Reckless disregard for the law -- your GOP

Lock 'em up:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said today that the Bush administration had violated the law by purchasing favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" inside the United States, in violation of a longstanding, explicit statutory ban.
The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the administration's public relations campaign had been known for months. The report today provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

Surely someone will be held accountable for this illegal activity. We look forward to the Justice Department's vigorous prosecution of the perpetrators. They can start with Mr. Williams because, the article says, it was his idea

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

The Poor Man, too.

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING -- This cat's pretty conservative,

but he'd rather vote for a dog than a corrupt Republican.

Thanks, Craig

O'Neill gets a moment on "Ellen" and gets the audience to do a Hog call. Idiot.

Judith F. Miller sang for the grand jury

Lots of inside-baseball-style coverage over at Romenesko, but little light. Let's see some indictments. We're with Jon Friedman on this:

If you can understand what the hell is going on in this case, you're a lot smarter than I am.

We thought jail was a good place for Miller, regardless.

Bikes, Blues & BBQ

We went down the hill and waded through last night for a while. It was pretty crowded. Apparently vendors are pissed about rising fees every year. Looks like they decided not to close Dickson to traffic. Presumably that was on guidance from Daytona PD advisers. Local bands seem happy with the exposure. The barbecue competition is at the mall -- too bad, in our view. The event Web site is here.

Added to the links

Go visit Greyhair, whose blog is even newer than this one. We think you'll like him.

Dear state abortion foes

STFU:

Officials for the state Republican Party, the Family Council and Arkansas Right to Life condemned clinics in Fayetteville and Little Rock on Thursday for providing free abortions to hurricane refugees.

Would it make you happier if the clinics charged a fee? Abortion, despite your best efforts, is still legal. A majority of Americans support keeping it that way. The leaders of your party are still corrupt megalomaniacs. Americans are seeing the light. That's why you're losing your base. Quit trying to change the subject.

UPDATE: Conason elaborates.

ANOTHER: Jon Chait on DeLay. MORE: Dionne implores GOP reformers to do something.

They just think the truth is hell

Over at Daily Kos, Hunter eviscerates some dumbass wingnut for spouting empty threats. You'll want a smoke after you read this.

Blue Oyster Cult tk

Man, what decade is this? Friday night at the Arkansas Music Pavillion (AMP), a venue in a mall parking lot, we get Joan Jett and the Blackhearts with John Kay and Steppenwolf. Saturday brings us BOC and Foghat. These are Little Rock-caliber shows.
UPDATE: Snarkmaster Tbogg answers my rhetorical question.

Turds float in GOP cesspool

DavidNYC over at Kos' place recaps some greatest hits from the catalogue of Rep. Roy Blunt, the man House Republicans chose to replace the bugman as their leader. Each more corrupt than the last. If Democrats can't catch a wave in this ocean of sleaze, they will have demonstrated that they're as inept as their opposition is crooked.

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck

This is funny.

Living in Flyover Land

At least we don't have to worry about fire season, although a few more years of below-average rainfall could change that.

This blogger is a plagiarist

Not us, him. Mr. Bucholz has lifted substantial chunks of this Times analysis without attribution. It's inexcusable, and not just because he's clearly a moderately talented writer. It clouds the entire blogosphere when one of us does such shit. Shame on him.
Retrospective hat tip: CJR Daily, where we saw his blog referenced and thought, That sounds familiar.

Getting to the bottom of prisoner abuse

Joe Galloway of Knight Ridder:

WASHINGTON - Well, they finally got to the bottom of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal this week. An Army court martial convicted Pfc. Lynndie England and sentenced her to three years in prison and a dishonorable discharge for holding that leash, pointing with scorn and other offenses.
They've gotten to the bottom, all right. With Pfc. England's conviction, that wraps up the cases against nine enlisted soldiers who starred in those terrible digital photos in late 2003.
So that's it, huh? Not exactly. We still haven't gotten to the top of this scandal, the Guantanamo problems and the questions that were raised last week by an Army captain from the 82nd Airborne Division who is troubled by, of all things, a conscience.

The rest.

Stormy weather cometh

We can use the rain. Computer must be unplugged.

This is what passes for diplomacy with the junta

Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state, is in the Middle East promoting America. Saudi and Turkish women give her an earful. Apparently she was briefed before her trip by the "greeted as liberators" bunch, because she reportedly didn't expect what she found. Neocon fantacists formulate our foreign policy. The rest of the world gets it.

