Another poll with Bush in the high 20's. Boy, David Broder's boy is sure staging that comeback! Seems like many of the polls are starting to show high 20's.
Oh. And by the way. All media types need to take a look at this. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, 70% of Americans want Dems to continue or increase their level of confrontation of Bush.
I find coverage like this quite puzzling:
Some Democrats are worried that the debate over Iraq war funding has become a legislative quagmire, impeding progress on their "Six for '06" agenda. Despite an early bill-writing blitz, none of their proposals for homeland security, the minimum wage, tuition, prescription drugs, and energy—to name a few—have become law. Dems aim to have more done by Memorial Day, but several told the WP not to count on it.First, is there really any other issue than the war? Ok, so there is. But the war is arguable the most important issue facing this country right now. The fact that it would eat up Congressional time is not surprising. The war is eating up everything else, why should Congressional attention be any different?
Not that we really need it, but here's more evidence of the corruption involving the White House in the prosecutor/DOJ scandal:
Three hours before Goodling visited his fourth-floor office, Margolis told House and Senate investigators that Sampson dropped by to say he had information Margolis needed to know, one congressional aide said.He also testified about Monica Goodling falling apart at the seams when the story broke. Boo hoo.
Margolis recounted that Sampson read his e-mail exchanges with White House aides that showed the decisions on firing the prosecutors were closely coordinated with members of the president's staff, the aide said.
Margolis recalled that he was stunned to learn the extent of White House involvement in the dismissals, congressional aides said. Margolis testified that preparation for McNulty's Senate testimony -- which took place more than a month before his meetings with Goodling and Sampson -- was based on the assumption that the White House only became involved at the end of the firing process, the aide said.
One of Josh Marshall's readers, who is a prosecutor himself, wrote in about the ongoing investigations/revelations in prosecutor-gate:
I've read TPM for years, and appreciate your work. I email you because I read something today about the firing of John McKay that finally put me over the edge.'Nuff said.
Apparently during Comey's testimony today he said that one of the reasons McKay got himself in hot water with the DOJ heavyweights was because he was pushing for additional resources to investigate the murder of Tom Wales, who was an Assistant US Attorney in Seattle. Tom Wales was shot and killed in 2001. What nobody has talked about, and what you may not be aware of, is the fact that Tom Wales was extremely active in attempting to get tighter gun control laws passed here in Washington.
Think about that for a second. A pro-gun control federal prosecutor was shot and killed. John McKay was agitating for more resources to bring his killer to justice. That pissed off DOJ, who apparently thought that McKay should spend his time going after bogus voter fraud prosecutions rather than solve the murder of a guy who was in favor of gun control. If you don't think the fact that Tom Wales' political views weren't taken into consideration by the higher ups at DOJ when they decided to punish McKay for fighting to find his killer, you haven't been paying attention to the way these guys have operated for the last 6 years. Every single thing they do is about politics, and the political views of those they help or hurt.
The bottom line of this whole McKay firing could be summed up in this way: try to catch killers, you get fired. File BS charges of voter fraud, you keep your job.
It's a slap in the face to every prosecutor in the country. It's our job to seek justice for those that aren't able to seek it for themselves. None of us should give a damn what the political views are of the victims we try to protect. It's beyond reprehensible for them to punish McKay for doing this. But for this administration, it's par for the course.
I didn't watch it, but so far what I've read suggests that this cartoon pretty much covers it:
Update: Kevin Drum adds some thoughtful commentary:
I note that tonight's Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan library has provoked an even greater gusher than usual of Reagan nostalgia among GOP hopefuls. A few days ago, for example, Tom Bevan wrote that the search for a new Reagan is "hanging especially heavy over the current presidential race."
No surprise there. After all, what choice do they have? Bush Jr. is radioactive; Bush Sr. was an apostate; Ford was an accident; Nixon was a crook; Eisenhower was practically a socialist by modern Republican standards; and Hoover was....
It isn't just a question of ignorance, but a question of the long-term thoroughness of the propagandizing that began in the early days of the last century. It was proposed that this propaganda is so complete that not only are most people in the US ignorant of what is taking place on the US political scene, and in the world as a direct result of US policy, they are ignorant of the fact that they are ignorant. They have been inculcated with the view that their view is the only "right" one" and, consequently, they really "don't know any better". In short: "What do you do if you don't know that you don't know something?"
On the surface anyway, this looks like a pretty stupid idea:
USA Today leads with word that the Department of Homeland Security is looking into outfitting cell phones with equipment that could detect "radiological isotopes, toxic chemicals, and biological agents." If it's successful, officials are confident it could revolutionize the way the country detects and deals with a potential attack.Can you imagine everyone running around with these detectors? If the police think they have a problem with false car and home alarms, imagine the multitude of nutbars running around yelling that they've detected a terrrasist attack !! when in fact they've detected their spouses pacemaker.
Job growth is starting to reflect the slowing economy. New jobs last month at 88,000, were half what is necessary to keep up with population growth.
Added: Oh, I neglected to mention that both the previous months were also adjusted downward.
I didn't know she was being intimidated under investigation?
Monica Goodling's lawyer hits back at the Justice Department, saying that the announcement yesterday that she's under investigation "smacks of retribution and intimidation."Go ahead, piss her off. Would be nice to see her angry and then talking a bit about the real goings-on inside the DOJ.
