Kibbles and Bits
September 12th, 2007Nobody loves baseball more than I do but I don’t believe we should be passing transportation bills with pork provisions aimed at building baseball fields anywhere as transportation issues are transportation issues and should be treated as such. An attempt was made to kill that amendment to the most recent federal transportation bill but it was tabled. Question: why can’t we have one big pork bill once or twice a year where everybody inserts their local needs and we could allocate a set budget for these projects? It’s going to happen anyway — we might as well encourage it in an open form so as to prevent needless machinations with every bill that comes into the Senate. Plus, it’s better to unequivocally order pork chops than to ask for a salad and receive some lettuce with pork bits in it at McDonalds.
George W. Bush has surprised me by nominating Ted Olson to be the Attorney General of the United States. I feel sick hearing it. As David Brock has shown, he’s a crooked, slimey man and he was Bush’s representative for Bush v. Gore, now being rewarded with the AG’s job after having served as Solicitor General for an administration that loves incest like it loves tax cuts. Harry Reid says he’s unconfirmable, but the President already knew that. He’s looking to hire someone who’ll stick it to the democrats and do whatever he is asked to do. Someone a little more like this man:
In a new embarrassment for the Bush administration top spymaster, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is withdrawing an assertion he made to Congress this week that a recently passed electronic-surveillance law helped U.S. authorities foil a major terror plot in Germany.
The temporary measure, signed into law by President Bush on Aug. 5, gave the U.S. intelligence community broad new powers to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications overseas without seeking warrants from the surveillance court. The law expires in six months and is expected to be the subject of intense debate in the months ahead. On Monday, McConnell—questioned by Sen. Joe Lieberman—claimed the law, intended to remedy what the White House said was an intelligence gap, had helped to “facilitate” the arrest of three suspects believed to be planning massive car bombings against American targets in Germany. Other U.S. intelligence-community officials questioned the accuracy of McConnell’s testimony and urged his office to correct it. Four intelligence-community officials, who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive material, said the new law, dubbed the “Protect America Act,” played little if any role in the unraveling of the German plot. The U.S. military initially provided information that helped the Germans uncover the plot. But that exchange of information took place months before the new “Protect America” law was passed.
Isn’t that nice?