Say Anything Blog

...For an insight as to why the GOP is down and out in Washington, take a look at Jefferson City. That’s where Sarah Steelman, the state treasurer, is running in an Aug. 5 primary for the Missouri governorship. And it’s where her reform campaign against earmarks and self-dealing is threatening the entrenched status quo, causing her own party to rise against her.

So bitter are House Minority Whip Roy Blunt and Sen. Kit Bond at Ms. Steelman’s attack on their cherished spending beliefs that last month they rallied the entire Missouri congressional delegation to put out a public statement openly criticizing her campaign against six-term U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof. Joining them in their support of Mr. Hulshof has been the vast majority of the state Republican machine. Ms. Steelman is clearly doing something right.

Her sin is in fact to belong to that new mold of Republican – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint – who know it’s no longer enough to simply hawk lower taxes. In 10 years as a state legislator and treasurer, her target has been the slothful political favor factory that’s led Republicans away from small-government principles and outraged conservative voters.

...For Mr. Blunt, this is also just a wee bit personal. His son, Matt, is the outgoing governor, and has been on the receiving end of a few Treasurer Steelman blasts. Last year she stopped payment on a $70,000 secret check his administration cut to settle a sexual harassment suit against an official. Her demand for transparency blew the case into the open, infuriating GOP colleagues.

The Nevada Republican Party decided Thursday not to reconvene its scuttled state convention this month, claiming it couldn’t generate enough interest to reach a legal quorum to elect delegates to the national convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Instead, the party’s executive board, in a private conference call July 25, would decide who from Nevada will attend the Republican National Convention to formally nominate U.S. Sen. John McCain.

The state party abruptly ended its state convention in April to head off a delegation of Ron Paul supporters who had captured control of the proceedings and appeared on track to elect a majority slate to the Sept. 1-4 national convention.

Party officials planned to reconvene on July 26. But only about 300 delegates sent in RSVPs, well short of the 675 needed for a quorum.

..."I don’t ever remember such chaos in the party,” said Barbara Vucanovich, a former congresswoman who has been involved in party politics since the early 1950s. “Frankly, its an embarrassment for our state and also makes it difficult for John McCain. He needs all the electoral votes he can get.”

It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama’s one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee’s six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years.

WASHINGTON—The second-in-command at the government’s top whistle-blower office has quit in a dispute with his boss, whom he accused of putting “political agendas and personal vendettas” ahead of the agency’s mission and independence.

James Byrne’s resignation as deputy to U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch is effective Saturday. Bloch is under federal investigation, accused of destroying evidence potentially showing he retaliated against his own staff.

Upon my departure, I am obligated to note that the mission, independence and very existence of the Office of Special Counsel are—and shall remain—at risk unless and until this agency is afforded a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed leader who is capable of putting OSC’s mission and OSC’s people ahead of political agendas and personal vendettas,” Byrne, the deputy special counsel, wrote in a July 10 letter to Bloch that was obtained by The Associated Press.

...A group of current and former agency workers filed a complaint against Bloch in 2005, accusing him of retaliating with intimidation and involuntary transfers of those who opposed his policies.

...FBI and White House Office of Personnel Management agents raided Bloch’s office and home in May as part of a criminal investigation into whether he obstructed justice and, potentially, lied to Congress about hiring an outside tech company to scrub his government laptop computer.

...Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., has joined liberal-leaning watchdog groups in demanding that Bloch resign immediately.

Thank you Harry

ABC News’ Rick Klein Reports: In an email to supporters this morning, Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign announced the presumptive Democratic nominee raised $52 million in the month of June.

The $52 milllion the Obama raised in June—the month the primary campaign ended—is a far bigger haul than the “only” $22 million he raised in May, his worst fundraising month of the year. It approaches but not does exceed his record $55 million in February.

Earlier this month, Republican presidential nominee John McCain announced his June fundraising numbers: $22 million, McCain’s best fundraising month of the year.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/obama-raises-52.html

Obama was the fund raising master in the primaries, no doubt about it, but with many of his biggest-money contributors having already maxed out the amount they can legally donate to him and with Hillary’s backers balking at forking over any cash he’s in serious trouble given the above spending levels.

With his choice not to take public funding complicating the issue further, Obama is faced with either keeping his fund raising at the herculean levels he enjoyed throughout the primaries, which is bloody unlikely, or having to cut back on campaign expenditures. 

With staff cut backs likely to make the candidate Oprah is now calling “the one” look a bit less messianic than we’ve become accustomed to neither option is all that good.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers defied a White House veto threat on Wednesday and voted to bar CIA contractors from interrogating suspected terrorists, in the latest clash over detainee treatment in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved the provision in adopting a broad measure to authorize funding of U.S. intelligence agencies for the 2009 fiscal year. A related bill awaits action in the Senate.

