What does a political landscape have to do with government business? It is a political presentation. When you show which Repubs are in trouble and which dems are in trouble with the message to help one group and hurt the other, that is NOT government business.

Bloch is the key. He's going to run out the clock with a pseudo-investigation. Dems need to figure out: how to remove the Stumbling Bloch?

Political staff should not be going anywhere giving briefings. That's a bright line that's easy to understand and enforce.

How to overcome the plausible deniability?

The key, it seems to me are these "off line" dicsussions. Where? What? How?

It seems that Congress needs to subpoena, for starters, all of Jennings' emails (gwb43.com or otherwise!)

Security code: "knot" as in: what a tangled knot Rove has tried to weave, and, hopefully, Congress can unravel

Your either "with" us or against us. Just as it depends on what the meaning of "is" is. The only way to determine that is a grand jury.

Scott Bloch's OSC investigation got extensive play on NPR this morning, giving it an air of credibility. With it becoming increasingly obvious that DoJ is nothing more than an extension of the White House, someone in Congress needs to step up and demand that bogus Bloch investigation be shut down because of the obvious conflict of interest -- the White House investigating the White House.

The slides are damning of themselves. They are not about 'landscape', they detail 'defense' and 'targets'.

sc= jump. Like when KR says to......

When it comes to investigating his political party, Bloch will be nothing more than another Henry Kissinger; cover-up after cover-up after cover-up.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

Check the article on Scott Bloch in the latest issue of "Mother Jones". Don't hold your breath that he will do anything meaningful with this 'investigation'.

Is "offline discussions" a euphemism for gwb43.com e-mail addresses?

Is their spreading the word on how to desribe the briefings not, in and of itself, also political?

Posted by: Michael

that my friend is criminal conspiracy

The paramount reason for Mr. Bloch's snipe hunt is to allow the Misadminstration to refuse to answer any and all questions using the excuse that they will not comment on matters under investigation.

Security code: JUDGE!

Wait, forgot what my comment was... Oh yeah!

Anyone got a link to a good Scott Bloch dossier?

Bloch is going to be a major disappointment. Another partisan cover-up is all I would expect from someone with his credentials. Sickening.
It's up to Congress to get the e-mails and find out what really transpired in this sad perversion of government. My only fear is that things are SO bad that even a cynic like me will be floored.

It seems to me that the title of the slide is evidence enough. It's not "Political Landscape", it's "House GOP Defense" These slides were made with taxpayer dollars, and the talks were given in government offices on government time. It sounds pretty clear to me.

The question is who will be prosecuted, and how quickly or slowly.

Of course it's political. Would Rove's team go in and say "these are seats Democrats could win, or project a slide reading "House Democratic Defense"?

That rapidly distributed universal talking point was communicated how? Via the RNC-based comms link to computers and pda's of which political and career office holders? And which side of the line is that: party political or government?

Because if it was drafted, sent and read on govt time, using any govt computers or on govt real estate, or otherwise consumed govt resources, odds are pretty high it's a Hatch Act problem that is massive and continuing.

I'd consider a "political forecast, generally" as something like "with two more years of a Republican Administration ahead, we can expect no letup to the budget cuts."

But a listing of dozens of specific GOP House seats at risk of being lost, along with vote percentages in their districts for the past two years - that's a damned specific political landscape briefing. If that doesn't violate the Hatch Act, I'm not sure I understand why not.

Sure, they were just "informational briefings about the political landscape." Because you have to have good information on the landscape in order to decide where to set up bunkers and observation posts and so on. Those things wouldn't have anything at all to do with political battles. They're just, um, tourist attractions.

Yeah, that's it.

Scott Bloch "investigating" this will be a joke. Congress must do an investigation in parallel. Was trying to remember why Scott Bloch's name was familiar to me...I actualy remember having a very negative asociation...googling...remember why now...from the link http://www.counterbias.com/307.html

Sorry for long text post , but I think it is very revealing of Bloch's true nature and allegiance...

"Scott J. Bloch is another Bush appointee who has a problem with equality and civil rights, especially when applied to gay and lesbian Americans employed by the federal government.

