Capitol Hill is all but empty, and I have to admit defeat in my effort to find one Republican lawmaker to substantively address Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA) argument to reduce legal immigration and end visa policies which have "allow[ed] many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."
Our final long-shots -- calls to Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ray LaHood (R-IL), both grandchildren of Lebanese immigrants -- garnered nothing.
Of course, it's the Friday before Christmas, so many offices were empty, press aides were unreachable, or members were traveling. And who knows -- a couple flacks said they'd respond by 5 p.m., so they've got a few minutes. But I think it's pretty safe to say that no GOPer wants to touch this issue. Calls to the RNC, the NRCC, all GOP presidential candidates, the House GOP leadership, and a number of rank-and-file Republicans garnered not a single response. Were it not for a snoring dog here at the D.C. bureau, I would say I could hear crickets.
Forget strategery. Time's short, so it's quantity of calls over quality. I've been calling GOP congresspeople alphabetically, starting with Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), to get their thoughts on Virgil Goode's anti-Muslim immigration comments.
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL): "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help you. We haven't seen the letter." (I offer to email a copy of the letter.) "I appreciate that but my boss is back in the district for Christmas, and I don't think this is going to be something he would want to address."
Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO): Offices closed.
Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA): Offices closed.
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL): "I think the odds of me tracking down Mr. Bachus this afternoon are very low."
Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA): Offices closed.
Rep. J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC): Offices closed.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD): "Congressman Bartlett has not commented on it. . . I'm afraid I can't help you out there."
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX): Offices closed.
All GOP presidential contenders have been called for comment on the Goode affair, to no avail: McCain, Giuliani, Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney (R) (left a message), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) (left a message). I called the Republican National Committee, too -- no answer, but I left a message.
A couple readers suggested calling Sen. Gordon "This War May Be Criminal" Smith (R-OR), so I did. His Hill office was closed, but his Oregon office suggested I leave a message for his D.C. spokesman anyway.
It's coming up on 2 p.m. and I'm starting to get worried. Will I know it's Christmastime at all?
A barrage of calls from our D.C. bureau to GOP lawmakers' offices, asking for a comment on Rep. Virgil Goode's intemperate remarks about Muslims, have yielded no solidresults. I just finished striking out -- for the moment, at least -- with the Virginia GOP delegation.
Sen. George Allen: Hill office closed; state office closed.
Sen. John Warner: see earlier post.
Rep. JoAnn Davis: Left a message.
Rep. Thelma Drake: Hill office closed; district office closed.
Rep. Randy Forbes: Hill office closed; district office closed.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte: Spoke with press aide who promised to look into the matter.
Rep. Eric Cantor: Hill office closed; district office closed.
Rep. Frank Wolf: Left a message.
Rep. Tom Davis: Hill office closed; district office closed.
Having exhausted the list of usual suspects who might address a controversial issue like Goode's comments, I had to get creative.
Presidential hopefuls usually like a chance to get quoted. I tried Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani, and left messages at both offices.
Next, moderate GOP senators. Let's try the women from Maine, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R). Snowe's D.C. and Maine offices were closed; I left a message for Collins. She should have something to say: she's the outgoing chair of the Homeland Security committee.
What about Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)? There are Muslims in Minnesota, right? Plus he's spent time on Collins' Homeland Security committee. Alas, his D.C. office was closed. I left a message at his St. Paul office.
A thought struck me -- I ought to call Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-LA). He's Catholic, but he's one of the few (if only) members of Congress with immigrant parents. He'd have a position on curtailing immigration to a particular religious or ethic group, wouldn't he?
Maybe he does, but I don't know it. I left a message for his spokesman; here's hoping he calls back.
I continue to work the phones here in the TPMmuckraker D.C. bureau, anxious to find a Republican who's willing to address the substance of Rep. Virgil Goode's now-infamous Fear-of-a-Muslim-America letter.
But I wanted to take a moment to note two cases in which Republicans have spoken about the letter while declining to directly address Goode's anti-Muslim-immigration policy suggestions.
First, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) released a statement yesterday in which he offered that he respects the right of all members of Congress to freely "exercise the religion of their choice, including those of the Islamic faith utilizing the Quran." No mention of Goode's proposed immigration restrictions on Muslims.
Noting that Goode is a member of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, I tried the group's chairman, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). his spokesman was out of the office, so I sent him an email. Did Goode's anti-Muslim immigration stance square with the position of the Caucus?
(If it does, it doesn't square with Tancredo's personal position on the issue: "The immigration issue has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin insofar as I am concerned," he says in an Oct. 3, 2005 policy statement on the site.)
I also left a message with the office of Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), who's incoming chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Keep your fingers crossed!
Since news of anti-Muslim comments by Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) surfaced a few days ago, a number of public figures and groups have cried foul. But so far, we haven't spotted a single Republican making a comment on the topic.
Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell (NJ) called Goode's remarks, made in a letter to several hundred constituents, "personally offensive." Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also said she found Goode's invection against Muslim immigration "offensive." And two prominent organizations -- one Islamic, the other Jewish -- have both spoken out against Goode.
So I got to dialing. First I tried Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), incoming minority leader. His spokesman wasn't available; I left a message and sent an email.
Next I rang Rep. Roy Blunt's (R-OH) office. He's the House Republican whip. A spokeswoman promised to let me know if his office planned to make a statement.
