The Next Hurrah

Schmidt Advisor Connected to Noe: It's Even More Money Than Reported

By DHinMI

Atrios is linking to a report about a Toledo Blade editor connected to Ohio Coingate figure Tom Noe who Ohio Republican Congressional candidate Jeannette Schmidt is reported to have paid $60,000 in consulting fees the week he retired from The Blade.  But that's not all of the money this guy's received from Schmidt.  And there are some questions that should be asked. 

First, what we're talking about, the original report from Editor and Publisher:

The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, is on top of the news- paper world, thanks to its "Coingate" reports (see p. 34). But while the paper is rightly thumping its chest with each new revelation, it's also coming under some scrutiny — not for what it has printed, but for what it may not have. Rumors swirl around a veteran Blade scribe, former political reporter Fritz Wenzel. Nothing at all is proven, but it's worth recalling the dangers — even if it's just in public perception — of jumping from political campaigning to political reporting and back again. 

Wenzel, a longtime GOP campaign worker in Oregon, spent 10 years on the Blade politics beat before returning to the world of political consulting in May, virtually the day after he left the paper. One of the key contacts he made along the way was the man now at the center of the Coingate accusations, Tom Noe, a major Republican fund-raiser who attended the wedding of Wenzel's son, P.J., a state GOP employee. Noe's wife, Bernadette, even praised Wenzel during a GOP Lincoln Day Dinner this spring. "It was obvious that [Wenzel] was a Republican, he never hid the fact," Dennis Lang, interim chair of the Lucas County Republican Central Committee, told me last month. "But his work stayed in neutral ground."
 
Not according to the Lucas County Democratic Party, which devoted a page on its Web site to blasting Wenzel for alleged inaccuracy and bias. Suspicions about partisan leanings were further fueled when Wenzel signed on as media strategist for Jean Schmidt, the GOP nominee for an open Cincinnati-area congressional seat that voters will fill in a special August election (she won a primary on June 14). Disclosure records show Wenzel received $30,000 from Schmidt's campaign on May 16, the day his last column for the paper appeared, and three days after he left the Blade. He got another $30,000 from those coffers a week later, according to records. Part of the money went to media buys.

Editor and Publisher is correct about the $60,000 Schmidt paid Wenzel.  But that's not all the money she's paid Wenzel.

Open Thread

I was going to post this open thread on Saturday morning, hoping that it would give you all a chance to begin our discussion early in the weekend. But then I realized... that was probably just what Karl Rove would want!

Then, I wondered whether what he really wanted was for me to think that he wanted me to post it on Saturday, because actually, he wanted me to post it on Sunday!

The only thing I'm sure of is that Rove doesn't want us to bring up any stray topics that might be on our minds. So if I were you, I'd definitely start talking. And I'd do it with italics!

WaPo Page One: World Not Set To Deal With Flu

by DemFromCT

Regular readers of TNH will note a familiar theme  on page one of the Washington Post:

World Not Set To Deal With Flu

Public health officials preparing to battle what they view as an inevitable influenza pandemic say the world lacks the medical weapons to fight the disease effectively, and will not have them anytime soon.

Public health specialists and manufacturers are working frantically to develop vaccines, drugs, strategies for quarantining and treating the ill, and plans for international cooperation, but these efforts will take years. Meanwhile, the most dangerous strain of influenza to appear in decades -- the H5N1 "bird flu" in Asia -- is showing up in new populations of birds, and occasionally people, almost by the month, global health officials say.

It in Russian birds, now. And that, btw, means Europe.

The public, conditioned to believe in the power of modern medicine, has heard little of how poorly prepared the world is to confront a flu pandemic, which is an epidemic that strikes several continents simultaneously and infects a substantial portion of the population.

Since the current wave of avian flu began sweeping through poultry in Southeast Asia more than 18 months ago, international and U.S. health authorities have been warning of the danger and trying to mobilize. Research on vaccines has accelerated, efforts to build up drug supplies are underway, and discussions take place regularly on developing a coordinated global response.

