In the midst of the persecuted prosecutors case, Casino Jack keeps on rollin’: Six days after the FBI searched his home in connection with the Abramoff investigation, California Republican John Doolittle steps down from the House Appropriations Committee. “Since 2005, a Justice Department task force has been looking into payments made by Abramoff and other lobbyists to Doolittle’s wife and the spouses of other lawmakers…Doolittle also helped steer millions of dollars in military funding to one of the defense contractors tied to the bribery case of former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.).” Update: And another, although this time not Abramoff related: Arizona Republican Rick Renzi leaves the House Intelligence Committee as the result of an ongoing investigation into a 2005 land deal. I’m sensing a pattern.
Category: Politics (2007-2008)
The Other Shoe Drops.
“The government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman.” In keeping with a tendency to move right incrementally, without necessarily overturning any laws (one that may also pose trouble for the McCain-Feingold act in coming weeks), the Roberts Court upholds a ban against partial-birth abortion 5-4, with Justice Anthony Kennedy the swing vote. (He was joined, of course, by Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito.) Kennedy’s reasoning? According to Slate‘s always-perceptive Dahlia Lithwick, it was fear of the Inconstant Woman: “Today’s holding is a strange reworking of Taming of the Shrew, with Kennedy playing an all-knowing Baptista to a nation of fickle Biancas.” For her part, Senator Barbara Boxer sadly summed it up as such: “‘It confirms that elections have consequences,’…alluding to Bush’s re-election and the seven GOP Senate wins in 2004 which set the stage for the appointment of Roberts and Alito.“
With that in mind, all the major candidates for 2008 obviously weighed in on the decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, although everyone pretty much followed to party script, even the ostensibly pro-choice Giuliani. [Clinton | Edwards | Giuliani | McCain | Obama | Richardson | Romney] “Wednesday’s ruling raises the stakes for the 2008 presidential election, which is almost certain to pit an abortion-rights Democrat against an anti-abortion Republican.” Let’s not make the same mistake again, y’all.
Oops, We Did It Again.
“‘You can’t erase e-mails, not today,’ Leahy said in an angry speech on the Senate floor. “They’ve gone through too many servers. Those e-mails are there — they just don’t want to produce them. It’s like the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes.‘” Breaking last Friday: Just as the persecuted prosecutors case boils to a head, four years of Karl Rove’s e-mail go conveniently missing from the RNC archives. And, also developing on the prosecutorial front, another subpoenaed Justice official, Michael Battle, has contradicted Gonzales’ earlier professions of ignorance on the subject, setting up the Attorney General for a raucous time during his hearings tomorrow: “Gonzales…has been preparing for a pivotal appearance on Tuesday before the committee, including mock testimony sessions lasting up to five hours a day, officials said. Better get that story straight, Al.
Never Cry Wolfowitz.
“I made a mistake for which I am sorry.” Neocon architect of the Iraq War turned World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz runs into another spot of trouble involving his involvement in securing his girlfriend a promotion and pay-raise there, and calls for his resignation grow louder.”‘Critics, both inside and outside the World Bank, are openly questioning whether Wolfowitz’s liabilities will undermine his leadership of the institution,’ said Manish Bapna, executive director of the Bank Information Center, a nonprofit organization in Washington that monitors the bank’s activities. ‘His relationship with staff, the board and with civil society remain highly strained, and some wonder what could even be done at this point to heal these festering wounds.’”
Getting Warmer.
“EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change.” By a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court determines that the Dubya EPA violated the Clean Air Act when it refused to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, thus hopefully setting the stage for an (admittedly unlikely) reevaluation of global warming by the executive branch. “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote one dissent, which was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.” Yep, the usual suspects.
Remember Mogadishu.
“None of those 76 senators, who include the current Republican leader and whip, acted to jeopardize the safety and security of U.S. troops in Somalia. All of them recognized that Congress had the power and the responsibility to bring our military operations in Somalia to a close, by establishing a date after which funds would be terminated.” In an editorial for Salon, Sen. Russ Feingold invokes GOP behavior on Somalia in 1993 to make the case for Congress cutting funding in Iraq. “Since President Bush has made it painfully clear that he has no intention of fixing his failed Iraq policy, it is no longer a question of if Congress will end this war; it is a question of when.”
The Alan Colmes Project.
“It sounds harsh, but think of most of the Fox Democrats, at least those who appear on the opinion shows, which take up half the network’s airtime, as one of three types. They are either scary liberals, losers or enablers. Representatives of each type may score some points for Democrats when they appear on-air, but ultimately they help further Fox’s larger narrative about Democrats and liberals and what they stand for.” Also in Salon, Alex Koppelman takes a gander at FOX News’s usual go-to stable of kept Dems.
Oldboy, Old Boys.
In the past week, I have seen two things that made me want to claw out my eyes Oedipus-style and run screaming down Amsterdam Ave. One was the live octopus scene in Oldboy, a movie that’s worth seeing for the hallway fight sequence alone but, lordy, is hard to watch. (The tongue and teeth parts ain’t much better. I’m learning I just can’t hang with the edgy Korean cinema, but I still find it preferable to grotesque Miike stuff like Ichi the Killer. That film is just plain sick.) The other: Karl Rove rapping. Is it the token black guy standing next to him? NBC’s David Gregory forced to bob up and down in the background? The porcine lack of rhythm and gesticulating of Mr. Rove himself? Or the whole sheer staggering whiteness, bordering on minstrelsy, of the scene taken together? (Paging David Roediger.) Whatever it is, it is straight-up cringeworthy.
Money Money Money.
Yes, folks, this is how we choose a president in this country: Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. The first primary is effectively over, and Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney lead the begging and scraping for loot at $26 and $21 million respectively. On the GOP side, Rudy came in second at $15 million, with McCain trailing at third with $12.5 million. Meanwhile, for the Dems: John Edwards has $14 million, Bill Richardson $6 million, Chris Dodd $4 million, and Joe Biden a clean, articulate $3 million. Still obviously missing, Barack Obama, who is rumored to be up around the 20 mark. While I hate to indulge this stupid financing system, I hope it’s something like that, as I’m still rooting for he or Edwards over Sen. Clinton in the primary, and the Clinton money machine is, without a doubt, a sleek, well-oiled contraption. Update: Make that $25 million for Obama.
The GOP’s Twin TTs.
In related news, two more Republicans enter the 2008 fray: former Wisconsin Governor and HHS head Tommy Thompson and Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo. Well, it’s good news for alliteration. And, moreover, Tancredo is going to hammer the immigration issue like there’s no tomorrow, which will mean a lot of uncomfortable shuffling by the main contenders during the GOP primary debates, so as not to turn off swing voters everywhere. But I’ll bet dollars to donuts neither of these fellows gets anywhere close to the nomination.