Is venality impeachable?
May 15

Is venality enough to impeach someone? It seems just a couple news items today should be enough to run Gonzales out of office. They help show why Gonzales is the bushie I most want to see gone, more than Rove. Yes, even more the Rove. Gonzales is worse than Rove, an even more rotten bastard. OK, that's opinion, but look at today's news and tell me I'm wrong.

Gonzales has suddenly remembered who was responsible for firing the USAs: Paul McNulty. You know, the Deputy Attorney General who just resigned, presumably to protect himself from taking the blame for a scandal he had only a small part in and he helped break open but contradicting his boss when testifying to Congress (my presumption --- believe the two kids in college story if you want to). Apparently, McNulty's departure means he can be blamed for the firings, though Gonzales has claimed non-involvement or faulty memory in two hearings and a press conference. If the AG and his deputy turn on each other, we may get the truth after all.

And it couldn't happen to a more rotten guy, as indicated by the testimony today of McNulty's predecessor, James B. Comey. He told this incredible story of the lengths Gonzales was willing to go to get approval of the NSA wiretapping program. Despite the opposition of the DOJ staff, Gonzales, who was White House Counsel and then Chief of Staff Andrew Card, ignored John Ashcroft's serious medical condition, the do not disturb order his wife had given the hospital, and the official transfer of authority Ashcroft had made to Comey, to go to Ashcroft's hospital room and try to talk him into signing off on the program. According to Comey, when he heard what Card and Gonzales intended, rushed to the hospital with his security detail. Ashcroft's staff and wife tried to protect him from Gonzales and Card.

Read the whole story to see that it's really more amazing than my summary. My point is that this behavior is consistent with the man who suddenly turned on his deputy despite the contradiction with his testimony and the documentary evidence contradicting him. It's consistent with this small man who could sign off on torture. Why haven't impeachment proceedings started yet? I'm hoping the answer is Congress wants to hear from the newly immune Monica Goodling, and dreading that they think Gonzales will either start telling the truth and do the right thing and resign after enough damaging revelations.

The admiral who stopped a war
May 15

This might explain why Bush hasn't bombed Iran yet. If true, hurrah for Admiral William Fallon. Inter Press Service reports that he refused to have a third carrier group stationed in the Persian Gulf and threatened to resign rather than command an attack on Iran. It's hard to know for sure since the sources are anonymous. It does explain why reports and rumors of a planned attack for April didn't pan out, and makes more sense than Bush and the neocons suddenly wising up. I'd like to think it was those of us in the grassroots trying to raise a preemptive fuss about a war with Iran who stopped or delayed the attack, but I can't prove it (is Fallon a reader of this blog? I somehow doubt it). Thanks anyway to whoever is "several of us" is this is an accurate quote from Fallon, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

Gonzales reminded me of Reginald Perrin
May 10

I saw some of Gonzales' testimony today on C-SPAN this evening. (I don't know if it was the morning or afternoon session, so click here for the morning or here for the afternoon) David Wexler tried very hard to pin down Gonzales on who put David Iglesias on the list of USAs to be fired, and Gonzales kept denying each named person did so, and insisted he didn't know. The next Democrat up was Steven Cohen, and he had Gonzales reconfirm that the acting president didn't do it, and Cheney didn't do it, and Gonzales says he doesn't know who did it, and then Cohen asked how Gonzales could know Bush and Cheney didn't do it. Gonzales, who had been so smooth until then, and I even thought I detected that smirk conservatives have when they think they're pulling one over on liberals, just stammered like he knew he was caught dead to rights. For the rest of Cohen's questioning, Gonzales stammered and sounded lost, like Leonard Rossiter playing Reginald Perrin in an awkward situation.

This hearing got much less press coverage than the Senate hearing, and it was very similar since Gonzales used the same opening statement and still can't remember anything. Countdown covered the similarity of the statements tonight. If Congress wasn't felling insulted already, it should be now. Gonzales didn't even bother addressing new developments or questions he had been asked to look into. Please, House Judiciary Committee, just impeach him already, if not for knowing nothing about his department, apparently lying, firing good employees, then how about utter disconnection from reality? Gonzales' bizarre attitude makes sense after reading this report from the NY Times which says Gonzales thinks he's come through the crisis and it's behind him.

