In a message on his Twitter account today, former Arkansas U.S. attorney and Karl Rove-protege Tim Griffin hinted that he is considering a “senate run” in 2010 against Sen. Blanche Lincoln. In an interview with the AP, Griffin confirmed that he was indeed mulling a run, saying that he was “certainly thinking about it“:
“I am certainly thinking about it,” Griffin said. “I’m going to spend some time going around the state and talking to folks and getting an idea of the interest level. … I’m going to try and hit all 75 counties as soon as possible and I know that’s a tall order trying to hit all of those in the next few months.
Griffin is controversial beyond his involvement in the U.S. attorney scandal. As RNC research director in 2004, Griffin reportedly led a “caging” scheme to suppress the votes of likely Democratic voters, including African-American service members in Florida.
Today, Vice President Cheney continued the Bush administration’s legacy tour by appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. Limbaugh’s hard-hitting questions included, “What are you most proud of?” and praise such as, “Over the years when I’ve spoken to you, you have purposely avoided any partisanship, because I know that this has been a policy of the administration.
At one point, Limbaugh mocked President-elect Obama’s promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Cheney agreed and defended Guantanamo, saying that it has been “very well run”:
CHENEY: I think so. I think Guantanamo has been very well run. I think if you look at it from the perspective of the requirements we had, once you go out and capture a bunch of terrorists, as we did in Afghanistan and elsewhere, then you’ve got to have some place to put them. If you bring them here to the U.S. and put them in our local court system, then they are entitled to all kinds of rights that we extend only to American citizens. […]
So Guantanamo has been very, very valuable. And I think they’ll discover that trying to close it is a very hard proposition.
Listen here:
One reason that Obama has a better chance of closing Guantanamo is that he won’t have Cheney over his shoulder. President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have all said that they would like to close the detention facility. However, these efforts have been repeatedly blocked by officials in Cheney’s office, who object to moving detainees into the United States.
Guantanamo is not well-run, and its presence is putting U.S. servicemembers at risk rather than saving lives. As former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora has explained, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are “the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq.” (CAP’s Ken Gude has put together a plan on how to safely close Guantanamo and transfer the detainees.)
In recent months, other current and former White House officials have been out highlighting Guantanamo as a positive part of Bush’s legacy. Last week, former attorney general John Ashcroft said that detaining terror suspects has been a “humanitarian act,” and Rice disputed that the U.S. image has been “tarnished” by torture.
Transcript: More »
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has been a key source of the Bush administration’s right-wing policies and personnel. Last year, Bush told AEI, “I admire AEI a lot. … More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.” These ideologues include Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Doug Feith, and John Yoo. On Thursday, Bush will thank AEI with a speech on domestic policy:
Not surprisingly, Bush’s Domestic Policy Council director, Karl Zinsmeister, worked at AEI for 12 years.
On his radio show today, conservative talker Glenn Beck complained that the media is not talking about the “real issues.” To make his point, Beck wondered allowed about why the media isn’t “leading every news cast” with the apparent arson incident at Gov. Sarah Palin’s church. He concluded with a plug for his new network, Fox News Channel, saying that in comparison to other morning news shows, Fox and Friends is like a “think tank.” Listen here:
Mr. Beck, we know think tanks…and Fox News is no “think tank.”
CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware reports that Muntader al-Zaidi — the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush yesterday during a press conference — “is being investigated for possible charges not connected to assaulting President Bush, but for doing it in front of the Iraqi Prime Minister and hurling the shoes in the Prime Minister’s general direction rather than at President Bush’s head.” After CNN host T.J. Holmes clarified that “just because the Iraqi Prime Minister was in the vicinity that might really be what gets him in trouble,” Ware responded, “Yeah brother, this is Iraq.” Watch it:
This morning Ware reported the Maliki’s office explained the charges by arguing that “it’s not easy to say who exactly he threw the shoes at.”
Early this morning, during a press conference in Kabul with Afghan President Karzai, President Bush attempted to paper over his previous declarations of victory over the now-resurgent Taliban. Bush claimed emphatically, “I never said the Taliban was eliminated.” Watch it:
In fact, Bush used the word “eliminated” to describe the state of the Taliban on several occasions:
September 2002: “The Taliban’s ability to brutalize the Afghan people and to harbor and support terrorists has been virtually eliminated.”
April 2002: “With the Taliban eliminated and al-Qaida badly damaged, we have moved into the second stage of our war on terror.”
