OMG. Alberto Gonzalez asked the The OIG and the OPR to investigate the DoJ. I have my suspicions about organizations called the OIG and the OPR, so I can't wait for the next round. Go Patrick Go. Does anybody trust the OIG or the OPR now? One can't help but think that they serve at the pleasure of the President.  ¶ 6:27 PM 0 comments

  Amen. It's impossible to characterize George Tenet. So, let's just kick his sorry a$$ right back into the hole that he crawled out of.

Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.

  ¶ 2:21 PM 0 comments

  AmeriKa. Naomi Wolf has written a must read acticle about fascism.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands … is the definition of tyranny," wrote James Madison.

If you want to turn a democracy into a dictatoriship, there is a blueprint for success. Wouldn't you know it? George Bush has read the f-ing manual.

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law  ¶ 1:11 PM 0 comments

  How Low Will He Go? I really miss the Yahoo message boards. Today would have been a good day to go trolling, although I rather think that there aren't even too many eager neo cons left in rl or even in cyberspace. The president's current approval rating is 28%!  ¶ 10:44 AM 1 comments

  Before Randall Tobias Was Defense Secretary Of State, he was the United States Global AIDS Coordinator. One cannot argue with his credentials.

"Abstinence works, being faithful works, condoms work," Tobias said, adding, "Each has its place" (Joshi, AP/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7/14).

  ¶ 10:29 AM 0 comments

  He Does Escorts. It kinda puts a new spin on letting "your fingers do the walking..."  ¶ 10:24 AM 0 comments

  Eyewitness News. Who would have believed that there would be such a big turn out.  ¶ 10:02 AM 0 comments

  "I Didn't Become A Citizen To Help Bush Mess It Up."
Bush showed up in South Florida yesterday. First, he did lunch. About 50 people plunked down 25k to spend an hour eating lunch with the most unpopular American in the country. Who are these people?

Afterwards, he delivered the commencement speech at a local community college. There, in the heart of the Kendall area where English is the second language, Bush met a crowd of about 600 protesters, protesting him. If anti-Castro Miami is pro-Bush, you can't tell anymore.

Anti-Bush: 6 dozen
Pro-Bush: 1/2 dozen

Those numbers speak of a complex numerical relationship that spells gloom and doom for Bush. As Poppa said, "There might be a little Bush fatigue now." And what's up with talking about one's own agenda at a commencement speech? Different people from all walks of life are saying the same thing.

"Our troops are dying everyday," said Mesa, 58. "This war was launched on a myriad of lies. It has to stop."

We are women of a certain age who sing out for peace and justice," said Vicki Ryder, 64, of Delray Beach, who organized the local chapter of Raging Grannies last January. "No matter what he thinks, George Bush is not the `decider.' This is a democracy. We the people in a democracy are the deciders, and we say we want an end to war."

More local coverage.

"I want to do anything I can to bring the war to an end," said one of the protesters, 55-year-old Thomas Kreycik, a mental health counselor. "We are throwing away money, we are throwing away the lives of our troops for no justifiable reason."

Chris Kirchner, 48, a public school teacher from south Miami, came dressed in an outfit that she said represented Iraq on fire. She was wearing an orange dress and an orange paper crown in the shape of flames.

Kirchner also held a large poster that read "liar."

"We cannot have our children's future spent at the cost of $1 billion a day on a false war," she said. "We are not safer. We have lost this war."

Patty Bazzani, a 20-year-old student at the college, said she came to the demonstration because she supports peace.

"I'm hoping people will come to their senses and there will be a better president in the future," Bazzani said....

Kelsey Garcia, a 14-year-old student from the area, came to the protest with her mother and stepfather. She held a sign that read: "If war is the answer we are asking the wrong question."

"We're trying to fix things, not cause more problems," she said. "Now we've just gotten ourselves into a huge mess that we cant get out of. It's going to effect future generations."

Two more quotes.

I've always been very proud of my country," said Gonzalez, 53, one of the Veterans for Peace who marshaled Saturday's protest. "But at this moment, I'm not."
...
"I'm appalled at the notion that my great-great grandchildren will still be paying for what this man has done," said Evie Brignoni, carrying a sign that wondered why Bush's own twin daughters have not enlisted in the military. "There are a lot of angry people, even in Miami."

Yeppers, even in Miami , Bush supporters have nothing to say.

I came here to support our president,'' said Adam Roig, moments after police pulled him away from his challenger. ``I am here, present -- that's all I'm saying.''

  ¶ 7:45 AM 0 comments

  The Question Of The Day. Will the media report the media? Do they think anyone actually believes that Tillman and Lynch were only isolated instances? I don't think the media will risk losing their audience especially when their readers are so easily placated with WH press releases and Pentagon propaganda.  ¶ 2:24 PM 0 comments

  Bumped: Googling Patrick Leahy. Could this actually be why Bush is standing by his man?

I found a boring blog with a statement by Patrick Leahy:

Most importantly, compelling compliance with a congressional subpoena in this context would be difficult. The civil contempt mechanism normally available to Congress, see 28 U.S.C. § 1365, specifically exempts subpoenas to the executive branch. The criminal contempt mechanism, see 2 U.S.C. § 192, which punishes as a misdemeanor a refusal to testify or produce documents to Congress, requires a referral to the Justice Department, which is not likely to pursue compliance in the likely event that the President asserts executive privilege in response to the request for certain documents or testimony. Thus, the only legal way to enforce this subpoena would be to hold a witness in contempt using its “inherent contempt authority,” but this would require a contempt trial on the floor of the Senate. Not many of us relished our role as jurors during the impeachment trial and are not anxious to reprise that role.

I have a question. Are the legal mechanisms regarding Gonzalez called civil contempt mechanisms? And, if not, does this same law apply to Gonzalez and his aides?  ¶ 2:30 PM 0 comments

  A "Bushie" Can Never Be Too Incompetent Or Too Corrupt. John Dean mentioned Sheldon Whitehouse. The freshman Senator produced a startling chart, resulting in one of the most chilling moments of the testimony. During the Clinton WH only four people could contact Justice, four hundred seventeen people can contact Justice in the Bush WH. BTW, Whitehouse is hot in more ways than one.  ¶ 6:02 PM 0 comments

  Almost Better Than Blueberries. Before it disappears into cyberspace, let me copy and paste this for your reading enjoyment.

It’s been an embarrassing time of late for Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter.

Last December, eight U.S. attorneys were fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; three said they were let go for purely political reasons. At the center of this controversy is Section 502 of the PATRIOT Reauthorization Act of 2005. This provision, which was added to the bill’s conference report and thus was never heard in a congressional committee, made it possible for Gonzales to replace U.S. attorneys without Senate approval.

It was soon determined that this language could only have been inserted into the Patriot Act by Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, or a member of his staff. Specter has adamantly denied he tried to slip in any such change and said that the provision was as much a surprise to him as it was to everyone else. Where, then, did it come from?

I know what you're thinking. Move along, nothing to see here.  ¶ 1:31 PM 0 comments

  Connecting The Dots. I finally found an article that cleared up my questions about the precise number of attorneys involved in Purgegate. I remember the first story that I read had mentioned 11 attorneys. Thanks, Nick Coleman, for trying to fill in the blanks.

Four of the targeted attorneys were among the eight eventually fired: Margaret Chiara of Michigan, Harry Cummins III of Arkansas, and Kevin Ryan and Carol Lam, both of California. But three of the seven names on the list have been "redacted" -- whited out -- because they had resigned before the list was finalized...

Repeated requests for the names of U.S. attorneys who resigned in Sampson's time frame went unanswered by the Department of Justice. But the Salt Lake Tribune reported March 24 that only three left office during that time: Utah's Paul Warner, Missouri's Todd Graves and Minnesota's Heffelfinger.

Three names. Three blanks. Does filling in the blanks connect Heffelfinger to "Purge-gate"?

  ¶ 1:16 PM 0 comments

  It's About The War Stupid.
Lest we forget the troops. Were you wondering what was going in the back of the room during the Judiciary Committee Hearings yesterday? You have to admire Cindy Sheehan's tenacity.  ¶ 12:01 PM 0 comments

  Monkey In The Middle. There are some snarky headlines out there today.  ¶ 11:54 AM 0 comments

  Breaking. News you won't see on tv. The Vermont senate adopts resolution to impeach Bush.  ¶ 11:46 AM 0 comments

  Eat Your Blueberries. They're good for you. mmmmm. < running to Publix to buy Stonyfield Farms Organic Blueberry Yougurt. >  ¶ 11:40 AM 0 comments

  Al Gore In The News. Update: The US Senate freezes military funding to Colombia.

