Heh heh heh. They’re so cute when they’re culpable. Via Julia:
As the Abramoff-Scanlon lobbying scandal unfolds with greater speed, congressional Republican advisers are urging leadership officials to call on those linked to it to consider resigning long before the 2006 midterm elections.
“They should step aside now,” said one adviser with ties to the House Republican […]

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Ah, the high life…

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This is very interesting:
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, apparently nettled by the Justice Department’s shift in position on terrorism suspect Jose Padilla, refused on Wednesday to order his immediate release from military custody and threatened to cast aside its ruling in the government’s favor in the case.
In a surprise order, responding to a Department […]

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From firedoglake:
According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous because they don’t want to be identified (got that from a WaPo article on Paris & Nicole yesterday and I’ve been dying to use it — good one, huh?) Viveca Novak is indeed being called to testify before Fitzgerald at Luskin’s request. Rumor has it […]

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From Josh:
Reader comment …
You’ve sort of hinted at this, but what’s truly amazing about the attempts to paint this corruption as equally applicable to both parties is this: The essence of the K Street strategy pioneered by DeLay and Norquist and run today by Blount and Santorum is to deny Democratic politicians the chance to […]

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Billmon has some intriguing thoughts on the Lincoln Group, the company that’s planting PR pieces in the Iraqi press in exchange for cash:
If you go back and read my original post, you’ll see my interest in Lincoln Group was less because of its propaganda and disinformation work in Iraq, and more because of a few […]

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And of course, the man who said this will get canned.

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Really, someone should help Tony Blair break out of his S&M relationship with Bush:
The US has dismissed a suggestion from UK Prime Minister Tony Blair that it may be prepared to sign up to binding targets to tackle climate change. Speaking at UN climate talks in Canada, the US chief negotiator said his nation would […]

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Honestly, I don’t give a damn about a judge’s personal opinions - as long as he or she applies the law fairly. (I mean, I dated a judge who was a drunken asshole. But he did a good job anyway.)
But when it comes to scumbag Republican operatives, we can assume from history that their […]

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Duncan was just going on and on at DL last night about how good this show is. “It’s really about Republicans and how evil they are,” he said.
“So it’s a documentary,” I said.
“Yeah. Except with zombies,” he said.
It’s directed by Joe “Gremlins” Dante. You may want to check it out Friday night on Showtime. […]

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Marty Goldensohn, who drops by DL on occasion, is teaching a group of Swarthmore College students how to investigate, write and produce articles and podcasts on the Iraq war for War News Radio.
Now he’s trying to get the school to give students credit for their work. Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

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Had an unexpected encounter yesterday with someone I’d wronged in the past, and got the chance to offer my sincere apologies. She was so gracious. She thanked me and told me she didn’t really blame me, she knew someone else had influenced me in an unscrupulous way.
It felt great to get that weight off my […]

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Stan Berenstain, 86, author of the Berenstain Bears books for children.

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Here’s the shiny new and improved Iraq policy Bubble Boy will announce later today. It sounds more like one of those marketing-strategy rollouts, though. I wonder why?
Like most marketing plans, it sounds suspiciously like a wishful-thinking list. “And then we’ll have enough money for a pony!”
UPDATE: Matt checks in with his take:
… Iraq […]

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Doesn’t this sound suspiciously like judicial activism?
Washington — A little-noticed provision in the massive House budget bill would fulfill the longtime goal of conservatives to split the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, creating a new 12th circuit appellate court and allowing President Bush to name a slate of new federal […]

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Your lapdog press in action! Oh, come on, New York Times. Why not call a spade a spade? This is a Republican corruption problem. The Democrats, after all, have no influence left to peddle. Why are you protecting them?
They wanted all the power, let them deal with the bad press:
“Concerned that the stain of” […]

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I love articles like this. In fact, I’m linking to it to make sure I can find it later. [Via Blinq.]

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I really don’t know why anyone’s shocked about this. I mean, BushCo is the ultimate marketing operation:
WASHINGTON — As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
The […]

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WashPo columnist Anne Applebaum makes my head hurt. I can’t believe she gets paid all that money for what amounts to quoting the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz” - “Some people say journalists shouldn’t use so many anonymous sources, but some folks say they’re really, really important to have, and I just don’t know […]

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Looks like the Torture Regime is being called on the carpet by the EU:
The Bush administration pledged yesterday to respond to a formal inquiry from the European Union over reports of covert CIA prisons for al Qaeda captives in Eastern Europe, acknowledging for the first time that the controversy over the secret prison system has […]

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What they always miss in stories like this is pretty glaring - which is, the more centralized commerce is, the more vulnerable our economy becomes to cyberterrorism. Someone might want to give that some thought.
I mean, am I supposed to have faith that they can make Windows sufficiently secure to allow all my important data […]

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The EXCITING NEW PLAN FOR VICTORY IN IRAQ had us all a-buzzin’ at DL last night, and I know we can’t wait to hear what our president is going to announce today. Although maybe it doesn’t bode too well that they weren’t finished writing it yesterday. You’d kind of hope they’d put a little more […]

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Jordan tells us about two rare wins for the good guys - prosecutors charging employers for employee deaths on felony charges instead of the much weaker OSHA regulations. He concludes:
As far as I’m concerned, every single trenching and confined space death should automatically be referred to state or local prosecutors for felony manslaughter and […]

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My dear friend is leaving tomorrow to start a new life in Venezuela and we all gathered at DL tonight to see her off. I’m going to miss her terribly. But she promises she’ll email faithfully.
There is at least a small silver lining: she left me her spare keys, which means I’ll be able to […]

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Imagine that:
Poll conducted in the aftermath of 2005 races in Va., N.J., Ohio & Calif. highlight reasons voters cast ballots.
George W. Bush’s current low approval ratings were a major factor in defeats handed to Republican candidates and initiatives sponsored by the Republican governor of the nation’s most populous state, surveys conducted in key 2005 battlegrounds […]

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