Fitz and FDL!

Morning, Dairymaid! :) It’s sunny and lovely here today thus far — hope it’s nice where you are as well.

Heard you on the radio Sunday. You sounded good. 760am/Denver — big signal, covers the city and the Front Range from Wyoming down to New Mexico. I used to listen to it up in the San Luis Valley as well, near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains — where the Salazar family comes from.

It’s clear that all he wanted was cold hard cash.

Maybe Rick Santorum should head up an investigation.

No such luck, Christy. Positively a rainforest. But, oh my, the asparagus is good!

Off to do a 12 at the ER, so won’t have a chance to check in until much later. Keep up the great work, and good day to all FDLers!

Thanks, Slothrop. Appreciate it. I have a bit of a cold, and was worried I’d sound all “snotty” — but it turned out to be the fastest hour of radio I’ve ever done. LOL The format was very quick, but fun.

Christy-I was wondering if you caught C-Span Plamegate this morning?

What’s interesting is that so far, the only one crying “foul” seems to be Jefferson - every other Democrat I’ve heard has said if it’s true, he should go.

From Pelosi herself calling for the ethics investigation, to Howard Dean categorically stating that Jefferson should resign if charged, it’s quite a contrast to the GOP response to the troubles of their own.

I think that’s something people will take note of.

God knows I am all for taking Jeff down - he is an embarassment at not who I want representing me. But I also must comment that I am dismayed that this, this is the little piece of New Orleans that captures ‘my’ (aka progressive) blogs attention (You, Atrios, DKos…)

We are literally still burying the dead, the Corps is still sticking little pieces of sheet metal in the mud, there is no wetlands program, no recovery program, no leadership on so many levels. What happened and is still happening down here should embarrass and outrage every American citizen.

Yet when I turn to places like this for hope, for a voice, I either hear silence or something about some pissant little crook with a bag of money.

Sorry to rant - but this last election sent me over the edge

ccmask at 8 — no! I missed it! Who was on — talking about what? Dang! Wonder if there will be a re-broadcast?

lb0313 — Actually, we’ve tried to keep the Gulf Coast up as an issue pretty frequently here at FDL. It’s been a pet issue of mine, frankly, because I’ve gotten a lot of reader mail on the subject since I started blogging. Here’s just one example:

For Shame

Jefferson’s example was so pathetic that, honestly, as a former prosecutor, I was disgusted. And I don’t get disgusted easily any more. The fact that he used guard forces to go to his home for an hour to pick up two suitcases and a “box-like container” that sounds suspiciously like a safe to me is utterly and completely disgusting. And any of our regular readers will know exactly how angry something like this makes me. *g*

Christy — you’re well spoken & you come across as being sharper than a razor blade

Good morning Christy, sorry I couldn’t watch AA last night, but maybe it will be available somewhere on their site??? I’ll take a look later on.

ccmask, I hope you are on your feet and not too uncomfortable. I left good tidings a bunch of threads ago but I think you had signed off.

lb0313, I don’t think it is lack of caring here, we are all praying for and concerned about each and every one of you. I’d like to know mor about your opinion of the election if it won’t agitate you more to write about it. I work all weekend and haven’t even been able to hear much beyond that Nagin won. Did you vote for Landrieu, would he have been better? And were there city boards etc to vote for as well, or was this Mayor only?

lb0313 10 - don’t forget that the levees still aren’t finished and won’t be until well into hurricane season even after The First Chimp promised they would be done.

Meanwhile, scientists are contemplating adding category six and seven storms to the saffir-simpson scale:

The Saffir-Simpson hurricane category scale is based on wind speed: A Category 1 hurricane has sustained winds from 74 to 95 mph, Category 2 has sustained winds from 96 to 110 mph, Category 3 has sustained winds from 111 to 130 mph, Category 4 has sustained winds from 131 to 155, and a Category 5 storm has sustained winds greater than 155 mph.
The categories run in roughly 20 mph increments, so a Cat 6 would be greater than 175 or 180 mph.

“Remember, for each 10 mph increase of wind speed,” says atmosphere scientist Greg Holland, “there’s about 10 times more damage, and 20 times more financial loss.”

In other words, the increase is not “linear” but “exponential.”

-ABC News

Her name was Squoe from the Wall Street Journal Justice Dept. Journalist. She was great. They are still talking about Plame now.

Showing again that Democrats are just rank amateurs when it comes to corruption. Cash? On tape? With serial numbers? That’s just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck craftsmanship.

Learn how to get that bribe as a difficult-to-trace trip to Scotland, and then you’ll be playing with the Big Boys.

Christy you were great yesterday. Did you feel that Bruce went over the line with his rant about Leopold? Especially since Leopold was not there to defend himself. Interested in your thoughts.

C-SPAN host reading Krigman!

er, Krugman.

Well, now we’re screwed.

