Matt and his crew are rapidly becoming my newest heroes. Please read his excellent work on the not-quite-legal activities of some of your favorite political players as the citizens of NV struggle to bring some common sense to our drug regulation laws. I am not qualified to speak at length on what seems to be happening there, but it seems pretty basic to me: public officials should not have the right to condemn initiatives put forth by the general public while on the clock and while using resources bought with your taxdollars. Yet that is exactly what’s going on here, and like Matt, I wonder why the Democrats aren’t following up on very similar and possibly related lawbreaking on Rove’s part. Harry? Nancy? Anyone?  Read more 

Yesterday, I spent some time in Michigan’s Capitol Building, you can read about it here (warning: wonky budget negotiation details ahead). But one thing really struck me- how open and well, free it was. No charges, no pat downs, no burly men in suits with guns posted at every door. I even spoke with a Senator, just walked right up to her and started chatting it up. Something a lowly DFH blogger-cum-cub reporter could never, ever do in DC. This is really the heart of the problem about which so many are constantly complaining. There is no contact between real people and their leaders elected officials, not at the national level at least. For Democratic reps, the most important thing is what is said on TV, and the only America they know is one on constant Orange Alert, peopled with “protective” thugs and brownshirts on every corner.  Read more 

Almost two years ago (October 19th, 2005 to be precise) I posted the following school-themed post. I repost it here today to remind anyone who doubts or cares: when it came to the Bush Administration, many of us called bullshit before the MSM even looked up from their steno pads. It ain’t “I told you so”—it’s “We all told you so.”

++++

INT: OVAL OFFICE, DAY

A pretty woman speaks with the children, some of whom play with toys on the floor.

Alright, alright, settle down, settle down. Now, do you know why all of you are here today?

“Snacks?”

No, not snacks. Anyone?

“Mom is at the store?”

She might be. Donald, sit down. No, we are here to talk about what the word “treason” means. Does anyone here know what “treason” means?  Read more 

So by now you’ve probably heard: Rove’s resigning! Wow! I’m pretty amazed, I thought turdblossom would be loyal to the end. And perhaps he is, and this is a move designed to protect Cheney and Bush. Or perhaps it means they are fighting like a bunch of schoolgirls. Perhaps he just misses all that nighttime bottoming with Jeff. What do you think?  Read more 

Greg Palast has a post up over at Bradblog that puts context to Monica Goodling’s testimony, vis a vis “caging” voters:

Goodling testified that Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin’s “involvement in ’caging’ voters” in 2004.

(snip)

But what’s ’caging’ and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer Sampson put his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin’s involvement in it? Because it’s a felony. And a big one.  Read more 

Our magic word for today is “imaged.” For some reason that made me think of the old Star Trek ep where they transport into the Bizarro Universe and meet the Spock with the Beard and Uhura is dressed even hotter than usual, complete with dagger in a leg holster. From, as usual, Your Daily Froom:

In a letter to the House oversight committee, the Republican National Committee turned over a heavily caveated list with 37 names on it. It was described as a “current list of users who we believe are or were White House employees using RNC accounts for whom we have been able to identify active e-mail data on operational RNC servers.” The RNC said more names may well show up later.

The RNC says it is “working diligently to identify and preserve all potentially relevant data that may exist” and has already gathered 25.5 million kilobytes of e-mail from the 37. It has also hired a computer forensics firm that has “imaged” several RNC computers and blackberries that are currently being used by White House employees.

The Associated Press has an annotated version of the list. The most prominent name on it, other than Karl Rove of course: Presidential counselor Dan Bartlett.

Are there any contests currently running for “greatest number of weasle words that can be squeezed into one sentence”? If so I have a nominee.  Read more 

I heard a rumor about this earlier but now it’s confirmed:
Blackberry System Dead in entire Western Hemisphere.

Wonder what could cause such a massive outage of this system, the tit of which Karl R suckles on incessantly? Don’t you wonder if maybe their attempt to pull his records out of the servers could have caused something to go a little bit oopsie?

