Lookie here! My own digs!
In case you've been wondering what I've been bubbling about over the past few weeks, it was this move. I'm really grateful that Jane invited me to build a shack in her back yard. She and Pach and Jamie have been doing superb work setting up the new mega site. I'd like to thank Caz, too, who designed the site; I was not a very easy person to work with on
Jeb Bush, Worse than Neil?
Via Atrios, people are beginning to wonder whether Jeb Bush was responsible for approving Florida's purchase of a hefty chunk of the shitpile when he was Governor.
Agovernment money market debacle unfolding in Florida is raisingquestions about former governor and presidential brother Jeb Bush'spossible involvement in the mess.
Florida froze withdrawalsfrom a state investment fund earlier this week when local governmentswithdrew billions of dollars out of concern for the fund's financialstability.
In the
Wolfie's Back?
Bmaz sent me Isikoff's latest, which thankfully does more than report on events from his past as if they were news. It reports the frightening news that Condi's about to appoint Paul Wolfowitz to an advisory position at State.
Nearly three years after Paul Wolfowitzresigned as deputy Defense secretary and six months after his stormydeparture as president of the World Bank—amid allegations that heimproperly awarded a raise to his girlfriend—he's in
The FISA Document Dump, An Inventory
I've put together an excel file listing the documents included in Friday's document dump on the communications DNI McConnell had regarding the FISA amendment. I've still got a turkey hangover, so let me know if you spot any errors.
Here's what I've noticed:There's a weird chronology behind the response to the FOIA requestThe DNI's definition of duplicative is different than my definition of duplicativeThe DNI must consider Republican correspondence classifiedThe DNI
What Did the Blue Dogs Promise to DNI McConnell?
My house guests are gone, I'm recovering from the turkey (on the heritage turkey? It is better, but I'm not sure it's enough better to justify the price tag), and now I'm wading through Friday's document dump. These are the documents the EFF forced DNI to release after he had been stalling on their release; he was supposed to provide all correspondence between Congress and DNI and between the telecoms and
Beer and Turkey Thirty
I just turned in the paper I've been working on. Luckily I've got a couple of these stashed away in the basement.
So I'm off to clean the house--I've got house guests coming in five hours. And then, tomorrow is Turkey Day for me--an odd little custom some friends and I have adopted that makes the whole process less stressful.
Lackey and Katrina Kash
I know, I know. The indictment against Dickie Scruggs looks bad for Dickie (though not, I keep emphasizing, Zach Scruggs, whose indictment given the evidence mystifies me). But I can't help but notice a few details from the short form of Judge Lackey's tell all (I'll look up the long form after I meet my damn deadline today).
You Don't Introduce New Products in August
How nice of Andy Card to call Karl Rove on his bullshit claim that the Democrats pushed the Iraq war before the 2002 elections.
Karl Rove asserted on the Charlie Rose show recently that it wasCongress that pushed the Bush administration into war with Iraq. “The administration was opposed†to voting for a war resolution in the fall of 2002, Rove claimed.
Wilkes Gets His Subpoenas
Whooboy. It must be Dukestir day. Seth Hettena reports that Judge Burns just signed off on Wilkes' subpoenas.
No wonder Judge Burns is pissed. Carolyn Delaney, the federalprosecutor in Sacramento who was given the task of investigating thepre-trial leak in the Brent Wilkes case, has filed a declarationindicating what steps she failed to take to find out the nothing shedidn’t bother to learn.
Here’s what Delaney says:
After reviewing the foregoing materials, I concludedthat
Tommy K and the Shitpile
I'm still trying to sort through what it might mean that, after signing an unlikely plea agreement with the government, Duke Cunningham briber Tommy K has continued to engage in mortgage fraud, at the expense of the company most deeply buried in the shitpile, Washington Mutual (WaMu).
But let's start with the description John Michael's lawyers gave of Tommy K's method.
