Here's a link to a recently released music video by comic genius Harry Shearer, called Turd Blossom Special. Bet you can't guess whom it's about. And I highly recommend Cranky's blog. The July archive appears on the link. -- MJ
Tonight was something truly unseen in US history. During the 60 Minutes broadcast and ONLY during the Don Siegelman portion -- the screen went black for Huntsville residents and Mobile residents.
We are now being told that it was a technical issue with CBS in New York:We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."
It was a techincal (sic) problem with CBS out of New York. We are working with them right now to see if we can re-broadcast the segment.
Please be patient with us during this time. We are doing our best to correct the problem.
Excuse me? Are they trying to tell us that a glitch in New York ONLY happened in Alabama -- which is the topic of the 60 Minutes broadcast -- and ONLY during the Don Siegelman segment? Are you kidding me? We have selective prosecution and now we have selective news delivery?
We are kicking off tonights End of the Day by announcing the rollout of a national ad campaign by our friends at VoteVets (ad is at the end of tonights post). Our blog is proud to have a long standing association with that fine organization, and as such, it is my honor to pass on the information that they are launching a national ad campaign to push back against the M$M meme that McCain has unequivocal support of vets and their families. He doesn't. If you can help VoteVets get their ad on the air, click here.
Strannix is not one to give into conspiracy theories per se, but he finds this damned odd.
During the 60 Minutes broadcast and ONLY during the Don Siegelman portion -- the screen went black for Huntsville residents and Mobile residents. There are other reports of other locations, but I have not yet confirmed those.
We are now being told that it was a technical issue with CBS in New York:
We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."
It was a techincal (sic) problem with CBS out of New York. We are working with them right now to see if we can re-broadcast the segment.
Please be patient with us during this time. We are doing our best to correct the problem.
Excuse me? Are they trying to tell us that a glitch in New York ONLY happened in Alabama -- which is the topic of the 60 Minutes broadcast -- and ONLY during the Don Siegelman segment? Are you kidding me? We have selective prosecution and now we have selective news delivery?
Those of us in the know understand that the "gang of 14" thing was not a victory for Democrats, or bipartisanship, but a blessing bestowed on the Republican right to cheat by promising that Democrats wouldn't do anything to make them want to cheat.Pretty much sums it up, Dr. Black.
But it pissed off conservatives because while they want conservative judges to be appointed, what they want even more is to extend a middle finger to Democrats as often as possible. In other words, they wanted the Republicans to cheat so they could laugh at the impotent Democrats.
Their politics is mostly driven by a desire to say "fuck you!!!!!!!!" to their perceived political enemies. There isn't much more there.
Tonight's GOP debate from CA -- Liveblogged by Josh Marshall here and here.
Debate headline: McCain and Romney spar bitterly in GOP debate
Edwards has left the building -- Good-bye, John, and good luck! Here's to hoping someone is smart enough bring you on board somehow, some way... if that's what you want. Best wishes to Elizabeth, too.
Ed Kilgore offered some thoughts on " Why Edwards Lost" vs. Jonathan Cohn on " Why John Edwards Won."
Speculation over who will benefit from presidential candidate drop-outs.
Polls for 13 Super Tuesday states: The Democratic frontrunners -- Clinton ahead in AL, AZ, CA, MA, MO, NJ, NY, OK, and TN. Obama ahead in IL and by a nose in GA. Clinton and Obama are neck and neck in CO, CT. Click the link for GOP results and caveats. New state polls to come in 24 hours at Pollster Blog. With John Edwards having withdrawn, polls can change dramatically. So beware. There are still a lot of "undecideds." Wheeeee-oooooo! It's a horse race!
He's better than AbuGonzales but -- AG Mukasey dodged and weaved again on whether waterboarding is torture and he "got a harsh reception on Wednesday from senators of both parties, who used his appearance on Capitol Hill to accuse the Bush administration yet again of contempt for the rule of law and American values." NYT
Krugman on today's GDP report and "three reasons" to withhold conclusions on "whether a recession or recession-like period has started."
