Saturday Morning Apres-Dump

Red text is the"real" headline buried in the news.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.

Here's where the action is on The Blogs this weekend, just go to Josh Marshall's TPM blog for researching the latest DOJ Document dump, it is "The Place To Be" to help sort through the mountains of information the DOJ expected would stall the process. But the internet, and particularly blogs like Marshall's, have blown that out of the water by prospecting these information mines out in short order, utilizing their extensive and eclectic blog readership as their eyes and ears and minds for research. Once again, this newest of all mediums, and the inheritor of the 4th Estate, the "Blogosphere," has stood forth to become an historic and revolutionary tool of democracy.

DOJ Document Dump Muckraking Thread
By Josh Marshall,
April 27, 2007, 6:29 PM
"A big new bundle of documents just got dumped by the Department of Justice. Here's a link to the documents in PDF form at the House Judiciary Committee website. As per our routine in recent document dumps, if you'd like to help us cull through the mails and reports, use this thread to share your findings with us and other TPMm Readers."
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003116.php#comments

LARRY JOHNSON SLAM-DUNKS TENET !!!
If you're not familiar with Larry's view on Tenet's performance as director of the CIA, check out "Give the Medal Back, George." Larry also reports that he and other former CIA employees are composing a letter to be released to the media on Tenet's 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” coming out on Monday. The former CIA members will ask Tenet to return the now-infamous Medal Of Freedom awarded Tenet by President George W. Bush after Tenet's resignation from the CIA. The group will also ask Tenet to give a meaningful portion of his earnings from his book to the families of military members killed or wounded in Iraq.
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/larry_johnson_s.html

THE BUSH WARS
Saudi security officials said Friday that they had broken up a vast terrorist ring, arresting 172 men who planned to blow up oil installations, (no wonder they are considered such a danger to the Saudis, they know what matters in the Middle East...OIL!!!) attack public officials and military posts, and storm a prison to free terrorist suspects. The wide-ranging plot was uncovered over seven months, officials said, as one lead yielded another, allowing authorities to seize a cache of weapons buried in the desert and more than $5.3 million in cash. The government referred to the ring as a “deviant group,” the phrase often used to describe the ideology of Al Qaeda. ...Officials said that the suspects had trained abroad, in Somalia, Afghanistan and especially Iraq. The chaos in Iraq has fueled radical ideology among the region’s youth, while providing an environment for militants to train, analysts here said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/world/middleeast/28saudi.html?th&emc=th

In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year. That prospect would entail a dramatically longer commitment of frontline troops, patrolling the most dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad, than the one envisioned in legislation that passed the House and Senate this week. That vote, largely symbolic because Democrats do not have the votes to override the promised presidential veto, set deadlines that would lead to the withdrawal of combat troops by the end of March 2008.
(If Bush can't have "Victory" then his minions will just re frame what "Victory"means, to match the existing mess!!!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/washington/28prexy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

At least five people were held for years at Guantanamo Bay prison partly because they allegedly had ties to Pacha Khan Zadran , an Afghan warlord who had clashed with US troops -- though Zadran himself was never sent to Guantanamo Bay... The story of Zadran's audacious rise from a renegade who attacked US troops and Afghan civilians to a respectable role in Afghan politics highlights a double injustice that prevails today in Afghanistan: Powerful warlords accused of grave abuses have risen to the highest level of government here, while some villagers accused of far less serious offenses have languished for years in US custody at Guantanamo Bay. "This is the whole problem with Guantanamo," added Vincent Warren , executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which coordinates the legal representation of detainees. "In Afghanistan, being picked up often had more to do with your relationships with rival factions . . . than any real link to Al Qaeda."
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/04/28/others_languished_as_warlord_rose_as_ex_warlord_advanced_others_languished

