Tuesday’s Mini-Report

August 21, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The Hill: “House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) demanded Tuesday that 18 federal agencies provide the panel with documents related to ‘asset deployment teams’ managed by departing White House adviser Karl Rove leading up to the 2004 election. According to Waxman, documents obtained by the committee confirm the existence of the teams, as well as the involvement of 18 federal agencies, including the Departments of Justice, State and Homeland Security, in a 2003 asset deployment strategy meeting.” Waxman set a Sept. 7 deadline for document production.

* Way back in 2005, Karl Rove, a Texas resident, illegally took a homestead deduction and property tax cap on his home in DC, and owed the city back taxes. A lawyer in the Texas secretary of state’s office was fired, presumbaly at Rove’s behest, for confirming the story for the Washington Post. The lawyer, Elizabeth Reyes, is now suing Rove.

* Hurricane Dean is wreaking havoc in the Atlantic, but is its size and power a result of global warming? Chris Mooney tackles the question in a helpful HuffPost item today.

* The president is usually unreserved when it comes to praising Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but asked today whether the Iraqi parliament should oust Maliki, Bush said, “That’s up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians. The Iraqis will decide. They have decided they want a constitution. They have elected members to their parliament. And they will make the decisions, just like democracies do.”

* ABC: “Former CIA director George Tenet ‘bears ultimate responsibility’ for failing to create a strategic plan to stop al Qaeda prior to 9/11, according to a review by the CIA’s inspector general that was made public today, more than two years after it was written.” Too late to get that Presidential Medal of Freedom back?

* The AP has more: The CIA’s top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency’s own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday. (thanks to SKNM for the tip)

* TPMM: “Bradley Schlozman, a former Justice Department official who was at the center of the U.S. attorneys scandal and is under investigation by the Departments inspector general for his alleged efforts to politicize the Civil Rights Division, has finally left his post at the Department.” If my count is right, he’s the sixth high-ranking DoJ official to resign in the wake of a scandal.

* The Family Security Matters may be some kind of right-wing think tank with a roster of high-profile figures — James Woolsey, Barbara Comstock, Frank Gaffney, Laura Ingraham — but the group sure does believe some odd things.

* Matt Bai has written a new book, “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics,” about Democratic politics in the Bush years that’s already sparking arguments. Joan Walsh offers a thorough and insightful response today.

* According to data from Brookings (.pdf), 113 Americans were killed in Iraq in the summer of 2003, 162 in 2004, 217 in 2005, 169 in 2006, and 229 in 2007 (and there are, alas, 9 days left before the end of August).

* The right is surprisingly worked up about Janeane Garofalo joining the cast of “24.”

* There’s no reason for the NYT to keep referring to the “Petraeus-Crocker Report.” The White House is responsible for writing the document, so it’s the White House’s report.

* Things are looking bad for Bush’s Agriculture Undersecretary, who apparently doesn’t want to answer questions about the Forest Service’s failure to analyze the environmental impact of dropping fish-killing fire retardant on wildfires.

* If only war supporters could decide when they think the surge began, their arguments wouldn’t sound so incoherent.

* I suppose it’s possible that Tom Tancredo could be more irresponsible, but I’m not sure how: “Federal officials said on Monday that a second man among the suspects in the schoolyard slayings of three young friends was in the United States illegally…. ‘If the suspects are found guilty, Newark and its political leadership share a degree of responsibility,’ [Tancredo] said on the steps of the gold-domed City Hall, surrounded by a dozen supporters and slightly more protesters who rallied against him. ‘I encourage the family of the victims to pursue a lawsuit against the city.'”

* And finally, readers will be pleased to learn that the American Association of Publishers has found that liberals read more books than conservatives. “The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: ‘No, don’t raise my taxes, no new taxes,'” Pat Schroeder, president of the [AAP] said in a recent interview. “It’s pretty hard to write a book saying, ‘No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes’ on every page.” She added that liberals tend to be policy wonks who “can’t say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion.” I guess that’s why my posts are so long?

