No Damned Confidence!!!!

After even the last week, let alone what has gone before, can anyone have any confidence in this administration or the GOP in general.

These people are power-drunk madmen who do not seem to know the difference between right and wrong.

It's one thing for a person to say, hey I know it's against the law, but I'm going to do it anyway because I think the law is silly to begin with and/or by breaking it, I'm not going to be hurting anyone else; like the cancer patient who smokes Cannabis so they can endure chemotherapy or live with horrid diseases like MS or the man who is driving his wife to the hospital late at night, on an empty highway, and decides he is going to break the speed limit, while continuing to drive carefully and with alertness.

It is quite another for someone to argue that what they are doing is right no matter what the law says and no matter whom it hurts and says to hell with anyone who disagrees. This kind of person believes he is the law, is so superior to other human beings that he, alone, can and must be must be entrusted with knowing when and where to toss the Constitution, Habeas Corpus and every other law upon which our society is dependent for relative order, safety and freedom to pursue that which makes us happy, or at least not quite as miserable as we could be.

The Bushites do not seem to understand why every department in the executive should not be politicized and made into an extension of the Republican party.

Well, here's why?

There are many of us out here who do not wish to contribute one red cent to the GOP, or any other party for that matter, because we see the whole damn system as corrupted, probably beyond repair. But when the Bush White House, in the persons of Karl Rove, Sara Taylor, for example, gives regular political briefings to the heads of agencies, including the names of targeted democrats in 2008, tax-payers are being forced to contribute to the GOP. If that isn't against the law it sure as hell ought to be. Tax payers should not be supporting any party with their tax dollars. That's about the most anti-American idea I've heard yet.

And Ambassadors are being briefed?

WTF ?

I hate to even speculate on why Ambassadors are being briefed on political targets in 2008. What are they going to do with the information?

What's next? I don't want to think.

The head of the Peace Corps?

Well, that borders on blasphemy.

Diplomats Received Political Briefings
Bush Aides Listed Election Targets

By Paul Kane
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 24, 2007; A01

White House aides have conducted at least half a dozen political briefings for the Bush administration's top diplomats, including a PowerPoint presentation for ambassadors with senior adviser Karl Rove that named Democratic incumbents targeted for defeat in 2008 and a "general political briefing" at the Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 midterm elections.

The briefings, mostly run by Rove's deputies at the White House political affairs office, began in early 2001 and included detailed analyses for senior officials of the political landscape surrounding critical congressional and gubernatorial races, according to documents obtained by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The documents show for the first time how the White House sought to ensure that even its appointees involved in foreign policy were kept attuned to the administration's election goals. Such briefings occurred semi-regularly over the past six years for staffers dealing with domestic policy, White House officials have previously acknowledged.

In one instance, State Department aides attended a White House meeting at which political officials examined the 55 most critical House races for 2002 and the media markets most critical to battleground states for President Bush's reelection fight in 2004, according to documents the department provided to the Senate committee.

On Jan. 4, just after the 2006 elections tossed the Republicans out of congressional power, Rove met at the White House with six U.S. ambassadors to key European missions and the consul general to Bermuda while the diplomats were in Washington for a State Department conference.

According to a department letter to the Senate panel, Rove explained the White House views on the electoral disaster while Sara M. Taylor, then the director of White House political affairs, showed a PowerPoint presentation that pinned most of the electoral blame on "corrupt" GOP lawmakers and "complacent incumbents." One chart in Taylor's presentation highlighted the GOP's top 36 targets among House Democrats for the 2008 election.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, asked whether the briefings inappropriately politicized the diplomatic agencies or violated prohibitions against political work by most federal employees.

"I do not understand why ambassadors, in Washington on official duty, would be briefed by White House officials on which Democratic House members are considered top targets by the Republican party for defeat in 2008. Nor do I understand why department employees would need to be briefed on 'key media markets' in states that are 'competitive' for the president," Biden wrote.

His aides said Biden plans to raise the matter at a confirmation hearing today for Henrietta Holsman Fore to be administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose political appointees received at least two White House briefings in the past 10 months, as well as at an oversight hearing tomorrow on the Peace Corps.

Several months ago, White House aides said that about 20 private briefings were held in 15 agencies before the 2006 midterms and that other briefings were held irregularly throughout Bush's first term.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel found, in a May report, that General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan violated the Hatch Act when she allegedly asked GSA political appointees how they could "help our candidates" win the next election at a January briefing by White House officials. The Hatch Act insulates virtually all federal workers from partisan politics and bars the use of federal resources -- including office buildings, phones and computers -- for partisan purposes.

Doan has denied any wrongdoing.

Spokesmen for the State Department, the Peace Corps and USAID said that only political appointees were invited to the briefings and that attendance was not compulsory. They also said that no specific actions were subsequently taken to boost political campaigns.

