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What’s up, Doc? Tuesday evening

You know, there are some days when you sit in front of the computer keyboard and all you want to do is play computer games. Today has been one of those days.

 

  • The death toll in the deadly tornado in Joplin, Missouri has risen to 122.
  • Is there a link between the terrible tornadoes that has destroyed most of Joplin, Missouri and climate change? Of course not (click the link before you comment on my sarcasm).
  • A new poll suggests that Americans are more worried about the deficit than they are worried about defaulting. Again, another poll that shows that Americans do not put things together as well as I would like. Exactly what would happen if we defaulted on our national debt is described in this article in Slate. It is not a pretty picture. The probability of us defaulting on our debt has actually been calculated. You can find those calculations here.
  • Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General, seems to be trying to rehabilitate his image. After disgracing himself and his family he’s got a lot of work to do.
  • House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has sunk to a new low. He has now stated that aid to help the victims of the Missouri tornado needs to have offsets. He can go find all of those offsets by asking the Chamber of Commerce to fork over some of that money that they seem to be sitting on. Even the Hammer, Tom Delay didn’t go this far.
  • We need to rethink government contractors and political spending.
  • If you are a Republican and you’re going to hold a town hall meeting, you can expect some angry seniors to show up and ask you about your vote to end Medicare. So, as a young congressman, how do you face this mob? You don’t. You call security and have them and the reporters escorted out of the room. Very Classy Representative Justin Amash.
  • Representative Patrick McHenry (of my state of NC) acts like a jerk to Elizabeth Warren for no particular reason. Whether it was a misunderstanding or a mix up doesn’t matter. We can still treat each other with dignity and respect. In the south that is how we are raised. I have no idea how Rep McHenry was raised.
  • The Patriot Act, which I thought was a done deal, isn’t.  Rand Paul wants to vote on several provisions and, because of this, Senate majority leader Harry Reid has tabled a motion to extend the Patriot Act. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
  • The Dallas Mavericks showed a lot of heart and tenacity by pulling out a victory in Oklahoma City last night to take a 3-1 led in the best of 7 series. On the other hand, the Oklahoma City Thunder caved under pressure. The Dallas Mavericks are down by 15 points with just over 5 min. to play in regulation. Dirk Nowitski played amazingly down the stretch with excellent leadership from Jason Kidd. Oklahoma City Thunder got no leadership from Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook. If you’re a Dallas fan it was on the watch, if you’re in Oklahoma City fan it would break your heart.
By |2011-05-24T21:22:00-04:00May 24th, 2011|Budget, Environment, Healthcare, Party Politics, Sports, US Attorneys|Comments Off on What’s up, Doc? Tuesday evening

A couple of things – Thursday Evening Edition

  • As a government, our lack of revenue is the problem. The middle class is ponying up their share. It is corporations and the top 1% who are taking home more and paying less.
  • Pakistan plays the Sergeant Schultz card. (See the video below.) They knew nothing about Bin Laden chillin’ in their country.

By |2011-05-05T19:21:28-04:00May 5th, 2011|Bin Laden, Economy, Healthcare, Pakistan, US Attorneys|Comments Off on A couple of things – Thursday Evening Edition

Rove and Miers directly involved in US Attorney firing

For Immediate Release
August 11, 2009
Contact: Jonathan Godfrey

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) today released over 700 pages of on-the-record interview transcripts of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers on the U.S. attorney firings and the Bush administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice. Conyers also released over 5,400 pages of Bush White House and Republican National Committee e-mails on these subjects.

The released materials reveal that White House officials were deeply involved in the U.S. attorney firings and the administration made a concerted effort to hide that fact from the American people. “After all the delay and despite all the obfuscation, lies, and spin,” Conyers said, “this basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons. Under the Bush regime, honest and well-performing U.S. attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horsetrading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the U.S. attorney corps – that of U.S. Attorney Iglesias – because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections. When Mr. Iglesias said his firing was a ‘political fragging,’ he was right.”

Key new facts revealed in the materials released today include:

  • 2005 White House “Decision” to fire David Iglesias – It has previously been known that New Mexico Republicans pressed for Iglesias to be removed because they did not like his decisions on vote fraud cases.  New White House documents show that Rove and his office were involved in this effort no later than May 2005 (months earlier than previously known) – for example, in May and June 2005, Rove aide Scott Jennings sent e-mails to Tim Griffin (also in Rove’s office) asking “what else I can do to move this process forward” and stressing that “I would really like to move forward with getting rid of NM US ATTY.” In June 2005, Harriet Miers e-mailed that a “decision” had been made to replace Iglesias.  At this time, DOJ gave Iglesias top rankings, so this decision was clearly not just the result of the White House following the Department’s lead as Rove and Miers have maintained.1
  • Iglesias criticized by Rove aide for not “doing his job on” Democratic Congressional Candidate Patricia Madrid – An October 2006 e-mail chain begun by Representative Heather Wilson criticized David Iglesias for not bringing politically useful public corruption prosecutions in the run up to the 2006 elections. Scott Jennings forwarded Wilson’s email to Karl Rove and complained that Iglesias had been “shy about doing his job on Madrid,” Wilson’s opponent in the 2006 Congressional race. Just weeks after this e-mail, Iglesias’ name was placed on the final firing list.2
  • An “agitated” Rove pressed Harriet Miers to do something about Iglesias just weeks before Iglesias was placed on the removal list – Karl Rove phoned Harriet Miers during a visit to New Mexico in September 2006 – according to Miers’ testimony, Rove was “agitated” and told her that Iglesias was “a serious problem and he wanted something done about it.”3
  • Senator Domenici personally asked Bush’s Chief of Staff Josh Bolten to have Iglesias replaced In October 2006, Senator Domenici stepped up his campaign to have Iglesias replaced. According to White House phone logs and emails, as well as Rove’s own testimony, Domenici spoke with President Bush’s Chief of Staff Josh Bolten about Iglesias on October 5, 2006, and during October 2006, Domenici or his staff spoke with Karl Rove at least four times.4
  • (more…)

By |2009-08-11T16:12:02-04:00August 11th, 2009|US Attorneys|Comments Off on Rove and Miers directly involved in US Attorney firing
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