Another Republican Sex Scandal

Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds. The Party of "family values" once again gets caught with its pants down. Literally. Last year, it was Congressman Mark Foley from Florida, the Republican chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, who was forced to resign from Congress when it was revealed that he had been soliciting sex from underage male congressional pages. This had been going on for years with many Republicans being aware of it, but no action was taken for fear of political blowback.

Today's Republican sex scandal sees Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias resigning following revelations that he had been a customer of a DC prostitution service. The irony here is that, like Foley, Tobias had responsibility for eradicating the behavior that led to his demise. One of Tobias' responsibilities was to combat worldwide prostitution. Unlike the Foley affair, however, it looks like this scandal may involve many more high ranking White House officials. Be sure to pick up some popcorn because it's going to be entertaining watching the mighty Wurlitzer spin this. Clinton will no doubt be ultimately responsible.

Saturday Funnies

Bob Geiger's Saturday morning political cartoon compilation from the past week.

Dig a hole, dig a hole, dig a hole...

(Updated below)


Our Preznit is still throwing a tantrum over any suggestion that we should actually plan on ever leaving Iraq even though the majority of Americans believe otherwise.

President Bush warned Congress Friday that he will continue vetoing war spending bills as long as they contain a timetable...blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...we know. Why don't you stop talking about it and do it already. You've only told us 47 times this week. Go ahead George, make our day. Relegating your party to the dustbin of history because you refuse to acknowledge reality is fine by us. We're all sick and tired of you and your corporate-interests-first, use-religion-for-votes, screw-everyone-but-republican-cronies cabal anyway. You seem to be the only person on the planet who believes the thumping your party took in November meant that we wanted you to turn Iraq into Vietnam v2.0.

Update:

This NY Times headline makes it sound like Bush is softening his stance:

Bush Eases Tone on Iraq Spending Bill

President Bush adopted a more conciliatory tone toward Congress today, saying he was confident that he and the lawmakers could find “a way forward” on the Iraq war financing bill.

That is, until you read into what he really says:

While vowing again to veto any bill that includes a troop-withdrawal timetable — and use his veto repeatedly, if necessary — Mr. Bush said today, “I think we can come to our senses and make sure that we get the money to the troops in a timely fashion.”

Translation: “I think Congress will eventually cave in and give me a blank check with no oversight on Iraq just like the Republican-controlled Congress did. Until then, I'll keep my arm loose and my veto pen on standby.”

The man really does think he's king. Remember all his bravado before the mid-term elections about how there was no way the Democrats would take over either house of Congress? And it's obvious to everyone that his bullshit claims about conditions in Iraq don't even resemble the reality of the situation. Why does the media still hang on his every word? If they want to point out what a babbling idiot he is, why don't they just go ahead and do so? All of the recent polls show that the majority of American people want Congress to put an end to the conflict in Iraq. These same polls also show that people don't like the job that Congress is doing. When you combine those two pieces of information, it's clear that it means the people will stand behind Congress if they'll just grow some balls and stand up to the President.

Bush's Iron Maiden

(updated below)

The media often talks of how George Bush lives in a bubble. Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" hints that Bush himself created this bubble, not the people around him. It's more like a reverse iron maiden than a bubble, however. Bush only hears what he wants to hear. His staffers won't say anything that contradicts his opinion or hints that his policies aren't working, not because they don't want to, but because they suffer from battered-wife syndrome: he verbally assaults anyone who challenges his worldview.

Two recent events bring his obstinance into high definition technicolor view that should cause even the most hardcore Bush supporters to roll their eyes. The first was Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 20^th. Everyone who witnessed his virtuoso rendition of "Theme and Variations on 'I don't recall'" was stunned by how poorly he addressed the critical issues at hand.

CNN’s Dana Bash:

Loyal Republican after loyal Republican in this hearing room, and more specifically, in private to CNN today have made it clear that they are frankly flabbergasted by how poorly they think the attorney general has done in this hearing. … During the lunch break, in private, several very loyal Republicans made it clear to CNN that they were really dripping with disappointment.

CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux:

[White House officials] believe Gonzales is in trouble. … Two senior White House aides here describing the situation, Gonzales’ testimony, as “going down in flames.” That he was “not doing himself any favors.” One prominent Republican describing watching his testimony as “clubbing a baby seal.”

