http://coptix2.iago/rove, meet 18 U.S.C. 912
As I wrote yesterday, a Rove/Coptix "sighting" photograph in Chattanooga turned out to be a hoax by Coptix staffers ...cue Twilight Zone music ...or did it?

In the midst of all the excitement on Tuesday this site's Site Meter service registered an interesting visit from IP address 74.93.41.# at 5:07 pm and then again at 5:49 pm -- interesting because of the referring URL: http://coptix2.iago/rove/. I'll save you the trouble of clicking through -- there's nothing there when you try, "Firefox can't find the server" etc.

If you click through on the image, you'll see that the visitor's location couldn't be specified with any more precision than "United States." But many of the 74.93.41.# addresses -- e.g.,74.93.41.100 -- yield the following result with a "reverse DNS lookup," which lets you learn a bit about where a given visitor IP address comes from:

Answer:
74.93.41.100 PTR record: 74-93-41-100-Chattanooga.hfc.comcastbusiness.net. [TTL 3600s] [A=None] *ERROR* There is no A record for 74-93-41-100-Chattanooga.hfc.comcastbusiness.net. (may be negatively cached).

It's gobbledygook to me, too, but I can pick "Chattanooga" out pretty well.

Subsequent hits from http://coptix.com/rove have revealed the probable nature of the private coptix2.iago/rove web page: a gleeful Coptix web site showing how the photoshopping of the "Rove at Porker's" photo was done, along with a list of "sucker" blogs like mine that had picked up on the photo and spread the hoax for Coptix -- kind of an Internet trophy room.

But given the hoax that was underway on Tuesday afternoon, it also seems plausible that someone wanted me to believe that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was having a look at my blog -- and better yet, to write about that. That brings me to 18 U.S.C. 912 -- False Personation: Officer or employee of the United States -- which apparently requires that:

One, the defendant pretended to be (describe the pretense, e.g., a special agent of the F.B.I.); and
Two, such pretense was false and defendant knew it was false; and
Three, defendant, while so pretending, [acted with the intent to cause a person to follow some course of action or inaction] [[demanded] [obtained] some [money] [paper] [document] [thing of value]].

Pretense: check -- it's not as if the URL had "hoax" or "hahaha" in it, and recall the notion was that Rove was in close enough contact with Coptix that he was walking around with a folder with their logo on it. False pretense: check (unless of course it really was Rove; place your bets). Intended course of action: some sucker writes "hey! Rove visited me!" leading to lots more laughs. Or Obtained thing of value: it's been argued that Coptix got name recognition out of this. Conning me or others into believing in Rove visits via coptix2.iago/rove would make the hoax that much more successful and enjoyable. Either way: check.

So if someone was trying to make me think they were Rove, do I really think this could be prosecuted? Heck, I'm not a criminal lawyer, I don't know, and it's not my problem. Maybe this is all a stretch, maybe not; let these guys figure it out. Anyone who's concerned for their own sake might want to lawyer up with one of these guys.

Meanwhile, did you know that "turd blossom" -- Bush's fond nickname for Karl Rove -- is "a Texanism for a flower that blooms from cattle excrement"? Maybe that's a poetic description of what we have here. Wouldn't that be funny. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
Newt: uh, I meant to offend Jews, not Hispanics!
Newt Gingrich, March 31, in Chicago:

We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.

Nice work, Newt! Let the backtracking begin.

Newt Gingrich, April 2, Hannity & Colmes show, FOX:

Now, I’ll let you pick — frankly, ghetto, historically had referred as a Jewish reference originally. I did not mention Hispanics, and I certainly do not want anybody who speaks Spanish to think I’m in any way less than respectful of Spanish or any other language spoken by people who come to the United States.

Wadda save! Nah, we know you don't want anybody who speaks Spanish to think that -- you just want the right people to think that. As a commenter at "The Carpetbagger Report" puts it: "Caution - brilliant political mind at work." What. an. idiot.


