Just how bad is Iraq?

An NBC correspondent weighs in, via DKos:

I'm more puzzled by comments that the violence isn't any worse than any American city. Really? In which American city do 60 bullet-riddled bodies turn up on a given day? In which city do the headless bodies of ordinary citizens turn up every single day? In which city would it not be news if neighborhood school children were blown up? In which neighborhood would you look the other way if gunmen came into restaurants and shot dead the customers?

Read the rest of this post...

Ethics Committee hones in on Hastert and staff

Prepare for the Hastert staff circular firing squad to begin any time now. From the Wash Post:

"It would be very hard to believe if Palmer knew that kind of detail, he wouldn't have acted upon it, and it's hard to imagine [Hastert's chief of staff] Scott Palmer would have spared the speaker that knowledge," said one former Republican leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing his lobbying contacts.

Within Hastert's operation, some staff members appear to point accusingly at Van Der Meid, who is in charge of ethics matters and is widely believed to have steered Hastert wrong before.

Van Der Meid, a former chief Republican counsel for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, helped engineer the failed effort to change GOP ethics rules to allow an indicted lawmaker to remain in the leadership. The power play was designed to keep then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) at his post, but it backfired spectacularly, embarrassing many Republicans and leaving a blemish on Hastert's record.

I certainly hope Mr. Kolbe will be testifying as it's about time someone asked him, under oath, about his changing-by-the-day explanation of his involvement in this affair. There's more in the article - read it. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT): Molesting kids isn't so bad as long as you don't kill 'em

I suspect a lot of parents will find this bit of logic more than a bit troubling. At some point, can the Republicans please stop making light of this horrible scandal? Read the rest of this post...

Apparently Harry Reid is a bad, bad man - but unfortunately, I can't tell you why

John Solomon, ace Associated Press reporter (the guy who makes lots of mistakes and then gets $500 from AP rather than a correction), has come out with another hit piece against Harry Reid, conveniently right before the congressional elections.

But this time, it's a different kind of piece. In addition to being factually wrong - we're kind of used to that at this point from AP - this article simply makes no sense.

I have a law degree. And I'm a professional journalist, I've written for the Economist and other serious publications, and am no dummy. And try as I might, I couldn't make heads or tales of the AP story - it's just thick as hell, indecipherable, and doesn't really say anything.

In a nutshell, here's what I was able to translate from the original Latin.

Harry Reid bought some land in the late 90s, and over a several year period tripled his investment. Okay. Most everyone I know, other than me, did the same over that period. Still, AP calls this a "windfall." Apparently, the AP has been asleep the past ten years while land prices have soared. Anyway, Harry Reid transferred his land to an LLC, in which he was still a party, and when time came to sell the LLC, they gave Reid his portion of the return on the land and also gave him back the value of his initial investment (i.e., the value of the land itself when he gave it to the LLC).

You still with me?

Now, you'd think perhaps the AP caught Harry Reid not reporting his holdings to the Senate Ethics Committee? No, he did it. How about not reporting the land sale and his profits to the Ethics Committee? No, he did that too. So what did Harry Reid do wrong? He didn't tell the Ethics Committee he transferred the land to an LLC whi he was still a party in - though he did report to the committee that he still owned the land, which was true. Why does that detail matter? Got me. You'll have to read a four page AP story to try to figure that one out.

The other "I gotcha" from the AP? They didn't like the way Reid paid his property taxes.

Wow, so you would assume AP got a great juicy quote from George Bush's IRS about how bad a thing Reid really did with his taxes? Not quite. Here's how the IRS characterized the payments:

Brand said the IRS might view the handling of the land taxes as undisclosed income to Reid but it was unlikely to prompt an investigation. "If someone is paying a liability you owe, there may be some income imputed. But at that level, it's pretty small dollars," he said.

This is the same IRS that harasses liberal churches for sport. But they don't think they've got enough to go after the minority leader of the opposition political party.

John Solomon is obsessed with Harry Reid. It's kind of creepy.

Read Captain Ahab's tome here. Read the rest of this post...

110 bodies found in Baghdad in last 24 hours

Good God. And as the Army told us today, we're there for another four years at least with the same number of troops, if not more. Read the rest of this post...