"We believe that these briefings were entirely appropriate," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "They conformed with all the applicable regulations."

The ambassadors included in the Rove briefing were Eduardo Aguirre Jr. of Spain, James P. Cain of Denmark, Alfred Hoffman Jr. of Portugal, Ronald Spogli of Italy, Craig Stapleton of France and Robert Tuttle of Britain. Gregory Slayton, the consul general to Bermuda, also attended.

In total, the seven diplomats donated more than $1.6 million to Republican causes from 2000 through 2006, according to a Center for Responsive Politics report on large Bush donors who were named ambassadors. The State Department, in a letter to Biden, said that Cain -- one of Bush's top fundraisers in North Carolina -- requested the meeting with Rove and did not notify department officials in advance.

The briefings struck some former ambassadors as highly unusual.

"That just didn't happen. Frankly, I am shocked to hear it," said former senator James Sasser (D-Tenn.), who served as President Bill Clinton's ambassador to China in the late 1990s. "I'm one who strongly believes that politics ought to end at the water's edge."

James Dobbins, who was an ambassador in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, said that some senior diplomats and State Department officials come from political backgrounds and stay informed through back channels.

But Dobbins, who rose through the Foreign Service ranks, said that he never attended an organized meeting for political appointees.

"I don't know of any methodical effort to inform presidential appointees of the state of play in the domestic political arena," he said.

The Peace Corps briefing occurred in 2003 with about 15 political appointees, said Amanda Beck, a spokeswoman for the agency. The central mission of the Peace Corps is sending volunteers into Third World nations to help with development.

Beck, who said she attended the March 2003 "recap" of the 2002 elections, said the appointees who attended the briefing "did it on our free time during the day." She added: "It was a courtesy to political appointees," offered by the White House, and "there was no suggestion of getting involved in anything" campaign related.

J. Scott Jennings, the White House political director, separately led two briefings for USAID officials, one last fall before the midterm elections and another in February, with 20 to 30 aides on hand for each. One was held at the agency's headquarters, and the second was held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to an agency letter to Biden.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel dismissed Biden's notion that ambassadors and political appointees from agencies such as the Peace Corps should be walled off from partisan politics. "Why shouldn't the president's appointees have our understanding of the political landscape?" he asked.

Biden sent letters in early May to Rice and the heads of six other agencies under his committee's jurisdiction after an April 26 report in The Washington Post about briefings from Taylor and Jennings. Four of the agencies -- the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and the Millennium Challenge Corp. -- reported that no political briefings were held for their top officials.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Hoorah! Ex-Rove aide called back to the Hill

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has asked Sara Taylor, the former top aide to Karl Rove in the White House, to return to Capitol Hill for a deposition next week.

Taylor complied with a Congressional subpoena and appeared last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify in the investigation of the firing of 8 US Attorneys. Now, Waxman is suggesting that Taylor might be implicated in politicizing government programs that Waxman has called 'historically nonpartisan.'

Waxman, the Oversight Committee's chair, was particularly critical of the White House appearing to deploy the nation's 'drug control czar' and his staff in the Office of National Drug Control Policy to Republican Congressional campaign events.

"As the nation's drug czar, Director [John] Walters has the responsibility to oversee the federal government's domestic and international drug control efforts," he wrote in the Tuesday letter. "It is hard to understand how his ability to perform this essential function would be enhanced by extensive taxpayer-funded travel to 'god awful places' to appear with vulnerable Republican members."

Waxman's reference to 'god awful places' pointed to an e-mail written by Douglas Simon, the White House's drug control liaison, who praised the ONDCP for helping out on Congressional campaigns.

The California Democrat went on to suggest that the trips might not be completely in keeping with existing laws.

"In the case of ONDCP, in particular, the politicization described in the documents appears inconsistent with the agency's tradition of nonpartisanship," he argued. "In 1994, Congress passed legislation to insulate the drug czar and the agency's Senate-confirmed deputies from political pressures by prohibiting them from engaging in political activities even on their own time."

In the letter, four Republican Congressmembers are identified as having received campaign-related visits from the ONDCP: Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada; Senator Jim Talent of Missouri; Jon Porter, also of Nevada; and, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona.

Talent was defeated in his 2006 re-election campaign. Gibbons now serves as Nevada Governor, and is reportedly under federal investigation for bribery accusations.

The letter went on to suggest that the White House was attempting to use government machinery for purely political ends.

"Evidence is mounting that White House efforts to inject political considerations into official government business extend beyond the Department of Justice and the General Services Administration," Waxman wrote to Taylor. "Your memo to ONDCP details an extensive itinerary of pre-election travel, including 20 events with vulnerable Republican members. It appears that even historically nonpartisan federal agencies like ONDCP were expected to use federal resources to assist endangered Republican members."

