Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) today on the House floor, speaking about Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), a decorated former Marine:

Yesterday I stood at Arlington National Cemetery attending the funeral of a young marine in my district. He believed in what we were doing is the right thing and had the courage to lay his life on the line to do it. A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do. Danny and the rest of America and the world want the assurance from this body – that we will see this through.

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Schmidt was later forced to return to the House floor and have her remarks stricken from the record. Despite having said the purpose of her “coward” statement was to “send Congressman Murtha a message,” Schmidt claimed:

Mr. Speaker, my remarks were not directed to any member of the House and I did not intend to suggest they applied to any member, most especially the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I persuaded my source to go to Fitzgerald.

December 3 will mark the 21st anniversary of the massive toxic-gas release that consumed Bhopal, India, killing some 20,000 and injuring hundreds of thousands more, many permanently.

The Bush administration is commemorating the event in typical fashion: by rolling back the signature post-Bhopal achievement limiting toxic releases in the United States.

The EPA has proposed gutting the Toxics Release Inventory, which was established in Bhopal’s aftermath to encourage the disclosure of data on industrial toxic releases. (The EPA is now accepting public comments on the TRI rule change.) Under this proposal, thousands of chemical facilities would be exempt from reporting their toxic releases and data would be disclosed only every other year; for whole years at a time, we would have no data at all on the country’s toxic releases.

Critically, Bush officials are proposing rolling back these regulations in the face of incredible gains under TRI. Since the program’s inception, releases of the original 299 chemicals tracked by the inventory have plummeted nearly 60 percent. TRI data has empowered environmental groups, the press, and concerned citizens to expose toxic dangers and hold chemical facilities and government accountable for improving public safety.

For the Bush administration — which has consistently undercut standards for toxic pollution – that’s likely been the problem.

– Reece Rushing

Tom Daschle blogged on ThinkProgress yesterday about the problems with a Voter ID bill proposed in Georgia. He called it a “modern day poll-tax” that would make it harder for people to exercise their right to vote.

Apparently, that was the intent. In a memo released today, the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Sue Burmeister (R-Augusta), explained the rationale of her bill:

The chief sponsor of Georgia’s voter identification law told the Justice Department that if black people in her district “are not paid to vote, they don’t go to the polls,” and that if fewer blacks vote as a result of the new law, it is only because it would end such voting fraud.

The newly released Justice Department memo quoting state Rep. Sue Burmeister (R-Augusta) was prepared by department lawyers as the federal government considered whether to approve the new law.

As Daschle noted yesterday, the Washington Post reported “A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters,” but were overruled by political appointees.

(HT: War and Piece)

Associated Press: “A U.S. field commander in Iraq countered calls by a usually pro-military congressman for withdrawal of Americans fighting there Friday.”

has been charged with conspiring to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars from Indian tribes.

If anyone can say definitively whether Congress receives the “same intelligence” as the White House on the most sensitive national security issues, it is long-time U.S. intelligence czar Richard Clarke.

He set the record straight on the popular White House talking point last night on the Daily Show, pointing out that Bush officials had access to reams of raw prewar intelligence data that Congress never saw nor had the opportunity to verify:

What happened was that Congress got the finished intelligence that said these things. They didn’t see all the details. … They don’t get the raw information. They don’t get the [forged documents purportedly showing Iraq sought uranium in Africa]; they get the answer, you know — “the uranium going from…” — but they don’t get the information that it’s based on.

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Full transcript below: Read more

“Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in court filings that the ongoing CIA leak investigation will involve proceedings before a new grand jury, a possible sign he could seek new charges in the case. In filings obtained by Reuters on Friday, Fitzgerald said “the investigation is continuing” and that “the investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury…” (Via Atrios)

On July 11, 2005, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced that it was an official administration policy not to comment on Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation as part of President Bush’s decision to “fully cooperate.”

The President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren’t going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

But after it was reported that Bob Woodward met with another senior administration official things changed. Through spokespersons and lawyers, numerous administration officials directly commented on the investigation, claiming they weren’t Woodward’s mystery source.

Karl Rove is commenting:

A spokesman for Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who remains under investigation in this case, said his client didn’t discuss Ms. Plame with Mr. Woodward.

Condoleezza Rice and John Bolton are commenting:

Spokesmen for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was National Security Adviser at the time, and John Bolton, a former top State Department official and now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said neither was Mr. Woodward’s source.

President Bush, Andrew Card, Dan Bartlett and Karen Hughes, all commenting:

On Wednesday, the day Mr. Woodward’s disclosure first appeared in The Post, a long list of senior officials had sent word, either directly or through spokesmen, denying that they were the ones who provided the information to Mr. Woodward in mid-June 2003. They included Mr. Bush, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff… Dan Bartlett, the counselor; Karen P. Hughes, former counselor and now under secretary of state for public diplomacy.

In truth, there is no policy not to comment. The policy is to issue as many denials as possible and stonewall on everything else.