Rove & Zelikow -- Emptywheel: "By this point, it should surprise no one that Karl Rove does a lot of dirty business using his phone and blackberry. Apparently, that extends to softening the reports of the 9/11 Commission.... ...Rove carried on back-channel discussions with Philip Zelikow, the Commission's Executive Director."
Conservatives and fascism by David Neiwert at Orcinus.
Bipartisanship -- What does it mean in D.C.? Greenwald explained it's "already rampant in Washington" and it happens when "enough Democrats join with all of the Republicans to endorse and enact into law Republican policies, with which most Democratic voters disagree." See Glenn's list of "bipartisan" lawmaking.
Another Repub says no -- Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) will not seek reelection. "There are now 28 House GOPers vacating their seats." (h/t Logan)
Speaking of the GOP exodus -- " 'The open-seat situation is so lopsided as to deny Republicans any chance of taking back the House in 2008,' said David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan publication." Furthermore, "Republicans face a worrisome financial gap in comparison to House Democrats" fundraising. Ending 2007: Democrats -- $35 million cash, $1.3 million debt. Repubs -- $5 million cash, $2 million debt.
Predatory mortgage lenders -- The FBI is investigating 14 "companies, including some of the world’s largest banks..." John Amato provided commentary and video.
Suicidal soldiers -- "Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study... Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.... At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began." Thursday WaPo
Outposts in Iraq -- In an effort to firm up security, "Maj. Gen. Jeffery W. Hammond said he would increase the number of garrisons in [Baghdad] from 75 to 99 by June... ...[M]eanwhile, the remains of 19 people -- 10 heads and nine intact corpses -- were discovered in the town of Muqdadiyah in Diyala province, northeast of the capital, police said. Elsewhere, officials said a suicide car bomber in the northern city of Mosul injured at least 15 people."
Dowd and Brooks -- Echidne unveiled the NYT columnists' codewords about "gender stereotypes" and Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
Fickle Tweety competed with Bloody Bill for the title, Wrongest Wingnut of All. His past praise of Rudy and what a diff a day makes at TP.
[That's all...no more after the jump.]
The House passed a $696 billion defense bill that gives a 3.5% pay raise to troops retroactively. Doesn't sounds like much, still, hoo-rah! The Asshat-in-Chief threatened to veto the previous bill version until Bush got what he wanted -- a provision that would allow him to "grant Iraq immunity" nullifying any "guarantees that U.S. victims of state-sponsored abuse can sue foreign governments in court." Uh-oh.
Go Cheney yourself: Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) held a press conference on an economic stimulus program. Boehner addressed House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) -- "As soon as they put those cameras away, I'm going to flip you the bird." Transcript. CQ Politics on the stimulus plan.
Tomorrow... Oversight & Government Reform Committee hearing: Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) will convene "Assessing Veteran’s Charities – Part Two” that will "focus on orgs operated by Roger Chapin, who failed to comply with a subpoena compelling his testimony" in December. Chapin will appear to respond to questionable activities of 20 organizations "including a number of veterans’ and military-oriented charities." Previous hearing and transcript here.
Pentagon kerfuffle: SecDef Gates pissed off Britain and other allies "accusing Nato countries fighting in southern Afghanistan of lacking experience in counter-insurgency warfare." Times UK
Tsk, tsk. Those Ungrateful Saudis. OBL and Ahmadinejad scored higher favorability than Bush in a poll conducted in Saudi Arabia last month. Read Robert Scheer at The Nation. With friends like these...
Missing WH emails gone forever -- A new court filing disclosed that the WH "effectively erased e-mail related to some of the biggest controversies of the Bush administration, including the leak of a CIA officer's name, the start of the Iraq war and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes." Who's to blame? The tape recycling system. CREW has more.
In the Noise -- Karl Rove revealed GOP strategies for attacking Hillary and Obama in '08. Details at the link. Bottom-line: "[T]he Republican candidate must show the electorate 'that they understand the surge is working.' Rove said the candidate should get firmly behind the war effort, painting the Democratic nominee as 'defeatist.'" SSDE.