Harris: Keep Your Agenda, George

by DemFromCT

One of the highlights (or lowlights) of reading the morning papers (electronically or otherwise) is picking out the stories explaining us how well Republicans are doing. After all, fear is driving the House to approve CAFTA, and Congress as a whole will approve the pork-laden energy and transportation bills. Doesn't that prove just how together and on top of the world Republicans are?

Well, not according to the American people. Harris Interactive says:

• A majority (56%) of U.S. adults approve of the president’s position on  simplifying the tax code, compared to 28 percent who disapprove. This is down slightly from May when a 59 to 26 percent majority approved of his position on this issue.
• A 52 to 37 percent majority approves of President Bush’s position on making tax cuts permanent. This is similar to May when a 51 to 38 percent majority felt this way.
• While a significant 23 percent are not familiar with the president’s position on lawsuit reform, the public who are familiar with this issue splits as 40 percent approve of the president’s position and 36 percent disapprove. This has only slightly changed from May when a 42 to 35 percent plurality supported the president’s position on this issue.
• On his handling of energy policies, U.S. adults continue to rate the president negatively with a 51 to 35 percent majority disapproving of his policies. This is similar to the 50 to 37 percent negative rating he received in May.
• The public’s approval rating of President Bush’s environmental policies has also changed slightly in the past two months. About half (51%) of U.S. adults disapprove of the president’s position, while 36 percent approve, compared to May when 51 percent disapproved and 38 percent approved.
• Finally, on Social Security reform, a 59 to 34 percent majority disapproves of the president’s position. This is identical to the rating two months ago.

So on energy and environment, the public doesn't want to go the way the Presidentis taking them. And the public want nothing to do with the big enchilada, Social Security destruction, that Bush has made a highlight of his second term agenda. Everyone's for lower taxes. Some day, we'll have a real debate about the lower services that go with it. That won't look so pretty in the polls. And we know what the country thinks about stem cells, and it isn't the same as Bush.

The Gallup poll, Bush-friendly since 2000, says he's at his lowest approval ever at 44%. Is that an accident?

In the backdrop of the adminstration's strides, dissatisfaction is emerging among the public. A Gallup poll released Friday that put the Bush's approval rating at the lowest of his presidency -- 44 percent, with 51 percent disapproving of the job he is doing as president.

The syncophants can point all they want to about what Congress is up to and how it proves Bush's rough patch is over. It amounts to little more than driving closer to the cliff that Americans don't want to go over. We've already gone over the edge in Iraq. The idea that in 2006 no one will remember that the initiatives passed are not supported by the American people, or that health care remains in crisis, or that  we were lied to and  strong-armed in order to go to war... well, I'm looking forward to testing that theory.
 

The Dog Ate My Draft of the SOTU

by emptywheel

Earlier this week at DKos, Todd Johnston noted a weird lie in Ari Fleischer's last press briefing. Condi makes a comment about the drafts of the SOTU during the July 11 press gaggle,

Q       If I could just follow up.  On that sentence, you said that the CIA changed the -- that things were done to accommodate the CIA. What was done?

DR. RICE:  Some specifics about amount and place were taken out.

Q       -- taken out then?

DR. RICE:  Some specifics about amount and place were taken out.

Q       Was "place" Niger?

Q       You won't say what place --

DR. RICE:  No, there are several -- there are several African countries noted.  And if you say -- if you notice, it says "Africa," it doesn't say "Niger."

MR. FLEISCHER:  Yes.  To be clear, the sentence in the State of the Union, just off the top of my head, stated, according to British reports, Iraq is seeking to acquire uranium from African nations or Africa.  That's the sentence that was stated.

[emphasis mine]

But on July 14, when Ari is asked about this comment, he tells a doozy of a lie.

