Another purged prosecutor. Former federal prosecutor Thomas DiBiagio said yesterday that “he was forced out in early 2005 because of political pressure stemming from public corruption investigations involving associates” of Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R-MD). “There was direct pressure not to pursue these investigations,” DiBiagio said.
The White House plans to ask Congress for $2 billion more for President Bush’s escalation plan, an “embarrassing” move for the White House and the Pentagon, “which earlier dismissed criticism from lawmakers that the original $5.6 billion estimate for the troop buildup was too low.”
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) admitted yesterday that she contacted former U.S. attorney David Iglesias “to complain about the pace of his public corruption investigations.” Iglesias has said that he was fired because he resisted pressure from Wilson and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) to speed up an investigation against Democrats before the 2006 elections.
“Nine American soldiers died in explosions north of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced today after the deadliest single day for U.S. troops in Iraq in nearly a month.”
51 percent: Number of people in the world who believe the United States has a “mainly negative” influence in the world. The United States ranks third, behind Israel and Iran, and is followed by North Korea.
As the U.N. drug agency predicted that a “cancer of insurgency” in Afghanistan could “drive the 2007 opium poppy harvest to record levels,” NATO troops “launched their largest offensive yet against Taliban militants, focusing on the same southern region where U.S.-led forces carried out an even bigger operation less than a year ago.”
30 percent: President Bush’s job approval in a new Zogby poll, “once again hitting the all-time low-water mark of his presidency.”
Analysts say that Diebold Inc. “may be angling for ways to dump its e-voting subsidiary that’s widely seen as tarnishing the company’s reputation.”
At least three major companies — Verizon, Sallie Mae, and Georgia-based NetBank — want their ads pulled from Ann Coulter’s Web site, following customer complaints about Coulter’s slur against John Edwards. A diarist at DailyKos “posted contact information for dozens of companies with ads on Coulter’s site” and had readers contact them.
And finally: Al Gore’s wax head goes the way of Jimmy Hoffa. The Washington Post’s Reliable Source reports, “In 2000, designers in the London headquarters of Madame Tussauds started crafting figures of the former veep and his then-opponent George W. Bush, with plans to put the eventual winner on display. ‘We started both heads,’ said N.Y.C. and D.C. branch General Manager Janine DiGioacchino. … But production stopped when lawyers started debating hanging chads. Eventually Bush was finished, while Gore was put in cold storage…well, uh, somewhere. ‘We stored Gore’s head in our London studio,’ she said, ‘and now we’re trying to find him.’”
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