Another One Bites The Dust

Former Tom Delay aide Tony Rudy plead guilty today to felony conspiracy, and will testify against others in the ongoing Abramoff investigation.

Rudy got a deal he couldn't refuse by the prosecution, it will spare his wife Lisa from prosecution. Lisa Rudy had ran Liberty Consulting, which frequently worked with Abramoff.

Look for indictments and pleas to pick up pace in the Abramoff investigation as in his and partner Adam Kidan's sentencing it was noted that they would remain free for ninety days to cooperate with investigators before starting their prison sentences. I'd say investigators have quite a few of these cases sewn up pretty tight.

Fucking It Up

In the run up to the Iraq war, one of the bigger reasons I opposed the war, and there were several reason, was that this administration was, and is, in no way, shape, or form, competent enough to prosecute it. I knew they couldn't help but fuck it up.

Today, in London, Condoleezza Rice admitted as much. From Reuters:

"Yes, I know we have made tactical errors, thousands of them," she [Rice] said in answer to a question over whether lessons had been learned since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Yes, that's very true, and unfortunately, a lot of those errors cannot be simply corrected. Look, out invasion of Iraq very much resembled an elephant breaking and then trying to repair a pocket watch. Very heavy on force, but unable to grasp the pieces to put it back together. In fact, an elephant could have probably written a better post-war strategy if a large enough keyboard could have been found. That leads us to Rumsfeld.

If Rice is out there saying these things, the writing is probably on the wall for Rumsfeld. I had read somewhere that Bolten's first job would be to can Rumsfeld, Rice's statements now lead me to believe that to be true.

The Expanding Line

How hard in the wind blowing in the republican's faces? The Fix over at the Washington Post has decided to expand their Friday list of the ten most likely House seats to change hands to twenty races. Democrats hod the edge in picking up fifteen of those seat.

AS bad as things are going for republicans, things could be a lot worse. A mild winter kept them out of the home heating costs crosshairs. Yes, heating costs were up this year, but a harsh winter would have sent those costs to a breaking point, and unlike Iraq, voters would have gotten to see the money coming out of their pockets in an up close and personal manner with only a republican led Congress to vent their frustrations on. They luckily avoided a winter of discontent.

Actually, the republicans have benefited from mild winters the last couple of cycles. Lucky them.

Of course, as nature giveth, she also taketh away. This coming hurricane season is forecast to be as bad as last year's, which should put voters in a Katrina state of mind as they go to the polls with fresh memories of this year's storms, and hopefully, only reminders of last year's failures.

Kaloogian From Afar (Not Tel Afar)

Howard Kaloogian has replaced the picture of Istanbul with this actual picture of Baghdad (we think) on his campaign web site. Pretty up close and personal, huh.

Pic found at TPM.

When We Come A Knockin'

The excellent Iraqi blogger Riverbend, when she has electricity, is reporting that Iraqi television has been running this PSA from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. From Riverbend:

“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.”

This statement tells us a couple of things about the state of security in Iraq.

First, it tells us that the burgeoning Iraqi security forces we've been hearing about for the last couple of years must be afraid of the dark. It's clear that these security forces don't go out after the sun goes down without taking the Americans along as a nightlight.

Second, it tells us that if you do see them out at night alone, they either can't be trusted, or it isn't them. Who knows how many militia members wonder the streets at night posing as security forces.

I do have to wonder though, if a group of heavily armed men show up at your door claiming to be the police or army without coalition forces to guide them, what the hell do you do? I guess you just hope they don't kill you.

While I semi-regularly read Riverbend, I found this post courtesy of Mr. Turk.

Jill Carroll Released

CNN is reporting that Jill Carroll has been released unharmed.

Update 6:29AM: Maybe

Update 7:29AM: It's official. What happened at 6:30 is that CNN correspondent Nic Robertson stopped short of saying that she had been turned over to the Americans. He would only say that she was in the correct hands to be released.

Do Not Pass Go

Jack Abramoff and Adam Kidan were each sentenced to seventy months in prison today for their role in the SunCruz deal. It's part of a larger plea deal, so we will have to wait to find out how long each of them will have to spend at the Gray Bar Hotel.

