Molly Ivins: DeLay's Fatwa

Tom DeLay, of all people, recently issued a fatwa on the need for good manners, a concept so bizarre there is no metaphor for it. It is itself a metaphor: "... as weird as the time Tom DeLay gave us all a lecture on manners." In his new role as the Emily Post of politics, DeLay informed us, "It is unfortunate in our electoral system, exacerbated by our adversarial media culture, that political discourse has to get so overheated, that it's not just arguments, but motives are questioned." Did someone question his motive in taking an all-expenses-paid vacation from a lobbyist?

Richard Reeves: There Was A Liberal

The unofficial motto of California, the greatest of American states, is "Give Me Men to Match My Mountains." Edmund "Pat" Brown never looked like a man of the mountains. In fact, at one of the many low points of his political career, the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Time magazine dubbed him "a tower of jelly."

That was one of the times Gov. Pat Brown tangled with the Kennedys. And, as usual, he came in second. He had this problem he could never do much about: He was a Roman Catholic who wanted to be president. It turned out, as we all know now, that was Kennedy turf.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Sweet Environmental Victories

In many ways, this Earth Day is a particularly somber occasion. After all, in the past year, we've seen repeated environmental debacles--most notably, the decision to open the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to drilling for oil. But, with the determination of environmental activists and state legislatures that refuse to bow down to Bush, there are, as always, reasons for hope. Here are five of our top environmental victories in the last year.
(The Nation)

Rice Accused of Suppressing Terror Info

"There appears to be a pattern in the administration's approach to terrorism data: favorable facts are revealed while unfavorable facts are suppressed," Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California said in a letter to the department's acting inspector general, Cameron R. Hume.

The question is "whether political considerations played a role in Secretary Rice's decision" to hand off a State Department report to a government counterterrorism center, Waxman said. He requested an inspector general's investigation.
(Reuters)

Activists Ask Who Led Them From Bush Event

A lawyer for three people removed from a President Bush town hall meeting — allegedly because of a "No More Blood for Oil" bumper sticker on their car — said Friday he is seeking the identity of the man who escorted the activists out, and plans to sue.

"We want to know who this person is, and who trained them, because we're going to sue" both the man and his trainers, said Dan Recht, a lawyer representing activists Alex Young, Karen Bauer and Leslie Weise.

The three belong to the organization Denver Progressives. The day after the president's March 21 town hall meeting, the three were told by the Secret Service they were singled out because they belong to the "No Blood for Oil" anti-war group. They believe the statement was a reference to their bumper sticker.
(Reuters)

Another Republican Backs More Review of Bolton

A spokeswoman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the senator felt the committee "did the right thing delaying the vote on Bolton in light of the recent information presented to the committee."
(Reuters)

Ex-Ambassador Challenges Bolton Testimony; Powell Opposes Bolton

As President Bush tries to shore up support for John R. Bolton among wavering Republican senators, his former ambassador to South Korea is challenging Bolton's Senate testimony and his diplomatic style.

The criticism leveled at the nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations by retired career diplomat Thomas Hubbard, who held the Seoul post during Bush's first term, adds to allegations by several former and current State Department officials that Bolton mistreated them and threatened their careers.

Bolton has denied the charges in sworn testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Bush administration is portraying Democratic efforts to derail Bolton's troubled nomination as a smear campaign. Still, the committee has delayed its vote on Bolton.
Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has talked to several senators at their request about specific questions that had been raised about Bolton, his spokeswoman Peggy Cifrino said Thursday.

"The general considers the discussions private," Cifrino said.

Among the senators Powell called was Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., who last week said he was inclined to vote for confirmation but this week said the "dynamic" had changed.

Powell was the only former Republican secretary of state who did not sign a letter of support for Bolton that was sent to the committee chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
(AP)

House passes energy reform bill laden with extras for US oil industry

"Unfortunately, this bill goes in the other direction with special interest giveaways and subsidies."

"If Americans believe that they will pay less at the pump because of this bill, they are sorely mistaken," Flake said.

One public interest group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, said in a statement that the only winners in the legislation is the energy industry.

