You knew this was coming: Barack Obama’s “Environmental Protection Agency” announced today — wait for it! — that the theoretical leftist fantasy of Global Warming/Climate Change is somehow “not cool” and therefore your tax cuts will now be used, through FEMA NWO death squads, to “create millions of green jobs and end our country’s dependence on foreign oil,” in the words of EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson, who probably doesn’t even believe Jesus had a pet dinosaur. MORE »

• Europe will not buy worthless America from Hank Paulson, who is selling it for six homosexual Lincoln pennies. [Crooks and Liars]
• The EPA has been spiking your drinking water with rocket fuel, which means water is now $100 a barrel. [Daily Kos]
• McCain owns three foreign cars, and the only American vehicles he does have were made for him in a children’s sweatshop in Michigan by Barack Obama. [Marc Ambinder]
• The only known exchange between Palin and Karzai was Karzai telling Palin his son’s name is Mirwais and Palin responding “Oh nice.” Sarah Palin knows of no other thing on this Earth besides baby-naming and even this she cannot do correctly. [Jonathan Martin]
• Even Joe Biden thinks Barry’s dumb teevee commercials are terrible. Literally, he called them “terrible.” [CNN Political Ticker]
• According to Norm Coleman, the federal government will turn a profit from the total implosion of the economy. [Andrew Sullivan]

Recently, the EPA ruled that — despite Clean Air Act provisions that give California the right to have more stringent regulations than the federal government — California wouldn’t be permitted to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. The EPA said that the new CAFE standards in the energy bill were enough regulations for everyone. MORE »

So here’s a real throwback: Congress wants to know why the EPA won’t let California set its own emissions rules anymore and asked for all the documents and things relating to the decision from the EPA — and they’re actually fucking going to give Congress the documents. Whaa? What administration do you work for, EPA general counsel Roger Martella Jr., Jimmy Carter’s? Where’s the unyielding resistance to any kind of Congressional oversight and obsessive need for complete secrecy? How about you fucking grow a pair. MORE »

Recently, the EPA denied California’s request to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide in the state and, unsurprisingly, critics are calling that move “politically motivated.” This, time, though, they might actually be able to prove it because EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson (don’t forget the L!) pissed enough EPA staff off that they’re talking to everyone

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• Hey California and other states that care about the environment: Fuck you! [NY Times]

• So instead of rebuilding the military to face “21st century threats” or whatever, how about we just like keep it the same as it’s been for 60 years? [NY Times]
• We can’t wait until voting starts so that maybe articles like this will actually have some information in them. [Washington Post]
• Tom Tancredo, you will live on in our hearts. [Washington Post]
• Obama don’t give a fuck about you. [Politico]
• Instead of trying not to losing the “women’s vote” the GOP should maybe focus on not losing “everybody’s vote”. Just saying. [The
  Hill]

Today’s installment in the Post’s “Everything You Knew About Dick Cheney (But Would Be Disappeared For Investigating)” series is all about, well, Christine Todd Whitman. It’s remarkable that a former Republican governor of New Jersey — we’re talking about Christine “Breathe Deep at Ground Zero, Kids, Good Ol’ American Know-How Will Clean the Asbestos Off Your Lungs” Whitman here — comes off looking like a model steward of the environment, but we’re comparing her to Dick Cheney, a man who tries to interpret the Clean Air Act as a call for the government to destroy the moon. MORE »

* Clarence Thomas doesn’t want the EPA to act on global warming, cause he likes it hot. [WP, NYT, LAT, USAT]
* Antonin Scalia doesn’t want to address the legality of holding detainees at Guantánamo, cause he hears cries of innocent men in his dreams at night, and likes it. [WP, NYT]
* No one hates America more than Harry Reid. [WP]
* Mitt Romney is an “aggressive fundraiser,” John McCain has “a host of shortcomings.” [WP, WSJ]
* Even intelligence reports in Italy are luxuriously handcrafted, accurate. [WP]
* NASA Inspector General Robert Cobb could end up fired — into space on the back of a photon torpedo. [WP, NYT]

Henry the Intern is on sabbatical. The Daily Briefing isn’t, though it is a bit later than usual.

• President George W. Bush makes a surprise visit to Iraq to visit with new Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who has just announced a new security plan for Baghdad. [NYT, WP]

• Karl Rove’s attorney announces to the media that his client will not be indicted in Patrick Fitzgerald’s Valerie Plame leak case. Rove is “delighted, obviously….” [WP, NYT]
• Israeli airstrikes kill 10 people in Gaza, hours after “hundreds of Palestinian police loyal to Abbas went on a rampage against the Hamas government.” [NYT]
• The FBI released the 2005 crime statistics, showing an overall nationwide rise in violent crime of 2.5 percent, fueled by a “a surge of killings and other attacks in many Midwestern cities.” Robbery was up 14.6 percent in DC, though rapes and murders were down. [WP]
• David H. Safavian becomes the first person to go to trial on charges related to the Jack Abramoff scandal, with prosecutors accusing him of “doing Jack Abramoff’s bidding” as a federal procurement officer. [WP]
• The EPA loosened a rule designed to keep groundwater near oil drilling sites clean after a well-connected Texas oilman wrote a letter to Karl Rove. Environmentalists are accusing the administration of “political payoff,” due to Rove’s forwarding of the letter to White House environmental advisors with a note reading “get a response ASAP.” [LAT]

• Libby is expected to be charged today with making false statements to the jury; investigation of Rove will continue as Fitzgerald will extend the inquiry. McClellan will not brief today and Bush will spend the weekend at Camp David. [NYT, WSJ]
• Libby shops for an attorney; Rove looks for a P.R. team. [WP]
• Next Supreme Court nominee could be named within days; “aggressive opposition from conservatives” caused Harriet Miers to withdraw. The “endgame” began early this week. [WP, WP, NYT, NYT, WSJ, LAT, WT]
• The worst week of Bush’s political life is not over yet. Scholar: “Is there a Howard Baker moment? And if there’s a Howard Baker moment, who’s Howard Baker?” [WP, NYT]
• Miers nomination “was an episode that seemed wholly out of character with the president’s style.” Brownstein: “[T]he president no longer can consistently impose his will on his party, much less the Congress or the country.” [WP, LAT, USAT]
• “Senators came to bury Miers yesterday, not to praise her,” Milbank writes. Lott sings “Happy Days Are Here Again!” [WP, WT]
• Miers remained upbeat and loyal throughout the process. Former colleague: “The White House didn’t pay attention, and the right just chewed her up. It was like a gang, a lynch mob.” [NYT, WP, WSJ]
• Conservative pundits had their way. Charles Krauthammer: “I guess she reads my column.” [WP, LAT]
• Bush was apparently the last to know of her withdrawal. [WT]

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