My favorite vice president changed his mind about attending an environmental conference here in South Florida. Alvaro Uribe is President Bush's closest Latin American ally.

Gore's office informed conference organizers that he "would not attend the event because he could not share the stage with the president of Colombia after the political debates in Colombia against the Uribe Velez family and against the president," Uribe said in the hastily called news conference at the presidential palace.

It's a big deal in Colombia. The Colombian tv networks even suspended their scheduled novelas. I'll ask my very politically astute Colombian students about it on Monday.  ¶ 11:24 AM 0 comments

  Juan Cole Speaks.

Much of cable television news is a conspiracy to keep people gossiping about the wrong thing and to prevent them from understanding what is really going on.

  ¶ 11:05 AM 0 comments

  A Blast From The Past. What a difference a month can make. I remember telling my daughter, the attorney, about the story when I first saw it in some local papers, including the Salt Lake City Tribune. She didn't think it was a big deal at the time. In any event, here is the cached article that piqued my interest. I don't give a shit if I copied and pasted too many paragraphs. Bite me.

Ashcroft left after the 2004 election, and Gonzales was picked to replace him. Sampson helped the nominee through the Senate, much as he later helped the president's Supreme Court nominees with their grueling confirmations.
About that time, the suggestion was floated that a number of U.S. attorneys could be replaced with Bush loyalists. Sampson opposed wholesale change but by March 2005 sent a list of targeted prosecutors to White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney for Utah Paul Warner announced in January 2006 he would become a federal magistrate, opening a spot Sampson had long sought.
An e-mail released Thursday suggests that Sampson may have tried to push Warner out of the job in early 2005 but was rebuffed by Hatch.
With Warner stepping aside in 2006, Sampson lined up the support of Gonzales and others, but Hatch recommended Brett Tolman, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Utah who was working for the Judiciary Committee at the time for Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter.
Tolman, who ultimately got the job, had in March 2006 added language to the Patriot Act renewal, at the Justice Department's request, to allow the White House to replace U.S. attorneys without Senate consent.
By November 2006, Sampson had a final list of prosecutors to fire, a detailed plan how to proceed - including a script for dismissing the attorneys - and a warning to brace for political fallout. On Dec. 4, the White House signed off and three days later seven U.S. attorneys were let go.
When Democrats challenged the firings, Justice officials assured Congress the decisions were not politically coordinated with the White House and were based on "performance" issues.

  ¶ 10:37 AM 0 comments

  Speaker Nancy Pelosi Is Speaking At Our Annual Jefferson Jackson Dinner. Kewl.I guess I'm going to have to start saving my pennies.  ¶ 10:03 AM 0 comments

  The Enemy Of The People. Colbert King was a columnist for the Washington Post.

In a farewell memo, posted on the Web site of Washington City Paper, King warns the editorial page to re-examine its approach to issues such as Iraq and race and "avoid resorting to sophomoric language when addressing serious matters." He also stated that "editorials simply must not be used to advance one individual's causes or views."

The Media with its "embedded journalists" did not fool me for one nanosecond with their coverage of the Iraq War, and they are not fooling me now. I don't need to go off on the lies, the deaths, the destruction, the crimes ........ The media's shame is that they didn't report it. If they have taken responsibility for their crappy job, I haven't see it.

When top lawmakers call on the AG to resign on record at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting and it isn't the top story on the evening news, there is something wrong. They fooled an entire nation into supporting a war based on a lie. They tricked families across the country into sending their best and brightest into combat. They created a climate of fear for those who would not support an administration who repeatedly failed to protect them and who systematically stripped their democratic rights out from under them. Even now, with the truth coming out into the light, the media is still all hat and no cattle.

The MSM deserves to come down. I have believed since the war began that the best way to deal with the media was to simply ignore them. I was wrong. When they will not report death and destruction, lies and deceit, crimes and cover ups, corruption at every level of government, corporations gone wild with blood and war, our constitution gutted ... they are enemies of the people.

Liars. If the media was liberal, it would be just as evil. Who do these people think they are. They're not my father (see Atrios' piece last night.) Fooled US once, shame on them. Now, they must die.  ¶ 7:29 AM 0 comments

  Wiping The Smirk Off Their Faces. Gonzalez told Bush about David Iglesias. I caught that one too. I also caught AG saying that he had heard KR's concerns.

Gonzales also told the senators that top White House strategist Karl Rove had complained to him about voter fraud allegations in three states - New Mexico, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Wasn't it funny when the Bushies talked about AG's accomplishments, they didn't once mention the fight against kiddie porn and child molestation. The question that wasn't asked was whether or not prosecuting child predators are a priority in Johnny Sutton's office. Then the next question should have been whether or not US attorney John Sutton was on "the list" (of course he wasn't, being the loyal bushie that he is.) Then the obvious question is whether or not the delay in prosecution of this case was due to the fact that the 2006 elections were just around the corner.

Federal authorities declined to take the Rangers' case. Bill Baumann, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Antonio, wrote Sgt. Burzynski in July 2005 that evidence was insufficient for felony prosecution by his office.

Yes. I know that there is no proof.  ¶ 7:16 PM 0 comments

  Reginal Impacts. of global warming.

Also left out of the report last week was a table on regional impacts. Smith said he and other scientists were asked to work with the governments to review the draft but the late-night effort was so complicated that there was no time to accomplish it.

I'd like to see the reports. A government worker that I know saw a report about the government response in the event of a global epidemic. The people of South Florida are screwed. The government will just cut off the roads leading out of here. Get a boat.

I'm depressed.  ¶ 2:36 PM 0 comments

  Every Senator From The Previous Congress Will Go Down In Infamy. when the first woman dies. She might be a young girl or maybe an elderly woman. I'm not going to argue for a woman's right to a medical procedure to save her life. I'm not going to say anything more than that until they ban in vitro fertilization, the whole bunch of them are hypocrites and murderers by their own definition.

Bush won. Judge Roberts was the answer to the religious rights' prayers. They won. Everyone wants to talk about the collective anger in the Dem rank and files, but no one wants to say why so many people are so angry.

I'll speak for myself. This is the darkest hour of need that I have ever lived through. I simply cannot believe that these lawyer types actually believed that Roberts was a gimme to replace Rehnquist. Were they really suprised when Connors quit liquidy-split after the Roberts confirmation? Then, Alito won his confirmation almost as easily. Very few administrations get what George W. Bush, the worst president in history, got handed to him on a silver platter. His party held the majority in both houses of Congress. The administration worked with an opposition party that didn't oppose, or even get anything meaningful in return, when they gave something up.

I live on the Dade Broward county line and volunteered during the 2000 recount. I witnessed this goon, Roberts, causing a riot to disrupt a legal proceeding and he wasn't even a Florida resident. Now, he's in charge of the highest court in the land.

Thanks, Patrick Leahy and the rest of you. Your guy didn't even have the balls to write the decision. He's a liar. It would have taken just one Senator to stand up.

In the interest of fairness, Senator Barack Obama wrote a compelling statement to the Kos community here.

In such circumstances, attacks on Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold and the other Democrats who, after careful consideration, voted for Roberts make no sense. Russ Feingold, the only Democrat to vote not only against war in Iraq but also against the Patriot Act, doesn't become complicit in the erosion of civil liberties simply because he chooses to abide by a deeply held and legitimate view that a President, having won a popular election, is entitled to some benefit of the doubt when it comes to judicial appointments. Like it or not, that view has pretty strong support in the Constitution's design.

It reminds me of a Hillary Clinton statement I don't want to repost. Quite simply, Senator Obama says that he trusted the office of the presidency. Maybe, the two of them should rethink that one and meditate on the balance of power.

If they haven't gotten it by now, I'm sure the Republicans in this new Congress will be perfect role models to show the Democrats how to mount an effective oppostion. I guess the Democrats never stopped to wonder why people vote for candidates in the minority party.

