Just Chewing on the (Wing) Nuts
“Mr. Libby, a high-ranking public official and experienced lawyer, lied repeatedly and blatantly about matters at the heart of a criminal investigation concerning the disclosure of a covert intelligence officer’s identity,” Fitzgerald said in court papers. “He has shown no regret for his actions, which significantly impeded the investigation.”
I love it when he talks dirty…
Why not just turn the evidence over to Justice as a perjury case? That could be fun…
BAGHDAD - Seven U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter came under attack Saturday morning during a patrol in a Sunni insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad, leaving five dead and three missing, the military said.
Troops were searching for the three missing, using drone planes, jets and checkpoints throughout the area, according to the statement. Soldiers were also asking local leaders for information.
After the pre-dawn attack near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad in a Sunni insurgent stronghold dubbed the Triangle of Death, nearby units heard explosions and a drone plane later observed two burning vehicles, the statement said.
Troops who arrived over an hour later found five of the soldiers dead. The other three members of the patrol were gone, according to the statement, from Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.
Take a bow, big man…
POTTYMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Presidential candidate John McCain has made another change in his struggling campaign, dismissing his New Hampshire campaign manager on Friday.
Jim Martin had run the Arizona Republican’s campaign in the state and was part of McCain’s 2000 victory in the state. But the campaign decided to replace him with Jim Barnett, who had been a top political operative.
McCain’s New Hampshire Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker said the departure came Friday.
“While we appreciate his hard work, Jim Barnett will assume the day-to-day responsibilities going forward,” she said. “Barnett is a talented political professional with extensive campaign experience, and he will work closely with Mike Dennehy to build out our ground operation to ensure that we win the primary.”
Barnett had served as chairman of the Vermont Republican Party and joined the McCain campaign as the regional political director.
“We need someone who knows what it takes on every level of a campaign and understand a get-out-the-vote process. Jim Barnett is that person,” said Dennehy, a McCain consultant who stepped down earlier this week as national political director and returned to help New Hampshire’s office.
For seven years Rove and his trolls have been telling all the Religous self righteous that McCain and the media are BFF's. And the media is the one true enemy of the right.
Now the only real conservative they've got for President with any name ID is McCain. The "Base" is never gonna buy into a McCain candidacy, they make jokes about him having to change party first before he runs as a Repug. They're down to a Mormon Mannequin flipping on everything he's ever said, An unstable Italian "New Yorker" with a shady past, 3 wives, and possible corruption problems, whose record will not stand up to any close scrutiny, and Saint John, who they spent the last seven years denigrating and calling a traitor to the cause. At this rate their best hope is to pick Romney, at least that way they'd win Utah...
S(ad) Squirrel
Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) has a nifty new 3,751-square-foot, four-bedroom house in suburban Columbus, Ohio, next to a golf course designed by the great Arnold Palmer.
The $1 million house has some unusual characteristics. It’s not in his congressional district, but sits about 90 minutes away from the condo that he uses as his official residence.
Even more curious is that Gillmor’s name appears nowhere on the property records. The Toledo Blade, after some fine digging by reporter Joshua Boak, found that the owner is Zenith Holding & Trading Corp.
That, in turn, is a subsidiary of a Columbus law and lobbying firm — Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease — whose PAC has contributed $6,500 to Gillmor’s campaigns since 1997.
The firm sent the paper a letter saying that Zenith has the property in trust “at the request of, and for the benefit of” Gillmor, who paid the mortgage and taxes.
“There’s nothing unethical or unusual,” he told the paper. “It’s all pretty much aboveboard.” He said the deal was transparent because the Blade was able to trace it back to him, the paper said.
Nice work Josh, but aren’t you blade guys running out of Republicans yet? 
Did Rudy Giuliani’s campaign snub an Iowa farmer couple because they weren’t millionaires and hence wouldn’t be a suitable prop for Rudy’s anti-”death tax” campaigning? And will the haircut-obsessed political media cover it?
Check out this unbelievable story from the Anamosa Journal-Eureka in Jones County, Iowa, the accuracy of which I’ve just confirmed by phone with one of the people in it:
OLIN–Last weekend Deb and Jerry VonSprecken of Olin received a call from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s campaign office asking them if they would be interested in holding a campaign rally on May 4, after she had donated to his campaign.
“We thought it would be an honor and agreed,” said Jerry.Later she received a call from Tony Delgado at the Des Moines location.
“Tony said, ‘I’m sorry, you aren’t worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now.’ then he said they weren’t going to be able to come,” Deb continued.
Hillary already stomped Rudy once, he ain’t improved any. What’s he gonna do, get ovarian cancer this time?
Rudy for President? Please…
The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove’s, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Brad Berenson, an attorney for Sampson, said in an interview that his client did not intend to mislead Congress. Sampson, he said, signed off on the February 23 letter based on representations made by the White House that it was accurate.
The withheld e-mails show that Sampson’s draft was forwarded for review to Chris Oprison, an associate White House counsel, who approved the language saying that Justice was not aware of Rove having played any role in supporting Griffin. But an earlier e-mail from Sampson to Oprison that has already been made public indicates that the two men discussed Rove and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers as being at the forefront of Griffin’s nomination.
The senior official said that Gonzales, in preparing for testimony before Congress, has personally reviewed the withheld records and has a responsibility to make public any information he has about efforts by his former chief of staff, other department aides, and White House officials to conceal Rove’s role.
