To the Courts in 180 Days

Good:

The top legal executive for General Electric Co.'s transportation unit sued the company for gender discrimination Thursday, saying she has been paid less than male counterparts and was denied a promotion because she is female.
Lorene F. Schaefer, a 13-year GE veteran who has served as the transportation unit's general counsel since May 2005, also contends gender discrimination at the Connecticut conglomerate is widespread, and her lawsuit has been filed as a purported class action.

I wonder if this will make to all the way to the Supreme Court, which just threw out a gender pay-discrimination case on grounds of standing of the techinicality that such a case had to be brought within 180 days or the statute expired, an opinion that justice Ginsburg sliced to ribbons. Maybe the Roberts court can now issue an opinion, penned by justice Kennedy, that women should not have a say in what they get paid because it involves things beyond their understanding and they may come to regret it some day.

E. Coli Conservatives

Redux:

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

...

The Agriculture Department argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry. U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn't have the authority to restrict it.

They must have already contracted mad cow. Read the whole thing, which is nothing short of pathetic. To these folks, government of the people, by the people, for the people only refers to themselves and their buddies.

The Scalito Court

If this is any indication, we are in for a rough ride.

Case Closed

Plame was covert.

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

The right wing has been trying to spin that Plame was nothing of the sort since this story broke years ago. As always, they are wrong about everything all the time.

In Other Worlds

Wow.

China on Tuesday sentenced the former head of its food and drugs agency to death for corruption in a surprise judgment as the government sought to contain a wave of scandals over health safety.

Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, was convicted on charges of taking bribes and dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.

The sentence, which was unusually harsh, could still be reduced on appeal. But it reflects the weight China's top leaders are giving to the issues of corruption and food safety as they grapple with the fallout overseas after a series of safety breaches involving toxins in food and other products.

My feelings are mixed on this. I am firmly against capital punishment but I am glad the Chinese government is taking responsibility for this egregious problem and steps - I hope - to make sure it does not happen again. Can you imagine any other outcome in the current administration besides whoever was responsible getting promoted to Food Czar?

You know American hubris has ruined American prestige when we need to take cues from developing nations.

Best outcome he gets a very long jail sentence.

War?

Oh yeah, that war.

At least 22 people were killed and 55 others wounded in a bomb explosion in a parked bus in central Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

The blast was near a major intersection in Tayaran Square, a busy commercial area usually filled with markets. Many day laborers, mostly poor Shi'ites, also often wait in the area for work.

At least John McCain can enjoy a summer stroll in Indiana and Bush can claim that this proves Baghdad is once again a thriving center of commerce.

Al Gore

Saw on the Daily Show last night. Contrasted with the Bush "moment of zen" clip they played at the end of the show, the difference between the two could not be more staggering. It makes me think that this man could have been our president and that thought is sad enough that it makes me want to cry.

Grow a Pair

Greg Sargent.

Oooooooooooooo, scary! If we didn't give Bush his way, the White Housewould have criticized us!

Seriously, the Times account dovetails with what we've heard from multiple Dem staffers. And it has to be said that this is, like, soooooooooo June 2006. Recall that last spring many Dems were terrified of taking on the GOP and the White House over Iraq because they worried that the Republicans would tell the electorate an irresistable story: Dems are weak, and Republicans are strong. When Dems finally realized that Republicans would tell this story no matter what they did, they started telling the story their way: The war in Iraq is a disaster; it has made us weaker; Dems want to end it, and Republicans don't. The rest is history. Dems won the argument.

FYI, HRC

Try keeping this up:

Senate Democrats running for president face a dilemma this week in how to vote on the troop spending bill which no longer ties the $95.5 billion in funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to a binding timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

Either route chosen will bring with it huge potential political pitfalls, as Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., tacitly acknowledged Wednesday afternoon in her dismissive comments to reporters asking her how she will vote.

"When I have something to say, I will say it, gentlemen," Clinton told journalists.

What Digby said - we see right through you.

Taking into account that this report is the usual Jake Tapper insider BS filled with GOP talking points, the fact remains that if Senator Clinton hasn't learned her lesson by now she never will. Voting for the Iraq resolution was the biggest mistake she ever made and it remains the biggest obstacle to her winning the nomination. Democratic voters reluctantly forgave John Kerry and John Edwards for making that boneheaded decision the first time but they won't do it again. If she votes with Bush on Iraq this time, it's over. She will lose the left wing of her party completely.

