“On many a workday lunchtime, the nominal boss of U.S. intelligence, John D. Negroponte, can be found at a private club in downtown Washington, getting a massage, taking a swim, and having lunch, followed by a good cigar and a perusal of the daily papers in the club’s library. ‘He spends three hours there [every] Monday through Friday,’ gripes a senior counterterrorism official.” (Via TPM)

Some of the “darker themes this year” at the Academy Awards, according to Fox.

Bush has continually called for cuts in “unnecessary spending.” From his 2006 State of the Union address:

Every year of my presidency, we’ve reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending, and last year you passed bills that cut this spending. This year my budget will cut it again, and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities.

What kind of spending is unnecessary? In Bush’s view, programs that assist disabled children. The President’s budget will eliminate Medicaid reimbursements for schoolchildren with disabilities, denying them “access to medical services they need to fully participate in school and learn to their greatest abilities.” It cuts funding for medical equipment on buses, transportation to medical appointments, and the administrative costs of identifying children with special medical and learning needs.

If schools are no longer able to seek reimbursement for these services, costs will shift to districts and states already grappling with fiscal constraints. But those who will be most affected are the children and students with disabilities who have already been hurt by January’s drastic Medicaid cuts.

In February, Bush promised to “continue to work to remove barriers that still confront Americans with disabilities and their families.” His budget, however, creates new barriers for disabled children.

- Elena Rocha and Meredith King

– Abramoff attorney Abbe Lowell, threatening to go public with other corruption investigations at Abramoff’s March 29 sentencing hearing. “We will provide the public with evidence of what is going on out there,” Lowell said.

on warrantless wiretapping. ABC News reports: “The Senate Intelligence Committee is slated to vote, in a closed session, on whether it will investigate the president’s NSA warrantless domestic wiretapping program. At this point, it could go either way.“

In today’s press briefing, a reporter challenges Bush’s assertion that there was no way to anticipate the levees breaching after Hurricane Katrina. McClellan’s response:

If you will recall, on August 29th, when the hurricane hit, and then it passed the New Orleans area, there were a number of reports, including media reports, saying that New Orleans had dodged the bullet, and there was some sense that the worst-case scenario did not happen. … We learned the next day — all of us learned — that, in fact, the levees had been breached and that there was a systemic failure in the levees. That was what was certain the next morning.

First, the media was not reporting that New Orleans had dodged a bullet. In fact, newspapers around the country were reporting on the “catastrophic” damage to the Gulf Coast.

Second, McClellan’s timeline is wrong. Katrina made landfall at 7 AM CDT on Aug. 29. As early as 7:30 AM CDT, the administration received word from New Orleans Homeland Security Director Col. Terry Ebbert that the levees in New Orleans had broken. By 11:13 AM CDT, the White House Homeland Security Council began circulating an internal memo called the “Katrina Spot Report,” reporting on the levee breach:

Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.

A total of 28 government agencies, including the White House, reported the levee breach on Aug. 29. Therefore, McClellan’s claim that the White House didn’t learn of the breach until Aug. 30 doesn’t hold water. Check out the right timeline here.

At today’s press briefing, Scott McClellan was asked why President Bush has never vetoed a bill if he thinks Congress needs to restrain spending:

QUESTION: There’s been a lot of criticism of Congress in terms of restraining the growth of federal spending, but the president has yet to veto any spending bill. Why is that the case?

MCCLELLAN: Well, no, that’s a good question. I think the president has talked about it previously.

Under the way things currently are structured, I think it’s difficult to do that when Congress acts to meet the level the president has called for in the budget. And Congress has acted to fund priorities that the president has called for, and then to exercise spending restraint elsewhere in the budget.

In other words, the President has had a hard time vetoing spending bills because Congress has pretty much given him what he’s asked for, including big tax cuts for the very wealthy. The problem is, Bush’s policies have added nearly $2.5 trillion to the national debt.

doctors plucked from Whittington’s face. Whittington has also been “besieged with people who want him to be their lawyer.”