The WAWG Blog

Former Justice Department Official and U.S. Attorney Admits There Was a Republican Loyalty Test For Prospective Prosecutors – In written answers to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bradley Schlozman, the former Justice Department official and U.S. attorney who’s been at the center of the firings controversy, admitted that he had once urged hiring certain prosecutors for his office based on their political affiliation. It’s against civil service laws to do so.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker Didn’t Tell the Whole Truth – General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker said in their testimony to Congress was pretty much expected. It’s what they did not say that is interesting:

A chart displayed by Army Gen. David Petraeus that purported to show the decline in sectarian violence in Baghdad between December and August made no effort to show that the ethnic character of many of the neighborhoods had changed in that same period from majority Sunni Muslim or mixed to majority Shiite Muslim.

Neither Petraeus nor U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker talked about the fact that since the troop surge began the pace by which Iraqis were abandoning their homes in search of safety had increased. They didn’t mention that 86 percent of Iraqis who’ve fled their homes said they’d been targeted because of their sect, according to the International Organization for Migration.

While Petraeus stressed that civilian casualties were down over the last five weeks, he drew no connection between that statement and a chart he displayed that showed that the number of attacks rose during at least one of those weeks.
Petraeus also didn’t highlight the fact that his charts showed that “ethno-sectarian” deaths in August, down from July, were still higher than in June, and he didn’t explain why the greatest drop in such deaths, which peaked in December, occurred between January and February, before the surge began.
And while both officials said that the Iraqi security forces were improving, neither talked about how those forces had been infiltrated by militias.

Petraeus didn’t say that many believe that al Qaida numbers increased in Ninevah province only after the surge began.

Petraeus said 445,000 people were on the security forces’ payroll, but didn’t discuss that many officials believe that thousands of those don’t actually exist, but are phantoms whose salaries actually go into ministry officials’ pockets.

General Testifies to Congress That We’re Making Progress in the War – The date: April 28, 1967, the General: Westmoreland, the War: Vietnam.
“The numbers [on Viet Cong troop strengths] troubled Westmoreland, who feared that the press would not understand them. He did not order them changed but instead did not include the information in reporting to Washington, which in his view was a decision that the data were not appropriate to report.” Sound familiar? If not, you skipped the article above.

Romney Adviser Linked to Anti-Thompson Smear Site – A top adviser to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney appears to be behind the launch of a new Web site attacking GOP presidential rival Fred D. Thompson during his first week on the trail. The site, PhoneyFred.org, painted an unflattering picture of Thompson, dubbing the former TV star and senator Fancy Fred, Five O’clock Fred, Flip-Flop Fred, McCain Fred, Moron Fred, Playboy Fred, Pro-Choice Fred, Son-of-a-Fred and Trial Lawyer Fred. A series of inquiries led to the political consulting firm of J. Warren Tompkins, Romney’s lead consultant in South Carolina. Tompkins was the chief strategist for George W. Bush in South Carolina at the time a smear campaign was launched against Senator John McCain to sully his character and spread rumors, including that he had once fathered an illegitimate black child.

Democratic Leadership Afraid to Confront Administration – House Democratic leaders have decided to postpone a vote on a criminal contempt resolution against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for several weeks, and possibly longer. Democrats had vowed to take up the issue when Congress returned from its August break, with Democratic leaders declaring that any failure to do so would undermine the ability of Congress to conduct its constitutionally mandated oversight role. “Congress will act to preserve and protect our criminal justice system and to ensure appropriate congressional oversight in all areas essential to the well-being of the American people,” Pelosi said back then.

The Latest Ugliness From Ann Coulter – Ann Coulter spoke at Xavier University last week. She spouted these gems in her speech:

“If Barack Obama is half white and half black, Bill Clinton is half white and half trash.”

“Don’t let the Democratic Party anywhere near foreign policy,” she said, drawing more applause. “It’s a conflict of interest when you ask people to defend America who don’t like America.”

“Liberals don’t recognize the existence of evil,” she said. “The closest thing to it in their vocabulary is Wal-Mart.”

“Democrats believe public restrooms are only for snorting coke.”

“Terrorists are Democrats with more gumption.”

One attendee said, “Conservatives like her because she says what we think.”