“If [Gonzales] didn’t know everything that was going on when it went down, that is one thing,” this official said. “But he knows and understands chapter and verse. If there was an effort within Justice and the White House to mislead Congress, it is his duty to disclose that to Congress. As the country’s chief law enforcement official, he has a higher duty to disclose than to protect himself or the administration.”
White House spokesman Tony Fratto denied that the White House was withholding records in the Justice Department’s possession, and he said that Gonzales could make many of them public at any time. “The White House is neither guiding nor directing the Justice Department’s decisions on privileged documents,” Fratto said. “They make those decisions on their own.”
Two senior administration officials told National Journal they were frustrated with decisions by Gonzales not to release some of the documents held by the Justice Department. One of the officials charged that “Gonzales is doing this to save his own neck,” at the expense of the administration. The same official said that senior aides to Gonzales have been refusing to turn over many relevant documents to Congress, and that the attorney general’s top aides have been selectively leaking portions of them to the media to portray themselves in a favorable light.
Sampson also played a central role in the drafting of a January 31, 2007, letter from acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling to Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., implying that the White House had never contemplated using an obscure provision in the USA PATRIOT Act that would allow it to install Griffin as a U.S. attorney without having Griffin undergo Senate confirmation. Gonzales and Sampson have since testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that they did indeed consider using the PATRIOT Act to install Griffin as a federal prosecutor
The withheld records show that Oprison assisted Sampson in drafting the January 31 letter. Previously disclosed Justice Department records show that Sampson and Oprison had worked closely together in devising the original plan to install Griffin as U.S. attorney under the PATRIOT Act provisions.
There’s lots more too. I love a good Weis story. The WaPo website was just implying this morning that Gonzales would be able to keep his job. I’m thinking he might want to resign before Monica testifies. But maybe he’s already got a signed pardon stuck in his safe at home. Might wanna keep an eye on it, I get the feeling Rove’s got a goon squad of former CIA types on the Rnc Payroll…
“It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source,” wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. “Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire-like mesh suspended on top.”
WASHINGTON - An odd-looking Canadian quarter with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a false espionage warning from the Defense Department about mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned
The harmless “poppy quarter” was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as “filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology,” according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.
The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy — Canada’s flower of remembrance — inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors’ accounts.
The supposed nano-technology on the coin actually was a protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy’s red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada’s 117,000 war dead.
The White House is still selling fear, but stupid ya get for free. These guys oughta move to Boston to help out the search for explosive cartoon characters…
Under the order from U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the District of Columbia, Monica M. Goodling “may not refuse to testify, and may not refuse to provide other information” if asked by Congress.
Goodling could provide crucial new details about the U.S. attorney firings, which came after nearly two years of discussion between the White House and senior Justice aides, including Goodling.
Goodling’s attorneys have said she would comply with any order to testify or cooperate with investigators. Hogan’s order says that “no testimony or other information compelled under this order…may be used against” Goodling, except for prosecutions of perjury or giving a false statement.
Justice officials have said Goodling is also the subject of an internal investigation of whether she violated federal law or department policies by considering political affiliation in the hiring of career prosecutors in some districts.
It’s a sign. This could be good, could be nothing but hope springs eternal.
I’m shocked as hell that the morality police aren’t after these guys. It is a great dance song though. The rest of the CD is pretty good too…
“During the debate over whether to add a $400 billion privately run prescription-drug plan to Medicare, his former chief of staff, David Castagnetti, and legislative aide, Scott Olsen, were part of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s $8 million lobbying effort. Shortly after the legislation–written largely by the pharmaceutical industry–passed, Baucus’s top staffer on the Finance Committee, Jeff Forbes, left to open his own lobbying shop, with clients including PhRMA, the drug maker Amgen and the American Health Care Association. These companies have in turn donated generously to Baucus; almost $700,000 between 2001 and 2006 from the healthcare industry and pharmaceutical lobby.”
Bayh (D-IN), Yea, Carper (D-DE), Yea, Dodd (D-CT), Not Voting , Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea, Landrieu (D-LA), Yea, Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea, Lieberman Nelson (D-NE), Yea (ID-CT), Yea, Lincoln (D-AR), Yea , Menendez (D-NJ), Yea , Mikulski (D-MD), Yea , Murray (D-WA), Yea , Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea, Salazar (D-CO), Yea , Tester (D-MT), Not Voting
Lieberman, gee I’m shocked…
WASHINGTON, May 7 — Leading governments of Europe, mounting a new campaign to push Paul D. Wolfowitz from his job as World Bank president, signaled Monday that they were willing to let the United States choose the bank’s next chief, but only if Mr. Wolfowitz stepped down soon, European officials said.
The Europeans worked to arrange a quick exit for Mr. Wolfowitz as a special bank committee concluded that he was guilty of breaking rules barring conflicts of interest in arranging for a pay raise and promotion for Shaha Ali Riza, his companion and a bank employee, in 2005.
In another sign of Mr. Wolfowitz’s difficulties, his top communications aide, Kevin Kellems, resigned Monday, saying that “the current environment surrounding the leadership” at the bank made it “very difficult to be effective in helping to advance the mission of the institution.”
Another Bushie takes a bow…
