Oct 16, 2007 at 8:02 PM by Political Chase
It doesn’t come often, but on some days good news actually emerges.
From Roll Call (subscription):
Hutchison to Retire in 2012, Expects to Run for Governor in 2010
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), who cruised to re-election last year, will not seek another six-year term in 2012 and could resign her seat in 2010 to run for governor, The Associated Press is reporting this morning.
In an interview with Texas Monthly magazine that is cited by the wire service, Hutchison confirmed her plans for a 2010 gubernatorial run and said resigning her current term early would be the right thing to do.
“Is it better for Texas for me to leave early and give someone else a chance to start building seniority before the class of 2013? I think it probably is,” Hutchison said, adding: “It’s too early to be gearing up. I don’t want to peak in 2007 for a 2010 race.”
2012, or even 2010 for that matter, is a long way off, however, having one less neocon in Congress is always a welcomed expectation.
Oct 16, 2007 at 7:17 PM by Political Chase
George Bush’s warmongering rhetoric, which is derived from Dick Cheney’s insatiable desire to attack Iran is counter-productive at best. Pounding their chests at Ahmadinejad is one thing, but when Putin serves as his proxy, the conflict enters another dimension — a very serious one.
Putin Stresses Opposition to Military Action Against Iran
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday repeated his opposition to any military action against Iran because of that country’s nuclear program.
No Caspian Sea country should let its territory be used by other countries “for aggressive or military operations against another Caspian state,” said Putin, who is attending a meeting in Tehran of the leaders of the five countries that border the inland sea.
The leaders of the countries, which also include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, jointly made a similar statement, signaling the opposition of Iran’s neighbors to any military action by the United States or its allies.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “The Caspian Sea is an inland sea, and it only belongs to the Caspian states. Therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here.”
The five countries also declared that any country that is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty can “carry out research and can use nuclear energy for peaceful means without discrimination.” Iran says that all its nuclear work is peaceful.
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Matt Yglesias makes several notable points here:
Vladimir Putin’s warnings against military action against Iran deserve to be taken very seriously. Since we’re not contemplating actually conquering Iran and trying to occupy its territory, people need to understand that the post-strike diplomatic environment is going to be much more important to the future of the Iranian nuclear program than is any damage that bombing Iran with our on-the-table options might or might not do. If Russia decides to just send some scientists with schematics and materiel over to Iran and show them how to build a nuclear bomb, then — bam — nuclear bomb.
Conversely, at the moment not only is Iran under some diplomatic pressure to stop short of weaponizing, many countries around the world are taking direct measures to prevent the Iranians from just easily going and buying the stuff they need. Insofar as an unprovoked American military attack convinces other countries that the real dangerous lunatics live in DC rather than Teheran, countries around the world could cut back on their vigilance and make it much easier for an Iranian nuclear program to succeed.
Cheney will never willingly abandon his imperialistic ideology as outlined in his 1992 manifesto (pdf). His obsession has to be bridled by a more powerful or authoritative figure. Bush 41 stopped him in 1992, but George W. has obviously exercised little control over Cheney, and the last thing we need is for Vladimir Putin to assume the controlling role.
Oct 16, 2007 at 4:52 PM by Political Chase
Don Stewart, Communications Director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted in an interview with the Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) that he alerted reporters about the smearing of Graeme Frost by wingnut bloggers such as Michelle Malkin (here, here, here, here, and here).
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman acknowledged yesterday that he alerted reporters last week to questions bloggers raised about the financial circumstances of a 12-year-old boy Democrats had used to urge passage of an expanded children’s health insurance program.
ThinkProgress first reported having evidence that McConnell’s office was directly involved in the smear campaign, but there has been no public acknowledgment by the top Senator’s office until the Courier-Journal’s interview with Stewart.
Stewart said he called the dogs off when he later determined the allegations being made by the over zealous prevaricators were baseless, but having done so does not absolve him of his reckless, knee-jerk actions.
Hours later, he said, he sent two follow-up e-mails waving reporters off.
