Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Secret Holder Revealed? (8:00 pm)

Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker points to an article in the Fort Smith (Ark.) Times Record, which said Tom Coburn, twelve days ago, accused Ted Stevens (R-Internet Tubes) of obstructing the government contract database bill with an anonymous hold.

Justin says “Stevens’ office has so far refused to comment on the hold. Ninety-five other senators have confirmed they were not responsible.”

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

White House To Be Subpoenaed in NSA Spy Case (8:35 am)

Raw Story reports:

Two attorneys representing claimants in a lawsuit over wiretapping by the National Security Agency will subpoena the White House today, RAW STORY has learned.

Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, who represent hundreds of plaintiffs in lawsuits against Verizon, AT&T, and the US Government, will announnce today that they are serving both the Bush administration and Verizon with subpoenas.

The announcement is due to arrive at 4:30 PM, outside of Verizon headquarters in New York, RAW STORY has confirmed.

via HuffPo

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Secret Hold: The “Not Me” Tally (8:19 am)

Paul Kiel and Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker have a running tally of Senators who have explicitly denied authoring the secret hold on the Obama/Coburn legislation, which would establish a public searchable database for all government contracts. Included is a list of “Senators Unknown or Who Refuse Answer.”

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Monday, August 28, 2006

Projection of the Day (10:40 pm)

Don Rumsfeld, 8/28/06: ”The enemy lies constantly — almost totally without penalty.”

posted by Brian Zick | 1 comment

Chris Bowers’ House Election Forecast 2006 (3:52 pm)

Chris Bowers at MyDD has compiled a phenomenally comprehensive House election forecast, which - according to Chris - “easily surpasses anything publicly available anywhere in the nation.” He’s collected and arranged a huge amount of data. This document will definitely attract a lot of viewer eyeballs. (And Chris is seeking a sponsor organization.)

MyDD’s House Forecast 2006 is a pdf file.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Monday Monday (9:01 am)

Plame/Armitage
Catching up with weekend news, Kevin Drum has some questions about the Plame case and Richard Armitage’s involvement.

Ethical Realism
Digby worries that many Democrats have actually embraced the looney neoconservative approach to foreign policy. Which he trenchantly defines:

I remember as a child a strange little neighbor girl who was found in her backyard swinging her cat by the tail against the sidewalk screaming “you’re gonna love me!”

That’s neoconservatism. It’s so insane, I believe almost anything is an improvement.

Stewart /Colbert
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were presenters on the Emmy award show last night.
Crooks and Liars has a clip.

“Christian”
Taking his cue from Katherine Harris’ goofy foot-in-mouthiness, Mark Kleiman observes how the word “Christian” has evolved in politicized meaning, approppriated by extremist right-wing fundie theocrats to define themselves as “the only true Christians.”

Mark doesn’t discuss how it is also the case that opponents of radical extremist “Christians” have also commonly come to narrowly apply the word to describe the theocrats.

The Frencheese Project
John at AMERICAblog has discovered a video blog for Americans about France.

Frist Watch
Steve Clemons suggests Frist might be a better candidate than most folks are inclined to think. But he does introduce us to a couple of the Senator’s “handicaps.”

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Sunday, August 27, 2006

California Might Challenge Federal Hemp Ban (11:34 pm)

Patricia Leigh Brown for the NY Times reports on the legislation passed in California, which is sitting on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk; he has 30 days to sign or veto the bill.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Hubris, by David Corn and Michael Isikoff (8:53 am)

David Corn is the person responsible for first calling attention to the possible criminal misconduct associated with Robert Novak’s exposure of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative. David and Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff have co-authored a new book, and this morning there is significant blog attention directed to what the book reveals about Richard Armitage’s involvement in the matter.

But there is so much more. David provides a brief description of the book’s contents:

It reveals behind-the-scene battles at the White House, the CIA, the State Department, and Capitol Hill that occurred in the year before the invasion of Iraq. It discloses secrets about the CIA’s prewar plans for Iraq. It chronicles how Bush and Cheney reacted to the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. It details how Bush and other aides neglected serious planning for the post-invasion period. It recounts how the unproven theories of a little-known academic who was convinced Saddam Hussein was behind all acts of terrorism throughout the world influenced Bush administration officials. It reports what went wrong inside The New York Times regarding its prewar coverage of Iraq’s WMDs. It shows precisely how the intelligence agencies screwed up and how the Bush administration misused the faulty and flimsy (and fraudulent) intelligence.
(…)
And there’s more, including:

* how and why the CIA blew the call on the Niger forgeries

* why US intelligence officials suspected Iranian intelligence was trying to influence US decisionmaking through the Iraqi National Congress

* why members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who doubted the case for war were afraid to challenge the prewar intelligence

* how Cheney and his aides sifted through raw intelligence desperately trying to find evidence to justify the Iraq invasion

* how Karl Rove barely managed to escape indictment with a shaky argument.