Why would Bush spy on Christiane Amanpour?

Very interesting analysis from Attytood:

...we decided to look at why the American government would want to spy on the CNN reporter.

Well, given the current administration's views on civil liberties and Arabs, the most cynical answer we could offer is because she is of Iranian descent. But while her father was an Iranian airline executive, Amanpour was born in London and mostly raised there, attending Catholic schools, and her family fled Iran in 1979 "during the Islamic Revolution."

Not exactly a terrorist profile.

The least cynical answer would be because her recent reporting would have brought her into direct contact with members of al Qaeda. In August 2002, not long after Bush began to authorize the warrantless spying program, Amanpour worked with CNN's Nic Robertson on a special that was billed as an inside view of al-Qaeda....

Then there is the issue of Amanpour's husband, Jamie Rubin, former official in the Clinton administration State Department. You may have forgotten (we did, frankly), but Rubin re-emerged in 2004 -- as a foreign policy advisor to John Kerry. Do husbands and wives use the same telephones and computers? Is the Pope German?

But frankly, the concept that scares us the most, as a journalist, goes back to that lovely quote from the Fox News spokeswoman at the very top of this post -- and the episode that inspired it. Because Christiane Amanpour was highest profile, and also the most forceful, critic of the media's pliency toward Bush after the 9/11 attacks.

Here's what she said in Sept. 2003:

"I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

The next day, Fox blasts her as an "al-Qaeda spokeswoman." And two years later, we are left to wonder if she was spied upon by the American government.

Coincidence?

We sure hope so.

Read More......

NBC confirms it's investigating whether Bush spied on CNN's Christiane Amanpour

That is the only way to read NBC's just-issued statement on why they deleted key portions of Andrea Mitchell's interview after we reported on it here earlier today.

[Background: We reported earlier today that NBC's Andrea Mitchell, while interviewing New York Times' reporter James Risen (the man who broke the domestic spying scandal) asked Risen if there was any evidence to suggest Bush was spying on US journalists. When Risen said none that he knew of, Mitchell then pressed the issue again and asked if there was any evidence that Bush was spying on CNN's Christiane Amanpour. We reported on the fact that Mitchell seemed to know something, and shortly thereafter NBC deleted the section of the transcript dealing with Amanpour.]

Via Atrios and MediaBistro:

Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry.

This is quite big. Note exactly what NBC said.

- NBC did not say it pulled the references to Bush spying on Amanpour because it was inappropriate conjecture about something which Andrea Mitchell had no evidence.

- No, NBC said it pulled the references because it was still investigating the accusation and didn't want to scoop itself before it was finished investigating. And make no mistake, NBC is "continuing their inquiry."

- UPDATE: One more point. NBC did NOT delete the part of the interview preceding the Amanpour question - where Mitchell asks if any reporters are being spied on. They only deleted the follow-up question about whether Amanpour was being spied on. Thus, their premature release of info regarding an "ongoing inquiry" wasn't about reporters generally - or they'd have deleted that part of the interview as well - they only deleted the Amanpour follow-up, suggesting that it's the question of whether Bush spied on Amanpour that they have been, and are still, investigating.

That's incredibly big news.

NBC has acknowledged that they have information to suggest that Bush may have spied (be spying) on CNN's Christiane Amanpour and that NBC is currently investigating that very possibility. This isn't just conjecture anymore, NBC has confirmed it.

You can read about how NBC changed the transcript of the interview after we reported on it here.

And you can read how spying on CNN's Amanpour could end up involving Bill Clinton, John Kerry and General Wesley Clark here. Read More......

Julie, you're gonna do a heck of a job

If you thought Bush's patronage jobs in high places went out of style with Brownie, you'd be wrong. More from Josh.

More from AP. Read More......

Traditional family values for gay marriage

Nice.

The top court of the Cherokee Nation has declined to strike down a gay marriage in what is seen as a pioneering case in American Indian country, the couple and officials said on Wednesday....

