Breaking: Shots Fired at the Capitol
MSNBC is reporting that shots may have been fired in or near the Rayburn Office Building at the U.S. Capitol. The entire Capitol is in lockdown now.
Month: May 2006
Fed Phone Tax Give-Back A Sure Sign It’s An Election Year
Much ado about not much: Republicons in Congress are crowing today about the “massive” give-back of $13 billion in federal taxes on mobile phone calls announced yesterday. But it adds up to less than it appears, and it appears to be just another election-year gimmick intended to make conservatives seem compassionate.
CongressDaily reported that Treasury Secretary Snow said yesterday the IRS will stop collecting the 3 percent federal excise tax on long-distance telephone calls on July 31, and will refund to businesses and individual taxpayers all such taxes collected during the past three years.
A sure sign that this was a cynical election-year ploy and not serious politics was Snow’s cute press conference quip: “It’s time to ‘disconnect’ this tax and put it on the permanent ‘do not call’ list.” Urp!
Treasury estimates that taxpayers will receive refunds totaling about $13 billion. They can apply for refunds on their 2006 tax returns. The decision to discontinue the tax was taken after long-distance phone customers successfully challenged the tax in several different federal appeals courts.
“It’s time to ‘disconnect’ this tax and put it on the permanent ‘do not call’ list.”
So what does this give-back mean to the estimated 214 million cell phone users in the United States? About $54 each, or less than 20 gallons of gasoline. Contrast that with the $477 billion in tax breaks the Bush administration has targeted to the richest Americans, which will average $342,000 each over the next 10 years. By 2010, when Bush’s tax cuts hit their stride, of the estimated $234 billion in tax cuts scheduled for that year, $121 billion will go to just 1.4 million taxpayers.
Makes that $54 look pretty puny, don’t it. But Bushco is counting on voters not doing the math, but instead responding like mindless zombies to headlines that tout a $13 billion tax refund on their cell phone calls. That’s a lot cheaper way to buy votes than to provide real tax relief for the middle class or decent health care for all Americans.
CIA Leak: Novak Promised to Shield Rove from Treason Charges for Leaking CIA Agent’s Secret Identity
On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.
Read the rest.
STOP THE PRESSES! BUSH ADMITS VERBAL GAFFES
ALSO ADMITS THAT OTHERS MADE MISTAKES IN ABU GRAHIB PRISON SCANDAL
After Bush’s Admissions, Tweety Immediately Confers Sainthood on Dear Leader Once Again
“I think the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq is Abu Ghraib.”
— President Bush
— President Bush
I watched a bit of Chris Matthews’ coverage on MSNBC yesterday of the news conference held by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House. Tweety has been very very disappointed in Dear Leader lately but last night could barely contain his wistful adoration as he piled laurels at the president’s feet for finally admitting a mistake:
Q Mr. President, you spoke about missteps and mistakes in Iraq. Could I ask both of you which missteps and mistakes of your own you most regret?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Sounds like kind of a familiar refrain here — saying “bring it on,” kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner — you know, “wanted dead or alive,” that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted, and so I learned from that. And I think the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq is Abu Ghraib. We’ve been paying for that for a long period of time. And it’s — unlike Iraq, however, under Saddam, the people who committed those acts were brought to justice. They’ve been given a fair trial and tried and convicted.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the list of mistakes regarding his failed adventure in Iraq — not to mention the lies he told — that the president did not cop to are manifold. Just one example: Did he screw up the intelligence about WMD, or was he fully aware Saddam was toothless but lied to us to take the country to war?
Admitting to a couple verbal gaffes is a clever, pre-scripted dodge, and the traditional media fell for it, as the White House knew they would.
Smartest Guys in the Jail
Yesterday a jury convicted former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling on all counts related to fraud and dirty dealing in the collapse of Enron corporation, the giant energy corporation that was headquartered in Houston.
Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity in California at a time when Enron was artificially driving up the price of electricity by manipulating supply. Bush’s resistance to price caps bought Enron extra time to gouge hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s consumers.
Just as we started taking bets on the demise of Enron when the lights went out in Beverly Hills back in 2000 while the company was playing the GOP-rigged California energy market like a crooked a slot machine, we’re now accepting wagers on when Bush will pardon his friend and former financial backer, “Kenny-Boy” Lay.