I'll keep calling. Surely, on this holiday eve, there is one Republican who wants to speak publicly for goodwill towards others, even if they're Muslim.
Looks like we may have gotten one last no-no from departing congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA): breaking a House rule to hide news of his investigation in a failing effort to win his election.
We learned in October that Weldon was under federal investigation, via leaks to the press. A few weeks later, Weldon lost his election to Democrat Joe Sestak, due at least in part to news of the investigation.
Weldon has blamed the investigation on a liberal conspiracy, and charged that the FBI -- who, he says, leaked news of the investigation to throw his election -- is "out of control."
Funny thing: it turns out that prior to the election, a grand jury issued a subpoena to then-Rep. Weldon for information relating to the FBI's investigation. House rules dictate that all such subpoenas are to be reported publicly in the Congressional Record -- yet Weldon's was never reported, according to the LATimes this morning.
This news means a couple things: First, Weldon appears to have broken the rules when he found them inconvenient.
It also means that leaks or no leaks, news of the FBI's investigation into Weldon should have come out before the election, so Weldon's concerns about loose lips at the bureau seem misplaced. The Congressional Record is read by many reporters -- particularly its items about subpoenas being issued to lawmakers. It would have been on the wires in a heartbeat.
Now, the LATimes notes that they can't confirm when Weldon received the subpoena. But it's hard to imagine a grand jury issuing such a writ and then waiting weeks to deliver it.
Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) is refusing to back down from his incindiary anti-Muslim comments, but opposition to his position is swelling.
In a letter to the congressman yesterday, the Anti-Defamation League called on Goode to reconsider his "ill-conceived remarks" about how he fears an influx of legal Muslim immigrants and its effect on American culture and politics. His comments were earlier condemned by the nation's most prominent Islamic political organization, the Council on American Islamic Relations.
"To suggest Muslims should be viewed with fear, based solely on their faith, demonizes millions of people living in our communities," wrote ADL's Washington, D.C. director, David L. Friedman. "This is of special concern at a time when the stereotyping and disparate treatment of communities as part of debates over immigration or counterterrorism policy impacts those people in very tangible ways, including making them more vulnerable to bias-motivated violence."
Lawmaker's Files Sought by Grand Jury
"A federal grand jury has subpoenaed congressional records from Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) as part of an escalating Justice Department corruption probe aimed at determining whether Weldon used his influence to win favors for family members, people familiar with the investigation said.
"The previously unreported subpoena was issued by a grand jury in Washington before the November election, although it is unclear when Weldon received it." (LATimes)
Appearing on Fox's "Your World" program with guest-host David Asman, Goode insisted he does not want to forbid Keith Ellison from using the Koran outright. "But," he said, "I am for restricting immigration so that we don't have a majority of Muslims elected to the United States House of Representatives."
To block the invading hordes, Goode wants to curtail legal immigration for Middle Easterners, and end Diversity Visa programs that were created to increase the immigrants from non-European countries.
Goode chose his words carefully:
David Asman: So you do believe there're too many Middle Easterners here now?
(brief pause)
Rep. Virgil Goode: No, I — I said there were — and the Diversity Visa program needs to be ended. It shouldn't have been adopted to begin with, in my opinion.
Asman: But do you think there are too many Middle Easterners in the United States right now?
(brief pause)
Goode: Uh — I'm not gonna say 'yes' or 'no' on that. I'd like to know the exact number. I don't have the exact numbers.
Over at the Washington Note, we see that the New York Times is set to reject a White House-led effort to block publication of an essay critical of its foreign policy.
Last week the paper was set to publish an op-ed piece by Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration official who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and on the National Security Council, which criticized the White House for its disastrous diplomatic approach towards Iran.
The CIA reviewed the article and cleared it for publication, but the White House put the brakes on it, saying it contained classified information that the CIA missed. Leverett cried foul: "All of my publications on Iran -- and, indeed, on any other policy matter on which I have written since leaving government -- were cleared beforehand by the CIA's Publication Review Board to confirm that I would not be disclosing classified information."
Now Steve Clemons, a friend of Leverett's, reports on his blog (ed.: see editorial note below) that tomorrow the Times will run the op-ed "with redacted lines 'blacked out.'" Clemons told me by phone that the Times will instruct readers where they can find the omitted information in other (unclassified) publications -- like, for instance, in Leverett's paper on the same topic called "Dealing with Tehran," published through the Century Foundation.
The information the White House had redacted, according to Leverett, "include Iran's dialogue and cooperation with the United States concerning Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and Iran's offer to negotiate a comprehensive "grand bargain" with the United States in the spring of 2003."
(ed.note: After this post was written, the post by Steve Clemons, which we referenced above, was taken down from his site, The Washington Note. The post which subsequently took its place contains some of the same information but not the key points referenced above --jmm.)
This week we've been tallying up all the instances Bush administration officials have attempted to remove data from the public record or block its publication, particularly if it was in conflict with White House policy.
Thanks to the help of readers, fellow bloggers and watchdog organizations, we've by now counted over 20 examples: databases pulled from public view, reports suppressed, studies de-funded and more, in areas like climate change, unemployment, poverty and the Iraq war.
You can find the growing list here. Know of another instance? Let us know.