On May 28, 1998, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13087 prohibiting discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation. Enforcement of that order fell to the Office of Special Counsel. From the OSC's official website: "The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency ... OSC's primary mission is to safeguard the merit system by protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices, especially reprisal for whistleblowing." That's "whistleblowing" about federal corruption as well as "prohibited personnel practices" (such as sexual harassment) perpetrated against federal employees.

In January 2004, George W. Bush's choice to head the Office of Special Counsel began his reign. Since then, Scott J. Bloch has not only ignored President Clinton's executive order - which the Bush administration said it supported and wanted continued - but Mr. Bloch has removed all protections for gay and lesbian federal employees and, by his actions, condoned and encouraged "prohibited personnel practices" against them. His record with "whistleblowers" is just as bad.

One of Mr. Bloch's first moves as Special Counsel - in February 2004 - was to remove from OSC complaint forms and its official web site all references to "sexual orientation." Is it any surprise that while at the University of Kansas, Bloch enrolled in the Integrated Humanities Program, a curriculum established in 1971 to counter the anti-war and women's movements and the growing demand for greater multiculturalism on campus? Is it any surprise that Mr. Bloch has bluntly refused to investigate any claims of "sexual harassment" involving gay or lesbian federal employees?

Is it any surprise that Mr. Bloch has ignored competitive recruitment practices by unilaterally hiring his investigators from among new graduates of Ave Maria Law School? Is it any surprise that Bloch hired Alan Hicks, his son's former headmaster, for a one-year, $112,000 position that produced one - that's one - four page memo? (Alan Hicks left his headmaster position after the cover-up of a predatory priest scandal had been exposed.)

In early October 2004, five Democratic members of Congress called on President Bush to "take the necessary action" against Mr. Bloch who, they correctly asserted, continues to refuse "to enforce anti-discrimination protections for federal workers [which] contradicts Bush administration policy to uphold former President Clinton's executive order banning discrimination based on sexual orientation."

Nothing happened. Indeed, Mr. Bloch's enforcement of whistleblower protection quickly came to match his enforcement of non-discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace. As of spring 2005, over 1000 cases involving whistleblower accusations and protection of employees from retaliation have been summarily dismissed.

Bloch continued his campaign against gay and lesbian federal employees, as Washington Bureau Chief for 365Gay.com Paul Johnson noted in his article "Administration Moves To Remove Gay Protections From Federal Labor Contracts." In several "contracts negotiated [with the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents thousands of federal government employees] over the past few months the list of categories that are protected has been replaced with the more nebulous phrase 'any class protected by law.' While the change will mean little to African Americans or other minorities, it effectively removes LGBT workers from being protected from being fired or harassed on the job." According to a report in GovExec.com, Witold Skwierczynski, the president of AFGE Council 220, charged the Social Security Administration with proposing the elimination of a clause in its labor contract "that allows gay, lesbian and bisexual workers to file discrimination grievances."

To date, nothing has changed. Bloch continues his crusade against gay and lesbian federal employees. In her May 25, 2005 article "Bush Special Counsel: Gay Federal Workers Have No Protections," Doreen Brandt of 365Gay.com's Washington Bureau reported that "The man in charge of protecting the civil rights of federal workers told a Senate Committee that he will not protect LGBT employees. Special counsel Scott J. Bloch was testifying about complaints his office has adopted an extreme conservative position and has reprimanded people in his own office who disagree with him."

When the Republicans are labeled "offense" and the Democrats are labeled "defense" it is not a political landscape presentation, but a partisan description.

NPR did a story this morning about Bloch. They raised the issue of why this agency is now waking up. They followed it with the story of Goodling's immunity grant. Now that he is awake, Bloch can provide a whitewash for Rove on the briefings and throw a wrench into the Goodling immunity Grant.

http://www.osc.gov/specialcounsel.htm

His last job was Deputy Director and Counsel to the Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Justice

He’s even published articles. One is titled “Don’t Bury the Hatch Act”. I wonder if he intended the pun.