By the way, just on the merits, he's an idiot too. Bilingual education is a positive good for the kids who get it -- how could it not be? Newt: if it's really bilingual, and really education, why then when it's done the kid speaks and writes two languages well, not just one -- she can explain to twice as many people what a moron you are. We should be hoping every American kid who wants it has a chance for a bilingual education, not "just" non-native English speakers. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
"So far as we know"
House Judiciary chair John Conyers and subcommittee chair Linda Sanchez write Monica "Gopher the 5th" Goodling's lawyer, and are having none of it:

We have reviewed Ms. Goodling's declaration and the letters you sent to us and Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we are concerned that several of the asserted grounds for refusing to testify do not satisfy the well-established bases for a proper invocation of the Fifth Amendment against self- incrimination. In addition, of course, the Fifth Amendment privilege, under long-standing Supreme Court precedents, does not provide a reason to fail to appear to testify; the privilege must be invoked by the witness on a question-by-question basis.

A lot of legal citations and arguments follow, and then comes the good part:

The alleged concern that she may be prosecuted for perjury by the Department of Justice for fully truthful testimony is not only an unjustified basis for invoking the privilege and without reasonable foundation in this case but also so far as we know an unwarranted aspersion against her employer.

Via "The Gavel" at www.speaker.gov, filed under "Oversight" -- and "Draining the Swamp." posted by Thomas Nephew at 7:30:00 PM -- |    

 
Action items: Employee Free Choice Act, Zimbabwe, Darfur
From American Rights At Work --

After a victory in the House, the battle for workers' rights has moved to the Senate. We need your help to make the Employee Free Choice Act a reality.

By making a donation to American Rights at Work, you're helping with our urgent efforts—educating policymakers with briefings on Capitol Hill, telling workers' stories in the media, and countering the constant drumbeat of misinformation from the well-financed, well-established, and well-coordinated anti-union network.

Related: the AFL-CIO hopes you'll write your Senators urging them to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and support Verizon workers in New York and New England who've made their demands for union representation known via the proposed card-check mechanism.
UPDATE, 4/4: here's a list of Senators supporting the EFCA; if you're from one of their states, thank them!


Zimbabwe: Solidarity with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions - for human rights and the rule of law --- The news out of Zimbabwe continues to be terrible, including a brutal police beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the runup to last week's parliamentary elections. (A Guardian report quotes Mugabe: "Of course he was bashed.") Now, a LabourStart release explains:

Alarmed at the growing willingness to oppose the regime openly, including from within the ruling ZANU-PF party, the regime has banned political protests for three months, especially to prevent protests against the Government's economic failures. But the ZCTU [Zimbabwean Council of Trade Unions -- ed.] and others have responded by stepping up their criticisms and protests, and a general strike has been announced for 3-4 April. Over the weekend of 10-11 March, the security services violently attacked opposition leaders and on 13 March, raided the offices of the ZCTU to seize materials about the strike.

Via LabourStart, this link gives you a chance to send a message of solidarity with the ZCTU to Zimbabwean embassies and agencies. If anyone can stop Mugabe's thugs, it will be the unions -- remember Solidarnosc?


SaveDarfur.org is calling for more US funds for peacekeepers in Darfur. From a recent e-mail:

Congress has agreed that the President failed to address the full funding needs of Darfur peacekeeping in his recent budget request for fiscal year 2008.

To quote the official language of the recently passed funding bill, Congress "is concerned that the Administration has not adequately planned for future peacekeeping activities in Sudan/Darfur in FY 2008 and urges the Secretary of State to work with the Office of Management and Budget to submit a budget amendment for FY 2008 addressing these urgent needs."

Please join us and Congress in urging the President and his Office of Management and Budget to provide the funds to prevent this budget shortfall that would threaten the Darfur peacekeeping effort.

None of this is enough by itself. But it's a start for many of us. Go ahead, lend a hand. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
Bush's sudden February visit to Chattanooga -- UPDATED
UPDATE, 4/4: The photo referred to below ("photo at link") may be a hoax... confirmed. The Coptix company itself doctored the photo and disseminated it, according to an article by the Chattanooga Times Free Press's Michael Davis ("Morphing a conspiracy?"):

In the altered Rove photo, the president's chief political adviser is seen in Chattanooga's Porker's Bar-B-Que restaurant carrying the folder. A Chattanooga resident, David Gidcumb, said he took the photo of Mr. Rove at the restaurant on Feb. 21 and put the doctored image on his blog. Mr. Rove was accompanying President Bush during his visit to the Scenic City.

After the photo was altered, Mr. Roe said, Coptix employees spread the photo on local blogs and social networking sites. He said they also placed comments by the picture to stir up more dialogue and "see how big we could get it."