Terror fundraising ring: In Kansas City, MO, a 42-count indictment will keep former Reagan appointee and Michigan Repub Mark Deli Siljander busy. And how! Counts include "money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists." AQ and the Taliban. Jeepers! TPM.
"Just how trivial can the media make the presidential race?" Matt Taibbi of The Rolling Stone offers some answers and Greg Sargent analyzes the John Edwards media blackout .
[That's all...no more after the jump.]
Until the writers go back to work or VersusPlus allows more of its videos to be embedded (that is what happens when one of the producers is a lawyer) HEADZUP is our go to funny. Tonight Carl Rove ventures into BillO's no spin zone. HEADZUP is really just puppets telling lies, but that is what makes it so hard to call tonight's funny political satire. Puppets telling lies pretty much sums up BillO, Karl Rove and the No Spin Zone.
Tonight I thought we might all benefit by visiting an art gallery. If you are in New York any time soon you should visit the New York Public Library's main Fifth Ave. branch. It has put up mugshots of several well known administration figures. The Daily News has a slide show. In the alternative, the AP has a video story.
UnitedOffensiveIII's "liner" notes after the break. Mug shots' of Bush, Cheney featured in library exhibit
The New York Public Library is displaying an unusual set of photographs: images of Bush administration officials doctored to make them look like police mug shots.
The half dozen pictures were created by two Brooklyn artists, Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, as part of a privately financed exhibit called "Line Up" in the landmarked public space on Fifth Avenue.
Also in the mug shot gallery are images of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Bush adviser Karl Rove, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The dates on each image match days when each official spoke about Iraq in ways the artists consider criminal - with sound clips of them speaking, along with a camera flash going off and a prison door closing.
Some have criticized the library for displaying political satire in an institution that receives public funding.
Matthew Walter, spokesman for the New York Republican State Committee, said: "It is simply inappropriate to have political attack in the form of egregious doctored photographs of the president and other high-ranking officials who have dedicated their lives to public service in a taxpayer-funded building frequented by schoolchildren and the general public."
The library said the exhibition "has no political agenda."
The photographs are part of a larger exhibit called "Multiple Interpretations: Contemporary Prints in Portfolio at the New York Public Library," which will be up through Jan. 27.
The library has a long tradition of collecting political satire and caricature, library spokesman Herb Shaer said Friday.
"It's the mission of the library to document what's happening in the culture, and this is an artist's response to what's happening to the world around them," he said.
Just when you begin to forget about the culture of partisan corruption that has swallowed the Justice Department, George H. W. Bush's former Attorney General, Dick Thornburgh tells a House subcommittee that the Federal case against his client, Dr. Cyril Wecht, is a collection of "nickel and dime transgressions" including use of the county coroner's office fax machine for personal business.
Thornburgh, who should know, says this case against Wecht is atypical for a Federal corruption prosecution, at least before this administration, because there is "no evidence of a bribe or kickback" and no evidence that Wecht traded on his position or engaged in a conflict of interest. The charges grew out of allegations that he used county equipment and staff to assist him in his private pathology practice. Wecht is a nationally known forensics expert used by prosecutors and defense attorneys across the country. Purely state court stuff, at best. More likely a juicy issue for his next Republican opponent. Hardly a Federal case.
Thornburgh believes that because Wecht is a high-profile Democrat, he is "an ideal target for a Republican U .S. Attorney trying to curry favor with a Department which demonstrated that if you play by its rules, you will advance." The former AG pointed out that the U.S. Attorney handling the case, Pittsburgh's Mary Beth Buchanan, has prosecuted "not one" Republican, while prosecuting several Democrats in a "highly visible manner." Apparently all of her political prosecutions have been timed to influence elections. Watch TPM's video for the rest of the story.
More after the break.
First, Georgia Thompson and now this. Thornburgh thinks there is a pattern. Maybe the rest of us should take him seriously.
Again I ask how many more Georgia Thompsons are out there the victim of frivolous charges were brought by hyper partisan Republican U.S. Attorneys against members of Democrats in support of a craven effort to influence elections?
For more on yesterdays hearing you might want to read this editorial in the New York times.