Roadbloch

Now we know what was so strange about Karl Rove's MC ROVE performance.

Karl Rove is the poster boy for the "Stop Snitching" movement. How can you tell the street crowd that the "Stop Sntiching" ethos is bad when you have it going on in the upper echelons of government?

I said it twice now in these Muckraker threads, the slide show couldn't have been made solely for the benefit of GSA appointees. And thank you for proving me right.

The video-conferencing equipment (which just about every govt conference room has set up) is generally run by IT personnel of those agencies. Those personnel are civil servants, NOT APPOINTEES, and imo, their services setting up the video capabilities are another violation of the Hatch Act. Along with use of the equipment itself.

Who ordered them to set up these connections on govt time and govt resources?

And, I would say it's time to call in those IT professionals and see who among them were in the room after the cookies were served--still running the equipment.

Why does everyone waste time pretending not to know the truth?The biggest shake down in history is taking place and we are stuck playing with words how best to describe it?
Landscaping is like working with dirt.If they want to call what they say they are doing landscaping,so what?
What does what they call anything have to do with the truth and why do we go down that road with them anyway?
Does someone think it's cute to chop up the excuses because they are easy targets. Believe me they have an excuse making machine set to infinite.
The heist goes on folks.
Don't get distracted.

I'm so glad Bush brought honor and integrity back to the White House.

security code: attack, as in attack and destroy the Bush War Machine.

Can a specific request be made for Patrick Fitzgerald to be Special Prosecutor?

What about the Republicans and Democrats living in districts not included in Rove's target list? Why are we getting no benefit for our hard-earned tax dollars?

What about it, Rove? I work hard for my money, and I don't appreciate your ripping me off.

"The political landscape," eh? So when did they have Democratic political operatives come in and make presentations?

Security code: screw, as in screw you, Dems...

I too worry about this becoming an endless tit-for-tat between Republican and Democratic administrations. What is called for here is a very comprehensive piece of legislation to make political deployment of government resources clearly illegal and (unlike the Hatch Act) penalized by more than a "reassignment" from the Governmnet to the RNC, which is what will happen to Rove.

But more than that, whoever succeeds this criminal administration will have to restore a higher standard than simply what's legal. No more prevarication or spin, no "meaning of is" or "Clear Skies" bullshit, but the truth and integrity.

Did everyone watch Moyers show last night on PBS? The media need to be straightened out before liars and truth-benders can effectively be held to account.

sc: sound, as in "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"

My understanding of the Hatch Act is that even those employees who are permitted to engage in political activity may not engage in political activity while on duty or in a government office.

But is this really "indirect" and not over "the line"? Because to me, Dana Perino basically just went on the record as saying Hatch Act violations are not Hatch Act violations if everyone involved is a political appointee...even if some of them work in Fed agencies, and, during their workday, have their discussions in Fed buildings, and use Fed computers to project their political strategerizing....

Dana, Karl, Scott (Jennings)...I think these ARE Hatch Act violations even if not everyone involved is quite as much a nitwit as Doan.

Not over the line?

Then, I would presume, we can simply join church and state as well - as long as it's just political appointees doing the praying!

Let's hear it for Prayer Groups on govt time!

....Another victim, Scott Bloch, the chief of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, has been investigated six times, all subsequent to his removal of "sexual orientation" from the list of conditions covered by anti-discrimination laws. He cited federal law, court rulings, and the statute governing his agency, none of which put sexual orientation in the same protected class--that is, legally protected against acts of bias--as race, religion, national origin, or gender. His "crimes," like Tomlinson's, are purely political, yet both he and Tomlinson were the subjects of probes involving criminal charges....

....Tomlinson hasn't suffered Bloch's fate of being abandoned by the White House....

...One of Bloch's first decisions when he arrived at OSC from the Justice Department in early 2004 was to strip "sexual orientation" from its special status in discrimination cases. It had been added by his predecessor--even though Congress and the Supreme Court had taken up the issue and failed to elevate sexual orientation to the status of race, religion, national origin, and gender. His decision quickly drew complaints from Democrats in Congress and pro-gay groups.