Everyone, that is, except for the one person who mattered: George Bush.

Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino:

President Bush was pleased with the Attorney General’s testimony today. After hours of testimony in which he answered all of the Senators’ questions and provided thousands of pages of documents, he again showed that nothing improper occurred. He admitted the matter could have been handled much better, and he apologized for the disruption to the lives of the U.S. Attorneys involved, as well as for the lack of clarity in his initial responses. The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President, and he appreciates the work he is doing at the Department of Justice to help keep our citizens safe from terrorists, our children safe from predators, our government safe from corruption, and our streets free from gang violence.

I want some of what he's smoking.

The second event was the major controversy surrounding former Deputy Secretary of Defense and Bush-appointed World Bank current President Paul Wolfowitz, neocon extraordinaire. For anyone not familiar with this one, Wolfie arranged to provide his non-citizen girlfriend with a security clearance and secondment to the U.S. State Department, where she was given a tax-free salary of $193,000 and change so she could go work for a Republican think tank. She is now the highest paid employee at the State Department exceeding even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It is virtually unheard of for a foreigner to receive a security clearance, but Wolfie decided to really go for the gusto by using his DoD connections to obtain the clearance without going through the required FBI background checks.

Now Wolfowitz wasn't exactly loved by career World Bank directors and employees when he was thrust upon them. So when his little scheme became public knowledge, a near mutiny occurred. In the weeks since this was first reported, nearly everyone associated with the World Bank has called for his resignation. Even the European Union is out for his head.

MPs asked European Union leaders to press the White House over the subject at a EU-US summit in Washington on Monday.

They voted 333-251 with 31 abstentions to include a paragraph in a resolution on trans-Atlantic relations calling on Germany, holder of the 27-nation bloc's rotating presidency, and the US to ask Mr Wolfowitz to stand down.

They should "signal to the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, that his withdrawal from the post would be a welcome step towards preventing the bank's anti-corruption policy from being undermined," the paragraph reads.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt.

A reasonable person would expect that revelations of Wolfie's unethical if not downright illegal activities would be of concern to George Bush, the man who appointed him, since it does say something of Bush's credibility and judgment. Who am I kidding? This is George Bush we're talking about here:

I appreciate very much the fact that the World Bank is taking the lead in eradicating poverty in places like Africa, and Paul Wolfowitz, thank you for your leadership of the World Bank.

He either truly does believe what he says, or he believes that he still has credibility when he says something. It really doesn't matter what the true answer is because the conclusion is the same: George Bush is delusional and is a danger to the world as long as he remains in office.

Update: More pressure on Wolfowitz from within the World Bank.

The Failure of the Fourth Estate

If you didn't see Bill Moyers' documentary on PBS last night, "Buying the War," it's available in its entirety here and is well worth viewing. As usual, Christy says it better than I can.

I can remember being very confused as the Iraq War drums began to beat ever more loudly — because the evidence that we knew about publicly was altogether thin to nonexistent in substance. And yet the softball questions continued — from both the press and members of Congress who ought to have known better than to hype their political hide over their duty to the public — and no one embodied this public scam more than Judy Miller. Her over-the-top hyping of the WMD threats (which were, even at the time, unsubstantiated and knowingly so) were so creepy, because her on-air persona and her writing for the NYTimes was so absolute in its certainty.

Having done graduate work in security studies and had classes through the years with people who have actually looked at these issues for a living, I can honestly tell you that certainty of the evidence on something like this is a dead giveaway that someone is selling you a load of crap.

The White House Iraq Group did an excellent sales job. And the people that should have been the most skeptical fell for it hook, line, and sinker…because it was easier that way on their immediate personal connections, on their reputations, on their corporate bottom line. And on their immediate political aspirations, in the case of far too many elected representatives.

After watching the Moyers special last night, I was infuriated. This morning, sipping my first cup of coffee and trying to make some sense of it all, I'm still angry. So I'm going to watch it again later, with a pot of tea, and see if I can glean something beyond "the truth really, really hurts…all of us."

Tell it, sister.

Goodling to Get Immunity

I've been wondering when this was going to happen. It will be interesting to see what's going to happen now. Will she blow smoke up the committee's ass like Gonzo, or will she say something substantive? She'll no longer be able to plead the 5th, but she'll still have to pony up some answers or her immunity deal will go out the window.

More Responsibility from the "Party of Responsibility"

Read here, here, here, and here for further evidence that the Bush administration has zero interest in the safety and welfare of the American people. Christy over at Fire Dog Lake also has something to say about this.

OSHA:

That response reflects OSHA’s practices under the Bush administration, which vowed to limit new rules and roll back what it considered cumbersome regulations that imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers. Across Washington, political appointees — often former officials of the industries they now oversee — have eased regulations or weakened enforcement of rules on issues like driving hours for truckers, logging in forests and corporate mergers.

FDA:

The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.

Profits for corporate shareholders and CEOs rules supreme. Using Bushian logic, the U.S. economy is driven by giving rich people all the money because they then turn around and throw the working class an occasional bone. If a few of us must die so the Ken Lays of the world can buy another Lear jet, then so be it. We all have to die some day anyway.

US Housing Market in Trouble

It didn't take a financial genius to see that this

Sales of existing homes plunged in March by the largest amount in 18 years, reflecting in part rising troubles in the subprime mortgage market.

...

The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that sales of existing homes fell by 8.4 percent in March, the sharpest drop since a 12.6 percent plunge in January 1989.

The decline, which was three-times what had been expected, pushed sales down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.12 million units, the slowest pace in nearly three years.

...

"The number of homeowners trying to unload their properties is still so ridiculously high that pressures on prices will likely continue," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors. "How much lower the housing market can go is unclear, but it is not likely that we have seen the bottom."

and this

Massachusetts foreclosure filings spiked by 47 percent in March as many local home owners struggled to make monthly mortgage payments, a new report said.

were inevitable. With all the people taking interest-only and adjustable rate mortgages counting on the real estate market to keep going up, it was a no-brainer. This is reminiscent of the stock market dot-com bubble.

If you don't pass the bill I want, I'll harm the troops

Anonymous Liberal nails it on the Iraqi supplemental spending bill:

As I pointed out a few weeks ago, there is no logical reason why the cutting off of war funding has to result in increased danger to our troops. Bush wants us to believe that a reduction in funding will somehow inevitably result in troops running out of ammo in the middle of a firefight or running out of fuel in the middle of a patrol. But that's nonsense. The only way that would happen is if President Bush were to react to the funding shortfall (which he would be responsible for creating) by insisting that the war continue on unchanged, without any of the necessary supplies.

Bush is acting like a petulant child holding his breath until his face turns blue because his Mommy won't give him what he wants. In this case, however, other people's lives are on the line. What really scares me about this situation is that I have no doubt that Bush will really leave the troops there to fight and die when the money runs out even though it would be his own actions causing it. It's time the MSM and the Democrats change the framing on this. If Bush vetoes the supplemental and allows the money to run out, then the blood will be on his hands if he chooses to leave the troops in place.

Another Republican Goal Accomplished

Government officials now have the right to lie to us with impunity. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that our government must be allowed to lie to us during a crisis, even though we might die as a result, because they might otherwise choose to stay silent on matters of national importance if they could be held accountable for their statements.

(NEW YORK)—An appeals court ruling could spell trouble for New Yorkers suing the Environmental Protection Agency and its former chief for saying that sooty Lower Manhattan air was safe to breathe after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

A three judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared this week that EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other agency officials can't be held constitutionally liable for making rosy declarations about air quality after the World Trade Center's destruction.

The opinion, written by the court's chief judge, Dennis Jacobs, said opening EPA workers up to lawsuits for giving out bad information during a crisis could have a catastrophic side effect.

"Officials might default to silence in the face of the public's urgent need for information," Jacobs wrote.

You read that correctly. Judicial appointees of George Bush's "Party of Responsibility" just ruled that EPA officials (also appointed by George Bush) cannot be held responsible for their bullshit declaration following the collapse of the World Trade Center that the air in the vicinity of ground zero was safe to breathe. Would it surprise you to learn that the source of this analysis was none other than the White House? Here's the report from the EPA's own Office of Inspector General:

EPA’s early public statements following the collapse of the WTC towers reassured the public regarding the safety of the air outside the Ground Zero area. However, when EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was “safe” to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement. At that time, air monitoring data was lacking for several pollutants of concern, including particulate matter and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Furthermore, The White House Council on Environmental Quality influenced, through the collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.

Why are we even pretending that government agencies serve the public any more?