Religious nuts don't just screw women. Caving in to the religious right has fubared everyone but the fanatics. If you think that this ruling isn't going to change things, you're probably a man.

Update: Adam B. on dKos said it best.

Want to overturn this legislation and prevent worse from coming in the future? Elect better legislators.

  ¶ 10:54 AM 0 comments

  How Long is the media going to play backup for Dick Cheney?

On the April 12 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News White House correspondent Wendell Goler reported that "two retired generals have turned down" the position of war czar and that one had "sa[id] he didn't need the ulcer he would be likely to develop." But that was a small part of what retired Maj. Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan reportedly said. Unmentioned in Goler's report was the statement by Sheehan that he refused the job because he would have spent much of his time unsuccessfully fighting Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies who, according to Sheehan, "don't know where the hell they're going" on Iraq.

  ¶ 5:44 PM 0 comments

  From CNN. I never thought that this war would come to this.

While my own soldiers informing me of the inevitable extension of tours of duty disappoints and angers me, the fact that an already arduous yearlong tour is being extended absolutely infuriates me. Do leaders have absolutely no respect for soldiers and their families or is the Army this broken? I'm sure reality lies somewhere in between. As for myself, I am tired. I'm tired of this war. I'm tired of seeing my soldiers die. I'm tired of never being home. I'm tired of having no answer when my soldiers ask me if we're really defending our nation. I'm tired of not seeing my newborn son or my wife. I'm tired of not being home for Christmas. Because I am so tired of these things, I will tender my resignation when I return home ... whenever that is. I'm pretty sure I won't be the only one

What I have learned from talking to the Iraq War veterans is that they have not received the military training necessary to fight the war. We send these young kids, even the kids who simply enlisted in the National Guard, to war. We give them weapons and don't train them properly to use them. We're cheap with the protective gear. As one of the CNN readers said,

Casualty rates are always lowest when troops are fresh.

So exactly who is helping who here, President Bush, when you say that the Democrats are helping the enemy?

Doesn't this make more sense?

If someone wants to hurt us, they will. We should focus our efforts on peacekeeping and preventive missions rather than justifying someone else's mantra of evil.

  ¶ 11:09 AM 0 comments

  They Do It All The Time. Check out these two idiots. First, they obviously chopped off Mr. Butterworth's statement. No IT in his right mind would believe that these emails won't be recovered. Even if an army combed through the all the records, traced the path of each and every email, and then deleted each one, there would still be a record of the deletions. Do these reporters really think that everyone KR sent an email to and everyone they forwarded their emails to has securely deleted the email trail? They certainly must realize that any deletions using a secure method would obviously prove that KR is lying about deleting the emails by mistake. As the expert says, even secure deletions can be recovered.

Reputable corporation and intellegient users routinely back up their files.

It's possible the RNC regularly destroys their backups. However, that would be extremely unusual and alone would generate huge suspicion in the mind of any IT or forensics professional. There's simply no good reason to destroy a backup. . . . The only reason to destroy backups is to destroy evidence.

Come to think of it, do you really think that Bush's Brain isn't keeping a record?

Those Rovian e-mails aren't lost or permanently deleted. They represent huge bucks in the form of notes for his multi-million dollar memoirs and 'job insurance' against anyone who thinks they can dump him overboard. Nope, Karl Rove has a copy of every one of his e-mails on a hard drive or CD disc at home.

If he wants to get rid of any traces on his computer, there are data logs and copies of stuff all over his computer. Good luck getting rid of the evidence. Forensic specialists find lost data all the time.

One e-mail is easy to find—you go into the e-mail file and there it will be. Even if they erase the whole e-mail file once, just threw it in the trash and then deleted it, it would still be there and it would be easy to find for a data-recovery expert—best [if it's] a forensic data-recovery expert. When you erase something you’re basically just erasing the index to the document—the document is still there. And if they did a simple erase off the hard drive, beyond the trash, it’s easy to retrieve. Forensically you can do it where you get all the raw data and look through it. If you or I did it, it would look like one long text file, a printout a mile long. You’d have to go through it and cipher it and find the [keyword] you’re looking for. It’s all jumbled with code all around it so it’s not easy to do, [but] forensic software can do that easily.....

I can say a Fortune 100 company lost all their e-mail. We were able to recover it. It happens all the time: we get this panicked phone call from individuals and corporations [who say,] “Oh, my God, I lost an e-mail!” It’s hard to explain to people what I just told you. What they don’t understand is that it may look like it’s gone but it’s still there.

I'm thinking about Nixon's imperial presidency. Nixon kept tapes of everything he said becasue he really thought he was above the law and no one could touch him. History is repeating itself.

I googled "national security" this morning. The latest story is about Sri Lanka. The lack of questioning about bypassing the WH mail server is an outrage.  ¶ 7:39 AM 0 comments

  Dear Lord.

Would someone care to explain?

The subdomain mail.georgewbush.com shares an IP address with ONE site, webmail.focushumanitarian.org. They use different nameservers but it is odd that these are the only two sites using 65.207.101.51.by wanderindiana on Tue Mar 27, 2007 at 04:05:36 PM EST

FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance is under the umbrella of the Aga Khan Development Network.

Now who or what is FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance? See this USAID company profile for FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance:

Responds to disasters in Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and other areas of Central and South Asia with programs that range from relief and recovery to prevention, mitigation, and preparedness to help people cope with both natural and man-made disasters. FOCUS is an affiliate of the Aga Khan Development Network, a network of agencies that focus on health, education, culture, rural development, institution building, and economic development.wanderindiana on Tue Mar 27, 2007 at 04:16:27 PM EST

Representative Henry Waxman has asked the Republican National Committee to preserve emails associated with accounts on the georgebush.com and gwb43.com domains. However, there are many more domains associated with the same IP address block as these mail domains. So, as a point of information, we offer the following list. Of course, we do not know whether each and every one of these domains is associated with the Bush campaign or the RNC. However, it seems obvious that many of them are. As a result they may provide an opportunity for nongovernmental email addresses for government staffers. In coming pieces we will be discussing many of these domains and the relationships between them. Alphabetical List of Domains Sharing mailservers with gwb43.combcorker.com
bobcorkerforsenate.com
consultmhi.com
georgewbush.com
gop.com
gop.net
gop.org
gopcontact.com
gopemail.com
gopteamleader.com
govtechsolutions.com
newt.org
ohiogop.org
republicanvictoryteam.com
republicanvictoryteam.net
republicanvictoryteam.org
rga.org
rnc.org
rnchq.org
socialsecurityblueprint.com
speakergingrich.com
speakergingrich.net
technomania.com
thehuntercompanies.com
thirdwave2.com
thirdwave2.net
winningwomen.com
wrcb.com
wrcb.net
bronxdem on Tue Mar 27, 2007 at 05:47:21 PM EST

  ¶ 12:51 AM 0 comments

  NATIONAL SECURITY. Not even a peep from the newspapers. All this information coming out at once is a smokescreen. It won't work. The public will be outraged when they find out ... like when they found out there were no WMD, there wasn't even any significant quantities of uranium and Bin Ladin was never found. Now< prominent lawmakers, from both sides of the aisle, are saying that we lost the Iraq War.

The question of national security is the obvious knee jerk response to Rovegate. National security always has gotten a headline before.

Congress should *immediately* demand the White House back up all logs from internal proxy servers, and continually back up those servers. As Gilatrout points out above, anyone who has accessed an outside e-mail account using the White House's internet connection will have left a footprint in the proxy server logs.

The White House may even (probably) have other layers of security servers that log this sort of data. Congress should demand that logs from any and all internet proxy and/or security systems within the White House be retained. Due to encryption, these logs may not contain unencrypted e-mails, but the logs should certainly identify each time an internal staffer accessed outside e-mail, identify the staffer, and give the external email account log-in.

Next, congress should request the appropriate national security agency perform a (quick) emergency security audit of all outside electronic communication methods used by White House staffers with security clearances. This should identify all the private cellular accounts and e-mail systems being used by White House staffers. Some staffers may "forget" about certain e-mail accounts or private cellular devices, but those can be found as well.