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

I read the Fair Tax book a while back, and it spent a lot of time saying that, yeah, well, most books are long and useless, but not this one.

I found it amusing that it was a book aimed at people who don’t like books.

  • * The Family Security Matters may be some kind of right-wing think tank with a roster of high-profile figures — James Woolsey, Barbara Comstock, Frank Gaffney, Laura Ingraham — but the group sure does believe some odd things.

    The post from that site that Digby ran is just unbelievably evil.

    “The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.”

    Did anyone notice that the site’s initials are FSM? Flying Spaghetti Monster anyone?

  • Family Security Matters and all of its members are INSANE. No Joke, Observe:
    “…If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.(That shouldn’t take ‘that’ many years. No word of where the millions of Iraqis disappeared to hmmm)

    He could then follow Caesar’s example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.(Forget that the military of Caesar’s time couldn’t read or write and loved to live in a 120degree desert and didn’t sign or pledge oaths to defend the constitution of the USA. They would love to be commanded by someone who is willing to destroy everything they believe in or are fighting for)

    President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.”(sieg heil. sieg heil)

    Remember, everytime you see these names attached to anything you should recoil as if from a hot flame…:James Woolsey, Barbara Comstock, Frank Gaffney, Laura Ingraham… I’m sure there are many more names to add to this list like Melanie Morgan etc.. Idiots all.

  • LOL @ Dale #3 Flying Spaghetti Monster who promote genocide and nuclear holocaust and the end of democracy here. I woulda thought the great giant pasta woulda been more benign, ya know comfort food and all. These are truly hideous psychopaths.

    And CB, thank Gwd your posts are so long. We need your erudition.

    Oh, and the CIA fault report translation : It’s all Clenis’s fault in three, two,……..

  • * ABC: “Former CIA director George Tenet ‘bears ultimate responsibility’ for failing to create a strategic plan to stop al Qaeda prior to 9/ll…

    Didn’t Richard Clarke tell us that there was a strategic plan to stop al Qaeda formulated in the wake of the USS Cole bombing, but that Bush didn’t want to hear about it??

  • Scott H said: “I read the Fair Tax book a while back, and it spent a lot of time saying that, yeah, well, most books are long and useless, but not this one.”

    Like the Healthy Forests Initiative, Clear Skies Act, the Moral Majority, and the Central Intelligence Agency, the name of the “Fair Tax” conceals and contradicts its true nature.

    The “Fair Tax Book” was written by Neil Boortz (he of right-wing talk radio fame) and John Linder, a Republican congressman from Georgia. It proposes, in brief, the replacement of almost all federal taxes with a 23% national sales tax on all goods and services. Its “Fair Tax” logo is “IRS” struck through by a “not permitted” circle. (But who would collect the “Fair Tax” or pursue me if I don’t pay it?)

    In reality, the “Fair Tax” is a scheme to further reduce the taxes of the uber-rich, who have income far greater than their spending. The book engages in a lot of sloganeering in between charts and graphs that will appeal to the “we don’t need no stinkin’ taxes” crowd, but at it’s core it fails the reality-based smell test. Everybody pays less!

    That sounds “fair” to me! How about you?

  • Speaking of Hurricane Dean, BushBrat put on his compassionate conservative face (brow wrinkled, lips pursed) and expressed concern about people harmed/displaced by the storm.

    Bush also offered U.S. assistance and expressed his concern for the citizens of Mexico and elsewhere whose lives were affected by Hurricane Dean at the summit on Tuesday.

    “We stand ready to help,” said Bush, standing alongside Calderon and Harper. “The American people care a lot about the human condition in our neighborhood and when we see human suffering we want to do what we can.”

    In BushWorld this is all that is needed to show he is sorry about eating cake while NO turned into a giant bowl of Hell. Plus it tells Calderon he really cares about them Mex’cans.

    The man is nauseating.