It doesn’t matter if the Dems throw him under the bus (deservedly). It doesn’t matter that Democrats out of Louisiana tend to be more conservative than Holy Joe. It doesn’t matter that it’s only one Democrat, as opposed to the literally dozens of Republicans facing indictment and jail time.

No, all that matters now is the fact that “Democrat” and “cash in the freezer” will be uttered in the same sentence all over the news.

I guarantee you, within two days (maybe less), the Republican talking heads will be, without irony, decrying the “culture of corruption” within government, and how voting GOP will help to turn the evil-doers out.

What’s worse, it’ll probably work.

Christy

For shame on me for not seeing the earlier post. For the record, I’m a regular reader who simply doesn’t post. And you do a fabulous job.

I appreciate your outrage at Jefferson. I’d also appreciate someones similar outrage at the Army Corp of Engineers….

CarrieICL 21 - agreed. This is exactly what the dems didn’t need and will now be accused of “the pot calling the kettle black.”

I missed the first bits of the WSJ reporter, but she was good. Only nitpick I have is she mispoke ‘junket’ — using ‘juggernaut’ 3x in lieu. Probably not enough coffee…

Spoke up about role of a free press in discussing classificaiton. (I’d bet she’s not happy w/Gonzo this AM)

During the wrap up she had the audacity to say the power to classify/declassify at will was “one of the perks of the job”

Classic snark.
————-
Google has tribute logo/links celebrating investigative icon Sherlock Holmes’ creator’s birthday.

Redd:

Has it become time to ban a certain poster who is using pjf’s name as his? his antics yesterday were beyond the pale.

CarrieICL — I agree they’ll try, but I don’t think we’re screwed. If the GOP wasn’t the party in power, maybe, but “throw the bums out” doesn’t work so well if you’re in charge. Their record of trying to change the rules so that DeLay could continue to serve if indicted makes a good contrast.

Also, it helps that it seems unlikely there will even be a trial in this case (rather than a plea bargain), and if there is, it’ll be a short one, so it won’t be close to November.

This was a run off election - got some new city councel members, the same old assessors and, of course, a mayor.

Yeah, I went with Mitch. The basic sense is that the rich white elites, who have never forgiven Mitch’s daddy for de-segging city hall in the 70’s - brought him down. It’s an alliance with the R’s who have an eye on taking back the governorship next election - and making sure NOLA continues to fail is a part of the strategy.

If that is too tin foil hat for you - just think of Nagin as the pro-b’ness Republican and Mitch as the central casting Democrat and you get a sense of who was working for what.

You all appear to be good people here - and we appreciate your thoughts and concerns. But we need national action on the scope of what the Dutch did in 1959. And there is no sense in this universe that that will ever happen.
There are some good article in today’s TP (NOLA.com) on the levee system and the results of the last review by outside experts.

It seems to me to be enough to stir up a little outrage - but I doubt you will hear much.

Again, sorry to burst in here with my own rant. I’ve just gone a little over the edge

Thanks zennurse. I’m doing great. I have my mom here waiting on me hand and foot…I’ll go back to work after Memorial Day. Thank god the small company I work for is so understanding and told me to just take my time and get well. I missed your sentiments on the earlier thread so thanks.

How about using the words “double standard” if the MSM spends hours gloating over Jefferson’s dishonesty and glosses over the business-as-usual everyday corruption the Republicans practice on a much larger scale? Jefferson is small potatoes. He’s not sending American soldiers off to die. He’s no cutting medicaid or giving tax cuts to the rich or letting oil companies pillage the environment. With DeLay and Abramoff, the standard Republican response is “everybody does it.” How about giving them a taste of their own medicine?

Sorry if posted before, but Cannonfire has an interesting conspiracy theory about the Leopold indictment story kerfuffle:

Done? Okay, here’s my current suspicion: Leopold — or someone else over at Truthout — somehow got hold of a piece of damning info. It’s something that hasn’t been published yet, something they are still checking out, something that we can only guess at, something that may not even have anything to do with Karl Rove or with Plamegate. And so Rove decided to discredit the entire publication, to do unto it as ’twas done unto Rather.

Found Here

BlankKludge: I thought that was wierd too. But I thought the juggernut was misspeak for boondoggle.

hmm…netroots in MA.
Today’s Globe:

“In blogosphere, Democrats provide a first
4 candidates for lieutenant governor gather to debate, make their case to state’s voters online

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | May 22, 2006

LOWELL — At the bloggers’ table, everyone was in fine spirits. So what if the four Democrats running for lieutenant governor were running late to yesterday’s debate? It gave the bloggers more time to exchange witty commentary, more time to work in an allusion to Samuel Becket, even.”…
http://www.boston.com/news/loc.....e_a_first/

Franco at 18 — I thought he was pretty clear in how he felt about things. I do think that Laura will try to get Jason on at some point — or Mark Ash — to talk about their side of things, which is appropriate. I’m not sure what you are asking here from me, because I’m really not interested in critiquing someone else’s honest opinion about a story which may or may not end up being correct in the end — but I tried to be fairly clear on how I felt as well on the show. It’s tough talking about someone else’s work when it is all anonymously sourced and you can’t know what level of knowledge the source may or may not have. Frankly, I’m still hoping to be Murray Waas when I grow up. *g* His research, sourcing and writing is impeccable — and I try to do my best to emulate Murray where and when I can.