Not so good news

ABC "World News Tonight" had this yesterday. The Times:

The floating cap of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean shrank this summer to what is probably its smallest size in a century, continuing a trend toward less summer ice that is hard to explain without attributing it in part to human-caused global warming, various experts on the region said today.
The findings are consistent with recent computer simulations showing that a buildup of smokestack and tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases could lead to a profoundly transformed Arctic later this century in which much of the once ice-locked ocean is routinely open water in summers.
It also appears that the change is becoming self sustaining, with the increased open water absorbing solar energy that would be reflected back into space by bright white ice, said Ted A. Scambos, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., which compiled the data along with NASA.

ABC suggested this spells extinction for polar bears, other species. No reax from Inhofe on this latest hoax.

Since it's Wednesday

Lyons:

Partly due to its Republican-style political correctness, partly to the cult of personality surrounding Bush himself -- his fabled "gut instincts" were supposed to make up for his manifest intellectual shortcomings -- the administration finds it almost impossible to adjust to altered circumstances. They’ve created their own reality all right. Alas, the rest of us have to live there, too.

Conason:

Cultivating his image as a kindly and caring physician, [Frist] never failed to mention his pious concern for patients while casting his vote against their interests. He is the most reliable Senate ally of the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbyists. He voted to kill the Patients’ Bill of Rights. He voted to limit awards to medical-malpractice victims to $250,000, a “reform” that directly benefited his family business. He sought to limit regulation of profit-making hospitals and other providers by Medicare, which would likewise protect the Frist empire.
In return, he has collected millions of dollars from health-care industry lobbyists to finance his own campaigns and his war chest at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which he chaired before taking over the Senate leadership.

Hallelujah! DeLay indicted

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.
DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.
The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury's term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.
The grand jury action is expected to have immediate consequences in the House, where DeLay is largely responsible for winning passage of the Republican legislative program. House Republican Party rules require leaders who are indicted to temporarily step aside from their leadership posts.

Female suicide bomber strikes in Iraq

Another corner turned:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A woman strapped with explosives and disguised as a man blew herself up outside an Iraqi army recruiting center in a northern town Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding 30 in the first known attack by a female suicide bomber in the country's bloody insurgency.

It's becoming increasingly hard to envision any good outcome in this quagmire.

THIS IS A DUMB IDEA -- Fayetteville Transportation Department workers

hang one of the six signs around city limits that ask bikers coming to town

for Bikes, Blues and BBQ to ride quietly while visiting Fayetteville.

BROOKE McNEELY photo / Northwest Arkansas Times

N. Ireland Protestants don't want peace

What else could explain this?

BELFAST (Reuters) - Protestant leader Ian Paisley on Tuesday accused the IRA of a cover-up after monitors said it had scrapped its entire arsenal used to wage war on British rule in Northern Ireland.
The international monitors said on Monday they had seen put beyond use all of the IRA's weapons, including rifles, flame throwers, explosives, machine guns and surface-to-air missiles.
"The more the search-light is put on this, the more we discover there is a cover-up," said Paisley, a firebrand cleric and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the province's biggest party.

Paisley is incapable of bargaining in good faith. All parties to the peace process should henceforth marginalize Paisley and the DUP. They have repeatedly torpedoed the process.

We wish we'd thought of this

Is this an important development?

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi and U.S. forces claimed a major blow against one of the country's deadliest insurgent groups Tuesday, saying they killed the No. 2 leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who masterminded a brutal escalation in suicide bombings that claimed nearly 700 lives in Baghdad since April.

Sadly, No!

From deep in the heart of Texas

The irrepressible Molly Ivins:

Look, this is rank, nasty business -- corruption, cronyism and competence (the lack thereof) are the issues here. And as we have so recently and so painfully been reminded, when government is run by corrupt, incompetent cronies, real people pay a real price. There is nothing abstract about swollen bodies floating in flooded streets or dozens of old people dead in nursing homes.

And while we were at Working For Change, we remembered that we forgot to link to this classic This Modern World last week. In case you missed it.

This strikes us as a good thing

Lisa de Moraes in the Post:

[I]t appears that Martha Stewart couldn't get arrested in any way, shape or form last week in prime time. Not only did her edition of "The Apprentice" open poorly on Wednesday, attracting about 7 million viewers, but CBS's Stewart flick, "Martha Behind Bars," also seems to have attracted about 7 million viewers. It would appear that around 7 million watchers of prime-time TV are very interested in seeing Martha TV; the rest of us -- not so much.

