Josh Marshall has the details. More, undoubtedly, to follow:
We now know that Gonzales, McNulty and Moschella each lied to Congress. We know that the purge was a plan that began at the White House — and it was overseen by two of President Bush’s closest lieutenants in Washington — [former White House Counsel Harriet] Miers and Gonzales. [AG Gonzales’ Chief of Staff Kyle] Sampson is the second resignation. There will certainly be more.
A tip of the hat to Discourse.net for this bit of news:
Halliburton, the big energy services company, said today that it would open a corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai and move its chairman and chief executive, David J. Lesar, there.
[snip]
The announcement about the Dubai move, which Halliburton made at a regional energy conference in Bahrain, comes at a time when the company is being investigated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegations of improper dealings in Iraq, Kuwait and Nigeria. Halliburton has also paid out billions in settlements in asbestos litigation.
Halliburton officials did not elaborate today on what the shift of its top executive might mean. The move seemed to raise questions about whether Halliburton might gain tax advantages or other benefits from shifting into a foreign country with pro-business regulations.
One might also wonder what the extradition treaties with Dubai are like…..
Four of five counts of lying, perjury and obstructing justice, to be precise.
The news this morning that Britain’s Prince Harry is heading to Iraq does raise the question — what do the Bush twins do with their days? They don’t seem to have jobs or post-college academic commitments. I don’t expect them to follow Harry’s lead here, but (as Joe from AmericaBlog points out) you’d think they could at least get off their butts and volunteer at Walter Reed once in a while.
It’s been a long, busy week. Today was a gorgeous, warm, springlike day, though, which was a very nice way to wrap the week up.
And this is some very welcome news too:
The U.S. House of Representatives denounced President George W. Bush’s Iraq troop buildup on Friday in a symbolic challenge to his unpopular war strategy that is expected to lead to a mighty struggle over financing the extra troops.
The Democratic-led House voted 246-182 for a resolution that voices support for U.S. forces but opposes the Republican president’s decision to send 21,500 more troops to bolster security in Baghdad and violent Anbar province.
[snip]
The resolution passed with support of all but two of the House’s 233 Democrats and 17 of its 201 Republicans, many worried about their political fate should they stick with Bush. Polls say most Americans oppose adding troops in Iraq.
That’s a very nice way to start the weekend.
In other news, I am going to take advantage of the three-day weekend upcoming to try upgrading the blog to a more recent version of Movable Type. Three+ years on version 2.6x is long enough. With luck, all will go well and I’ll finally get some new features and a new look to the blog.
One possible outcome is that I utterly hose the site and get stuck starting from scratch, althought I dearly hope that’s not the case. Either way, if you stop by over the weekend and things look a little odd, that’s probably why.
The ‘silly season,’ as Atrios likes to call it, has begun in earnest. One of my favorite bloggers, Shakespeare’s Sister, has been hired by the John Edwards campaign, and she’s not the only one. Undoubtedly other campaigns will start lining up to recruit other bloggers in the near future.
Although I’m pleased that Shakes got the gig, my happiness is not unalloyed with a little sadness. Although things are very nice and collegial around the left blogosphere so far, a day will inevitably come when the picture won’t be so pretty.
My crystal ball is too cloudy for me to see who will be involved or exactly what will cause it, but the time will come when loud accusations of backstabbing, lying, and bad faith will start to fly. People will choose sides, write long, passionate denouncements, pick fights in comment threads, bring out the sock puppets, and rearrange their blogrolls, all because they’re backing different candidates.
It will happen, and it will suck. Mark my words. I hope I’m proved wrong, but somehow, I doubt I will be.
As for me, it is way, way too early in the race for me to pick a horse. For one thing, so far, there doesn’t seem to be any significant difference between the various Democratic candidates in the field. Six months from now, maybe, the distinctions will be more obvious and I will be ready to make a choice.