Way OT:

Colbert still tops iPod list.

The MSM was out of touch with reality when they took a pass on the WH Correspondents Dinner Colbert speech.

Dollar Bill was an accident waiting to happen. The only question was when he’d get caught. He was elected to Congress the first time when I lived in N.O. & his nickname then was “Dollar Bill”. The Democrats need to dump him hard & fast.

Now a tough look into some of the LA Republicans would also bring up some slime. My personal favorite is Senator Vitter. During his time in the LA. legislator he was known for hardball that verged on extortion. His district was in Metairie, the suburb just west of New Orleans proper. There were rumors of Mafia connections with Vitter and substantiated reports in the Times Picayune of financial trades with David Duke.
Any other corrupt Repub’s under the surface?

I agree that Jefferson will not go to trial, he’s been caught red-handed and the box from his home via the NG is just icing on his criminal cake. I expect some of the more self-righteous Repugs may have a word or two to say, but with all the talk about Rove and with Abramoff dancing with the court as well, I think they’ll put their energy into more of a wedge issue like gay marriage.

Read a quote from Dobson in The Week @ the doctor’s office to the effect that They haven’t fulfilled their obligation to us, they better get on the ball before the election. Really, now, if they don’t, they don’t get the dough, but who else is a RWC gooper going to vote for? Or do they maen they just won’t vote? I am really expecting that a goodly number of former Bush voters who are Christian are really intersted in how unchristian Bush and his cabinet are vis a vis the war and may vote for Dems who express their perspective on this more accurately. As a more beherenow person, I sometimes unfairly put all Christians in the RWC zealot basket and am trying to correct myself and remember that they are the just ones who get all the attention.

lb0313 — I’ve been trying to follow the whole levee issue but, frankly, the engineering issues are way above my pay grade. I did hear a great piece on NPR about it the other day, though, talking about how there was a weak clay layer in all the yards surrounding the levee — and that any basic engineering student should have known about that and worked it into the calculations. But that the Army Corps of Engineers appears to have ignored it entirely. And it was a huge cause of levee failure during the storm. They had a fellow on from near where the biggest breach occurred — he said he kept seeing his house on tv, flooded with water pouring in through the gap, while he and his family were stranded in a motel. I cannot imagine dealing with that — and what you guys are still dealing with. I don’t know if you’ve followed Scout Prime’s work on First Draft — but it’s been some amazing stuff on NOLA and the Gulf Coast. Really great reporting.

test

test

One democrat on the take equals 10 republicans on the take in MSM world. They will publicize this 10 times as much in order to make things fair and balanced.

Was looking for new day with hope but clicked on Alice Need less to say I won’t be right till that sweetie pie is GONE !!

Christy,
Thanks for the response. Sorry, I wasn’t asking for a critique. But you answered my question. I personally, didn’t think it was appropriate for Bruce to be ranting about Leopold, without him there to respond. That is just my opinion.
As for Murray Waas, I respect both yourself and Jane as much as he. I don’t know where I would get real information if not for FDL.
Again much thanks.

sorry bout that, I’m having some crash problems with the newest edition from Firefox and popped over to IE to see if it’s different. Still getting that little duplicate message notice, but the comment posted anyway. Much, much faster here. Now I’m stuck because I’m very low-tech, may have to take it to the Geek Squad.

Back on topic, I did hear some of Nagin’s speech yesterday in the car and the way he spoke you’d think NOLA had brand spankin’ new levees and life was beautiful. That was a little disturbing to me, made me feel like I was listening to Bush.

lb0313- wrt New Orleans, I thought you may want to read this three page story I ran into this morning:

Corps’ Levee Work Is Faulted

Report says barriers in New Orleans may fail again and mistakes by federal engineers raise questions about their competence nationwide.

http://www.latimes.com/news/pr.....;cset=true

Pelosi is too late.

She blew Ethics 101.

Now all the news outlets will say “they all do it” - and she’ll have to remain mum. Did she think it would go away? Did she think the press would treat it “fairly”?

Thanks, Nancy.

Scout’s a friend. And she will be thrilled for the shout-out from you.

Not citicizing you for now being the one with the expertise to make this visible - I come here because I value that you talk about the things you know about and I learn something in the process. Guess I want some engineering geek with a platform similar to yours to do the same for us. And for folks to take a page from Harry Shearer’s book and call people out every time someone calls this a natural disaster. This was an engineering disaster. Brought to you by the same folks who control your damns and tunnels and what have you.

