Starve the Beast

Starve-the-beast: a strategy of using budget deficits in order to force the government to reduce its spending; a timely example is the tax cutting policy under U.S. President George W. Bush. The word beast in the expression refers to the government and the programs it funds, and implies that these programs are destructive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast.

Yeah, I know, attributing a strategy to the President is counterintuitive, especially when he has overfed the beast for five years with no concern for the leftovers. But there are people in the White House who can think at least one step ahead. And besides, the cuts in spending are being planned here by the Republican Committee in the House.

The counter revolution starts now.

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Bad Plumber: The Leak John Bolton Couldn't Repair?

Long story short:
In a sleazy attempt to discredit Ambassodor Joe Wilson who had visited Niger on behalf of the CIA to check out rumors of the African country selling or trying to sell nuclear materials to Saddam, someone leaked to the right-wing, farm implement Robert Novakthat Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent who promptly outed her in his NYT column. By the way, this is a crime.

After some foot dragging by our knuckle-dragging administration's, a tough Chicago prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was hired to conduct an independent investigation. He convened a grand jury and began collecting testimony.

NYT stenographer Judith Miller, purveyor of the Admin's WMD tall tales, was jailed for not revealing her source about Plame being a spy. She's still in prison. Her husband, reportedly, went on a cruise.

This summer Miller had a visit from John Bolton, who, now, thanks to a recess appointment, is U.N. Ambassador.

Speculation: Bolton is the target of the grand jury.

So?
Someone committed a crime and harmed CIA operations. (Bad for the country.)
Someone ruined Plame's career. (Bad for the country. And not very nice.)
More proof of the White House's vindictiveness, Bush's preference for unquestioning loyalty over truth, and the Admin's lies about WMD's.

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My Thoughts on the Next SCOTUS Nominee

First off, thanks to Mark to inviting me to post. I'll try to stop over from my own blog on occasion to offer some insights. I'll probably stay confined to the politics and the current state of religion as opposed to more philosophical items I sometimes post on my home blog. In any event, it's a pleasure to be here.

I'm with Mark that the next SCOTUS nominee will not be the current Attorney General for pretty much the same reasons Mark has outlined. I'll generalize it further to say this though--the President is not looking for a fight and Gonzalez will be a huge fight from both sides of the aisle (I also think he's pretty underqualified and undistinguished but that's another story). Republicans tend to think he is a closet moderate in the vein of Justice Kennedy and Democrats will harp, as they should, on the torture memos. Not what you're looking for if you're the President at this point. New Orleans, Iraq, and finishing off Roberts' confirmation is more than enough for him to worry about (especially because I suspect the President harbors delusions of trying to roll back the estate tax, make his income tax cuts permanent, and some kind of social security reform, all of which are terrible ideas and are political non-starters for the most part).

So, who will the President nominate? He will try to do two things with his next choice. First, nominate a woman to keep the gender "balance" of the Court at its current state and he will try to push a subtly more originalist judge through the door. It won't be a lightning rod like Judge Janice Rogers Brown. A Justice Clement anyone?

Busy

Too much homework from my UMass classes to post anything today. I spent my prep period reading a study about Turkish pre-service students' attitudes toward the profession. I spent half my lunch trying to find a simple constituent of the statistical concept ANOVA.
I failed.
ANOVA led to t tests, which led to chi squared.
My lunch buddy and colleague Kris Rueger gave me some notes from her AP Psych class, which will hopefully clear things up.

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SCOTUS: The Next Nominee

Speculation on who the next nominee won't be: Alberto Gonzales.
Although Cokie, Sam, and George were saying this nomination would be the President's last chance to get his good buddy on the Supreme Court, this month's Progressive reports there is enough evidence to indict the Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld on war crimes, according to Amnesty International. Any confirmation hearing for Gonzales are going to focus on his infamous torture memos.
Can Bush afford that hairball to come back up?
Doubt it.

Thomas Friedman Joke

Q: How many Thomas Friedmans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: It doesn't matter if it has the chance of leading to democracy.