Kontogiannis would have a loan application prepared in the name of a
Joe Klein, Do You Really Think Crazy Pete Is Credible?!?!?!
Mr. emptywheel and I have a running joke about "English Day"--where your dog, for one day only out of his entire life, can speak and understand English. What would we learn in that one day, we speculate, when McCaffrey the MilleniaLab could tell us precisely what he was thinking?
Which gives me another cool idea--"Source Day"--where for one day, we can see all of the sources that journalists use and consider credible.
Tommy K Apparently Violated His Plea Agreement
Tommy K says he shouldn't go to jail because he has a bad ticker (h/t chrisc). But it sounds like going to jail in the first place may be the least of his worries. According to a filing submitted yesterday, it appears that John Michael's earlier allegations were correct, and that Tommy K violated his plea agreement by continuing his bank fraud after the plea deal.
(4) During the pre-trial proceedings of
Scruggs and Lott
Lotus is right--the indictment against Dickie Scruggs is pretty damning. Here's the bit everyone is keying on, from a conversation between Timothy Balducci and Judge Lackey:
"my relationship with Dick [Scruggs] is such that he and I can talk very private [sic] about these kinds of matters and I have the fullest confidence that if the court, you know, is inclined to rule ...
Then Again...
Perhaps it was just a confluence of events that convinced Trent now was the time to quit.
After Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) announced his resignation this week, it was widely speculatedthat Lott was quitting in order to dodge Senate ethics standards thattake effect next year. The new rules require senators to wait two yearsbefore entering “the lucrative world†of lobbying Congress.
Sure Looks Like It Was Trent's Brother-in-Law
Any speculation on whether Trent knew this was coming down when he resigned the other day?
ProminentMississippi trial attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, the brother-in-lawof outgoing GOP Sen. Trent Lott, was indicted by a federal grand juryWednesday on charges that he and four other men tried to bribe aMississippi state court judge.
According to the 13-page indictment, Scruggs and three otherattorneys -- including Lott's nephew Zach -- attempted to bribeMississippi Third Circuit Court Judge
Who Has Been Lobbying Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell?
McConnell doesn't want you to know, no doubt fearing there will be the same kind of firestorm when we learn who has been schmoozing him as there was when we learned who was schmoozing Jello Jay Rockefeller. Thankfully, a Federal Judge thinks we ought to know this information before Congress passes its amendment to FISA (h/t Mad Dog for the heads up).
The Director of National Intelligence must quickly release documentsrelating to
The Infintite Recursion of Asset Seizures
Steven Aftergood must have had an extra dose of turkey over the weekend, because it seems like Steven Aftergood week here at TNH. Today, he has a liberated CRS report on the implementation of Bush's EO 13438, which authorizes the seizure of the assets of people determined to "threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq." At least according to the Congressional Research Service, the EO allows for incredibly broad application, since it allows
"I Was Under Sedation"
That was the answer John Ashcroft gave to Kathleen when she asked him whether David Addington called Ashcroft's wife to pressure her to let Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card into Ashcroft's hospital room, or whether Dick Cheney called personally.
I asked Former Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft EW's question "did President Bush call your wife directlyto tell her that Gonzales and Andrew Card were on the way to thehospital" I then asked "or was
And Speaking of Missing Emails
So far the RNC has spent $231,615 looking for Turdblossom's missing emails.
The Sleuth has learned, the hunt for those missing gigabytes has cost the RNC more than $250,000.
According to an RNC filing with the Federal Election Commission, the committee paid $231,615 in October to Stroz Friedberg,a forensics firm chock full of former FBI agents hired to retrieve thelost electronic data.
What Is It about those GOP Appointees and their Email Computer Files?
In the latest episode in the ongoing saga of disappearing GOP emails, the WSJ reports that Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, invited Geeks on Call in last year, apparently to delete a bunch of emails computer files.
The head of the federal agency investigating KarlRove's White House political operation is facing allegations that heimproperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a privatecomputer-help company, Geeks on Call.
[snip]Recently,