Kaloogian Is A Fool Again

Howard Kaloogian, who is running to replace Duke Cunningham in the CA-50 special election, put this picture on his campaign website to show voters how relatively restive Baghdad actually is. You know, to get through the filter of Big Media which only tells us the bad news in Iraq. One problem though, it's a picture of the Istanbul suburb Bakirkoy. With an army of millions of bloggers, diarists, and readers, what makes people think they can get away with this stuff anymore?

Hat tips to AnthonyLA for finding the picture and to jem6x for solving the riddle of the picture's location.

Influencing Iraq

The Bush administration simply does not understand foreign policy. The latest example of that comes in the form of President Bush telling the Iraqis that he doesn't want Ibrahim al-Jaafari to continue as Prime Minister once (if ever) the new government is formed. From The New York Times:

The ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting on Saturday to pass on a "personal message from President Bush" to the interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said Redha Jowad Taki, a Shiite member of Parliament who was at the meeting.

Mr. Khalilzad said Mr. Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. Jaafari as the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc. It was the first "clear and direct message" from the Americans on a specific candidate for prime minister, Mr. Taki said.

Unless this is a case of bait and paste diplomacy, and it doesn't seem to be, you have to wonder what the hell Bush could possibly be thinking. Now that this has become public, and it was always going to become public, al-Jaafari will have a lot more juice to try to stay on as Prime Minister for the new government. Anyone replacing him would be viewed as a puppet for Bush, and any Minister of Parliament voting for a replacement will be viewed as a pawns.

What's worse, I don't think al-Jaafari had much of a chance of retaining this spot anyway, but now if he is seen as being pushed out by the Bush administration, it will likely set of violence between the Madhi Army and the Badr Brigade as al-Jaafari is backed by Muqtada al-Sadr and Abdul Mahdi, who is the most logical replacement, is backed by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI. It should be noted that the US went to al-Hakim with the demand for the removal of al-Jaafari.

Sadr's Madhi Army and al-Hakim's Badr Brigade have fueded for years and this might be the flashpoint that starts an open civil war in Iraq.

Kadima Wins Israeli Parliamentary Elections

A couple of years ago, I told some friends that I didn't think that the Middle East peace process would ever make much progress until Ariel Sharon and Yassar Arafat were dead. More recently I had changed my mind about Sharon, but I had become less certain that his new movement would move forward after Sharon slipped into a coma so close to the controversial evacuation of the Gaza Strip, but yesterday's elections gave a victory to Sharon's Kadima party, a win that should help move the peace process forward. It was a pretty bad defeat for the hard-line right Likud party, who finished fifth.

With Kadima leading the way and Ehud Olmert remaining Prime Minister, the evacuation of most of the West Bank will proceed, which is going to be ugly as there eight times as many families there as there was in Gaza. Still, it will happen.

After the evacuation, Hamas needs to make the next step towards peace, but that is going to be unlikely as long as Israel is withholding the Palestinian's legally due monthly tax and customs duties. Israel needs to reconstitute those payments, and Hamas needs to in return, recognize Israel's right to exist.

Immigration As A Wedge Issue

I don't see the immigration bill as approved by the Judiciary Committee as much of a wedge issue for the 2006 elections. There has been a lot of talk that this issue will fracture the republican coalition. I don't think so and here's why.

In a way, both factions of the republican party got what they wanted if the bill passes as the committee approved it. Big business will still have access to cheap labor, and the conservative right will, well, they still get to be angry, and sometimes I think they relish that more than ever having a chance to implement the policies they trumpet.

The conservative right aren't going to vote for Democrats any time soon, and, at least in the Senate, there aren't any viable primary challengers to the republican incumbents. The only Senate race this could potentially effect would be the DeWine / Brown match up in Ohio as DeWine sided with the Democrats in committee, but I don't think it will. With Ken Blackwell probably heading up the statewide ticket, those voter are still going to turnout, and they are more likely to pull the lever for DeWine than Brown or than not at all. There may be some House races this effects, but I haven't looked at that yet.