This TP article goes in to more detail on the levee issue…

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/f.....amp;coll=1

OT
Rove “Scoop” Remains Exclusive
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 22, 2006; 7:42 AM

(snippets)

Robert Luskin, Karl Rove’s lawyer, says he spent most of the day on May 12 taking his cat to the veterinarian and having a technician fix his computer at home.

He was stunned, therefore, when journalists started calling to ask about an online report that he had spent half the day at his law office, negotiating with Patrick Fitzgerald — and that the special prosecutor had secretly obtained an indictment of Rove.

The cat’s medical tests, Luskin says, found that “the stools were free of harmful parasites, which is more than I can say for this case.”

The claim that President Bush’s top political strategist had been indicted in the CIA leak investigation was written by a journalist who has battled drug addiction and mental illness and been convicted of grand larceny. That didn’t stop more than 35 reporters — from all the major newspapers, networks and newsmagazines — from calling Luskin or Rove’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, to check it out.

The reports appeared on the liberal Web site Truthout.org, run by Marc Ash, a former advertising man and fashion photographer in California. Jason Leopold, the author of the stories, directed inquiries to Ash, who says that “we stand by the story. We have multiple points of independent confirmation of what we originally reported. Our problem is, the prosecutor’s office is under no obligation to go public.”

Blank Kludge, thanks for posting that Globe article, good for them! Are you in MA?

ccmask - thanks we just linked to the same story two different ways.

ok, time for the new poster to shut up.
Many thanks

lb0313, NONONONO, don’t shut up, if you’e been lurking you know there is no need for that. Please stay with us and keep us informed along with MissAnnNOLA and others. As you know, we spend lots of time in these threads and that is where lots of work gets done. It sounds like these issues may apply themselves to a Roots Project in your area and that may be a way to relieve your frustration as well.

Howie of course doesn’t bother to mention that there were many fever swamp sites that chose caution over reporting on a Leopold-sourced story. Howie is not a very nice man.

zennurse -

Yep. But maybe about 100 mi SW of Cape Ann. Spent about 10 years in Salem. Love to wake to smell of salt in the air. As a child, our vacas went to Mom’s homestead just outside of Yarmouth, NS.

The Plame season finale: Suspense builds as Rove & Cheney turn on each other. Who will win?
by Jane Stillwater
snip

Here’s how I predict the final episode will go: As Fitzpatrick gets closer to the truth of who leaked the Plame documents, Rove will point the finger at Cheney in order to save himself. And Cheney will try to have Rove take the fall.

Can Rove rat out Cheney fast enough to save his own skin — if Jason Leopold is right and Rove has already been indicted? Or will Cheney be able to outwit, outplay and outlast? I bet you ANYTHING that it will be Cheney whose torch will be doused.

Why?

Because when Leopold claimed that Rove had already been indicted, what did Rove do (besides of course getting TruthOut’s unlisted cell phone number from the NSA)? Rove swift-boated Leopold. REALLY swift-boated Leopold. And he will try the same trick on Cheney. If Rove is cornered, he will turn ugly. What do you want to bet?

If Cheney thinks he can go up against The Karl and win, of course he’s not gonna Survive. If we know anything about Rove, it’s that he plays dirty. And he plays to win — no matter the cost. Rove won’t be fired. My money is on Rove.

However, the final episode could prove to be even MORE exciting than that. Suppose Rove and Cheney formed a last-minute alliance and double-teamed Condi and Bush!

One bet is sure, however. This season’s finale of Plame CSI is gonna be the most gripping finale of all.

RTR here: http://www.opednews.com/articl.....on_fin.htm

Thanks for the great post, as per usual, Christy.
I loved Prof Foland’s comment, the individual and infantile character of the crime contrasts well with the sophistication of the legion of Republican conspiracies. Big props to you Christy for posting, about it, however. Corruption is corruption. You only give FDL more “integrity traction” when you post about it.
Speaking of journalists who have less than zero traction wrt integrity, the WaPo’s Howard Kurtz writes about Jason Leopold today.
Franco, imho, Leopold hurts the credibility of really terrific journalist/bloggers/thinkers/ such as Jane Hamsher, Christy Hardin Smith, emptywheel, Jerlyn, and so many more. They never use anonymous sources and Leopold relies on them exclusively. IMHO Leopold’s sources are Jane, Christy, and the others. He’s simply stealing their stuff and reprinting it as coming from an anonymous source that I don’t think exists. There has been speculation for months by people like Christy who slog through the Libby briefs that Rove’s indictment might be sealed. Last Saturday Leopold said on the radio that he would “out” his sources if Rove wasn’t indicted in a week. It’s been more than a week, I want to know the names of his sources.
OT, Kurtz in the above linked article mentions that Salon fired Leopold, for exaclty this kind of Jayson Blair stuff. Ofcourse half wit Howie forgot to mention that the Wall Street Journal fired Leopold before he got the job with Salon.

