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The Justice Department finally gets around to confirming old news:

Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

Remember Monica "I didn't mean to" Goodling?

It's particularly troubling that the Civil Rights Division was filled with lawyers who don't much care about civil rights. [more ...]

Nancy Pelosi is fast becoming the most disagraceful Democratic official in Washington, DC. Lynn Sweet reports:

Pelosi does not spend a lot of time worrying about sexist remarks people make. . . . “Is there sexism? Probably so,” said Pelosi. . . . Of course there is sexism, we all know that. I mean but it is a given, it is a given . . .

Pelosi said she wanted to know more facts before she made a final pronouncement about sexism and the Clinton candidacy. "I myself find that I get a tremendous upside from being a woman and I don't spend a lot of time worrying about sexist remarks that people make."

(Emphasis supplied.) Sexism? 'Who cares?' says Nancy Pelosi. What a disgrace.

Speaking for me only

Glenn Greenwald again:

The defining beliefs of this [New Republic capitulation] Syndrome are depressingly familiar, and incomparably destructive: Anything other than tiny, marginal opposition to the Right's agenda is un-Serious and radical. Objections to the demolition of core constitutional protections is shrill and hysterical. Protests against lawbreaking by our high government officials and corporations are disrespectful and disruptive. Challenging the Right's national security premises is too scary and politically costly.

[MORE]

At $1 million a mile, you'd think it would take Spiderman or the Incredible Hulk to make it over Homeland Security's new border fence with Mexico. A terrorist job stealer should need the resources of the Impossible Mission Force to thwart such an expensive barrier.

Here's how "a group of ordinary Mexicans--one a grandmotherly woman, another a 10-year-old boy"--did it:

First they tossed their day packs over the 12-ft. (3.7 m) barrier of steel mesh. They had chosen to cross at a spot where the fence made a small right-angle jog, because there was a supporting post extending about halfway up the angle. This gave them a foothold, and from there, the strongest members of the group boosted the others to the top.

[more ...]

Via mcjoan, CQ reports:

Hoyer has a done deal, according to CQ.com (sub. req.):

A final deal has been reached on a rewrite of electronic surveillance rules and will be announced Thursday, two congressional aides said. The aides said the House is likely to take up the legislation Friday.... One source said the federal district court deciding on retroactive immunity would review whether there was "substantial evidence" the companies had received assurances from the government that the administration’s program was legal.

Who to call:

Call Barack Obama and urge him to make a public statement reiterating his opposition to telco amnesty. His opposition could kill this deal: Phone (202) 224-2854, Fax (202) 228-4260 Call Steny Hoyer and tell him this is a bad deal: Phone (202) 225-4131, Fax (202) 225-4300 Call Nancy Pelosi and urge her to pull the bill from the House schedule: Phone (202) 225-4965, Fax (202) 225-8259

Writing about the Steny Hoyer-led Democratic capitulation on FISA, Glenn Greenwald makes an important point:

This is about whether the Democrats who control the Congress are even minimally accountable in how they exercise that control, whether they'll be permitted to trample upon the most basic principles in order cravenly to preserve their own power. Right now, [Democrats] perceive that the only political cost comes from opposing the Far Right on matters of constitutional protections and civil liberties. Thus, they're willing -- eager -- to trample on those protections and liberties in order to protect their own power. That dynamic needs to be reversed. They need to know that there is a bigger price to pay when they betray the promises they repeatedly make, the principles they continuously espouse, and the duties that they have to preserve basic precepts of equality under the law and core constitutional protections.

This is true about EVERY issue, especially on Iraq. But I will say what Glenn will not - it starts with holding BARACK OBAMA to account. His silence about this proposed capitulation is deafening. Want to be the leader of the Party? Of the Nation? Senator Obama, the time is now. And let's start with a denunciation of this cowardly capitulation by the House Democratic leadership on FISA.

Speaking for me only

The investigation into the firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration has branched out and reached a new level. A federal grand jury is investigating whether there was a "political litmus test" for hiring U.S. attorneys in the civil rights division.

“The issue was lying, whether the people caught up in this told the truth or not,” said the lawyer, who insisted on anonymity because grand jury proceedings are secret.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Justice Department lawyers had brought what is known as a grand jury referral focusing on possible perjury by Bradley J. Schlozman, who was acting head of the civil rights division in 2003.

Mr. Schlozman admitted to Congress last year that he had bragged about his success in bringing conservative Republican lawyers into the civil rights division.

Scholzman testified before a Senate subcommittee and it is that testimony that is believed to be the focus of the grand jury. [More...]

John Heileman writes:

What strikes me as inarguable is that Hillary is today a more resonant, consequential, and potent figure than she has ever been before. No longer merely a political persona, she has been elevated to a rarefied plane in our cultural consciousness. With her back against the wall, she both found her groove and let loose her raging id, turning herself into a character at once awful and wonderful, confounding and inspiring—thus enlarging herself to the point where she became iconic. She is bigger now than any woman in the country. Certainly, she is bigger than her husband. And although in the end she may wind up being dwarfed by Obama, for the moment she is something he is not: fully, poignantly human.

(Emphasis supplied.) The highlighted statements strike me as curious. Her husband was the only Democrat to win reelection since FDR. Obama is the nominee of the Party. He can be President. If he mean in terms of political power NOW, he may be right. But he seemed to be speaking of something different. In any event, it is an interesting article.

Whether or not someone in China has hacked into computers used by Rep. Frank Wolf and other members or staffers in the House of Representatives, doesn't this seem pointless?

Wolf said that he was planning to introduce a resolution in the House aimed at protecting congressional computers from future cyber-attacks ....

Can a Congressional Resolution stop hackers? Wouldn't his time be spent more productively by talking to the congressional IT people and asking them to make the computer network more secure?

I'm not big on expending time and energy on impeaching Bush and Cheney. They'll be gone soon enough and I'd rather spend my time arguing against McCain and another four years of the same.

Nonetheless, the articles of impeachment are an important read as a reminder of the crimes perpetrated by the Bush Admnistration and as a warning that they should never again be tolerated. The full text of the 35 articles is available here (pdf). You can sign a petition to support them here.

For more, check out AfterDowningStreet, Kucinich.us (temporarily on server overload)and Democrats.com

Gas is $4.00 across the country. Driving to Aspen this weekend, I paid $4.27 a gallon. I knew better than to wait to refill until reaching Aspen, where everything costs more. Sure enough, one station in town was charging $4.65.

It's going to keep rising. I think we'll see $5.00 across the country in July. The New York Times says rural residents are being hit the hardest.

Across broad swaths of the South, Southwest and the upper Great Plains, the combination of low incomes, high gas prices and heavy dependence on pickup trucks and vans is putting an even tighter squeeze on family budgets.

Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes. People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel. Gasoline theft is rising. And drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.

The Democrats need to reach out these rural voters on the gas issue. They make up 26% of the voting public. [More...]

NYTimes Editorial: