Ted Stevens had oil company employees renovate his home

Put the Alaska Senate seat into the competitive race column, especially if Ted Stevens runs again as he's planning. Ole Ted has got some big problems brewing back home. We already knew he was under investigation. We knew the FBI raided his home. Now, we're getting a clearer picture of why:

Ex-Veco Corp. CEO Bill Allen admitted in court Friday that he had company employees work several months on a remodeling project at the Girdwood home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

The former head of the oil field services company made the admission Friday while testifying in the federal corruption trial of a former state lawmaker.

Allen and former Veco vice president Rick Smith in May pleaded guilty to extortion, conspiracy and bribery of legislators.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney James Wendt, representing former state Rep. Pete Kott, Allen acknowledged that the more than $400,000 he admitted spending in the bribery charge was for other legislators - and for work done at the Girdwood home of Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate.

"I don't think there was a lot of materials," Allen said. "There was some labor."

The workers were Veco employees, probably one to four at a time, Allen said. He said the work on the home lasted for "probably a couple of months." Later, he said it might have been as much as six months.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I'm back in DC, arrived last night. Just exhausted. Being away does give you a nice perspective on things back home. Whether what you learn about your home is positive or negative, well, that's an entirely different question. Read the rest of this post...

Fred Thompson doesn't remember the Terri Schiavo case, so he has no opinion on it

Wow, this guy is worse than I thought. He is really out to betray the religious right. He doesn't remember the details of the Terri Schiavo case, he now claims. That's bull. And even if he doesn't remember the details, which I highly doubt, he most certainly remembers what his opinions were at the time about the Republican intervention.

If Fred Thompson can't answer really simple questions about rather large issues in the national experience, then the man doesn't deserve anyone's vote. Having said that, boy he is starting to tick off the fundies :-) Read the rest of this post...

Condi's special friend

It's so nice to have special friends. Read the rest of this post...

Troops may not shrink to pre-surge level

Gee, no one could have predicted that one.

Even with cutbacks promised by President Bush, the United States may wind up with thousands more troops in Iraq next summer than before the buildup of forces he ordered in January.

So the chimp lied. Again, show of hands for those who are surprised. Read the rest of this post...

Obama gets it, version 2.0

Obama is once again impressive on foreign policy. In Wednesday's major address on Iraq the Senator expressed his views on the military and political situation in the country, and his analysis was insightful, reality-based, and pragmatic.

The crucial element of Obama's speech, and a focus that demonstrates his sound judgment and macro understanding of the situation in Iraq, was his dismissal of the status quo debate over military "progress." Instead, he insisted, reasonable and serious evaluation of (and indeed, planning regarding) Iraq must focus on the political situation. This is the type of statement that those of us who follow the issue immediately process as true and unremarkable, but, of course, it's a vital point, and one that the current administration is working hard to obscure.

Obama laid out a plan for an expeditious -- but not so rapid as to damage force protection -- redeployment, and he also outlined steps to deal with the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Iraq and, increasingly, its neighbors. The US policy on refugees, for example, has been nothing short of disgraceful, and Obama's attention to this is laudable.

I was a little skeptical about some of the points on Iraq's political process, which is why I was happy to have the opportunity to discuss the speech with two of Obama's principal foreign policy advisers. Sarah Sewall and Samantha Power were kind enough to answer questions on a conference call, and to the extent that a candidate's inclinations can be judged by his or her surrogates, it's hard not to be excited about the foreign policy of an Obama administration.

I asked them about the dubious call for "a new constitutional convention in Iraq, convened with the United Nations, which would not adjourn until Iraq's leaders reach a new accord on reconciliation" -- I always worry when people call for a political summit that will succeed because ... nobody gets to leave until it succeeds. Power reassured me, explaining that (and I'm paraphrasing from notes) it "shouldn't be read as some Pollyannaish notion that just by getting everybody together you'll get a solution," but simply that the political process has to remain the focus.

Power put it in a way that I think gets to the core of this administration's bankruptcy on foreign policy in general and Iraq in particular: "Right now, the military is fighting this war alone." And she's right -- our diplomatic efforts are execrable. Our intelligence process is broken. The administration gives no sense of shared sacrifice.