"Members of the Tribal Council, like private Cherokee citizens, must demonstrate a specific particularized harm," the court ruled. "In the present case, the Council members fail to demonstrate the requisite harm."

Historians say Native American culture before the arrival of European settlers tolerated homosexuality, although the settlers' religious teachings ultimately turned the tribes against it.

"Since the tribe has become so Westernized and adopted Christian religions and European ways, they strayed away from traditional Cherokee values of indifference," Reynolds told Reuters. "Cherokees are very private where they respect each other and respect how they live."....

The lawyer for the Tribal Council, Todd Hembree, said the tribe would no longer fight the marriage. "As far as the Tribal Council is concerned, that is the end of the legal proceeding," he said in an interview on Wednesday.

He said it was also possible that the U.S. government would have to recognize the marriage because of the sovereign status of Indian tribes, which could, in theory at least, make them eligible for federal tax benefits denied to date to gay couples.

Perhaps my favorite line in the article:

The largest Indian reservation, the Navajo Nation, also banned gay marriage last year.

And how's that going for you? Fix all your problems, did it? Read More......

Salon picks up the Andrea Mitchell memory hole mystery

From Salon's War Room:

Does NBC's Andrea Mitchell know something about the Bush administration's domestic spying program that the rest of us don't? As AMERICAblog's John Aravosis notes, Mitchell put a question to the New York Times' James Risen Tuesday that suggests that she might.

In an interview with Risen, Mitchell asked if he had any information suggesting that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Risen said he hadn't heard that. Has Mitchell heard something to that effect, or was she just using Amanpour's name as the example of what might have gone wrong with the spying program?

We don't know the answer to that, and neither does Aravosis. But as Aravosis notes, the implications of tapping Amanpour's phone lines could be enormous. There's the chilling thought that government officials might be listening in on the conversations of a reporter, and then there's this: Amanpour's husband, who like any husband might have had occasion to use his wife's phone, happens to be Jamie Rubin, the former Clinton administration official who served as a foreign policy advisor for John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Update: As several readers note in the comments below, the exchange between Mitchell and Risen about Amanpour has rather mysteriously disappeared from the transcript of the interview posted on the MSNBC Web site. If MSNBC has an explanation for why Mitchell's question and Risen's answer have disappeared, we'd sure like to hear it. Did Mitchell not ask the question -- that seems unlikely, doesn't it? -- or does someone at MSNBC just wish she hadn't?

Read More......

Israel's Sharon Suffers Massive Stroke

From the Jerusalem Post:

Four doctors at Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem are fighting to save the life of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after he had suffered a massive stroke late Wednesday, which caused cerebral hemorrhaging.

Palestine without Arafat, and perhaps now Israel without Sharon? Read More......

Top Democrat on House Intelligence Committee told Bush Wednesday that the White House broke the law

From AP

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee told
President Bush Wednesday that the White House broke the law by withholding information from the full congressional oversight committees about a new domestic surveillance program.

In a letter to Bush, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the National Security Act requires the heads of the various intelligence agencies to keep the entire House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States."

Only in the case of a highly classified covert action can the president choose to inform a narrower group of Congress members about his decision, Harman said. That action is defined in the law as an operation to influence political, economic or military conditions of another country.

Advantage Harman. Now THAT'S my kind of Democrat. Read More......

Bush dissolves Congress

Hard to interpret this any other way.

Recess appointing Assistant Secretaries of Defense and DEPUTY Secretaries of Defense? General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence? Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security? Executive Director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security?

Sure those are incredibly senior and important jobs, especially when our country is at war, so forget about Congress' constitutional right to advise and consent on those nominations. We're at war, damn it, and when it's the constitution versus what Bush thinks is right, it's King George who wins every time.

I'll be waiting for the Democrats to raise hell any moment now.

[sound of crickets in background...] Read More......

Open thread

Busy day. I still want to know when NBC is going to tell us why they outright deleted two paragraphs from an interview transcript after we discovered the interview raised questions about whether Bush was wiretapping CNN ace reporter Christiane Amanpour.