Waxman asked Taylor to voluntarily appear before the committee's staff for a July 24 deposition. He also suggested that additional topics might be raised in the deposition.

"You may also be asked questions at the deposition about other subjects being investigated by the Committee, including the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials and White House political briefings to federal agency officials," he noted, adding that the committee was planning a July 30 hearing.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Un-freakin'-believable

God only knows why anything shocks me anymore.

White House plans to block testimony from former top Rove aide; Miers has not decided

Michael Roston Published: Saturday July 7, 2007

The White House appeared set for an expanded showdown with congressional investigators in the probe of the firing of eight US Attorneys over the weekend.

An attorney for Sara Taylor, a former top aide to White House adviser Karl Rove, notified the Senate that she was unlikely to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee July 11.

At the same time, former Counsel to President George W. Bush Harriet Miers told RAW STORY she did not know if she would appear before the House Judiciary Committee July 12.

An attorney for Taylor informed the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the White House sought to block her testimony.

"Ms. Taylor expects to receive a letter from Mr. Fielding on behalf of the President directing her not to comply with the Senate's subpoena," wrote W. Neil Eggleston, counsel to Taylor, in a Saturday letter to Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA).

Eggleston noted that Taylor, "recognizes the burden of any citizen to respect the Senate's processes and to be responsive to its subpoenas." But he seemed to signal she would follow the advice of Fred Fielding, White House Counsel, and respect the President's assertion of executive privilege.

"This clash may ultimately be resolved by the judicial branch," he added.

RAW STORY contacted Harriet Miers at the Dallas office of her law firm Friday afternoon. When asked if she would appear next week before the House Judiciary Committee, which subpoenaed her at the same time Leahy subpoenaed Taylor, she was uncertain.

"No decisions have been made about that at this point," the former White House Counsel said in a brief phone interview.

On Friday, a House Judiciary Committee spokesman told RAW STORY that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the committee's chairman, still expected to receive testimony from Miers next week.

Senator Leahy criticized Fielding and the White House for trying to hold up Taylor's testimony.

"It is unfortunate that the White House is trying to interfere with Ms. Taylor’s testimony before the Senate and with Congress’s responsibility to get to the truth behind the unprecedented firings of several U.S. Attorneys," he wrote in a statement sent to RAW STORY. "The White House continues to try to have it both ways – to block Congress from talking with witnesses and accessing documents and other evidence while saying nothing improper occurred. I hope the White House stops this stonewalling and accepts my offer to negotiate a workable solution to the Committee’s oversight requests, as so many previous White Houses have done throughout history."

Earlier testimony in the congressional investigation made it clear that Taylor and Miers were both intimately involved in various aspects of the firing of the US Attorneys which got underway at the end of 2006.

D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, noted in his May 29 appearance that "I remember speaking with Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley about that. Sometimes this subject would come up after a Judicial Selection Committee meeting, which was a once-a-week meeting that happened in the Roosevelt Room."

He added, "The issue of replacing U.S. attorneys most frequently came up as sort of a pull-aside after a Judicial Selection meeting."

Former Justice Department White House Liaison Monica Goodling also suggested Taylor had been a key decision-maker in the Attorneys firings in June.

"There was an e-mail that Mr. Sampson forwarded to me, I think, on December 4, if I'm remembering correctly, that said that it had been circulated to different offices within the White House and that they had all signed off," Goodling told Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee when she appeared before the House Judiciary Committee. "I think it said that White House political had signed off. Political is actually headed by Sara Taylor but does report to Mr. Rove, so I don't know for sure."

The White House had earlier refused to comply with a subpoena for documents as a prelude to the testimony of Miers and Taylor this coming week. It also made clear that if the House and Senate committees pressed their plan to hear from Miers and Taylor, it would assert executive privilege there as well.

In response, Senator Leahy answered last Sunday when asked if he was willing to schedule a vote to hold the White House in criminal contempt, "If they don't cooperate, yes, I'd go that far."

While Taylor's attorney suggested that she wanted to comply with the Senate's desire to hear from Rove's number two, he also appeared to argue that the possiiblity of targeting her for contempt was unfair.

"In our view, it is unfair to Ms. Taylor that this constitutional struggle might be played out with her as the object of an unseemly tug of war," he wrote in the Saturday letter. "If the executive and legislative branches of government are unable to reach an agreement, we urge the Senate not to use Ms. Taylor as the focus of the constitutional struggle...the White House, not Ms. Taylor, controls the assertion of executive privilege. If there has to be a clash, we urge the Senate to direct its sanction against the White House, not against a former staffer."

Taylor resigned from the White House in June, although reports of her resignation first surfaced in April.

Read Eggleston's letter here in PDF.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free