Here's a coda for those TPM readers who've followed the New Hampshire phone jamming over the past couple of years.
The perps have been caught, restitution has been ordered. But one detail lingered, a loose thread, and unsolved mystery, and it bugged folks: just prior to the phone-jamming, two checks totalling $15,000 found their way to the New Hampshire Republican Party. The jamming, performed by a telemarketing firm, cost approximately $15,000. Who wrote the checks? Two Indian tribal clients of crooked super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Did Abramoff finance the New Hampshire phone jamming?
The answer appears to be no. Todd Boulanger, a lobbyist in Abramoff's shop, gave the two checks to a staffer for Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to pass along, because, the staffer says, Boulanger "wanted to help out." Gregg wasn't running that year, mind you, but Abramoff didn't see that as a reason to stop passing money around.
So was that money meant to pay for the jamming? The Democrats say no. Paul Twomey, lawyer for the New Hampshire Democrats, told The New Hampshire Union-Leader, that "he is quite sure there is no Gregg connection to phone-jamming."
There you have it: Sometimes a contribution is just a contribution -- or as much as that could be the case when Jack Abramoff is involved.
Next year, the House of Representatives will have to decide what to do about the contested election in Florida's 13th District. Republicans have characterized the Democrats' challenge of the results as a desperate power grab. But here's something to crystallize the issue -- a voting expert representing the manufacturer of the machines has written that there were certainly major problems in the election, and that those problems cost Democrat Christine Jennings the election.
Yesterday, Prof. Michael Herron of Dartmouth testified on behalf of Election Systems & Software Inc. in the state court battle over the election results. He argued that the design of the ballot (which you can see here) was at fault for the large "undervote" in Florida's Sarasota County, where voting machines did not register a vote in the congressional race for approximately 14% of voters. But while he may argue that machine glitches weren't at fault for the result, he doesn't dispute that something went wrong on Election Day.
“It is hard to imagine that the Sarasota result reflects deliberate voter choices," reads a report (pdf) issued earlier this month by Herron and his colleagues on Florida's 13th District. Even more tellingly, Herron found that "there is essentially a 100 percent chance that Jennings would have won the CD 13 race had Sarasota voters" voted in another county.
So keep that in mind as the battle heads further along in court and into Congress. The dispute is not whether voting irregularities cost Jennings the election -- among experts, even opposing experts, that issue is largely settled. It did. The dispute, in court at least, is whether those irregularities were caused in significant part by glitches in the machines, as Jennings has argued, or simply by bad ballot design.
Two days after Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA) letter to constituents expressing his fear of "many more Muslims in the United States" came to light, he's finally going to talk to the press.
He's chosen the friendly environs of Fox News: at 4 P.M. today, he'll appear on Neil Cavuto's show to address the swelling controversy.
First reported in Charlottesville's local C-Ville Weekly, the story is now everywhere: The New York Times, CNN, and the AP all had stories out today. Goode has repeatedly refused to apologize for the letter and has said nothing more than that he stands by what he wrote. So it'll be interesting to see if he goes anywhere beyond that this afternoon. We'll be watching.
Any way you cut it, it's clear that the robo call really arrived this year -- and was mostly overlooked as a prominent new weapon in campaign strategists' arsenals.
Underscoring its reputation as a "stealth" campaign tactic, a new poll shows that two-thirds of registered voters got at least one robo call during the midterm election season.
The poll, conducted by The Pew Internet and American Life Project, found that 64% of registered U.S. voters got at least one recorded phone call in 2006. And that's across the country -- you can bet that percentage was much higher in competitive districts.
Only direct mail was a more popular method for campaigns, reaching 71% of voters. But the robo call blew out other more traditional forms of campaigning like going door to door (only 18% of voters were reached that way) or getting a phone call from a real live human being (24%). Pew didn't even bother to track robo calling in 2004.
So, what percentage of those who got a robo call got two, three, or a dozen more? How many got six calls in a row? We still don't know.
We're getting a better picture of the results of the federal "identity theft" raids last week. And it's increasingly clear that if the Feds were trying to protect citizens from identity thieves, they failed.
Unfortunately, while the Department of Homeland Security held a press conference immediately after the raids to announce nationwide totals for arrests, they have been less chatty about the number of detainees charged with criminal violations, and the Department of Justice has announced indictments in each state as they are handed down from grand juries.
As a result, the picture is incomplete: We know that 1,282 workers were detained in the raids ten days ago. Over 100 were charged with a variety of crimes. So far, grand juries have handed down indictments for 58 of them: 20 from Worthington, Minn.; 15 from Grand Island, Neb.; and 23 from Marshalltown, Iowa, according to reports in local papers. I have not seen indictments reported from the raids in Cactus, Texas, or Greeley, Colo.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has not released a tally of the number of innocent legal workers its agents detained in the raids but later released, nor details on how long they were held before being let go.
Report: Berger Hid Archive Documents
"On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so that he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.
"The documents he took detailed how the Clinton administration had responded to the threat of terrorist attacks at the end of 1999. Berger removed five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash, the National Archives inspector general wrote in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.
"After Archives officials confronted him and accused him of taking the documents, Berger told investigators he "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck." But instead of admitting he had removed them deliberately, Berger initially said he had removed them by mistake.