I bet he’s wondering that about now. I hear their servers are in Canada too…  Read more 

Look, I’ll try to make it simple. The Bush administration isn’t going to willingly cooperate on the email matter. Nah.Gonna.Happen. So what is the remedy? We already know of one felony (obstruction of justice by Rove re: Fitz) and I have no doubt there are many more. Is the Congress coequal or not? Does the Judiciary committee work with the Intel committee or not (Feinstein sits on both)? Are Democrats always going to bring a knife to a gun fight or not? Talk is cheap. Pick up the phone, Senator Feinstein, and have a closed door chat with the NSA. Or, someone tell me a better way to get these emails. Also: SIM cards- the Bushies used Blackberries to send some of these emails. SIM cards are forever. Chutzpah isn’t the word I’d use, “arrogance” and “drunk on power” come to mind instead:

In a letter to Mr. Leahy and Representative John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Fielding, the White House counsel, said the administration was prepared to produce e-mail from the national committee, but only as part of a “carefully and thoughtfully considered package of accommodations” — in other words, only as part of the offer for Mr. Rove and the others to appear in private.  Read more 

Warmed by the increasing heat from below, the sluggish national media begins to take notice of the campaign to run the country of the Republican Party, by the Republican Party, for the Republican Party, that it might not perish from the earth (the rest of us of course can submit or go to hell). Via LA Times:

When Karl Rove and his top deputies arrived at the White House in 2001, the Republican National Committee provided them with laptop computers and other communication devices to be used alongside their government-issued equipment.

The back-channel e-mail and paging system, paid for and maintained by the RNC, was designed to avoid charges that had vexed the Clinton White House — that federal resources were being used inappropriately for political campaign purposes.  Read more 

You realize that little ol’ Correntewire.com—us frontpagers, you readers, all of us together—have over the last week or so been the recipients of a full-scale Rovian Red-Cape operation? Which is still going on thanks to links from the exceedingly fatuous Michelle Malkin and other sites? You have a ringside seat at a little teensy bit of prime political theater. Garcon, more popcorn please. And fill everyone’s glass, and keep ’em coming. Dissection is thirsty work.  Read more 

Xan, keep working those emails. I’ll let Laura do the talking:

WP: GSA chief is accused of playing politics, potentially violating the Hatch Act:

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove’s political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House’s deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could “help ’our candidates’ in the next elections,” according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using “targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country.”  Read more 

Dear White House:

Re: your earlier requests to hide lying liars behind the closed doors of secrecy in the name of ’compromise.’ No.

Love,
The House  Read more 

Clammyc says no. Some highlights:

However, that isn’t really why I am writing this – I am looking more at WHY they won’t testify as opposed to the underlying issues, documents, and possible crimes (I will say that the fired attorneys will most likely provide enough information regarding whether any “obstruction of justice” charges would be warranted with or without Rove and Miers).

It all obviously goes to the matter of Executive Privilege. And the question is – will Congress fight the Administration all the way to the Supreme Court (only to run out the clock and possibly lose in this case anyway), or will they focus on all other areas of this case and determine whether charges can be brought or if this will truly become yet another slimy but political matter. The upshot if it remaining political is that it will damage the republicans – the downside is that it pisses off the American public because Congress was spending too much time on this as opposed to getting us out of Iraq and promoting policies that are good for We the People.

Whether this technically should even fall under executive privilege is a question in and of itself – but will likely be resolved through negotiations or in court.  Read more 

Hey, Josh, everybody- is this relevant?

Former Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, sentenced to almost six years in prison for his fraudulent purchase of a South Florida gambling fleet, can receive a reduced sentence if he continues to assist prosecutors in a far-reaching Washington public corruption probe, federal officials said Wednesday.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Miami filed the paperwork seeking to reduce Abramoff’s 70-month prison term stemming from the SunCruz Casinos case, but did not specify any time off his sentence.

Instead, prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Paul Huck to delay that decision until a hearing is held to weigh Abramoff’s value as a witness in the Washington influence-peddling investigation.  Read more 

Interesting comment on today’s “Must Read” segment over at Josh Marshall’s TPM (bows in reverence to THE most cited blog in the US media in recent days.) Topic, of course, is the US Attorney selective elimination program, and down in the comments surfaces an interesting item. Anybody know if this is true?

Rove has no privelege. Executive privelege, according to a 8-0 SCOTUS decision in the Nixon case, applies only to the POTUS and VP, and only on matters of diplomacy [and] military concern.

Rove is a political rat that has no real constitutional protection.
Posted by: bob

Personally I think the whole “executive privilege” thing is a crock o’prime grade-A shit. The executive branch is in Article II of the Constitution for a reason, dammit. The Founders considered Congress the primary organ of government; the executive branch exists only to carry out (“cause to be faithfully executed”) the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives. (Hell, we could replace the president with a robot for that matter, although this might lead to other unanticipated problems. But I digress.)  Read more 

Forget Gonzo, let’s tie Rove to criminals more firmly, shall we?