I think that both the GOP and the MSM have painted themselves into a corner on this one. The only talking point the GOP has is “see, Democrats are corrupt TOO,” which doesn’t help them much. For one, they have to admit to their own corruption in order to point the finger, and for another, anyone with enough brain cells for a quorum is going to say “wait a minute – where were these guys when THEIR OWN were caught with their fingers in the cookie jar?”

As for the MSM, yes, they can, and will, report on the events, but what else can they do without looking like hypocrites? Which is not to say Fox and Rush and probably even Tweety won’t try to make this into a party-wide scandal, but I just don’t see it as having legs, not when the House minority leader is the one who referred it to the ethics committee.

I’m waiting, though, for someone to mention the fact that “William Jefferson” is one name away from “William Jefferson Clinton.” *g*

lb0313
I just want to second zennurse. Jane and Christy deserve all the praise they get and then an awful lot more. It really helps when a fresh voice, such as your’s, chimes in.

I was shocked tto hear Jefferson was still in politics. He was a well known crook in the early 80’s - with none of the charm of that other well known crook, Edwin Edwards. Edwards once paid off campaign debts by charging $10,000 a head for a gambling trip to Monte Carlo on a chartered jet. Everyone I spoke with after said they’d never had more fun in their lives.

Note: Byron York has a column up on truthout too. He said last night that Kurtz would have a column before Kurtz even posted it on the WP. My question: Are Kurtz and York coordinating their columns to put a new republican meme out there to smear liberal blogs? Interestign that Kurtz’s wife works for the National Review and is a republican media consultant. Are we seeing the launch of a new repub meme?

http://article.nationalreview......M2MmY3MTM=

ccmask (#53):

My money would be on Dead Eye. Stillwater’s scenario doesn’t pass the smell test, though, so I don’t think it’s worth serious consideration.

Rove is too clever by half. Dead Eye isn’t clever, just vicious and ruthless. Rove will fall. Cheney, much less likely, despite his deserving to be. Rove could be jettisoned in a New York minute. No big deal (to the public). Cheney getting the axe would be a very big deal.

Correction to my earlier comment about the very sneaky Howard Kurtz:
“The online magazine apologized, saying it had been unable to confirm the authenticity of an e-mail that Leopold attributed to White. Leopold, a onetime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones, accused the online magazine of being “wimpy” and caving to pressure.”
I think Howard wanted to insulate the right and the WSJ, so he substituted “Dow Jones” for Wall Street Journal.

OT, as usual:

McCain: his political advisor–the one who’s alleged to have been involved in beaucoup bad things–beaucoup bad DeLay things, as I recall–is he still around? And has McCain responded to any of the charges? I remember he was asked about this, point-blank, on a radio call-in show and it took the Gelding by surprise.

Frist: Is ape-face going down for his insider trading? I haven’t read nothin’ about his case in a long time. Tar and feather, tar and feather!!

In case anyone missed it…
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/a.....PCBG0.html

“Murtha to Receive JFK Award for Iraq Stance

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By KIMBERLY HEFLING Associated Press Writer

May 22,2006 | WASHINGTON –

The first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress, Rep. John Murtha took pride in politicking quietly, behind the scenes, with Republicans and fellow Democrats alike. Washington has become more deeply partisan since Murtha was swept into office more than 30 years ago, and so has Murtha — in a very public way.” . . .

You said it was ” a sting”. How and why was a sting set up?

Is it possible that the Republicans know full well that they needed to make all of these scandals “bi partisan - just look at Jefferson of Louisiana” (a talking point we are going to be hearing from now until November) - so they pressured the weakest guy they could find?

Incredibly weak on Jefferson’s part, to be sure, but what are the nuts and bolts of this?

Morning all, just an fyi– Arlen Specter (R- WH)
will be on cspan1 at the National Press Club @ 1pm.

Right now McLaughlin, Harman and Podesta and others (?) at the Brookings Inst. on cspan 1 on Intelligence Reform.

Good Morning Firepups -

just getting ahead on the domestic arts (baking, laundry) before it heats up again - oy

Have no plans to read Howie’s piece - “liberal website Truthout” - ok, fine, but please for now on can we refer to
apologist vehicle Washington Post and reactionary instrument Wall St Journal ?

Per angie, in case anyone missed it from last Thursday, wonkette,
“Specter to Feingold: ‘I don’t need to be lectured by you.’”

… wondering why pics are not showing here. All I see are little boxes with little red ” x “.

Anybody know how to fix? thx.

gawd, George Terwilliger is a bushbot tool…talking about the NSA thingie as though we are crazy for worrying and politicizing and waxing rhetorical…

………..