The big news of the day probably should be this revelation from the National Journal: the Bush administration withheld e-mails from Congress which showed the role of the White House in hiring Tim Griffin to be USA in Arkansas, even though such e-mails are exactly what was requested from the administration. The e-mails showed that DOJ officials lied about Griffin, and they lied about having the relevant e-mails. We have a new (to me anyway) name in the scandal, Chris Oprison, an associate White House counsel who approved a letter saying Rove had no role in the hiring, even though e-mails already released have him discussing how important this is to Rove. So far of course, the acting president won't let any White House staff testify.

Paulose managers want smear retracted
May 10

I said this sounded like the smear when the managers under Minnesota USA Rachel Paulose voluntarily demoted themselves. Now they've released a letter to Paulose complaining about the anonymous sources who suggested the managers couldn't stand a young, agressive woman, and hint from Star Tribune gossip columnist that racism might be involved.

On a side note, as long as the Star Tribune is having mass layoffs, is there really an need for a gossip columnist? That would seem like the first position cut.

Concise summary of the student loan scandal
May 9

These final two paragraphs in this story about the House's attempt to address the student loan scandal really explains the whole thing, not to mention the core problem with privatization of government functions in general:

"Some congressional Democrats want further reforms, including a measure to channel more students into direct government loans and away from federally guaranteed loans.

But this effort faces stiff opposition and threatens the business models of major student lenders such as Sallie Mae, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase."

Norm Coleman and the RNC keep using debunked talking points
May 9

This is a detail that's indicative of other things. It's about a GOP talking point recently repeated by Sen. Norm Coleman, who happens to be my senator. He wrote to me in response to a constituent message I sent him, and before getting critical, just to be honest, one thing Coleman does well is respond to constituent letters. E-mail engenders an autoresponse saying it was received, and he follows with a message addressing the topic. These are form letters to everyone who wrote on a given topic, which is fine. That's what all congressmen have always done and it's hardly worth the time to write individual letters. Having given Coleman credit for what he did right, this was the talking point:

"It is important to note that it is not unprecedented for White House Administrations to dismiss U.S. Attorneys; President Clinton dismissed all 93 U.S. Attorneys in 1993. However, the recent dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys has raised concerns because of allegations of inappropriate political pressure and motivations. I agree that we should investigate these allegations further and ensure that our U.S. Attorneys are insulated from political interference."

He's acknowledging the firings are worth investigating, which is more than many of his caucus are willing to do, I give him that, but he is trying to downplay the firings by calling them merely "inappropriate" instead of unprecedented. In fact, he's denying the "unprecedented" part by raising that debunked talking point about Clinton firing all 93. Just so, once again, we're clear, all presidents replace all the USAs when they take office. Yes, Clinton fired all 93 (technically they were asked to resign, and they stayed until replaced, and if I recall correctly, a couple were kept on), as did Bush, and all prior presidents. It's a half-truth, technically true because Clinton did it, deliberately misleading because you're not told all presidents do it. This talking point came out at least in early March -- I couldn't figure out just how early -- and was debunked immediately. So when the right repeats this point, they must know by now it's a half-truth, but they keep doing! it. That Coleman keeps using it shows either he knows nothing about the scandal except what's in the talking points, or he's willing to repeat a deceptive point. I'll believe the many bloggers still using this point just don't know any better. They get little real information after all. Senators however should have a higher standard. A warning for anyone seeing these GOP talking points is that repetition in many sources over a long time doesn't mean they're valid or unanswered. It means they're willing to use sheer repetition to make a point seem believable.

For another example, I recently received an e-mail the RNC sent to supporters to get them to encourage Congress to support Bush on the Iraq funding bill. It also has half-truths, as well as the linguistic tricks used to frame issues. Here's the text of the letter, and I'll show you these techniques.