“Forgive me if I already told you this, but a blogger that I trust (and who hadn’t written anything on this issue yet) tells me that after spending a lot of time on this, they now believe there’s no story there, that the family is legit,” Stewart wrote in one e-mail, according to the text he provided to The Courier-Journal. “So I’m passing that along to the folks I wrote to this morning. Fair is fair.”
Only a dolt would characterize the situation as “fair is fair.†It is unconscionable and reprehensible that a top aide to the highest ranking Republican in Congress would not check the facts before bolstering a campaign. Moreover, the fact that Stewart obviously could not have cared less that his target was a 12–year-old boy, should be strongly rebuked by McConnell. Any punitive measure short of terminating Stewart would be a tacit approval by McConnell, and indicative of McConnell’s values and ethics.
Oct 16, 2007 at 3:07 PM by Political Chase
Ten state chapters of the labor union SEIU (includes key state of Iowa) endorsed John Edwards yesterday. Barack Obama was endorsed by the SEIU’s Illinois chapter.
Democrat John Edwards was endorsed Monday by 10 state chapters of the Service Employees International Union, representing nearly 1 million members and including the crucial state of Iowa, union leaders said.
SEIU decided last week not to make a national endorsement in the Democratic presidential primaries, a blow to Edwards who had vigorously sought the support. The union freed its state chapters to make their own endorsements, and on Monday Iowa and nine other states representing 930,000 workers — half the union’s membership — went with the 2004 vice presidential nominee.
The other chapters backing Edwards are California, Washington, Michigan, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Ohio, West Virginia and Oregon.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won endorsements from the Illinois and Indiana chapters, which have about 170,000 members.
Oct 16, 2007 at 5:45 AM by Political Chase
Mr. President, can you hear me now?
Verizon has confirmed to Congress that it has had an open-door policy with the Bush administration — providing any information requested by “federal authorities,” regardless of whether the requests were accompanied by a court order or not. Although Verizon categorized National Security Letter (NSL) requests as subpoenas, technically and legally they are not the same. In fact, a federal judge recently ruled that NSL’s are a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and thereby unconstitutional.
Verizon Communications…told congressional investigators that it has provided customers’ telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005.
Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas, sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but all the people that customer called, as well as the people those people called. Verizon does not keep data on this “two-generation community of interest” for customers, but the request highlights the broad reach of the government’s quest for data.
From January 2005 to September 2007, Verizon provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times…The records included Internet protocol addresses as well as phone data. In that period, Verizon turned over information a total of 94,000 times to federal authorities armed with a subpoena or court order.
Now, this is where things get very interesting — in other words, all the lies of the past and the enormous scope of lawbreaking merge.
First, why did Verizon provide records beginning in January 2005, rather than back to 2001? The Times exposed Bush’s illegal wiretapping program on December 16, 2005, but had evidence of the program for approximately one year before reporting it, which would reasonably parallel the period covered by Verizon. Is that mere coincidence?
The Bush administration has been using NSL’s at an increasing rate since the Patriot Act was passed in 2001. In March of this year, a Justice Department Inspector General issued a scathing report stating that since 9/11, the FBI had issued more than 20,000 NSL’s each year, and the demand increased with each year. Moreover, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified in March, that the FBI had issued 142,000 NSL’s between 2003 and 2005.
It is important to remember that the majority of information discussed thus far as well as the information provide by Verizon is specific to the FBI, and not the NSA. Furthermore, Verizon is the only company that has cooperated, and that is on a limited basis.
Last week, the Times reported that AT&T began development of a monitoring center for the NSA seven months before 9/11 that would ““give the N.S.A. direct, unlimited, unrestricted and unfettered access to phone call information and Internet traffic on AT&T’s network.” And today the Times is reporting that the “three biggest phone carriers have refused to tell members of Congress what role, if any, they had in the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program.”
So, if we take into consideration all that we know about Verizon, the FBI, and what we don’t know about the other companies including their refusal to even discuss the NSA’s wiretapping activities, is it not reasonable to assume the NSA is complicit? Not according to DNI Mike McConnell. He testified on September 18 that no Americans had been spied upon without a court order and that there were only a few Americans that had been spied upon “legally.”
Listen to what he told House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers less than one month ago.
Are we really supposed to believe that?