Years ago, a friend told me that the secret service monitored electronic communications near the White House. While I can guarantee the Secret Service would be loathe to give this information to Congress, I have a suspicion that the SS may require every White House staffer to register their personal cellular devices with them if they plan to use them within the White House. If the registering of devices isn't a requirement, then the SS still will still have a log of every device used within the White House. This would be done so the SS could tell friendly devices from unfriendly ones.

Congress has already sent do not destroy letters to each of the e-mail hosts revealed in the DOJ document dumps. (GWB43.com and the like). But with each staffer seemingly forging their own method of electronic communication, there are likely to be as yet unknown private e-mail servers and privately owned communication devices being used to transmit White House business.

When the security audit has determined which e-mail and cellular e-mail accounts are being used by staffers, those e-mail hosts and cellular providers should also be sent do not destroy letters. This will all need to be done rather quickly, most proxy server logs are automatically over-written in short order, and cellular companies only hold e-mail for limited periods of time.
Posted by: Michael Stevens
Date: March 28, 2007 02:00 PM

  ¶ 12:39 AM 0 comments

  Karl Rove And The Case Of The Missing Email. I'm on a roll with the right search words. This is what happens when you undermine the integrity of the US Attorneys. Has anyone asked KR why he switched from using the WH mail server to the RNC mail server?

Does Fitz have something to hide?

He said he hadn't discussed the matter with anyone at the Justice Department but made it clear he had been kidded plenty.

Excuses. They are like backsides. Everybody's got one and they all stink.

Why didn't the Rove e-mail surface earlier? The lawyer says it's because an electronic search conducted by the White House missed it because the right "search words" weren't used. (The White House and Fitzgerald both declined to comment.)

Cooperation, then and now. What a difference between KR's willingness to turn over lost emails to Patrick Fitzgerald and years later. Especially when years later, he should have already figured out how to archive his correspondence.

According to several Pentagon sources close to Rove and others familiar with the inquiry, Bush's senior adviser tipped off Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to information that led to the recent "discovery" of 250 pages of missing email from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.......

According to one source close to the case, Rove is providing information on deleted emails, erased hard drives and other types of obstruction by staff and other officials in the Vice President's office. Pentagon sources close to Rove confirmed this account.

What else did Rove say to Fitzgerald?

When did Rove start using the RNC mail server?

Fitzgerald was concerned that Rove had hidden or destroyed a very important document tying him to the leak. His suspicions may have been right: an email he sent to then Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in early July 2003 later proved Rove had spoken to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame-a fact that Rove omitted when he was first interviewed by the FBI.

I'll bet he thought that wouldn't happen again. Now he uses the RNC server 95% of the time on taxpayer money. Is the server secure?

No more deletions for you!

A lawyer for the RNC told congressional investigators that the RNC may be able to recover some of those e-mails sent from August 2004 on. That's when the RNC put a hold on an automatic purge policy.

The RNC lawyer, Rob Kelner, also said that the Republican committee has none of Rove's e-mails on its server prior to 2005, possibly because Rove deleted them, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Sometime in 2005, the RNC took action solely to prevent Rove from deleting his e-mails on that server. One reason for specifying Rove, Waxman said, appears to have been pending legal action against him.

Question: Let's see if this is just a stalling technique.
Answer:

Q Dana, is there a limit to the mailbox size with the RNC accounts? Do you know that level of detail, whether you'd have to delete at some point or you couldn't get any more emails?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I know that oftentimes our computers can slow down, but we have an automatic archiving system that comes through and cleans it up for us. And all of the emails, except for the ones -- the very small slice of the universe I've told you about that have the GWB accounts -- any email that touches any part of an EOP or White House server or computer, those are automatically preserved.

The AG told Karl Rove when and how to back his email files. Who is keeping the backup tapes?

None would name the staffers and/or officials whom Rove is providing information about. They did, however, explain that the White House computer system has "real time backup" servers and that while emails were deleted from computers, they were still retrievable from the backup system. By providing the dates and recipient information of the deleted emails, sources say, Rove was able to chart a path for Fitzgerald directly into the office of the Vice President.

Seems to me that we've heard this song before.

The White House failed to archive some e-mails in accordance with normal procedures in 2003, according to a letter from a special prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Why wasn't he fired?

US Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading a CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong US Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak US Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

Axed attorneys, Daniel Bogden (Nevada) and Paul K. Charlton (Arizona) received the same grade. As my students would say, "It isn't fair."  ¶ 8:45 PM 0 comments

  The Uncomfortable Exchange.

McNulty, Paul J
- - - --- - - - -
To: Chlara, Margaret M. (USAMIW)
Cc: Elston, Mlchael (ODAG)
Subject: RE: WDMI
Margaret:
I'm glad to hear your reputation in the Western Mlchigan legal community 1s strong. It was never our lntentlon to
harm it, and you know well how we have worked with you to help you make as smooth a transltlon as poslble to
your next opportunity.
,
That said our only choice is to continue to be truthful about thls entire matter. The word "performance" obviously
has not set well with you and your colleagues. By that word, we only meant to convey that there were Issues
about policy, priorities and managementlleadershlp that we felt were imponant to the Depanment's effectiveness

  ¶ 10:45 AM 0 comments

  The Cummins Email.

From: H.E. Cummins

Sent: Tue 2/20/2007 5:06 PM

To: Dan Bogden; Paul K. Charlton; David Iglesias; Carol Lam; McKay, John (Law Adjunct)

Subject: on another note

Mike Elston from the DAG's (Deputy Attorney General's) office called me today. The call was amiable enough, but clearly spurred by the Sunday Post article. The essence of his message was that they feel like they are taking unnecessary flak to avoid trashing each of us specifically or further, but if they feel like any of us intend to continue to offer quotes to the press, or organize behind the scenes congressional pressure, then they would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off and offer public criticisms to defend their actions more fully. I can't offer any specific quotes, but that was clearly the message. I was tempted to challenge him and say something movie-like such as “are you threatening ME???”, but instead I kind of shrugged it off and said I didn't sense that anyone was intending to perpetuate this. He mentioned my quote on Sunday and I didn't apologize for it, told him it was true and that everyone involved should agree with the truth of my statement, and pointed out to him that I stopped short of calling them liars and merely said that IF they were doing as alleged they should retract. I also made it a point to tell him that all of us have turned down multiple invitations to testify. He reacted quite a bit to the idea of anyone voluntarily testifying and it seemed clear that they would see that as a major escalation of the conflict meriting some kind of unspecified form of retaliation.

I don't personally see this as any big deal and it sounded like the threat of retaliation amounts to a threat that they would make their recent behind doors senate presentation public. I didn't tell him that I had heard about the details in that presentation and found it to be a pretty weak threat since everyone that heard it apparently thought it was weak.

I don't want to stir you up conflict or overstate the threatening undercurrent in the call, but the message was clearly there and you should be aware before you speak to the press again if you choose to do that. I don't feel like I am betraying him by reporting this to you because I think that is probably what he wanted me to do. Of course, I would appreciate maximum opsec regarding this email and ask that you not forward it or let others read it.

Bud

  ¶ 10:36 AM 0 comments

  Bush Has To Get On His Knees Again.
Let me see if I have this straight:

Americans want to bring home the troops

Iraqis want us to bring home the troops

The global community wants us to bring home the troops

Five retired generals have declined the job of overseeing the war

US lawmakers, even the freshman, want to bring home the troops.

  ¶ 9:13 AM 0 comments

  Bring Home The Troops. This is just an anecdotal to show how similar these two wars really are. Rod, try eating aluminum foil (I'm just kidding.)

I once talked to a GI headed back to Viet Nam who said that eating aluminum foil got a friend of his a medical discharge. Sure it works, when it causes serious damage to the person who eats it. Malaria is dangerous too.

“If I get malaria, I get to leave, right?” Specialist Rodney Lawson, 30, said to no one in particular.

  ¶ 8:40 AM 0 comments

  Florida's Going Green. Not.

Environment Florida Field Director Holly Binns said including nuclear and clean-coal technology in the definition of renewable would enable power companies to focus solely on those sources, and wouldn't really spur the development of wind, solar and biomass energy. She also cautioned that nuclear power isn't truly carbon neutral because the mining of nuclear fuels such as uranium requires the burning of fossil fuels.

"There are 24 states that have a renewable portfolio standard and not one of them includes those two things in the definition because of the fact that they're not renewable," Binns said.