Q     Ari, to follow-up on his question, the apple was a reference in a draft to the October speech to a specific quantity of uranium from Niger.  To take another apple, the draft of the State of the Union speech -- according to Dr. Rice's briefing on the plane on Friday -- included references to quantity and place, and we were told that that was Niger, they were taken out.

MR. FLEISCHER:  She was referring to Cincinnati in that.  I talked to her afterwards, and she was referring to Cincinnati when she said that.

Q     When she said that on the plane?

MR. FLEISCHER:  Yes.

Q     Wow, that wasn't clear at all.

MR. FLEISCHER:  Cincinnati.  Because all the Presidential, the State of the Union always referred to -- always -- referred to seeking uranium from Africa.  It did not have the same Cincinnati line.

[emphasis mine]

But as Todd makes clear, at the July 11 gaggle Condi is clearly talking about the SOTU.

What followed were roughly 40 questions and answers about a line in a speech and the decision to include it. Eight of those questions contained the phrase "state of the union," as did 10 of Rice's answers.

Ari, it seems, is at pains to pretend that Condi didn't mention mention Niger and amounts of uranium in early drafts of the SOTU.

Friday Hurrahpertif. Some morsels, tasty and otherwise

By Meteor Blades

Gene Sperling at Bloomberg points out that the Bush Administration’s response to the alleged Social Security crisis could create a real crisis if it were allowed to come to fruition.

Bush's Massive New Spending Plan Dwarfs Military:

A new study by Jim Horney and Richard Kogan at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a Washington-based research organization focused on fiscal and poverty issues, has found that the borrowing needed to fund President Bush's Social Security plan would cause the national debt to increase by a staggering 19.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2038. The borrowing doesn't represent a temporary transition cost, according to the study, and would lead to higher national debt until 2067…

Over those 39 years, these interest payments would total $6.5 trillion, again adjusted for inflation. In the decade starting in 2031, the U.S. would spend more servicing debt from the Bush Social Security plan than on the U.S. Army, Navy or Air Force.

Indeed, from 2011 to 2050, these interest payments would be more than the expected spending on all veteran benefits, child tax credits and the Earned Income Tax Credit combined, or more than three times the projected cost of homeland security - assuming all these programs grow roughly in line with the economy.

In an astonishing reflection on the ethnicity of the London (and other) bombers – successful and failed – Juan Cole calls the terrorists programmed hardware:

The WH Spin Takes a New Turn

by emptywheel

There's an odd move in Doug Jehl's article yesterday, purporting to show that there is a third White House leaker.

Jehl spends most of the first half of the article rehashing the published information about Pincus' leaker and (presumably) proving Pincus' source is not Rove or Libby. Then, Jehl consider's Novak's sources, noting that,

One of those officials was Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, according to people close to Mr. Rove, who have said he merely confirmed information that Mr. Novak already had.   

But the identity of Mr. Novak's original source, whom he has described as "no partisan gunslinger," remains unknown.

Immediately thereafter, Jehl considers Cooper's sources, noting that there may be more than the two we currently know about.

Mr. Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote about the matter several days after Mr. Novak's column appeared, has written and said publicly that he told a grand jury that Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove were among his sources. But Mr. Cooper has also said that there may have been others.

The juxtaposition of the discussion of Pincus' source, Novak's sources, and Cooper's sources leaves the impression that the unnamed source for all three journalists is the same person (and by extension, that Novak's second source is not Libby). Laura Rozen, for example, read the article and posted this:

A third administration source on Plame, not a 'partisan gun-slinger'....who? Hadley?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think its surprising that Laura assumes the "third source" is Novak's "not a partisan gunslinger." I think the article is designed to leave that impression. But I think its an effect of smoke and mirrors.

