The Monday ‘BushWhack’ing

Here we go again...

• Karl “President” Rove is resigning at the end of this month… does anything else really need to be said… though I have a feeling I’ll have more on this later.
• One of the bottom tier gop presidential candidates has left the race after an incredibly poor showing at the Iowa Buying Your Votes straw poll. No, not that one… the other one; Tommy Thompson has dropped out of the race after finishing sixth in the Ames, Iowa straw poll. (Meh)
• Last week Congress folded like origami and passed an expansion of FISA that moved the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program “out from under any real legal restrictions.” But this past weekend the Washington Post added more details today about two court rulings against the program, writing; “But in a secret ruling in March, a judge on a special court empowered to review the government’s electronic snooping challenged for the first time the government’s ability to collect data from such wires even when they came from foreign terrorist targets. In May, a judge on the same court went further, telling the administration flatly that the law’s wording required the government to get a warrant whenever a fixed wire is involved. […] The rulings — which were not disclosed publicly until the congressional debate this month — represented an unusual rift between the court and the U.S. intelligence community. They led top intelligence officials to conclude, a senior official said, that “you can’t tell what this court is going to do” and helped provoke the White House to insist that Congress essentially strip the court of any jurisdiction over U.S. surveillance of communications between foreigners.” (So once again, the administration ignores the law and does whatever it pleases…I would say more, but what’s the use?)
• The Jack Abramoff storylines just won’t go away with news now coming out that the COS for Rep. Bob Ney (r-OH) wore a wire in order to snare his boss…
• And have we mentioned? That all republican Iowans at the aforementioned straw poll are not happy that Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain did not make an appearance at the poll and are promising to “remember” the snub? (Man, those Iowans are a whiny haughty bunch… personally I think that the reason they didn’t attend is that the three of them – and please remember that Thompson isn’t even an official candidate yet – know that Iowa is becoming less and less relevant in the whole primary process, and the candidates are focusing on states that can deliver more)