This is a shameless example of Republican sneaky tricks. Mike Bennett, a state senator from Bradenton, is masking his true intent to promote nuclear power. First, he defined clean-coal technology and nuclear power as renewable energy. Then, he said he'd remove clean coal as the bill moves forward. Voila. Nuclear power stays.  ¶ 8:06 AM 0 comments

  Red Alert. The experts in the NSA must be working overtime to retrieve KR's emails from the servers of all the users in his circle. Let's see how thoroughly they complete their task.

Richard M. Smith, an Internet security and privacy consultant in Boston, said Mr. Leahy’s surmise that the missing e-mail messages are preserved somewhere could be right. But he said there was no way to know without a thorough examination of all the computers the messages passed through.

The first step is to examine the mail programs used by the RNC and the WH. Any email that originated from the RNC will certainly be on a server somewhere if the recipient hasn't deleted it. A copy of a deleted email could be stored on a back up tape, archived at the NSA, in a log on a proxy server. Parts of an email could be attached to another email and theoretically could still be going around and around and around. After examining the servers, email documents will certainly be saved in computer files, in the trash, and/or in retrievable files throughout the hard drives of everyone involved.

Anyone who has done any troubleshooting knows that there are many computer users who do not organize their computer files and never delete anything. If there is just one person in KR's circle like that, it will be on the user's email server(s). If, for example, KR distributed his PowerPoint presentation, everyone who downloaded it will have it in at least one place, and a record of the event. KR was using his Yahoo account (that's supposedly the most private way to email) with a false sense of security. Loser. There's virtually (pun intended) no such thing as a private email.
This is a vague, but interesting claim.

WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- Congressional staffers claim a Republican Party lawyer told them that missing White House e-mail may have been deliberately deleted by adviser Karl Rove.

The Republican National Committee, however, said the staffer members mischaracterized a briefing about controversial missing e-mail messages, saying the RNC lawyer was speaking hypothetically, The Washington Post reported.

The White House has acknowledged that the RNC e-mail account, which was set up for political use, was sometimes used for official business and that some of that official e-mail is missing.

Members of Congress denounced the loss of the White House messages, which they had sought in their investigation in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters there was no indication that any crimes were committed in the lost e-mail and said that officials were still trying to retrieve them.

  ¶ 7:07 AM 0 comments

  The Author Reported This Piece Three Years Ago. from the Atlantic Monthly.

In 1994, Karl Rove's client claimed voter fraud and asked for a recount. The case went to the Supreme Court. Guess how they ruled? What I want to know is if this case was used as precedent in the Gore case. Isn't anyone angry?

Throughout the day ballots trickled in from remote corners of the state, until at last an unofficial tally showed that Rove's client had lost—by 304 votes. Hornsby's campaign declared victory.

Rove had other plans, and immediately moved for a recount. "Karl called the next morning," says a former Rove staffer. "He said, 'We came real close. You guys did a great job. But now we really need to rally around Perry Hooper. We've got a real good shot at this, but we need to win over the people of Alabama.'" Rove explained how this was to be done. "Our role was to try to keep people motivated about Perry Hooper's election," the staffer continued, "and then to undermine the other side's support by casting them as liars, cheaters, stealers, immoral—all of that." (Rove did not respond to requests for an interview for this article.)

The campaign quickly obtained a restraining order to preserve the ballots. Then the tactical battle began. Rather than focus on a handful of Republican counties that might yield extra votes, Rove dispatched campaign staffers and hired investigators to every county to observe the counting and turn up evidence of fraud.

  ¶ 8:12 PM 0 comments

  Spokeswoman Dana Perino. She is not very bright or else her trash talk sucks. Patrick Leahy told Ms. Perino that his teenage daughter could find the emails. The spokeswoman replied, "I don't know if Senator Leahy is also an IT expert."

I hate to break it to her, but anyone with access to the servers can easily find emails. It's very likely that the RNC's computer system was built by the same hacks that designed the DRE's. It is full of bugs and holes that they probably are not even aware of.

POP clients can be configured to keep copies of email on the server, so if that configuration was used, the emails might still be there. You can also follow an email trail to track another email, the computer that wrote it, and the isp. You just need to find an email that responded to the original message. That person will have a copy of the email. An email that KR sent is all over the place. There's no way that he can find them all.

It appears as if Karl Rove will not be able to claim executive priviledge if any email is recovered. How secure were these servers? We will soon find out.  ¶ 8:02 PM 0 comments

  America waits.

I want the American people to have a Justice Department and United States Attorneys offices that enforce the law without regard to political influence and partisanship. I want the American people to have confidence in federal law enforcement and I want our federal law enforcement officers to have the independence they need to be effective and merit the trust of the American people.

In case you haven't noticed, Patrick Leahy is my hero.  ¶ 12:36 PM 0 comments

  Patrick Leahy In Charge. Yeah!

"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."

  ¶ 12:31 PM 0 comments

  The Price/Cost Of War. Money can't fix the humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

According to the New York Times, the US has paid out more than $32m in compensation for civilian deaths, injuries and property damage.

"As these files remind us, war imposes heavy burdens on innocent civilians," said Jameel Jaffer, the deputy director of the ACLU's national security programme. "Although these files are deeply disturbing to read, they allow us to understand the human cost of war in a way that statistics and the usual platitudes do not."

To maintain troop levels, the government has had to resort to this.  ¶ 12:07 PM 0 comments

  Lyrical Interlude. Radio Paradise is rocking this morning. This song was originally done by Pulp.

WILLIAM SHATNER
Common People
(featuring Joe Jackson)

She came from Greece. She had a thirst for knowledge.
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College.
That's where I--caught her eye.
She told me that her dad was loaded.
I said, in that case I'll have a rum and Coca-Cola.
She said fine, and in thirty seconds time she said...
I wanna live like common people.
I wanna do whatever common people do.
I wanna sleep with common people.
I wanna sleep with common people like you.
Well, what else could I do? I said, I'll see what I can do!

I took her to a supermarket.
I don't know why, but I had to start it somewhere.
So it started there!
I said, pretend you've got no money.
She just laughed and said, oh, you're so funny!
I said, yeah? Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here!
Are you sure you want to live like common people?
You want to see whatever common people see?
You want to sleep with common people?
You want to sleep with common people like me?
But she didn't understand...

...she just smiled and held my hands!
Rent a flat above a shop!
Cut your hair and get a job!
Smoke some fags and play some pool.
Pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right.
When you're lyin' in bed at night,
Watching roaches climb the wall.
If you call your dad he could stop it all.

You'll never live like common people!
You'll never do whatever common people do!
You'll never fail like common people!
You'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance, and drink, and screw!
Because there's nothing else to do!

  ¶ 9:34 AM 0 comments

  Terrorist Set To Be Released Today. Jose Posada gets a get-out-of-jail-free-on-bond card today. I just feel sorry for the families of the people that were killed in the attacks linked to Posada.  ¶ 8:10 AM 0 comments

  0. That's the grade that I give the commander-in-chief. His failure extends from his handling of the Middle East to his mismanagement of the White House staff. I wouldn't even give him an F. You have to, at least, turn in something to get a grade.

The White House says that they "lost" the requested emails. As Patrick Leahy said

This sounds like the administration's version of the dog ate my homework

The lost emails can be retrieved if the computers can be inspected. The WH techies are probably all over it, like white on rice.  ¶ 7:46 AM 0 comments

  The DoJ Tackles Voter Fraud. What Josh Marshall says.

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.

  ¶ 7:32 AM 0 comments

  Beauty. Bumped: WASPs sure do stick together. Now someone in the media today got his feathers all ruffled, saying that these girls are acting like victims. All men are bastards. And if you ask me, most men are a little light in the loafers too.

Personally, I don't believe you can legislate or force tolerance. I also believe that many so-called racial slurs and innuendos (like what I just wrote) can be explained otherwise. Wasn't my snark insightful, or even funny? Not ... just like these two guys'. Taking race, gender, and religion out of the picture whenever possible is a way to stop discrimination. A guy is not a white guy, unless you are describing him so that he can be identified. All labels just serve to perpetuate the same old misconceptions.

Girls, sue that station too. I've already emailed both media outlets. Large corporations are pulling their ads. Case closed.