The struggle over Bloch's stand is largely symbolic. OSC has received few complaints of bias against gays. But it led to a detailed complaint to Congress and a withering barrage of investigations. And Bloch soon learned that the White House did not want to get involved in his fight--quite the contrary. A few weeks after Bloch's decision, a presidential spokesman delivered a public in-your-face rebuttal to Bloch. "Longstanding federal policy prohibits discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation," the spokesman said.

Bloch has endured, despite the six investigations, which have included questions about his and his staff's religious views. Bloch, a lawyer from Kansas, is a Christian. He and his wife Catherine have seven children. The investigations have gone from one by a House committee staff, to a committee hearing, to three probes by the Government Accountability Office, to one by the IG of the Office of Personnel Management. Contrary to Bloch and OSC, OPM, by the way, includes sexual orientation as grounds for filing a discrimination complaint. The criminal actions Bloch is accused of include making retaliatory reassignments of dissident personnel, imposing an illegal gag order on staffers, illegally barring staffers from communicating with Congress, and creating a hostile work environment....

Criminalizing Politics
The persecution of Karl Rove, Ken Tomlinson, and Scott Bloch continues a sorry Washington tradition.
by Fred Barnes
10/09/2006, Volume 012, Issue 04

http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/012/769bpqpa.asp?pg=2

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Last time I heard it was a "quarter past Fascism."

Is it half past now?

Political staff should not be going anywhere giving briefings. That's a bright line that's easy to understand and enforce.

Until the political staff sides with your views. What partisan crap.

How many are connected through social "clubs" like skull/bones and masons?

If too many, what the hell have we been a party too? This plan is too widespread for just KKKarl and dumbassDubya.

Who has profited? Follow the $$. It is only criminal minds like these, that cannot feel empathy for those who they have injured that CAN follow through on "plans" like these. It is always based on power and money. Also, real estate records that can detail property transfers. There is way too much deep, deep, corruption here that has a history from 1492.

What do we do to begin fighting this other than outright revolution and secession?

Oh it's terrible the corruption! Like this guy here.

House Democratic leaders are not expected to pressure embattled Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) to forfeit his lone remaining committee assignment, even as two Republican lawmakers who similarly face intense FBI scrutiny have relinquished their posts in recent days.

Pot. Kettle. Blah.

It's all about sides and team colors.

Posted by: biggerbox
Date: April 26, 2007 11:51 AM
************************************

Very nice post...

Your post and others here on TPM go a long way in sifting through the crap and dispelling the deceptions of this administration.

The clarity of your post helps the American public see through the 'political' spin. In the end, you and others like you will turn this around.

I think Dana ("Dear" in the Headlights) Perino doesn't state the Hatch Act requirements correctly. She's feeding a talking point, unconvincingly, too.

Political appointees are exempt from certain Hatch Act restrictions because a) they are political, not career, appointments/ and b) they are assumed to be available 24/7 at the request of the President and, hence, have no "normal workday" to divide between their partisan and federal govt activities. As with everything he does, Mr. Rove has not only pushed the envelope, he has torn it to shreds.

Those exemptions do not apply to other govt employees who work normal business hours exclusively for their employer - the US Government. Those exemptions also do not apply to the use of govt equipment, facilities, etc., which include govt AV equipment, meeting rooms, computers, servers, pda's, cell phones, etc.

The lovely Ms. Dana suggested that White House counsel issued instructions about these specific briefings. Waxman should get them. In addition to the routine guidelines that should have been issued about Hatch Act compliance. I believe these are very different from the ones issued under President Clinton.

Waxman should see where this White House counsel draws the bright line bewteen permitted and prohibited behavior. That counsel would be Alberto (Who Me?) Gonzales. You know, the brilliant scholar who saw "No Problem" with the Torture Memo.

Mr. Rove is not a psychopath. He is a sociopath. He knows precisely what he is doing. He just doesn't care who he harms, as long as his client wins. Which means he wins.

He imagines himself a political special force, for whom no assignment is too daring. Rules don't limit his behavior; they are simply hurdles to put in the way of those who follow them.