What is NBC hiding, and what is NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, who asked the question, hiding? What does she know and when does she plan on telling us? After the next election? Read More......

Cheney strongly supports illegally spying on Americans, no surprise there

My favorite quote:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday strongly defended a secret domestic eavesdropping operation and said that had it been in place before the September 11 attacks the Pentagon might have been spared.

Had Bush read the memo before September 11 we might not have been attacked.

But putting that aside, Cheney is right. Had we dumped our democracy and 200 years of history and adopted a Soviet-style communist police state and jailed every Muslim in America (including US citizens) prior to 9/11 we might have been spared the attacks as well.

And your point would be that dictatorships are better than democracies?

Why do Republicans hate America? Read More......

How is Bush going to teach the Iraqis about the rule of law?

What a hypocrite. He ignores the rule of law in America, but he's going to teach it to the Iraqis. We're in trouble. Bush broke the law by spying on Americans. His staff said he was going to ignore the new law on torture. But, today, he had the audacity to say this: (it links to the WH web site, be forewarned),

First, we're going to work with the Iraqi government to increase the training Iraqi police recruits receive in human rights and the rule of law, so they understand the role of the police in a democratic society.

Read More......

NBC changes official transcript of Andrea Mitchell interview, deletes reference to Bush possibly wiretapping CNN's Christane Amanpour

Well this is getting interesting. NBC just delete two paragraphs from its Andrea Mitchell interview, the paragraphs that talked about whether Bush was wiretapping ace CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour (kudos to Atrios for spotting this).

Here's what the NBC "official" transcript used to say (I copied this text from NBC's own page only 2 hours ago):

Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that

Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.

Here's what it says now:

Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that

Mitchell: You are very, very tough on the CIA and the administration in general in both the war on terror and the run up to the war and the war itself Â? the post-war operation. Let's talk about the war on terror. Why do you think they missed so many signals and what do you think caused the CIA to have this sort of break down as you describe it?

Risen: I think that, you know, to me, the greater break down was really on Iraq. It's very difficult to have known ahead of time about these 19 hijackers. They were, you know, probably lucky that they got through and they did something that no one really assumed anybody would ever do. And I think that made 9/11 a lot like Pearl Harbor. That even when you see all the clues in front of you that it's very difficult to put it together.

Since when is NBC in the business of deleting entire paragraphs from their official transcripts? What's going on here?

More on why this matters here. Read More......

Open thread

Thread away Read More......

What it means to John Kerry, Wesley Clark, and Bill Clinton if Bush wiretapped CNN's Christiane Amanpour

As reported below, NBC's Andrea Mitchell - based on some information she clearly hasn't yet made public - is asking if Bush specifically wiretapped CNN's Christiane Amanpour. The fact that the question was asked so publicly and so specifically means that Mitchell knows something.

Why would Bush do this? Because, as I reported a few weeks ago, journalists have some of the best contacts out there and it's not unusual for journalists to talk to both sides of the story, or in this case, the good guys and the "evil doers." What a better, if not illegal, way to find the terrorists and their associates?

But before you say "yeah, go for it," consider the implications of tapping Christiane Amanpour's phones:

1. Such a wiretap would likely include her home, office, and cell phones, and email correspondence, at the very least.

2. That means anyone Christiane has conversed with in the past four years, at least by phone or email, could have had their conversation taped by the US government.

3. That also means that anyone who uses any of Christiane's telephones or computers (work or home) could also have had their conversation bugged.

4. This includes Christiane's husband, former Clinton administration senior official Jamie Rubin, who was spokesman for the State Department.

5. Jamie Rubin was also chief foreign policy adviser to General Wesley Clark's presidential campaign, and then worked as a senior national security adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign.

6. Did Jamie Rubin ever use his home phone, his wife's work phone, his wife's cell phone, her home computer or her work computer to communicate with John Kerry or Wesley Clark? If so, those conversations would have been bugged if Bush was tapping Amanpour.