"An Archives official claimed to have seen Berger fiddling with what appeared to be a piece of paper "rolled around his ankle and underneath his pant leg," but Berger told investigators he was pulling up his socks, which Berger said "frequently fall down." (WaPo, NYT, AP)
More on Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA) warning of "many more Muslims" flooding over the nation's borders.
Last night, The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Goode to apologize for his "bigotry" against Muslims. Predictably, he's so far refused.
But like the menacing Muslim hordes in Goode's feverish dreams, the story's spreading. Two national outlets (AFP and McClatchy) picked up the story today, so the pressure continues to build.
It's official -- the election mess in Florida's 13th District is heading to the House of Representatives. January will be an interesting month, indeed.
Meanwhile the court case in Florida proceeds along. Today, an expert testifed on behalf of Democrat Christine Jennings that glitches with the voting machines cost her the election.
Details about the challenge are provided in the Jennings campaign press release below. You can read our prior coverage of Florida's 13th here.
We've been on the phone all day trying to nail down congressional leaders on where they stand on President Bush's idea of increasing the troop level in Iraq. Here's the result of our day's work.
The Democrats' top leadership in the House and Senate are united against. The details are below.
Our calls to the top Republicans, however, garnered only one response. The spokeswoman for incoming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he didn't have a position on the increase, because "in order for the Senator to comment on a plan, he'd have to see it first, but the Congress has not been briefed on the President's proposal, because he hasn't proposed it yet." Senate Minority Whip-elect Trent Lott (R-MS) was travelling in Mississippi and could not be reached. My calls and emails to the incoming House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) were not returned.
As for the Democrats...
After initially indicating an openness to the "surge" idea (providing that "it's part of a program to get us out of there"), incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) issued a statement yesterday that he's no longer open: "I don't believe that more troops is the answer for Iraq."
The next Majority Whip, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told reporters this past weekend that "sending more soldiers to Iraq after the holidays would further drain an already depleted military."
House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a statement today rejecting the idea of a surge.
And House Majority Leader-elect Steny Hoyer (D-MD) earlier released a similar statement.
Responding to our question, here's a statement from the incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on President Bush's idea of increasing the troop level in Iraq:
There are no easy answers in Iraq, but there are wrong ones. I do not support increasing troop levels in Iraq to further the President's current failed course. Americans have called for a New Direction, but the President's press conference this morning showed that he has still not faced reality about Iraq and gave no indication that he is willing to make the changes needed to reverse this disastrous situation. There needs to be fundamental change in our Iraq policy and in the mission of our troop in order for events in Iraq to improve. Our troops should not be expected to be primarily responsible for dealing with sectarian violence associated with a civil war. As long as that remains their task, the situation in Iraq will remain grave.
In Iowa, indictments have come down from DHS's massive immigration raid last week. Not surprisingly, the number of workers who have been charged with a crime represents a fraction of the number of workers who were arrested in the December 12th raids.
The U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of Iowa has indicted 23 workers from Swift's meat-packing plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, on "immigration and identity theft charges," according to a Justice Department press release. Ninety workers were arrested in Marshalltown last week.
As Justin has pointed out before, only a very small number of the 1,300 detainees from last week's raids of six Swift plants face criminal charges.
Joe Lieberman's web site crashed the day of the Democratic primary. Lieberman's camp swiftly leveled accusations that Ned Lamont's supporters were behind it. There were strong indications, however, that the Lieberman campaign's techies were just cheap... and incompetent. The feds launched an investigation. Since then, nothing.
"The investigation has revealed no evidence the problems the Web site experienced were the result of criminal conduct," Tom Carson, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor, said Tuesday.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal confirmed the joint investigation "found no evidence of tampering or sabotage warranting civil action by my office."
As we flagged at the time (though there is no direct evidence of this and no indication the FBI is pursuing it), if the Lieberman campaign knew that the site had not been hacked when they lodged the complaint with the FBI, that would be a crime.
As Josh announced this morning, we've been making our calls to congressional leaders about whether they support the president's idea of increasing the troop level in Iraq by "15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months" as outlined in The Washington Post.
A number of leaders have come out already with statements, and we'll be providing a tally of those, along with what we were able to find today, a little later. For now, though, we've gotten a statement from the future House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who had not yet taken a public position on the president's "surge" plan. He's clearly against:
I do not believe that it would be helpful to increase troop levels by 15,000 -- or even 30,000. Incoming House Armed Services Chairman Skelton has said this, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell agrees, and even the President's own Joint Chiefs do not think it will help. We must remain focused on a political solution and make clear to the Iraqi leadership that they have to take responsibility for the security and governance of their country. I would hope that the President will address the nation as soon as possible, outline the major changes in policy that Americans have demanded, and quickly get to work with Congress to make a major course correction in Iraq. A small increase in troop strength should not be a part of that.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa wrote Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on Tuesday to say he is appalled by the process used to detain and deport workers in raids earlier this month at six Swift & Co. packing plants, including one in Marshalltown.
Harkin, a Democrat, said a telephone hot line for information for family members set up by the government has gone unanswered at times. It "provided no information of any use" at other times, Harkin said in the letter.
It has been "almost impossible" for lawyers and members of the clergy to gain access to workers who were detained, and workers were taken to other states without being granted access to lawyers, Harkin said.
