Rich Cohen
huffingtonpost.com

The great problem of the age is inherited wealth, and the great danger is the sons and grandsons of the super-rich. We have become a nation of dynasties — political dynasties, newspaper dynasties, sports franchise dynasties, Hollywood dynasties, literary dynasties. What’s more, these dynasties were often founded in the boom after the Second World War, which means they are in their second or third or fourth
generations, which are far weaker than the founding generation. You see this in financial scandals where children use money from the company as if it were their own, in institutions that buckle when first put under pressure: newspapers, military, government. The fact is, you do not know the strength of an institution until it is tested; until then it is living on its reputation. In every generation every business is a new business and every nation is a new nation. The name and flag and cities are all the same, but the people are all different. You cannot know their character until they are tested. Which is to say, if you want to understand modern America you have to understand the geometry of inherited wealth — the way that great fortunes dissipate over time.

This is a problem I understand because I’m in the third generation of a family fortune. I was disinherited from this fortune, which means I am free from the obligations and the codes of inherited wealth. I have been kicked out of the club so am happy to teach you the secret handshake. It also means that I have been thrown back into the first generation — forced to invent my world, to play jazz. For a man who has inherited wealth, even a man, like Trump, who inherited wealth then turned it into more wealth, it will always be Grandpa’s world. That’s why Trump puts his name on everything. He’s a kid saying to himself in the dark, “I am here, I am here, I am here.” (more…)

side note: Thanks Joel for sending this! Could this be the next prop on The Office?

USB Missile Launcher

Nobody remembers who started it. Perhaps that guy from HR lobbed a wadded up piece of paper over the cube wall at you? It could have been one of those accounting dudes with the marshmallow-gun. It doesn’t matter, now. You are armed.

The USB Missile Launcher is the latest desktop weapons platform that elevates your status from mere code-monkey or BOFH Sysadmin to a true Digital Dictator. Laugh maniacally while you zero in on your unsuspecting target. Rain down foam punishment upon him with a click of the mouse. Watch as, one by one, three spring-loaded missiles arc 5 to 8 feet gracefully to your quarry. Giggle girlishly at the realistic sound effects with every launch. (more…)

by mcjoan
Daily Kos

Elections do have consequences, and the best of them are having the likes of Patrick Leahy and Henry Waxman in the chairman’s seats on critical committees.

On the heels of yesterday’s fun-filled GSA hearing, Waxman follows up with Turdblossom himself:

Dear Mr. Rove:

Yesterday, the Committee held a hearing into allegations of misconduct at the General Services Administration (GSA). One of the allegations involved a political presentation that your deputy, J. Scott Jennings, made to the GSA Administrator, Lurita A. Doan, and approximately 40 GSA political appointees in the GSA headquarters building on January 26, 2007….

As part of the Committee’s investigation into Mr. Jennings’s presentation, I ask that you answer the following questions:

Did you approve of the slides in Mr. Jennings’s presentation? Did you approve of Mr. Jennings’s participation in this meeting?

Does the White House Office of Political Affairs or the White House Counsel have a policy addressing when and where White House employees can make political presentations such as the one Mr. Jennings gave at GSA headquarters on January 26, 2007? Please explain the legal authority you believe allows you to make such presentations on federal property during business hours…. (more…)

By Paul Kiel
TPMmuckraker.com

Maybe it’s a coincidence.

White House political director Sara Taylor is out the door at the White House, according to Washington Wire. Taylor came up a number of times yesterday during the Kyle Sampson hearing as having worked closely with Sampson (along with another Karl Rove aide Scott Jennings) to install Rove’s former aide Tim Griffin as the U.S. Attorney in eastern Arkansas.

“Barry Jackson, a longtime aide to Karl Rove, also is thought to be leaving soon…. All the departures appear to be more-or-less routine turnover,” reports the Washington Wire.

See original

side note: Check out the link below to Google Maps. I asked it to give me driving directions from Chicago, Illinois to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Amsterdam happens to be where the editors of NT hold their annual meeting. Back to the map…….check out step #20!! Who needs the airlines when we have Google Maps!!!


GOOGLE MAP LINK

side note: Once again…The Daily Show knows how to explain things so everyone can understand!

via onegoodmove.org

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

Jon has the definitive take on Karl Rove at the Correspondents’ Association Dinner

via crooksandliars.com

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

No need for Gonzo to do it to himself anymore. At today’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kyle Sampson directly contradicted Alberto Gonzales’s claim that he had nothing do with the process of firing the USAs. I don’t see how he can possibly survive until his April 17th testimony.

side note: This is just another consequence of bushies domestic policy. He has not asked Americans to sacrifice anything…..we need to make some dramatic changes in this country, if we don’t, then outside factors will force us…..and it won’t be easy!

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
The New York Times

HOUSTON, March 29 — Prices at the pump are rising again, much as they do every spring as oil traders bid up the price of crude ahead of possible summer shortages. Possibilities for more conflict in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East are adding to the surge.

But there is something new this time, energy experts say, in how drivers are reacting — or, more accurately, not reacting, even as the price of gas has climbed over the last two months to a national average of more than $2.60 a gallon. It has topped $3 a gallon in many parts of the country, particularly along the Pacific Coast.