  • ABC: “Former CIA director George Tenet ‘bears ultimate responsibility’ for failing to create a strategic plan to stop al Qaeda prior to 9/ll, according to a review by the CIA’s inspector general that was made public today, more than two years after it was written.” Too late to get that Presidential Medal of Freedom back?

    * The AP has more: The CIA’s top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency’s own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday. (thanks to SKNM for the tip)

    Whoa, they should work on stuff like that. If they’re not, then one wonders what they must be working on.

  • ***[Bush] could then follow Caesar’s example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.***

    It’s folks like the maniacal mental morons at FSM that makes me want to march right out and further assert my Second Amendment rights—at the nearest gun-store.

    What is it going to take to wake the citizens of this country up, pray tell? We’re what—about 516 days or so away from the “scheduled” end of this madman’s presidency—and we’re already dealing with so-called “think-tanks” that are promoting this tyrannical insanity? How long until the MSM starts to pick up on the “common sense” of an American Caesar?

    I personally believe—NOW—that we are nearing the day when I will have to look these “Family Security Matters” twits square-on in the eye, and declare that they have have my “objections” to their obscenities—when they pry them from my cold, dead hands. I don’t really want to—but some dead guy named Tom Jefferson seemed to think, once upon a time, that the Republic needed to be ready for the very series of unfortunate events that have now befallen us. He had this thing about telling folks to “take arms”—and I just don’t get the feeling that he was talking about “partners and corners at a square dance.”

    And I’d prefer betting it all—and losing it all—for Tom Jefferson, rather than buy into the “gang-rape-America” madness promoted by that filthy little piece of shrubbery currently occupying the WH.

    Because THAT, gentle reader, is the kind of thinking that it took to bring this nation; this Republic; this America into being in the first place….

  • Philip Atkinson wrote the piece on the Family Security Matters site. A quick google turned up this biography that must be about the same Philip Atkinson that wrote that silliness – http://www.ourcivilisation.com/author.htm .

    The bio would explain this guy’s pathologies since he lashes out that his father who was a socialist that was enamored with George Orwell’s writings and as a result of the father’s political leanings they lived in a neighborhood where Philip would get beaten up by the other boys. Young Philip then developed a severe case of sour grapes when he tried up to beat up on a smaller kid who just moved into the neighborhood to prove his manhood but all the other boys insisted that Phil lost the fight, pompting Philip to believe that he was smarter than everyone else and the rest of society was obviously full of crap. I kid you not.

    Scarred and abusive childhoods seem to be a pattern among the wingnut right and neocons.

  • Joan Walsh’s review of “the Argument” really points out the books fallacies. B’ai sees what he wants to see but his conclusions miss the mark by far. Democrats should be outraged by Bush’s administration and do themselves damage by not bashing Bush enough…like out of office. They’ve been on the ground too long by Bush’s corruption, power abuses and incompetence and need to pound him with oversight and accountability. One of the biggest of the Democratic flaws is their pathetic excuses for not impeaching Cheney 1st. There is no downside to impeachment and every argument to the contrary can easily be taken apart but ’some’ dems won’t entertain opposing ideas. They demand an assured victory before the evidence is even presented. It shows them for being weak, stubborn, cowardly and unresponsive to the demands of the citizens. Rather than lead, they must be led. They treat supporters of impeachment in much the same way Bush treats war critics, as if they just don’t understand or know what’s good for them or the country.
    My senator has voted with the republicans on all the major issues despite being the 1st Democratic Senator in decades…Yes to war funding, yes to Patriot Act re authorization, yes to FISA make America safe, and won’t get behind the idea of impeachment… so many of us feel we wasted our vote. We let her know that since it was a wasted vote anyway, we might as well waste it on someone who at least represents what we want even though there’s not a chance they will get elected. So far my senator hasn’t voted any different than the one term republican she replaced. Support for her is dropping big time but it’s too late to take her vote back. Being new and 1st term I can only think she is being told how to vote by our Democratic leaders in the Senate which is costing her job. She won’t even respond on why she voted for the FISA bill.