Although assurances were made that parents with small children would be released to make arrangements for their children's care, "there continues to be reports of numerous single mothers remaining in custody," Harkin said.
Harkin said he hopes Chertoff shares his belief that "the failure to ensure that basic legal rights and humanitarian protections are afforded to individuals in our immigration system reflects poorly on the principles that have made the United States strong."
Update: Iowa governor Tom Vilsack also fired off an angry letter to Chertoff, criticising the agency's "information blackout" following the raids and for putting his state's National Guard at risk.
Three weeks ago, on the eve of a White House summit involving the Iraqi prime minister, a classified memo by a senior Bush aide was leaked to the press. The memo, penned by national security adviser Stephen Hadley, questioned the willingness and ability of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki to help U.S. interests.
But when a reporter today asked Bush -- who's made no secret of his intolerance for leaks -- whether he or his staff had called for an investigation into the leak, the president pleaded ignorance on the subject.
"You know, there may be an ongoing investigation of this, I just don't know. If there is, if I knew about it, it's not fresh in my mind. . .
"And we've had a lot of leaks, Mark," Bush continued, "as you know, some of them out of — I don't know where they're from, therefore I'm not gonna speculate."
The Bush administration has not been shy about going after leaks when it wants to: the New York Times is facing an investigation into who leaked its reporters details of the secret NSA domestic wiretapping program. At the time, Bush denied a personal role in ordering that probe.
A couple days ago we asked for readers to send us examples where the administration "disappeared" previously available government information -- scientific studies, monthly reports, photographs -- that did not square with its agenda.
There's no shortage, apparently. We've got 16 examples so far, and more to come. Some recent additions:
* In 2004, the FBI attempted to retroactively classify public information regarding the case of bureau whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, including a series of letters between the Justice Department and several senators.
* In October 2003, the Bush administration banned photographs depicting servicemembers' coffins returning from overseas.
* In December 2002, the administration curtailed funding to the Mass-Layoffs Statistics program, which released monthly data on the number and size of layoffs by U.S. companies. His father attempted to kill the same program in 1992, but Clinton revived it when he assumed the presidency.
President Bush teed off on immigration reform in today's press conference. But while his point may be admirable -- the country needs comprehensive immigration reform -- his portrayal of the facts wasn't. Here's how he described the results of last week's unprecedented raids on meatpacking plants:
"I don't know if you've paid attention to the enforcement measures that were taken recently at some meat-packing plants. They found people that had been working illegally, but all of them had documents that said they were here legally — they were using forged documents."
Not exactly, as regular readers are aware. A day after the raids, ICE announced that only 65 of the nearly 1,300 detainees faced criminal charges, and only some of those involved document fraud. That number has since grown to over a hundred. Still, the vast majority of those arrested in the raids and held for days were not charged with identity theft.
Meanwhile, a number of the detainees have proven they are legal residents and workers, and didn't deserve to be arrested and detained. Some rights groups and union officials are mulling legal action in their cases. Unfortunately, the president gave no word on whether he thought the tactics of immigration enforcement are also up for some comprehensive reform.
In today's press conference, President Bush dodged a question as to whether he'll overrule top military brass if they oppose his reported plan for a "surge" of troops in Iraq.
"That's a dangerous hypothetical," he said, concluding his answer with "nice try."
The Washington Postreported earlier this week that the White House was promoting the "surge" idea "over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
Ever wondered what to get for that lawmaker who has everything?
Well, The Washington Post has got your answer this morning, with details from Jack Abramoff's 2001 holiday shopping list. So let's see... Who's been naughty and who's been helpful to clients' needs...
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Abramoff's longtime pal, was down for a "$100 gift basket from Harry and David."
Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) -- the guy who did more for Abramoff's clients than any other lawmaker, according to one of his associates -- got "some Jerry Seinfeld CDs."
But Tom DeLay, then Majority Whip and Abramoff's most crucial ally in the House, was listed as getting the sweetest gift of all -- a $250 box of Godiva chocolates. And Susan Hirschmann, then DeLay's chief of staff (now a high-flying lobbyist), was to get a Godiva box worth $100.
House ethics rules forbid lawmakers from receiving gifts from lobbyists worth more than $50. But everybody had an answer for that. My favorite is DeLay:
Reached by phone, DeLay said, "I don't think I got a box of Godiva chocolates" from Abramoff, adding that a box worth $250 would be "memorable."
The vice president, through surrogates, has indicated he will not try to dodge testifying on behalf of his former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, in his upcoming trial, the Washington Post reports this morning:
Vice President Cheney is willing to testify in the perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial of his former chief of staff that is scheduled to begin next month, according to defense lawyers and sources familiar with his plans.
Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former top aide, told a federal judge yesterday that the defense plans to call the vice president and expects him to cooperate. That would make Cheney the first sitting vice president to testify in a criminal case, presidential historians and legal experts said. . . .
Ohio State University law professor Peter Shane said Cheney's appearance is also unusual because of his aggressive efforts in other matters to protect the executive office from being forced to disclose details of its deliberative process or inner workings. . . .
Lea Anne McBride, Cheney's spokeswoman, said that "historians are entitled to their opinions, but the vice president has said from the very beginning that we're cooperating in this matter and we will continue to do so."