Last week, the Democrat-led House and Senate - despite a veto promise from the President - passed a so-called war funding bill that handcuffs our generals in Iraq, insists on a surrender date, and contains billions of dollars in pork spending unrelated to the war. What is most amazing is that it took 80 days from the date the President requested this emergency troop funding for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to finalize their flawed version of the legislation, and another five days for Pelosi to deliver the bill to the President.

Notice the use of "Democrat" as an adjective. It took Democrats years to figure out this was meant as an insult. I picked up on it when I heard the tone of voice in which it was spoken. Eventually, I and other Democrats finally decided that if it was meant as an insult, we'd take it that way. This of course was meant for Republicans, one of those bits or jargon that shows the writer and reader are part of the same group.

Also notice the half-truth, that the bill took 80 days. The acting president and his supporters have been making much of that, even though they know that in prior years, the GOP majority didn't get the bill out until July.

Just hours after receiving the legislation, the President fulfilled his promise to veto the bill and sent it back to Pelosi and Reid . In an address to the nation Tuesday night, President Bush laid out his reasons for vetoing this bill, and renewed his commitment to work with leaders of both parties to pass clean legislation which supports our troops.

Notice he sent it to "Pelosi and Reid", not "Congress". It's the same technique they use to sell wars, by demonizing an individual to be the bad guy, like with Saddam, Chavez, Castro,... Don't you just hate Pelosi and Reid now? It's like it doesn't even involve their caucuses, or maybe they're so used to following the leader that they can't conceive of Democrats thinking for themselves.

Before the bill even arrived at the White House, leading Democrats had signaled their unwillingness to compromise. Click Here to see Democrat Senator Joe Biden tell supporters that they were going to "shove" the bill "down [the President's] throat." Biden, the man once called "the Democrat's expert on foreign policy" by Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid, was proven wrong a short time later when Nancy Pelosi's attempt to force an override of the President's veto was soundly defeated in the House.

They know full well the veto override wasn't the attempt to shove it down Bush's throat. The veto override was procedural, and it isn't like Pelosi thought it would work. The Democrats might send the same bill back again to tell Bush that's all he'll get, but the point is the defeat of the veto override is really reaching for proclaiming victory.

One of the things that sets us apart from the Islamic fascists is that we believe in freedom of speech and open political debate. But I truly believe that most Americans, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, believe that we owe it to our men and women in uniform to support them in every way possible. Delaying an emergency funding bill that they desperately need while introducing more partisan legislation is not what we expect from any of our political leaders, no matter which party they belong to.

Notice the phrase "Islamic fascists" (and don't say I didn't warn you a long time ago). It's meaningless, since fascism is a virulent form of nationalism, which is why people on the left sometimes use that term to describe those on the right who support invading other countries and suppressing dissent at home. Fascism might use religion, as indeed the Fascists and Nazis used Christianity and the Japanese nationalists used Japanese religious traditions, but fascism didn't come from churches or temples any more than it came from mosques. The Republicans could accurately say "Islamic fundamentalists", or "Islamic theocrats", but they know two things: one, the word "fascist" is sometimes used against them and this helps deprive the word of meaning; two, fascism doesn't have positive connotations even for people who have no idea of what it was. It's both a branding and debranding exercise. Besides, "fundamentalist" might not be the best epithet when their own party relies on Christian fundamentalists, and "theocrats" describes people who want rule rule by religious authorities, which is something supported by many of th GOP's Christian supporters.

By the way, why are the Iraq appropriations always "emergency" or "supplemental"? It's not like these expenditures aren't expected, so why aren't they in the budget in the first place? Maybe so they don't get counted in the deficit, or maybe they just don't care about governing responsibly. The Democrats get a pass this time because it was the last Republican majority that didn't take care of this last year, or in the prior years. Republicans, what's your excuse?

Conyers, Ellison dig into Paulose hiring
May 8

TPM Muckraker reports that House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Keith Ellison, my representative and a member of the committee, are digging into the appointment of Rachel Paulose as Minnesota's USA.