George Terwilliger is a partner at White & Case LLP, and works in their Washington office. Recently he served as lead attorney on the legal team of George W. Bush. He also has litigated election law and voting rights cases, and served as special outside counsel to the United States Senate Rules Committee. Terwilliger served as counsel to the Contests Committee at the Republican National Convention in 1996.
http://www.centerforpolitics.o.....lliger.htm

Actually, what should happen now is for Pelosi and the Democratic leadership to give a press conference, being the first to call for Jefferson’s resignation. Something along the lines of, “We do not tolerate corruption within our ranks. Jefferson has violated the Democratic Party’s code of ethics, and it is time for him to step aside.”

Then we have the ready-made response to the GOP talking heads — “Yup, Jefferson was sleaze, so we booted him. How’s DeLay doing? And Libby? Oh, and… and… and… Have they all been kicked out of the GOP yet?”

Word…
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2568
“”The net is that any Word 2003 document you receive from external sources should be viewed with suspicion until Microsoft provides a fix.”"

Wonder why Stillwater can’t get Fitzgerald’s name right?
Guess it’s satire or something…

Ron, have you tried viewing in a different browser, eg Firefox as opposed to IE?

We have a visceral and ill-informed response to this program says Falkenrath of Brookings; but there are problems with both the Executive and Congressional sides with this… If the Congress thinks it is illegal, they should do something about it–(hear that Patsy and Arlen???) But he supports Hayden.

blech.

Thank you Christy for the praise upthread for our work on NOLA at First Draft. I’m flattered.

I have a post today at First Draft that could get anyone up to speed on the levee issue. It links to 2 articles. Both are easy reads. One is on the new study showing the levees still are not being built correctly. The other link is for an excellent WaPo article on how Congress’s pork barrel “addiction” to the Army Corps of Engineers over the years played a large part in why the levees failed and will fail again unless something is done.

I hope people here will read it. I was blogging from NOLA in March. I asked everyone what is the #1 issue they face. All but one person said The Levees. If you want to help the good people of NOLA then any effort to get Congress to fully fund Category 5 levees is where the work needs to be done.

OT-
Abu Gonzales vows to prosecute jounalists that publish whistleblowers!

Heckuva job.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200....._reporters

From Raw Story:

BUSH, BLAIR PLAN MAJOR IRAQ ANNOUNCEMENT: DEVELOPING…

——————————————————————————–

Raw story had a headline up a moment ago saying Bush and Blair have agreed on a phased Iraq withdrawal. But they just ook it down.

Just to second CarrieICL, and also add that the Democratic party will not solicit funds from Democrats to pay for his defense, as the Republican always do for their felons.
Take Jefferson’s indictment as an opportunity to pound talk to the clueless corporate media with soundbytes about the DOZENS (that’s conservative) of Republican scandals, and convcitions. Then ask the corporate media to ask the Republicans where the House (and Senate) Ethics committee are on all those?

I agree with CarrieICL that this should be a transparent resignation now, the evidence is damning. I linked to this article yesterday and it has an interesting tidbit in it;
>>>>>>>>>
Jefferson, who has pledged not to resign from Congress in the face of the bribery investigation, speculated about his political future in one of the recorded conversations.

When the informant asked Jefferson about his political plans, he responded: “I’m gonna get your deal out of the way … and I probably won’t last long after that.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....sman_probe

>>>>>>>>
go already!

OT
Wired News Violates Court Order, leaks FULL AT&T NSA spying documents!

Whistle-Blower’s Evidence, Uncut

02:00 AM May, 22, 2006

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s class-action lawsuit against the telecommunications company, which alleges that AT&T cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic surveillance program.

……………………

Here we present Klein’s statement in its entirety, with inline links to all of the document excerpts where he cited them. You can also download the complete file here (pdf). The full AT&T documents are filed under seal in federal court in San Francisco.

all links to ALL documents here:
http://www.wired.com/news/tech.....944-0.html
http://blog.wired.com/27BStrok....._wired.pdf

OT~ Christy, Great job on RadioNation last night. I ought to have said this earlier, but haven’t been around for beaucoup hours….

Professor at 17:

“That’s just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck craftsmanship.”

Indeed it is. Jefferson had apparently never heard of Abdul Enterprises, Ltd

I’ve learned the hard way: never try to do something yourself that is better left to professionals.

Yep, the Dem leadership should call for WJ’s resignation NOW.

Hartford Courant: Lieberman’s in Trouble.

marysz 29

I like your “double standard” idea. Simple & effective thing to hammer at whenever bias rears its head — think political ?”WhackaMole”?

Seriously, there’s no way Dems should try to count on getting all the way to Nov. w/o repugs finding (or inventing) something seamy somewhere to harp on, e.g., Jefferson, & we all know the MSM will probably be ever-so-dutiful in following every detail.

Secondly, Dems/bloggers could easily be painted as wimps if there’s any sorta boycott of timmy etc.– besides, he’s not so tough, ferheavensake; he’s just flat-out biased.