Wurlitzer Prize winning wingnut Bill Sammon of the Examiner.com reports
President Bush, for the first time, is predicting that Hillary Rodham Clinton will defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries. "She's got a national presence and this is becoming a national primary," Bush said in an interview for the new book, The Evangelical President. "And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated."He goes on to quote Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's belief that the election will be very, very tight. Then Sammon does something not all that remarkable for White House Stenographers protecting important officials who say things that they wouldn't want to say in public, he goes off the record to quote a "senior White House official's" critiques of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. What is said by the "senior White House official" about Barack Obama is so racist and so remarkable Sammon should have insisted it be on the record. According to the "senior White House official"
But Bush is convinced the junior senator from New York will then be defeated in the general election by the Republican nominee.
the freshman senator from Illinois was "capable" of the intellectual rigor needed to win the presidency but instead relies too heavily on his easy charm.Give me a break, I guess the unnamed senior White House official (Bush is the only current Senior White House official mentioned in Sammon's hit job) thinks Barack Obama, former President of the Harvard Law Review, would do well as a black preacher, preaching a little gospel on Sunday and selling sunshine the rest of the week, but he lacks the willingness to work hard needed to be President. When I read Sammon's piece the wretched memory of "steppen fetchit" came to mind.
"It's sort of like, 'that's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a condescending attitude towards the voters," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And a laziness, an intellectual laziness."
paradoxically, she may have too much experience, according to White House aides. They suggested that voters would be weary of her by November 2008. After all, by then Clinton will have eight years under her belt as an unusually high-profile senator, plus another eight as an unusually high-profile first lady.Obviously the Hillary criticism is pretty routine and probably wrong.
"This process is not going to serve her well," a senior White House official told The Examiner. "Think about it. She's going to be essentially saying: 'Elect me president after I've spent the last 16 years in your face. And you didn't like me much when I was there last. Give me eight more years so I can be a presence in your life for 24 years. And Bill will be back in.' So no, I think this is not a helpful process for her."
The RNC just shot off an email building on the slur. With the headline "Razzle Dazzle", the email continues the theme that Obama is just another black fancy-pants with a slick smile and nice turn of phrase but either without the candle-power or stick-to-it-iveness to actually get things done.Democrats and Republicans alike should be enraged by the Obama part of the story. Basically the claim is that Obama is just another "lazy, no account 'negro'" with nothing more than a ready smile and easy charm. That kind of crap has no place in 21st century politics. By refusing to identify the official who made the comment (Rove, Cheney or Bush are the three candidates although technically Bush is the only one who is a current "Senior White House Official") Sammon is protecting racism at the highest levels of government. That this racist crap is being embraced by the NRC proves just how determined they are to become a permanent minority regional party.
"Chicago Star Obama Continues His All Show, No Substance Campaign With Event On Broadway," the email begins.
So Long Turd Blossom was produced by CTPatriot2006. It was added to YouTube on August 18, 2007. It is tonight's funny.
CTPatriot2006 says this is "An ode to the resignation of Karl Rove. "Love Story" audio track originally produced by and broadcast on the Mike Malloy Show, one of the best political talk shows on the progressive dial (www.novamradio.com)."
Chris Matthews says this will make it easier for Congress to get him to testify on various issues. But Tweety Bird forgets that Bush, as in the case of Harriett Miers, has already extended his big tent of executive privilege to former White House officials. So, sorry, Tweety, but absent a court showdown this really doesn’t change anything.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Karl Rove has tendered his resignation and will leave his position at the White House effective August 31, 2007. It is hard to believe that his family really wants to see more of the bald weasel. So why is he really leaving? Inquiring minds REALLY want to know! Let's see, One could hazard a guess that it would be much harder for a Congressional Sergeant at Arms to seize the Rover if he is ensconced in Texas, instead of DC, upon a finding of inherent contempt by either the Senate or, more likely, the House of Representatives. Please feel free to speculate.
There are probably 57 different reasons why 16 Democratic Senators (including Jim Webb! - my heart's broken) and 41 Democratic Representatives voted to gut the Fourth Amendment and give The Usurper dictatorial powers.