Ex-Iraq Official Tells How He Escaped from Iraq Jail
"Speaking from a location he would not identify, a Chicago-area engineer facing corruption charges in Iraq said Tuesday that he escaped custody in Baghdad with the help of a 'multinational' group and vowed to return to his home in the western suburb of Oak Brook after the new year....
"[Aiham] Alsammarae, a secular Sunni who ran the Electricity Ministry in the first postinvasion Iraqi government, said throughout his detention that he was vulnerable to kidnapping at the police station and that he would be killed if Iraqi authorities moved him to a jail run by the Shiite-dominated security forces....
"Iraqi officials said Monday that Alsammarae broke out of the station with the help of private security experts....
"Responding to e-mail and other messages from the Tribune on Tuesday afternoon, Alsammarae said that the 'multinational' group that helped him escape included Iraqis and men of other nationalities....
"In another phone interview, with The New York Times, Alsammarae was asked how he got away and he recalled a line about Al Capone in 'The Untouchables,' saying that he had escaped 'the Chicago way.'...
"...Alsammarae told the Tribune that since his escape Sunday, he has received several congratulatory telephone calls from Iraqi dignitaries, including former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. He added that he was enjoying his freedom and sleeping in a comfortable bed." (Chicago Tribune, and see yesterday's LA Times)
In a letter sent out to select supporters earlier this month reacting to the controversy (among certain extreme conservatives, at least) over Muslim representative-elect Keith Ellison's (D-MN) decision to be sworn in on the Koran, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) warned that the U.S. must close its borders to guard against the influx of still more Muslims. In it, he also proudly recounts his retort to a Muslim student who asked him why he did not include the Koran with The Ten Commandments on his wall. "As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office," he says he told the student.
The letter, which by some horrible error in Goode's office was sent to the chair of the local Sierra Club chapter, was obtained by Charlottesville's C-Ville Weekly. Goode's spokesman, after correcting my pronunciation of his boss' name (it rhymes with "food") refused to expand beyond Goode's comment to the Weekly of “I wrote the letter. I think it speaks for itself,” although I was invited to fax in a question to the congressman.
"[I]f American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran," the letter reads. "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."
The text is reproduced below. (Thanks to Waldo Jaquith)
Update: We've posted a copy of the actual letter here.
The Bush Administration's chief of counterterrorism operations at the State Department is out the door, The Washington Postreported this morning. In the mold of the sudden resignation, he says he's leaving for "family reasons." But a recent news piece noted that he'd had trouble getting the ear of the administration.
Henry A. "Hank" Crumpton was a career CIA agent who led the CIA's campaign in Afghanistan after 9/11. He only came out of hiding last summer to take the helm at the State Department. By all accounts widely regarded, he, along with his deputy, have tried to push the Bush Administration toward a more expansive approach to the "War on Terror" - as documented extensively by George Packer in the current issue of The New Yorker. Packer, in his adulatory piece, profiles Crumpton's deputy David Kilcullen, a former captain in the Australian Army who's become Crumpton's chief strategist:
"You don't play to the enemy's global information strategy of making it all one fight," Kilcullen said. He pointedly avoided describing this as the Administration's approach [i.e. The War on Terror]. "You say, 'Actually, there are sixty different groups in sixty different countries who all have different objectives. Let's not talk about bin Laden's objectives-let's talk about your objectives. How do we solve that problem?' " In other words, the global ambitions of the enemy don't automatically demand a monolithic response.
Kilcullen's (and Crumpton's) "ideas have yet to penetrate the fortress that is the Bush White House," Packer notes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney will be called as a defense witness in the CIA leak case, an attorney for Cheney's former chief of staff told a federal judge Tuesday.
"We're calling the vice president," attorney Ted Wells said in court. Wells represents defendant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction.
The trial is scheduled to begin next month. If he testifies, Cheney would be the first sitting vice president to do so.
A once-prominent Iraqi American, jailed on corruption charges, was sprung from a Green Zone prison this weekend by U.S. security contractors he had hired, several Iraqi officials said.
Ayham Sameraei, a Chicago-area businessman, returned to Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and assumed the position of electricity minister during the interim government of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi....
There have been no suggestions that American officials had a role in Sameraei's escape Sunday afternoon. But the B-movie scenario of a rich businessman hiring armed muscle to bust himself out of jail from inside the fortress-like, U.S.-protected enclave could further contribute to Iraq's image of instability and lawlessness. The flamboyant former government minister's arrest and prosecution were held up by Iraqi and U.S. officials as a rare example of good government prevailing in the new Iraq....
According to Iraqi anticorruption officials, several sport utility vehicles arrived Sunday at Sameraei's Green Zone jailhouse. About 10 heavily armed men identified as Americans entered the single-story police station, which is usually guarded by three to five police officers.
Over at his new Iraqslogger.com blog, ex-CNNer Eason Jordan raps the Pentagon for refusing to heed experts' advice and reform its reporting of violence in Iraq.
As the Iraq Study Group noted in its recent report, the Pentagon does not include incidents of sectarian violence in its reports. As the country falls into civil chaos, attacks by Iraqis against other non-military, non-official Iraqis are probably the fastest-growing type of violence in the country.
Yet in the Pentagon's newest report on the state of Iraq, that violence does not exist.
"Thus, the total number of attacks in Iraq remains much higher than is reflected in the U.S. military's qualified tally," Jordan finds.
