It's Friday. That means another top official at the Justice Department quit

Rachel Brand is the seventh top official to resign from the Bush administration's scandal-ridden Department of Justice. Unfortunately, none of those resignations have been Alberto Gonzales. Yet. Read More......

Open thread

The art of the open thread is under appreciated. Read More......

Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 6/29/07

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

So Ann Coulter and her Adam's Apple were let off their leash this past week and snarled and whined much like a canine forced to go on vactation with Mitt Romney.

Showing up in a hand-me-down cocktail dress that is sold with a free pregnancy test, the mustachioed minx arrived on Hardball to bring her special brand of death-threat humor to a tv near you (where was Rupert M. with the first invite? Is Fox starting to snooze when it comes to booking their base?).

Now I know it was as much fun for all of us as it was for you, but just remember Ann, if we had the universal healthcare you deride you would likely get some of the help you so desperately need. We can also help you get legal advice when liberals act so "mean to you" and, you know, respond to your hatred. Sadly, however, medical science cannot yet provide a conscience or the ability to convince a man to stay with you past sunrise. Good luck on that stuff, though.

Here are some of the other fun nuggets I learned this week:

1) Rudy Giuliani understood the terrorist threat when Bill Clinton didn't after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. That is why he never mentioned terrorism. Didn't know who Osama bin Laden was. And Put the counterrorism center in the only place that had actually been attacked: The freakin WORLD TRADE CENTER.

Rudy do you really want to run on this? You're to counterterrorism what Lindsay Lohan is to driving or Dick Cheney is to eating vegetables. There is a reason the firemen hate you, you jackass. Let me put this in a way a blunt man like you can understand. Your negligence in not replacing faulty radios GOT THEM KILLED. You get that, America's "cousin-kissing, serial-marrying, Bernie-Kerik-promoting, Oxycontin-pushing" Mayor?

2) New England Republicans just suck something awful. Hey Sunununununu, you can jam every phone in the Northern Hemisphere this time and you're still going to get your ass handed to you. 29% support in the polls? 1% of Democrats voting for you (although, in fairness, with the margin of error, it could be like -3%).

And Susan Collins, how does it feel to have Joe Lieberman raise money for you--when he's not watching protesters almost die in his office--and have progressive groups outraise you to give to a real leader in Rep. Tom Allen? It's going to be really, really lonely--like Bill O'Reilly when the corner falafel stand is closed lonely--for the New England Republican caucus soon (Olympia and Judd, table for two!).

2) My God, did Norm Coleman smoke an unbelievable amount of pot in college. I think Jeff Spicoli was based on him. Now, of course he is very anti-drug. Even though he put so much THC in his system that he was a walking hemp farm at one point. You want pictures? You've got it.

Well that's it for our fun trip through GOP dementia this week. Tune in next week, when Senators Jim DeMint and David Vitter will have probably erected a wall on the Senate floor to separate themselves from Senators Salazar and Martinez. Read More......

Confirmed: Coulter is a leader of the conservative movement in America

Greg Sargent points us to confirmation from right wing big shot Brent Bozell that, in fact, Ann Coulter really is one of the leaders of their movement. On behalf of right wing nuts everywhere, Bozell literally called Coulter one of "our leaders."

Yes, Coulter is a leader of the conservative movement in America. A poster child, so to speak. We're just surprised they admit it. Coulter, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Tom DeLay, Rush -- that's some crowd of leaders you got there, right wing. Read More......

Froomkin: Bush and his crowd makes a lot of boastful predictions, but "their confidence is meaningless" and they're wrong

Froomkin has a typically astute column today titled, Put A Fork in Him. The "him" in question is, of course, George W. Bush. There is one particularly salient section about the Bush team's swagger and confidence -- and how that is usually off-base and just plain wrong. In fact, when team Bush does make a prediction, they're almost always puffery backed up by nothing real. Yet, time after time, the punditry has fallen for it.

