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Rove, Kristol Laugh At Idea U.S. Arrested American Muslims Without Trial: ‘We Didn’t Do It!’Yesterday

On Tuesday, Karl Rove and Bill Kristol debated journalists Simon Jenkins and Jacob Wiesberg at an event sponsored by BBC. The debate was whether “President Bush is the worst president of the last 50 years“; Jenkins and Weisberg argued in favor of the resolution, while Rove and Kristol argued against it.

At one point, Weisberg said that the Bush administration had never convinced the world that it had “not taken out Muslims as a particular group.” Kristol and Rove literally laughed at the idea that the United States had targeted and arrested American Muslims as part of its “war on terror” effort:

KRISTOL: What have we done to Muslims in America? What has happened?

JENKINS: Arrested them.

KRISTOL: We’ve arrested Muslims in America? [LAUGHTER]

JENKINS: Incarcerated them without trial.

KRISTOL: We’ve incarcerated Muslims in America without trial?

ROVE: Rounded them up? Rounded, rounded them up? Name one?

KRISTOL: Nonsense.

ROVE: Name one instance.

JENKINS: The, [UNCLEAR] belabor me all day with lists of people who have vanished. Vanished.

ROVE: You know-

KRISTOL: Well, that-

ROVE

Bush’s new ‘ranch’: A $2 million estate in Dallas.Yesterday

The Bush family has purchased a new home in Dallas, TX, a White House spokesperson said today. While they will still own and “spend time” at their ranch in Crawford, TX, the new home fulfills the First Lady’s reported desire to return to Dallas where the family lived prior to her husband’s election as the governor of Texas. The Dallas Morning News provides this photo of the $2 million property:

The Smoking Gun has an aerial view, while Google Maps captured the home on

UBS sponsors posh Miami art show while under federal indictment for tax fraud.Yesterday

Last July, a federal grand jury in Florida “indicted the head of UBS’s worldwide wealth management business, Raoul Weil, for his alleged role in helping thousands of Americans hide their money in secret accounts set up by UBS.” Yet, despite the investigation, ABC News reports that the Swiss bank is back in business in Florida this week “as the main sponsor of one of the great gatherings of the super-rich, the Art Basel exhibition in Miami.” One tax expert questioned whether UBS should be allowed host extravagant parties in the U.S. while under indictment:

“They sent their salespeople here. They have encrypted computers. They smuggled assets out of the country to help those people conceal what they should have paid the IRS,” said Jack Blum, a Washington tax lawyer and consultant to the IRS. “So the question is, why should a bank like that be allowed to continue in business?” said Blum of UBS.

Bank of America to stop financing mountaintop coal mining.Yesterday

Today, Bank of America announced it would begin phasing out financing of mountaintop removal operations in Appalachia. The bank is making the change after activists from Natural Resources Defense Council flew executives over coal mine sites and personally introduced them to local residents affected by mountaintop removal. From Bank of America’s release:

Bank of America is particularly concerned about surface mining conducted through mountain top removal in locations such as central Appalachia. We therefore will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal. While we acknowledge that surface mining is economically efficient and creates jobs, it can be conducted in a way that minimizes environmental impacts in certain geographies.

Perino Dismisses Pre-War Downing Street Memo: ‘It’s Been Debunked By Me’Yesterday

Earlier this week, Karl Rove said that President Bush would not have invaded Iraq if he knew there were no WMD. In today’s press briefing, Helen Thomas asked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino whether Rove is “in charge” of promoting Bush’s presidency. Perino responded, “No, I am. I have a team of people who’s helping talk about the president’s decisions that he’s made over the past eight years.”

Defending Bush’s pre-war intelligence failure, Perino claimed that “other leaders from all around the world” thought Saddam had WMD. When Thomas noted that British intelligence — referring to the the Downing Street Memo — disagreed with Bush, Perino simply said that the memo had been “debunked”:

Q: What about the chief of British intelligence saying you were going to fix the facts around the politics?

PERINO: I think that that’s been debunked.

Thomas quickly countered, “It’s never been been debunked.” Caught off guard, Perino admitted that she was the one who “debunked” it:

Q: It’s never been debunked.

PERINO: Well, it’s been debunked by me.

Q: Good for you.

PERINO: Good for me.

Watch it: