Day: October 9, 2005

Specter to Investigate Rove’s Secret Conversation with Rev. Dobson about Miers

Jon Ponder

Must-see TV: Count us among those who’ll be watching when Rev. James Dobson is called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he wants to know whether presidential adviser Karl Rove privately assured a conservative activist of how Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers would rule on the court.

Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he will would look into a statement by James Dobson, president of the Colorado Springs, Colorado-based advocacy group Focus on the Family, that Dobson has had “conversations” with Rove about the woman nominated to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and knows things about Miers “that I probably shouldn’t know.”

“The Senate Judiciary Committee is entitled to know whatever the White House knew,” Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “If Dr. Dobson knows something that he shouldn’t know or something that I ought to know, I’m going to find out.”

Florida Newspapers Suing FEMA for Hiding Records

Trish

Florida Times-Union:

Suppose a substantial amount of your tax money goes to a government agency that writes checks to all kinds of people following a disaster. And suppose the agency issues no-bid contracts, is accused of cronyism, and has demonstrated incompetence in spending — thereby wasting — your tax money…

A federal judge in Fort Myers will decide whether newspapers can see the names and addresses of the people who received nearly $5.3 billion in after-storm payments [from 2004]. Seeking to learn if the payments were fair and equitable, The News-Press in Fort Myers, the Pensacola News Journal and Florida Today, all owned by Gannett Inc., sued after FEMA refused to release the records.

Most larger newspapers, including the Times-Union, spend a lot of money each year on legal fees to ensure openness of government and openness of public records. Usually they seek information that any taxpayer should be able to obtain easily…

Why would competent administrators not want us to know how tax money is being spent?

…There are consequences to not knowing what’s in FEMA’s files. Excessive costs and wasted tax money are examples. There are others.

Perhaps if the secrecy had been lifted a year ago, allowing the media and others to watchdog more carefully in 2004, a few outcomes would have been different in 2005.

Perhaps if the crazy way FEMA doles out money had been uncovered sooner, we could have avoided wasting some of the many millions wasted after Katrina.

Perhaps if a firestorm of scrutiny had focused on FEMA earlier, a more effective agency with stronger leadership could have been in place to enable FEMA to respond more effectively and thereby reduce the misery or even save lives.

No one knows what might have happened, of course, but this explains why newspapers are suing FEMA. Taxpayers should be able to see the books.

“Bring Your Gun to Work” Day in Florida

Trish

The NRA is on a roll in Florida. Following their success with the so-called “Deadly Force” law, the evil lobbying group is trying to arm Florida employees. Florida Times-Union:

A rare and spectacular showdown may be coming in Florida’s Republican Party: Big Business vs. Big Guns…

But the NRA is insistent. The group…has donated nearly $1 million in Florida over the past decade, mostly to Republicans

The dust-up is over the “guns-at-work” bill, which the National Rifle Association began pushing last month in Tallahassee to force all Florida businesses to allow firearms in the vehicles of any employee or visitor. Companies could keep policies banning guns from their buildings themselves but could no longer apply those policies to their parking lots.

The bill is sponsored in the Florida House by none other than Rep. Dennis Baxley, the fruitcake who tried to pass an “academic freedom” law that would have punished liberal college professors who allowed views other than Baxley’s to be aired in their classrooms. That effort failed. We can only hope this one meets the same fate.

Many businesses are either wary of or leaning against the proposal, including heavy-hitters such as Disney and local giants such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, CSX and Baptist Health System.

But the NRA is insistent. The group, which has donated nearly $1 million in Florida over the past decade, mostly to Republicans, is led in Tallahassee by former national President Marion Hammer. Hammer said the rights of gun owners should be intact in their vehicles, and the proposed law already gives businesses immunity from liability lawsuits in cases of workplace shootings.

Is a lawsuit the worst possible outcome if an employee uses a gun at work? A lot of people don’t think so. […]

Jeff Gannon Questioned by CIA Leak Prosecutor about Secret Memo

Jon Ponder

Media whore is treason suspect: Could it be true that CIA Leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is interested in how the rightwing prosititute/blogger Jeff Gannon came to possess a classified document? Joe Conason has been looking into it:

Last February, Gannon told reporters that FBI agents working for Fitzgerald had questioned him about where he got the secret memo.

The New York Times reported Friday that … the special counsel is seeking to determine whether anyone transmitted classified material or information to persons who were not cleared to receive it — which could be a felony under the 1917 Espionage Act.

One such classified item might be the still-classified State Department document, written by an official of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, concerning the CIA’s decision to send former ambassador Joseph Wilson to look into allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Someone leaked that INR document — which inaccurately indicated that Wilson’s assignment was the result of lobbying within CIA by his wife, Valerie — to right-wing media outlets, notably including Gannon’s former employers at Talon News. On Oct. 28, 2003, Gannon posted an interview with Joseph Wilson on the Talon Web site, in which he posed the following question: “An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?”

Gannon later hinted, rather coyly, that he had learned about the INR memo from an article in the Wall Street Journal. He also told reporters last February that FBI agents working for Fitzgerald had questioned him about where he got the memo. At the very least, that can be interpreted as confirming today’s Times report about the direction of the case.