Profiteers line up at the trough

The gravy train's coming. Dana Milbank reports on hurricane reconstruction planning in the Post:

Would-be government contractors were meeting in the Hart Senate Office Building to figure out how to get a share of the money. A "Katrina Reconstruction Summit," hosted by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and sponsored by Halliburton, among others, brought some 200 lobbyists, corporate representatives and government staffers to a room overlooking the Capitol for a five-hour conference that included time for a "networking break" and advice on "opportunities for private sector involvement."

We feel better already

The GOP Congress' whitewash of the botched Katrina response is off to a fine start. The star witness Michael "Brownie" Brown takes the blame for not conducting enough press briefings and being incapable of making the local Democrats -- and his superiors -- perform competently. And now we have learned that when he resigned as FEMA chief he was rewarded with a job as a consultant to FEMA on how his ex-agency blew it. Reassuring.

Jack Abramoff is so screwed

Not that he had any direct role in this particular crime, but sooner or later, with so many unsavory characters getting nailed because of the Abramoff inquiry, someone's likely to decide he knows too much. If we're lucky, maybe people will start singing and we'll get shed of the likes of Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and all their corrupt cronies. Maybe Safavian will roll over on 'em.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- Three men were charged with the 2001 gangland-style killing of the founder of the Miami Subs sandwich chain, who was involved in a business dispute with a prominent Washington lobbyist at the time, officials said Tuesday.
Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis was ambushed after he left his office in Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 6, 2001. He was involved in a dispute with lobbyist Jack Abramoff over the sale of a casino business.
Anthony Ferrari was arrested at his North Miami Beach home Monday evening, Fort Lauderdale police said in a statement Tuesday. Fort Lauderdale homicide detectives arrested Anthony Moscatiello, 67, at his Howard Beach home in New York late Monday, police said.
Ferrari, 48, was being held at the Broward County Jail, sheriff's spokesman Jim Leljedal said. A third man, 28-year-old James Fiorillo, was arrested Tuesday in Palm Coast.

Still no sign of Fayetteville

We'll keep checking in here periodically.

Chris Cox does the appropriate thing

He really had no choice:

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox recused himself today from the agency's investigation of stock sales by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to avert what he called "any appearance of impropriety."
Cox, a former California lawmaker who served for nearly a decade as a member of the House Republican leadership before joining the agency last month, cited personal connections to Frist in a prepared statement explaining his decision to step aside from deliberations about the probe.
Cox had donated $1,000 to Frist's reelection bid in 2000 through his own campaign fund, according to records compiled by the Federal Election Commission.

RIP Don Adams

Who among us of a certain generation didn't have a huge crush on 99? The cone of silence was always good for some laughs. LATimes:

Don Adams, the comic-actor who played bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart on the hit 1960s spy-spoof series "Get Smart," has died. He was 82.
Adams, who honed his comedy skills as a post-World War II stand-up comic and impressionist, died of a lung infection late Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his friend and former agent Bruce Tufeld said today. He said the actor had broken his hip a year ago and had been in ill health since.
It was the height of the Cold War and the James Bond spy craze when "Get Smart" debuted on NBC-TV in 1965 with Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 for CONTROL, a Washington-based counter-intelligence agency. It was the job of Smart and beautiful Agent 99 (co-star Barbara Feldon) to destroy KAOS, an international organization of evil. Edward Platt, who died in 1974, played their long-suffering boss, who was known simply as "Chief."
The clever and satirical sitcom, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, was filled with sight gags (one character, Agent 13, hid in mailboxes, water fountains and clocks) and ingenious gimmicks (Smart famously phoned headquarters with a dial phone implanted in the sole of his shoe.)

Department of can't do anything right

Lead story on washingtonpost.com:

President Bush, saying "gas prices are on our mind," said today the government is again prepared to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to alleviate any gas shortages caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
He called on Americans to "pitch in" and conserve gas by reducing non-essential travel, teaming up in carpools and using mass transit.

Good advice, thanks. W used to insist, rightly, that the SPR was only for emergencies. We guess sub-40 approval ratings constitute an emergency now. Because:

CAMARILLO, Calif. -- Gasoline prices that reached all-time highs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina fell by an average of 20 cents a gallon in the past two weeks as some Gulf Coast refineries resumed production, according to a nationwide survey.

Bloggered

Blogger is being unusually cantakerous today.

So Cindy Sheehan got herself arrested

Been there, done that, athough never on purpose. Look, we hate this war too, have from since before it started, but what's the point? We've never gone looking for trouble. The cops never seemed to need a reason to hassle our generation.