7. Did Jamie Rubin ever in the past four years communicate with any elected officials in Washington, DC - any Senators or members of the US House? Any senior members of the Democratic party?

8. Has Rubin spoken with Bill Clinton, his former boss, in the past 4 years?

Now you understand how potentially broad a violation of privacy the Bush doctrine on illegal domestic spying really is. Everyone who's anyone is a degree or two of separation away from a terrorist. Read More......

Did Bush wiretap CNN's Christiane Amanpour?

FURTHER UPDATE: NBC has now deleted the paragraphs of the interview dealing with Amanpour. Very very interesting.

UPDATE: Read our follow-on to this story here.

From NBC News:

New York Times reporter James Risen first broke the story two weeks ago that the National Security Agency began spying on domestic communications soon after 9/11. In a new book out Tuesday, "State of War," he says it was a lot bigger than that. Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell sat down with Risen to talk about the NSA, and the run-up to the war in Iraq....

Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that

Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.

Read More......

Alito created the "signing statement" Bush is using to ignore the rule of law

On Monday, Washington Post reported that Samuel Alito crafted the strategy that Bush is using to ignore the law on torture which John wrote about below:

In a Feb. 5, 1986, draft memo, Alito, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, outlined a strategy for changing that. It laid out a case for having the president routinely issue statements about the meaning of statutes when he signs them into law.

Such "interpretive signing statements" would be a significant departure from run-of-the-mill bill signing pronouncements, which are "often little more than a press release," Alito wrote. The idea was to flag constitutional concerns and get courts to pay as much attention to the president's take on a law as to "legislative intent."

Now, Bush is using Alito's strategy to ignore the law. No wonder they want Alito on the Supreme Court. He'll fit right in with their dictatorship. Read More......

McCain got screwed. Bush says he can ignore new anti-torture ban and any other law at will

Well, so much for our hero John McCain. And we now have a pattern of the White House saying they can ignore federal law at will because Bush is commander in chief.

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.

A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security....

''Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case," the official added. ''We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will."

Excuse me? He has to balance the law of the land with his responsibility to defend the country? The two are mutually exclusive?

He just made a blanket statement that he is above the law, any and all laws in our country. Read More......

Bush wants his Patriot Act, but Jack is interfering

This is the week that Bush was going to save the Patriot Act:

President Bush is taking advantage of a winter congressional recess to lobby for permanent extension of the terror-fighting USA Patriot Act and rap lawmakers who thwarted it in a rush to recess last month.

But, Jack Abramoff and the out-of-control GOP corruption are stepping on his message. He can try rapping legislators who prevented the Patriot Act, but the GOP leadership -- including the White House -- are wrapped up in the corruption scandal. Abramoff was a major fundraiser for Bush making it to the vaulted level of pioneer:

Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election campaign, earning the honorary title "pioneer" from the campaign.

So, he raised a ton of dough, but the Bushies aren't giving it all back:

But the campaign is returning only $6,000 directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes that he worked to win influence for in Washington.

This is going to be a scandal that keeps on giving. Read More......

GOP corruption and abuse of power is the message

Good messaging from the Democrats, from AP:

The political ramifications of the Abramoff probe were apparent, with minority Democrats intending to make ethics a campaign issue in this election year. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Abramoff's confession in court was "not a surprise because this Republican Congress is the most corrupt in history and the American people are paying the price."

Some political consultants and analysts are comparing potential damage from the Abramoff investigation to the 1992 House banking scandal that led to the retirement or ouster of 77 lawmakers.

That's the right way to talk about it. The GOP owns Abramoff. He helped build and sustain their power. He provided vast amounts of resources to them. Abramoff = GOP corruption, plain and simple.

On the other hand, not good spin, via the NY Times:

While Mr. Abramoff is most closely linked to Republicans, even Democrats, many of whom also benefited from his largesse, acted skittish.

"We're talking about people who have longstanding careers in Congress who took contributions from somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew Jack Abramoff," said a Democratic Congressional aide who insisted on anonymity so as not to drag his boss into the scandal. "Now they're panicked. The hope is that this investigation will root out the wrongdoing without innocent people getting hit with the ricochet."