Hey Lynne, just for you:
Check this out -- the offices of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are denying a Washington Post story today saying that Congressional Democrats have backed down to the White House by offering to remove Iraq withdrawal language from the now-vetoed Iraq bill.Maybe less despair now?
Pelosi just went before the Democratic caucus and informed them that the story's false, a Pelosi aide tells me. WaPo is standing by the story, and the lead writer of the Post piece, Jonathan Weisman, told me that leadership aides told him that the withdrawal language had to go. But the WaPo story goes further than that, saying explicitly that Dems have already "backed down" and offered the concession of removing the withdrawal language. Those aren't the same thing.
As I've mentioned before, jobs (and job losses) are lagging indicators of economic health. While other indicators show a slowing economy, recent job numbers have actually looked pretty good (albeit with poor internals such as the quality of jobs declining, but that's another discussion). Given the normal cycle, the job losses should begin occurring and getting larger as the economy slows with the highest unemployment right about the time the economy begins to improve.
Here is a post outlining the recent job losses announced. As you can see, numerous large companies, who have been decreasing spending on their capital equipment, are also starting to cut back in employment. Coupled with the biggest employment growth area of the last several years, construction, it's likely that there is the beginnings of a downward cycle, ie.: slowing economy = more unemployment = lower consumer spending = slower economy. Lather, rinse, repeat.
That is, unless all those rich Bentley buyers have enough spending power to maintain the national GDP, which I doubt. Tomorrow will be the release of the latest employment numbers. I wouldn't expect much from it as the layoff announcements are just now occuring.
In other economic news, I've mentioned before how the Federal Reserve keeps pumping money into the economy. Here's a chart showing the growth of money:
Is there really any question why the stock market is rallying despite the signals of a slowing economy? Or any question as to why real world inflation is a problem?
Oh well. Carry on. Party like it's 1969!
Here are two update graphs from The Oil Drum that tell the whole story of the current energy situation:
The first chart is a measure of the amount of oil in inventory:
As you can see, there is plenty of oil in inventory. Rising/falling prices in oil are occurring because of "risk" premium, of which there is plenty. Nevertheless, oil prices are currently in a narrow range. Gasoline, on the other hand, is going through the roof. Why?
Gasoline inventories continue to fall although it appears we might be near a bottom. Wholesale prices (and retail) reflect the shortage. The oil industry has various excuses like refineries being serviced, blah blah blah, that you may or may not believe. It's always interesting how oil company profits go sky-high when they have problems with refineries. Either way, it's unusual for gasoline supplies to be so low before the driving season. It will be interesting to see if high prices deter summer driving or not.
Bush is operating in Iraq on a number of flawed assumptions. One of them is that political benchmarks can be achieved, showing progress in Iraq:
The New York Times leads with word that the Iraqi national oil law is likely to face some strong opposition in parliament as Sunni and Kurdish officials seem reluctant to support the legislation that would determine how oil revenue is distributed. This is bad news for the White House, which was hoping the issue, long touted as a key mark of progress in Iraq, would be resolved quickly.I have three problems with benchmarks.
"The whole problem is because this law was made in a hurry, and the Americans were rushing everyone to do it," a Kurdish legislator said. Meanwhile, the NYT notes, the main bloc of Sunni legislators said the law shouldn't even be discussed at a time when the country's security situation is so dire.So look to the situation to remain stable .... and deadly .... in Iraq until we're out. And we won't be out until either Bush leaves office or Congressional Republicans revolt.
This is why I am totally fed up with the Democrats.
President Bush and congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill yesterday, with Democrats offering the first major concession: an agreement to drop their demand for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq.
source
"There are people in Washington ... who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they're looking for 10, 20, 50 years in the future ... the reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region, and I have never heard any of our leaders say that they would commit themselves to the Iraqi people that 10 years from now there will be no military bases of the United States in Iraq."— former President Jimmy Carter, Feb. 3, 2006
source
Froomkin has a couple of interesting tidbits today. First this from Bush today:
"[S]lowly but surely, the truth will be known. Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed. And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not, no violence. There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it. But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives. And that's what we're trying to achieve."This is a classic example of Bush ratcheting down expectations. A car bomb each day will qualify as being like downtown Philly or something. I'm not sure anyone will buy it, but Bush is flailing around like Helen Keller trying to find something that will work.
"'Some kind of compromise has to be worked out between the administration and the Democrats,' said Sen. George V. Voinovich (Ohio), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. 'That's how it's done. Everybody holds their nose and maybe a couple of times vomits, but you get it done.'What's not included in this quote is "Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio). The key word is "everybody", and Voinovich has been around long enough to know better. Or he's still in total denial. It's Republicans like Voinovich who keep painting lipstick on that pig that is causing the Republican party to march toward the cliff. So far, the only people vomiting are people who have to deal with Bush and deal with the consequences of Bush. It won't be until the Republicans are puking in the aisles of the Senate that anything will happen. Just keep it up Voiny.
Here's another edition. He's discussing a cover article by Jon Chait in The New Republic.
National Review is on a roll. Here’s columnist Thomas Sowell: “When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.” Kevin Drum writes, “in case you’re wondering, there’s no further context. That’s the whole quote. It’s one bullet point in a long series of dyspeptic observations about how liberals have ruined the country.”Keep in mind that this periodical is one of the most widely read and respected right-wing rags in the country.
You knew this was coming. Actually, I'm surprised it took so long:
“The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops’ online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.”