But if the primary reason was that those 57 dems actually fell - AGAIN - for Rovian fear-mongering, Glenn Greenwald in Salon demolishes that excuse.
Read the whole thing, but here's a taste:
We do not need to wonder or speculate about what might happen if Democrats obstruct warrantless eavesdropping legislation and Republicans are then able to make an issue of it politically. That already happened in 2006. That was Rove's whole strategy. It failed miserably, across the board. And yet the Democratic leadership just permitted, and many Democrats supported, a wild expansion of George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping powers based on a jittery fear of this already-failed tactic, if not based on actual support for these increased eavesdropping powers.
Paul J. McNulty, the former number 2 at the DoJ will be the only witness appearing before the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law later today. The hearing is scheduled to start at 12:00 PM. You can find the live webcast here.
You might recall that Monica Goodling essentially called McNulty a liar during her testimony last month. If he sticks to his prepared remarks, McNulty has apparently decided not to hit back.
I hope they ask him probing questions like why did they really fire the Gonzales 8? You know questions that the DoJ has never truthfully answered. In his remarks McNulty says
It is important for this Committee and the public to know that when it comes to enforcing the law, Justice Department employees are blind to partisan politics. It plays no role in the Department’s actions.I believe he has stated how the DoJ is supposed to operate, but after Bradley Schlozman's testimony about the Acorn 4 and all the rest can anyone really believe that is the way the DoJ has been run by Karl Rove, er Alberto Gonzales.
Remember the RNC email accounts that according to Dana Perino were issued to a handful of White House employees. Well it turns out that Dana was a little on the low side. It seems the RNC was essentially functioning as an internet service provider for about 88 White House employees all in violation of the law.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has just released a report (pdf) on the RNC email accounts used by various White House officials. Among other things the report finds
* The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed. In March 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that only a “handful of officials” had RNC e-mail accounts. In later statements, her estimate rose to “50 over the course of the administration.” In fact, the Committee has learned from the RNC that at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts. The officials with RNC e-mail accounts include Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.I guess Karl Rove and company figured The Presidential Records Act was just a guideline. Don't we have enough to impeach Alberto yet?
* White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.
* There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC. Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. Rove’s former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts. Although the RNC has preserved no e-mail records for Ken Mehlman, the former Director of Political Affairs, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Mehlman used his account “frequently, daily.” In addition, there are major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails. The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush’s first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006.
* There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records. In her deposition, Ms. Ralston testified that she searched Mr. Rove’s RNC e-mail account in response to an Enron-related investigation in 2001 and the investigation of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later in the Administration. According to Ms. Ralston, the White House Counsel’s office knew about these e-mails because “all of the documents we collected were then turned over to the White House Counsel’s office.” There is no evidence, however, that White House Counsel Gonzales initiated any action to ensure the preservation of the e-mail records that were destroyed by the RNC.
Turning the Department of Justice into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party must have sounded good to Karl Rove when the idea was first proposed. Well, there is a very practical reason why the DoJ should be kept out of politics. In the end the DoJ is all about prosecuting people for breaking the law. Defense lawyers are smart, they work hard for their money. If a criminal defense lawyer can convince a judge or a jury that the prosecutor's motives aren't pure, he just might win his case.
This morning the LA Times is reporting that in a series of cases across the country defense attorneys have challenged or are challenging the motives of the U.S. Attorneys in bringing charges against their clients.
A good example involves Rachel Paulose up in Minneapolis. According to the LA Times article, last month:
Lawyer Daniel Gerdts won an acquittal in federal court in Minneapolis last month for a New York computer consultant who had been accused of bringing child pornography into the United States on his way back from a business trip to Asia.Another case involves charges brought by Bradley Schlozman against a Springfield, Missouri company and an Arkansas Democratic politician. That case is still developing. Knowing Bradley Schlozman's loyal Bushie reputation, I, for one, am anxious to see if Schlozman was pursuing justice or just the election of a Republican.
The defendant, who worked for a Japanese producer of adult videos, said he was hired to set up Web pages to market the videos and to search the Internet for pirated copies. He conceded he might have inadvertently downloaded child porn in the process of doing his job.