I really like the idea of Dems having a [go-confront-em -anywhere, -any place, -any time], sorta stance. Could do a lot to fight continuing repug attempts to label Dems as [disorganized wimps without any plan of their own]. — especially if Dems start doing more rephrasing of idiotic/biased questions to their own liking, & then addressing them. Therein might lie plenty of opportunities to label repug “talking points” for just what they are, empty meaningless jibberish.

So-o-o. Keep going on timmy’s little show whenever, & always be ready to pounce on every unfair question & call him out in public on his biased choosing & treatment of “guests”.

BTW Terrific job Christie! I have a hard time listening to AM radio - even AirAmerica, but you made it fun. I agree — time (at least that spent on topic) really flies on those things. I swear, ratio’s gotta be 10:1 commercials:substance. I know they’ve gotta pay the bills, but it still drives me nuts.

From the WaPo’s online political chat in progress now:
“Minneapolis, Minn.: Your thoughts on Ned Lamont’s unexpectedly strong showing at the Connecticut Democratic Convention?

Dan Balz: Ned Lamont did very well over the weekend, winning about a third of the delegates at the Connecticut convention and easily clearing the bar to force a primary contest with Sen. Joseph Lieberman. There’s clearly a lot of dissatisfaction among Democrats about Lieberman for supporting Bush on the war. Lamont’s showing makes the primary even more interesting.”

Wow… Lamont got 1/3? That’s sweet!

Tug at 64 — in this case, it’s my understanding that someone who was unhappy with the s”services rendered” for a prior bribe contacted the authorities on Jefferson. But they’d been investigating him for quite a while. Everything I’ve read says it was all fairly routine in terms of investigation — but that doesn’t mean you can rule anything out, either. In this case, though, I think this particular Congressperson had a history of lots and lots of questionable things going on — and they were absolutely right to investigate them.

By way of Raw Story:

http://www.wired.com/news/tech.....947-0.html

Why We Published the AT&T Docs
By Evan Hansen
02:00 AM May, 22, 2006

A file detailing aspects of AT&T’s alleged participation in the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at AT&T’s insistence, it remains under seal in court records.

The judge in the case has so far denied requests from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, and several news organizations to unseal the documents and make them public.

AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would suffer severe harm if it were released.

Based on what we’ve seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe the public’s right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T’s claims to secrecy.

(snip)

if anyone wants a pdocast (mp3) of RADIO NATION from yesterday w/ REDD on as a guest . . . i can hook you up.

e me: tripp_badger at yahoo dot com . . .

it is a great show . . . REDD is awesome, Jean Sara Rohe — the young patriot that blasted the that greasy war monger mccain at the new school is great, greg palast is as ususl wonderful . . .

i will be glad to share!!

“Fornigate” is good (first time I read that). To me the only question about Rep. (short for reprehensible) Jefferson is which nickname is best

“William Jefferson not Clinton” or “Frozen Assets.” The scandal is playing out in slow motion (because the crook doesn’t have the decency to resign) so I have been struggling with this question for months.

The failure to do the decent thing and resign is pretty serious in this case as Jefferson represents New Orleans which, you know, needs representation and just had an mayoral election which they could have combined with a congressional election to get a non crook congressman.

Rep. Frozen Assets is scum and can only help the Republic in one way, by giving the Democrats a chance to show (or make it appear) that they really care about fighting corruption more than party affiliation.

Democrats who do (alleged) stupid crap like this deserve the same level of scorn that Republicans get.

Yes, and Democrats who do stupid crap like this can expect to find all the details of their investigations laid out from top to bottom, in the mainstream press, unlike Republican malefactors. Needs must; the Administration will lend what help it can to the GOP in the vital mission of gulling the public into believing there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats. All those juicy details about refrigerators full of cash will stick in the min of John Q. Public just fine, much better than the baroque spiderweb of corruption on the other side of the aisle.

Meanwhile, on other matters we’re left to pick over the gristle sticking to Jason Leopold’s bleaching bones.

Sure, it’s good for Democratic offenders to be outed. But must we be so enthusiastic about lapping up and then regurgitating all the carefully prepared dogfood the Bush DoJ has prepared for us?

So long as democratic socialists practise representational politics then so they will have problems with power corrupting. The structual and strategic answer is to move toward a more libertarian socialist tactic. That is one where rotatable, revocable delegates elected at constituent assemblies are tasked to attend larger assemblies on a strictly limited basis. That is they are not to vote at any larger assemblies until they report back to the grassroots.
It is more of a government by referendum if you will. Supplemented by ‘ Brinworld’ level’s of surveillance provided by todays technology to which all delegates could be made subject to for their term in ‘ office’, this direct democracy regime provides a model for governance more in the internet tradition but also one trialled in the Ukraine under the Makhnovista and Spain.
( The Spanish experiment coincided with the year of an historic all time high in Dem party voting btw)
This is a good chance for us Frootz to drill down a bit on the dry rot and corruption and build our amalgam from a sound clean foundation.
‘ Is it safe?’ I hear you say - well there can be no absolute guarantee’s in anything this big but as a wise man once said , ‘ those who trade any essential liberty for some temporary ‘ security’ deserve neither liberty or security.’