Shades of Rathergate? Bush's National Guard years remain something of a mystery, but after a document about that turned out to be fake, the story died. Similarly, Rove apparently really was in Chattanooga on February 21, but after a photo supposedly documenting that turns out to be (partly) fake, that story may not be pursued much further either. But there also may not be a story to pursue. (emph. added, 4/6.)


=====

It's been widely known since a March 13 Washington Post article (Dan Eggen, Paul Kane: "Gonzales: Mistakes Were Made") that White House staff have been using outside e-mail services, paid for by the Republican Party, for a good deal of their correspondence -- including some that might have a bearing on "AttorneyGate," the scandal involving the firings of federal prosecutors in retribution for insufficient partisanship in their official business. As Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wrote to Congressman Henry Waxman, this was potentially a violation of the Presidential Records Act, which mandates that all White House records be be available to help account for presidential actions.

It has turned out that one of the domains involved, "gwb43.com" -- i.e., George W. Bush, 43d president -- is hosted by two Chattanooga, Tennessee IT companies. One, called Smartech Corp., is a small company -- albeit one that hosted the 2004 Republican National Convention web site. The other is "Coptix," according to an earlier "CorrenteWire" post by xan.

When Henry Waxman demanded on March 26 that the White House take steps to preserve all e-mail traffic out of the White House, he may have been more than a month too late -- Air Force One had already landed in Chattanooga on February 21. The stated goal of the presidential visit was to tout Bush's health voucher plan at one of the White House's typical "meet some regular folks I'm pretending to help" events, and observe some gee-whiz machinery at a local hospital.

But as lambert ("CorrenteWire") has discovered, Karl Rove was along for the ride, too -- with a Coptix brochure tucked under his arm when he was spotted and photographed at a local restaurant (photo at link).

And far from being an event that was painstakingly planned well in advance, the president's Chattanooga visit was fairly rapidly conceived and executed. The plans were only made known to local law enforcement "more than two weeks" earlier according to a February 23 Chattanooga Times Free Press article. A somewhat breathless video postcard of Bush's historic 3 hour 45 minute visit* records Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen roughly confirming that on the 21st: "...when the Secretary called me a couple of weeks ago and said they'd like to come down here..." The visit was on such short notice that neither Congressman Zach Wamp nor Senator (and former Chattanooga mayor) Bob Corker seem to have publicized it on their web sites.

Other explanations for all of this come to mind, of course. Bush visits may not have the same glow for local GOP politicos they once had. And for all I know two week notice is S.O.P. for White House trips like this one. But referring to the "Talking Points Memo" AttorneyGate timeline, one also sees that the story was really starting to blow up by early February. Perhaps most importantly, deputy attorney general Paul McNulty claimed the firings were based on "performance-related issues" on February 6 -- an easily refutable claim that predictably infuriated the prosecutors involved, but one McNulty doubtless felt was better than alternative explanations.

If Rove was starting to get worried about his e-mail traffic, he would have needed to communicate with the management of at least one of the two companies (I'm guessing they somehow share server equipment). He would not have wanted to do that by e-mail, but rather in person -- especially if he wanted to see the setup with his own eyes (or with the eyes of some trusted expert he brought along). And Rove showing up on his own in Chattanooga would arouse interest that showing up as part of Bush's entourage would not.

Hence my interest in when Bush's visit to Chattanooga was planned. It's possible that Rove was panicking, and that that Coptix brochure under his arm was connected to the real point of the trip when Air Force One touched down in Chattanooga five weeks ago.



=====
* Air Force One touched down in Chattanooga at 11:00 AM on February 21, and took off again at 2:45PM, reported the Chattanooga Times Free Press' Emily Berry.
NOTES: CorrenteWire items via Avedon Carol ("The Sideshow"). Washington Post and CREW links via Steve Benen ("The Carpetbagger Report"); reverse DNS lookup revealing SmarTech and Chattanooga address via commenter BlueSkize about that Benen posting. Waxman demand also via Steve Benen. Chattanooga Times Free Press story reported by Emily Berry and Lauren Gregory.

UPDATE, EDIT, 4/3: Welcome, CorrenteWire readers! TPM timeline link added.
UPDATE, 4/6: Welcome, Sideshow readers! For a grin, see also "http://coptix2.iago/rove, meet 18 U.S.C. 912" above (4/5/07). For less of a grin, see "The Supreme connection?" below (3/30/07), on something I think is still being overlooked: former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' role in the AttorneyGate story.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:01:00 AM -- |