Update2: MSNC fired Imus and have already appeased some of the unhappy corporate sponsors. Maybe the decision will also help them with the lawsuit that is sure to follow. How many girls are on the basketball team?

When I went to the University of Miami, I made the mistake of walking through the student union without paying attention to what was going on around me. When I finally realized what I had wandered into, it was too late. I had walked through a corridor where a table full of football players were rating the girls walking by. I can still remember what I was wearing. It wasn't a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I had on a pretty pair of pink slacks and a white blouse. I was thin. My long, red hair wasn't dyed like it is now. OJ Anderson (old timers will remember him) had asked me out on a date a couple weeks before. These fat, ugly jocks rated me a 7. Who the hell did they think they were? I feel sorry for the Rutger team. I thought things might have changed by now.

Girls, take a good, long, hard look at the men who were talking about you. Their personal appearance is laughable. When the dust clears, please get a lawyer. I will be cheering you on!  ¶ 7:22 AM 0 comments

  Typical Republican Tactics. The Republican party is vindictive by nature, although they don't see it that way. I wrote about UF denying Jeb Bush an honorary degree. The majority of the faculty senate at the state's oldest, largest, and most comprehensive university believed that he didn't deserve that honor.

The FL state legislature has quickly voted to rename The College of Education. After passing the Senate, the school will henceforth be known on appropriate markers and official school documents as The Jeb Bush College of Education. (Thanks Think Progress.) Jeb says that he will not accept the honor at this time.  ¶ 2:23 PM 0 comments

  Are You A Republican? I plagiarized some of this from a commentary that I read at TPM last year. This blurb bears repeating. It's about the Americans who still approve of the president's performance. Who are these people? Inquiring minds would like to know.


You might be a misguided Republican if you:

1. defend a war based on incompetence, lies, greed, and corruption


2. defend torturing enemies and spying on Americans


3. defend moral values by investigating President Clinton's private sexual life and by protecting this administration's closed door policy


4. believe that the Republican president has absolute power and can invoke Marshall Law whenever he deems it necessary


5. believe that the defenders of Habeas Corpus help terrorists


6. believe that Republican leaders should keep secrets about what they will do and how much it will cost


7. believe that the Republican administration can borrow money whenever they deem it necessary no matter how large the federal deficit is


8. believe that Terry Schiavo was murdered, abortion and stem cell research is infanticide, but in vitro fertilization is Christian


9. approve the appointment of incompetent cronies to important positions because they are loyal Bushies


10. support constitutional amendments that do not reflect the beliefs of the majority of Americans


11. support the outsourcing of American jobs


12. support a Republican platform that reforms public education by cutting funds


13. see nothing wrong with the rising price of gasoline while gas companies are enjoying record breaking profits


14. see nothing wrong with the rising cost of medical care and prescription drugs while health care and drug companies are growing in size and profits


15. call conservationalists tree huggers


16. hate labor unions for supporting American workers and love Walmart for offering cheap goods made in China


17. hide sexually deviant behaviors and habits while advocating family values


18. vote for officials who call dark skinned people macaca and niggers


19. slander public officials, past and present, if they are not Republicans


20. ignore warnings about global warming and the need to find alternative sources of energy


21. politicize science and engineering


22. advocate Republican reforms and initiatives while diverting the funds to other projects


23. use religion and patriotism as social and political weapons


24. use national security as an excuse


25. don't care if government contracts worth billions of dollars are awarded without a transparent bidding procedure


26. don't care if fellow Republicans steal campaign funds and "swift boat" their opponents because it's only politics


27. don't care if the vice president will be cashing in a bonus from a war profiteer in a couple of years


28. don't care if corporations pocket the pension plans of their employees


29. don't care if the government outs an undercover CIA agent for political reasons


30. don't care if minorities can't vote or voting machines don't work


31. don't care if the administration uses the Department of Justice to target political adversaries


32. don't care if the administration' handling of terrorist prisoners is arbitrary, capricious, political, savage, and unjust


33. believe the ends justify the means for this administration even if they have to lie, disregard the Geneva Convention, break the law, suspend Habeas Corpus, destroy the environment, kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, and spit in the face of public and world opinion


34. put loyalty above the law


35. put politics first, period.

  ¶ 8:59 AM 0 comments

  THE POLITIZATION OF TERRORISM. This is an AP article, and contains allegations that the WH is involved.

A federal judge in Texas last week ordered 79-year-old Luis Posada Carriles freed on bail pending trial on charges he lied in an attempt to become a U.S. citizen. Prosecutors on Monday asked the judge to reconsider.

"If the White House doesn't want them to free Posada, the U.S. government can easily prevent his release," lawyer Jose Pertierra told The Associated Press on Monday in a phone interview from his office in Washington. "Unfortunately this case is being handled by officials much higher than Justice Department lawyers. ... This comes from the White House, and there is a political decision here to protect this terrorist instead of charging him."

Now that's a good Bushie judge in Texas. No judge in his right mind would free a suspected terrorist on bail.  ¶ 8:33 AM 0 comments

  Why And How Do We Get Out Of Iraq? What Juan Cole said.

The key to preventing an intensified civil war is US withdrawal from the equation so as to force the parties to an accommodation. Therefore, the United States should announce its intention to withdraw its military forces from Iraq, which will bring Sunnis to the negotiating table and put pressure on Kurds and Shiites to seek a compromise with them. But a simple US departure would not be enough; the civil war must be negotiated to a settlement, on the model of the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Lebanon.

  ¶ 8:22 AM 0 comments

  Tin Hat Alert. In 2004 there was no fraud. In 2006 the Republicans manufactured fraud. Sin verguenzas.  ¶ 6:53 AM 0 comments

  Live Earth. Get Your Tickets Here.  ¶ 2:48 PM 0 comments

  Go Gators! Unprecedented! They aren't national champions for nothing. No degree for you. I have only one thing to say, Jeb. Nanny nanny boo boo. Stick your head in doo doo.  ¶ 12:41 PM

  Shaha Riza
If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. But at least this bitch makes (made?) more money than Condi.  ¶ 12:23 PM 0 comments

  AT&T. If you haven't seen the President's Analyst, I recommend it. The film is still apropos.

AT&T is being sued. The latest development is that Judge Vaughn Walker, the judge in the case, will hear more complaints.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Legislation, a panel of seven federal judges, ruled in February to consolidate Missouri’s two cases with those from Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The first case is the commission’s lawsuit ordering the state’s telephone companies to comply with subpoenas the commissioners served in June 2006.

The second is the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the commission, which seeks to block the subpoenas.

  ¶ 11:55 AM 0 comments

  Karl Rove's Presentation. Enjoy.  ¶ 10:20 AM 0 comments

  Which Man Do You Trust?
I just love this picture of Al Gore.  ¶ 10:05 AM 0 comments

  The Wall Street Journal. Sloppy journalism aka grasping at straws.

Enforcing the law might be difficult. When Congress adopted the Presidential Records Act, it didn't give any agency much authority to police the White House's handling of official records. A federal appeals court in 1991 held that the courts don't have the ability to enforce the law, either.

Congress also has had trouble obtaining many internal records from the political parties in the past. That means that the White House and its Republican allies likely have wide latitude when it comes to protecting records kept outside the White House computer system.

John D. McKinnont, it took me about two hours to research your statement. I didn't find it. I did find a series of rulings by Judge Charles Richey. The judge said, "The President is not above the law." He ordered White House records to be turned over. He made a distinction between presidential records (which are not subject to the FOIA) and the records of federal agencies. Later, he ruled that the NSA was a federal agency and all their documents were also subject to the FOIA. He excluded records from top presidential advisers in the NSA. A contempt ruling for records not turned over was vacated. However, Judge Richey's rulings were not reversed. More significantly, it wasn't Congress asking for the records.

I'm not a lawyer, but it appears that Karl Rove's emails are protected. On second thought, his emails on the RNC server that he used on a regular basis, probably aren't protected.

The WSJ cannot realistically believe that Congress will have a problem obtaining "internal records." If Congress can ask the WH to turn over records relating to the private sexual life of a president, I don't think this Congress will have a problem with WH emails. Well, that is, unless the Supremes cover Bush's back again.

