Arianna connects the dots between Karl Rove and the Utah mining disaster.

Coal mining interests have donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the Bush-era began with the 2000 election cycle, with 88% of that money -- $10.6 million -- going to Republicans.

And what did that largess buy the coal mining industry? Mine safety regulators far more interested in looking out for the financial well-being of mine owners than for the physical well-being of miners.

As "Exhibit A", Arianna points to Richard Stickler, Bush's "mine safety czar":

More:

The Washington Post reports:

Vice President Cheney's office acknowledged for the first time yesterday that it has dozens of documents related to the administration's warrantless surveillance program, but it signaled that it will resist efforts by congressional Democrats to obtain them.

Among the docuemnts Cheney acknowledges having in his possession:

They include 43 separate authorizations from President Bush for the program, which had to be renewed approximately every 45 days beginning on Oct. 4, 2001.

The letter also lists dates, from October 2001 through February 2005, for 10 legal memoranda from the Justice Department. Although Cheney's office has copies of the memos, none of them "was rendered to the Office of the Vice President," Coffin wrote.

As to 2004, the year of the Ashcroft hospital visit,

Coffin's letter indicates that Bush signed memos amending the program on March 19 and April 2 of that year. The details of the dispute have never been revealed publicly.

Th March 19 and April 2 memos amending the plan, signed by Bush, would seem to be key in understanding the objections of those in the Justice Department. I hope the Senate Judiciary Committee sticks with their plan to seek to hold the White House in contempt for not turning them over.

Update: Marty Lederman at Balkanization parses the letter from Cheney's office.

NYTimes:

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a month-long Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were aimed at returning the Children’s Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.

After learning of the new policy, some state officials said today that it could cripple their efforts to cover more children by imposing standards that could not be met.

Kelly Anne Moore was the chief of the Violent Crimes and Terrorism Section in the Brooklyn United States Attorney’s Office from 2002 to 2006. One of the cases she prosecuted was that of two Yemenis,including Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad,who were charged and convicted of conspiring to send money from Brooklyn, NY to members of al Qaeda and Hamas to support terrorist activities. One was sentenced to 75 years and the other to 45 years. Both are now serving their sentences at Florence's Supermax in Colorado.

Ms. Moore is now in private practice. As she (and others who have tried terrorism cases) know, the U.S. courts are just fine for the job. We don't need special National Security Courts or military tribunals.

In an op-ed in today's New York Times, Ms. Moore writes:

Besides terrorists, the Justice Department has successfully prosecuted Ku Klux Klan bombers, members of violent groups like the Weathermen in the 1960s and ’70s, and members of Italian organized crime in the ’80s and ’90s. The same system has been used repeatedly against complex drug trafficking and human trafficking syndicates, many of which operate primarily overseas.

I'd add to that list those charged and convicted in the Oklahoma City Bombings.

Here are some of the points she makes:

Jack Balkin continues to think circles around the conservative critics of his theory of Progressive Originalism:

Matt [Franck of NRO] has demurred when I asked him what parts of the post-New Deal order he thought were constitutional under his theory. . . . In a previous post I asked Matt whether he thought the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal rights for women. He responded that Bradwell v. Illinois, which held that Illinois could deny women the right to be lawyers, "was rightly decided." He hastened to add that this "declares nothing on [his] view of women's equality." As a matter of original understanding-- that is, original expected application-- Matt is probably right. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment believed that its guarantees were perfectly consistent with the common law coverture rules, under which women lost all of their rights upon marriage. . . . The question is whether our Constitution must be applied today in the way that Justice Bradley and his contemporaries would have applied it. Matt says yes. I say no: The text of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require it, and the principles underlying the text do not require it. Matt, by contrast, believes that the meaning of the text is identical (for purposes of legal interpretation) with its original understanding. I argue that this confuses concepts with their expected applications, and the meaning of a sentence with the expectations of the speaker who uttered it.

More.

Glenn Greenwald says:

[O'Hanlon and Pollack] . . . almost certainly will occupy key national security positions in the next Democratic administration, particularly in a Clinton administration.