McCain latest fundraising victim of Foley scandal

UPDATE: The Washington Post documents more fundraising victims.

Senators and congressmen are running from the Foley scandal like the plague, and it's causing havoc for GOP fundraising events. To wit, from the DCCC:

Citing Scheduling Conflicts McCain Canceled Two Fundraising Events in Reynolds’ District. Sen. John McCain “scrubbed” two of the three fundraising events he had planed to attend in embattled Congressmen Thomas Reynolds’ district. McCain cited a scheduling conflict for the cancellations; which came only a day after a Reynolds spokesmen told reporters McCain would be attending the events. The Reynolds campaign team was surprised by the abrupt change. For one of the events, a black tie dinner for the Erie County Republican party, Karl Rove will act as a stand in. [Buffalo News, 10/11/06]

Citing Scheduling Conflicts GOP Rep. Sherwood Cancels Fundraisers with Both Reynolds and Hastert. “Don Sherwood's campaign has canceled fundraising appearances by House Speaker Dennis Hastert and U.S. Rep. Tom Reynolds, fellow Republicans embattled over their handling of the congressional page scandal. Sherwood spokesman Jake O'Donnell said the cancellations were related to the scandal ‘to a degree.’ But Reynolds also had a scheduling conflict, O'Donnell said, and Hastert's Oct. 18 appearance had been scheduled one day before another, unnamed ‘big event.’” [Wilkes Barre Times Leader, 10/10/06]

Hastert’s Scheduling Conflict Cited for the Cancellation of Fundraiser for GOP Rep. Sweeney. Beleaguered House Speaker Dennis Hastert has backed out of a big-bucks fund-raiser in New York City, according to Republican aides. Hastert, an Illinois Republican who is a fund-raising powerhouse for his party, had been scheduled to headline an event… for upstate Rep. John Sweeney, according to Sweeney's staff. But Hastert - who has been consumed by the scandal over ex-Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit e-mails to congressional pages - begged off, Sweeney's top aide told the Chicago Sun-Times. ‘The speaker had a scheduling conflict and will not attend...’ Sweeney deputy chief-of-staff Melissa Carlson told The Post. [The New York Post, 10/9/06]

Citing a Scheduling Conflict, Hastert Was Replaced As Keynote for Fundraiser for Bob Ney’s Old Seat. “Hastert was scheduled to speak at a $250-a-couple fundraiser for state Sen. Joy Padgett, who replaced Bob Ney as the Republican candidate for the district. Hastert canceled the trip, citing schedule conflicts, and Padgett's campaign substituted Ohio Sen. George V. Voinovich. The switch had nothing to do with the Foley scandal, a Padgett representative said.” [Columbus Dispatch, 10/5/06]

GOP Rep. Ron Lewis Canceled Hastert Fundraiser. Representative Ron Lewis, a seven-term Kentucky Republican, canceled a fund-raiser he had scheduled with Hastert. Lewis said he wanted to know all the facts behind the scandal before deciding whether to campaign with Hastert by his side. [Boston Globe, 10/5/06]

GOP Rep. Gerlach Canceled Fundraiser with Boehner. “In Pennsylvania, embattled Rep. Jim Gerlach, a Republican, canceled a scheduled fundraiser with House Majority Leader John Boehner until more was known about who in the leadership knew what about the Foley messages, and when.” [St. Petersburg Times, 10/5/06]

Read the rest of this post...

It's really quite horrifying that Bush thinks North Korea isn't his responsibility

As you probably know, George Bush, six years into his presidency, is trying to blame Bill Clinton for the fact that North Korea has just now decided to test a nuclear weapon. Here is what Madeleine Albright had to say about that today, per ABC News:

During the Clinton administration "...there were no nuclear weapons tests by North Korea, no new plutonium production, and no new nuclear weapons developed in Pyongyang."

It's really kind of shocking what a child our president really is. It was he who declared at the start of his administration that North Korea was a part of "the Axis of Evil." So what did he do about this "evil" country? He invaded Iraq. And we've been dealing with Iraq ever since. So now North Korea, the country amongst the Axis of Evil that was farthest along towards building nukes, now appears to have them, or is very very close.