At other times, Bush prematurely declared victory using similar language:
September 2004: “And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free.”
December 2004: “In Afghanistan, America and our allies, with a historically small force and a brilliant strategy, defeated the Taliban in just a few short weeks.”
October 2005: “Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence — the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago.”
While coalition forces made significant early progress against the Taliban, President Bush allowed the situation to deteriorate after deciding to invade Iraq in 2003. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, troops and resources have been diverted from Afghanistan. Consequently, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated dramatically in recent years. Currently, the Taliban has a “permanent presence” in 75 percent of the country and exercises control over the country’s “political and military dynamic.”
Likewise, the still-classified Afghanistan NIE reportedly paints a “grim” picture of the country. While Bush deserves credit for trying to bring his current rhetoric more in line with reality, he isn’t allowed to pretend that his past rhetoric wasn’t false.
In recent weeks, GOP senators have been balking over the scheduled Jan. 8 confirmation hearings for Eric Holder, President-elect Obama’s nominee for attorney general. Following the lead of Karl Rove, these senators have been claiming that they need more time to prepare their attacks on Holder. Today, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced that he has decided to postpone the hearings one week until Jan. 15:
The Committee has not yet received the names of other designees for high-ranking Department of Justice officials that we had anticipated and more time is now available to the Judiciary Committee. Therefore, to accommodate the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, at their request we are delaying the hearing, again, until January 15. The Assistant Republican Leader said last year that ‘attorney general nominees have been confirmed, on average, in approximately three weeks.’
Nonetheless, in order to accommodate the Republicans members, I am rescheduling the hearing on Mr. Holder for twice that long, until more than six weeks after his official designation. It is disappointing to me that they are insisting that we delay at a time when the nation needs its top law enforcement officer and national security team in place and working. I trust that with this additional time to prepare, they will cooperate in proceeding promptly to Committee and Senate consideration of the historic Holder nomination as Democrats did for President Bush.
In a Washington Post op-ed today, Lawrence Di Rita, former special assistant to Donald Rumsfeld, decries the “myth” surrounding Gen. Eric Shinseki’s February 2003 statement that “several hundred thousand troops” would be needed secure Iraq. Di Rita claims that Shinseki in fact supported the Rumsfeld plan because he did not speak up against it in meetings. The former Rumsfeld aide calls Shinseki’s opposition “one of the most enduring myths of the Bush presidency” and “a legend”:
Here are some facts: First, Shinseki, as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supported the war plan. . … There was ample opportunity for the chiefs to express concerns and propose alternatives. There is no record of Shinseki having objected.
In reality, Shinseki and Rumsfeld had a fundamental disagreement on strategy. In his testimony, Shinseki stated that “hundreds of thousands” of troops would be needed for “post-hostilities control” over land “that’s fairly significant [in size] with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.” The Pentagon, in contrast, assumed that there would be minimal internal resistance, thus, there would be no need for so many troops. In July 2003, for example, Paul Wolfowitz admitted that Pentagon officials “turned out to underestimate the problem.”
Di Rita also fails to mention that the Pentagon quickly “castrated” Shinseki by ridiculing him publicly. While Di Rita claimed that “Sinseki was not forced from office, as ThinkProgress has documented, Rumsfeld announced Shinseki’s successor 18 months prior to Shinseki’s retirement — a signal that dissent would not be tolerated:
Feb. 27, 2003: Wolfowitz “opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, ‘wildly off the mark.’”
March 19, 2003: A senior Pentagon official dismissed Shinseki’s comments as “bullshit from a Clintonite enamored of using the army for peacekeeping and nation-building and not winning wars.”
March 29, 2003: “For the past two years Gen Shinseki has been in total eclipse.” Shinseki “had already been turned into a lame duck (’castrated’, according to the same Pentagon source) by the apparently unprecedented Rumsfeld decision to announce his successor 18 months in advance.”
Unfortunately, the media have also picked up on the false meme that Shinseki’s silence was indicative of support. “Shinseki never objected to the war plans, and he didn’t press for any changes,” CNN’s Jamie McIntyre wrote in a Dec. 8 piece titled, “Myth of Shinseki Lingers.” Similarly, President Bush remarked yesterday, “I don’t remember him coming to talk to me specifically with the other generals on the joint chiefs.”
I know of nothing, other than the failure to plan adequately for the war in Iraq, that upset the retired community nearly as much as Mr. Rumsfeld's treatment of the chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Shinseki. Just irate. I've been in meetings and breakfasts and lunch where this is a subject of conversation and just a very, very bitter feeling that he would treat someone like that.
