For Dems only.

[BigSqwert]

Lord Vader ailing:

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney made a visit to the hospital today after experiencing what his office called some "discomfort" following his recent trip overseas.

 

A statement from cheney's office said an ultrasound revealed a deep venous thrombosis (DVT) or " blood clot" in his left lower leg and added his doctors will treat him with blood thinning medication for several months.

 

According to the vice president's office, Cheney "experienced mild calf discomfort" and in light of his recent prolonged air travel, he visited his doctor's office at the George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates this afternoon.

[BigSqwert]

Economic performance index comparing Bill Clinton and George W Bush:

 

 

 

Check out the methodology here: ARTICLE

[StrangeSox]

Well, I will admit, this is vastly more amusing and less annoying than the stupid attempted Clinton/Obama dust-up a week ago. E&P.

 

 

Why does anyone pay attention to her? She just spouts off inflammatory crap to get attention/ book sales/ media time. She doesn't add anything to the debate and is just a huge b**** in general.

[Rex Kickass]

She does stump for candidates. Just watch next year.

[Balta1701]

So, while everyone has been distracted by Libby being found guilty, the House and Senate have been holding their first hearings on the dismissal of 8 Federal Prosecutors and their replacement by Bush Cronies. There are so many posts it's hard to link to any specific one, but TPM and Associated sites have been following this story from the get-go.

 

Here's a brief summary of the skeleton of what we've learned so far:

Having barely begun the investigation, we've already found a member of the House, the Chief of Staff of a member of the House Ethics committee and a senior United States senator making inappropriate calls to US Attorneys trying to get them to push indictments against Democrats. And both of the US Attorneys in question were subsequently fired.

[Balta1701]

The Senate has passed by a narrow majority a bill to enact the majority of the remaining 9/11 commission reccomendations. The bill is similar to one passed by the House in the Dems 100 hours burst.

 

The fun part? President Bush has threatened to veto this bill, on the grounds that it gives the 45000 TSA screeners the same rights to unionize as other Federal workers.

 

In other words, the Dems may have set Mr. Bush up to use his 2nd veto, and to have him use it on a bill reforming anti-terrorism efforts to be more in line with the 9/11 commission suggestions.

 

This oughta be fun.

[FlaSoxxJim]

The Senate has passed by a narrow majority a bill to enact the majority of the remaining 9/11 commission reccomendations. The bill is similar to one passed by the House in the Dems 100 hours burst.

 

The fun part? President Bush has threatened to veto this bill, on the grounds that it gives the 45000 TSA screeners the same rights to unionize as other Federal workers.

 

In other words, the Dems may have set Mr. Bush up to use his 2nd veto, and to have him use it on a bill reforming anti-terrorism efforts to be more in line with the 9/11 commission suggestions.

 

This oughta be fun.

 

This is where I wish the President did have his line item veto to see if the TSA screener portion was the only provision of the bill he objected to. Somehow, I highly doubt it.

[Balta1701]

This is where I wish the President did have his line item veto to see if the TSA screener portion was the only provision of the bill he objected to. Somehow, I highly doubt it.

The idea behind every line-item veto proposal I've seen at the national level, including the one Clinton had, was that it was to be used only on budgetary items, which as far as I can tell this is not.

[FlaSoxxJim]

The idea behind every line-item veto proposal I've seen at the national level, including the one Clinton had, was that it was to be used only on budgetary items, which as far as I can tell this is not.

 

The the speculation is a moot point on multiple levels then. We'll just have to see what he says about the bill in his signing statement if/when he signs it.

[jackie hayes]

The the speculation is a moot point on multiple levels then. We'll just have to see what he says about the bill in his signing statement if/when he signs it.

"The Executive Branch shall construe this right to organize as the ability to have a superfun TSA club consisting of the right to collectively negotiate the date of an annual pizza party, as well as discounted captain's wings."

[Texsox]

We only support that freedom if you are not a US government employee Remember Reagan and the air traffic controllers? He's wiping away tears over the brave Solidarity workers in Poland as he's firing the scum strikers here

[Balta1701]

Senator Domenici lawyers up in the ethics/US Attorney firing case.

 

And, here's the fun...one of the US attorneys casually removed last winter was Carol Lam, who ran the Duke Cunningham investigation. The lawyer Domenici hired...Duke Cunningham's attorney. Wheeeee!

[NorthSideSox72]

Senator Domenici lawyers up in the ethics/US Attorney firing case.

 

And, here's the fun...one of the US attorneys casually removed last winter was Carol Lam, who ran the Duke Cunningham investigation. The lawyer Domenici hired...Duke Cunningham's attorney. Wheeeee!

Domenici has made a political career of attacking other people (even more so than others ). He's pretty scummy. Good to see he's being called on it.

[Soxy]

Conservapedia

[NorthSideSox72]

Conservapedia

As if Wikipedia wasn't already misleading enough...

 

And, wait, some explain this one to me... Christianity inspired the Renaissance? I'm really asking, not being facetious. That just goes against what I thought was the case.

 

This whole "with us or against us" mentality that this country has fallen into makes me ill. It reeks of the first stages of fascism.

[FlaSoxxJim]

As if Wikipedia wasn't already misleading enough...

 

And, wait, some explain this one to me... Christianity inspired the Renaissance? I'm really asking, not being facetious. That just goes against what I thought was the case.