Love the title… heh heh… frozen assets…

I think the important thing is for Democrats to demonstrate that they have no double standard for corruption — and to make sure the public understands that the Republicans and the Corporate Media do.

Of course, if Jefferson is quilty, he nees to step down and face the music. We’ve had corrupt Congresspeople in COngress since we have had a Congress. There are corrupt Democrats, but it is not freelancers that I worry about. It is when a Party institutionalizes corruptness as part of its’s core platform that concerns me. Given what we know about the breadth and depth of corruption in the Republican Syndicate, does anyone really think that they want people of integrity into their inner sanctum? I think the GOP is so irredeemably rotten today that they can only run candidates who are willing to participate in the crimes and cover-up of the Party’s ‘Contract on America’.

I wish the dem’s advisers were as smart as you guys, but who knows maybe some of them read FDL. The republican party money that went into defending the guy that phone jammed N.H. would be a great talking point. Do we have talking points?

I think Jefferson actually took a small refrigerator out of his flooded house in NO when he commandeered the Nat. Guard to help him. He doesn’t even seem to mix up where he stashes the money.

We on the left should be proud of our reaction to this. It’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Our instinct is to weigh the evidence and then, if warranted, call for our lawbreakers to step down. Their instinct is to defend, and attack the accusers (be they Democrats, the media, or “rogue district attorneys.”

In other words, we have a morality and an ethical line. They don’t.

This is true to an extent within the party, not just the blogs. Dean’s called for resignation if indicted. Pelosi referred to the Ethics Committee.

OK, I know this is an old thread, but I’m home from work now, have had dinner, fed the cats, and am ready for a little FDL.

As I posted on a thread over the weekend, I believe Jefferson is done, without a doubt. Jim Letten is the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and if he is prosecuting this one, Jefferson and a lot of his family are in a world of hurt. Letten is the man most responsible for putting former LA Gov Eddie Edwards behind bars. Good book about it, “Bad Bet on the Bayou”, by a former Times-Picayune reporter whose name escapes me at the moment. Some cashin-the-freezer tales in that book … Jefferson is not even original in that regard. Do I think Jefferson is guilty? Absolutely. I’ve lived in Louisiana long enough to have given up all hope of being represented in Congress by anyone honest. I’ll settle for someone, anyone who is just not so blatantly corrupt. Anyway, Letten is good, very sharp, very straight.
I posted a link yesterday to a local blogger (dangerblond) who gives a run-down on the Jefferson family political ties … it’s starts off talking about the Sporanos, you have to read down the page a bit, but it’s worth a read. The Landieu family is also a big political family down here, if you didn’t already know it, Mitch is Sen. Mary Landrieu’s brother.

Now, on to the levees!

The US Army Corps of Engineers is rightfully bearing a lot of the responsibility for the levee failures in New Orleans, but there are some other “deserving” agencies that are being left out. They are trying to keep a low profile, hope that nobody notices the hand they had in all this disaster. (IMO, a lot of people who were responsible for this mess should be facing charges of negligent homocide.) The other guilty agencies are the Levee Districts — the Orleans and St. Bernard Levee Districts in particular — and the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board.

The Levee Districts in particular are very political, their Boards composed of appointees of the politically powerful (most Levee Board members are appointed by the governor, with lots of input from locally powerful pols). The Levee Districts are cesspools of cronyism, corruption, and incompetence. It is utterly mind-boggling to watch these Boards in action. They need to be abolished, but nobody here has the political will or desire to do it.

The way it is supposed to work, the USACE provides most of the funding and engineering expertise to design and build levees. The Levee Districts provide local matching funds and are tasked with maintaining the levees, and closing the floodgates and valves when a big storm approaches. Books will no doubt be written about this, but the Levee Districts failed miserably. Example: the Levee Districts and the USACE conducted annual levee inspections, which the Levee Districts invariably passed with flying colors, in spite of the fact that there were trees growing in the levees, or right next to floodwalls (this is very bad: trees fall over, leave big holes, water pours through).
With respect to the flood control structures (gates) being constructed at the mouths of the canals (17th Street, Orleans, London Ave.), that is what the USACE originally wanted many years ago, but the S&WB and the Levee Districts fought the Corps, and the now-infamous floodwalls were built instead. Some of the local residents also should share in the blame, as they were adamantly opposed to the eminent domain property seizures that would have provided adequate right-of-ways needed to construct and maintain levees and floodwalls that were up to the task of protecting the city.

There is plenty of blame to go around, I’d just like to see the Levee Districts get their fair share of it.