A related blog --- they have several --- says the Kansas City Star has reported in a subscription-only story that there's evidence Western Missouri USA Todd Graves was fired after all. You can read Talking Points Memo for how they figured that out. I'll just say I can't find the story on the Star web site, but the TPM blogs have been on top of Gonzogate since they first noticed several USAs resigned all at once, and they haven't missed much. If the story pans out, the coming investigation of Bradley Schlozman, who politicized the DOJ Voting Rights section before replacing Graves, gets more interesting. It's bad enough for him that he did his best to create a panic about voter fraud, which turned out to be non-existent (though to be fair, in Republican minds, voting with brown skin is fraud by itself), and he indicted some Acorn employees for registration fraud days before the election. He was in such a rush, he even got the wrong person on the indictment. It appears in these stories that besides the DOJ, the source of the myth of massive voter fraud in Missouri was Sen. Kit Bond. If you can't guess his party, you might check for turnip leaves in your hair.

Dead Polar Bear Award for The Great Global Warming Swindle
May 8

This Dead Polar Bear Award goes to the makers of The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary attempting to show that global warming isn't man-made. At least even the deniers admit it's happening, but they're not yet ready to admit it's man-made. The fact they're defying the scientific consensus should have been a clue something wasn't right, and the same can be said of their web site, which includes this reassuring sentence on its home page: "According to a group of scientists brought together by documentary-maker Martin Durkin, if the planet is heating up, it isn't your fault and there's nothing you can do about it." That's in keeping with Durkin's history of documentaries stating that whatever big business wants to do to you is actually good for you. The complaint with his new documentary is consistent with his history, that he deliberately misleads his audience about the science.

Britain's Channel 4 gets spared a share of this award based on the film's web site. The home page and the arguments section are misleading, but the Ask Our Expert section actually debunks the film's arguments by the best possible method, directly answering the questions of skeptics who aren't the Richard Lindzen style professional deniers, but laymen suffering from an overexposure to conservative talking points.

Called in to talk radio today
May 5

This afternoon I called in to a local show on Air America Minnesota, Rising Tide. There isn't a podcast, in fact it appears not to have a page on the station web site, so you'd have to have been listening tot he broadcast to hear it. I was Eric from Minneapolis. The guest was Anthony Signorelli, author of Call to Liberty: Bridging the Divide Between Liberals and Conservatives, and he was talking about an amendment to the federal constitution guaranteeing the right to vote with a voter verified record. You can see the wording and a briefing paper on his web site at Free and Fair Elections, and he blogs at Call to Liberty. I questioned whether it was legally correct to say there isn't already a constitutional right to vote, not that Signorelli's reasoning is wrong. He mentioned that William Rehnquist said there's no such right, but I suggested that the amendments expanding suffrage to unenfranchised groups indicates there was a right to expand. I also wondered about the wording: "A well regulated election, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to an audited, voter-verified, certified, paper record of the vote, shall not be infringed." Signorelli understands the black box of a touchscreen won't meet that standard, even with a printout, because the voter can't be sure what went on paper and what went in the machine are the same. I suggested a more explicit requirement for a paper ballot, because the words might get interpreted to mean a printout counts, and not only does that not guarantee the recorded vote matches, but if the machine just screws up, like the machines in Sarasota that refused to record a vote for the US House, all the voter has is a paper record of a mistake.

The host is Robert Hill, who used to cohost the daily local show Minnesota Matters. He's a moderate sounding man whose personal style will contrast nicely with the obnoxious Rep. Michele Bachmann, who represents Minnesota's sixth district. Hill has already announced his intention to run against her. If Wendy Wilde runs again for Congress, that will be three local liberal talk radio hosts running for office (the other is Al Franken, for the very few of you who don't already know). I have no idea if this is happening in other states, or more than pure coincidence. Someone who dislikes talk radio might find a negative spin, so I'll offer a positive spin. It could just mean they're putting their money where their mouths are. Or putting their mouths where their mouths used to criticize. Whatever, presumably if or when they go back to their radio shows, they might be political analysts for having seen things from the candidates' point of view.

