isn't ready to comply. In a 'circling the wagons' email message sent out right after the ruling, Tony Fratto predictably wrote "We are reviewing the decisions by the U.S. District Court in the cases and will discuss our options with counsel. As these issues remain in litigation, we will not comment further at this time."

It is likely that the White House will appeal the ruling. The grounds on which they will appeal won't likely move the ball down the field, but it will serve to run some time off the clock. And isn't that the likely legacy of this administration? Limping to the finish and running out the clock?

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Mitch Hit by Two Blows in Same Day

UPDATE Below

Not only did today see Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell outed as one of the most corrupt members of Congress, a new poll revealed how deeply unpopular he is in his home state.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released its report Beyond DeLay: The 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and two to watch) this morning, Mitch prominent on the list, and lots of gory details.

This afternoon, the Lexington Herald-Leader and WTVQ-36 released more results of its recent comprehensive poll, these revealing that 55 percent of Kentuckians disapprove of McConnell's position on Iraq. Thirty-eight percent approve, and seven percent are undecided.

MediaCzech at BluegrassRoots has the details.

UPDATE, 7:23 p.m.Thanks to corpus juris for noticing that I had typed "Thirty-eight percent disapproved" when of course it should read "Thirty-eight percent approved." Guess all that disapproval of Mitch made me giddy. I have corrected the sentence.

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CREW releases Congressional “dirty 96” list - including Ron Paul

These are the Members of Congress who keep family members on some sort of dole, whether a friendly PAC or something else.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington earlier this week (CREW) released an analysis of the misuse of power by the chairmen and ranking members of all House of Representative committees and subcommittees, as well as top leadership positions, to financially benefit their family members. The new report, Family Affair, names 96 members from 33 states: 41 Democrats and 55 Republicans.

Highlights of the report include:

* 64 paid family members through their campaign committees or PACs (26 Democrats and 38 Republicans);
* 24 have relatives who lobby Congress (10 Democrats and 14 Republicans);
* 19 used their campaign committees or PACs to pay a family business or a business that employs a family member (9 Democrats and 10 Republicans);
* 17 used their campaign funds to make campaign contributions to relatives (11 Democrats and 6 Republicans);
* 15 used their positions to benefit a family member or a family member’s client (3 Democrats and 12 Republicans);
* At least 7 paid offspring who ranged from school-age to college-age (all Republicans)

Among the more laughable on the list? “Libertarian” Ron Paul; I guess it just shows that past or present third-party officials aren’t immune from hypocrisy, either.

None of his relatives worked for the government, ’tis true; just for his campaign committee. It's still a form of benefiting your own family through running for office.

Paul has his daughter on his campaign committee, to the tune of about $49,000 in the 2002 election cycle, and $56,000 in both 2004 and 2006 cycles. A second daughter, and her mother-in-law and father-in-law, got smaller payouts.

The CREW page about the story, including a state-by-state look-up of the “dirty 96,” is here. (PDFs of info on each of the violators.)

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly.

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This Story Is Moving At Warp Speed

One of the problems for the White House is that the documents dumped Monday are being viewed not only by reporters and house and senate investigators, but by lots and lots of bloggers. Details that in the old days would have been overlooked or ignored are catching the eye of some pretty savvy people. Among the items that has been caught by the eagle eyed is White House political aide Scott Jennings' use of an email account provided by the RNC when communicating with Kyle Sampson. Jennings is a White House employee. He used the RNC account while communicating with an official at the Justice Department. According to a complaint filed today with the house oversight committee CREW That might be an violation of the Presidential Records Act. Unless the White House is going to argue that Jennings work in the prosecutor purge was purely political, CREW might be right.

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