Tom DeLay Aide Pockets a Third of Money Collected by DeLay's Family-Based Non-Profit

Wonder how much of that money kicked back to dear ol' Hot Tub Tom DeLay, eh?

top adviser to former House Whip Tom DeLay received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a pro-family political agenda in Congress, according to the group's accounting records.

DeLay's former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay's employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group's $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show.

The group's revenue was drawn mostly from clients of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to its records. From an FBI subpoena for the records, it can be inferred that the bureau is exploring whether there were links between the payments and favorable legislative treatment of Abramoff's clients by DeLay's office.

In recent months, Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and conspiracy to defraud clients and bribe a public official; DeLay (R-Tex.) stepped down from his post as House majority leader; and Buckham folded his lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group.

In the late 1990s, when DeLay's influence was growing, the lawmaker depicted the USFN in a promotional letter as a nationwide, grass-roots organization. In fact, it had a tiny staff that barely registered an impact on Capitol Hill. The group appears to have served mostly as a vehicle for funneling corporate funds to DeLay's advisers and financing ads that attacked Democrats.

Miracle Mouse Testes

One wonders what the extreme right wingnuts will find to protest as being against God that scientists feel they have found that mice testes behave very much like human stem cells. But, trust me, they'll find something.

Bush, Bumbling All Over the Map, See?

From the Boston Herald (heh):

President Bush was feeling chatty this week, rolling from Cleveland to Washington to Wheeling, W.Va., to riff about the elusive and bloody quest for Iraqi democracy.

But the three-day, three-city tour doesn’t mean Bush has flip-flopped on his policy of talking a lot while saying little.

For armchair Bush observers, these sessions provide a fascinating glimpse into the folksy, shoot-from-the-lip communication style brandished by the man who brought us such legendary sound bites as “bring ’em on” and “dead or alive.”

Bush explained that in addition to commander in chief, he’s also the “educator in chief.” Today’s lesson: his God-given ability to spin rambling monologues around the semiautomatic repetition of familiar words, phrases and anecdotes. Victory will be ours as long as we don’t “lose our nerve,” he said four more times Tuesday (saving the sister sound bite “shake our will” for Wednesday).

One of the president’s favorite education tools is to tack the word “see” to the front or back of any statement to sound like he’s conveying key information. (On Wednesday: “An interesting debate in the world is whether or not freedom is universal, see . . .” Then, two seconds later, “See, I believe freedom is universal.”)

Yes, I see. Unfortunately, every time Bush instructs me to “see,” he reminds me of those Mugsy-type gangsters on Bugs Bunny. (“You dirty terrorists. You’ll never shake our will, see.”)

There is much the president wants us to understand. He deployed the word 26 times Wednesday, including this elegant three-fer: “You got to understand that I fully understand there is deep concern among the American people about whether or not we can win. And I can understand why people are concerned.”

Unfortunately, he doesn’t understand some of us aren’t impressed each time he repeats, “I understand people’s lives are being lost.”

See?

Congratulations to the Half Million Who Marched This Weekend Against Foolish New Anti-Immigrant Laws

Yes, we need to do something, I suppose, about the rising tide of people who just dash over the border. But the answer is not to criminalize anyone who tries to help the poor and desperate who make it to the U.S. The Native American side of me would like to remind everyone, including my Plymouth Rock-landed side, that we are ALL immigrants.

I applaud each and every person who marched this weekend to protest these fool new measures.

Now the Far Right Calls Pop Culture Terrorism

Granted, I too find Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise pretty damned frightening, but this is ridiculous.

Our Condolences to Senator Byrd and His Family

His wife has died after a long illness.

Noni Scalia, an Embarrassment to the Supreme Court and the US

Newsweek asks the question, "Should Scalia recuse himself from the Gitmo case?"

More importantly, I think Scalia should get his ass off the bench. This man is an enemy to democracy, to the judicial process, to our Constitution, and civil liberties, to name just a few.

