The Agora

Officials Say Bush Seeks $600 Million to Hunt Iraq Arms

"The money . . . comes on top of at least $300 million that has already been spent on the weapons search"

They want to spend more than half a billion dollars to find something that Iraqi scientists in captivity have told them doesn't exist, something that UN inspectors couldn't find, something that David Kay, in months found no evidence of.

Monday night the Toledo Board of Education approved the layoff of 102 staff members. Including 69 teachers. These layoffs were the first wave of 230 planned if a levy on the ballot this November fails.

Urban school districts fail to teach our children to read. Veterans go without health care. Poverty is up and personal incomes are down.

We now know everything we need to know about the administration, and they are the ones who told us.

You'll have to finish post yourself. Tomorrow morning at 8:30 the jobless rate of the month of September will be released. It is widely expected to increase. Be sure to swing by a news site in the morning and add in the tens of thousands of jobs that most likely were lost in September to the list above.
6:56:08 PM    comment []trackback []

This morning, the Washington Post reported this statement form Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, made last night on TV:

"He [the President] has that main responsibility to see this through and see it through quickly, and that would include, if I was president, sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it," the outspoken Hagel said last night on CNBC's "Capital Report."

And, suggesting that others are speculating about the Vice-President's role, Scott McClellan specifically included Cheney in a weakdenial, "McClellan also limited his defense of White House aides to narrow legal grounds. On Monday, he said, "There's been nothing, absolutely nothing, brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement, and that includes the vice president's office as well."

Josh Marshall is seeing the same

A mountain of rumor doesn't amount to a single fact. But two respected ex-CIA officers have now publicly pointed to the vice president's office -- a good sign, I think, that that's what they're hearing from ex-colleagues at CIA. An increasing range of circumstantial evidence points in that direction. And now a United States Senator of the president's own party has suggested the same.

If true, Libby's involvement would mean much more than a rapid escalation in his attorneys' billable hours. Much more.

It isn't evidence, but recall how comfortable Vice-President Cheney telling bald-faced lies. He has gotten snappish when the reasons for the Iraq war were questioned, and he was the one going to the CIA, pushing for different answers on Iraqi weapons assesments. Absolutely that is jumping to a conclusion, but it is possible to jump to the right conclusion.
6:41:12 AM    comment []trackback []