John W. Dean has an excellent three part series about Congressional oversight. Ummm, Mr. McKinnont, isn't he one of your peeps?  ¶ 8:20 AM 0 comments

  Diane Sawyer Interviews First Elected President Of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. A remarkable man and an excellent interview. Doesn't this make sense?

Karzai admitted that he couldn't keep terrorists and insurgents from striking. He advocated that the coalition investigate the source of terrorism to eradicate it altogether.

"They should go to the source of it. They should not look for the effects of it, for the results of it in the Afghan villages, and in the process, get Afghan women and children hurt," he said. "I'm hurt by that and I don't like it."

  ¶ 10:24 PM 0 comments

  The Tragic Scientist. Dr. William Gray. I can't imagine what is possessing this man to go off half-cocked. He doesn't seem to be this kind of green. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to say that Clinton/Gore kept him from getting grants in the face of reports like this.

His partnership with ExxonMobil puzzles me. He just doesn't seem to be that sort of guy. The most logical explanation is that Dr. Gray truly believes he is correct. Let's say for the sake of argument that he is correct. What could possibly be wrong with reducing global warming, no matter what the cost?  ¶ 5:10 PM 0 comments

  Speechless In Florida. I didn't comment on Charlie Crist's voting reforms because I didn't know what to say.

It's all over the news that Governor Crist is reforming voting rights for felons, so I'll just say what's on my mind. I wonder if Jim Davis would have been so bold in his first few months of office.

In all fairness, I wasn't real comfortable finding a glossy flyer for Ernst & Young in my latest Florida Retirement System summary.  ¶ 3:41 PM 0 comments

  Follow The E-Mail Trail. Well, shut my mouth. After reading about what acceptable e-mail usage is in the White House, it's clear that all paths lead to Rove.  ¶ 3:07 PM 0 comments

  Bring Home The Troops. Support the soon to be introduced Feingold-Reid-Leahy bill.  ¶ 2:51 PM 0 comments

  Doing The Math. The reports that Monica Goodling was the second Gonzalez aide just don't add up. A few accounts left out Michael Battle. I wouldn't have thought twice about this confusing statistic, except for:

accounts of 11 fired attorneys, instead of 8.
accounts of 3 resignations in Minnesota, instead of 4.

Are these just mistakes or deliberate attempts to frame the information?  ¶ 2:02 PM 0 comments

  Today's Attorneygate Update. More On Rachel Paulose. Her predecessor, Thomas Heffelfinger, spoke about the resignations of the four attorneys in the US Attorney's office. He

said in a telephone interview Friday that he hadn't spoken with the four subordinates about their decisions. But he said all four were "very stable, hardworking, competent. So whatever is going on inside is serious."

Heffelfinger left in February 2006 for the private sector, and has said he wasn't forced to resign. However, the congressional investigation into the eight firings has found that the administration had a broader plan dating to 2005 for replacing U.S. attorneys with younger Bush administration loyalists.

Didn't the NYT say that there were only three resignations the other day?  ¶ 1:31 PM 0 comments

  Before And After.
As you sow, so shall you reap.  ¶ 1:25 PM 0 comments

  There Are Just Too Many People. A no brainer.  ¶ 12:18 PM 0 comments

  If You're The Governor Of Texas. Wouldn't it be pathetic if you had to go to daddy to fix this? I like to google Patrick Leahy, because I find all kinds of interesting stuff.  ¶ 12:05 PM 0 comments

  One Of Them Will Lie. and the other will swear to it. Cheney still says Saddam had the WMD's. Now while everyone gets in a tizzy fit over such an outrageous statement, he hides behind a Bush and plots the next war (with Iran.) He's a pathetic old man. If he had any more wrinkles you could screw a hat on him. I hope he runs for president.  ¶ 7:17 PM 0 comments

  Bumpity Bump. Update: Bush Backlash. I have a feeling that there will be many more updates. Rachel Paulose, US Attorney of Minnesota replaced "retiring" attorney, Tom Heffelfinger. Paulose was not one of the "8", because she was confirmed by Congress. She is reporting that

John Marti, a first assistant U.S. attorney, Erika Mozangue, head of the office's civil division, and James Lackner, who heads the office's criminal division, have "decided to go back to being prosecutors," spokeswoman Jeanne Cooney said.

The resignations came after a visit from John Kelly, deputy director of the Justice Department's executive office of U.S Attorneys. The three attorneys will not comment on their resignations.

Rachel is one of the Yalies in Bush's WH. She is a Bushie for sure. I'm sure she will find a few hard core Bushies to fill the vacant slots, but this is an embarrassment. One of her lead attorneys (I assume she has more than one) resigned under the cloud of suspicion over their office. Two others joined him. Remember, I reported 11?

Shit meet fan. I would think that every Democratic defendant facing trial in a US federal court or anyone convicted by a US attorney now has instant grounds for acquittal, and not just in Wisconsin. That sure puts the pepper in my gumbo, or should I say, in my Monterey jack.  ¶ 5:30 PM 0 comments

  It Just Keeps Getting Bigger And Bigger! Poop Doesn't Even Begin To Describe The Mess.
Pooper Scoopers. They just don't make them big enough to clean up the poop that this big guy is making.  ¶ 2:49 PM 0 comments

  The Public Doesn't Trust Hillary. Much is being said about Zogby's poll. I'm sure there was a problem with the methodology. But still, does anyone really believe that the general public trusts Hillary Clinton?

I happen to appreciate Zogby. He once answered me personally when I asked him what the military vote was in the 2004 elections (my county went for Kerry.) He told me he didn't believe if was possible to get that information. About a year later, he went to Iraq and conducted a survey to the troops that found that only one in five soldiers agreed with Bush's policy to "stay the course."

I can't help but notice the disparity between Clinton's voting record before and after the 2004 election. I just don't buy her "I didn't know" excuse and I don't trust her either. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

And while I'm at it, the press and public probably call her Hillary, not to be sexist or whatever, but because it's a natural way to distinguish between her and her husband.  ¶ 2:15 PM 0 comments

  Better Late Than Never. Voting Reform. This time it's real reform, not faux computer science.  ¶ 2:11 PM 0 comments

  J. Timothy Griffin. Remember when he said he no longer wanted the job permanently? Well sure. It wasn't a permanent job and Griffin didn't need to go through confirmation hearings anyways.

Heeee's back ... on the back pages of the news again. It looks like J. Timothy Griffin doctored the truth on his resume. Ouch.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hailed Griffin as “a person with prosecutorial experience who the attorney – who the U.S. Attorney who was going to be removed said was his right-hand man and one of the best prosecutors he had.”

In an e-mail to me, however, Cummins disputed Hatch’s characterization of the letter.

“I don’t see here where I referred to him as my ‘right arm,’” Cummins said. “I don’t know where they are getting that. Tim [Griffin] worked hard and did a good job organizing the launch of what became a very successful PSN [Project Safe Neighborhoods] program. But the great success was at least equally due, if not a great deal more, to the efforts of virtually every prosecutor in the office after his departure.”

Much has been said about Orrin Hatch's performance on "Meet the Press." I think Hatch is just plain scared of having to answer similar questions about the attorney switch in Utah.  ¶ 8:35 PM 0 comments

  She Takes Pictures.


Who is Monica Goodling? She's a contact person. She takes pictures. She answers e-mails and phone calls. She is not a key player on the DoJ team. I think the reports that she played a crucial role in attorneygate are exaggerated. So why is she so worried about breaking the law? I smell desperation.  ¶ 5:43 PM 0 comments

  Before I Go. Read about how the Bushes are laughing all the way to the BCCI Bank.

Good stuff about how US Attorneys were seven times more likely to prosecute a Democrat than a Republican.  ¶ 3:52 PM 0 comments

  Only In DisneyWorld. Police arrest an anti war activist for feeding the homeless. They used a vial of stew for evidence.

I'm glad I live in one of the bluest counties in the country, Broward County. And speaking of feeding, I'm hungry. It's about that time to feed my pugs, budgie bird, the morning doves, eurasion collared doves, white winged doves, rock doves (I love them too,) european starlings, grackles, blue jays, and the lone yellow-rumped warbler that I haven't seen lately. He has probably flown back to the north for the summer. It's raining again today! A frog strangler, no less!!  ¶ 3:28 PM 0 comments

  Meanwhile. Congress is asking the RNC to turn over any emails from WH officials

that relate to the use of federal resources or agencies for partisan Republican purposes.