Regards,

Jim

California Republican Party Passes Resolution Endorsing the Dirty Tricks Initiative to Steal the 2008 Presidential Election – The measure, if passed, would dictate that California divide up its electoral college votes by congressional district — resulting in the Republican theft of at least 20 electoral votes in November’s general election, the equivalent of Ohio. Can you believe that they have the gall to call it the “Presidential Election Reform Act”? If this passes, Democrats will have to win Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida or some other tough combination of states in order to win the White House. Sign the petition to stop this dirty trick.

Surge Has Worsened the Lives of Iraqis – According to an ABC News, the BBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK national survey, “More Iraqis say security in their local area has gotten worse in the last six months than say it’s gotten better, 31 percent to 24 percent, with the rest reporting no change. Far more, six in 10, say security in the country overall has worsened since the surge began, while just one in 10 sees improvement. More directly assessing the surge itself – a measure that necessarily includes views of the United States, which are highly negative – 65 to 70 percent of Iraqis say it’s worsened rather than improved security, political stability and the pace of redevelopment alike.” Iraq Hearings Watched Closely in Baghdad

The Media’s Blind Repetition of Bush’s Iraq Lies Continues – The media’s failure to ask tough questions helped President Bush get us into Iraq. Now, it’s happening again–blind repetition of Bush’s Iraq lies. This past week, CBS News anchor Katie Couric reported from Iraq. Rather than asking tough questions to Bush and Gen. David Petraeus, Couric asked softballs and then repeated White House talking points–over and over again. Bush’s troop escalation is failing miserably, but Couric’s viewers got the opposite impression. Our nation can’t afford lapdog journalism; we need strong watchdog journalism. Watch the video exposing Couric’s bad reporting.

Since Daniel Cooper Was Appointed Head of the Veterans Benefits Administration, the Number of Veterans Waiting on their Disability Claims has Increased from 325,000 in 2002 to 600,000 Today – Is Cooper doing his job? Apparently he doesn’t think that is important. He’s made a video for Campus Crusade for Christ in which he plainly spells out where his priorities lie. In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, “it’s not really about carving out time, it really is a matter of saying what is important. And since that’s more important than doing the job — the job’s going to be there, whether I’m there or not.”

Not Only Do We Not Know What Happened to the 5-Million White House E-mails, We Don’t Even Know the Identity of the Company That Was Responsible for Archiving Them – At the May briefing, the White House staffers also reported that an unidentified company was responsible for daily audits of the e-mail system and the e-mail archiving process. “Mr. Roberts was not able to explain why the daily audits conducted by this contractor failed to detect the problems in the archive system when they first began,” wrote Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. During the May briefing, Emmet Flood, special counsel to the president, said he would consider the requests for a copy of the analysis presented to the White House counsel and for the identity of the contractor, Waxman’s letter added. In response to court orders in the case, the White House disclosed last week that it has located nearly 3,500 pages of documents about problems with its e-mail system.

Regards,

Jim

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work. Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions. Liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy. Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

Personal note: The study used very conservative and very liberal subjects. I suspect there are all shades of grey in this matter of grey matter, and many of us would test somewhere in between these extremes.

Regards,

Jim

Bush Knew Saddam Had No Weapons of Mass Destruction – Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

Cheney’s Lawyer Tried to Expand Executive Power – Vice President Cheney’s top lawyer pushed relentlessly to expand the powers of the executive branch and repeatedly derailed efforts to obtain congressional approval for aggressive anti-terrorism policies for fear that even a Republican majority might say no. David S. Addington, who is now Cheney’s chief of staff, viewed both U.S. lawmakers and overseas allies with “hostility” and repeatedly opposed efforts by other administration lawyers to soften counterterrorism policies or seek outside support.

Homeland Security Data-Mining Tool Was Tested With Information About Real People Without Required Privacy Safeguards – The Homeland Security Department has spent $42 million since 2003 developing the software tool known as ADVISE, the Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement program, at the Lawrence Livermore and Pacific Northwest national laboratories. It was intended for wide use by DHS components, including immigration, customs, border protection, biological defense and its intelligence office. Pilot tests of the program were quietly suspended in March after Congress’ Government Accountability Office warned that “the ADVISE tool could misidentify or erroneously associate an individual with undesirable activity such as fraud, crime or terrorism.” Since then, Homeland Security’s inspector general and the DHS privacy office discovered that tests used live data about real people rather than made-up data for one to two years without meeting privacy requirements. The inspector general also said ADVISE was poorly planned, time-consuming for analysts to use and lacked adequate justifications.

