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Amanda marks the expiration of the PATRIOT Act appointees as USA. These 11 prosecutors now “find themselves at the mercy of the same U.S. district courts that the Justice Department saw fit to cut out of the U.S. Attorney appointmentprocess last year.” The courts today will decide whether to reappointthese prosecutors who were handpicked by Gonzales and the White House.

The documents made available by the RMN yesterday provide more details about what the NSA and other government agencies have been doing with fiber optic networks--but it's still not exactly clear what those documents show. As a preliminary, I'm going to try to put the contents of this CIPA filing into a coherent chronology, to clarify some of the issues.

As you've probably already sussed out, the transcript from the Jill Simpson interview with HJC is must-read scandal porn. In it, Simpson clearly states that Rove got involved in the Siegelman prosecution and talked to Public Integrity at DOJ in doing so. But there's another bit I'd like to look at closely, which the majority counsel uses to establish that Rob Riley had an extensive relationship with Simpson and that

Scout prime hasn't forgotten NOLA, even if George Bush has. Today, she's encouraging people to donate to a fund helping out a NOLA family that has lost its house twice--once in Katrina, and once through a terrible accident. Two weeks ago I postedabout the Joseph family who lost their Lower 9th Ward home for thesecond time.

ThinkProgress got the email that Mitch McConnell's staffer claimed he had not sent out. Seen the latest blogswarm? Apparently, there’s more to the story on thekid (Graeme Frost) that did the Dems’ radio response on SCHIP. Bloggershave done a little digging and turned up that the Dad owns his ownbusiness (and the building it’s in), seems to have some commercialrental income and Graeme and a sister go to a private school that,according

Josh asks "why State?" of all departments, has such a fondness for contractors in general and Blackwater in particular. I've got two suggestions, one based on reality and one on my tinfoil hat. First, if you look back at the battle between DOD and State in 2003--in which Bush had officially sided with Colin Powell on the approach to reconstruct Iraq, but in which DOD and OVP managed to at least undermine

Or at least that's one thing we might surmise from the news that Gonzales hired George Terwilliger to represent him just after he resigned (h/t bmaz). No sooner did Alberto Gonzales resign as attorney general last monththan he retained a high-powered Washington criminal-defense lawyer torepresent him in continuing inquiries by Congress and the JusticeDepartment. [snip] The top concern for Gonzales, and now Terwilliger, is the expandinginvestigation by Glenn Fine, the Justice Department’s fiercelyindependent inspector

Remember when Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face and then attempted to cover it up by reporting it through the local press? Well, Dan Bartlett wants you to know that that whole cover-up was Dick's idea demand. Then there was the time Cheney shot his pal during a hunting accident in Texas."We couldn't get hold of him for quite a bit of time," Bartlett said."They were strategizing on their

In his post on the latest Bush exposure of counter-terrorism resources, Noah Schachtman links to this long profile on the woman and firm exposed by BushCo. Two things stick out from the article: Taking two staff members from the Investigative Project, Katz set upher own office. She got by on small government contracts.