Political Bloviation

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice $3.47 billion spent. Did you get a pony?:
The Center for Responsive Politics has taken a look at lobbying expenses for 2009 and found that we have a new record. $3.47 billion was spent by 13,741 registered lobbyists to lobby the Congress in 2009. In 2008 $3.27 billion was spent. And [...]

This is galling.

Getting your wealth from daddy: capitalist.
Getting your Congressional seat from daddy: capitalist.
Being a VP at Merrill Lynch and benefiting from billions in government bailout money: capitalist.
Paying bloated bailouts because they did so well: capitalist.

Suggesting that executive bonuses and pay be limited  in companies that brought us to the verge of a new [...]

Press Release: Statement Regarding Madoff Investigation; 2008-297; Dec. 16, 2008.
They thoroughly failed to do their job for at least 9 years:
Since Commissioners were first informed of the Madoff investigation last week, the Commission has met multiple times on an emergency basis to seek answers to the question of how Mr. Madoff’s vast scheme remained undetected [...]

Tim F. at Balloon Juice goes off on the significance of the Baghdad embassy debacle as reported in the Washington Post and general GOP mismanagement.
Balloon Juice
One would expect Republicans to take it worse than anybody that managers of the embassy project handed the project to a firm that never did embassy work before, mismanaged [...]

George McGovern lays out a powerful argument for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney:
Why I Believe Bush Must Go – washingtonpost.com
Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their [...]

Apparently all are “quaint” notions. Has widely reported all over the place:
Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry – New York Times
But the battle is really about something much bigger. At stake is the federal government’s extensive but uneasy partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism [...]

Coming soon, to a shredder near you – The Carpetbagger Report
Exactly why is there so much paper they never want anyone to see? “The Wonkette says You better get crackin’, Dick — that evidence won’t destroy itself!”

CIA Destroyed Videos Showing Interrogations – washingtonpost.com
I’m sure they’re not reaaaaally hiding anything. Who wants a pesky smoking gun laying around? Obstruction of justice anyone?

Talking Points Memo | Inside the Bush Bubble
“By almost all accounts, this Administration has done more to improve government effectiveness than any previous Administration, ever.”
–Clay Johnson, Bush buddy turned deputy director of OMB who also chairs the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, which oversees all government inspectors general.
Exactly how does he define “by most [...]

House Democrats Press Bush on Subpoenas – washingtonpost.com
House Democrats threatened Monday to hold President Bush’s key confidants in contempt of Congress unless they comply with subpoenas for information on the Justice Department’s purge of federal prosecutors last winter.
The White House shrugged off the ultimatum, saying the information is off-limits under executive privilege and that the [...]

A few excerpts from Frank Rich at the Times:
The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us – New York Times
…As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to [...]

U.S. Pays Steep Price for Private Security in Iraq – washingtonpost.com
We pay more for a rent-a-grunt foot soldier then we do for Gen Patraeus. We get less accountablity, but what the heck who’s really coutning the deaths over over-paid mercenaries? Muuuuch easier than asking Congress for the necessary manpower for the military. Man are the [...]

The plan is mostly likely to stonewall any real attempts at  oversight until the end of the Bush administration. I think that once the true extent of corruption and incompetence vis a vis Iraq is revealed it will boggle the imagination. The GOP can’t have this public before the election.
Lawmaker says Rice interfered with Iraq [...]

Alaska Senator’s Calls Were Secretly Taped – washingtonpost.com
It will be interesting to see exactly what might have been caught on tape.

Exactly what wrong with privatizing warfare? King of Zembla gives a compelling answer:
King of Zembla
Paradigm Shift
Old joke: conservatives believe that government is incapable of accomplishing anything good, and from the moment they assume power set about trying to prove it. Right-wingers, disgusted by government waste-and-fraud, seek reflexively to replace it with corporate waste-and-fraud [...]

 Move along, nothing to see here. No whiff of corruption or Hatch Act violations here, no sir.
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/17/2007 | Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns
Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House [...]

Mr. Gonzales’s Never-Ending Story – New York Times
The Times opines that if the Solicitor General’s office does not appoint a special prosecutor, then Congress should remove the Attorney General.  I don’t think the “Decider” will decide to cooperate. They need Gonzo to continue his very real and public obstruction of Congressional oversight to prevent others [...]

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 07/25/2007 | House panel votes for contempt citations against Bush aides

Gonzales Meeting With Aide Scrutinized – washingtonpost.com
There’s another investigation of Gonzo’s brewing. This one (who can keep them all straight?) is about a meeting with Monica Goodling. First he lied about it in congressional testimony. (maybe he can share a cell with Scooter!) Secondly, it can easily be construed as witness tamper and/or obstruction of [...]

Citizens group files elections complaint against Sen. Martinez
It is intersting that despite FEC audits showing massive violations of the law, no action has been taken against Mel. Could it just be that he’s the friggin’ chairman of the Republican Party? Nope, nothing to see here folks just move along.