This vote is a no-brainer and does not require intensive political calculation. The war is wrong and George W. Bush will misuse any money or power you give him.

Crying Will Not Help You Now

Monica Goodling.

"She proceeded for the next, it seemed like forever but it was probably only about 30 or 45 minutes, to bawl her eyes out and say, 'All I ever wanted to do was serve this president and this administration and this department,'" Margolis said of Goodling in his closed-door May 1 interview.

Never mind that the president swears to uphold the Constitution and that is also exactly what the Department of Justice should be doing as well. Via FDL,

"People like Monica … were misguided and didn't get it," said H.E. "Bud" Cummins III, one of the U.S. attorneys dismissed last year. Still, Cummins said, Gonzales and other senior officials deserve the lion's share of the blame. "It is their job to stand up and say, 'No,' " he said in an interview. "There obviously was a failure, no matter whose idea this was, at the top levels of the department to assert independent judgment."…

If she did not understand what her job was then she is also guilty of negligence and no amount of crying will help her now. We need to kill, and not pardon, these GOP zombies so they die for good.

FDL is liveblogging the hearings. Read on.

Not Again

Sadly, yes.

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Because he has learned so much since his last go around.

War?

Oh yeah, that war.

A parked car bomb ripped through a packed outdoor market in southwestern Baghdad on Tuesday morning, killing 25 people and injuring 60 others, police said. The deadly blast occurred in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Amil, damaging a nearby medical center and other buildings and setting cars on fire, police said. The neighborhood has seen an increase in violence in recent weeks, and Sunni politicians have expressed fears that Amil was witnessing a resumption of sectarian cleansing by Shiite militiamen.

But George W. Bush tells me that we are making progress, so we must be!

Take the Food Stamp Challenge

Can you handle it at $21 a week? Writes Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) after two days,

I’m feeling much better today. Yesterday, I didn’t eat anything at all until lunchtime, and that really took a lot out of me. So far today I’ve had some cottage cheese, a cup of coffee and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I think that now that my body has had some time to adjust, it’s a little easier, but my energy level is still noticeably lower than normal. I have some serious challenges ahead of me today. I’m expected to make an appearance at a reception on Capitol Hill and I need to pass by a dinner meeting at one of my favorite restaurants afterwards. I know I’ll be fine.

My biggest concern today is running out of food before the end of the week. One loaf of bread doesn’t make as many sandwiches as you’d think, and I’m running through my cottage cheese pretty fast as well. The budgeting was hard enough, rationing
what I do have will present another challenge.

After the full week,

I'm coming away from this experience with some hard lessons learned and a newfound understanding of this issue. First and foremost is that it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to make due on this amount of money. I know many people have written in saying that Food Stamps are meant to be a supplement to other income. Well, yeah that is how the program was intended, but it has been 11 years since we've added ANY value to food stamps, 10 years since we've raised the minimum wage and in that time inflation has risen, the price of milk has risen, the price of produce has risen. NOW we find ourselves in a position where with gas well over $3.00 a gallon in many places those who earn the least among us use their food stamp benefit not as a supplement, but as their sole source of income for food.

Many of us, myself included, have never known the despair of going to sleep hungry not as a cause of our own free will, yet, for millions of Americans, citizens of the most wealthy nation in the world, this is a reality. I know I could barely make it through half the week on $21.

Anyone who continues to complain about social welfare and support should try to put himself in these people's shoes. Make him take the food stamp challenge and see how he fares. The only problem with the poor is that they are poor.

Did You Know Gullible Is Not in the Dictionary?

Thanks, Washington Post.

After an initially tepid reception from policymakers, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are getting a second look from the White House and Congress, as officials continue to scour for bipartisan solutions to salvage the American engagement in Iraq.
With negotiations continuing this week on a new war funding bill, the administration is strongly signaling that it would accept the idea of requiring the Iraqi government to meet political benchmarks or else risk losing some assistance from the United States. That was one of the key proposals from the group headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton, but it was initially dismissed by the White House when first proposed last December.