Rudy Giuliani’s “Flat Out Lie” About 9/11

Regards,

Jim

Cheney Aide Said, ‘We’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court’ – President Bush worried that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) could halt wiretaps of terrorists’ international calls and held little respect for courts or Congress. “We’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court,” Vice President Cheney’s current chief of staff David Addington said in 2004.

Bush is Playing Us – President Bush said to Robert Draper for his book “Dead Certain.” regarding his plan for Iraq, “I’m playing for October-November, … to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence.” As Keith Olbermann said, Bush is playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with him, and take us with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and another, and on, …perpetuating this war indefinitely.

Republican Representative Being Investigated for Ties to Jailed Lobbyist Jack Abramoff – Republican Representative John Doolittle’s two top aides have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury investigating ties between Doolittle, his wife and jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Doolittle has numerous ties to Abramoff, including accepting campaign cash from the lobbyist and intervening on behalf of Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients.

U.S. Military Says Sectarian Violence in Iraq is Down
(If You Don’t Count Car Bombs, Sunnis Killing Sunnis and Shiites Killing Shiites) They do whatever they have to do to make things sound better than they are. When Is a Casualty Not a Casualty?

Regards,

Jim

More Untruths from Republican Presidential Candidates – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe’s. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of “appeasement” toward Islamic terrorists. In fact, leading Democratic candidates have spoken out strongly against terrorism.
Sen. John McCain claimed American families spend $140 billion of their income preparing federal income tax returns. We find no support for that figure, which the Internal Revenue Service puts at $19 billion.
Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed illegal immigrants “are taking a large part of our health care dollars.” But the independent Rand Corp. estimates that undocumented immigrants account for 1.5 percent of health care spending or less.

Bill O’Reilly Would be 100 % Right if it Weren’t For the Fact That He is 100% Wrong – Bill O’Reilly says, “The stakes in Iraq are enormous, and that point has been consistently hidden from the American public by a media that despises the Bush administration and is openly rooting for a Democratic president in 2008.” But a 12-year old shows Bill-O is wrong again. (This is a fun read!)

White House Scrubs Site in Attempt to Make Office Exempt From Freedom of Information – The White House has scrubbed its Web site of evidence it has reversed its policies on allowing public access to information to which it is legally entitled. Sometime over the weekend, White House computer technicians removed from government Web sites any references to the Office of Administration or its previous compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.

How the White House Strategized to Expand Executive Power – Bush administration officials, including then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Cheney’s current chief of staff David Addington, promoted strategies for expanding executive power following the Sept. 11 attacks, including broad legal justifications for controversial secret surveillance plans and detention procedures for enemy combatants.

White House Legal Memos Were “Advance Pardons” for Lawbreaking – The purpose of the Office of Legal Counsel’s review process is supposed to be to collect legal guidance about courses of prospective policies an administration might want to pursue. Under the Bush administration, however, OLC review became a waiver of immunity for breaking the law.

Push to Change California Electoral Voting Linked to Texan Bob “Swift Boat’ Perry – Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to Texas homebuilder Bob Perry who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry’s Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign.

For the first time on record, two Atlantic hurricanes have made landfall at category five in the same year.

Regards,

Jim

Rewritten surveillance law passed by Congress could give Bush more power for domestic wiretaps – The recently passed law which allows President Bush to continue wiretapping Americans’ telephone calls overseas may allow for domestic spying as well. A recently-acquired Congressional Research Service report of the controversial Protect America Act, which formally legalized communications surveillance where one party is overseas, offers nebulous language which is broadly open for interpretation

Iranian Engineers Arrested, Handcuffed, and Blindfolded by US Soldiers in Baghdad – Eight Iranians were arrested, handcuffed, and blindfolded by US soldiers in Baghdad.” The US now acknowledges that the Iranians are engineers who were in Iraq to help rebuild the local electrical system. This occurred just a couple of hours after President Bush began a speech to American veterans which included a bitter attack on Iran, accusing it of arming and training Shiite militants inside Iraq.”