Passage of the multibillion dollar bill came on a voice vote, indicating broad assent, despite the White House veto threat issued earlier in the day.

In addition to the contractor ban, the White House said it also objected to provisions to force the president to give Congress more sensitive national security information, and to establish an inspector general with authority over all federal intelligence agencies.

The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

The news of the shift by Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his tenure comes at a critical time in US-Iranian relations. After weeks that have seen tensions rise with Israel conducting war games and Tehran carrying out long-range missile tests, a thaw appears to be under way.

The White House announced yesterday that William Burns, a senior state department official, is to be sent to Switzerland on Saturday to hear Tehran’s response to a European offer aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff.

Burns is to sit at the table with Iranian officials despite Bush repeatedly ruling out direct talks on the nuclear issue until Iran suspends its uranium enrichment programme, which is a possible first step on the way to a nuclear weapon capability.

A frequent complaint of the Iranians is that they want to deal directly with the Americans instead of its surrogates, Britain, France and Germany.

Official: U.S. Envoy to Meet Iranian Nuke Negotiator

WASHINGTON — In a break with past Bush administration policy, a top U.S. diplomat will for the first time join colleagues from other world powers at a meeting with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, The Associated Press has learned.

William Burns, America’s third highest-ranking diplomat, will attend talks with the Iranian envoy, Saeed Jalili, in Switzerland on Saturday aimed at persuading Iran to halt activities that could lead to the development of atomic weapons, a senior U.S. official told the AP on Tuesday.

Official contacts between Iran and the United States are extremely rare and although Washington is part of a six-nation effort to get Iran to stop enriching and reprocessing uranium, the administration has shunned contacts with Tehran on the matter.

The senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement of Burns’ plans expected on Wednesday, acknowledged a shift in the administration’s approach but stressed that Burns would not meet Jalili separately and would not negotiate with him.

The committee says that in their quest to find out when officials first knew about the possibility that Tillman’s death was not due to enemy fire, they were “frustrated by a near universal lack of recall,” according to the report.

The committee interviewed several senior White House officials including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, communications director Dan Bartlett, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, and chief speech writer Michael Gerson.

"Not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response," says the report.

The FDIC is hiring more staff in preparation for further failures and has upped its list of troubled banks to 90.

Over the past weeks, MSCI’s main world equity index and U.S. indexes have joined European and Japanese counterparts in bear market territory, falling at least 20 percent from recent cycle peaks as investors fret about the drag on growth from escalating oil prices and the abrupt withdrawal of credit from indebted consumers.

U.S. banks were at the centre of the credit and housing bubbles that burst last year, combining with a surge in commodity prices to end the long run of not too hot inflation and not too cold growth that was dubbed the Goldilocks economy.

As more news of mortgage defaults came in last week, those bank shares sank to record lows, according to the S&P bank index , and they could slide further if the banks unveil more bad news in their earnings reports this week.

“The high level of leverage extended to both consumers and investors against a now depreciating asset alongside lax lending standards make a rise in default rates beyond all previous experience likely in most major Anglo-Saxon economies,” said Steven Pearson, chief strategist at Bank of Scotland Treasury.

“The epicentre of the crisis therefore shifts from investment to commercial bank balance sheets.”

July 1, 2008: IndyMac denies that it’s close to collapse

July 11, 2008: IndyMac seized by feds

Freddie and Fanny bailout?

Bear Stearns bailout

Economic Stimulus Package

Bank of America’s proposed $739 bailout

Raygun/Voodoo Economics coming home to roost

(CNN) — It turns out that John McCain made an off-the-mark error when he launched at Barack Obama this week over Iran’s missile tests.

In a statement criticizing Obama’s positions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the organization claiming credit for the missile launches, McCain wrote, “This is the same organization that I voted to condemn as a terrorist organization when an amendment was on the floor of the United States Senate. Senator Obama refused to vote.”

The problem with the critique? McCain also missed that vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on September 26, 2007. Records show that Obama was in New Hampshire and McCain was in New York instead of being in the Senate chamber for the vote in question.

FAIRBANKS—Alaska state Sen. John Cowdery, was indicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges Wednesday, according to a news release.

The charges came out of a federal investigation into public corruption in the state of Alaska, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich for the Criminal Division announced today.

The indictment by the federal grand jury alleges that Cowdery and his co-conspirators, including Bill J. Allen, the former chief executive officer of VECO Corp. and Richard L. Smith, VECO’s former vice president, corruptly offered and agreed to give financial benefits to another state legislator, who agreed to perform official acts as a member of the Alaska Legislature.

If convicted, Cowdery faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on the bribery count and a maximum penalty of five years in prison on the conspiracy count, as well as a maximum $250,000 fine for each count.

To date, there have been seven criminal convictions arising out of the ongoing investigation into public corruption in the state of Alaska.