Almost New Years on the east coast

Checking in from dinner at Joe's. He made a very nice filet mignon, with broiled potatoes and a combination of mushrooms, a great fruit and mozzarella salad, and then homemade carrot cake for dessert. Was quite yummy. We just turned on the TV so Joe can watch Anderson on CNN - apparently, he's hosting their New Year's Eve coverage. (And Anderson is our unofficial blog mascot.)

Anyway, I've never been much of a New Years fan. Feels like kind of a fake holiday to me. So I much prefer the dinner with friends thing.

Ok, well hope you're all having a fun evening wherever you are. I'll check in later when I'm back home. Read the rest of this post...

NYT public editor/ombudsman rips paper over stonewalling on NSA story

Sunday's NYT

THE New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.

For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.

I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future.

The mentions his "lingering doubts" about whether and why the NYT appears to have had this story, but refused to publish it, just prior to the 2004 presidential election:

The most obvious and troublesome omission in the explanation was the failure to address whether The Times knew about the eavesdropping operation before the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election. That point was hard to ignore when the explanation in the article referred rather vaguely to having "delayed publication for a year." To me, this language means the article was fully confirmed and ready to publish a year ago - after perhaps weeks of reporting on the initial tip - and then was delayed.

Mr. Keller dealt directly with the timing of the initial tip in his later statements. The eavesdropping information "first became known to Times reporters" a year ago, he said. These two different descriptions of the article's status in the general vicinity of Election Day last year leave me puzzled.

For me, however, the most obvious question is still this: If no one at The Times was aware of the eavesdropping prior to the election, why wouldn't the paper have been eager to make that clear to readers in the original explanation and avoid that politically charged issue? The paper's silence leaves me with uncomfortable doubts.

Read the rest of this post...

Yeah, Kevin Madden, we all believe you

John posted the huge story which the Washington Post broke today further linking DeLay and Abramoff. Now, DeLay's spokesperson, Kevin Madden, is defending the integrity of his boss:

A spokesman for embattled Rep. Tom DeLay on Saturday disputed any assertion that donations to a nonprofit group linked to the congressman influenced his legislative agenda.

Those donations, to a now-disbanded nonprofit group called U.S. Family Network, came from interests close to indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a story in Saturday's Washington Post.

In an e-mail, DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said the donations were not a factor in the congressional activities of the Texas Republican and former House majority leader.

Yeah, right. Now, that would be the same Kevin Madden who misled the press earlier this week about the appeal of DeLay's case in Texas:

Media reports that U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay had convinced the state's highest court to hear his appeal were as widely circulated as they were, well, wrong.

Justices for the Texas Court Criminal Appeals agreed merely to consider hearing DeLay's money laundering case. They never said they would accept the case, said Edward Marty, the court's general counsel.

The erroneous media reports, which the San Antonio Express-News published in a wire story and displayed online, come from DeLay's spokesman, Kevin Madden, in an e-mail sent to reporters Tuesday evening, after courts had closed for the night.

“FYI-Breaking news out of Austin, TX,” the e-mail stated. “The state Court of Criminal Appeals has agreed to hear Mr. DeLay's habeas motion that was filed at the end of last week. The court has set a one-week deadline for briefs to be filed by the parties involved. The court could essentially decide to end Ronnie Earle's prosecution after hearing this motion and the facts presented.”

Madden said this afternoon that he made an error and never intended to “spin” the story.

“In an effort to be instantaneous, I wasn't precise.....My understanding (of the decision) was correct. The way I relayed it wasn't,” he said.

Kevin seems to have accuracy issues with his emails. So, now, when he says his boss isn't a crook, we should believe him, right? Can you imagine even having the job of trying to defend DeLay's integrity...and doing it with a straight face?

The MSM falls for the lies of the GOPers all the time. Just because they say it, doesn't make it true. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Afternoon Open Thread

Keep it coming. Read the rest of this post...

Bush to stonewall spying investigation

So, the Department of Justice is investigating to find out who leaked the illegal spying story, but the Bush White House will work to prevent and impede the Congressional investigation according to the New York Times. If they weren't breaking the law, they'd have nothing to hide:

Though Mr. Bush made no mention of the subject in his radio address, some of his advisers and national security officials say the White House has decided in the past two weeks to take a hard line with Congressional inquiries into Mr. Bush's secret authorization of wiretaps without warrants on suspects within the United States.

The White House's effort to deflect a Congressional investigation into a secret executive order he issued in 2002 authorizing domestic spying follows a strategy Mr. Bush tried - and ultimately retreated from - in the controversies over why he claimed Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa and what kind of warnings the White House received about Al Qaeda's ambitions before the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush's aides and intelligence officials say they plan to refuse to offer more details in public on why they believe the technology of the program made it necessary to bypass the secret court designed to authorize wiretapping efforts inside the United States. They are preparing to dispute vigorously and quite publicly the broader legal critique, offered by some Democrats, the American Civil Liberties Union and some Republicans, that the president acted beyond his authority as commander in chief.

"We're not going to shy away from this debate," Mr. Bush's counselor, Dan Bartlett, said on Friday from Washington.

In interviews over the past week, Mr. Bush's aides said they were convinced that Mr. Bush's decision to admit that he authorized the program - and then to say little about its details - will be enough to keep an increasingly fractious Republican majority in line.

Dan Bartlett is clearly lying. They are tyring to prevent any discussion at all about the President's criminal behavior. And, the GOP flunkies on the Hill, who fell over themeselves to impeach Bill Clinton, will try to let it pass. Read the rest of this post...