Flu Stories: About Those Pigs....

by DemFromCT

A few short days ago, I posted a NY Times story about an illness outbreak in China, at first feared to be bird flu (H5N1) but found instead to be a strep bacteria infection commonly found in pigs. Except now, it seems, doubts still remain. From EpidemiCA:

Update pig disease: 31 dead, 27 critical, 152 infected

While both the Chinese government ("We have the technology and procedures to bring the disease under control") and the WHO scramble to lose themselves in confusing (or is that confused) explanations and reassurances, the body count keeps rising in the mystery disease in Sichuan; 6 more towns are added to the list, and an unconfirmed report says the disease has now spread to Yunan province as well; there is a significant change in what the officials are saying, though, reflecting what scientists worldwide have been suggesting all the time: "We can't discount the possibility there could be other bacteria, virus or something else active in here", according to the WHO spokesman far away in Manila; if they were not scared enough before, they are now.

Frist Tires Of Doormat Treatment From WH - Supports Stem Cell Reasearch

by DemFromCT

If true, this NY Times report has to be one of the oddest twists in the faith-based Administration's determination to do away with reality-based governance.

In a break with President Bush, the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, has decided to support a bill to expand federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, a move that could push it closer to passage and force a confrontation with the White House, which is threatening to veto the measure.

Mr. Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon who said last month that he did not back expanding financing "at this juncture," is expected to announce his decision Friday morning in a lengthy Senate speech. In it, he says that while he has reservations about altering Mr. Bush's four-year-old policy, which placed strict limits on taxpayer financing for the work, he supports the bill nonetheless.

"While human embryonic stem cell research is still at a very early stage, the limitations put in place in 2001 will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases," Mr. Frist says, according to a text of the speech provided by his office Thursday evening. "Therefore, I believe the president's policy should be modified."

Mr. Frist's move will undoubtedly change the political landscape in the debate over embryonic stem cell research, one of the thorniest moral issues to come before Congress. The chief House sponsor of the bill, Representative Michael N. Castle, Republican of Delaware, said, "His support is of huge significance."

Huh. It could be that Frist can't be President without the support of moderate Americans who don't love him for the Terry Schiavo debacle.

The move could also have implications for Mr. Frist's political future. The senator is widely considered a potential candidate for the presidency in 2008, and supporting an expansion of the policy will put him at odds not only with the White House but also with Christian conservatives, whose support he will need in the race for the Republican nomination. But the decision could also help him win support among centrists.

"I am pro-life," Mr. Frist says in the speech, arguing that he can reconcile his support for the science with his own Christian faith. "I believe human life begins at conception."

But at the same time, he says, "I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported."

Backers of the research were elated. "This is critically important," said Larry Soler, a lobbyist for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. "The Senate majority leader, who is also a physician, is confirming the real potential of embryonic stem cell research and the need to expand the policy.

It could be that he's tired of being a doormat over John Bolton, who (rumor has it) will be recessed appointed next week despite all his flaws, but that would require either insight or conviction that Frist lacks (which is why he'll never be President). In any case, this is a sweet story to read on the merits, and especially after the syncophant press trumpeting that Bush is no lame duck and his cojones are as big as ever. Uh-huh. If you only watch Fox News.

[UPDATE]: Frist is dissed by Christian Defense Coalition. That didn't take long.

Frist Can No Longer Consider Himself Pro-Life & Vote to Expand Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research

About that those INR Memo Memos

by emptywheel

Dave Meyer, who's holding down the fort at the Washington Note while Steve Clemons is gone saving the world, made an important observation about Liz Sidoti's article reporting that Joe Biden has asked whether Bolton has testified before the Plame Grand Jury. The Biden news is what has garnered attention  But the article also notes that Jane Harmon is looking more closely at the INR memos. Not memo. Memos.

California Rep. Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has asked the State Department for two different versions of the memo from its bureau of intelligence and research that discussed Plame, a congressional aide said. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because of the investigation's sensitivity. [emphasis mine]

This suggests Harmon may be working on a similar theory as pollyusa and I were working on at DKos--that there may have been two versions of the famous INR memo aboard Air Force One.