- The Secretary of Education calls the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.” I’m guessing this is a preview of the Bush administration’s “you’re with us or with the terrorists” re-election campaign theme.
- The Sierra Club filed a motion requesting that Justice Scalia recuse himself from the suit against Vice President Cheney for his secret Energy Task Force. Sierra contends that recusal
is necessary to “redress an appearance of impropriety and to restore public confidence in the integrity of our nation’s highest court.” “Unfortunately, the Cheney-Scalia vacation mirrors the secrecy with which the Bush Administration often conducts business,” said David Bookbinder, Sierra Club’s Washington Legal Director. “The public is continually shut out.”
- New Orleans wages a war against underground party goers.
- Bush administration forecasts have been way off the mark. For instance:
Two years ago, the administration forecast that there would be 3.4 million more jobs in 2003 than there were in 2000. And it predicted a budget deficit for fiscal 2004 of $14 billion. The economy ended up losing 1.7 million jobs over that period, and the budget deficit for this year is on course to be $521 billion.
. . .
Figures released by the White House show that its overestimate of job creation in 2003 was the largest forecast error made in at least 15 years, and its 2002 underestimate of the deficit was the largest in at least 21 years.Translation: Don’t believe a word of Bush’s predictions this fall.
- The German government informed the C.I.A. of 9/11 hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi’s first name and phone number 16 months before the terrorist enrolled in an American flight school. For reasons that are unclear, the C.I.A. dismissed the German warning and failed to track the terrorist as he made his preparations to fly United Airlines Flight 175 into the south tower of the World Trade Center.