CEO, Worker Wage Gap Widens – Top executives at major U.S. businesses last year made as much money in one day of work on the job as the average worker made over the entire year. Chief executive officers from the nation’s biggest businesses averaged nearly $11 million in total compensation, according to the 14th annual CEO compensation survey released jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies based in Washington and United for a Fair Economy, a national organization based in Boston. At the same time, workers at the bottom rung of the U.S. economy received the first federal minimum wage increase in a decade. But the new wage of $5.85 an hour, after being adjusted for inflation, stands 7 percent below where the minimum wage stood a decade ago. “CEO pay, over that same decade, has increased by roughly 45 percent,” the study found.

American Witnesses Barred From Inquests Into the Deaths of British Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan – American witnesses will not be allowed to travel to the UK to attend inquests into the deaths of British soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this year the Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner, Andrew Walker, criticised US authorities for failing to send witnesses to the inquest into the death of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, who was killed when two American A10 jets strafed his convoy in Iraq. He described their behaviour as “appalling”.

Not a Single Officer is Found Guilty at Abu Ghraib – The acquittal of a US Army colonel on charges relating to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib means no officers have been found criminally guilty. The episode stained the reputation of the US military and may well have acted as a recruiting agent for insurgents. The officer, Lt-Col Steven Jordan, was found not guilty by a military jury of failing to train and supervise the soldiers under his authority at Abu Ghraib. Instead he was convicted of breaking an order not to discuss the case. He was reprimanded. [Nothing has been done to fix the “Bad Barrel” described by Dr. Zimbardo.]

Bush Administration Puts Fingers in Ears and Yells, “La, La, La … I can’t hear you.” – Late last Friday the Bush administration issued a proposed new rule for coal mining that not only sanctions the most ecologically unsound form of coal mining, but may also be adopted with disregard to public comments solicited under law. The rule “will be subject to a 60-day comment period and could be revised, although officials indicated that it was not likely to be changed substantially.” That’s right, the Bush Administration is saying they probably won’t listen to the public comments.

Tell Congress to make sure that public comments are respected by ensuring unbiased oversight of the rule change process. Click the link below to send you letter to Congress.

Regards,

Jim

Computer Programmer Asked by Republican Congressman to Create a Vote-Rigging Program Just before the 2000 Election in Florida – Computer Programmer Clint Curtis was asked by Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) to create a touch-screen vote-rigging prototype program, just months prior to the 2000 election when they both worked at the same Florida software firm. Curtis has since become a Democrat and is now running against Feeney.

Voting Machine Company Wanted Havoc in the 2000 Elections in Florida to Help Sell Voting Machines – Seven voting machine company whistleblowers reveal that, despite their objections, they were forced to use poor quality paper for the punchcards to be used in Florida in 2000. They also had been instructed to deliberately misalign the chads for ballots going to Palm Beach County, FL, only (a Democratic county). Sequoia apparently purposely attempted to create havoc with Florida’s punch-cards in 2000.

Slow Internet is Costing America – In the early 1990s, Verizon and other phone companies were given $200 billion to lay out fiber-optic wire. More than 10 years later, the average speed in the United States continues to lag behind the rest of the world. And it’s costing us economically.

Regards,

Jim

The following was distributed by Andy Shanks on August 27, 2007, and is published here with his permission:

“We’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas,” Natalie Mains of the Dixie Chicks.  What followed was a storm of protest, their blacklisting from more than 12,000 radio stations and a complete disenfranchisement by the Country Western music industry.
 
“I was in Chicago last week — I was in Chicago; I said, ‘Hey Obama, you might wanna su*k on one of these (holds aloft a military style rifle), ya punk.’ Obama, he’s a piece of sh*t, and I told him to su*k on my machine gun — lets hear it for him. And then I was in New York. I said ‘Hey Hillary, you might wanna ride one of these into the sunset, ya worthless bit*h.’ Now, since I’m in California, (unintelligible) Barbara Boxer — she might wanna su*k on my machine gun. Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless wh*re,” Ted Nugent, darling of the NRA, burned out rock music fans and right-wingers everywhere.  See the video.

