The Daily MuckWhen Rush Limbaugh launched his “Operation Chaos” plan which urged Republicans to register as Democrats so that they could vote for Hillary Clinton in Mississippi, he may not have realized the extent of the chaos he was causing. Party-switchers in Mississippi who voted in the presidential primary last week – an unusually high number – will not be allowed to cast ballots in an important congressional contest this week. (Politico)
The U.S. military has struggled throughout the Iraq war to contain blogs, especially those written by soldiers. A 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University – “Blogs and Military Information Strategy” – proposed that “”hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering.” But the plan also conceded that “on the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names.” (Wired)
The book is now officially closed on the investigation into the CIA leak that outed the identity of agent Valerie Plame. The price tag: $2.58 million, according to the Government Accountability Office. The extensive 45-month investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald involved many prime players of the Bush Administration and the State Department, including I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff who was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. (AP)
Criticism of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules on lead paint have been quick and sharp. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Environment Committee, believes that the new rules fail to mandate “reliable testing to ensure that children and pregnant women are safe after lead remediation is complete.” Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) insists that the EPA rule “cuts too many corners” thus allows “dangerous renovation practices to continue.” (AP, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform)
A federal District Court judge has ordered the Office of Administration to defend its decision that it is no longer an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has sued the OA under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents about the millions of missing White House e-mails. (CREW)
The U.S. military is pursuing war crimes charges against Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani for his alleged role in bombing the U.S. embassy in Tanzania. Though Ghailani was indicted 10 years ago, he was a fugitive during the embassy bombing trials and was not captured until 2004. Despite the civilian indictment, the government has chosen to try the case in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay. (New York Times)
The Government Accountability Office’s sixth annual report details how poor Pentagon management has led a 26 percent cost overrun on 72 major weapons programs. And despite the high costs, the report notes that many of the weapons programs failed to meet production goals or were stymied by delays. (Bloomberg)
Memo to Tim Russert: If you’re going to ask CIA Director Michael Hayden about highly-contentious CIA policies, you’d better spice up your questions. Or so it seemed on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press,” when Hayden called the possible American use of waterboarding detainees as “an uninteresting question for the Central Intelligence Agency,” since, “We have not waterboarded anyone in now over five years.” In the same interview, Hayden went on to say torture is simply a legal term that only “cloud(s) the debate” when invoked, and frankly, he’s not sure if the Justice Dept. allows waterboarding because he hasn’t asked. (ThinkProgress.org)
Gary Dodds, the former congressional candidate who spun a “fairy tale” explanation for his disappearance after a car crash in N.H., has been sentenced to 20 days in jail. Dodds claims he hit his head in the crash and then almost drowned in river but the judge castigated Dodd for making a “mockery of members of law enforcement who risked their lives and used their time — volunteer efforts, many of them — to come and try to find” him. (AP)
When the Pentagon was unwilling to accommodate representative Tammy Baldwin’s domestic partner on a military flight (“under House guidelines, members of Congress may take their spouses with them on military flights if there is room for them and when it is ‘necessary for protocol purposes'”) Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pressured Defense Secretary Robert Gates into accommodating Baldwin. Former representative Dennis Hastert (R-IL) had established a precedent for honoring such requests and ultimately the rules for lawmakers’ travel are decided by the Speaker of the House. (Politico)
It looks like conservative groups are now fighting amongst themselves over who is most deserved to “watch freedom.” Larry Klayman, who led various legal efforts against the Clinton administration a decade ago, lost his own legal battle against the conservative group Freedom’s Watch. Klayman argued that the group was using a name he had started to promote his own legal work in 2004, Freedom Watch. A U.S. District Court judge deemed the terms too vague and generic for protection. Now the sole owner of the name will position itself as a counter to liberal groups like MoveOn.org in the 2008 elections. (AP)