It was only one battle among many between the government and civil liberties advocates. But in this round, at least, the ACLU won the day and even made the Justice Department look a little silly.
Yesterday, the Justice Department abruptly gave up its battle for a classified document, which they'd sought to confiscate from the ACLU through the unusual means of a criminal subpoena (which is usually used to obtain evidence, not confiscate all traces of it). Why'd they give up? Well, it appears they were going to lose anyway... and lose badly.
Water is hardly a topic that holds one's attention for long, until you don't have any.
As it happens, Iraq is short on drinkable water. Although you might not pick up on that fact by reading the paltry two sentences on the topic in the Defense Department's new report on the country, "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq."
"New projects have added capacity to provide access to potable water to approximately 5.2 million Iraqis—an increase of 1 million people since the August 2006 report," the document reports in a somewhat boosterish tone, giving no benchmark to compare those numbers to. The report acknowledges that "direct measurement of water actually delivered to Iraqis is not available."
Abramoff to Represent Himself In New Lawsuits
"After paying for a high-priced criminal defense by Chadbourne & Parke's Abbe Lowell in the government's corruption probe, former uber-lobbyist-turned-jailbird Jack Abramoff is taking a different approach in two lawsuits filed against him by Indian tribes.
"This time around, Abramoff is representing himself against former client Louisiana Coushatta Tribe and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas.
"So far, Abramoff has piggybacked on motions filed by lawyers for former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and former Abramoff associate Michael Scanlon in the Texas case. Lowell did not return calls.
"Abramoff may be using the law library from the minimum-security federal prison in Cumberland, Md., where he is serving almost six years for a fraud conviction separate from the corruption probe." (Legal Times)
Last week, the Bush administration was prepared to break new legal ground in its quest to stifle the contents of a "secret" classified document. This week, it decided the document isn't so secret after all.
The Justice Department issued a subpoena to the ACLU last week for a classified document that had been leaked to the group. The subpoena, part of a broader investigation (into what, they wouldn't say), asked for "any and all copies" of the document. The ACLU kicked up a fuss, seeing the move as a new and creative way for the government to keep information under wraps (see below). As the New York Times noted, a subpoena "is typically a way to gather evidence, rather than to confiscate all traces of it."
Apparently the item wasn't so dangerous after all. The Justice Department abruptly notified the ACLU today that the document was no longer classified -- as of Friday.
So what was all the fuss about? An ACLU press release describes the newly-public document:
The document at issue, which the government has now said is declassified as of last Friday, is a December 2005 memorandum, marked "Secret," with the subject line: "The Permissibility of Photographing Enemy Prisoners of War and Detainees." The memorandum concludes that the news media and members of the Public Affairs Office are allowed to photograph detainees "so long as the photography is done in such a manner that cannot be interpreted as holding the EPWs and detainees up to public curiosity." U.S. soldiers, the memorandum says, are prohibited from photographing detainees and EPWs except as part of their official duties.
[ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero] noted that the memorandum was issued more than a year after the infamous Abu Ghraib photos came to light. The documents, he said, "raise the question of whether the guidelines were in place prior to the Abu Ghraib scandal and if not, why it took more than a year after the scandal to issue a policy."
Why was this document ever classified? As Romero said last week, "It simply had nothing to do with national security. If anything, it might be mildly embarrassing to the government."
The promised Pentagon report on Iraq was released today. You can find it here. Surprise: I can't find the specific numbers in here that corresponded with the GAO's request.
However, the report notes that the months of September and October were the most violent so far:
"Attack levels—both overall and in all specific measurable categories—were the highest on record during this reporting period, due in part to what has become an annual cycle of increased violence during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. . . .
"Country-wide, the average number of weekly attacks increased 22% from the previous reporting period (May 20, 2006 to August 11, 2006) to the current reporting period (August 12, 2006 through November 10, 2006). Attacks decreased slightly in August, but rebounded quickly and were the highest on record in September and October."
The US uses its aid budget to bribe those countries which have a vote in the United Nations security council, giving them 59 per cent more cash in years when they have a seat, according to research by economists.
Kofi Annan, the outgoing UN Secretary-General, expressed his frustration at the power the US wields over the UN in his parting speech last week. In a detailed analysis of 50 years of data, Harvard University's Ilyana Kuziemko and Eric Werker provide the clearest evidence yet that money is used by the council's richest member to grease the wheels of diplomacy....
When there is a controversial vote in prospect, the premium for countries with a security council seat is even higher. US aid surges by as much as 170 per cent, bringing in a £23m windfall, while the UN spends an extra £4m.
'Some countries serve on the security council during relatively calm years, whereas others, by chance, are fortunate enough to serve during a year in which a key resolution is debated and their vote becomes more valuable,' the authors say....
I just got a call from Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a spokesman for the Defense Department. I relayed to him my conversation with the GAO official, who said the Pentagon was refusing to declassify data showing the number of enemy attacks in Iraq for the months of September, October and November.
"That's an interesting accusation from your source," Ballesteros said. As it happens, the Pentagon is releasing a report today at 5 p.m. on "back trends in violence" in Iraq, he informed me.
Does it contain the three-month attack data the Pentagon declined to allow the GAO to include in its report?