Obama offered a programmatic solution -- or at least plan -- and he hit all the right notes on humanitarian issues to go along with an appropriate focus on transitioning from a military focus to a diplomatic one. His grasp of the realities of Iraq appears excellent, from the suffering of the Iraqi people to subtle regional elements to our strategic role.

It's nice to remember what real leadership looks like. Read the rest of this post...

Republicans simply do not believe in our democracy

Associated Press

"The president does not think that generals should be denigrated at all," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. If critics of the president "want to attack him, fine, but the generals, and by association the military, should be out of bounds from partisan attacks."

That's ridiculous, dangerous, and utterly un-American. And it's a notion that the Republicans have pushed for years. Namely, that the military in America is off-limits, above criticism, and always right. And it's absurd. And dangerous. In America, the military is under civilian rule. And there's a reason for that. The military, like any government entity, or any man, is not infallible. And worse, the military, unlike HUD or the Department of Labor, can throw its weight around in ways only dreamed of by other less-armed agencies (hard to imagine HUD waterboarding). It is a direct danger to our democracy, to any democracy, to give the military the right to trump the civilian.

But this kind of democracy-baiting isn't new for the Republicans. They don't like our system of jurisprudence either. They have disdain for judges - but really, it's a disdain for the entire branch of government, the very existence of the branch.

Then there are the rights and liberties underlying our country. Freedom of religion? They don't believe in freedom of religion. They believe in freedom of the Southern Baptist religion. All others need not apply. Freedom of speech? They don't believe in any speech at all anymore. Freedom of the press? They think reporters should be tried for treason. Then there's domestic spying. A crime once considered verboten. Now it's shrugged off as just another acceptable fact of every day life because, you know, we have nothing to hide. Which goes to another underlying fact of American life, the right to a lawyer and the right to be innocent until proven guilty. Republicans don't believe in those either, anymore.

And the arguments that Republicans use to bolster all of these claims? Straight out of the Soviet handbook. What are you so afraid of if you've got nothing to hide?

Back to the topic at hand, if the military is sacrosanct and off limits, then why do we have a Uniform Code of Military Justice at all? Let's just delete it from the laws and say that anything the military does, anywhere, is okay, legal, and downright good. Or at the very least, make the UCMJ no longer apply to generals, since the White House seems to think that generals can do no wrong (still waiting for an answer on why Negroponte balled out Petraeus a few years back for cooking the books re: the number of Iraqi security forces trained - doesn't sound like the kind of scolding he'd get if he were truly infallible).

If we're the country the Republicans keep describing, then we are not the country I grew up in. Or worse, we are the country I grew up in, but I was lied to for 40 years about what that country stands for.

I'm not sure which is worse. Read the rest of this post...

Wash. Post: Bush contradicted himself and "recent government reports"

So blatant that even the Washington Post picked it up:

In his speech last night, President Bush made a case for progress in Iraq by citing facts and statistics that at times contradicted recent government reports or his own words.

In other words, your President wasn't telling you the truth -- again. Read the rest of this post...

Republicans are passing small rectangular sun-dried objects

CROWLEY: . . .One key congressional aide that told me today, if the situation has not improved for Republicans come spring, then what looks like a very bad year for Republicans will become even worse. [CNN, Situation Room, 9/13/07]

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: He's really trying to win over some queasy Republicans who you will remember a couple months ago were thinking about siding with the Democrats in terms of setting a timetable for troop withdrawal. [CNN, 9/13/07]

. . . . But in fact, most of his audience and most of his popularity now really is -- the speech really is aimed towards Republicans. [CNN, from CNN NEWSROOM, 9/13/07]

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN AMERICAN MORNING ANCHOR: …
some of those Republicans had been placated by what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker said earlier this week.