"Corn Country gets billions, Big Oil gets billions, Nuclear Power gets billions, King Coal gets billions -- and taxpayers get stuck paying record prices at the pump." the group said.
(AP)

Senate GOP Fights for Filibusters Against Wishes of American People

Republicans are moving the Senate toward a final confrontation with Democrats over the blocking of President Bush's judicial nominations, even as internal polling shows that most Americans don't support their plan to ban judicial filibusters.
(AP)

Moore Sets Up Scholarship for Rebels

Filmmaker and Michigan native Michael Moore has established a scholarship for students who defy the administration at California State University, San Marcos — the same school that canceled his talk last year.

The Michael Moore Freedom of Speech Scholarship will award two $2,500 annual scholarships to Cal State San Marcos students "who have done the most to fight for issues of student rights by standing up to the administration," according to a news release issued Wednesday.
(AP)

Republican Chafee Leaning Against Bolton

Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee is ``less likely'' to support John Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations because of the allegations he mistreated subordinates, a spokesman for Chafee said.

Chafee's vote against Bolton on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, combined with the united opposition of Democrats, would leave Republicans at least one vote short of recommending his nomination to the full Senate.
(Bloomberg)

NEA Sues Bush Administration for Leaving Children Behind

The nation's largest teacher's union joined school districts in Michigan, Texas, and Vermont in filing a federal lawsuit yesterday charging that the Department of Education has failed to provide adequate funding for the No Child Left Behind initiative.
(Washington Post)

AP Sues Bush Administration to Get Guantanamo Documents

The Associated Press sued the Defense Department on Tuesday to force the government to release transcripts and other documents related to military hearings for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The federal lawsuit, filed in Manhattan, said the AP has been able to report only anecdotally on 558 tribunals conducted since August to let detainees challenge their incarceration at the Cuban base. The news agency said the proceedings were "unquestionably of great interest to the public."

The lawsuit asked the court to order the government to turn over transcripts of all Guantanamo detainees' testimony, along with written statements by the detainees and any documents they have submitted.
(AP)

Santorum Trailing By Wide Margin in Senate Race

Democratic state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., who hopes to challenge Republican Sen. Rick Santorum next year, increased his lead to 14 points in a poll released Wednesday.

Casey, the son of a former governor, was favored in the Quinnipiac University poll, taken amid Santorum's high-profile push of President Bush's Social Security overhaul plan and his backing of the recent congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.

Casey was favored by 49 percent of respondents in the telephone poll, conducted April 13 to Monday. Thirty-five percent supported Santorum, while 13 percent were undecided.
(AP)

Bush Signs Bankruptcy Bill, Continues Attack on the Neediest Americans

Those who fought the bill’s passage said the change will fall especially hard on low-income working people, single mothers, minorities and the elderly and will remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face crushing medical bills.
(MSNBC)

BREAKING NEWS: GOP FINALLY AGREES TO INVESTIGATE DeLAY

The Republican chairman of the House ethics committee offered on Wednesday to begin an investigation of Majority Leader Tom DeLay to end a stalemate that has kept the panel from functioning this year.
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Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., made the proposal at a news conference flanked by three of the four other Republicans on the ethics panel. The evenly divided committee also has five Democrats.
(MSNBC)

Ari Berman: Downplaying Darfur

According to the American Journalism Review, last year the three major networks devoted five times as much coverage to Martha Stewart as to the genocide in Sudan. The world's worst humanitarian crisis prompted an abysmal 18 minutes of fame. While the BBC reports from Darfur almost daily, renowned CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour had to beg her bosses to let her go. "If few editors could find Rwanda on a map 10 years ago," wrote Carroll Bogert of Human Rights Watch, "Fewer still have found Darfur today."