Where does Glenn get this from? I do not know this is true and it absolutely should not be. Is it true? Why? How? Such a thing must be unacceptable.

I have not engaged the very silly Ben Wittes (and yes I know he is supposed to be some "Serious" Person, but, he isn't) on FISA, though others have. But this TNR defense of Wittes, via Sam Boyd, made me laugh:

I'm not entirely convinced by Wittes's claim that the bill Congress passed was a sound one, but I also can't help but feel that Yglesias and Lemieux are being a bit cavalier in their dismissal of the need for expanded surveillance powers in the first place. There's probably no good way out of this dilemma (so perhaps a law with a strict sunset provision isn't such a terrible place to start), but it would be comforting to at least see a bit more hand-wringing and equivocation from Yglesias and Lemieux before condemning Wittes's piece.

A little handwringing and equivocation BEFORE handing over this unprecedented power to Alberto Gonzales would have been in order. Funny, I did not see Wittes do much handwringing about that.

These "Serious People" are sooo, well, stupid. Sorry, I have no better word for it. And it is my word, not Jeralyn's or Chris'. I am the jerk here ok.

This post, ostensibly about economic efficiency, is just used as an excuse by me to post this:

Leona Helmsley, 87, died of heart failure this weekend.

While she will be remembered for the negative things people said about her, she should also be remembered for her philanthropy.

Leona Helmsley's charitable activities included a $25 million gift to New York Presbyterian Hospital, $5 million to Katrina relief and $5 million to help the families of firefighters after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In the late 1990s, she gave millions of dollars to help rebuild African-American churches that had been burned in the South.

In recent years, she was sued by a gay employee who alleged discrimination. He won an $11 million judgment. The Judge later reduced it to $556,000, saying Helmsley is not a multibillion-dollar pinata "to poke a stick at in the hopes of hitting the jackpot.

Her wealth, lifestyle and reputed meanness made her an easy target. I believe her contributions improved conditions for many more people than she personally hurt.

R.I.P. Leona.

Michael Vick's lawyers announced today he will plead guilty. No word yet on the sentence, but the charge is a felony, conspiracy, and a prison sentence is possible.

"After consulting with his family over the weekend," Michael Vick asks that I announce today that he has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors regarding the charges pending against him," lead defense attorney Billy Martin said in a statement.

"Mr. Vick has agreed to enter a plea of guilty to those charges and to accept full responsibility for his action and the mistakes he has made. Michael wishes to apologize again to everyone who has been hurt by this matter," Martin's statement said.

Sean Hannity did some fundraising for Rudy Giuliani. Some folks wondered if Fox Noise cared about this. Well, they did not really wonder - we all know Fox Noise is in the bag for Rudy, from Ailes on down. But Fox responded:

The New York Daily News reported yesterday that Fox News personality Sean Hannity introduced Rudy Giuliani at a closed-door $250/head fundraiser in Cincinnati on August 9. Bill Shine, Fox's senior vice president of programming, said Hannity should not be judged according to the standards of journalistic ethics, which speak out against actively helping a candidate in such a manner. "Sean is not a journalist - Sean is a conservative commentator," Shine said. "Sean doesn't hide, and never has hidden, his beliefs from anyone."

Of course that is true for the entire Fox Noise Network, a propaganda arm of the Republican Party. There are no journalists at Fox Noise. I applaud them for admitting this. So the question is why any Democrat (I am looking at you Harold Ford) would appear on a Republican Propaganda Network?

Monday, Lt. Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan goes on trial at Ft. Meade for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He is the only officer charged. His claim to fame? According to the charges against him, he approved the use of dogs and nudity to intimidate the prisoners.

If convicted on all counts, Jordan faces 16 1/2 years in prison.

It's not just cooperators testifying against him. Maj. Gen. George R. Fay who investigated the abuses and wrote a report found:

Jordan's tacit approval of violence during a weapons search on Nov. 24, 2003, "set the stage for the abuses that followed for days afterward."

Jordan has a two-fold defense.

More...