A word to the wise: no matter what song and dance Bush does, the White House will never support any initiative that will lead to the U.S. leaving Iraq. Bush's plan is to leave the mess for the incoming Democrat, who will get us out of Iraq - worst case significantly draw down the number of troops deployed, so the Republicans can use the stabbed in the back line on Democrats.

Of course, David Broder will immediately see this as the epitome of bipartisanship and declare that Democrats go along with everything else Bush wants.

E. Coli Conservatives

Are at it again:

A Michigan meat packer is recalling 129,000 pounds of beef because it may be contaminated with the E. coli bacteria.
The firm, Davis Creek Meats and Seafood, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, shipped the beef products between March 1 and April 30, according to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The potentially-contaminated meat was shipped to foodservice distribution centers
and Marketplace stores in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Federal safety inspectors were not involved in the discovery. Rather, the problem was uncovered by state health officials carrying out the Michigan Department of Community Health’s ongoing E coli illness investigation.

Republican strategy: Say that government does not work, get elected, wreck government, thereby proving one's point. Rinse and repeat.

Your Liberal Media

Just kidding.

Update: Wait a sec - no, still kidding.

Your Intrepid Media

They get an A+ for research.

Indepedent Republican

Joe Lieberman (R-CT).

Not only has Lieberman endorsed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine.) -- one of Democrats' biggest targets in the 2008 cycle -- but he's planning to co-host a fundraiser for her on June 21 in Washington, D.C.

The event, which will be held in a Capitol Hill location still to be determined, will feature Lieberman and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) -- a very rare bipartisan fundraiser. Attendees are being asked to raise $3,000; $2,000 would come in the form of a political action committee donation while the other $1,000 would be a personal contribution, according to an electronic invite for the fundraiser obtained today by The Fix.

"Let's try to make this a bi-partisan tour de force," reads the invite.

If by bi-partisan you mean "with the continued exclusion of Democrats," then ok, I can buy that. Are we all clear whose side Joe is on?

Minor nit - the Fix labels Lieberman (D-CT) instead of his registered affiliation (I-CT) or his actual one (R-CT).

Bush Leadership Style

I know what it is I said and I said... something.

President Bush said Tuesday he is directing the Environmental Protection Agency, and the departments of energy, transportation and agriculture, to develop steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2008, but failed to call for a specific increase in fuel efficiency standards.

He said the directive came in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling saying the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from the transportation sector.

The EPA has previously refused to regulate carbon dioxide emissions arguing that it did not have the authority to do so.

Let us review:

1. Bush makes a public statement about something but does not provide the agency with any detail... the kind that comes around when actual work is done
2. Bush's statement makes clear the obvious: the EPA should do its job
3. Bush's statement is a reaction to a Supreme Court ruling that asserts the EPA should do its job. There is no proactive leadership from the Commander Guy
4. Bush's EPA was sued by the states precisely for not doing its job. That inaction came at Bush's direction

Bush - (n.) A follower and who drags his feet, kicking and screaming. Leadership qualities consist of instinctively identifying and making a mad rush for the highest cliff around.

Little White House on the Prairie

What Digby said.

Your Liberal Media

CBS.

Gen. Batiste delivers the most straightforward possible message. The spot starts with a clip of Bush, mouthing his usual line about listening to the commanders on the ground. Batiste, of course, was a commander on the ground. And he, like Maj. Gen. Paul Easton, says it just ain't so, which we all know is true. And which, by the way, makes it both solid news and solid military analysis.

Result? Fire the analyst.

The Think Progress and TPM stories have all the goodies you could want on the hypocrisy -- the pro-"administration" shilling of other military analysts, the ridiculousness of CBS taking two weeks to ponder firing Imus but firing Batiste virtually overnight, etc.

C'mon, tell me the media does not have an institutional conservative bias. Just you try.

Media and Memes

Earlier today someone alerted me to this article about John Edwards' time at Fortress Investment Group.

Democrat John Edwards said Tuesday he worked for a hedge fund between presidential campaigns to learn about financial markets and their relationship to poverty — and to make money, too.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the former North Carolina senator said his yearlong, part-time position with Fortress Investment Group helped his understanding of the connection, but he has more to learn.

