Raw Story Roundup

During concert, rocker Ted Nugent jokes of killing Obama
Stewart: Bush's message 'Iraq like Vietnam in a good way'
AUTHOR: OSAMA WANTED US TO INVADE IRAQ
CIA said to step up operations against Iran as hawks seek to tie Iraq bombs to Tehran
JOINT CHIEFS WANT TROOPS IN IRAQ NEARLY HALVED
GENERAL: BUSH SPEECH 'NOT SERVING AMERICA'
Newspaper under fire for refusing to assist FBI terror alert
ABC News denies Kucinich campaign's bias complaint
Post op-ed: Like Vietnam, Iraq a failure on its own terms

BREAKING: It’s Payback Time:

C&L: FBI Raids Home of Suspected NSA Leaker

Bushco has a long history of playing dirty with whistleblowers. What they did in the story above and to Joe and Valerie Wilson were just two of many such instances. Also in today's news:

The Abu Ghraib whistleblower's ordeal

The US soldier who exposed the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison found himself a marked man after his anonymity was blown in the most astonishing way by Donald Rumsfeld.

Sen Ted Stevens Saga Continues

Sen Ted Stevens is the guest of dishonor in today's TPMtv:


And there's this also.

TPM: Lotta Muck Under This Rock

From Roll Call ...

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has used a Senate employee as his personal bookkeeper but does not appear to have paid her for those services out of his own funds, even as the aide collected more than a quarter-million dollars in federal pay, according to Senate records and the aide’s financial disclosure forms.
Barbara Flanders, who has worked for Stevens since at least 2004, has been paid as an employee of the Senate, first as a staff assistant on the Appropriations Committee and in Stevens’ personal office and, since October 2005, as a “financial clerk” on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

And this from the NYT:

Stevens’ Earmark Funds Airport Project That Benefits One Company

TPMmuckraker's ongoing coverage of the Stevens' scandal here.

Sen Stevens Scandal Cable News Roundup

A mix of news coverage of the Sen Ted Stevens (R-AK) scandal from MSNBC, CNN, and a lil TDS thrown in.

Olbermann has David Schuster on for what is IMHO the most thorough cable news coverage of Sen Stevens problems to date, then Jon Stewart leads into a segment that has the Senator lashing out at CNN's Dana Bash.

TPMmuckraker's ongoing coverage of the Stevens' scandal here.

The Sen Ted Stevens Investigation Widens

TPMmuckraker:

It's official: the FBI is looking into more than Sen. Ted Stevens' Veco-overseen remodeling project. Roll Call reports that the FBI and the Department of Interior are also looking into a series of earmarks for one of Stevens' pet projects.

The project, the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seaward, Alaska, has received some $50 million in federal money since 1998. One of Stevens' former aides, Trevor McCabe, was paid $558,000 of that money for an adjacent piece of land. Federal investigators want to know more about the arrangement. ...

And I just couldn't resist pointing to this curious angle on the story the AP is floating:

The focus seems to be on the wine *

Federal agents searching the home of a Republican senator from Alaska seemed especially interested in cases of wine stored in the house. ...

He said investigators photographed individual wine bottles as well as cases of wine, as they carried out the search as part of a public corruption probe. ...

Update: Think Progress: CREW calls on Stevens to give up committee seat

TPMmuckraker:

Stevens' Financial Clerk Testifies Before Grand Jury

A Senate clerk for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has testified before a grand jury about the remodeling of the senator's home overseen by Veco, the AP reports.

The Commerce Committee clerk, Barbara Flanders, who assisted Stevens with his personal financial records, also handed over documents related to the senator's finances and testified to what she knew about how the murky home remodeling project bills were paid.

Flanders is not the first Capital Hill staffer to be brought in to the investigation. Some of Stevens' former aides have already been questioned by the FBI. ...

TPMmuckraker's ongoing coverage of the Stevens' scandal here.

FBI & IRS Raid Sen Ted Stevens' Home

TPM: FBI, IRS Search Home of U.S. Sen. Stevens, Who Has Been Scrutinized in Corruption Probe

TPMmuckraker has more.

That's the same home, of course, that was doubled by a renovation undertaken in 2000 -- the contractor, curiously, was Veco, the corrupt oil company. Veco, prosecutors have pointed out "was not in the business of residential construction or remodeling." And that's not all that's curious about the renovation.

I'll have a CNN video clip about it up soon. (Here it is)

And there's more from TPMtv:

You can also see TPMmuckraker's on-going and comprehensive reporting on the Stevens' scandal here.