Didn't bother watching Palfrey
May 5

I'm glad I didn't bother watching the 20/20 interview with Deborah Palfrey. This is one of those times I wish I'd written down a prediction so I could look smart, so you'll have to take my word for it that I correctly predicted she wouldn't name names, and ABC won't name them yet either. More to the point, I didn't want to have to listen to that awful woman. It sounds like she outed a couple clients to scare the rest into getting her a get out of jail free card. Remember that word I coined recently, to "capone" somebody? It means to get someone very bad on something minor, because you can't prove something major, like getting a gangster for tax evasion when you can't prove he stole his money. My issue with Randall Tobias was that the CEO of a drug company ran the foreign aid programs dealing with AIDS. That's even bigger than the hypocrisy of campaigning for abstinence and warning against prostitutes while hiring prostitutes, or the illegality of hiring prostitutes. The other outed customer, Harlan Ullman, is referred to in the linked article as the author of "shock and awe", the name of the strategy used to invade Iraq. He's also a columnist for the Washington Times. If he's one of these neocons who brought us the occupation of Iraq, then he's another one I'd be happy to see gone from public forums. However, an admittedly cursory look shows that he's a 20 year navy veteran --- not the chickenhawk typical of neocons --- and he may have been critical of Bush military policy, just looking at article synopses. So maybe having him caponed doesn't help anything. It may also be the case that the outing of Palfrey's customers of former employees won't clear out all that much flotsam from the corridors of power. Besides, Gonzales is supposed to testify before the House on Thursday, and maybe as evidence as mounted against him he'll finally tell the truth. No, I don't think so either, but maybe he can be grilled on why he let junior staffers hire according to political affiliation.

Rep. Doolittle claims FBI raided two other US Reps.
May 4

Rep. John Doolittle got himself back in the news by denying that he'll resign, and by claiming the FBI has raided two more congressmen involved with Abramoff, one of each party, though he won't name names or say how he knows. Maybe we should encourage him to stay in office. The reason Republicans wish he and Rep. Renzi would resign is that it will be easier for Democrats to win those seats running against incumbents caught up in corruption than against Republicans starting with a clean slate in Republican leaning districts. So call me torn, because I'd prefer to have these crooks running next year, but I also want to see these crooks. For an in-depth look at how Doolittle's history predicted this moment, here's a story from the Sacramento News Review.

Pawlenty pleases national GOP by vetoing whole public works bill
May 2

Tim Pawlenty, the only governor ever to shut down a state government because he thought compromise means the other party gives in, has vetoed the entire public works bill, even though he has a line item veto, even though he requested a bunch of the projects. The Republican disinvestment in the state continues like they were university endowments disinvesting in South Africa during apartheid. Maybe he thinks the DFL majorities will strip out everything except what he requested, but I wonder if it has something to do with speculation is on the short list of GOP VP candidates. The national republicans will adore his willingness to show how much he hates having the government do anything, consequences be damned. Well, be fair: if Pawlenty makes it to DC, he won't have to care how clogged or rough the roads are.

Take the Red Pill Award for State Senate Minority Leader David Senjem
May 2

Social conservatives held a rally April 29 at the Minnesota state capitol. Minnesota Monitor quoted Senate Minority Leader David Senjem saying, "The good book is important and we need to lead our lives according to the teachings of the good book. OK, we'll say it. The Bible...It's our job, I believe, to legislate by the teachings. The teachings are really all we have in terms of guiding our legislative life and certainly our personal life." Presumably Sen. Senjem is planning to introduce a bill banning the consumption of shellfish, and the next attempt to reestablish capital punishment will include stoning as the prescribed punishment for adultresses. Just the adultresses, because the adulterers make the rules. I also thought of that story about the rich man who asked Jesus what he had to do to get into Heaven, and Jesus told him to sell his worldly possessions and give the money to the poor. Surely the social conservatives plan to turn Jesus' advice into law, because otherwise some rich people might miss out on Heaven. Yes, I expect that bill anytime. Meanwhile, Senjem can amuse himself during late night floor sessions thinking about how to display his Take the Red Pill Award.

