Category: Issues of the Day

Hokie Hope Day

Virginia Tech family members across the country have united to declare this Friday, April 20th, an “Orange and Maroon Effect” day to honor those killed in the tragic events on campus Monday, and to show support for Virginia Tech students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, and friends. “Orange and Maroon Effect” was born several years ago as an invitation to Tech fans to wear orange and maroon to Virginia Tech athletic events. We invite everyone from all over the country to be a part of the Virginia Tech family this Friday, to wear orange and maroon to support the families of those who were lost, and to support the school and community we all love so much.

VT Colleges

The answer is yes

AmericaBlog picks up on this ABC News report on the Virginia Tech shooter that says there may have been a gap in the federal database regarding his medications:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

John asks, what database? Does the Government keep a list of all of our prescriptions?

The answer is yes.

Talk Left

Glenn Greenwald has even more.

Orange and Maroon Effect

Virginia Tech family members across the country have united to declare this Friday, April 20th, an “Orange and Maroon Effect” day to honor those killed in the tragic events on campus Monday, and to show support for Virginia Tech students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, and friends. “Orange and Maroon Effect” was born several years ago as an invitation to Tech fans to wear orange and maroon to Virginia Tech athletic events. We invite everyone from all over the country to be a part of the Virginia Tech family this Friday, to wear orange and maroon to support the families of those who were lost, and to support the school and community we all love so much.

Pass the word.

Nationals wear Virginia Tech caps

A small, but entirely nice gesture.

The Washington Nationals wore Virginia Tech baseball caps during Tuesday night’s game against the Atlanta Braves as a tribute to the victims of the shooting rampage at the school.

Nationals players wore the burgundy hats with “VT” in orange when they took the field for the top of the second inning, and the team said they’d keep them on for the rest of the game.

SI.com

Sources II

According to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), [Kyle] Sampson [told criminal investigators this past weekend] that in early March of this year, Gonzales told him about a conversation he’d had in October with Bush that was specifically about U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias.

TPMmuckraker

Sources

Yesterday’s Albuquerque Journal article by Mike Gallagher has been the topic du jour on many of the political blogs. The article claims that Senator Pete Domenici had U.S. Attorney David Iglesias fired and did so through Karl Rove and the President himself.

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned.
. . .

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush’s senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

Here’s the rub. As far as I can determine the sole indication of how Gallagher and The Journal determined what happened is this line:

“The Journal confirmed the sequence of events through a variety of sources familiar with the firing of Iglesias, including sources close to Domenici. ”

“A variety of sources . . . including sources close to Domenici.” Not one is identified, even in the most general terms.

Update 9:00AM: Here, for example, Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine) takes the article as gospel.

Update 2 9:07: NewMexiKen is just getting around to reading Talking Points Memo. Josh Marshall posted this early this morning:

But the Journal’s story is a bit vague on the sourcing. The article says the paper “confirmed the sequence of events through a variety of sources familiar with the firing of Iglesias, including sources close to Domenici.” Close to Domenici looks like the key. These are facts no one else has been able to dig up so far. But proxies for Domenici wouldn’t seem to have much interest in putting this story out. So what’s up exactly? And what does it suggest about the facts alleged in the article?

Most prescient line of the day, so far

“Bell said Domenici’s idea is not to respond [to Iglesias’s charges], and hopefully make this a one day story. Unfortunately, I do not think that they can make an allegation such as this goes away so easily.”

Special Assistant to the President J. Scott Jennings in an email to Karl Rove and others, February 28, 2007, regarding Steve Bell, Senator Domenici’s Chief of Staff.

The TPM DOCUMENT COLLECTION

Update: Also via TPM:

The day AFTER the above email, AP reported this:

In a brief interview Thursday, Domenici also denied the accusation. “I don’t have any comment,” he told The Associated Press. “I have no idea what he’s [Iglesias] talking about.”

So, best-case scenario Domenici lied; worst-case scenario, he’s senile.

Getting the full picture

Sen. John McCain strolled briefly through an open-air market in Baghdad today in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what’s going on in Iraq.

NBC’s Nightly News provided further details about McCain’s one-hour guided tour. He was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.” Still photographs provided by the military to NBC News seemed to show McCain wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit.

Think Progress, which has the video.

The rule of law

Once again a summary of why attorney-gate is important from Joshua Micah Marshall. You should read it all, but a key point:

What we seem to see are repeated cases in which US Attorneys were fired for not pursuing bogus prosecutions of persons of the opposite party. Or vice versa. There’s little doubt that that is why McKay and Iglesias were fired and there’s mounting evidence that this was the case in other firings as well. The idea that a senator calls a US Attorney at home just weeks before a federal elections and tries to jawbone him into indicting someone to help a friend get reelected is shocking. Think about it for a second. It’s genuinely shocking. . . .

So what you have here is this basic line being breached. But not only that. What is equally threatening is the systematic nature of the offense. This isn’t one US Attorney out to get Democrats or one rogue senator trying to monkey around with the justice system. The same thing happened in Washington state and New Mexico — with the same sort of complaints being received and acted upon at the White House and the Department of Justice. Indeed, there appears to have been a whole process in place to root out prosecutors who wouldn’t prostitute their offices for partisan goals.

Crossing the Rubicon

In a high school history book, the fall of the Roman Republic is usually dated to the point were Julius Caesar, in defiance of Senate “micromanagement,” ordered his legions across the Rubicon to end effective representative oversight. However, at the time, the Romans didn’t see it that way. They continued to call themselves a republic for years. Decades. Long after Caesar, they kept up the hollow pretense of a senate, marching in each day to pass laws that the executive of their day did not follow, and direct armies that moved only at the emperor’s command.

The Bush administration is waist deep in the Rubicon. The only question now is whether we will drive them back to the bank, or admit that we are only play-acting at democracy.

Devilstower at Daily Kos

Patriotism

Bill Maher has some moments of typical “over-the-top” in this video from last night, but his discussion of Valerie Plame a few minutes in is terrific.

See ya’ Alberto

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales met with senior aides on Nov. 27 to review a plan to fire a group of U.S. attorneys, according to new documents released last night, a disclosure that contradicts Gonzales’s previous statement that he was not involved in “any discussions” about the dismissals.

washingtonpost.com

As long as I’ve been around government and Washington (since 1973), I am still repeatedly dumbfounded when these people get caught and lie. Have they never read any history of Watergate or Iran-Contra or even Clinton’s blow job? It’s always the lie that is the undoing. It’s always the lie that makes the difficult situation an impossible sitiation. It’s always the lie that causes the resignation — or the firing — or the conviction.

As it should.

Donde está dicha la ignorancia

According to Washington State Minuteman leader Bob Baker, “No nation has ever succeeded with two different languages.”

. . . [W]e need to figure out who’s going to gently deliver the heartbreaking news of their “failure” to quadralingual Switzerland, China (with a minimum of six), and India — which recognizes a breathtaking 23 official languages.

Orcinus

Or Canada.

Where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.