    Point is, many dems are listening to poor advice from inside the beltway which idiots like Bai try to influence with their “insider” logic. Heed at your own risk.

  • bjobotts, @3

    Bush as Julius Cesar? How quiant. Do they have any candidates for the role of Brutus? Dick Cheney leading the GOP pack, per chance?

    Me, if pressed for comparisons between Bush and ancient Roman figures, I’d say little red boots Calligula.

  • Honestly, the people who spend the most time writing and pontificating about “family values” are the ones with the most dysfunctional and screwed up families you can find. They seem to be riddled with sexual dysfunction, alcoholism, serial adultery, pedophilia, drug addiction, child abuse, and on and on and on. I can’t decide if it’s something they do to keep the spotlight off themselves, or whether it’s some deeply buried wish to make over their own history. Whatever it is, I think it’s long past time to (1) stop the hypocrisy and (2) ask those who preach that gospel to put their money where their mouths are.

    Take this whole “culture of life” thing that just permeates these family values groups. What does that mean? I don’t have a problem with people who believe abortion is wrong – I am happy to accord them the freedom to have as many children as they like – but I do have a problem with people who spend more time advocating for clumps of cells than they do advocating for health care for all children, and programs that support single mothers and those who are born into difficult circumstances.

    I know there are many people who truly live their values and beliefs, people who adopt children and foster kids and take in single mothers and who do not abandon the fetuses they save as soon as they emerge from the womb.

    But there are too many people parading around screaming about the culture of life, who not only do not embody the meaning of those words, but who consistently work at cross-purposes against nurturing and supporting living, breathing individuals.

    Long past time to call bullshit on them. Long past.

  • In the open vein thread:

    Years ago, my (then) teenage son handed me a book and said I *had to* read it. It was Anthony Lewis’ “Gideon’s Trumpet”. I suppose it was a payback for my introducing him to the film “12 Angry Men”, since both deal with the American system of justice. I read the book, was as fascinated as he had been. But I never thought that Gideon’s winning a right to attorney would benefit someone like Wilkes 🙂
    http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003962.php

  • The Rove thing could be real interesting.

    First you had the irony that the guy that cried wolf on voter fraud, may have been a voter fraudster himself. Living in DC but voting in Texas? C’mon Karl.

    Second, you could have a case where Rove was unduly using his office to influence a personal matter. Calling in a favor to get someone fired in a matter that involved Rove only as an individual, not a state actor. C’mon Karl. You got away with the Plame thing because it was work. How do you explain this one?

  • Do you think if I got a book published that really just said in large font “No new taxes” once on every page that it would sell well? Or hell, I wouldn’t mind going ahead and creating a different anti-tax phrase for each page. Like “Don’t raise my taxes”. “Taxes are bad.” “Taxation is theft.” “No tax.” I honestly think people would buy it. I could call it “No New Taxes: A Conservative’s Guide to Opposing Taxation” or perhaps something with a really wonky title, to make it sound like it’s going to be a conservative manifesto on why taxes are bad. It’d be the kind of thing you’d get your conservative friend for Christmas as a joke. And the funniest part is that they wouldn’t get the joke, would study it carefully, and perhaps even cite it during debates to prove a point.

    And if any of you steal my idea, I accept Paypal.

  • ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    She added that liberals tend to be policy wonks who “can’t say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion.”

    Ja.

    Dems move with the celerity of Pat Leahy calling in subpoena papers….
    It’s like reading a Kevin Drum he-blogged-she-blogged post on foreign affairs.
    Yawn.

    One gets the feeling these guys could wax erudite about their navels.

    It’s enough to drive one to non-onioned tears…

  • Picking up Anne’s thread in #14. I also love it when these nitwits are men. I mean come on. But when your worldview is equal to that of a childrens ‘Highlights’ magazine, I guess your saving babies, and whose not for that, only those godless libruls. Braindead fools!

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