But read this with regard to the Gitmo issue:

The Supreme Court this week will hear arguments in a big case: whether to allow the Bush administration to try Guantánamo detainees in special military tribunals with limited rights for the accused. But Justice Antonin Scalia has already spoken his mind about some of the issues in the matter. During an unpublicized March 8 talk at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, Scalia dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions, adding he was "astounded" at the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to Gitmo. "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," he says on a tape of the talk reviewed by NEWSWEEK. "Give me a break." Challenged by one audience member about whether the Gitmo detainees don't have protections under the Geneva or human-rights conventions, Scalia shot back: "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy." Scalia was apparently referring to his son Matthew, who served with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Scalia did say, though, that he was concerned "there may be no end to this war."...

"This is clearly grounds for recusal," said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human-rights group that has filed a brief in behalf of the Gitmo detainees. "I can't recall an instance where I've heard a judge speak so openly about a case that's in front of him—without hearing the arguments."

From the Front Line to the Unemployment Line

Soldiers return from war to find their military skills won't land them jobs.

Thankfully, Mr. Bush isn't sending the twins to war but they can't seem to find work anyway. Been out of school three years and all they do is party hearty.

Personal Bankruptcies WAY Up

Even with the disastrous changes to the bankruptcy law, filings under George Bush's economy soar by 30% of what were record filings before the law changed.

FEMA Very Good in Bailouts to Affluent; They Just Happen to Miss the Poor

Gee.... apparently FEMA is much better at making sure the rich get checks to cover their expenses than they are at helping the poor emergency stricken. Affluent Floridians, for example, do very well with FEMA.

Delta Force Leader: President Bush Ignited World War III

This guy isn't exactly a fluffy little dove either:

founding member of the elite counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force, suggested that President Bush's invasion of Iraq may have started World War III, according to the Los Angeles Daily News, RAW STORY has learned. The article, acquired by RAW STORY Friday night, is expected in Sunday editions of the paper.

Retired Command Sergeant Major Eric Haney's book "Inside Delta Force" became the basis for the CBS drama "The Unit," where he now assumes technical adviser and executive producer duties.

Excerpts from the forthcoming article written by David Kronke:

Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?
A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies.

Why is The FBI Doing This?

It would seem they have more than enough on their plate without going after critics.

Posted at SpeakSpeak:

The job of the FBI is to enforce laws, not to investigate critics.

For example, if the president of Common Cause attends a meeting of the League of Women Voters and criticizes the Patriot Act, that shouldn’t be investigated by the FBI:

On March 14, [Common Cause President Chellie] Pingree participated on a panel on open government sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties, Michigan that received news coverage in the local newspaper on March 17.

A week after the panel, an FBI agent contacted the local League president, Susan Gilbert, to raise questions about Pingree’s published remarks at the panel. In her brief comments addressing the law, Pingree raised some privacy and secrecy concerns about the USA PATRIOT Act, and praised Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) for their leadership on Freedom of Information issue.

According to Gilbert, FBI agent Al Dibrito said that Pingree’s comments on the USA PATRIOT Act were “way off base,” and that the League should have invited someone from the federal government to be on the panel and to respond. DiBrito then told Gilbert that she would be contacted by someone from the assistant U.S. attorney’s office in Grand Rapids to give her the real story on the Patriot Act.
…”Citizens can be intimidated when an FBI agent calls and questions their activities,” said Pingree.

The FBI is so powerful that Congress has continued the PATRIOT Act which lets FBI agents violate our civil liberties.

A meeting of citizens on the PATRIOT Act doesn’t need to include an apologist for this awful law; the FBI has enough power on its own to get its message to Congress.

Nor is it the proper role of the FBI to tell the League of Women Voters whom they should invite to speak at a meeting.

A Bellwether for the Power of a President and the Rights We Claim to Hold Dear Indeed

Important article in The Times:

TAKE a good look at the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, an admitted member of Al Qaeda who may soon be sentenced to death, after pleading guilty to conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. It may be the last time a suspected terrorist will enjoy the full panoply of rights — a jury of civilians, an independent judge, the guarantee of an open trial — accorded to criminal defendants in the United States.

