“When I was working in the Clinton White House, one committee alone, the House Government Reform Committee, issued a thousand subpoenas to Clinton administration officials 141 different people were subpoenaed.” — Paul Begala
Yesterday, after the Democrats sent two subpoenas to White House officials, including one for Karl Rove, and issued their first formal call for a special prosecutor to look into Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales’ apparent perjury in Senate testimony, Fox News/White House spokesman Tony Snow, rushed to the cameras to complain:
“We’ve had more than 600 oversight hearings, 87,000-plus hours spent responding to oversight requests and 430,000 pages made available to Congress for oversight,” Snow said, adding that the investigations have yet to reveal any wrongdoing.
“Look at all the pages here. Look at all the hearings. This is … it is as if they keep throwing mud against the wall, hoping something’s going to stick,” the spokesman said.
“At this point, we have hundreds of hearings that have produced bubkes,” Snow stated. “And what has happened is, that there has generated this idea, ‘Let’s go on a fishing expedition and let’s haul somebody up, and let’s make insinuations without having firm proof.’ And what that does is it creates a toxic atmosphere.”
With supporters like these: Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle, contrarian that he is, is probably pissed at Donald “Wildman” Wildmon’s efforts to support him for his openly homophobic comments. Today I received an American Family Association “Action Alert” urging me to write a thank-you note to the Neandethalic Naugle in a clear attempt to co-opt Naugle’s issue.
So, Mayor Naugle, keep letting those sad homosexuals know exactly what you’re thinking about — men having sex in public restrooms — and let Donald Wildmon develop his own homoerotic sex fantasies.
Here’s Don’s personal note to me:
Dear Buck,
Mayor Jim Naugle of Ft. Lauderdale has issued an apology to the people of his city for being unaware of the magnitude of local public homosexual sex. He has also vowed to do something about it.
Naugle apologized for underestimating the problem of men having sex with each other in public restrooms. He also said that Broward County leads the nation in the number of new AIDS cases involving men having sex with men, and he questioned whether the county tourism office should be welcoming them.
As expected, the homosexuals have begun a vicious campaign against Mayor Naugle.
So, I used Wildmon’s Web site to send Naugle a letter, though I took a moment to toss his dross and write a few choice words of my own for Naugle. There’s even a button you can check to say you’re going to pray for Naugle, as if that would help. Here’s my letter:
Dear Mayor Naugle,
Don’t let the American Family Association hijack your current program of speaking out on the issues and use you for their own nefarious purposes. Don’t let yourself be a tool of Donald Wildmon and his ilk.
You’ve made it so far standing on your own two hind legs and letting your community know in no uncertain terms just where you stand on the pressing issue of men having sex in public toilets. From everything I can tell, you seem to be firmly against it.
That is YOUR issue, not AFA’s. They are trying to boycott Ford Motor Co., and not having much luck, either. So they’re trying to ride on your coattails as you spread the message of your truth-speech.
Let AFA stick to its own homophobic message and you stick to yours — it’s only right that homophobes stick together on separate issues, don’t you agree?
So, Mayor Naugle, keep letting those sad homosexuals know exactly what you’re thinking about — men having sex in public restrooms — and let Donald Wildmon develop his own homoerotic sex fantasies.
Have some fun — send your own letter to the mayor here. And to make certain he gets it, also send your letter to mayorjames@aol.com.
It’s not their checkered pasts, their questionable financial dealings, or even their bizarre religious tenets. You know what really scares the Republican candidates for the presidency? We do.
Mitt Romney — who recently faced questions about his common sense for strapping his dog in its carrier to the top of his car during a 12-hour drive, causing the animal to defecate over his windshield — said the format is beneath his dignity
After pulling a party-line no-show at the recent National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) convention, aka, THE event for Latino movers and shakers, they are now discovering a rash of scheduling conflicts at the prospect of facing the chilling YouTube questioners in debate.
Just like with the Latino forum, all the Democratic candidates participated in the recent YouTube debate led by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. But Republicans, including Rudy Giulliani, are balking.
Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani may have better things to do than answer YouTube users’ questions at the GOP debate in St. Petersburg.
The news broke late Thursday that the former New York City mayor has scheduling issues with the Sept. 17 date, jeopardizing the showdown at the Mahaffey Theater…
Giuliani campaign officials could not be reached late Thursday to elaborate on the specific scheduling conflicts.
Mitt Romney — who recently faced derision and questions about his common sense for strapping his dog in its carrier to the top of his car during a 12-hour drive, causing the animal to defecate over his windshield — came right out and said the format is beneath his dignity.
“I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman,” Romney told the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader this week.
Only John McCain and Ron Paul have accepted; all the other Republicans are still checking their calendars.
The Republican candidates, or should we say middle-aged white guys in black suits, are obviously more comfortable with the old snore-fest format of moderator asking question and candidates answering question.
If the chickenhawks chicken out, it will be a blow to Florida’s Republican governor, Charlie Crist, whose Serve to Preserve Climate Summit to address global warming already made party hardliners in Tallahassee uncomfortable. The debate is the highest profile event since Crist and others had the Florida primary moved up in the 2008 cycle.
A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential cause of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars. Rome was not destroyed by Christianity any more than by barbarian invasion; it was an empty shell when Christianity rose to influence and the invasion came.