WOLFOWITZ' WORLD BANK WOES
A World Bank committee investigating president Paul D. Wolfowitz has nearly completed a report that it plans to give the institution's governing board, concluding that he breached ethics rules when he engineered a pay raise for his girlfriend, three senior bank officials said Friday. Friday evening, the committee was debating whether to explicitly recommend that Wolfowitz resign, according to the sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, citing an ongoing probe into leaks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602710.html?nav=rss_politics

from the NYTimes Editorial Pages
It is hard to figure out what Paul Wolfowitz is telling himself as he wages an unseemly fight to hang on to his job as head of the World Bank. Any hope he had of reforming the bank has evaporated in the face of allegations of conflicts of interest and undeniably poor judgment. Any hope of expiating his sins for the disastrous Iraq war have also disappeared as once again he stubbornly denies reality and the damage that denial is causing to his reputation and to the bank’s ability to do its work. In the latest no-confidence clamor, some 40 members of the bank’s anti corruption team warned that their ability to do their work, Mr. Wolfowitz’s signature priority, “is eroding in the face of legitimate questions from our clients about the bank’s ability to practice what it preaches on governance.” "...Mr. Wolfowitz’s battle to hang on is doing even more damage, roiling the staff, wasting top officials’ energies and further alienating big donors. At a meeting with his top managers last week, Mr. Wolfowitz said he wanted to regain their trust. That is no longer possible. The best thing he can do for the bank, the country and himself is to step down."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/opinion/28sat2.html?th&emc=th

ROVE WATCH
A House committee chairman asked 27 federal departments and agencies yesterday to turn over information related to White House briefings about elections or political candidates, substantially widening the scope of a congressional investigation into the administration's compliance with the law that restricts partisan political activity by government employees. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made the requests after the White House acknowledged that aides to Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, had presented 20 briefings on the "political landscape" to senior federal appointees, last year and this year. An undetermined number of briefings were held in previous years, a spokesman said. (Anyone who thinks Rove did not intentionally "walk the line" in this matter is ignoring his historic hubris. Rove really believed the gravy-train would forever flow. When his prognostications that Republicans would retain control of Congress proved disastrously wrong, Rove's mystical, infallible genius was finally faulted, shattered by a populist wave that installed the Democrats into leadership in both Houses. Rove broke the law, all the while assuming no oversight would ever be leveled at his actions, wilfully establishing his own interpretations of the law, tweaked with a Machiavellian hand to match their necessity, re framing the labels to circumnavigate the Hatch Act. Rove forged ahead with the politicization of the entire Executive Branch in expectation of a thousand years of Neocon-Republican Rule, ala Rove.
... the mighty fall hard, especially when they topple from an arrogant precipice of their own making.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602710.html?nav=rss_politics

DOJ SCANDAL KEEPS GROWING TENTACLES
The White House told a Republican member of Congress last summer about its plans to fire a U.S. attorney in Arkansas and replace him with a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, but it did not tell Democratic lawmakers, according to a new Justice Department e-mail released yesterday. The White House called Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) "and pretty much told him what they are doing with this appointment and how they are going about it," according to a July 6 e-mail from Bud Cummins, then the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702112.html?nav=hcmodule

The Documents Not Turned Over
by Marci Wheeler at The Next Hurrah
Last night, DOJ provided Congress with a list of Kyle Sampson documents it wasn't going to turn over. They begin on December 19, not long after the firings, and continue until March 8, when Sampson resigned. The withheld emails suggest some of the key issues the WH is trying to hide, particularly:
Harriet Miers' involvement in the Cummins firing
Efforts to pretend Gonzales had not told Pryor Griffin would be appointed with or without Senate approval
The exchange between Domenici and Iglesias leading to the latter's firing
The real reason behind Chiara's firing
Efforts to withhold James Comey and the DOJ clique's testimony from Congress http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/04/the_documents_n.html
This is a very comprehensive overview of "what's missing" and what they refuse to turn over, and as usual, omission speaks louder than inclusion in these document dumps. Marci is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, an intimate look into the pundit/politics cocktail-party crowd that meets every night in DC and determines what we will read and hear and watch on our wayward, bought and sold-mainstream media.

Which brings us to the Blog Quote of the Day
from Eli at Firedog Lake;
"And what was the result? Unless you're one of the have-mores, it's (The Bush Administration) been an unmitigated, omnidirectional disaster. The Republicans and the media were able to keep the extent of the fiasco hidden (see "Anatomy of Deceit" above) from the casual observer in 2004, but by 2006 it was visibly seeping out from under the carpet. Now that the Democrats have the keys to the oversight committees, they are peeling the carpet back faster than the Bushies can shovel. Not only are they exposing the corruption and outright criminality of the Bush Administration, but they are exposing all of the Congressional Republicans who blocked oversight as accessories after the fact. And, of course, Iraq continues to be an unwinnable deathtrap which the Republicans want to keep us in forever."
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/27/is-our-electorate-learning-and-the-post-im-not-smart-enough-to-write/