 

Short-hand answer, I'd agree that there was certainly a circular pattern of co-inspiration between Christianity and what was happening with the rest of the Renaissance, especially in Italy.

 

More to the point perhaps, Christianity and Christiandom absolutely underwrote much of the Renaissance from a financial perspective, through patronage by the Vatican or by the very overtly Christian Medici family (who themselves produced a couple of popes).

 

Another Christian inspiration of note - not meant to be facetious either - is that much of the scientific and mathematical advances that would be central components of the Renaissance were very much import products that Christian Europeans brought back from the Islamic world during and after the Crusades.

[Balta1701]

CAP has a couple of notable Clinton Admin. names on the record talking about the difference between the usual change-over of Federal Prosecutors at the start of an administration and what the Bush Administration has done here.

Mr. Rove’s claims today that the Bush administration’s purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is “normal and ordinary” is pure fiction. Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in — as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 — is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution. These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.

 

We’re used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures. Apparently, it’s also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.

That's former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta

and here's Mary Jo White, who served as a U.S. Attorney from 1993-2002.

You serve at the president’s pleasure, no question about that. … However, throughout modern history, my understanding is, you did not change the U.S. attorney during an administration, unless there was some evidence of misconduct or other really quite significant cause to do so. And the expectation was, so long as that was absent, that you would serve out your full four years or eight years as U.S. attorney.

[NorthSideSox72]

CAP has a couple of notable Clinton Admin. names on the record talking about the difference between the usual change-over of Federal Prosecutors at the start of an administration and what the Bush Administration has done here.

That's former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta

and here's Mary Jo White, who served as a U.S. Attorney from 1993-2002.

So in other words, political stupidity was happening before, but BushCo just took it to higher and even more scuzzy levels. That sounds about right.

[Balta1701]

So in other words, political stupidity was happening before, but BushCo just took it to higher and even more scuzzy levels. That sounds about right.

No, in other words...administrations usually hired people to fill those roles when they came into office, and fired them with cause, to be replaced by competent folks who are approved by the Senate. But with the Patriot Act, the Bush Admin. was given permission to fill those jobs with temporary employees without having to get Senate approval. And thus, they decided that a good motivation to fire those people was either that they were prosecuting too many Republicans compared to Democrats or that some of the Bush Admin's friends wanted a couple years in a plum spot on their resumes. The politically-motivated mid-term removals of these folks is what Depodesta et al. are claiming is unprecedented.

 

The White House as a whole probably didn't do anything illegal, but that's only because the law is so weak as to not cover what they actually did. Except of course for Alberto Gonzalez a couple weeks ago testifying under oath before Congress that there was no political motivation at all behind the firings, which there are witnesses to contradict, so someone is lying there.

 

Anyway, if nothing else, it's a pretty clear ethics violation to have members of the House and Senate contacting and pressuring US Attorneys regarding cases that they were investigating, so there's at least 3 or so people who need to spend some time before their respective ethics committees, which is why Domenici is already lawyered up.

Edited March 8, 2007 by Balta1701

[NorthSideSox72]

No, in other words...administrations usually hired people to fill those roles when they came into office, and fired them with cause, to be replaced by competent folks who are approved by the Senate. But with the Patriot Act, the Bush Admin. was given permission to fill those jobs with temporary employees without having to get Senate approval. And thus, they decided that a good motivation to fire those people was either that they were prosecuting too many Republicans compared to Democrats or that some of the Bush Admin's friends wanted a couple years in a plum spot on their resumes. The politically-motivated mid-term removals of these folks is what Depodesta et al. are claiming is unprecedented.

 

The White House as a whole probably didn't do anything illegal, but that's only because the law is so weak as to not cover what they actually did. Except of course for Alberto Gonzalez a couple weeks ago testifying under oath before Congress that there was no political motivation at all behind the firings, which there are witnesses to contradict, so someone is lying there.

 

Anyway, if nothing else, it's a pretty clear ethics violation to have members of the House and Senate contacting and pressuring US Attorneys regarding cases that they were investigating, so there's at least 3 or so people who need to spend some time before their respective ethics committees, which is why Domenici is already lawyered up.

Oh I agree that Domenici's actions were ethics violations, like I said earlier. But the firings are just more poorly timed is all. It was stupid before, and now its both stupid and insulting.

[Balta1701]

Oh I agree that Domenici's actions were ethics violations, like I said earlier. But the firings are just more poorly timed is all. It was stupid before, and now its both stupid and insulting.

If nothing else, its almost certainly going to lead to a revision of that clause that Specter slipped into the Patriot Act allowing unlimited appointments of replacement attorneys without Senate approval, and that's something.

[Balta1701]

The NY Firefighters on Rudy.

[Rex Kickass]

I read that last night and was pretty floored. When "America's Mayor" can't get an invite to a bipartisan presidential forum because of his actions post-9/11 towards NYC Firefighters, I'd worry about his legit chances to win the election.

 

In other news, Gingrich admitted this week that he was having an affair while attempting to get Clinton kicked out of office regarding the fury over his sex scandal.

[BigSqwert]

In other news, Gingrich admitted this week that he was having an affair while attempting to get Clinton kicked out of office regarding the fury over his sex scandal.

And how many posts did we see in the Al Gore thread calling him a hypocrite?

[EvilMonkey]

And how many posts did we see in the Al Gore thread calling him a hypocrite?

Go back and read it, eagle-eye. I mentioned Newt's hypocrisy when comparing his to Al. Nice try.