Dubai is planning to construct the world’s first refrigerated beach. A system of heat-absorbing pipes and giant wind blowers will “keep tourists cool in the searing 40-50C heat.” Soheil Abedian, president of Palazzo Versace hotel that will be home to the refrigerated beach, said: “We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on. This is the kind of luxury that top people want.” Critics have argued that Dubai’s design lacks regard for the environment:
Rachel Noble, of Tourism Concern, said: “Dubai is like a bubble world where the things that are worrying the rest of the world, like climate change, are simply ignored so people can continue destructive lifestyles.” […]
The city’s continued expansion will also add to its huge carbon footprint. Each person living in Dubai has a carbon footprint of more than 44 tons of CO2 a year.
Yesterday, Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi threw his shoes at President Bush and shouted, “This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” Bush said that he was unfazed by the incident.
Afterward, Bush continued to dismiss the incident to reporters aboard Air Force One. He said that Zaidi’s actions were “bizarre” and had no larger significance:
Q Well, not to belabor the point too much, on this man, but I have a serious question about it. Obviously he’s expressing a vein of anger that exists in Iraq, and —
BUSH: How do you know? I mean, how do we know what he’s expressing? Who — […] I’ve heard all kinds of stories. I heard he was representing a Baathist TV station. I don’t know the facts, but let’s find out the facts. All I’m telling you, it was a bizarre moment. […]
I don’t think you can take one guy throwing shoes and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq. You can try to do that if you want to. I don’t think it would be accurate. … That’s exactly what he wanted you to do. Like I answered on your question, what he wanted you to do was to pay attention to him. And sure enough, you did.
Similarly, in an interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz yesterday, Bush laughed off Zaidi’s actions as “amusing.” “I don’t know what his beef is,” said Bush. “But whatever it is I’m sure somebody will hear it.” Watch it:
Zaidi’s actions were not “bizarre” or “amusing.” In fact, they were “[t]wo of the worst insults in Islam.” Additionally, Zaidi is not a lone protester with his own radical “Baathist” agenda. Since the incident, thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets to demand the release of Zaidi, who is now being interrogated by Iraqi authorities. These protesters include Shiites in Sadr City, who “are fed up with U.S. policy in the region” and calling Zaidi a “hero.” NPR reported that every single person they interviewed in Baghdad had “nothing but praise” for Zaidi.
Bush is still unable to grasp the “beef” that the Iraqi people have with him: their extreme frustration and unhappiness with the U.S. invasion and its subsequent mismanagement and occupation. Tellingly, one of the last high-profile shoe-throwing incidents occurred in April 2003, when Iraqis took their shoes and hit Saddam Hussein’s falling statue.
Newsweek reported over the weekend that “two knowledgeable sources” confirmed that the 2004 clash between the White House and the Justice Department over the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program was triggered by the NSA’s “vast and indiscriminate collection of communications data“:
These sources…describe a system in which the National Security Agency, with cooperation from some of the country’s largest telecommunications companies, was able to vacuum up the records of calls and e-mails of tens of millions of average Americans between September 2001 and March 2004. […]
The NSA’s powerful computers became vast storehouses of “metadata.” They collected the telephone numbers of callers and recipients in the United States, and the time and duration of the calls. They also collected and stored the subject lines of e-mails, the times they were sent, and the addresses of both senders and recipients. … All this metadata was then sifted by the NSA, using complex algorithms to detect patterns and links that might indicate terrorist activity.
The Justice Department concluded, over White House objections, that the data mining operation constituted “electronic surveillance” and as such was in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Ultimately, the disagreement led to the now infamous confrontation at Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital bedside.
Yesterday, after an Iraqi journalist used “[t]wo of the worst insults in Islam” against him, an unfazed President Bush sat down with ABC’s Martha Raddatz for an exit interview in Iraq. When Raddatz asked Bush about his legacy, Bush first boasted about “52 months of uninterrupted job growth.” (There have been 1.9 million jobs lost in 2008 alone.)
Bush then turned to Iraq, and justified the war there by suggesting it had been al Qaeda’s home base. When Raddatz corrected him, Bush dismissively replied, “So what?“:
BUSH: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take–
RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.
BUSH: Yeah, that’s right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they’re going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand.