SCANDAL OF THE WEEK:
CONDI RICE'S STAFFER JUMPING SHIP OVER SEXCAPADES!!
Randall L. Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, abruptly resigned yesterday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, U.S. government sources said. Tobias resigned after ABC News contacted him with questions about the escort service, the sources said. ABC News released a statement last night saying Tobias acknowledged Thursday that he had used the service to provide massages, not sex. Tobias has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an ambitious effort to overhaul how the U.S. government manages foreign aid, a key part of her "transformational diplomacy" agenda. Just two days ago, President Bush lauded Tobias for his work in the administration leading "America's monumental effort to confront and deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the continent of Africa."
(Hypocrites!!! How many more scandals will we uncover? Or is the corruption so deep and systemic, will we find these "artifacts" at every level of our investigations? It just seems to go on and on. Makes me wonder, is this what happens when "what goes around comes around" while you're still in the room? Maybe right now Bush wishes he'd lost the last time around, but his corporate pals at Exxon and Diebold just weren't about to let that happen, YET, they've got some $4 gasoline they want to sell us before we grow the cajones to change our usage habits and develop better alternatives...)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702497.html?referrer=email

THE ENVIRONMENT
The Interior Department will announce a proposal Monday to allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Virginia that are currently off-limits and permit new exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, according to people who have seen or been told about drafts of the plan. The department issued a news release yesterday that was lacking details but said that it had finished a five-year plan that will include a "major proposal for expanded oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf." Department officials declined to describe the plan. (another victory for Halliburton) Richard Ayers of the environmental group Virginia Eastern Shorekeeper said he was concerned about development along the state's lightly populated Atlantic shoreline. He said he was worried that oil drilling would create boomtowns, a new influx of people and pollution. The Virginia shore is dotted with barrier islands and lagoons, most of them largely unspoiled. The Virginia coast has been designated a World Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations, and a National Natural Landmark by the Interior Department. "This is one of the few places on the East Coast that just never got developed," Ayers said. "A disturbance of any magnitude would be something the place hasn't seen since the '30s," when a hurricane hit the area. (now they have to worry about Hurricane Cheney and his Texas/Dubai-based drilling company bubbas, looks like the tobacco good-old-boys have finally married-up to the oil good-old-boys, those Virginians have always had a hankerin' for Texans.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701611.html?referrer=email

Saturday's Morning News

Red text is the "real" headline buried n the article.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.

PELOSI'S MASTERFUL HAND
Nancy Pelosi knew Earl Blumenauer would be a hard case, but she left two messages on his cellphone anyway. A liberal, bow-tied, bicycle-riding peacenik from Oregon, Blumenauer had voted against the Iraq war and every dollar since to pay for it. He was not about to embrace a bill that threw $100 billion more into the fighting, even if it would force the president to bring the troops home. "I've been trying to get ahold of you," the House speaker said when she caught up with the Portland Democrat in the Capitol's basement. They sat down. She said she empathized with his dilemma — she too had opposed the war from the start and wanted it ended fast. But in her mind the choice was simple: Hand President Bush a victory or hand him a rebuke. "She convinced me," said Blumenauer, whose vote helped give Pelosi her most important legislative victory. "For me, there was no attempt at pressure. I was able to convey my concerns. She was there. She was listening." Pelosi's performance on the war spending bill highlighted what has become her signature: an aggressive leadership style that seeks to put Congress on par with the White House (isn't that what the founders of our nation meant in the first place by creating co-equal branches of government?) and prove that her notoriously fractious party (hey, a big tent is a big tent) can indeed govern. Her style has surprised some in the caucus. (not me) Liberals who expected camaraderie say she's a poor listener, (read; pragmatist) and conservatives who expected a cold shoulder say listening is one of her better skills. (read; statesman extraordinaire)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pelosi14apr14,0,3546220.story?track=ntothtml

BLOG QUOTE OF THE DAY (thanx to Glenn Greenwald and Salon.com)
Norah O'Donnell does not understand why anyone would think that there is reason to believe that the White House and Rove may not be entirely forthcoming when answering the Senators' questions. She literally does not comprehend the general concept of oversight and specifically the rationale as to why someone would be reluctant to place blind trust in the Bush administration's assertions.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/14/various_items/