But Republicans no longer take personal responsibility, for anything. Be it the cover-up of a child sex predator, or ignoring one of the most dangerous countries on the planet. Like arrogant, spoiled brats the Republicans are no longer responsible for anything.

Perhaps it's time we held them responsible at the ballot. Read the rest of this post...

NY Yankees pitcher dies in NYC plane crash, official confirms

Mayor Bloomberg basically just confirmed it on TV - he refused to deny the Yankees pitcher was on the plane. But in any case, the NYT confirms it was him. Read the rest of this post...

US Army plans to keep 120,000 US troops in Iraq until 2010

Jesus. That's four more years of this mess, at least. Jesus.

And by the way, so much for Bush's promises that we might just decrease troops next year. Apparently he got that wrong too. Read the rest of this post...

Bush/DeLay/Ken Lay pal launches negative ads barrage

The GOP negative ad barrage is starting courtesy of a political ally of Bush, DeLay and Ken Lay:

A previously unknown group led by a Republican political consultant in Houston is financing television advertisements against nine Democratic House candidates from North Carolina to Arizona.

The group, Americans for Honesty on Issues, is spending more than $1 million on the advertisements, which accuse Democratic candidates of carpetbagging, coddling illegal immigrants, being soft on crime and advocating cutting off money for troops in Iraq.

Talk about a misnomer. Americans for Honesty on Issues is being headed by an ally of three Americans who don't know much about honesty:

The leader of Americans for Honesty on Issues is Sue Walden, a close ally of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who left Congress amid questions on ethics and fund-raising. Ms. Walden has also raised money for President Bush and served as an adviser to Kenneth L. Lay, the former chief executive of Enron who died in July.

This just shows how delusional and deceptive the Republicans are this year. Seriously, think about it. An ally of Bush, DeLay and Ken Lay is heading a group called talking about honesty on issues. Read the rest of this post...

MSNBC: Does the buck stop with Hastert, or just his staff?

From MSNBC's David Shuster:

"[A]s far as the Foley scandal is concerned, the winds from that story are not about to die down. Because on top of the investigation into who new about the Foley page contacts when, and who is telling the truth now, the House Speaker has now opened up the question of whether the buck really stops with him, or whether accountability will only apply to his staff."

Read the rest of this post...

North Korea test dud: everybody else catches up

Just after 11:00 a.m. on Monday I went with an assessment, based on a post at ArmsControlWonk and a discussion with two non-proliferation experts I trust, that the North Korea nuclear test likely failed to meet North Korea's goals and expectations. Two hours later, after further conversations, I put up a post indicating an even stronger assessment that the test was not a full success.

Then I sweated it out, as virtually no corporate media source reported anything but a success. North Korea was claiming a huge success, the Russians put the blast at between 5 and 15 kilotons, and we got plenty of comments and emails that were highly critical of our assessment.

Fortunately, in the aftermath, it's become clear that the test did get screwed up. It was a sub-kiloton event, which is extremely small for a nuclear blast, and while nobody can yet figure out exactly why, everybody else is finally catching up. That fact that the test largely failed isn't getting quite as much press as the initial event, of course, but by now -- two days later -- it's the conventional wisdom. From the Times:

The statements came as American intelligence analysts developed their first theories of what might have gone wrong in the barren mountains of North Korea’s northeast provinces to have produced an explosion much smaller than even North Korea had apparently expected.

This, of course, does not mean that the test wasn't a big deal -- it was, and North Korea is definitely part of the nuclear club despite the screwup -- and what could have been is nearly as important as what was. But the most crucial part of the failure is that it appears to create some room for negotiation. The uncertainty surrounding the test offers an opening; North Korea's claims and actions force a harder line from many of the relevant actors, but there's a window of opportunity that didn't appear to exist immediately after the test.

With this administration, though, I think the question now isn't whether we'll manage to screw it up, but how . . . and how badly. Read the rest of this post...

ABC: Foley paid visit to Page dorm in 2000 AND 2002 or 2003

ABC has been on top of this story from beginning. Read the rest of this post...