Gonzales authorized Sampson and Goodling to hire and fire
May 1

Presumably by now you've seen the latest development related to Gonzogate, that Gonzales gave extensive authority over hiring and firing political appointees to Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling despite their utter lack of experience or qualifications except for their strong Republican loyalty. If you haven't read the original National Journal article, you may not know the order was kept out of the Federal Register. You may have missed a statement by Sen. Pat Leahy that this should have been among the documents provided to his committee, but wasn't. Fortunately, someone leaked it to Murray Waas.

So a couple points spring to mind. Isn't withholding a document that was requested by a congressional committee impeachable in and of itself, regardless of what it's about? They can't say it was an accident, because the leaker knew where it was and that it was important. The fact they kept it out of the Federal Register indicates they knew they were doing something wrong. So what is the House waiting for to start impeaching?

The other point is that this isn't merely incompetence. This part has been left out of other news reports, but Waas mentioned that Gonzales changed the hiring rules so all decisions were made by him. This was a revision to granting authority to Sampson and Goodling, which was thought unconstitutional. Gonzales then delegated authority to the two little Bushies, who, judging from Gonzales' testimony, could take the boss's approval for granted. In other words, they planned this far too carefully for this just to be a momentary lapse of judgment. Nor, for that matter, do I grant this was higher level incompetence, because we now know there was a campaign through much of the DOJ to politicize the federal justice system. Handing this much authority to two hacks was part of it. This wasn't a screw-up, but how corrupt ideologues prefer to do things.

On another aspect of the story, many on the liberal side of the political spectrum have asked what the 85 attorneys who weren't fired did to keep their jobs, specifically whether prosecutorial decisions were politically based. Were getting the answer we were dreading: yes. We might have thought the electoral bullet had been dodged when Jim Doyle won reelection despite being smeared by the false conviction of Georgia Thompson.If we thought that, we were wrong. It appears a similar baseless prosecution cost Democrats a US House seat in Michigan, where Carl J. Marlinga was charged with bribery just in time for the election, and afterwards easily won acquittal in a trial where the jury wondered why the case had been brought at all. At least unlike Steven Biskupic in Wisconsin, Stephen J. Murphy in Eastern Michigan didn't manage to send an innocent person to prison.

On a related subject, in terms of senators taking umbrage at behavior that ought to be impeachable, Sen Dick Durbin said on the Senate floor that the information presented to the Intelligence Committee differed from that presented to the rest of Congress and the public. This sounds like a strong statement that the acting president and bushies knew the case for invading Iraq was false, which means they lied to start a war. Just what will it take to get impeachment started? I know the Senate doesn't impeach. The House does. Surely Durbin, Leahy et al can have little chat with their House colleagues about getting the process started.

Good news and bad news on GOP corruption
May 1

There are so many big scandals that it's easy to miss the minor ones. There was some good news and bad news today. The good news is the resignation of Julie MacDonald, a deputy assistant secretary in the Interior Department. The crux of the charge is she tried to undermine the Endangered Species Act by altering scientific reports. The bad news: the student loan scandal has gotten bigger, though it's not yet a biggie, just the typical corruption we've come to expect from the appointees of the acting president. I mentioned this scandal previously to make a point about the politicization of the DOJ, but it has gained some attention in its own right. Essentially, the problem of private student loan companies (What was wrong with government loans? Here's a prime candidate for deprivatization.) giving favors to college financial aid officers was identified during the Clinton administration, and the Education Department drafted a policy to deal with it. Under Bush, the draft policy was squashed, and there is the typical Republican revolving door where people leave the government to work for the people they regulated, or leave the regulated industry to become a regulator. It's a prime reason Republicans, at least those of the current variety, can't be trusted to run a government honestly.