— Will Durant (1885-1981) and Ariel Durant (1898-1981), American historians
Four Democratic senators wrote U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement asking he appoint an independent counsel to examine the truthfulness of Gonzales’ testimony to Congress on such matters as his firing of nine federal prosecutors and President George W. Bush’s warrantless domestic-spying program.
“We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself,” they wrote.
The letter was from Sens. Charles Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, all members of the Judiciary Committee.
Inherent contempt: Based on his behavior in the past few weeks, Pres. Bush must be hiding something really nefarious. He has forbidden his aides — including former legal counsel Harriet Miers, current chief of Staff Josh Bolten and now Karl Rove — from even showing up to testify about the firing for political reasons of U.S. attorneys.
“Perhaps it is time for Congress to dust off its rusty inherent contempt power, reopen the Capitol hoosegow, get some of the Capitol Police’s finest, and put a couple of people behind bars for a few days.” — Norm Ornstein
When Democrats in Congress threatened the aides with contempt of Congress, Bush announced that the Justice Dept. would ignore the charges. In other words, his is an imperial presidency, and Emperor Bush is accountable to no one.
This leaves the Democrats with one option: charging the White House aides with inherent contempt:
Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation).
So assuming Rove, Miers, Bolten and other White House aides are found guilty, they would not be remanded into the federal justice system, which is overseen by the president, but rather would be jailed in the U.S. Capitol Building under the jurisdiction of the Legislative Branch.
Yes, there are jail cells in the Capitol Complex, and they once used quite frequently, according to congressional expert Norm Ornstein:
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy issued subpoena’s today for White House political director Karl Rove and one of his deputies, Jay Jennnings.
Leahy said he had tried to get information from Rove about the firing of U.S. attorneys apparently for political reasons but that the White House has refused to comply. “I’ve exhausted every avenue, sought the voluntary cooperatio of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings, but to no avail.”
by a vote of 399-24, the House passed legislation introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) to prevent permanent military bases in Iraq and bar U.S. control over Iraqi oil resources.
Lee’s bill, H.R. 2929, declares that it is the policy of the United States not to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq and not to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq and prohibits the use of funds for these purposes.
Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.
— Valerie Solanis (1936-1988), radical feminist writer who shot artist Andy Warhol in 1968
During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales seemed to be inexplicably upbeat even while he endured hours of grilling and harsh criticism by senators from both parties.
One explanation for Gonzales’ blithe nonchalance while lying to the Senate is that his silence has been bought — as Scooter Libby’s was — with the foreknowledge that Bush will pardon him before he spends a minute in jail.
In the wake of his bizarre performance, both the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy and his Republican counterpart, Arlen Spector, have warned Gonzales that he is very close to facing perjury charges.
Compounding their threats, documents were produced yesterday that appear to demonstrate that Gonzales lied under oath about events leading up to his extremely inappropriate late-night visit in March 2004, when was White House counsel, to the hospital room of his predecessor, John Ashcroft, who was recuperating from surgery.
Others in the room have testified that Gonzales, along with Bush’s then-chief of staff Andrew Card, visited Ashcroft, who was heavily sedated, to try to convince him to countermand objections to the president’s illegal wiretapping scheme.
In earlier testimony, Gonzales claimed that no one in the administration objected to the illegal scheme. In fact, according to subsequent testimony, several top officials, including FBI Director Robert Mueller, threatened to resign if the scheme continued.
On Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly denied that the purpose of his visit to Ashcroft in his hospital bed was the illegal program, claiming instead that it was another, as yet undisclosed secret program. The newly released documents, as well as statements by people present at a meeting prior to the trip to the hospital, appear to prove that Gonzales is lying.
Alberto Gonzales is following a course remarkably similar to that of John Mitchell, the only previous attorney general to face criminal charges. Like Gonzales, as Pres. Nixon’s A.G., Mitchell okayed the wiretapping of U.S. citizens (most of whom were political enemies of the president) and used security issues as an excuse to restrict civil liberties.
In 1975, Mitchell was found guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy and sentenced to 30 months in prison.
The fact that Gonzales is unconcerned about facing a fate similar to Mitchell’s may itself be circumstantial evidence of a continuing conspiracy to obstruct justice at the White House.
Earlier this year, Gonzales was said to have spent two weeks rehearsing for the appearance before the Senate in which he used phrases like “I don’t recall” dozens of times. Even on Tuesday, his responses were obviously coached and practiced so as to obfuscate … something. He obviously has something to hide. What is it? […]
The recent news out of Kentucky was just awful,
They found the senator unconscious and horizontal.
And since his hospitalization,
There’s been little news about his condition,
But now everybody’s having a 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell.
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
An Associated Press-NORC survey found that 44% of American Jews hold a favorable opinion of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, compared with 39% who view him unfavorably. By contrast, just 32% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while 59% said they have a negative view.
“Their New Deal is socialism for the super-rich (and their own enrichment) even if it means increasing poverty, inequality, and illness at home and around the world. They also want to rewrite history to ignore and outright deny our past flaws while banning books that say otherwise from our libraries. And they select even our military leaders based on their version of political correctness over ability.”
— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by Deadline, in his July 4th message.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
A Reuters analysis of Trump’s public comments from June 23 through July 6 (13 days) — when a string of left-wing Democratic candidates won their party’s primaries in New York — found he invoked communism 81 times.