This can be interpreted more than one way

AP headline:

Military Asks Bush for Rescue Strategy

Blogger ethics

Some irresponsible bloggers are posting Frank Rich's column, headlined "Bring Back Warren Harding." We won't do that. Nor will we link to them. You'll have to find it yourselves.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone

We are adding this Yahoo! News project, which starts tomorrow, to the links. You may remember Sites from the controversy after he videotaped a Marine in Fallujah last year executing a wounded and apparently unarmed insurgent. Here's how Yahoo! describes it:

A solo journalist ("SoJo"), Sites will carry a backpack of portable digital technology to shoot, write, edit, and transmit daily reports from nearly every region of the world. You'll be able to follow his endeavor through stories, photos, video and audio, and you'll be able to interact with him.
Their ambitious mission: To cover every armed conflict in the world within one year, and in doing so to provide a clear idea of the combatants, victims, causes, and costs of each of these struggles -- and their global impact. With honest, thoughtful reporting we'll strive to establish Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone as a forum for information and involvement. Users will not only learn about the scope of world conflict, but will find ways to be part of the solutions -- through dialogue, debate, and avenues for action.

IRA officially disarms

This strikes us as a fairly momentous development:

The IRA has decommissioned a huge haul of its remaining weapons and explosives in a bid to break the political deadlock in Northern Ireland, The Observer has learnt.
Republican and government sources said the formal announcement that a vast arsenal of tonnes of illegal rifles, rockets, anti-aircraft guns and Semtex explosive had been put beyond use will be made possibly in the next 48 hours and definitely before Tony Blair's keynote speech to the Labour party conference this week.
However, there will be no photographic evidence of the disarmament, which was witnessed by two churchmen from Northern Ireland, one a Catholic priest, the other a Presbyterian minister.
John de Chastelain, the Canadian general who has the task of overseeing paramilitary disarmament, will deliver an inventory of the weapons destroyed at a press conference early this week.
The IRA will also hold on to a number of personal protection weapons for its so-called "internal security teams" ...

Government in league with Big Oil, Banking

The Post examines the oil and gas situation and identifies the beneficiaries. Producers and refiners rake in windfall profits. Distributors and station owners barely get by, the latter partly because credit card companies suck up their margin. What can we do about it? Throw the bums out in 2006. Then rescind the industry giveaways in the just-passed energy bill. That money should be invested in sustainable energy. And repeal that horrid bankruptcy wet kiss to the credit card industry. Any Democrat who voted for it needs a primary opponent. Pass stricter mileage requirements. Make W veto them. Make the GOP accountable. Democrats need to make clear to voters who's on the side of the American consumer. There lies the path back to the White House.

Coalition of the exit-planners

At least the Brits have a plan:

British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May under detailed plans on military disengagement to be published next month, The Observer can reveal.
The document being drawn up by the British government and the United States will be presented to the Iraqi parliament in October and will spark fresh controversy over how long British troops will stay in the country. Tony Blair hopes that, despite continuing and widespread violence in Iraq, the move will show that there is progress following the conflict of 2003.
Britain has already privately informed Japan -- which also has troops in Iraq -- of its plans to begin withdrawing from southern Iraq in May, a move that officials in Tokyo say would make it impossible for their own 550 soldiers to remain.
The increasingly rapid pace of planning for British military disengagement has been revealed on the eve of the Labour Party conference, which will see renewed demands for a deadline for withdrawal. It is hoped that a clearer strategy on Iraq will quieten critics who say that the government will not be able to "move on" until Blair quits. Yesterday, about 10,000 people demonstrated against the army's continued presence in the country.

The organizers of the march in D.C. -- the one Bush hid from in Colorado -- think they had 300,000. The police chief says 150,000. Photos here. The Freepers countered with about 200.

Robert Fisk has a new book

"The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East" by the Middle East correspondent for The Independent is out Monday. Fisk was denied entry to the United States about a week ago. The Independent will be running "extracts" of his book this week. The first is here, on finding Osama. It's about his encounters with bin Laden over the years. Enjoy.