The one thing that will hurt the republicans over this deal is that they came out looking very bad as a party to Hispanics. They will probably lose some of the inroads they have made in the past few years among Hispanic voters. Will it be enough to turn the tide? I don't know, but it won't break up the traditional conservative block.

Andrew Card Resigns

Andy Card out as White House Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten will replace him. I wouldn't characterize this as much of a shake up in the White House staff. It's more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Nothing in the way of new blood, and with Card out of the way, Rove should reign supreme in the West Wing.

Card will fall just short of being the longest ever serving White House Chief of Staff. That honor belongs to Sherman Adams, the Chief of Staff for Dwight Eisenhower. Adams was forced to resign after accepting a vicuna fur coat from a textile manufacturer that was being investigated by the federal government. Times sure have changed, huh?

MANPADS And Commercial Airlines

ABC News has a story up today about a pet peeve of mine. It's the failure to do anything about the threat of shoulder fired missiles (MANPADS) hitting commercial airliners. The fact that we haven't done anything about this threat is beyond ridiculous, because the simple fact is, if one shoulder fired missile hits one commercial airliner ever, that's it for the airline industry. It's done.

How much will it cost to retrofit the current commercial fleet? An embarrassingly small $10 billion dollars. You may think that's a lot of money, and it is, but the inevitable collapse of air travel if someone manages to bring down an airliner in the United States would cost the country as much as a hundred times that amount of money in lost travel and tourism.

We all saw what kind of hit the economy took after 9/11. This would be much, much worse, and the bottom line is that after it happened we'd have to retrofit the fleet anyway or nobody would ever fly again. We should be proactive about this and do it now.

The only question is who is going to pay for it. The airlines just don't have the money to do it, and government intervention is going to lead to every other business with terrorist threats coming to the US government for a handout rather than pay their own way.

The solution has got to come in the form of long term government backed loans to the airlines to be paid for with say, a $5 surcharge per ticket sold. I'd pay that to keep my ass from being blown out of the sky, wouldn't you?

Bye Bye Anti-American Guy

Well, if there was any doubt that Zacarias Moussaoui would get the death penalty, his testimony most assuredly erased that doubt. Moussaoui testified that he was to be in charge of flying a fifth plane into the White House on 9/11. From The Washington Post:

Testifying at his own death-penalty trial, over the objections of his attorneys, Moussaoui said he had not known the precise date the attacks were to take place, but that he knew they would involve the White House, the World Trade Center and other targets.

He said he was supposed to head a five-man crew that also would have included Richard Reid, a British citizen who tried to set off explosives in his shoes aboard a transatlantic flight two months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Moussaoui's attorneys simply sat back and shook their heads as he discredited pretty much their entire case. According to NPR, even the prosecutors were stunned to hear Moussaoui admit to being a part of the 9/11 conspiracy after he has denied it up to now.

I'd say he's a dead man.

Rove Thowing Cheney Under The Bus?

Whether he's doing it out of disdain for the VP, or to save his own sorry ass, it more and more appears that Karl Rove is trying to throw Dick Cheney under the bus. Rove has been cooperating with Patrick Fitzgerald in the Valerie Plame case and is reported to be the one who led Fitzgerald to the missing 250 pages of e-mail from the Vice President's office. From Raw Story:

According to one source close to the case, Rove is providing information on deleted emails, erased hard drives and other types of obstruction by staff and other officials in the Vice President's office. Pentagon sources close to Rove confirmed this account.

None would name the staffers and/or officials whom Rove is providing information about. They did, however, explain that the White House computer system has "real time backup" servers and that while emails were deleted from computers, they were still retrievable from the backup system. By providing the dates and recipient information of the deleted emails, sources say, Rove was able to chart a path for Fitzgerald directly into the office of the Vice President.

As any rat does, Rove denies a deal had been made through his lawyer, which is refuted by Raw Story's source. Also from Raw Story:

"Your story is false and utterly without foundation," he said. "There has never been any discussion of any deal of any kind involving Mr. Rove. His cooperation has at all times been voluntary and unconditional."