In court, Gerdts said prosecutors had failed to exercise proper discretion in bringing the charges. During his closing argument to the jury, he suggested a reason, alluding to published reports of upheaval in the office since Rachel Paulose had become U.S. attorney in 2006.
Paulose is believed to have gotten the posting with the help of Monica M. Goodling, a former Gonzales aide who recently testified under a grant of immunity from prosecution that she "crossed a line" by improperly allowing politics to influence hiring decisions at the Justice Department. Several senior prosecutors in the Minneapolis office resigned their management posts to protest Paulose's leadership.
The effect of Gerdts' courtroom remark was unclear. Government lawyers objected, and the judge told jurors to ignore the comment.
After the verdict, jurors said they did not believe the government's accusation that the defendant had intentionally downloaded contraband files.
In a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting Thursday morning, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once again used an interim appointment authority at the heart of the US Attorneys controversy that Congress banned in a bill sent to the President for signature on June 4.According to Senator Leahy's spokesperson
"Senator Feinstein’s U.S. Attorney bill....repeals that portion of the Patriot Act Reauthorization that had allowed the Attorney General to circumvent advice and consent with respect to U.S. Attorneys. That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the President’s desk since June 4. It seems he just cannot bring himself to sign it. Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the Attorney General has used the power that we have voted to repeal, again," said Senator Leahy, the committee's chairman.
It just so happens the committee got notice yesterday, that on June 16, George Cardona's 210 days as Acting U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California will have run out and the Attorney General will appoint him as an interim U.S. Attorney at that time. (i.e. still using the end-run authority because Bush has slow-walked signing the bill)."Given the utter contempt in which Bush, Gonzales, Karl Rove's band of voter suppression bandits, and Gonzales' "senior aides" have held the House and Senate Judiciary Committees are we surprised?
Think Progress is reporting that the Department of Justice has released new documents connecting former White House political chief (and top aid to Karl Rove) Sara Taylor and her deputy Scott Jennings to the U.S. Attorney scandal. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has released the following statement.
These documents, which should have been released by the Department long ago, provide further evidence that White House officials like former Political Director Sara Taylor were deeply involved in the mass firings of well-performing prosecutors. The Department of Justice should not be reduced to a political arm of the White House. We need an end to the White House’s stonewalling of our investigations so we can learn the truth.Here is a link to the released documents.
An editorial in this morning's New York Times neatly sums up Bradley Schlozman's testimony concerning the ACORN indictments and his role in the politicization of the Department of Justice.
Mr. Schlozman said it did not occur to him that the indictments could affect the campaign. That is hard to believe since the Justice Department’s guidelines tell prosecutors not to bring vote fraud investigations right before an election, so as not to affect the outcome. He also claimed, laughably, that he did not know that Acorn was a liberal-leaning group.All roads in this scandal lead to the White House. The White House refuses to make Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Scott Jennings, Sara Taylor and William Kelley available for testimony under oath and have generally stonewalled regarding critical emails. At long last the Times editorial board has concluded
Mr. Schlozman fits neatly into the larger picture. Prosecutors who refused to use their offices to help Republicans win elections, like John McKay in Washington State, and David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired. Prosecutors who used their offices to help Republicans did well.
This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.The Nattering Nabob says, "My God, even the New York Times gets it." The Nattering Nabob is right.
I first became interested in blogging because I became really, really interested in Tim Griffin, the protege of Karl Rove and former boss of Monica Goodling, who was named US Attorney in Arkansas after Bud Cummins was asked to leave. I just couldn't understand why that happened. Anyway, it can be argued that the entire US Attorney scandal started with Tim Griffin.
The Arkansas Times reports that Griffin is out as US Attorney effective June 1,2007. According to the TPMMuckraker Griffin is talking with the Thompson campaign about a top job.
Last week Sara Taylor left the Administration. Griffin this week. Both tied to caging activities in the 2004 election. I wonder. Can Sara be far behind. And what about Karl Rove. Shouldn't he be looking for work about now?
