After pressure from Democratic commissioners and congressmen, Michael Powell’s FCC announces an investigation into Armstrong-gate. Well, what do you know? I guess they’re just killing time until someone makes the mistake of showing more scantily-clad (non-cheerleader) women at an NFL football game.
Tag: Republicans
Dubya’s Man at Justice.
“Alberto Gonzales has paved the way of his own advancement with memos that are intellectually slovenly, that impute definitive powers to the executive, and whose attempts at shirking the basic moral precepts of international humanitarian law are not very skillful. If he is confirmed as attorney general, our nation will be shamed, shunned and endangered.” As the Gonzales hearings begin on Capitol Hill, Salon does an able job of exposing his egregious yes-man tendencies in both the torture memos and, previously, in managing Governor Dubya’s execution sprees. Update: Yet, the Dems roll over.
Shambling to the polls.
By way of Quiddity, Film Threat examines the uncanny correlation between Republican administrations and excellent zombie movies. You do the math. (Adding fuel to the fire, the new Romero, Land of the Dead, is set for October 21.)
All the Hammer’s Men.
Just when it seemed the House GOP might be doing the right thing on the ethics question, the truth comes out — Boss DeLay’s boys have decided to work the system rather than explicitly subvert it. Case in point, the imminent ousting of DeLay opponent Joel Hefley (R-CO) from the House Ethics chair. “‘I’m not naive enough to not know that there are some folks that are very upset with me because they think we were too harsh with DeLay,’ Hefley said.”
The Other Shoe Drops.
Surprise, surprise. “The Bush administration has signaled that it will propose changing the formula that sets initial Social Security benefit levels, cutting promised benefits by nearly a third in the coming decades, according to several Republicans close to the White House.” Administration officials claim the deficit caused by this “price-indexing” change — pegging first-year benefits to inflation rather than the rise in wages — will be made up by, you guessed it, “personal investment accounts,” a.k.a. the Bush privatization plan. Funny how Dubya neglected to mention this cut only a few weeks ago…I doubt the plan was formulated over Christmas.
Capitol Thunderdome.
No doubt anticipating some kickback-heavy sessions in 2005, Tom DeLay and the Congressional GOP aim to eliminate several House ethics rules, among them the procedures for investigating complaints and the restrictions on free trips for relatives. “Government watchdog groups called the proposals startling and unjustified. If the proposed rules are adopted next week as GOP leaders suggest, they would amount to ‘the biggest backtracking on House ethics rules that we have seen,’ said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.” Update Sensing a PR nightmare on Day 1 of the new Congress, the GOP back down and void the recent Save-DeLay rule. Good for them.
Tang-tungled Rummy.
In a boon for conspiracy theorists the world over, Rumsfeld refers to the 9/11 Pennsylvania plane as “shot down.” Said Rummy during one of his usual rambling Two Minutes Fear-type screeds, “I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples’ heads on television to intimidate, to frighten — indeed the word ‘terrorized’ is just that.” Freudian slip or slip of the tongue? Either way, it was a bonehead mistake.
Hide them votes.
The intro sums it up: “With 573 newly discovered ballots roiling the second recount in the race for governor of Washington, the Republican Party went to court Thursday seeking a restraining order that would halt the counting of those votes.” Ah, the shadiness knows no bounds.
Preying on (Social) Insecurity.
Dubya starts the hard sell on his plan for privatizing Social Security, claiming such a move will reassure financial markets. “Mr. Bush never mentioned the near certainty that without raising taxes, which he has ruled out, any plan to add personal investment accounts to Social Security and improve its financial condition would include a reduction in the guaranteed retirement benefit.” Hmmm…that doesn’t sound very reassuring.
We’re all in it together.
After a long and tortuous road, including some last-minute GOP balking, Dubya signed the intelligence bill into law today. “The new law, which grew out of last summer’s report of the national commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, brings together the 15 separate intelligence agencies into a single command structure, legislates creation of a National Counter Terrorism Center, increases border security and establishes a civil liberties board to serve as a check on excesses in the war on terrorism.” Sounds good…now let’s get that bastard Buttle.