Newspapers, with a few exceptions (The New York Times, Washington Post, Knight-Ridder), have hardly been better. "Many of the stories on Sudan published in the nation's newspapers tended to be 500 words or less, giving short shrift to a complex conflict with powerful ethnic, religious and economic factors," writes AJR's Sherry Ricchiardi. "Many accounts lacked historical context or perspective, often oversimplifying the bloodshed in Darfur. And few of them appeared on the front page." Laci Peterson made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle 36 times in 2004, wrote the newspaper's ombudsman, Dick Rogers. Darfur graced the cover thrice.
(The Nation)

Bolton Denied Partnership at Law Firm for Abusive Conduct!

John Bolton was actually voted down by senior partners of Bolton's law firm, Covington and Burling, where he worked before serving in the Department of Justice, because of concerns over his abusive behavior. An individual who would only speak anonymously shared the content of the super-secret partner's meeting with me yesterday.

Pharmacies Balk on After-Sex Pill and Widen Fight in Many States

In some states, legislators are pushing laws that would explicitly grant pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense drugs related to contraception or abortion on moral grounds. Others want to require pharmacies to fill any legal prescription for birth control, much like Governor Blagojevich's emergency rule in Illinois, which requires pharmacies that stock the morning-after pill to dispense it without delay. And in some states, there are proposals or newly enacted laws to make the morning-after pill more accessible, by requiring hospitals to offer it to rape victims or allowing certain pharmacists to sell it without a prescription.
(The New York Times)

DeLay Just Can't Himself, Attacks Justice Kennedy

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay intensified his criticism of the federal courts on Tuesday, singling out Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's work from the bench as "incredibly outrageous" because he has relied on international law and done research on the Internet.
(AP)

Breaking News: Senate Panel Delays Vote on Bolton to U.N.

John R. Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador suffered an unexpected setback Tuesday when a Republican-controlled Senate committee scrapped plans for a vote in favor of a fresh look at allegations of unbecoming conduct.
(AP)

U.N. Nominee Bolton Faces Showdown Vote

Most of the eight Democrats on the committee have said they plan to vote against Bolton on Tuesday. Two of the 10 Republicans — Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska — have said they expect to vote for Bolton despite reservations.

Not even a negative vote or a tie vote in committee would not necessarily thwart Bolton's nomination. The panel could send his name to the floor without a recommendation, or even with a negative recommendation. A tie vote or negative vote would be politically damaging, however.
At least one Democratic senator, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., said he will ask for a closed session so the committee can hear from intelligence officials about information Bolton requested relating to National Security Agency communications.

According to a spokesman for Dodd, Bolton asked for and received the identities of 10 U.S. officials involved in such secret NSA intercepts during the past four years.

"It's not clear what purpose Mr. Bolton was using this information for," said Dodd spokesman Marvin Fast. "The senator is concerned because it's his understanding that this information is rarely requested, and he wants to ensure that it was for official purposes only."
(AP)

The King of Media Manipulation Cries Foul...At the Media!

The media has started applying the horse-race style of campaign coverage to daily reporting on government, leading to adversarial reporting that can obscure the truth just to create conflict, President Bush’s chief political strategist said Monday.

Speaking at a forum at Washington College, Karl Rove said the influx of media outlets and the shrinking shelf life of news in a 24-hour news cycle are to blame.

“We are substituting the shrill and rapid call of the track announcer for calm judgment, fact and substance,” Rove told the crowd of roughly 600 students and local residents.
(MSNBC)

Breaking News: Top Hypocrite of the House Managers to Retire

Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois announced Monday that he will retire when his term ends in 2006.

Hyde, who serves as chairman of the House International Relations Committee, made the announcement on his Web site on his 81st birthday. He was first elected to the House in 1974 from his Bensenville district near O'Hare International Airport.
(AP)

DCCC LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE TO EXPOSE TOM DeLAY.

www.houseofscandal.org

Washington Post Sweeps Away Lott's Racist Record

Mississippi Republican Senator Trent Lott's efforts to rehabilitate his public image were given a valuable boost by the Washington Post, which ran an uncritical profile in its April 14 edition.