This is actually getting pathetic

Now they can't even pull off a photo-op:

SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 23 - President Bush was supposed to land here on Friday afternoon on the first stop of a tour intended to make clear that he was personally overseeing the federal government's preparations for Hurricane Rita's landfall. But the weather did not cooperate.
It was too sunny.
Just minutes before Mr. Bush was scheduled to leave the White House, his aides in Washington scrubbed the stop in San Antonio. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, explained that the search-and-rescue team that Mr. Bush had planned to meet and thank here in San Antonio was actually packing up to move closer to where the hurricane would strike.
... Another White House official involved in preparing Mr. Bush's way noted that with the sun shining so brightly in San Antonio, the images of Mr. Bush from here might not have made it clear to viewers that he was dealing with an approaching storm.

Oh, great

The bowheads are coming.

Disaster profiteering cometh

With Karl Rove overseeing this effort, Knight Ridder tells us what to expect:

WASHINGTON - As the federal government throws tens of billions of dollars into hurricane relief and reconstruction, the system to make sure taxpayers' money is spent properly is a mess.
The federal purchasing system has been plagued with scandal -- its top buyer was arrested Monday. It has too few workers deciding exactly what to buy, and there may not be enough auditors to ensure taxpayers get their money's worth. Even now, rules designed to keep the contracting process fair and honest are being loosened to speed recovery and reconstruction.
Joshua Schwartz, co-director of the George Washington University Law School's government procurement law program, pointed to small staffs, limited budgets and weak oversight.
The number of government purchasing agents and contract managers has been cut in half since 1990, but since Sept. 11, 2001, the contract spending they oversee has more than doubled, Schwartz said.

OK, they don't mention Rove. But waste, fraud, corruption -- it's Iraq revisited.

This is a relief

Some good news:

Freeways clogged for two days by evacuees from Hurricane Rita had cleared out by this afternoon, and emergency officials encouraged residents to seek shelter and stay there.

The prospect of a bunch of people stuck in a giant traffic jam in a hurricane has apparently been averted.

Frist's presidential aspirations dim

Didn't W just appoint ex-Rep. Chris Cox as new SEC chief? This isn't very collegial:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are investigating Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's sale of stock in HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by his family.
In a statement released Friday, the Nashville-based company said federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York issued a subpoena for documents HCA believes are related to the sale of its stock by the senator.
Frist's office confirmed the SEC is looking into the sale.

24 fleeing Rita die in bus fire

Gruesome:

WILMER - A bus carrying elderly evacuees from a Bellaire assisted living center caught fire and was rocked by explosions early today on a gridlocked highway near Dallas, killing as many as 24 people, authorities said.
"Deputies were unable to get everyone off the bus," Dallas County Sheriff's Department spokesman Don Peritz said. He said he believes 24 people were killed, but that number could change.
The bus, with about 44 people on board -- 38 residents and six employees -- had been traveling since Thursday around 3 p.m. The accident happened around 6:45 a.m. today. The bus' brakes apparently caught on fire, reached passengers' oxygen tanks and set off an explosion.

The photos are reminiscent of a Hamas bombing. The Houston Chronicle has full hurricane coverage.

UPDATE: The heroic staff of The Times-Picayune soldiers on. Looks like NOLA's flooding again.

It's not like we didn't warn you

Jon Chait reminds us of some early signs that the Bush junta was incompetent:

NOW THAT all but the most partisan and stubborn defenders of President Bush agree that he screwed up his response to Katrina, and nearly as many agree that he screwed up the occupation of Iraq, it probably seems unnecessary to continue beating up the administration over those failures of the past.
Instead, I say we dwell on some other administration foul-ups from even further in the past that most people have forgotten about by now. You know, in the spirit of magnanimity.
I'm thinking specifically of two controversies. First, the administration's failure to act on intelligence that could have stopped the Sept. 11 attacks. And second, its refusal to commit ground troops to the battle of Tora Bora in 2001, leading to the escape of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants.

You know what to do.

John's absolutely right

Texas is fucked.

Bush conflates terrorism, hurricane

We cannot let this go unremarked upon. David Sanger in the Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - President Bush on Wednesday for the first time linked the American response to terrorism and its response to Hurricane Katrina, declaring that the United States is emerging a stronger nation from both challenges, and saying that terrorists look at the storm's devastation "and wish they had caused it."
Mr. Bush's speech, at a luncheon for the Republican Jewish Coalition, appeared to be part of a White House strategy to restore the luster of strong leadership that Mr. Bush enjoyed after the Sept. 11 attacks, and that administration officials fear he has lost in the faltering response to the hurricane.

Because if you begrudge W a vacation in the midst of a national emergency, the terrorists, or maybe the hurricane, will have won. Or something.

Worth keeping an eye on

We succumb to the poor-choice-of-words trend. This is potentially calamitous: