Entries by emptywheel

The Purpose of Homeland Security

Silly GAO! Silly bloggers! The purpose of the Department of Homeland Security is not to gather together all the resources of homeland security in one coordinated whole. The purpose of DHS is not to improve off of our performance on 9/11. And so you really shouldn’t worry too much about any silly little GAO report.

The GAO states that after the largest government merger in more thanhalf a century, the DHS met

No Senators Knew

There are a number of details that make Sidney Blumenthal’s latest appear to be a happy coincidence of timing. Just after Bush biographer Robert Draper reports that Bush still claims to have believed–in April 2006–that Iraq had WMD, Blumenthal comes out with an article tying up a lot of loose ends on Saddam Hussein’s Foreign Minister, Naji al-Sabri, proving Bush was briefed that Saddam did not have WMD.

On Sept.

Somebody to Fire!!!!

I’m thrilled with the news that George Bush just gave Barry Jackson a promotion.

Yesterday, President Bush named Barry Jackson to be Peter Wehnher’s replacement to run the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives.Jackson was the major White House strategist behind Bush’s failedSocial Security privatization ploy, and was one of the White Houseemployees discovered to be using RNC email accounts to e-mail an associate of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

That’s because just

Republicans Back Sound Minimization Oversight

I’m watching HJC’s first hearing on FISA Amendment, and I think the Republicans may be giving us a superb opportunity to address one of the big problems of the FISA Amendment.

You see, the Republicans have no fucking clue that the reason McConnell chose the Republican bill over the Democratic one is because it removed all oversight over minimization.

Thus far–and at 12:04 we’ve only had questions from 3 Republicans–Dan Lungren has already

The Decider on Iran

Aside from the boorishness of discussing more war with bread crumbs all over your chin, Bush’s pathetic simplification of our relationship with Iran–in a monologue he calls “strategic thinking”–is pretty alarming, even coming from Bush.

“The job of the president,” he continued, through an ample wad of breadand sausage, “is to think strategically so that you can accomplish bigobjectives.

Scottish Haggis and Wide Stance

Josh and his reader ask WTF is up with Arlen’s support for Larry Craig.

TPM Reader BR wonders about Arlen: “What the hell isSpecter thinking? Is he trying to destroy the Republican party? Nothingcould be worse for them then drawing this out or attracting any furtherattention to the situation. Or did Specter offer friendly encouragementnot thinking Craig would take him seriously?

GAO Report: The Status of the Dispute

Okay, here’s the Karen DeYoung report I was so impatient for yesterday. She lays out mostly the changes that I found here, ThinkProgress found here, and NSN found here.

A bleak portrait of the political and security situation in Iraq released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office sparked sharp protests from the top U.S.

Tommy K’s Greek Vacation

As I suspected, Judge Burns was none too impressed that Tommy K’s daughter bought Phillip Halpern’s long-lost uncle’s house with the ensuing benefit to Halpern of precisely nada.

Halpern, who had last seen his uncle in 1999, said in court papers hehad no knowledge of the deal and did not benefit in any way from it,and removing him or the office was not warranted.

On that matter, Burns agreed.

Still Holding My Breath for DeYoung and Ricks

[Update: Here’s DeYoung’s take.]

So I’ve been holding my breath to see what Karen DeYoung and Tom Ricks had to say about today’s GAO report. After all, they were leaked the draft report last week, and they anticipated that BushCo might “soften” the report. Since there are clear signs the Administration did just that, I have been eagerly waiting for them to give us a catalog of the changes the Administration forced

The GAO Report Busts the Administration in Its Lies

I’m anxiously waiting the WaPo’s analysis of today’s GAO report. You’ll recall the WaPo reported last week that someone had liberated a copy of the GAO to prevent BushCO from “softening” its conclusions. But the numbers suggest that some of the conclusions were softened: whereas on Thursday, the WaPo reported Iraq had met three and partially met two of the benchmarks, the GAO has since added two more partially met objectives–on

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