Lott lost his position as Senate Majority Leader after comments he made at a December 2002 party for retiring Senator Strom Thurmond were made public. Lott saluted his home state's support for Thurmond's 1948 run for the White House on a Dixiecrat platform staunchly supporting segregation and opposing anti-lynching legislation:

"I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of him. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
(FAIR.org)

Hillary Wants to Talk About Re-Election

She is leading in the polls for her party's White House nod in 2008. Republican Newt Gingrich ranks her as a formidable presidential candidate. Longtime critics are amassing money and manpower to derail her political career. And all Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to talk about is her re-election bid next year.

"'06, '06, '06," the New York Democrat chuckled when asked recently about her presidential ambitions.

The former first lady and her top aides steadfastly maintain that her focus is on winning a second Senate term. In fact, they have stopped talking publicly about the White House and 2008.
(AP)

Liberal Democrat Deval Patrick Announces Bid to Oust Romney in Massachusetts

The state's 2006 gubernatorial race got off to an early start on Thursday with the announcement from Deval Patrick, a former Coca Cola executive and federal civil rights enforcer, that he would seek to be Republican Gov. Mitt Romney's Democratic challenger.
(Boston Globe)
Click here to visit the Patrick '06 web site.

GOP Lawmaker May Vote Against U.N. Nominee

A top Senate Republican raised the possibility Sunday that he might vote against President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations if more accusations surface about John Bolton's alleged harassment of analysts who disagreed with his views.

With a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote expected Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska was asked whether he would endorse Bolton.

"At this point, I will ... but I have been troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation," said Hagel, the committee's No. 2 Republican.
(AP)

A top Senate Republican raised the possibility Sunday that he might vote against President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations if more accusations surface about John Bolton's alleged harassment of analysts who disagreed with his views.

With a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote expected Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska was asked whether he would endorse Bolton.

"At this point, I will ... but I have been troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation," said Hagel, the committee's No. 2 Republican.
(AP)

Ten Ounces of IMF Gold Equivalent to One Human Life

Said ActionAid International policy officer, Romilly Greenhill, "the IMF holds some 100 million ounces of gold in its reserves. Selling only a tenth of this each year could raise vitally needed money for development. If those funds were to be invested in basic healthcare, for example, one million lives a year could be saved. You add it up, and it comes down to the fact that less than ten ounces of unused and un-needed IMF gold, if spent on health, could save one life. In delaying their decision, the IMF has shown that it may value the lives of those living in poverty less than they do gold."

Bolton: Pathological Bully

"His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological," wrote Melody Townsel, a businesswoman from Dallas, in a letter to the committee that was made public Saturday by Democrats who opposed Bolton's appointment. "I cannot believe that this man is being seriously considered for any diplomatic position, let alone such a critical posting to the U.N."

Hers is the latest account alleging that Bolton — who faces a key committee vote Tuesday in his nomination to be United Nations ambassador — has been rude and belligerent toward those less powerful than himself, including three intelligence analysts whose views clashed with his.

Also disclosed Saturday was the summary of a committee staff interview with a former national intelligence officer for Latin America. He said that in 2003, Bolton and another State Department official attempted to pressure him to tailor his judgment on Cuba's biological weapons program, and that they attacked his integrity and attempted to have him transferred when he would not do so.
(Los Angeles Times)

Bush, Republicans Push Pro-Pollution Energy Bill

Republicans included two controversial provisions in the House bill: a green light to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and a shield against product liability lawsuits for makers of the gasoline additive MTBE, which has been linked to groundwater contamination.

Democrats have criticized the measure for failing to deal with gas-guzzling automobiles. They also oppose drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge — an item that likely would be left out of the Senate's energy bill because it would attract a Democratic-led filibuster and could jeopardize passage of the legislation.
(AP)

Yes, Tom, It's the Democrats' Fault!

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, under fire for alleged ethics violations, accused liberal Democrats and the national media of giving him a hard time in a keynote speech at the National Rifle Association's annual convention Saturday evening.

DeLay only briefly mentioned the ethics accusations, telling members of the gun-rights group that he appreciated their support.

"When a man is in trouble or in a good fight, you want to have your friends around, preferably armed. So I feel really good," the Republican from nearby Sugar Land said.
(AP)