Watch it:
Continuing his refusal to take any responsibility for the consequences of his decisions, Bush suggests that al Qaeda came to Iraq by chance, that it simply “turn[ed] out to have been” the place where they “were going to take their stand.” But al Qaeda’s existence in Iraq is 100 percent attributable to Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq: al Qaeda never existed there before, and in fact, Saddam Hussein viewed Osama bin Laden as a threat and refused to support him.
Throughout the run-up to war, Bush repeatedly cited supposed links between al Qaeda and Iraq to drum up support for the U.S. invasion. When those links proved to be utterly false — and perhaps even willingly fabricated — Bush began insisting that al Qaeda had chosen Iraq as the “central front in the war on terror,” and so the United States was forced to stay there and respond. In the meantime, more than 4,000 Americans have been killed, 30,000 maimed, and nearly 100,000 Iraqis killed.
In an interview earlier this month, Bush cited the intelligence failures in the lead-up to war and said simply, “I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.” Bush’s indifference to the consequences of his decisions mirrors the scorn his Vice President displayed when dismissing American opposition to the Iraq war with a one-word answer: “So?”
Last September, the Connecticut Democratic Party central committee agreed on a resolution censuring Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for his vigorous support of John McCain and for speaking at the Republican National Convention. But after Lieberman escaped rebuke in the U.S. Senate, it appears now that the “anger is draining“:
“We’re in the process of updating the resolution to be more reflective of the current time and situation,” said Audrey Blondin of Litchfield, one of two committee members who proposed the censure. Words like “censure” are certain to disappear. So is any suggestion that Lieberman end his affiliation as a registered Democratic voter in Connecticut. Instead?
“An expression of disappointment, an expression of disapproval,” Blondin said. “And let it go at that.”
“Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes” at President Bush during a press conference yesterday, praising the journalist as a “hero.” The television station that employs the journalist has also demanded his immediate release, saying it “fear[ed] for his safety.”
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich “has no plans of resigning today or tomorrow,” a spokesperson said yesterday. “He still signs bills as governor, and he wants to see details.”
A loophole in the bailout legislation may allow executives at Wall Street companies to continue to earn large compensation packages. Due to a last-minute change in legislative language sought by the Bush administration, Congress’ efforts to limit pay may prove toothless. “The flimsy executive-compensation restrictions in the original bill are now all but gone,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said.
President-elect Obama will announce his energy and environment team — led by Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy — Monday afternoon at a press conference in Chicago, “continuing a steady roll-out of his Cabinet, which is now nearly complete.” Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) is the leading contender to be named Interior Secretary.
“The number of reported attacks against LGBT people increased 24 percent in 2007 over 2006″ and is expected to rise again this year after a “rash of attacks” in recent months, according to the New York City Anti-Violence Project. More »
Our guest blogger is Barry Nolan, a veteran TV journalist who was fired by Comcast Cable’s CN8 channel in Boston for protesting an award honoring Bill O’Reilly.
According to an article in the New York Times, a typical salary in the Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, NC is $11.90 per hour, or $476 for a 40 hour week. Because I am a considerate person, I will spare you any description of the grisly jobs performed by those workers in that slaughterhouse.
The base salary of a U.S. senator is $169,300 a year or $3,255 a week. Because I am a considerate person, I will spare you any description of the job some of those senators are doing on us these days.
The slaughterhouse story in the New York Times looked back on the 16-year long struggle to bring union representation to the 5,000 or so workers in Tar Heel, which ended up in court at one point. In 2006, after seven years of litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Smithfield had engaged in “intense and widespread” coercion and ordered Smithfield to reinstate four union supporters it found were illegally fired, one of whom was beaten by the plant’s police on the day of the 1997 election.
The court also said Smithfield had engaged in other illegal activities: spying on workers’ union activities, confiscating union materials, threatening to fire workers who voted for the union and threatening to freeze wages and shut the plant.
But the big news in the Times story, especially if you pack meat, was that after the long struggle with Smithfield, the union finally won. The slaughterhouse is going union.
On the same day MSNBC had a story about a GOP memo titled “Action Alert,” which went out to the Republican senators just before their “No” vote on the Big Three Auto Makers bailout bill. The GOP memo contained this pithy paragraph:
This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.
It has been a longstanding part of the conservative’s core philosophy that unions are simply bad for business. That is why is why conservatives who are making $169 K per year for standing around arguing, just can’t understand why someone who is making the princely salary of $24,752 for working 40 hours a week in a slaughterhouse would ever want to join a union. It could eat into a company’s profits. Never mind that as a non-union hog butcher, you may bring home a little bacon, but good luck sending your kids to college.
