“‘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.
Category: GOP
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?
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.
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.”
Bush III?
“I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that’s his intention or not.” Like his father before him, Dubya tries to fire up the Jeb train. Yeah, right. As if this administration hasn’t made us look enough like a banana republic already, why don’t we add the president’s brother into the mix? Besides, Dubya’s poll numbers being what they are, I think it’ll be some time before a majority of the electorate decides to back another Bush family scion. In the immortal words of our current prez: “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me’ — you can’t get fooled again.“
Abramoff the Record.
Not a smoking gun just yet…The Secret Service logs obtained by Judicial Watch reveal only two short White House trips taken by Casino Jack, one in 2001 and one in 2004. “The White House said last week that the Secret Service’s logs documenting Abramoff’s entries into the executive mansion complex might not reveal all meetings. ‘I don’t know exactly what they’ll be providing, but they only have certain records and so I just wouldn’t view it as a complete historical record,’ spokesman Scott McClellan said.” Ok, then, I won’t.
Hayden for a Fight?
Dubya officially nominates Michael Hayden to replace Porter Goss at CIA, despite bipartisan criticism of Hayden’s military background. “U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said, ‘This appointment…signals that we are not that concerned about having an independent intelligence community independent of the Department of Defense.‘” Nevertheless, some top Dems, including the House Intelligence Committee’s Jane Harman and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, have indicated that they’re both ok with the pick and will, likely, avoid the NSA wiretaps issue like the plague during the hearings.
I’d like to buy a Volz.
As the Bunk would say, this is great po-lice work. Prosecutors flip another Casino-Jack-implicated GOP congressional aide in Neil Volz, former chief of staff to Delay/Abramoff flunky Bob Ney, meaning that — despite handily winning his Ohio primary last week — the “Mayor of Capitol Hill” is as good as gone. “Volz…is the fifth cooperating witness, including Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty and agreed to provide evidence against Ney in the ongoing criminal investigation.”
Closure for Karl?
All the t’s have been crossed and Novaks have been questioned…Now, according to the Post‘s Jim Vanderhei, Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s extended investigation of Karl Rove is nearing resolution. “Rove expects to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted — or publicly cleared of wrongdoing — for making false statements in the CIA leak case, according to sources close to the presidential adviser. An indictment would be devastating to a White House already battered by low poll numbers, a staff shake-up and a stalled agenda.”
No Love for Libby.
“I’m just not going to let this case turn into a judicial resolution of the legitimacy of the war or the accuracy of the president’s State of the Union address.” The verdict isn’t it yet — still, it seems Plamegate Judge Reggie Walton is not amused by the Libby defense’s recent attempts at graymail.