Memo to Democratic aides on the Hill -- and off the Hill: If you're one of the skittish ones, don't talk to the media. If you don't understand that this is hard ball politics time, don't talk to the media. Leave it to the people who do get it. Read More......

Abramoff's political impact

The GOP gets that Abramoff could be very harmful to them according to the Washington Post analysis:

With an eye on November's elections, Republicans have sought to limit the damage to themselves by portraying the scandal as bipartisan, describing Abramoff as an equal-opportunity dispenser of campaign cash and largess.

So far, the public has not identified corruption as solely a Republican problem. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in November asked Americans whether they thought Democrats or Republicans were better on ethical matters; 16 percent said Democrats, 12 percent said Republicans, and 71 percent said there was not much difference between the parties.

But Republicans worry about two possibilities. The first is that Abramoff, known for his close ties to DeLay, mostly implicates Republicans as a result of his plea agreement. That could shift public attitudes sharply against the GOP. "People are uneasy about what else is out there," said one GOP strategist who requested anonymity to speak more candidly about the possible political fallout.

Beyond that is a fear that the scandal and attention it could draw in the months before the election might further sour the public on Washington and Congress. As the party in power, Republicans know they stand to lose more if voters take retribution in November.

The Republicans will lose, but the Democrats have to wrap Abramoff around the neck of every single Republican. He's theirs. They own him.

The commentary today is that this is the biggest political scandal in a generation. The party in power bears the responsibility. They have all the power, and they've abused it. They need to pay at the polls in November. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Anyone see the Today Show interview with the Governor of West Virginia and the guy whose father died in the mine? It was intense....very intense. The surviving son was angry, but way, way more poised than I would have been after what he's been through. Read More......

Abramoff connected to Maryland GOP Governor

Oh no, who could believe that the tainted Abramoff even touched Maryland Governor, Ehrlich, the first GOP governor of the state since Spiro Agnew? With a tough re-election coming up it's going to be fun watching Ehrlich tell the Democrat leaning voters of Maryland how he had no links to Abramoff. His first reaction to hearing the report that his deputy chief of staff was running an Abramoff slush fund was pretty brave and I encourage him to stay the course. I'm sure Maryland voters will be fine with the links to the 2006 poster child for slime and corruption.

Ehrlich said yesterday that the Abramoff plea would have no effect on Miller or his place in the administration.

"There's nothing there," Ehrlich said in a brief interview early yesterday, before the charging document was widely available. The governor's office declined to revise his statement later in the day.

Read More......

Poll: Americans think that Congress is corrupt

The numbers are fairly even for both parties but with 55% of Americans believing that corruption will be an issue in 2006 (and this poll was done before the Abramoff plea) and the GOP in complete control of DC, this does not bode well for them. Now we just need the Democrats to fight and make Abramoff and DeLay the issue for 2006. Read More......

PUT ON CNN NOW - Okay, so now 11 of the 12 miners are dead, allegedly

If this is true, someone screwed up big time. How do you say publicly - say to the FAMILIES - that 12 survived and now say "oops" 11 died and one survived?

Family members learned early Wednesday that 11 of the 12 coal miners who were initially thought to have survived an explosion in a coal mine have died.

Families learned of the deaths from mine officials more than three hours after Gov. Joe Manchin said he had been told 12 of the miners survived the disaster. The sole survivor of the disaster was hospitalized, a doctor said.

Anderson Cooper is ripping the coal/mining company. They knew, according to Anderson, 20 minutes after the news broke that the 12 had survived that in fact several did NOT survive. But since the coal company didn't have all the information, they didn't say anything for three hours, leaving the media and the families to believe that 12 had survived. Jesus. Now the company gets to worry about emotional distress damages added to the lawsuits.

Oh boy, Anderson is ticked. This is amazing TV for 3 in the morning.

And now the governor's spokesperson is saying that the governor never said "the exact words" that all 12 were alive.

