New ‘Murtha Lied’ Website Posts ‘Hateful’ Emails after Liberal Blogs Start Digging
“A new Website devoted to the “lies” of Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha went live a few days early in order to post “hateful” emails sent by readers of liberal blogs that were tipped off early and had already begun digging into the site’s background…. Although the original url for the Website was to be www.murthalied.com, a few days ago, one of the site’s founders, retired Navy Captain Larry Bailey, purchased a new url at BootMurtha.com. Bailey served as president of Vietnam Veterans For The Truth, which attacked 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry’s military record, on the heels of the more well-known Swift Boat Veterans For Truth.” (Raw Story)
In other muck. . .
Bush May Allow Wiretapping Review: Specter
“The White House appears to be leaning toward allowing a secret federal court to look at its controversial warrantless wiretaps, a reversal of previous policy, a top Republican senator said on Sunday.” (Reuters)
First Data Gave Feds Records
“Coloradoâs First Data Corp., the worldâs largest processor of credit-card transactions and wire transfers, gave the FBI and CIA unfettered access to data on millions of customers shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new book alleges. First Dataâs computer systems served as the âFBIâs own in-house search engine,â and the CIA was allowed to monitor money-wire transactions in real time, according to âThe One Percent Doctrineâ by Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Suskind.” (Denver Post blog)
Clients Rethinking Business with Scandal-Linked Lobby Firm
Boeing, other firms say they are “reassessing” their ties with the Copeland Lowery lobbyists, in light of the federal investigation into the firm. (Roll Call)
Lawmaker Wants Newspapers Charged over Stories on Secret Program
“The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Bush administration on Sunday to investigate newspapers that reported on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists. Rep. Peter King cited The New York Times in particular for publishing a story last week that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records.” (AP)
Money-Tracking Leak Angers Cheney
“US Vice-President Dick Cheney has condemned as “offensive” US media disclosures of a secret programme that probes global financial transactions.” (BBC)
Officials Defend Bank Data Tracking
“Amid privacy concerns, the Bush administration portrays the Treasury Department’s secret program as crucial to the war on terrorism.” (LA Times)
U.S. Is Moving on Several Fronts To Police Financial Transactions
“The Treasury Department’s newly disclosed program to track suspected terrorists by examining records of international financial transactions is just one component of an expanding effort by American security officials to more closely monitor suspect financial dealings. ” (WSJ)
Cops Call for McKinney Investigation
The Capitol Hill police union has asked for an ethics investigation into Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) after a grand jury decided not to charge McKinney with assault for allegedly hitting an officer. (Roll Call)
TX Redistricting Ruling Expected This Week
The Supreme Court will decide whether the 2003 GOP-heavy Texas districting map engineered by Tom DeLay is constitutional. (Roll Call)
Analysis: CIA Program Expands Bush’s Power
“A secret CIA-Treasury program to track financial records of millions of Americans is the latest installment in an expansion of executive authority in the name of fighting terrorism. The administration doesn’t apologize for President Bush’s aggressive take on presidential powers. Vice President Dick Cheney even boasts about it.” (AP)
Nonprofit Groups Funneled Money For Abramoff
The Washington Post pulls together the data on Grover Norquist’s laundering activities for Abramoff. (WaPo)
Abramoff: Mover, Shaker, Master Donation-Maker
Through a web of nonprofit “pass throughs” and shell groups, Jack Abramoff could route a client’s contribution to any politician — even if the pol had publicly sworn not to take their cash. (Roll Call)
Charitable Chicanery
“What do scandal-plagued politicians Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, and Alan Mollohan, along with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, all have in common? If you answered bribery, corruption, or influence-peddling probes, you’d be half right. But the high-profile controversies surrounding the four men also have another key common denominator: the alleged abuse of so-called “charities” for political gain.” (National Journal)
Warnings on WMD ‘Fabricator’ Were Ignored, Ex-CIA Aide Says
“Drumheller, who is writing a book about his experiences, described in extensive interviews repeated attempts to alert top CIA officials to problems with the defector, code-named Curveball, in the days before the Powell speech.” (WaPo)
Politicizing Crappy Intelligence – Again
Why did Intel czar John Negroponte help Santorum and Hoekstra’s WMD charade by declassifying an earlier intelligence report? (The Left Coaster)
The Bush Code of Secrecy
“Since 2001, the administration has wielded the “state secrets” privilege as a wide-ranging weapon to snuff out legal challenges to its most Draconian tactics in the global war on terror. At stake are no less than bedrock American moral and legal principles. Bush lawyers have aimed to shoot down court cases involving the indefinite detention and brutal interrogation of prisoners, the covert transfer of terror suspects to foreign governments known to torture, and domestic surveillance prying into the lives of thousands of Americans.” (Salon)
DHS Kept Prez in Dark on Funding Cuts
“The DHS did not notify the White House of its final allocations of anti-terrorism grants for major U.S. urban areas. U.S. President George W. Bush and his White House were kept in the dark about the Department of Homeland Security’s grant allocations, even though they included controversial cuts to New York City and Washington, until after the decisions were made, congressional and administration officials said Wednesday.” (UPI)
Emails Detail Close Relationship Between Dept. of Labor and Anti-Union Lobbyist
“The email correspondence between the Department of Labor and unionfacts.org staff show a close and supportive relationship between the two entities.” (CREW)
The Friday Line: Corruption and the House Race Rankings
“Corruption could well re-emerge as a central issue in the battle for the House this year, but The Fix has grown more skeptical about the issue’s ability to influence the defeat of incumbent lawmakers by itself.” (The Fix)
New Light on NSA Spying
“A federal court in California released a previously sealed 40-page document on Thursday in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against AT&T, which bolsters allegations that the telecommunications giant built secret rooms to allow the National Security Agency to conduct widespread surveillance of Internet traffic. The document also paints a detailed scenario of how the NSA may be conducting the top-secret operation, which closely matches information given to Salon by a former AT&T employee who worked at the company’s network operations center in Bridgeton, Mo.” (Salon)
House Sacrifices Revenue and Earmarks
“The House yesterday approved a deep, permanent tax cut on large, inherited estates that would cost the Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars, then sought to burnish its reputation for fiscal discipline by granting the president power to rescind pet projects from spending legislation.” (WaPo)
DeLay Files Final Legal Funds Report
“Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay reported raising $18,500 from individuals and corporations for his legal expenses and spending $43,282.24 in legal fees from April 1 to June 9.” (AP)