Lurita, Lurita, Lurita. All roads lead to Rove.  ¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments

  They Make Grating Noises. TPM reports that CNN is now introducing James Carville as a Hillary backer. I can think of a more appropriate description of the so called independent analyst, if you'd like.  ¶ 3:14 PM 0 comments

  ¿Que´ Pasa? Sac Pase? What's up with the hullabaloo over bilingual education? I wish the left would find someone like me to make outrageous statements to promote our agenda.

I know quite a bit about bilingual education. After all, I teach math and science to English language learners. Sure Tony, immersion works ... but only for some people. It's a great way to learn English, but common sense should tell you that immersion is not nearly as effective when teaching students how to solve a word problem using the Pythagorean Theorem. There are many newcomers in my school that are placed directly into English speaking classrooms. However, most students benefit from a transition ELL (English Language Learners) program. I'm not even going to discuss how many teachers are unwilling and/or unable to accommodate struggling language learners in their classes.

ELL programs are for students like Rigins. Rigins came from Haiti over ten years ago. He never went to school. He would spend the day sitting on the side of a mountain selling bananas for firewood. He couldn't read or even write his name. He would copy the "g" in his name out of a book with all the curley q's, so you couldn't even tell it was a g. He was 14 years old. With the help of school programs and a caring uncle, Rigins received his high school diploma and is now an assistant manager at a large supermarket chain here in Florida. He can't see his mother in Haiti, who sacrificed to send him here, but he sends her money from his paycheck every week. He is where he is today because of the sacrifices he made and the support he received. It's called the American Dream.

I look at it this way. If a student enters this country in his/her twelfth grade year, and doesn't speak a word of English, how successful will the immersion program really be? I don't see how an immersion program would give the student the opportunity to receive a high school diploma in a timely manner.

I would just like to make one more point that I usually make to anyone who spouts this kind of nonsense. I speak two language (Spanish and English) and am learning a third (Haitian Creole.) How many languages does Andrew and Newt speak? Learning English is called language acquisition, not patriotism. Many of my students are learning English as a third or even fourth language. This country is the only country that I know of with a monolingual mindset, except, perhaps, for France.

Newt and Andrew would like to prevent multiculturalism from happening here in America. My ancestry traces back to the Revolutionary War. They can't tell me what's American. There's no difference between cantinas and pizza parlors in my book.

As for English Only, the government overhauled the election process for blind people, and the country ended up with a shitload of expensive pieces of crap that have counted our votes ever since. Do you know how many voters needed the assistance that HAVA provided for during the last presidential election at the precinct that I worked at? One very nice wheel chair bound veteran who wasn't blind.

Don't get me wrong. I'm practically blind myself and probably will be one day. I want to be able to vote when that day comes. Likewise, there are non English speaking people who pay taxes, some of them even fight for this country, and couldn't vote if it wasn't for special accommodations like printing the ballots in their home language. Printing a ballot in another language doesn't hurt anyone, or doesn't even cost that much. Newt, Andrew, and the other fools, should start blasting HAVA. Its cost was far greater.  ¶ 12:01 PM 0 comments

  Do You Get The Idea That Bush Isn't Too Worried About His Political Future? It's business as usual when deciding which wingnuts must go, which wingnuts will replace them, and how to make these changes most expediently. The new additions to this administration are all recess appointments. They will complete their terms without Senate approval.

Bush likes to do things his way. Well actually, it's the only way he can get quality wingnuts where he needs them, now that he doesn't have the Senate in his back pocket. I just wonder how many people are lining up looking for a place on the Bush Team, and more importantly, who the hell are they.

We now know that Sam Fox, the new ambassador to Belgium, donated thousands of dollars to the Stop Kerry swiftboat campaign. Well, Fox is obviously no waffler. He's a true blue Bushie, getting his just desserts, if you like strawberries and whipped cream on your waffles. Fox sure did have to wait a while, but this appointment could turn out to be the gift that keeps on giving.  ¶ 10:31 AM 0 comments

  Obama Appeals To Me. I guess I should begin to think about who I am going to support in the likely event that Al Gore doesn't run.

Maybe I shouldn't bash Hillary Clinton. Not. Ditto for Edwards. I just don't like him. He spammed my email inbox after getting my name on a list for Dean. I could never get excited about a spammer for president. I don't connect with anything he's done or said for the past four years. More importantly, where the hell was he in 2003? I think he should devote every family resource to support his wife in her time of need. JMO.

Al Gore comes in a close second behind Clinton in Californina, and he hasn't even announced that he's running. Gore/Obama .... a girl can always dream.  ¶ 9:16 AM 0 comments

  Protesting Cheney at Brigham Young University of all places. BYU has asked Dick Cheney to give the commencement speech on April 26. It's sparked quite a controversy in the heart of Bush Country. And now it's too late to withdraw the invitation.

The Washington Post article distorted the truth. There were 200 demonstrators against Cheney and about 75 pro Cheney demonstrators. I'd like to know where the 400 people who signed a petition supporting Cheney came from and where did they go. There were only 275 protestors.

In any event, Miss Manners would approve. The students were conducting a thoughtful debate and the university accomodated them. Think Progress has a video which puts the BYU administration in a different light. I still think that democracy is alive and well in Provo, Utah.  ¶ 8:32 AM 0 comments

  A Post I Forgot To Write.
I've been thinking of taking up crocheting to have something to do in my spare time besides blogging. Especially when I ran across this.

EXTERMINATE.

  ¶ 2:24 PM 0 comments

  Peak Oil. A must read.

The coming age of energy scarcity will change everything about how we live in this country.

From the age of communication to the age of energy scarcity. A long time ago in a place far away, my political science professor made a similar prediction about the future global community. He warned us that, in the future, the fighting would be over food.  ¶ 1:45 PM 0 comments

  Die Boldly. A judge denied Diebold's request to block Massachusets' deal with ESS. Diebold isn't worried. They'll take it to the Supreme Court. There's a discussion at Slashdot. I particularly enjoyed the comment by Merusdraconis, "I love how Diebold's argument is that their competitor's machine isn't accessible enough, like Diebold's are.

We all know how easy it is to access a Diebold machine!"  ¶ 1:16 PM 0 comments

  Behind Closed Doors. Well, butter my biscuits. These guys really do have a sense of humor.What's going on in those Judiciary Committee meetings? When Patrick Leahy makes light of Orrin Hatch campaigning for AG (does that make any sense?) and there's published reports that Bush put Patrick Leahy at the top of his short list for the Supremes (huh?) I get it!

In any event, Maybe I should have read this editorial more carefully. You can see Sampson testifying on UTube so I'm not sure I understand it.  ¶ 12:49 PM 0 comments

  64.107.114.77 Doesn't Like Patrick Leahy. But it doesn't like Karl Rove either. It isn't hacking (because it's open source), but I have to admit, the troll did make the news.  ¶ 12:43 PM 0 comments

  Who do we talk to at the DoJ? It appears that AG offered a certain WH official, named Monica Goodling, as a Department witness and now she says she's going to plead the 5th. She answers to a higher authority.

But as scrutiny of her actions intensifies, the evangelical Goodling must resort to the 5th Amendment -- man's law -- to avoid breaking the biblical commandment against lying. Only the goodly and godly Pat Robertson could have prepared her to make such a decision.

Monica, don't worry. Everyone will understand that you're not like that other Monica at all.  ¶ 8:59 PM 0 comments

  Another One Filed Under. Well, duh. Daylight Energy Savings a bust. The real question is, "Are retail sales up yet?"  ¶ 6:19 PM 0 comments

 
  ¶ 6:14 PM 0 comments

  She Blinded Me With Science. Julie
Julie
Julie.
Payback's a bitch. Literally.  ¶ 5:15 PM 0 comments

  Huge. The Supreme Court thwarts the Bush agenda.

The ruling does not force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate auto emissions, but it would almost certainly face further legal action if it fails to do so.

Meanwhile, Bush still has the gang of four in his back pocket.  ¶ 4:12 PM 0 comments

  The Twilight Zone. Orrin Hatch for Attorney General .... and Patrick Leahy for the Supreme Court.  ¶ 3:36 PM 0 comments