The myriad inquiries into Republican corruption, particularly those involving the network of convicted felon Randy “Duke” Cunningham, start circling a few more names this week. FBI agents searched the home and office of Dusty Foggo, the former #3 man at CIA (handpicked by Porter Goss) who’s been rumored to be a major reason for Goss’ downfall, this morning. Similarly, and apparently as another tangent to the Cunningham case, the Justice Department has begun investigating House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and particularly his relationship to a lobbying firm specializing in earmarking. Is Duke the new Casino Jack?
Month: May 2006
But stay away from the interns.
“‘Republicans ‘are in such desperate shape,’ he said, ‘We don’t want to give them anything to grab on to.'” A spokesman for Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is currently off the table in the planning for a Democratic House.
R&R, X&X&X.
Today’s trailers: Crockett & Tubbs reunite as Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx respectively in the full trailer for Michael Mann’s film version of Miami Vice (This isn’t much of an improvement on the teaser, frankly.) And, Dell offers seven minutes of clips from X3: The Last Stand, of which all but 90 seconds or so (thanks to Ian McKellen, who’s clearly at home scenery-chewing his way through this badly-written drek) looks and sounds cringeworthy. From this, it seems the real problem with X3 may be less Ratner than the so-far really clunky script by Simon Kinberg & Zak Penn.
Robbing for Roberts?
Did White House officials steal a file on John Roberts’ affirmative action record from the National Archives last year? “This investigation is unresolved and the file is still missing,” says a new report by the Archives Inspector General, which Tim Noah dissects over at Slate. (Hmmm…was it reclassified, perhaps?) Still, according to the report, a White House staffer was the last person known to have the file, and “[t]he report’s findings contradicted the assertions of Archives officials, who said last August that an attendant had been in the room at all times and that the lawyers had been separated from their bags.” The mystery deepens…
No Mercy Shown.
This is why events unnerve me…By way of Ed Rants, the new trailer for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is out, and it maintains the New Order conceit of the teaser. (Although this time the background ditty is “Ceremony,” not Age of Consent.”)
Alarm Call.
“In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. ‘In other words,’ Bush explained, ‘one end of the communication must be outside the United States.’ As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private. Sources, however, say that is not the case.” USA Today unleashes a firestorm in Washington today after the paper uncovers a NSA plan to “create a database of every call ever made.” (Q&A) “With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers’ names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA’s domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.“
Dubya’s response? As expected, we’re only going after the bad people. Nevertheless, Dems and even moderate Republicans in Congress are livid over these new revelations, to the point of possibly spiking the Hayden bid for CIA chief. For his part, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Arlen Specter says he’ll chair hearings on the matter, but, really, what else is new? For all his tough talk in the past, so far he’s remained a paper tiger when it comes to curbing Dubya’s imperial pretensions. Still, one would think this stunning leak might breathe new life into Sen. Feingold’s censure resolution, as well as strong congressional legislation that might finally help to redress this administration’s startling contempt for civil liberties. After all abuse and torture, secret and/or illegal gulags, indefinite detentions without cause or charges, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless wiretaps are all one thing…but now you’re hitting most Americans where they live. Update: Or not — A new poll shows Americans surprisingly sanguine about NSA data-mining. Update 2: Or are they?
You need us on that wall.
“This administration thinks they can just violate any law they want, and they’ve created a culture of fear to try to get away with that. It’s up to us to stand up to them.” In very related news, the Justice Department closes its investigation into the NSA warrantless wiretaps because the NSA denied them the necessary security clearances. “We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program…Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation.”
Taxing Days for the GOP.
“‘The point is the preponderance of these revenues will go to upper-income people, people who make a million dollars or more,’ Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said yesterday. ‘It’s a question of priorities.‘” Nevertheless, as expected, House and Senate GOP leaders strike a deal to extend Dubya’s tax breaks for the wealthy to 2010, with the House passing their end 244-185 today. Well, this tax gambit may help the GOP with their base among the “haves and have-mores,” I guess, but I really don’t see how this will stop the GOP’s 14-point freefall across the rest of the country. Update: The Senate follows suit, 54-44.
Red Letter Day.
“In short, [the letter] provides a perfect opportunity for Bush to do what he should have been doing for the last few years — to lay out what America stands for, what we have in common with Muslim nations, and how our differences can be tolerated or settled without conflict.” Also in Slate, Fred Kaplan offers some sage advice on how to respond to Admadinejad’s recent letter. “Bush and Ahmadinejad — two of the world’s most stubborn, self-righteous leaders. It’s at once hopeful and pathetic that the next step in their confrontation — whether it intensifies or slackens — could be determined by whether Bush answers or brushes off a goofy letter.“
Goodbye Gulag?
“The most important aspect of the president’s comment isn’t just that he acknowledged, at least tacitly, that Gitmo is a disaster and must be closed; or even that he acknowledged that detainees have a basic right to some adjudicatory process. These two concessions are momentous, but they pale next to his admission that he is in any way bound by the decision of the high court — that the court will have the last word on anything to do with the war on terror.” Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick dissects some surprising recent comments by Dubya on Guantanamo Bay, and ponders the future of the Gitmo Gulag. “[Recent] silent mass releases do suggest that Donald Rumsfeld’s famous 2002 claim, that the then-760 prisoners at Guantanamo were ‘the worst of the worst,’ was something of an overstatement. They were probably closer to ‘the best of the worst,’ or as I’ve suggested, ‘the least lucky of the middling.’ The actual worst of the worst have been relegated to a whole other secret prison system that actually makes Guantanamo look rather attractive.”