Mercy! Growing nostaglic for Ashcroft

post from Dump Doolittle on 09 April 2007 01:21:00 PM. © Dump Doolittle

Alberto Gonzales knows his future as USAG depends upon his appearance before Congress next week. He's taken to calling Republicans on the Hill to "pre-sell" his testimony.

MSNBC First Read:

Senior White House officials say Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has "made a lot of calls" to members of Congress in advance of his much anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next week. Officials say those calls have been to Republicans, and that Gonzales is "trying to tell them the narrative. Here's what happened, what went wrong, and what I'm doing about it."

Officials add that President Bush has spoken to Gonzales a "few times," and that he remains supportive. Privately, officials acknowledge that perceptions about how well the attorney general does before Congress will be make or break.

Those unnamed White House officials don't seems to be pulling for Gonzales.

Read The Full Article:
http://solongjohn.blogspot.com/2007/04/mercy-growing-nostaglic-for-ashcroft.html

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Why Obama is Losing the 'Bar Fight Primary'

post from MyDD on 09 April 2007 01:17:24 PM. © MyDD

Ok, now that the fundraising silliness is over, let's go back to discussing the race. What is behind the Edwards boomlet? I'm not sure, but I'm not chalking it up to his wife's cancer. That seems to be a good reason to look at Edwards[...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mydd/~3/107752474/0155

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We're Part of the Gang

post from Eschaton on 09 April 2007 01:10:00 PM. © Eschaton

Media Matters has more from Fineman/Imus.

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http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_08_atrios_archive.html#117613862566491151

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Iraqd

post from Crooks and Liars on 09 April 2007 01:04:13 PM. © Crooks and Liars

ABC:The powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his militiamen on Sunday to redouble their battle to oust American forces and argued that Iraq's army and police should join him in defeating "your archenemy." The U.S. military announced the weekend deaths of 10 American soldiers, including six killed on Sunday.Security remained so tenuous in the capital [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/09/iraqd-8/

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Meet Afonso

post from William K. Wolfrum on 09 April 2007 01:01:12 PM. © William K. Wolfrum

Meet Afonso. When I met him, he was sitting on the street, waiting to die. He had a fairly insidious virus that was causing him to overload on mucus. He was horribly sad, timid and sick. Luckily he had a couple sisters that were leaving some food for him and ...

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http://www.williamkwolfrum.com/?p=450

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One More Thought on the AMT

post from Ezra Klein on 09 April 2007 12:59:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

It's worth saying, too, that issues like the AMT and college tuition deductibility are inevitable and annoying focuses of the Democratic Party. They are, in effect, attempts at economic relief for the middle and upper middle classes. The middle class...[...]

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http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/one_more_though.html

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Bushenomic boom rings hollow

post from NewsHog on 09 April 2007 12:53:00 PM. © NewsHog

I'm no economist. In fact in some circles, my mathematical ineptitude is legendary, but these regular pronouncements out of the White House about how good the economy is really bug me.

Fratto cited last Friday's stronger-than-expected jobs report as evidence of the strength of the economy under Bush. The Labor Department reported that 180,000 new jobs were created in March and the unemployment rate fell to 4.4 percent, matching a five-year low.

To begin with I never understand why a couple hundred thousand jobs is such all-fired great news. We have almost 300 million people. Michigan alone could eat up that gain and barely register in their tax revenues. They never tell you what those jobs are either. I mean if the jobs being created are cleaning hotel rooms or slinging burgers at McDonalds, it's hardly anything to crow about.

And as far as the unemployment rate, the metrics never seem to measure people who have been unemployed so long they've dropped off the rolls and are now living under a bridge somewhere. Nor does it address the underemployed who might hold three part-time minimum wage jobs to make ends meet and still don't get health insurance coverage out of it. And you know the numbers have got to be dicey when they trot out the Clinton economy.

If you go back to this point in the Clinton expansion," Fratto said, "they would have loved to have seen the numbers that we have right now."

Even if that was true, so what? I don't pretend to understand macro-economics but I can see what's going on in the micro-climate all around me among the working stiffs of America. The White House claims "real wages" are rising. I see people who are out of work or underemployed. Those with secure jobs are seeing their benefits cut and their wages stagnate while costs for basic necessities rise at a breakneck pace. Savings accounts? Who has any money left over to save? Most Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt.

They can cook the books anyway they like but the only boom has been for the "investor class" who are making money on the money they already had. For working class Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck, there just ain't no money in the bank and no rosy press report is going to change that, or their opinion on Bush's mishandling of the economy.

Read The Full Article:
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/04/bushenomic-boom-rings-hollow.html

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Democrats and the AMT

I sort of wonder whether Tyler Cowen actually read this article on Democratic attempts to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax. Responding to the news that Democrats are "preparing legislation that would permanently shield all but the very richest[...]

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http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/democrats_and_t.html

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White House Emails, part 2

More on the White House aides private email accounts (and those apparently registered through the RNC). I guess we’ll see what comes of this- whether or not they used the non-White House email system to hide potentially unethical behavior or escape a congressional subpoena of White House emails/records.I wrote a bit about it last [...]

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http://cafepolitico.us/blog1/?p=955

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Praying for Peace, Paying for War

On Easter Sunday, President Bush attended services with his family at an Army chapel and afterward shared, “I pray for peace.” That must be of small comfort to the families and loved ones of the American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who are daily sacrificed in the President’s war of aggression and the civil strife [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://kmareka.com/index.php/?p=1079

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