Ballesteros paused. "There's information about attacks. Okay?" he replied. "Why don't you wait until 5 o'clock?"
According to another official, the report will be posted to the DoD Web site, at http://www.defenselink.mil.
Burns paid approximately $12,000 more to Powell Goldstein in early November, according to Burns' last FEC report, meaning that since he hired Ralph Caccia of that firm in April, Burns' campaign has doled out more than $103,500. And you can bet that number will continue to climb.
Just how many different ways has the Bush Administration tried to hide once-public information sources from the public record? Help us count the ways.
On Friday, Justin discovered that the Department of Defense has suddenly classified the numbers of attacks in Iraq for September through November of this year -- after providing the figures for every month since the war began. Why classify the information now? If there's a good explanation, we don't know it, and the Pentagon isn't returning our calls.
As others have noted, it's far from the first time that the administration has tried to deep-six data that was unhelpful to its goals. Over the years, they've discontinued annual reports, classified normally public data, de-funded studies, quieted underlings, and generally done whatever was necessary to keep bad information under wraps.
Wouldn't it be great to have all those examples in one place? Thankfully, Steve Benen at the Carpetbagger Report has started us off on that goal. But we're pretty confident there are more examples, so please use the comments to make suggestions, and we'll update the list as we verify the specifics. Please, include links where possible.
Here's Steve's list:
* In March, the administration announced it would no longer produce the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation, which identifies which programs best assist low-income families, while also tracking health insurance coverage and child support.
* When an annual report called “Budget Information for States” showed the federal government shortchanging states in the midst of fiscal crises, Bush’s Office of Management and Budget announced it was discontinuing the report, which some said was the only source for comprehensive data on state funding from the federal government.
During his doomed re-election campaign, former Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) did his best to convince voters that he wasn't worried in the least about what Jack Abramoff had told prosecutors. Hell, he's not even a target of the investigation!
If he failed to convince voters, that may be because he appears not to have convinced himself: rather than spend his bottom dollar on last-minute ad buys to eke out a win, Burns quietly banked nearly $300,000. He lost by 3,602 votes.
Playing the squirrel to Rep. John Doolittle's (R-CA) grasshopper, Burns is now sitting pretty. That's money he can use down the line to pay his lawyers, whom he's already paid more than $90,000. By contrast, Doolittle, the other lawmaker reported to be in prosecutors' sites, finished his successful re-election bid in debt. Silly grasshopper.
In his latest column, Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein revisits the Silvestre Reyes Shia-or-Sunni fiasco (which his previous column had sparked).
The incoming House intelligence committee chairman isn't the only person who doesn't know his ABCs, Stein reports:
Former Army intelligence Col. Rich Reynolds, who spent over two decades in the Middle East, told me he was startled recently to hear about several young CIA intelligence analysts at the CIA headquarters who were completely unfamiliar with Israel’s disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
The analysts’ current area of responsibility? Lebanon.
Likewise, a young intelligence analyst specializing in terrorist finances at the Department of Homeland Security was baffled a few weeks back by a question about hawalas, the ubiquitous Arab shops that work like an informal Western Union network to transfer money around the Middle East.
Experts think hawalas are one of al Qaeda’s prime channels for moving cash.
“What’s a hawala?” she asked.
Another young CIA analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a former White House National Security Council official who continues to work on intelligence matters, seemed totally surprised to learn that the terrorist group most responsible for killing Americans before 9/11 was not al Qaeda or a Palestinian faction but Hezbollah. The Iran-backed Shiite“Party of God” killed more than 300 Americans in suicide bombings in Beirut and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s and 1990s.
I guess we'll find out if it's true what they say -- what you don't know can't hurt you.
Reid Does His Own "Dead-of-Night" Legislation
"Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who has pledged to stop 'dead-of-night legislating,' did a little of his own in the final hours of this year's congressional session.
"Reid slipped two home state projects into the last major bill Congress passed last week: a transfer of federal land in Nevada to state and private control that's almost two-thirds the size of Rhode Island; and a $4 million grant for a hospice. Neither had been approved by any congressional committee.
"Reid said the land measure will help Las Vegas and other cities in his state grow and the hospice money rights a flawed Medicare ruling. One senator and some government watchdog groups criticized the actions, pointing to promises by Reid and the new Democratic majority in Congress to change a lawmaking process known for targeted funding and secretive deals.
"'Doing anything last minute shoved into an irrelevant measure — that's exactly what Harry Reid said he was going to stop,' said Steve Ellis, vice president of programs at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based nonprofit that monitors government spending. 'It goes against the grain of transparency and openness.'" (Bloomberg)
GOP Silence Update: Goode's Deed Goes Unpunished
Did Weldon Break Rules to Hide News of Probe?
NH Phone Jamming: Final Mystery Solved
The Tally: Dem Leaders Unite as Anti-Surge, GOP Leaders Silent
Investigators Find No Crime in Lieberman Web Site Crash
Majority Leader-To-Be Is Anti-Surge
I Sold The Integrity of My Office and All I Got Was This Lousy Fruit Basket
Anti-Terror Guru Abruptly Quits State Post
DoD Report Spins Water Shortage in Iraq
At U.N., U.S. Uses Aid to Aid Decision Making
Bush Admin: What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Us
Mucked Up GOPer Squirreled Away Nearly $300K
