Bad Deeds for 7-19-2007

Bush Administration Now Says They Can Block Your Bank Account – President Bush unveiled a new executive order that allows the administration to block bank accounts and any other financial assets that might be found in this country belonging to people, companies or groups that the United States deems are working to threaten stability in Iraq. It is unclear whether they take your money before or after you get shipped to Gitmo. But look how efficient our government has become: no time-consuming and costly trials.

New Zealand Bans Political Satire Using Images From Parliament
In June, New Zealand’s House of Representatives voted to institute new media rules, which in effect ban the use of images in a way that satirizes, ridicules or denigrates lawmakers. Breaches of these measures can be treated as contempt of Parliament, a charge that can result in imprisonment. In March 2005, speaker Margaret Wilson banned cameras from TV3 for seven days after the network showed associate education minister David Benson-Pope asleep during a parliamentary session.

Rupert Murdoch Had a Hotline to Tony Blair in the Run-Up to the Iraq Invasion – Tony Blair had three conversations with Fox News media magnate Rupert Murdoch in the nine days before the start of the Iraq war, the Government has disclosed. Details of the former prime minister’s contacts with Mr Murdoch have been released under the Freedom of Information Act. After trying to block disclosure for four years, the Government backed down in a surprise change of heart the day after Mr Blair resigned last month

Ex-White House Staffer Guilty in Philippines Plot – A former White House employee and FBI analyst was jailed for 10 years Wednesday for slipping US secrets to plotters in his native Philippines who wanted to overthrow President Gloria Arroyo. The sentencing of Leandro Arangoncillo brings to a close a harmful and disgraceful story of how a formerly trustworthy FBI employee and US Marine can turn into an enemy of the American people and the American way of life,” said the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s lead agent on the case, Weysan Dun. Some of the information was marked “top secret” and related to terrorist threats to US government interests in the Philippines, the Department of Justice (DoJ) said.

Bush Says No To Children’s Health – Legislation to renew a program that gives health care coverage to poor children has been rejected by President Bush because it would expand the function of the federal government at the cost of private insurance. President Bush told the Washington Post “I support the initial intent of the program. My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you’re really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.” According to this article”about 3.3 million additional children would be covered under the proposal developed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), among others. It would provide the program $60 billion over five years, compared with $30 billion under Bush’s proposal. And it would rely on a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes, to $1 a pack.”

Chris Matthews Calls Judy Miller a Hero – It’s bad enough that she’s back on teevee, but Chris Matthews called her a hero because she went to jail for Scooter Libby, who leaked and leaked and leaked all over her until we were invading Iraq.

Dick Cheney Lies About How He Became Vice President – Dick Cheney told The Weekly Standard’s Stephen F. Hayes [Weekly Standard is bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch.] why he agreed to be Bush’s running mate, “If the president of the United States asks you to do something, you really have an obligation to try to do it, if you can.” However, when Bush asked Cheney, he wasn’t president of the United States, he was the governor of Texas. And Bush asked Cheny to lead the search for the slot and Cheney choose himself.

Anybody Seen the War Czar Lately? – A report this morning notes that the White House is continuing to lobby lawmakers on Iraq policy, in part by offering access to top officials responsible for implementing war policy. “About 200 lawmakers were invited to the Pentagon for a classified question-and-answer session on Thursday with [Ambassador Ryan] Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. The two men were to brief lawmakers via satellite from Baghdad. Bush’s new war adviser, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, also was to be in the room.”
Is that it for the war czar? He “was to be in the room”?

FEMA Suppressed Health Warnings for Katrina Workers and Victims – The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers, lawmakers said today. At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers. FEMA’s Office of General Counsel “has advised that we do not do testing,” because this “would imply FEMA’s ownership of this issue,” […] Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, “[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them.”

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Planning – From Maria Bartiromo’s interview of Condi Rice in the current issue of BusinessWeek:

MB: Would you consider a position in business or on Wall Street?
CR: I don’t know what I’ll do long-term. I’m a terrible long-term planner.

Regards,

Jim