Yesterday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a call to Speaker Dennis Hastert for an investigation into the role that the Alexander Strategy Group, a firm with extremely close ties to Jack Abramoff, Rep. Tom DeLay and Rep. Roy Blunt, played in the passage of the fatally flawed Medicare drug plan.

From Pelosi's release: 

 House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, and Congressman Henry Waxman, senior Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, sent the following letter to Speaker Hastert today asking for a congressional investigation into the role of the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm closely linked to Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Jack Abramoff, in the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act and the drafting of the budget reconciliation bill currently before Congress.

Jack Carter, who is running for the United States Senate against John Ensign in Nevada, is a man worth keeping an eye on.  Thus far the pundits aren't paying much attention, but I have a sneaking suspicion that as 2006 wears on, that is going to change.

Here's an op-ed Carter wrote recently that appeared in the Las Vegas Gleaner. (Be sure to scroll down past the polling data to read the full text) 

 Here's a snip:

There is no doubt that torturing people is un-American. There is no doubt that unfettered eavesdropping on Americans by the executive branch is un-American.  There is no doubt that holding prisoners without due process is un-American.

Last week, Scott Shields over at MyDD raised questions about the manner in which the Bush administration has enforce mine safety laws.  And the right wing, never ones to let the facts get in the way, gave him all sorts of grief for his efforts.

But as more and more facts come to light, it seems that the Bush administration's failures were worse than anyone could have first imagined.

According to USA Today: 

According to the AP, in President Bush's first 10 months in office, GOP lobbyist Abramoff and/or members of his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the Bush administration.

In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show.

The meetings between Abramoff's lobbying team and the administration ranged from Attorney General John Ashcroft to policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, according to his lobbying firm billing records.

Abramoff, a $100,000-plus fundraiser for Bush, is now under criminal investigation for some of his lobbying work. His firm boasted its lobbying team helped revise a section of the Republican Party's 2000 platform to make it favorable to its island client.

http://tvnewslies.org/html/george_bush_hosts_a_tea_party.html

And what a party it was! It actually made page ten of the NY Times, and that’s pretty impressive nowadays for anything involving George Bush’s war.  Did you happen to see the guest list?  Wow!  Really wow!

The folks on the guest list were the most powerful and possibly the best and the brightest ever to work alongside American presidents going back nearly half a century. These dignified men and women were 13 former secretaries of state and defense, all of whom undeniably had a vast range of experience and knowledge about war and peace. They came to share what they knew.  But they came to Wonderland.

Oh, what a lovely photo op it turned out to be: The Hatter, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice surrounded by history. The names were so terribly impressive: Powell, Cohen, Albright, McNamara, Schlesinger, Schultz, Haig, Carlucci, Perry, Brown, Eagleburger and Baker. They had served presidents from JFK to their present host.  These were the real heavyweights of government. They came to pass on their wisdom and their expertise in a time of terrible chaos.

They came for tea, but they got baloney.

It was an all inclusive bipartisan bash. The Mad Hatter had run into really big trouble in Iraq and things were getting worse.  He needed applause from all sides amid the chaos. He needed approval from people of stature amid the bloodshed.  So he threw a party, and the big wigs came. How important he must have felt.  Wow!

The Hatter might actually have consulted with his guests.  He might actually have asked them for advice and direction. He might have actually benefited from their combined expertise, but he didn’t.  Being mad, he brought them to his party to con them for nearly forty minutes. He touted his policies and his stay-the-course philosophy and entertained his guests with an upbeat assessment of his disastrous and failed war. It was truly tasteless baloney.   And they refused to applaud.

Horror of horrors, Colin Powell played the Dormouse. He sat quietly, never uttering a single word. More brazenly, Madeline Albright played Alice and dared to question the Hatter about his foreign policy! Not the way to go, Alice.  The Hatter was not pleased.

In fact, after his forty minute fairy tale about Iraq, the Hatter allowed less than ten minutes of questions.  TEN MINUTES!  Surrounded by the most experienced members of presidential cabinets in recent history, the Hatter listened to less than ten minutes of their questions and then walked out!

Via AmericaBlog, I read this morning that the NY Times is reporting on a study that:

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times carry stories today regarding the Congressional Research Service report that  concludes that the Bush administration's legal arguments are unsound.

A report by Congress's research arm concluded yesterday that the administration's justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments.

Today, the Campaign for a Cleaner Congress issued a press release calling for Bush to identify the sources of the money Abramoff raised into the Bush Campaign.

The Bush campaign can easily track this money as they had a sophisticated system which included assigning a tracking number to Rangers and Pioneers. 

Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post story that explains the system:

The form asked donors to give a target date for completing the goal. A corner of the form included a four-digit number that the campaign used to track the contributions on spreadsheets. "Remember, your Solicitor Tracking Number is your personal tracking number for money that you raise," the form said. "Please place this number on any check that you solicit."

Yesterday, President Bush met with some of the brightest minds in the U.S. foreign policy establishment in an attempt to bolster his credibility on the war in Iraq.

President Johnson tried the same thing.  I wonder how that turned out for him?

LBJ met with the "wise men" Nov. 1, 1967 - all supported continuation of the war, except George Ball.

March 26, 1968 - The "Wise Men" gather at the White House for lunch with the President. They now advocate U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, with only four of those present dissenting from that opinion.