Rockin' editorial in the Detroit Free Press accuses American Family Association of "bigotry"

Nice. and this is Ford's hometown paper. Very nice. Sends a great message to the rest fo the auto industry. And while the editorial rocks across the board, one line is particularly brilliant:

boycotts based on bigotry rarely succeed, partly because they prompt protests from those who believe in equality

I've said for a while now that the reason we win these battles is because each of these battles start as "culture wars" and end as "civil rights." And in the end, companies must side in favor of civil rights or they get destroyed by public opinion and the bottom line. AFA will always be on the side of the bigots, and nature abhors a bigot.

Here's a snippet of the editorial

Ford Motor Co. protected its integrity, and bottom line, by telling the American Family Association where to get off this month.

Other companies facing boycotts over which groups they market their products to should learn to keep the bedroom and boardroom separate. It's bad business, and just wrong, to shun customers because of their sexual orientation, race, creed, gender or culture.

That's a lesson the American Family Association has yet to learn....

The group, which touts itself as being pro-family but spends much of its energy venting against homosexuals, has threatened another boycott. But boycotts based on bigotry rarely succeed, partly because they prompt protests from those who believe in equality.

Ford did the right, and smart, thing by not allowing consumers to believe it was bullied into shunning loyal customers to satisfy an organization's prejudices. It set the right example for corporations, customers and citizens.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Joe is making New Years Eve dinner for a bunch of us this evening, I suspect that's why he hasn't been updating the blog this morning. Naughty naughty :-) Read the rest of this post...

Trump for Governor of NY?

An ego that knows no bounds:

Donald Trump is considering running for governor, a leading Republican said Friday.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno on Thursday suggested that a big-name candidate could be flirting with entering the 2006 contest. On Friday, he confirmed to News Channel 10 in Albany that he had been referring to Trump.

Bruno told the station he had spoken to the real estate developer and TV personality about a possible run.

I forgot that he had considered running for President already. NY Governor seems like a step down for him. And, is he conservative enough on the social issues? That'll be interesting to see. Read the rest of this post...

Investigate the real crime first

The Department of Justice is beginning an investigation into the release of information about the Bush Administration's illegal domestic spying operation. Only in Bush world could DOJ investigate the alleged leak while ignoring the underlying crime. Every time they talk leak, we have to talk about the real crime committed by the President. Fortunately, that drumbeat has started:

Privacy advocates said today that the leak investigation should be set aside, at least for now, in favor of an investigation of the warrantless eavesdropping itself.

"President Bush broke the law and lied to the American people when he unilaterally authorized secret wiretaps of U.S. citizens," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "But rather than focus on this constitutional crisis, Attorney General Gonzales is cracking down on critics of his friend and boss. Our nation is strengthened, not weakened, by those whistle-blowers who are courageous enough to speak out on violations of the law."

Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said his group believes "the priority at this point for the Department of Justice should be the appointment of an independent prosecutor to determine whether federal wiretap laws were violated" by the National Security Agency program.

The Democrats can't drop the ball on this one. Bush committed a crime. And, he has to take the punishment. The President is not above the law which, you will recall, was the GOP mantra during the Clinton impeachment saga. Read the rest of this post...

Boston Archdiocese playing hardball with new settlements

When all else fails, go back to the classics. The church always gets confused, thinking that this is their heyday and that they can simply get away with anything. Obviously the Archdiocese of Boston is feeling pretty good about itself these days since they are now taking full advantage of the statute of limitations, moral responsibilities be damned. Their response to the second wave of lawsuits is to get tough with those who dare ask for compensation. I used to think that the new Archbishop O'Malley was a step up in Boston compared to the disgraced (yet still well respected in the Vatican) Law but the more I see from O'Malley, he's just more of the same with his gay bashing and aggressiveness towards victims. The victims of church abuse have little to fight with other than the jury of public opinion so I hope they get some support.

On a positive note, the Archdiocese of Portland had been trying to shed their moral responsibilities by claiming bankruptcy despite property worth millions, received a major hit yesterday by the court. They lost their claim that property was owned by the individual parishes and not the archdiocese. This model has been used across the US in efforts to avoid church fire sales to compensate victims of church abuse.

The moral compass in the church needs some serious repair. Read the rest of this post...

UK freedom of information laws failing miserably

How do the Labour supporters continue supporting new Labour? Blair is more of a Tory than the Tory Party which explains why Bush loves him so much. It's funny to see that as Blair sits on the right the Conservatives are moving towards the left, or at least the middle. Oh the choices for voters these days.

A year after we were first granted the "right to know", new figures show nine out of 17 government departments have failed to provide adequate answers to half of the requests they received.

Further findings reveal that all but one government department has breached the FOI legislation by failing to answer requests within the 20-day time limit.

While Labour has been happy to release documents embarrassing the previous Tory administration over its handling of "Black Wednesday" - Britain's forced withdrawal from the ERM - ministers have been less willing to let the public use the Act to shed light on Labour's own political controversies.

For example, ministers are still refusing to release earlier drafts of the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the war with Iraq.

Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post big story on Tom Delay and Abramoff - even MORE ties

I really really really hope the Republicans keep Delay in his leadership post. He's now become the new Newt, the big liability whose name everybody knows.

Bring it on.

Here's the Post article.

(Hat tip to Fired Up America) Read the rest of this post...