Froomkin makes it real by tying Bush's patterns for inaccurate predictions to his spin on Iraq. If George Bush is wrong about everything, why should we believe anything he says will happen in the disastrous war he started? We shouldn't:

Bush and Vice President Cheney's optimistic predictions about the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular have proved to be almost completely and consistently wrong for years now. ("Last throes," anyone?)

Before the 2006 election, White House political guru Karl Rove was supremely self-assured in his public predictions of Republican victory.

White House spokesman Tony Snow recently assured the press corps that Bush had enough votes in the Senate on the immigration bill. "I'll see you at the bill signing," Bush himself told a skeptical journalist on June 11.

Bush and his staff's credibility regarding statements of "fact" is a frequent subject of debate. But their track record on predictions is something else entirely. The evidence is pretty overwhelming that those predictions are unreliable.

I mention this because Bush's core argument against a troop drawdown in Iraq -- something supported by a large majority of Americans -- is basically a prediction. As he put it again yesterday: "If we withdraw before the Iraqi government can defend itself, we would yield the future of Iraq to terrorists like al Qaeda -- and we would give a green light to extremists all throughout a troubled region. The consequences for America and the Middle East would be disastrous."

The consequences for America and the Middle East have already been disastrous because Bush was wrong. Based on Bush's track record, these latest predictions on Iraq aren't going to be accurate either. Read More......

Mitt Romney is sadistic

In response to the Boston Globe article about Romney strapping his pet dog's crate to the roof of his car during a twelve hour drive, his comments were quite revealing. Are all of those plastic smiles hiding something much more sadistic and twisted?

But on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania Thursday, Romney defended his chosen mode of transportation for the family dog.

“He scrambled up there every time we went on trips, got in all by himself and enjoyed it,” Romney said of the Irish Setter.

Romney then goes on to make the story about PETA and it's not. This is about a very strange person who struggles with human emotions. Is the ick-factor ever supposed to go away with this guy, because he's creepy? Read More......

McClatchy dissects the failed Bush presidency

Atrios said we should bookmark the new McClatchy webpage and I did as instructed. Good thing. There's a scathing - and accurate -- article about the failed Bush presidency. It keeps getting worse for him -- and, unfortunately, for the country he leads:

The Senate's rejection Thursday of President Bush's immigration plan was the latest in a series of embarrassments that have exposed Bush's political weakness and shaken his hold on power.

The president slipped out of town for a long weekend in Maine before the Senate delivered the final blow to his immigration bill, but it wasn't the only setback that might put a damper on his seaside getaway with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the space of a single short week, Bush was hit with more Republican defections on Iraq, more bad news from the battlefield, more subpoenas from a hostile Congress, a new assault on his signature education plan and embarrassing disclosures about his vice president.

He also found himself in a fight over executive privilege that begs comparisons to Richard Nixon's legal battles during the Watergate scandal.

"It's the incredible shrinking presidency. He's lost battles in the courts. He's lost battles in Iraq. He's lost battles on Capitol Hill," said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University.

Read More......

Car bomb in London: thus far, more questions than answers

The discovery of a car bomb in London is awful. What can one say? The fact that the U.S. has avoided another domestic attack since 2001, especially considering our misguided homeland security and foreign policy efforts since then, borders on the miraculous.

Sometimes these things are foiled by good police work, sometimes by informants, and sometimes, as appears the case here, by dumb luck and/or the incompetence of the enemy. The car, laden with gasoline, nails, and gas canisters, was found in the West End, an entertainment district of central London, at 2 a.m. According to the police statement, they were "called to reports of a suspicious vehicle." They disarmed ("made safe") the device, cordoned off the area, and began an investigation.

Information is still coming in, of course, but the most interesting element of the story is this: "Sky News quoted an eyewitness as saying the car had been driven erratically before it collided with garbage bins and the driver ran off." If true, this could mean one of several things. It could simply be a grossly unprofessional operation, in which the driver attracted attention (driving erratically), risked accidental detonation (by crashing into the garbage), and then abandoned the operation by running away. So perhaps a botched effort at a traditional car bombing, thankfully ruined by an idiotic perpetrator.