In 2002, GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff was secretly lobbying on behalf of the Guam Superior Court against a judicial reform bill pending in the U.S. Congress. Abramoff won this contract by telling Court officials he had access to then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and other Republican leaders. Perhaps due to Abramoff’s lobbying, the judicial reform bill died at the end of the 107th Congress in 2002. Instead of paying Abramoff directly, the Court funneled its payments through 36 separate $9,000 checks made out to a lawyer named Howard Hills in Laguna Beach, California.

In November 2002, a grand jury in Guam began investigating the secret lobbying arrangement. The day after the grand jury issued subpoenas, the Bush Administration demoted the U.S. prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Frederick Black, who had been the acting U.S. attorney in Guam for 12 years. Black was replaced by Leonardo Rapadas, an attorney recommended to Karl Rove by the Guam Republican Party, and barred from investigating public corruption cases.  Read more 

Palast slams another one out of the park. Posted in full, sickening detail:

Bush’s New US Attorney a Criminal?

BBC Television had exposed 2004 voter attack scheme by appointee Griffin, a Rove aide.
Black soldiers and the homeless targeted.

There’s only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That’s replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.

There was one big hoohah in Washington yesterday as House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers pulled down the pants on George Bush’s firing of US Attorneys to expose a scheme to punish prosecutors who wouldn’t bend to political pressure.

But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove’s assistant, the President’s pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Read more 

Because those two little letters mean so much; like calling us by our right names. Froomkin called Politico’s interview with Turd Blossom “predictably fawning”, so I had to go read it, and amidst the teabagging found this:

Q.What are you doing differently in your job, substantively or stylistically, in 2007 compared with 2006, before the election?

A.The entire White House is spending a lot more time talking to the Hill and a lot more time seeking feedback and giving them the time that they want. It’s not that they didn’t want to talk to us before. But I think there’s a desire for them to talk to us more now. I think they want to be able to test whether or not we’re serious about working together by spending more time talking about whether or not we’re going to work together. A lot of that is done by other people, but the entire White House finds itself in a place where we’re supporting that process more than we might have in the past. I have, sitting on my desk, a letter to me from a Democrat member asking me to look into a specific issue. Why this member feels comfortable saying, Here’s something that I want you to look into, I can’t speak to. But I’m glad that she feels that she can say: “I’d like you to look into this. I think we can find a way to work together. I’m having a dialogue with common interlocutors. You can ascertain from them that I’m serious about this. Let’s see if we can’t work together on this issue.”

They just can’t help themselves, can they?  Read more 

Start your clocks, moonbats. It will be only a matter of seconds before he perjures himself. We’ll see who wants to follow that rabbit  Read more 

Re the details about the Libby trial, and what’s being said over there about who is the scapegoat and who is the bacon to be saved, Digby notes:

And here I always thought the VP’s office was part of the White House.

I suspect that when the history is written we will find more and more proof that Vice President Cheney has been running a shadow government from the very beginning and that much of the malfeasance of this era is a result of incompetent and competing power centers vying for supremacy. It begins to explain the unprecedented level of faulty reasoning and epic mistakes coming from the one administration.

It’s kind of funny that Cheney is calling Rove incompetent in this matter. When it comes to lying and obstruction (the skills required for this cover Cheney’s ass operation), Karl Rove is a consummate professional and Scooter Libby is a joke.

This has been what I have thought for years now.  Read more 

O! The Humanity! cries one wingnut blogger. Who will tend to Rove’s delicate ears?

In the January 2007 edition of The Scene (www.scenenewspaper.com), Representative Dr. Steve Kagen, M.D. (Democrat-Appleton) had some interesting things to say about his recent meetings in Washington, D.C. According to The Scene, Kagen confronted Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in one of The White House’s restrooms. Holding the bathroom door closed, Kagen told Rove, “You’re in The White House and you think (sic) your safe, huh? You recognize me? My name’s Dr. Multimillionaire and I kicked your ass.” At another point The Scene reports Kagen told Vice President Cheney, “Mr. Vice President, thank you for your service to the nation and thank you so much for coming to Green Bay and campaigning against me. I couldn’t have won without your help.”  Read more 

Josh asks: Why are Rove and Bush seemingly confident about this fall’s elections? Many have answered, “Diebold.” For you skeptics out there, let me remind you of just who it is we’re talking about:

 Read more