What are the implications of an unending war with no geographical boundaries?
Instead, the government plans to try accused terrorists before special tribunals in which the judge is appointed by the Pentagon, the jurors are military officers and certain canonical rights in our civil system — like the right to be present at all sessions of the trial — are absent. The future of the tribunals will be up to the Supreme Court, which will rule on their legality in Salim Hamdan v. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which is to be argued on Tuesday.

Salim Hamdan, born in Yemen, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and has confessed to working as a driver for Osama bin Laden. Like Mr. Moussaoui, Mr. Hamdan was charged with conspiring with Al Qaeda to commit acts of terrorism. The critical distinction, though, is that Mr. Hamdan was charged as a war criminal, meaning he was designated for prosecution before a military tribunal rather than in a federal court. His lawyers, led by Neal K. Katyal, a professor at Georgetown University, have sued to block the tribunal; hence Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

There is much more at stake here than the fate of one detainee. Mr. Hamdan's case will test a broader strategic shift in the American approach to fighting terrorism. By treating terrorism as an act of war rather than a crime, the Bush administration is hoping to end an embarrassing string of botched criminal terrorism prosecutions, including those of Mr. Moussaoui — where the judge recently rebuked a government prosecutor for improperly coaching witnesses — and Sami al-Arian, who is accused of being an Islamic Jihad activist and who was acquitted of various charges by a Florida jury several months ago

Why have we lowered the standard of proof? Is this really what we want?

Mr Bush: Where is the Good News? 18 More Iraqis Dead, 30 Found Beheaded

Mr. Bush tells us that there are plenty of nice things happening in Iraq. But it's awfully hard to understand then this kind of information in context:

At least 18 Iraqis have died in clashes between US troops and militants loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr at a Baghdad mosque, Iraqi sources report.

The US military said it was investigating the reports, which came from Iraqi police, medical sources and Mr Sadr's aides.

A militant spokesman said those killed were worshipping at the time.

Iraqi security forces earlier found 30 bodies - all of them beheaded - near the town of Baquba.

The Gruesome Reality of Civilian Deaths in Operation Swarmer

Terrible, terrible stuff, as reported in Common Dreams:

...when the [Bushies] launched Operation Swarmer, the Pentagon barred even imbedded reporters. The American public was told that Operation Swarmer was a successful example of US and Iraqi forces working together to wipe out insurgents, but they saw nothing of the effects of the assault on the ground.

But while the public is fed rosy propaganda, the reality is far more gruesome. Take, for example, the operation in Isshaqi, a small village near Samarra. At 1:30am on Tuesday, March 21, the American troops, accompanied by helicopters , raided the modest rural home of a primary school teacher, Faiz Mratt. According to his neighbor Mohammad Al-Majma, the 27-year-old school teacher, his wife, their three children, his sister, her three children, his father and a woman who was visiting them were all arrested, tied, and beaten, and then the American troops opened fire on the family. “After they executed them, the troops put explosives in the house and blew it up,” said Mohammad, crying. “They killed even the farm animals”

Faiz’s surviving sister was devastated. “They killed my mother, Torkiya Majid, who was 90 years old,” she cried. “They killed Faiz’s three children: Hawra, 4, Aysha 2, and Hussam, who was only 4 months old. They killed my sister Faiza, who was also a schoolteacher, and her children Osama 6, and Asmaa, 5.”

Aziz Khalil, 30, and his fiancée Nidhal Mohammad, 23, who were to be married on Thursday, were also killed. All told, the operation to kill “insurgents” left six children and four women dead.

No Child Left Educated

And this, from The Times:

SACRAMENTO — Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it.

Schools from Vermont to California are increasing — in some cases tripling — the class time that low-proficiency students spend on reading and math, mainly because the federal law, signed in 2002, requires annual exams only in those subjects and punishes schools that fall short of rising benchmarks.