While I do not buy Edwards' line about working at a hedge fund to understand poverty - it would have been fine if he said he was doing it to pay the rent - I do not think there is anything immoral or contradictory about working at a financial institution that is not making things worse for people. It is not inherently hypocritical for a Democrat to make money or be pro-business. Many Democrats are for certain regulations and may be skeptical of big business' motives, but I do not know a single one who is anti-business.

But this is besides the point. What strikes me as far more interesting is how the media treats Edwards as well as Democrats more broadly. Since the media paints Democrats as pro-tax/anti-business/blah-blah-blah black & white memes, the media treats anything Democrats do that does not jibe with those memes as hypocrisy. To paraphrase Digby (I cannot find the post right now), a Democrat who makes lots of money at a financial firm? Now that is a story. However, a Republican who works at a financial institution or big business and does not care about poverty? Nothing new to see here folks, move right along. Get it? It is quite a nice gig the Republicans have going, and the media praises Republicans when Republicans say something that makes Republicans look like they care, e.g. "compassionate conservatism." It is the same thing with the haircut. Laura Bush had a $700 haircut, but there was no "gotcha!" press about it. However, John Edwards, who grew up dirt poor, is immediately painted by the media as a hypocrite (and effeminate, but that is a somewhat different issue).

It demonstrates how shallow the press is. Instead of doing actual reporting or adjusting their prior conceptions to provide a more realistic, if nuanced, understanding of how the world and people are, they usually revert to high school clique understandings and he-said-she-said pieces, especially when it comes to those weak, hypocritical Democrats (one of their favorite memes). That is by far the more interesting story here and it speaks volumes about the media that will never cover it.

Bad Management, Bad Judgment

Alberto G.

Moving Goalposts

April. It's the new September.

"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.

"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," he said in an interview in Baghdad last week. "Are we making progress? If we're not making any progress, we need to change our strategy. If we're making progress, then we need to make a decision on whether we continue to surge."

Memo the media: the punting will continue until Bush is no longer in office. Then everything will be the new Democratic president's problem and Republicans will immediately call for withdrawal. Republicans and the right-wing noise machine will go into full spin about how their new positions are completely reconcilable with and a continuation of their old positions when Bush was in office and how it was really the Democrats who got us to where we are today.

Just a heads up.

Corrupt Republican of the Day

Teresa Shaw - Federal Financial Aid COO.

Hackery

The AP on Nancy Pelosi.

Do your job.

Progress, Democratic-Style

I like.

House Democratic leaders are coming together around legislation that would fund the war through September but would withhold more than half of those funds until July, when Bush would have to report on the Iraqi government's progress toward benchmarks such as quelling sectarian violence, disarming militias and sharing oil revenue equitably. Congress would then have to vote in late July to release the remaining funds.

...

Democrats say that is a reasonable time frame for the first assessment of Bush's troop increase, since the last of the additional troops being sent to Iraq will arrive this month.

Although I am sure David Broder will throw a hissy fit about how the Democrats are not being bipartisan enough, this sounds like a plan that can garner support across the Democratic party's big tent and maybe pick up some Republicans who are worried about their prospects in '08, because let's face it: the American people hate this war. But whither say the opposition?

... Petraeus has said repeatedly that it will be at least another month or two after the troops are in place before it will be possible to assess the impact of those reinforcements and, just as important, of the new U.S. approach that is moving combat troops off big, isolated bases and into dozens of smaller combat outposts across Baghdad. When he visited Washington last month, Petraeus told members of Congress that he will be ready to assess his progress by September.

Because by the time the troops will have been in Iraq from late May to late July will not be a month or two... my head is spinning. Either way, sounds like more calls for stalling and Friedman Units to me.

By the way, can we please stop calling this the Iraq war and start calling it the Baghdad war? We are fighting to maintain control of one city and, according to Petraeus, we will have to wait at least another four months to see if we can make progress. We have already lost.

Shell-Shock

What Digby Said.

Progress, Bush-Style

Heckuva job.

Roadside bombs killed eight American soldiers in separate attacks Sunday in Diyala province and Baghdad, and a car bomb claimed 30 more lives in a wholesale food market in a part of the Iraqi capital where sectarian tensions are on the rise.
In all, at least 95 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide Sunday, police reported. They included 12 policemen in Samarra, among them the city's police chief, who died when Sunni insurgents launched a suicide car bombing and other attacks on police headquarters.
The deadliest attack against U.S. forces occurred in Diyala, where six U.S. soldiers and a European journalist were killed when a massive bomb destroyed their vehicle, the U.S. military said. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded, the military said. Two other
American soldiers died Sunday in separate bombings in Baghdad.
The military Sunday also reported three other deaths — two Marines in a blast Saturday in Anbar province and a soldier who died Sunday in a non-combat incident in northern Iraq.