His greatest weapon is having convinced everyone that no one in his position would dream of doing what he does. Next best thing to convincing them he doesn't exist. He is a real Keyser Sozay.

'I too worry about this becoming an endless tit-for-tat between Republican and Democratic administrations.'

False equivalence, anyone?

How about: 'But some say, if Democrats investigate too uncompromisingly, there will be tit-for-tat investigations of their activities, which may bring Democrat law-breaking to light'

Maybe we should wait until there's some evidence of Dems doing it too, before we say 'Of course, Dens do it too'

Apart from some of its special operatives, such as Ken Mehlman, this administration seems to have accumulated the most unseemly, mediocre talent in the country.

The Real Rove has the talent, connections and nasty photographs to get away with being a sociopath for whom rules and consequences are not limits, but opportunities.

The motley collection of Goodlings, Doans and Blochs who try to mimic him is like watching Fredo run the Corleone family businesses. They hire people even less talented than they are; they trip over the bodies rather than have them put where no one could find them; and spend so much time in their own casinos and brothels that they spend more money than they take in.

The catch-phrase, "I have no recollection of that, Senator," is likely to become the GOP's most well-known campaign slogan in 2008.

Is the full list of agencies that received these briefings available somewhere? Were briefings presented anywhere within DOJ?

On another front, its worth noting that if the briefings were simply about the political landscape, the slides would presumably describe the strengths and weaknesses of both parties rather than talking about "targets" on the Dem slides and "defense" on the GOP slides. Such language has to cross the Hatch Act line.

All of Bush's Supreme Court nominees should be removed from the bench when the proof comes in that 2000 and 2004 were stolen slections.

Really folks, forget the Hatch Act. It is (and has been, in Democratic Admins as well) regarded as something between a dead letter and a joke. Remember the big flap about Gore's fundraising calls at the WH?

This is just barking up the wrong tree. "impeachment" is not spelled "Hatch Act."

Time to stop crapping around and get serious.

Glad I have a portable I can turn sideways. WEhat bonehead intern in the House scanned these in and created the PDF so that you have to bend your neck sideways 90 degrees to read these if your sitting at a workstation?
Security code 'seem': seems like such a simple thing...

Rove looks like an albino pig. :-)

Silly me. All this time I thought the Bush administration didn't comment on ongoing investigations, but as posted here, Perino is commenting on an ongoing investigation:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013853.php

Bloch is the key. He's going to run out the clock with a pseudo-investigation. Dems need to figure out: how to remove the Stumbling Bloch?

Posted by: Jim M

This may have allready been said. I haven't read all the posts. The dems need to produce all the evidence that Bloch is a partisan hack, and from what I have heard there is plenty of it. Then demand that he recuse himself in lieu of a nonpartisan investigator. If they dont they will 'regret'(code word) it.

http://peer.org/wordpress/?p=112

How a Karl Rove Powerpoint Presentation Works

I first heard of Karl Rove on July 30, 2003. Tom Hamburger’s Wall Street Journal story about Rove’s PowerPoint presentation to officials at the Department of the Interior finally revealed to me, as they say, the man behind the curtain.

While Rove was making his presentation in January of 2002, I was working on an analysis of the effects of a proposed 10-year federal irrigation plan on Endangered Species Act-listed coho salmon in the Klamath River. I was trying to determine whether the proposed project would, in the language of the ESA, “jeopardize the continued existence” of the Southern Oregon and Northern California stock of coho salmon.

I had heard about political pressure on biologists during controversial ESA analyses, but I couldn’t imagine how exactly that pressure could be applied. We have a clear process that requires a “logic train” and there isn’t any way around that no matter what some politician wants, I thought.

Apparently, Rove’s PowerPoint presentation included polling data related to Oregon Senator Gordon Smith’s re-election bid. And Rove reminded the Interior officials of the President’s desire to support Smith’s political base by supporting farmers in Oregon’s Klamath River basin. Rove indicated that the President wanted the Klamath Project ESA consultation to have a specific result – give the water to the farmers.

