Applying the Brakes

The RNC is planning to refuse to seat delegates from five states at the 2008 national convention to punish them for screwing with the primary dates.

Party Dues

A reader of TPM alerts us to a scheme by the RNC via a letter received by the reader's father.

[click to enlarge]

The letter, it turns out, is just a misleading pitch for a contribution to the RNC -- one of the "irregularities" cited in the letter is that "I cannot find a record of you taking a single action in support of the Republican Party -- not locally, not nationally!" A contribution, the letter suggests, would help set the record straight.

  TPM Muckraker

That sounds very Gestapo-like to me. There are certain irregularities. We suggest you contribute to the party.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Purge

We may see Monica on the stand yet. Conyers (MI) and Sanchez (CA) responded to Goodling's attorney:

[T]he Fifth Amendment privilege, under long-standing Supreme Court precedents, does not provide a reason to fail to appear to testify; the privilege must be invoked by the witness on a question-by-question basis.

As we thought, Monica was jumping the gun a bit by taking the Fifth before she even took the stand.

Game on.

Gonzo Woes

Ooooh. Unfair.

The Senators have sent another demand.

The committee wants all the relevant documents, all the lists, all the rankings of U.S. attorneys, every scrap of paper.

[...]

In particular, the committee members asked for Gonzales' cheat sheets on the firings.

  TPM Muckraker article

They're asking for the little notes he's writing to himself while he's preparing for his testimony. That's just not right. It should make it all the harder for him, since he doesn't appear to be the kind of guy who can wing it. But I'm having a hard time working up any sympathy for Gonzo.

The Committee wasn't too happy with the document dump they received from their last request, either. Now they want...

...the full text of all documents that had been partially or completely blacked out in the Justice Department's initial release of more than 3,000 pages last month. [... and] an unredacted list ranking the performance and standing of each of the 93 U.S. attorneys.

By the way, Kyle Sampson's replacement as Chief of Staff for Gonzo is Kevin J. O'Connor No, not that Kevin J. O'Connor. This one.

gwb43

The side issue to the Attorney purge - or I should say a side issue - is the use of "unofficial" email services to avoid required scrutiny.

A White House spokesman defended the use of outside e-mail accounts as an appropriate method of separating official business from political campaign work.

But the use of those accounts by officials discussing the firings -- and one from now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- have led a liberal watchdog group to accuse administration of trying to skirt the law governing preservation of presidential records.

  CNN article

And, speaking of Jack Abramoff, a commenter on Josh Marshall's blog reminds us that there was another instance of an attorney being removed, albeit in a different manner, who was directly connected to the Abramoff case, back in 2005.

[...] Bush "promoted" the head of the Public Integrity Section, Noel Hillman, to a federal judgeship in New Jersey. Hillman had been running the section’s investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff. Three weeks prior to his nomination, Abramoff announced his guilty plea and agreed to testify against others, including members of Congress and White House staff.

Obviously, Hillman had to go.

Bush also removed another attorney who was investigating Abramoff back in 2003.

Carol Lam, one of the attorneys purged, was of course, prosecuting the Duke Cunningham case (as you know, Cunningham is the convicted, receiving half of the Abramoff bribery case), and it's speculated that she might have been after other powerful targets.

That Jack Abramoff bribery case just won't go away, will it? It's a deep, deep rabbit hole. (It may even circle round and connect to Insane McCain, but who knows where all those tunnels lead?)

Waxman's committee released another chain of e-mails it said illustrated the type of exchange taking place on the account. The e-mails began with a February 2003 message from Abramoff to Susan Ralston, the former executive assistant to President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove.

[...]

When an associate notified him that his e-mail had been forwarded to another White House aide, Abramoff replied, "Dammit. It was sent to Susan on her RNC pager and was not supposed to go into the WH (White House) system."

[..]

Ralston resigned in October out of concern that her ties to Abramoff would be "a distraction," the White House said.

A distraction. Making it hard to focus on keeping Karl out of jail.

And speaking of those email services the GOP has been using for rabbit tunnels around the law, a blog called Neomeme has a list of other domains the Republicans have registered for various purposes. The names are kind of fun to run through, but the ones they've registered to avoid having them used by opponents are even better...

Yup, that’s right. georgewbushsucks.net, officially registered by the Republican National Committee.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

U.S. Department of Pre-Crime

I just came across this. Amongst the cyclists who were arrested just prior to the 2004 Republican Convention, a young man with a very clever invention was prevented from protesting as well. And lost a lot of expensive equipment to NYC in the bargain, which I hope will be returned to him, if it hasn't already. Too bad they can't return the opportunity to complete his thesis.

Josh Kinberg's blog, Bikes Against Bush, has the story, along with other information about Free Speech Zones and police spying on peace demonstrators, and another young man, Josh Wolf, who went to jail when he refused to turn over video he took at a San Francisco protest.

Wolf, who was released on April 3 after spending 8 months in prison, also has a blog: The Revolution Will Be Televised.