The changes appear to principally affect schools and students who test below grade level.

The intense focus on the two basic skills is a sea change in American instructional practice, with many schools that once offered rich curriculums now systematically trimming courses like social studies, science and art. A nationwide survey by a nonpartisan group that is to be made public on March 28 indicates that the practice, known as narrowing the curriculum, has become standard procedure in many communities.

Curiouser and Curiouser: How the Wiretaps Turn

From US News and World Report:

A federal judge in Oregon has refused to hand over for safekeeping to the FBI a classified document that may show that the NSA conducted warrantless electronic surveillance on an Ashland, Ore., charity that the government alleges had ties to Osama bin Laden. U.S. District Judge Garr King sided with charity attorney Steven Goldberg, who argued that the FBI is a defendant in the case and therefore not a neutral party that can be entrusted with the document. The judge instead has temporarily placed the document with federal prosecutors in Seattle until he can make a decision as to how the material should be handled.

Thomas Nelson, who also represents the charity, al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc., gave the document to the judge in February as part of a lawsuit he has filed against the Bush administration alleging that the NSA conducted illegal eavesdropping on conversations between charity codirector Suliman al-Buthe and his American attorneys, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor. The intelligence was later used to target the charity, Nelson's complaint alleges.

According to the Washington Post and other sources, Treasury Department officials—who were investigating the foundation for terrorist ties—inadvertently gave a copy of the classified document, marked "top secret" and dated May 24, 2004, to an al-Haramain attorney, as part of a routine disclosure of documents the government was citing to designate the charity as a terrorist organization. In May 2004, the attorney gave the document to Belew and Ghafoor, who also represented the charity. Belew in turn gave a copy of the document to a Post reporter. In November 2004, FBI agents took the document back from Belew and the Post reporter saying it contained highly sensitive national security information, according to the Post.

And Still Bush-Cheney Lie: More Iraqis Dying from Militia Violence Than Insurgency

From Reuters:

The U.S. ambassador urged Iraq's divided leaders to rein in militias on Saturday as political blocs failed again to break a deadlock on forming a unity government that they hope can avert civil war.

Zalmay Khalilzad, who is pressing hard for a government more than three months after elections, issued a tough warning about the militias, many of which have ties to powerful Shi'ite leaders and are entrenched in Iraqi security forces and police.

"More Iraqis are dying from the militia violence than from the terrorists," he told reporters during a visit to a Baghdad youth center newly renovated with U.S. funds.

The I Word Gains Momentum (Not to Be Confused with Joe-Mentum, TYVM)

As Christian posts in comments, Brattleboro has joined the number of Vermont communities who have voted to start impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

Also, Constant (from Constant's Pations) points out that cities elsewhere are joining in, some perhaps even in Texas.

What can I say? It couldn't happen to a nastier president.

WaPo's Darling Conservative Plagiarist Blogger Strikes Back

My, he's repentant. He deserves to have that Ann Coulter ad on the same page with his drivel:

In his first public comments since resigning earlier today as a blogger for washingtonpost.com, Ben Domenech says his editors there were “fools” for not expecting an onslaught of attacks from the left.“While I appreciated the opportunity to go and join the Washington Post,” Domenech said, “if they didn’t expect the leftists were going to come after me with their sharpened knives, then they were fools.”

Domenech has been under a steady stream of criticism since washingtonpost.com launched the new blog, “Red America,” on Tuesday.

Domenech, an editor at Regnery Publishing (a sister company to HUMAN EVENTS), was accused of plagiarism by several left-wing blogs.Although Domenech says there is an explanation for nearly all the examples cited by the left-wing bloggers, he felt he was left no choice by washingtonpost.com but to resign.“I felt like if I didn’t resign, they would have pushed me out—if not today, then Monday,” he said.

Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, wrote a note on “Red America” this afternoon explaining Domenech’s resignation.

Poor baby. Like a good little right wingnut hatchet man, it's always someone else's fault.