Meanwhile, back in California, my supervisors and I were hammering out our Biological Opinion. While the evidence was far from conclusive (It never is conclusive in these kinds of analyses.), our finding was that the irrigation plan would jeopardize coho.

Once a draft jeopardy finding is made, the next step is to draft a so-called Reasonable and Prudent Alternative. In other words, I now had to design a 10-year flow plan that would protect the fish and still allow adequate irrigation deliveries. The trouble is that there’s just not enough water to go around in some years.

The federal government has simply made too many promises with the Klamath River’s water. They’ve promised water to farmers so they can support their families and feed the rest of us, and they’ve promised enough water to Native American tribes on the river and commercial fishermen on the coast to support their fish and fisheries.

So I drafted a plan to protect the fish and provide irrigation water with what little water was available. Not surprisingly, the Bureau of Reclamation, which administers the irrigation project, rejected my plan as not reasonable and prudent. So the next step was to meet with Reclamation and try to work something out.

Reclamation came up with an alternative that they thought was reasonable and prudent. I, on the other hand, thought that their alternative was fundamentally illegal in its approach. But I was still ready to analyze their plan to see if it really was adequate to protect coho, and to let the agencies worry about whether the alternative was otherwise legal.

A couple of days later my supervisors and I were informed that we (NOAA Fisheries) would accept Reclamation’s alternative with no further analysis.

I refused to participate, naively thinking that they might need a salmon biologist to explain their salmon opinion. I thought I could apply some back-pressure and get my agency to resort to doing this correctly.

NOAA Fisheries just stuck Reclamation’s alternative in place of my alternative and then signed off on it. There was a gaping hole in the logic of the Biological Opinion, and there was no actual salmon biologist responsible for the thing. But that didn’t seem to bother anyone up the chain of command.

Anyway, as you may recall, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Agriculture Secretary Ann Vennamen stood with Senator Smith in the spring of 2002 and opened the irrigation canal. And, as you may also recall, later that summer thousands of dead salmon lined the Klamath River. The official estimate is that up to 68,000 adult Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, as well as dozens of ESA-listed coho salmon, were killed. In addition, an estimated 200,000 juvenile salmon died during the summer leading up to the adult fish kill. The official reports conclude that low water flow was a “causative factor” in the kill.

All summer long I considered filing for whistleblower protection and going public. However, I decided that the Biological Opinion was so flawed that it would be quickly rejected, and all I would accomplish was to make trouble for my supervisors who didn’t seem to be the ones pushing the buttons on this thing anyway.

After the fish kill, I naively, once again, assumed that the ESA consultation would have to be redone, so blowing the whistle would still be pointless. A week or two later, however, I heard a NOAA Fisheries official give a speech claiming that the Klamath plan was working fine and they had no intention of revisiting it for several years.

So then I went public.

With the help of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, I submitted my Whistleblower Disclosure to the Office of Special Council (the agency that is now investigating Rove’s PowerPoints). The OSC sat on my disclosure for several months beyond their deadline, and then punted by claiming that it was a question of scientific opinion and not law.

More than three years later, the courts finally decided that the Klamath Biological Opinion was illegal – for the exact reasons I had outlined in my disclosure. The court also makes clear that the agency had violated the law and that it wasn’t simply a question of differing scientific opinion.

Some of the court’s opinion is interesting enough to point out:

while [NOAA Fisheries] can draw conclusions based on less than conclusive scientific evidence, it cannot base its conclusions on no evidence. AND, “an agency does not avoid the likelihood of jeopardy to a listed species when it disregards the life cycle of the species in crafting the measures designed to protect it. Nor can the agency provide only partial protection for a species for several generations without any analysis of how doing so will affect the species.

Yikes!

So how does an agency craft an important document like this, based on “no evidence,” which then helps kill perhaps a quarter-of-a-million salmon, and then doesn’t even bother to say "oops?"

Because Karl Rove gave a PowerPoint presentation.

The OSC says that they will leave no stone unturned in this new investigation. I hope they realize that the courts have left them a new stone. And I hope they do a more thorough job of investigating the Klamath Project Biological Opinion process this time.

Mike Kelly

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