CNN's Wolf Blitzer exposes GOP lies about Foley child sex predator scandal

Damn, this was on Jon Stewart last night, and I wrote about it yesterday morning, but had been sitting on the draft all day. Grrr... But at least now you can see the video of Wolf showing what good journalists do. (It's in the post below.)

The blogs have been known to be tough on Wolf sometimes, but he did a great job on Sunday doing what a real journalist should do - asking tough questions, and not simply accepting a statement as true simply because a Republican says it's so.



Huffington Post has the transcript and the video:

Blitzer: Well you don't have any evidence though, right?

Rep. McHenry: Well look at the fact points...four weeks out from a national election...

Blitzer: Yes or no: do you have any evidence? Do you have any evidence Congressman?

Rep. McHenry: Do you have any evidence that says they weren't involved?

Blitzer: I'm just asking if you're just throwing out an accusation or if you have any hard evidence.

Rep. McHenry: No, it's a question Wolf. The question remains, were they involved? And if they were not involved they need to say clearly, and it's a question, it's not an accusation.

Blitzer: Well, they are denying that they had anything to do with this.

Now that's journalism. Read the rest of this post...

Jon Stewart on Foley, again

Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi violent deaths estimated at 600,000 as US deaths continue to rise

An astounding report on deaths resulting from the quagmire in Iraq. Is the progress of which Bush and Condi so often speak:

In an update of a two-year-old survey that sparked wide disagreement, Johns Hopkins researchers now estimate that more than a half-million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and its bloody aftermath.

Reporting this week in the online edition of The Lancet, a leading British medical journal, the researchers estimated that 654,000 more Iraqis died of various causes after the invasion than would have died in a comparable period before.

The scientists attributed 600,000 of those deaths to acts of violence.

Gunshots emerged as the leading cause of death, accounting for 56 percent of the total. Airstrikes, car bombs and other explosions each accounted for 13 percent to 14 percent. Almost 60 percent of the deaths were among males 15 to 44.

And U.S. deaths continue unabated too:

Three U.S. Marines and two soldiers were killed in fighting in Iraq, the U.S. command said Wednesday. The Marines, assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, died Monday from enemy action in Iraq's western Anbar province, the military said in a statement. It did not provide further details.

Also Monday, a U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was attacked by insurgents in an eastern part of Baghdad, the military said.

The second soldier, attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, died of wounds from an explosion during a vehicle patrol Sunday north of the city of Tikrit.

Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

John McCain was on the TODAY Show doing his part to keep stirring the pot on North Korea. It is amazing that six years in to the Bush presidency, the Republicans are still blaming Clinton. It's laughable, but they've got nothing else. Nothing. Josh Marshall has an analysis of the Clinton and Bush approaches to North Korea:

"Failure" =1994-2002 -- Era of Clinton 'Agreed Framework': No plutonium production. All existing plutonium under international inspection. No bomb.

"Success" = 2002-2006 -- Bush Policy Era: Active plutonium production. No international inspections of plutonium stocks. Nuclear warhead detonated.

Face it. They ditched an imperfect but working policy. They replaced it with nothing. Now North Korea is a nuclear state.

Facts hurt. So do nukes.

Bush's approval is in the 30s because he is a failed President. The only way to control Bush is to change control of Congress.

I need my coffee. Read the rest of this post...

Bush points finger at Democrats on taxes and spending

Aaaahhhhhhhhh, did I miss something here? Bush, the man who "discovered" billions that was non existent to fight his war of ego and convenience in Iraq, is telling people that it is the Democrats who are wild spenders? After six years of running roughshod over the budget and unloading billions onto future generations, this guy has the nerve to stand up in front of a crowd and complain about the spending of anyone else. If the GOP is looking for yet another example of why Americans believe that they are out of touch with reality, here it is.

Earth to planet George: you spend like a drunken sailor and we all know it. Time to come out of your bubble or fantasy world or wherever the hell it is that you are living. Please tell me how borrowing against the future and dumping a higher burden on the middle class, while cutting taxes for the wealthiest and giving corporate welfare is good for the total population? I see how is helps the Dick Cheney's and Bush family but most Americans are failing to see how it specifically helps them. Why does George Bush hate the American middle class? Read the rest of this post...