And Anderson is again saying that the company knew some mistake happened 20 minutes after the good news came out, but they didn't say boo for 3 hours.

ANDERSON: "Why in God's name did they wait three hours to tell family members?"

The governor inside the church called it a miracle.

The mining company is toast. They sat back quietly while the families thought their family members survived.

Massive lawsuit. Read More......

Open thread

I am so off to bed. Read More......

What was that about Abramoff giving money to Democrats?

Here is the list of who Abramoff gave money to, per Michael Petrelis' research:

$172,933 - Republican
$88,985 - special interest
total: $261,918

That's 229 donations and not a DIME to Democrats.

The list of donations is long, but it makes a great visual, so I'm posting it anyway. Next time you hear someone say that this is a bipartisan scandal, whip out this list and laugh.

This comes from Newsmeat.com, they have all the FEC data. I just counted, and I think this list of GOP donors and organizations is around 15 feet long. Someone on our side REALLY needs to print out this list and get in front of a camera. Hell, every single one of our pundits should have this list with them on TV and just roll it out on the table.

Read More......

Hardball's Chris Matthews, FOX's Tony Snow and Britt Hume helped raise money for shady Abramoff charity

UPDATE: Not that it changes anything, but the event was canceled at the last minute since we invaded Iraq right before it was to take place. The fact still remains that Matthews, Snow and Hume agreed to host an apparently all-Republican fundraiser for Abramoff's shady charity.
------------

Okay, this is interesting. Major kudos to reader Denise for sending me this.

Abramoff forms a group called the "Capital Athletic Foundation." The group appears to play a key role in the Abramoff scandal:

...allegations that Abramoff used NCPPR and CAF to pay for overseas trips for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other Republican lawmakers and that he attempted to influence lawmakers with large donations from various American Indian tribes.

More on the non-profit's role from the Washington Post:

The Capital Athletic Foundation's Web site portrays youths at play: shaking hands over a tennis net, learning how to hold a bat, straining for a jump ball. Its text solicits donations for what it describes as "needy and deserving" sportsmanship programs.

In its first four years of operation, the charity has collected nearly $6 million. A gala fundraiser last year at the International Spy Museum at one point attracted the Washington Redskins' owner as its chairman and was to honor the co-founder of America Online.

Records for GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths, and federal investigators are looking into how large amounts of money were funneled through the nonprofit group to support Abramoff's interests. (Thomas Butler -- The Hill)

But tax and spending records of the Capital Athletic Foundation obtained by The Washington Post show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths.

Instead, the documents show that Jack Abramoff, one of Washington's high-powered Republican lobbyists, has repeatedly channeled money from corporate clients into the foundation and spent the overwhelming portion of its money on pet projects having little to do with the advertised sportsmanship programs, including political causes, a short-lived religious school and an overseas golf trip.

Then we go back to March 5, 2003 and find out that Chris Matthews helped put on an event benefiting the very same "Capital Athletic Foundation":

It's called the Interactive Spy Game Gala. Scheduled for March 26 at the International Spy Museum in Washington, the event's purpose is to raise about $300,000 for the Capital Athletic Foundation....

Fox News Channel's Tony Snow is master of ceremonies, and Fox's Brit Hume and MSNBC's Chris Matthews are aboard. Opera great Placido Domingo is an event committee member. But, this being Washington, the event will be mostly populated by powerful lawmakers, including Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas; Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

And it was only just a few hours ago that we reported how Chris Matthews was trying to downplay the impact of the Abramoff scandal in terms of what it said more generally about Republicans. Very interesting indeed.

An aside: I can't wait for Rick Santorum to explain what he was doing there.

More from Markos on this. Read More......

BREAKING: 12 miners found alive! Now supposedly 11 are dead

Wow.

Twelve miners caught in an explosion in a coal mine were found alive Tuesday night, more than 41 hours after the blast, family members said.

Bells at a church where relatives had been gathering rang out as family members ran out screaming in jubilation.

Relatives yelled "They're alive!"

Read More......