But they're still not really happy. They need something better than that to take to their constituents because there is a growing sense in this country that this war was not worth it, that the U.S. should get out as soon as it can. [CNN, 9/13/07]

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: Well, Chris, if that`s what the president does tonight, as Tim Russert has reported here, that`s going to cause a storm. You know, he will not have Democratic support, and I think many Republicans will abandon him on that. And you know, it`s one thing and it`s bad enough this President`s going to leave a mess in Iraq and probably Iran, it`s unbelievable that he would also try to make a long- term commitment to a country that basically hardly exists. [CNN, 9/13/07]

You know, the security pact in Korea was one to defend South Korea from an invasion from the north. This kind of long-term security pact looks more like we`re going to try to just prevent chaos within Iraq... [MSNBC HARDBALL, 9/13/07]

CNN JOHN JOHNS: "So the pressure is on the small group of Republican moderates -- what, nine to about a dozen Republican moderates. Some whom have expressed some concerns about what's going on in Iraq and also expressed concerns about going back to pre-surge levels which some say, again, is just about the status quo." [CNN, 9/13/07]

APRIL RYAN, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO NETWORKS: And you have people like Republican Congressman Chris Shays, who is very upset with President Bush right now for that. They are saying there should be a deadline and we should be withdrawing troops once a month. This is a Republican congressman, not a Democratic congressman. So word is already coming in from the Hill as to the dislike for the president`s statements tonight. ." [CNN, 9/13/07]

"you said you could not find a republican who wanted president bush to give this speech. Why? Well, I think Republicans, many of whom are now critics of this war, were very willing to stand with General Petraeus. . . but the president going on television tonight, he is reminding the American public that this is, of course, the policy of George W. Bush that they are supporting. And this comes from republican presidential candidates as well. They would just as soon that the president had kept quiet and just leave Petraeus's statements stand for themselves. [CNN 09/13/2007]

David Gergen: "What I do think emerged tonight is what you started with, in that what was new tonight was about this enduring, long-term commitment to Iraq. [CNN 09/13/2007]

CNN 09/13/2007 22:12:00: ... "it does present, as you mentioned, obstacles for republicans coming into this presidential election. Your basically going to have a presidential election with large numbers of U.S. forces still on the ground here. Well, that's the down side of this for Republicans because it's almost certain now that we're going to have 100,000 troops or so in Iraq come November of 2008. And that makes -- that is a perfect setup for democrats to run not only for the white house, but for the congress saying this party -- the Republican party won't end our war in Iraq. We will. And that's going to be a powerful argument. [CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, 09/13/2007] Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

One of the definitive lines about George Bush and his administration comes from John Murtha, who has repeated it over and over for the past two years: Just because they say it doesn‘t make it so.

So here we go again. Just because Bush says it doesn't make it so. In fact, if Bush says it, then it's guaranteed to be a lie.

Thread please. Read the rest of this post...

US consumer confidence drops

GOP economics continue to drag down the economy.Consumer confidence fell from 89.3 in August to a dismal 71.1 in September. Let's hope this is the end of the GOP economic experiment.

President Bush, meanwhile, is continuing to get low marks for his economic stewardship. Just 37 percent approve of his handling of the economy in September, down from 41 percent in August, according to a separate AP-Ipsos poll. Only a third of the public is satisfied with the president's overall job performance, the poll found.

Individuals' feelings about the economy's prospects and their own financial fortunes plunged to 14.4 in September, compared with 43.9 in August. The new reading was the fourth weakest showing on record.

Credit problems in mortgage and other markets make it likely that the worst housing slump in 16 years will persist well into 2008. Foreclosures and late payments are spiking. Lenders have been forced out of business. The carnage -- especially in the ''subprime'' mortgage market involving borrowers with spotty credit histories -- has wreaked havoc on Wall Street.

Read the rest of this post...

US subprime problems spill into UK banking sector

The increasingly global problem that Alan Greenspan never saw coming has forced an unusual intervention by the Bank of England who provided emergency funding to Northern Rock, a UK mortgage firm that offered easy money to home buyers in the turbulent and still increasing (in London) British real estate market. The international banking credit crunch is amazing in that bankers are supposed to be so conservative yet it is their own industry that has triggered this growing financial crisis.

Northern Rock faces the same problems as many other banks, all of which routinely borrow large amounts from each other every day. Since the sub-prime mortgage market crumbled in the US last month, banks have become wary of lending to each other, and the interest rates they charge each other has risen to more than one percentage point above the Bank of England's 5.75% base rate. Two weeks ago Barclays ago had to resort to the Bank's permanent standing facility and borrow £1.6bn although it said that was due to a glitch in its technical operations.

Read the rest of this post...