The NY Times is reporting that “President Bush’s top advisers cannot ignore subpoenas issued by Congress, a federal judge ruled on Thursday in a case that involves the firings of several United States attorneys but has much wider constitutional implications for all three branches of government.” Two key points regarding this latest ruling:

1) This is a huge waste of taxpayer money. When President Clinton took office in 1992, he fired upwards of 92 of the 100 US attorneys working for him. These positions are entirely political and they work, as all aides and advisors do, at the privilege of the president. It wasn’t a scandal for President Clinton and it is not for President Bush.

2) This is more political thuggery than anything else. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for aides to defend themselves from constant subpoenas by career politicians. I didn’t like it when it was happening to Clinton Administration officials and I don’t like it now.

Consider the amount of money Congress spends on these investigations. I believe the cost of the Monica Lewinsky investigation was upwards of $10 million. Now multiply that by hundreds and you see how much waste there is in Washington. A waste of time and a waste of your money, and an unnecessary burden on those public servants who earn close to minimum wage in the thankless role of “presidential advisor.”

I was walking from work to my bus stop in DC I came upon an interesting scene on 20th and K street. A fairly large tree had just fallen about 10 minutes before, landing partially on a white van. The whole thing happened right next to my bus stop, so I captured a couple of images before walking two blocks up to the next stop.