AFRICA
Heavily armed security forces took to Nigeria's streets Friday on the eve of elections that many people here fear will spark violence across an already tense nation. In a nationally televised address, President Olusegun Obasanjo declared Nigeria ready to begin its two-part election, with races for state governors and legislators on Saturday and a vote for president a week later. But he warned, "The federal government will leave no stone unturned in vigorously checking . . . acts of violence and thuggery."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302047.html?referrer=email

LABOR UNIONS AND EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
After five years of multi-billion-dollar losses, airlines began making money in 2006 and executives are cashing in, setting the stage for contentious negotiations with employees whose labor contracts start expiring later this year."It's going to get nasty," said Michael Boyd, an industry consultant. The airlines "have really messed this up. The employees worked hard, gave back and it looks like management is basically saying, 'Thanks for the giveback, suckers.' " At United Airlines Inc., which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, workers were infuriated when they learned about Chief Executive Glenn Tilton's 2006 shares and options package, potentially worth $38 million. Unions representing United's pilots and flight attendants on Friday urged members who hold stock in the company to vote against management's nominees for the board, including Tilton.
(we need more unions encouraging and enabling employee ownership on a bigger scale, i.e. democracy in the workplace)
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airlines14apr14,0,4597869.story?track=ntothtml

DOJ DOCUDUMP UNCOVERS MORE DECEPTION BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Long before they fired a group of U.S. attorneys, senior White House and Justice Department officials were already discussing some politically connected insiders for their replacements, documents released Friday show. The documents, turned over to congressional investigators in a widening probe of the firings, undercut earlier claims that the prosecutors were terminated for purely performance reasons. They also show that the administration prized attorneys who shared its Republican ideology. For instance, the personnel charts of some prosecutors note their membership in the conservative Federalist Society. (the red badge of shame?)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys14apr14,0,497040.story?track=ntothtml

As (Paul) pointed out earlier, one of the documents released today apparently catches Kyle Sampson in another bind. And during a conference call with reporters today, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Sampson had not been fully honest with the committee last month. At issue is whether Sampson gave a false impression when he said that he didn't have "in mind any replacements" for any of the U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign. "He left a clear impression that they did not have people in mind for a replacement," Schumer said, calling it "extremely troubling." "The contradictions continue to pile up.... The issue of replacements now becomes central." (thanx again to Paul Kiel at TPM) http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/

THE BUSH WARS
A platoon of elite Marine Special Operations troops reacted with "excessive force" after an ambush in Afghanistan last month, opening fire on pedestrians and civilian vehicles along a 10-mile stretch of road and killing 12 people -- including a 4-year-old girl, a 1-year-old boy and three elderly villagers -- an investigation by an Afghan human rights commission alleges.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302171.html?referrer=email

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an Afghan police headquarters in the east of the country on Saturday, killing at least eight people, officials said. The attack came as the U.S.-led coalition said it had killed 35 Taliban insurgents in fierce fighting two days ago. Seven of those killed in the suicide attack in Khost were border police and the eighth was a civilian, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Six policemen were also wounded. Taliban commander Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters by telephone his insurgents had carried out the attack. (thanx to Needlenose for the Reuters link) http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2007-04-14T123131Z_01_ISL213969_RTRUKOC_0_US-AFGHAN-VIOLENCE.xml

SPY ON US WHILE YOU CAN, MONKEYBOY
The proposed revisions to FISA would also allow the government to keep information obtained "unintentionally," unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance, if it "contains significant foreign intelligence." Currently such information is destroyed unless it indicates threat of death or serious bodily harm. And they provide for compelling telecommunications companies and e-mail providers to cooperate with investigations while protecting them from being sued by their subscribers. The legal protection would be applied retroactively to those companies that cooperated with the government after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301932.html?referrer=email

CHENEY HISSES AGAIN
Vice President Cheney (propagandist-in-chief) accused congressional Democrats today of reviving the "far-left platform" of George McGovern from the 1970s, an agenda that he said would raise taxes, declare surrender in an overseas war and leave the United States exposed to new dangers. In a sharp-edged speech, Cheney escalated the Bush administration attack on Congress for passing war spending legislation that would mandate withdrawing at least some U.S. troops from Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301980.html?referrer=email