Or, another possibility: this sounds a lot like the behavior sometimes seen in the pre-detonation driving of suicide car attacks (often referred to as SVBIED, for Suicide Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device). Perhaps that was the plan, with the driver changing his mind at the last minute. Or it could be something else entirely. The eyewitness report is unconfirmed, and trying to extrapolate from there is absolutely speculative, so I'm very curious to see the results of the investigation.

England has a massive domestic video surveillance system, and the CCTV footage should shed some light on the details. Despite how the Bush administration has perverted and politicized efforts against terrorism, it obviously remains a threat -- certainly even more so because of the continuing debacle in Iraq. Hopefully more answers are forthcoming.

UPDATE: John emails me to note that CNN now reports police went to the club when an ambulance crew, there for an (apparently unrelated) injury, "noticed a smoke-filled car" and alerted authorities. If true, that could indicate an attempt to create a larger crowd for an attack . . . or just dumb luck that somebody saw the car before it detonated. Obviously conflicting reports indicate different possibilities . . . developing, as they say. Read More......

Bush seeks to delay decisions on Iraq. Five more soldiers killed

The reality:

Insurgents launched a deadly coordinated attack on an American combat patrol, detonating a roadside bomb, then firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the soldiers, the U.S. military said Friday. Five troops were killed.

As the death toll continues to grow, George Bush went to the Naval College yesterday seeking a friendly audience to spin his view of progress in Iraq. In fact, Bush is desperate to keep Republicans, who have enabled the Iraq disaster, on his side. Also, in typical fashion, the Bush administration is pushing back its own September deadline for progress:

White House officials had been hoping that they could hold together their party coalition on the war through that debate. The increasing concern from Republicans has caused them new anxiety.

Mr. Warner said that July 15, when a Congressionally mandated, preliminary report on the progress in Iraq is due, would be pivotal. The White House has been hoping for far more time, even backing away from its earlier statements that September would be a fair deadline to start judging the results of the new war plan.

The fair deadline for judging Bush's war is long past. Congress is going to have to act because Bush is never going to relent or accept his failure. Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Yep, the weekend is almost here. For the most part, Congress has left town for the Fourth of July recess. Although Think Progress reports we'll hear about plans to end the Iraq war from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi later today. That could make July very interesting on Capitol Hill.

Stay tuned and start threading. Read More......

Explosive device found in central London

Despite police-state programs launched by Blair that are destroying the future of democracy in the UK, this still happened. No news yet about who might be responsible for this sickening attempt to kill or maim. Read More......

Gordon Brown moves out of Blair shadow

After ten years of spin and triangulation, the Gordon Brown era is starting off on a much different note. Though he is still holding firm on Iraq, for now, he is shaking things up with a new team who are less likely to be lapdogs for Bush and the neocons including one new minister who has previously sparred with former US ambassador John Bolton as well as the Poodle. Overall, a lot of new faces without the stench of Blair and his failures in foreign policy and submission to the Bush agenda. Read More......

Administration dishes out another bloated no-bid contract

I know the GOP likes to think of themselves as fiscal conservatives but with every opportunity to actually connect actions to words since 2000, they've failed miserably and have proven themselves to be frauds. Management of just about every significant project (Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, DHS) has been chaotic with predictable and poor results. Considering the lack of success in the business world that Bush had, this comes as no surprise.

Besides the infamous no-bid contracts for Halliburton that have been shown to be lucrative to the company while less so for US taxpayers who have been overcharged, DHS has also joined in the act. Mission-creep has ballooned a project with Booz Allen, the pricey consulting organization, from $2m up to a shocking $124m in just a few short years. The obvious lack of management skills or financial restraint strikes again. Read More......