Lay gave Bush $100,000 during the 2000 election, and the sent another $10 grand to Florida to help with the Bush v. Gore recount.
After the truth came out about Enron — largely based on reporting by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, whose book, “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” and the movie thereof, are both excellent sources for information on this story — President Bush pretended he barely knew Lay.
But George Bush did know Ken Lay, and tried to help him in all sorts of ways before the truth came out about Lay’s criminal activities:
As Enron’s crisis worsened through the first nine months of Bush’s presidency, Lay secured Bush’s help in three key ways:
–Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity in California at a time when Enron was artificially driving up the price of electricity by manipulating supply. Bush’s resistance to price caps bought Enron extra time to gouge hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s consumers.
–Bush granted Lay broad influence over the development of the administration’s energy policies, including the choice of key regulators to oversee Enron’s businesses. The chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was replaced in 2001 after he began to delve into Enron’s complex derivative-financing schemes.
–Bush had his NSC staff organize that administration-wide task force to pressure India to accommodate Enron’s interests in selling the Dabhol generating plant for as much as $2.3 billion.
So when will Lay be pardoned — on last Bush’s last day in office (may it come soon) or before Lay’s first day in jail?
Quote du Jour
From “The Devil’s Dictionary” —
UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.
— Ambrose Bierce (1842- disappeared in Mexico 1914), American writer
Casey: Sirs, You are No Lloyd Bentsen
Columnist Rick Casey tells us why we should note the passing of Lloyd Bentsen.
If nothing else, thinking of Bentsen reminds us what it was like before lockstep partisanship turned Republicans into yammering clones led by cynical, greedy louts.
I didn’t serve with Lloyd Bentsen. I didn’t know Lloyd Bentsen. Lloyd Bentsen was not a friend of mine.
But I think I can safely say to all of today’s Texas politicians: Sirs, you are no Lloyd Bentsen…
Unlike so many of the chicken hawks now in power, Bentsen eagerly signed up to go to war, immediately after finishing law school…
He was a true moderate, liberal on some social issues, and a fiscal conservative. As President Bill Clinton’s secretary of the treasury, he was a key player in balancing the budget…
He carried himself with a courtliness that was both respectful and commanded respect (although he showed, in his vice-presidential debate against Dan Quayle, that he was quite capable of going for the jugular).
It’s impossible to imagine Bentsen saying to a TV reporter who had asked an uncomfortable question, as Rick Perry did after he thought the taping had ended, “Adios, mofo.”
Casey also notes that Bentsen maintained bipartisan friendships and even voters, serving as he did in the pre-DeLay/Rove era. If nothing else, thinking of Bentsen reminds us what it was like before lockstep partisanship turned Republicans into yammering clones led by cynical, greedy louts.
Quote du Jour
All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.
— H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), American editor, critic
Moussaoui: Thanks A Lot, Osama
Too little, too late: Man, Zacarias Moussaoui must be pissed. A tape purported to be a recording of Osama bin Laden has surfaced on which a disembodied voice identified as bin Laden says Moussaoui had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, that info comes just weeks after Zack dodged the death penalty and was sent up the river to the Big House for life.
Of course, having the most-wanted man in the world as a witness for the defense probably wouldn’t have swayed the jury, but it certainly would have added to the circus atmosphere that characterized Moussaoui’s year-and-a-half trial, which oscillated between the insane and the ridiculous. Suffice it to say, however, that bin Laden’s belated benignancy is no “Get Out of Jail Free” card for the hapless Moussaoui.
The old comic strip “Li’l Abner” has a memorable character named Joe Btfsplk, a harmless fellow who was jinxed, wandering the earth with a perpetual black cloud over his head. Seems to me that Zacharias Moussaoui is the Joe Btfsplk of al Qaeda — even after being sentenced to life in prison, his luck just keeps getting worse.
Sen. Sanitorium’s Career Will Sleep with the Fishes
It is looking very likely that Sen. Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Republican leader in the Senate, whose comments equating gay relationships to bestality will (we hope) follow him to his grave, will be moving to K Street next year.