The Federal Poverty guideline for 2008, sets $22,200 as the poverty level for a family of four. Those who do the hard spirit killing, tendon ripping work of slaughtering hogs, forty hours a week, 52 weeks a year, are just barely, faintly above the poverty level.
So just who are these people the GOP sees as the enemy? These awful, greedy, lazy Union people? More »
President Bush is in Baghdad today on a surprise farewell visit highlighting the security deal recently reached between the U.S. and Iraq. CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware reports this afternoon that during a press conference with Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, an Iraqi man threw a shoe at Bush — “a grave insult in the Arab world” — but “it just sailed past his head”:
WARE: Well, Wolf, the most extraordinary thing. You may or may not believe this. We’re getting reports from the press pool that flew in with President Bush and apparently just a short, short time ago in a press conference with Prime Minister Maliki, an Iraqi man stood up in the press conference and threw a shoe at President Bush. But the reports we’re getting, it just sailed past his head and while the man was dragged out of the room, President Bush is said to have remarked that, “This was a size 10 shoe he threw at me you may want to know,” even as the man was heard screaming in the hallway.
Watch it:
McClatchy identified the man as Iraqi television journalist Muntader al-Zaidi and reports he threw both of his shoes at Bush just after he finished prepared remarks.
The New York Times notes that the first shoe “narrowly missed” and the second shoe also missed. “This is a farewell kiss, you dog,” Zaidi shouted.
Apparently, Bush was unfazed by the incident. “I didn’t feel the least bit threatened by it,” he said.
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace announced at the end of his program today that Vice President Cheney will appear on Fox next Sunday for an exclusive interview.
Cheney is making good on his promise to reward Wallace with an interview, after the Fox host recently defended the Bush White House against comparisons to President Nixon’s crimes.
Senate Republicans, including Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), are trying delay confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee Eric Holder, raising questions about Holder’s role in the 2001 pardon of Marc Rich. Grassley even tried to tie Holder to Gov. Rod Blajogevich, saying last week, “Public reports have just emerged that in 2004, the Governor of Illinois hired or sought to hire Mr. Holder.”
On Dec. 1, just one day after Holder’s nomination, Karl Rove told the Today Show that Holder’s record “will be examined” because he was the “one controversial nominee“:
ROVE: He was deeply involved as the Deputy Attorney General in the controversial pardon of Marc Rich. … I think it’s going to be clearly examined, if for no other reason that people want to lay down markers that that kind of behavior is inappropriate. … But again, there will be some attention paid to this.
On Friday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) released a statement noting that the Republicans initially praised Holder, but now seem to be taking their marching orders from Rove:
LEAHY: In addition, Senator Grassley has acknowledged Mr. Holder’s impeccable credentials while reserving judgment. But of course since then, Karl Rove has appeared on the Today Show and signaled that Republicans ought to go after Mr. Holder. Right-wing talk radio took up the drum beat.
Today on MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Show, Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly revealed that Rove is indeed “helping lead” the effort against Holder:
CONNOLLY: Word on the street is that Karl Rove is going to be helping lead the fight against Eric Holder when his nomination for Attorney General heads up to the Senate.
Watch it:
A year after he resigned from public office, all roads still lead to Rove.
President Bush flew to Iraq last night for a surprise farewell visit highlighting the recent approval of the Iraq security agreement which guarantees U.S. withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011. The Associated Press writes that “in many ways this was a victory lap without a victory: Nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq fighting a war that is remarkably unpopular in the United States and across the globe.” Despite the security agreement’s call for U.S. troops to withdraw from all Iraqi cities by Summer 2009, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said yesterday that some troops would stay past the deadline to “help support and train Iraqi forces.”
On Friday night, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) offered up some “tasteless ethnic jokes” at a swanky Pennsylvania Society luncheon in New York City. The senator asked the audience if anyone present was Polish. Reportedly, about 10 people raised their hands. Callous to their concerns, Specter then proceeded to let loose with a stream of Polish jokes:
Specter deemed the number insignificant and forged ahead with some supposedly funny Polish jokes, including the old one about the man who interrupted him once, saying, “Hey, careful. I’m Polish!” Specter said he responded, “That’s OK - I’ll tell it more slowly.” Specter also told two other tasteless jokes in the same Polish vein. “No one walked out, but it was offensive,” said our source. “I was offended, and I’m not Polish.”
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