 
I’m waiting for the moral outage over threatening two presidential candidates and two sitting congress people with guns.    Not holding my breath but waiting.

I thought the secret service was supposed to get involved in this sort of thing.   Guess not, they’re too busy arresting the father of a seven year old in front of his son for telling the VP that his Iraq war policy was “reprehensible,” arresting and charging a couple for wearing anti Bush t-shirts at a Bush rally or arresting people for leaving the “Free Speech Zone” set up a few blocks from a Bush photo op. 

Say you’re ashamed of Der Fuhrer – it’s jail time, but threaten Democratic candidates and sitting congress people with guns and it’s just free speech.
 
Here’s how the “liberal media” treats Ted: (dedicated family man)   (He also has a hunting camp, the Ted Nugent Kamp for Kids.) (Headline: Peaceful Ted Nugent brings Shrapnel Tour to area).  Then of course there’s FOX news.

Ted is performing on the “Shrapnel Tour” promoting his next album, Love Grenade.  What many don’t know is that like Dick Cheney, George Bush and most of Bush’s Cabinet, Teddy avoided the draft.  He was a bit more creative though; when he was drafted during the Vietnam war Nugent stopped all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showed up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces. 
 
For more wisdom from this fine examples of conservatism.

I welcome any and all of the conservatives on this list to defend Ted.  I will publish your comments un-edited and without comment to this list.  C’mon, show your pride and support for this fine example of Conservatism.

President Bush Says Alberto Gonzales’ Problems Were Caused by the Democratic Congress. However, the links below dispute these claims.

– It was Alberto Gonzales, not Congress, who fired attorneys for political reasons.

– It was Alberto Gonzales, not Congress, who gave the White House political team unprecedented power to intercede in the affairs of the Justice Department.

– It was Alberto Gonzales, not Congress, who allowed his department to illegally hire attorneys based in part on their loyalty to the Republican Party and the Bush administration. More

– It was Alberto Gonzales, not Congress, who dissembled and misled about the administration’s spying activities.

– It was Alberto Gonzales, not Congress, who lied in stating that all Bush appointees would be Senate-confirmed.

Senator Cornyn Says That Gonzales’ Departure Was the Result of Congressional Democrats “Hounding a Good Man” – Reacting to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, fellow Texan Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said on Monday that the Gonzales’ departure was the result of congressional Democrats “hounding a good man. … I think it’s a sad day,” Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a television interview with Fox News.

Ted Haggard’s Funny Money – Right-wing preacher who got caught in a sex scandal wants people to send money to a charity to support him. And the name and address of the man identified by Colorado’s secretary of state as “registered agent” for the charity matches the name and address of a man named Paul Huberty, who is listed online as a sex offender!

US Interior Secretary Sets Record By Not Listing a Single New Species as Threatened or Endangered During His Entire Time in Office – On Friday, August 24, we awarded the first annual Rubber Dodo Award to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in recognition of his one year and 90 days in office without listing a single new species as threatened or endangered. That’s a record. Kempthorne breaks the previous record, held by Ronald Reagan’s infamous Secretary of the Interior James Watt. Not known for his sympathy for wildlife or the environment, Watt went without listing a new species from 1981 through 1982, for a total of 376 days. Under Kempthorne’s direction, the Fish and Wildlife Service classifies 279 species as “candidates” for listing, because they meet the criteria for listing and are simply awaiting the agency’s formal rule. But that waiting list could turn into a “too-late” list without government action, as species in dire need of protection go extinct. I encourage you to call, write or email Secretary Kempthorne and express your opinion about his refusal to list new species.

Dept. of the Interior Phone Number: (202) 208-3100, or send an e-mail

Bill O’Reilly’s Assertion That Most Journalists Give Money to Democrats Refuted by Study – On The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly stated: “We know that journalists — most journalists give money to Democrats.” However, the study that O’Reilly was apparently referring to showed that of the small fraction of journalists who donated money at all to campaigns, more gave to Democrats than Republicans. The study stated that the 143 journalists identified in the study as having made political contributions “are a tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation.” This is another example of how O’Reilly twist words to make them sound like the say something other than what was originally intended.

Regards,

Jim