One of the sources close to the investigation said he was not surprised by Luskin's response.

"That would be difficult for Rove to admit," the source said. "I think Rove is now considered a special cooperating witness."

I always thought dough boy looked like a fink.

Delay's Concealed Carry License Revoked

Karma, bitches!

Found via Raw Story

Times Gets The Memo

The New York Times has now aquired the memo that proves that Bush was going to attack Iraq whether Iraq had banned weapons or not. From the Times:

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."

Now, this really isn't news to me, I knew from the get go that this administration was going to attack Iraq, period. It is long past time for Big Media to start to figure that out as well.

The War And The Middle

A few days ago I wrote that President Bush has already spent all of his political capital and is now spending the republican Congress' capital on the Iraq war. An article in the LA Times seems to confirm that statement, particularly among right leaning centrists in the country. From the Times:

As Liz Larrison cooks up breakfast for customers at her family's diner in a farm town long friendly to the Republican Party, she listens as the regulars sling political opinions as easily as she slings ham steaks.

Increasingly, the talk these days revolves around Iraq, and it is the kind of talk that could spell trouble for the GOP.

Nobody is against the people fighting the war. I think you'll hear that everywhere," she said. "We're just against it going on and on."

On top of other woes confronting Republicans, the continuing violence in Iraq and President Bush's message last week that the deployment would last several more years has heightened Republicans' concerns about how voters such as Larrison will view the party in the November elections.

In fact, Larrison — who, like many of her customers, considers herself independent but tends to vote for Republicans — says she will vote against her Republican congressman.

Keep in mind, this story takes place in southern Indiana, a pretty conservative part of the country.

Found via Kevin Drum

More Plagiarism

Looks like we have another instance of plagiarism on our hands, and this time it isn't some right wing blogger nobody ever heard of. Russian President Vladimir Putin plagiarized his doctoral thesis from a study written in the 1970's at the University of Pittsburgh. From News.com.au:

According to Clifford G. Gaddy, a senior fellow at Brookings, 16 of the 20 pages that open a key section of Mr Putin's work were copied either word for word or with minute alterations from a management study, Strategic Planning and Policy, by US professors William King and David Cleland. The study was translated into Russian by a KGB-related institute in the early 1990s.

The Washington Times reported that six diagrams and tables from the 218-page thesis also appeared to "mimic" similar charts in the US work.

The newspaper quoted Mr Gaddy as saying: "There's no question in my mind that this would be plagiarism."

It's been a bad week for Putin, who is now thought to have given the Iraqis a copy of the United States' invasion plan.

Had Enough?

Newt Gingrich echoes the sentiments that Charlie Cook said today on the Sunday talkies in tomorrow's issue of Time. From Time:

Newt Gingrich, who masterminded the 1994 elections that brought Republicans to power on promises of revolutionizing the way Washington is run, told Time that his party has so bungled the job of governing that the best campaign slogan for Democrats today could be boiled down to just two words: "Had enough?"

All of the people who are out there saying that the Democrats should have already presented a plan for what they will do if elected are wrong. Right now, we need to keep bashing them over their myriad of problems. Cook said today that it probably isn't a good idea politically for the minority party to present such a plan at this time. He's right. Had enough is good enough this early in the campaign season.

The article also says that if the election was held today, strategists from both parties conclude they would lose the House and looks at the difficulties facing republican incumbents have with a unpopular president.

The bottom line is, look for a lot of airport fundraisers. House and Senate members want the money Bush can raise, they just don't want to be seen with him. This paragraph from the article contains three money quotes as to the dangers of actively trying to distance themselves from Bush. From Time:

But party leaders are warning privately against taking that strategy too far. "If Diet Coke criticizes Coke, people buy Pepsi, not Diet Coke," said Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee. In an internal Republican Party memo provided to Time, Jan van Lohuizen, a longtime Bush pollster, warns candidates tempted to distance themselves that "President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. If he drops, we all drop." Another Republican strategist describes the problem for g.o.p. candidates this way: "Adding weight to the anchor doesn't help them."

Rock, meet hard place.