Just like a market in Indiana, right John?

Broder on Broder

You said it, man!

I think the country is closely balanced, with a controlling group in the center that rejects extreme positions and seeks practical solutions drawn from the agendas of both liberals and conservatives. Most Americans I meet are not ideologues of any sort; they are practical people seeking practical solutions to real challenges.

Nobody messes with the center. Nobody, man.

To further elaborate, Broder's view of the world is based upon how he would like it to be, not how it actually is. Ye Olde Pundit Worldview, I like to call it.

Corruption

From TPM:

I've read TPM for years, and appreciate your work. I email you because I read something today about the firing of John McKay that finally put me over the edge.

Apparently during Comey's testimony today he said that one of the reasons McKay got himself in hot water with the DOJ heavyweights was because he was pushing for additional resources to investigate the murder of Tom Wales, who was an Assistant US Attorney in Seattle. Tom Wales was shot and killed in 2001. What nobody has talked about, and what you may not be aware of, is the fact that Tom Wales was extremely active in attempting to get tighter gun control laws passed here in Washington.

Think about that for a second. A pro-gun control federal prosecutor was shot and killed. John McKay was agitating for more resources to bring his killer to justice. That pissed off DOJ, who apparently thought that McKay should spend his time going after bogus voter fraud prosecutions rather than solve the murder of a guy who was in favor of gun control. If you don't think the fact that Tom Wales' political views weren't taken into consideration by the higher ups at DOJ when they decided to punish McKay for fighting to find his killer, you haven't been paying attention to the way these guys have operated for the last 6 years. Every single thing they do is
about politics, and the political views of those they help or hurt.

The bottom line of this whole McKay firing could be summed up in this way: try to catch killers, you get fired. File BS charges of voter fraud, you keep your job.

It's a slap in the face to every prosecutor in the country. It's our job to seek justice for those that aren't able to seek it for themselves. None of us should give a damn what the political views are of the victims we try to protect. It's beyond reprehensible for them to punish McKay for doing this. But for this administration, it's par for the course.

Follow-up from McJoan at Kos:

Wales's killer still hasn't been apprehended. The Seattle U.S. Attorneys office was recused from the case, and the Seattle FBI office put in charge. However, in June 2006, the case was transferred to the Portland FBI office. Guess why the matter was transferred:

"High-level officials at the Department of Justice expressed displeasure to the FBI about Laura Laughlin's resource allocation decisions," said a
Justice Department source familiar with the case.

I am sad.

Accountability

The Chinese understand it; why can't we?

The general manager of one of the companies accused of selling contaminated wheat gluten to pet food suppliers in the United States has been detained by the Chinese authorities, according to police officials here and a person who was briefed on the investigation.

Can you even imagine an American CEO being locked up for this? Just think of big tobacco.

Ferrets on Giuliani's Mind

I never knew about this, but it made me laugh out loud. Rudy is a joke.

That's My Bush!

Insanity

If you have not yet seen this Media Matters post on Glenn Beck, hop on over. My mind was blows by how little sense he makes. But wait, there's more! Says Beck,

There's two things that really bother me. Science has become religion on this. You're called a Nazi or a fascist or whatever if you -- if you don't agree with it.

I just want to clear this up for Glenn - science - more or less - is an accurate description of how the world works. If you do not agree with reality, you are called a joke and no one should listen to anything you say.

Thanks, CNN!

Republican Ideology

Says the WH spokesperson in regard to the Iraq funding bill:

It is a trumped-up political stunt that is the height of cynicism.

Because to Republicans, American troops' lives and well-being is politics.

Father Knows Best

And no irresponsible Americans are going to convince him otherwise:

Bush on Monday repeated his intention to veto the $124.2 billion measure, citing the withdrawal language as well as funding for nonmilitary projects. Although he said he wanted to work with Democrats, he made clear he wasn't giving in on the question of setting a timetable for withdrawal.

Because he knows what is right. Heh.