ROVE WATCH
(thanx to Marci Wheeler at The Next Hurrah, author of "Anatomy of Deceit)
So we've learned that Karl Rove does 95% of his emailing on the RNC servers. No word if he spends an equivalent percentage of time on RNC-supplied phones (now that question would clarify why Rove was using the RNC laptop, wouldn't it?). But I'm going to assume, for the moment, that that 95% figure also means Karl Rove perceives 95% of the work he does to be political--to be unrelated to our nation's business. There's only a few conclusions I can draw from that. Either, we're paying Rove $165,200 for 104 hours of work (52X40/20). Or almost $1600/hour. (the high price of our political sado-masochism) Which I'm guessing would rank right off the charts on the government pay scale.
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/04/95.html

Karl Rove's personal attorney yesterday dismissed any suggestion that the White House senior adviser purposely deleted e-mail to evade scrutiny, saying that Rove was always under the impression that his messages were being saved (So, just who actually took the illegal initiative to delete them? Is there another Scooter or Sampson in wings waiting to take the fall?) by either the White House or the Republican National Committee. "He has always understood that his e-mails, that his RNC and campaign e-mails, were being archived from very early in the administration," said Robert D. Luskin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302043.html?referrer=email

GROWING WOLFOWITZ WORLD BANK ROMANCE SCANDAL
World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz personally dictated the terms under which the bank gave what it called his "domestic partner" substantial pay raises and promotions in exchange for temporarily leaving her job there during his tenure, according to documents released by the bank's executive board yesterday. The board issued a statement saying it will "move expeditiously to reach a conclusion on possible actions to take," amid rising speculation over whether the embattled Wolfowitz will resign or be asked to step down.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041300788.html?referrer=email

The woman at the center of the storm surrounding World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz has spent the past few months trying to get one of the signature efforts of President Bush's Middle East democracy campaign off the ground. The Foundation for the Future, as the effort is called, has made no grants and held only two board meetings since its creation 1 1/2 years ago. Though Shaha Riza, who has been romantically linked to Wolfowitz, is not listed as part of the staff on the organization's Web site, she is the only person working in the group's offices, located within the Henry L. Stimson Center, a think tank. The Washington office is listed as a "branch," according to the site, which promises that soon a main office will be established in Beirut. The United States contributed almost two-thirds of the foundation's $56 million budget, (for one lone employee to manage?) according to the State Department, which said last night that the foundation plans to hire a chief operating officer and chief financial officer next month.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302172.html?referrer=email

...now it is clear that the chorus of calls in recent days for Mr. Wolfowitz’s ouster is only partly about his involvement in setting up a comfortable job, with a big pay raise, for a bank officer who is Mr. Wolfowitz’s companion. At its core, the fight about whether Mr. Wolfowitz should stay on at the bank is a debate about Mr. Bush and his tumultuous relationship with the rest of the world, particularly the bank, the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which have viewed themselves — at various moments since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — as being at war with the Bush White House and its agenda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/washington/14assess.html

THE ENVIRONMENT
The driving season stretching from Memorial Day through Labor Day is known for pinching motorists. But since the devastating hurricanes of 2005, the pain at the pump each year has returned earlier and with a particularly sharp bite, prompting cries from legislators and causing automakers to scramble to produce smaller, fuel-efficient models. (isn't Honda's and Toyota's domination evidence that we have actually been demanding this for decades?) This year, the federal government's Energy Information Administration is predicting that motorists will pay an average of $2.81 a gallon, just six cents less than last summer's steep levels. Others, including James Mulva... of ConocoPhillips, warn that prices could hit an average of $3.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302126.html?referrer=email

A little over four years ago, when the forces of deregulation were riding high, this page observed that the federal courts could turn out to be the last, best hope for slowing the Bush administration’s assault on the body of bipartisan environmental law established over the last four decades and, by extension, on the environment itself. As things have turned out, this is pretty much what has happened. In the last few weeks alone, federal judges at the district or appellate level have: Rejected efforts to weaken protections for the national forests, including the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest; Overturned a government plan that would have hastened the decline of endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest; Rebuffed challenges to clean air laws governing pollution from older power plants; Invoked the Clean Water Act to prevent mining companies from laying waste to streams and valleys in Appalachia. In some cases the courts have done more than just play defense. In the Supreme Court ruling on global warming two weeks ago, the court not only protected existing law but aggressively enlarged its reach, (guess who the dissenters were...) ruling that the Clean Air Act all but required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/opinion/14sat1.html?th&emc=th