In the late 1970s, OPEC oil shocks and gas lines persuaded most Americans to sacrifice some of their pleasure trips and drives to the mall, ease up on the gas pedal, and switch to the bus or train.

But as Americans enter the sixth year of rising oil and gasoline prices, their shift in driving habits this time has been much less extensive. What’s more, in recent weeks, gas consumption has gone up, not down, and drivers are changing their daily driving habits only slightly. (more…)

side note: what a bunch of dirty liars. First Karl had nothing to do with it, and now they claim that they gave congress inaccurate information, and that yes, indeed Karl played a role. And we all know Karl never plays a small role in anything! They didn’t provide inaccurate info, they LIED!

By DAVID JOHNSTON and NEIL A. LEWIS
NY TIMES

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured blunt criticism Tuesday from federal prosecutors who questioned the firings of eight United States attorneys, complained that the dismissals had undermined morale and expressed broader grievances about his leadership, according to people briefed on the discussion.

About a half-dozen United States attorneys voiced their concerns at a private meeting with Mr. Gonzales in Chicago.

Several of the prosecutors said the dismissals caused them to wonder about their own standing and distracted their employees, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Others asked Mr. Gonzales about the removal of Daniel C. Bogden, the former United States attorney in Nevada, a respected career prosecutor whose ouster has never been fully explained by the Justice Department.

While Mr. Gonzales’s trip was part of a long-scheduled tour, he has been meeting in recent days with prosecutors in an effort to repair the damage caused by the dismissals. President Bush has backed Mr. Gonzales, but his tenure at the Justice Department may still be in peril as lawmakers in both parties have called for his resignation, questioned his credibility and raised doubts that he can lead the department.

His former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, is to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. In his prepared testimony, Mr. Sampson, who resigned two weeks ago, said the prosecutors were fired not for political reasons, but because they failed to follow the president’s priorities. He is likely to be closely questioned about the extent of Mr. Gonzales’s involvement in planning the firings.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department released more than 200 additional pages of e-mail messages and other documents and sent a letter to lawmakers saying that it had given Congress inaccurate information in an earlier letter that asserted that Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, had played no role in the removals. (more…)

side note: let the showdown begin.

ANNE FLAHERTY | AP
via Huffingtonpost.com

Senate Democrats ignored a veto threat and pushed through a bill Thursday requiring President Bush to start withdrawing troops from “the civil war in Iraq,” dealing a rare, sharp rebuke to a wartime commander in chief.

In a mostly party line 51-47 vote, the Senate signed off on a bill providing $122 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of passage while setting a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations by March 31, 2008. (more…)

side note: Another lie from yet another DC insider!

via crooksandliars.com

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

On The Situation Room yesterday, John McCain told Wolf that the surge is so encouraging that General Patraeus now travels around in unarmored Humvees and American soldiers can walk around the streets of Bahdad safely. When confronted today by John Roberts, McCain backpeddled faster than he did on gay marriage in Iowa.

Roberts: I checked with General Petraeus’ people overnight and they said he never goes out in anything less than an up armored Humvee. You also told Bill Bennett on his radio program on Monday..you said there are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhood today, yet retired General Barry McCaffrey said no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat reporter could walk the streets of Baghdad without heavily armed protection.

We’ve got two different stories here…Who’s right?

side note: Ok rove…if you thought this was going to make you look like less then a robot, you were friggin wrong! Most people don’t think you’re human because you have no conscience.

USA Today

Karl Rove, the powerful political strategist known as “Bush’s Brain,” admits he’s a “practicing philatelist” before he breaks it down with the improv maestros from Who’s Line is it Anyway? at a banquet in Washington.

Below you’ll find a selection from the duet, during which a comedian sang while Rove danced in front of the nation’s top politicos and broadcast journalists:

Rove: I’m M.C. Rove. (more…)

side note: real Christian of you Monica. Way to keep with Pat Robertson’s school mission, which says, “to produce christian leaders who will make a difference….” You sure made a difference Monica!

By Ron Hutcheson
McClatchy Newspapers

Monica Goodling, the Department of Justice official who said Monday that she’ll invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than talk to lawmakers, is a frequent figure in department e-mails released so far as part of the congressional investigation into the firings and hirings of U.S. attorneys.

Goodling, 33, is a 1995 graduate Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., an institution that describes itself as “committed to embracing an evangelical spirit.”

She received her law degree at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. Regent, founded by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, says its mission is “to produce Christian leaders who will make a difference, who will change the world.”

E-mails show that Goodling was involved in planning the dismissals and in later efforts to limit the negative reaction. As the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House, she could shed light on the extent of White House involvement in the dismissals. (more…)

By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report

A Congressional probe into the dismissals of eight US attorneys last year has raised new questions about the role that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff played in the 2003 demotion of Frederick Black, the former US attorney in Guam.

At issue is whether a report compiled by the Department of Justice’s inspector general took into account the fact that White House officials had been using email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee before concluding that Black was not demoted for political reasons.

Black had served as interim US attorney in Guam for twelve years and was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush before being abruptly replaced in May 2003.

His dismissal stirred controversy at the time because Black was a political enemy of Abramoff, who had been retained as a lobbyist by numerous individuals that were being investigated by Black for public corruption. (more…)