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	Monday, October 31, 2005

Seven More U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq - - - - - - - - - - - - By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer October 31,2005 | BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Capping the bloodiest month for American troops since January, the U.S. military reported Monday that seven more U.S. service members were killed -- all victims of increasingly sophisticated bombs that have been become the deadliest weapon in the insurgents' arsenal. Bombs also claimed a toll Monday among civilians in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and the major metropolis of the Shiite-dominated south, which has witnessed less violence than Sunni areas. A large car bomb exploded along a bustling street packed with shops and restaurants as people were enjoying an evening out after the daily Ramadan fast. At least 20 were killed and about 40 wounded, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said. Military commanders have warned that Sunni insurgents will step up their attacks in the run-up to the Dec. 15 election, when Iraqis will choose their first full-term parliament since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. To guard against such attacks, the military has raised the number of American troops in Iraq to 157,000 -- among the highest levels of the Iraq conflict. Most of the combat deaths and injuries in recent months have been a result of the increasing use by insurgents of sophisticated homemade bombs, responsible for the deaths of the seven Americans killed since Sunday. The military refers to those bombs as "improvised explosive devices," or IEDs. Last Friday, an IED killed Col. William W. Wood, 44, of Panama City, Fla., an infantry battalion commander. He was promoted posthumously, making him the highest-ranking soldier killed in action in the Iraq conflict, according to the Pentagon. "We see an adversary that continues to develop some sophistication on very deadly and increasingly precise stand-off type weapons -- IEDs, in particular," Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told reporters Monday. The insurgents continually search for new and more effective ways to use IEDs, di Rita said, while U.S. forces look for new ways to counter the threat. "We're getting more intelligence that's allowing us to stop more of these things, find more of them. So we're learning from them and the enemy is learning from us, and it's going to be that way for as long as there is an insurgency," Di Rita said. Monday's deadliest attack against U.S. service members came in an area known as the "triangle of death." Four soldiers from the U.S. Army's Task Force Baghdad died when their patrol struck a roadside bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad. Two other soldiers from the Army's 29th Brigade Combat Team were also killed in a bombing Monday near Balad, 50 miles north of the capital. The U.S. military also reported that a Marine died the day before in a roadside bombing near Amiriyah, an insurgent hotspot 25 miles west of Baghdad. The U.S. military death toll for October is now at least 92, the highest monthly total since January, when 106 American service members died -- more than 30 of them in a helicopter crash that was ruled an accident. Only during two other months since the war began has the U.S. military seen a higher toll: in November 2004, when 137 Americans died, and in April 2004, when 135 died. The latest deaths brought to 2,026 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003. The number includes five military civilians. The ongoing violence has killed a far greater number of Iraqis. "They're obviously quite capable of killing large numbers of noncombatants indiscriminately, and we're seeing a lot of that, too," Di Rita said. Public safety has deteriorated in recent months in Basra largely because of feuding among rival Shiite extremist groups that have infiltrated the police and security services. The city had previously been much more peaceful than Baghdad or cities within the volatile central, northern and western areas of the country where the Sunni Arab-led insurgency rages. Earlier Monday near the Syrian border, Marines backed by jets attacked insurgent targets in a cluster of towns and villages near the Syrian border. The raid was part of an ongoing operation in an area believed heavily infiltrated by al-Qaida in Iraq and foreign fighters. A Marine statement said U.S. aircraft fired precision weapons, destroying two safe houses believed used by al-Qaida figures. The statement made no mention of casualties, but Associated Press Television News video from the scene showed residents wailing over the bodies of about six people, including at least three children. At the local hospital, Dr. Ahmed al-Ani claimed 40 Iraqis, including 12 children, were killed in the attack. But the claim could not be independently verified, and figures from the area have sometimes proven exaggerated. The footage from the scene showed Iraqi men digging through the rubble of several destroyed concrete buildings with a pitchfork or their hands. In the building of a nearby home, women wept over about half a dozen blanket-covered bodies lined up on a floor. Some of the blankets were opened for the camera showing a man and three children. "At least 20 innocent people were killed by the U.S. warplanes. Why are the Americans killing families? Where are the insurgents?" one middle-aged man told APTN. "We don't see democracy. We just see destruction." He didn't give his name. --__ Associated Press reporters Omar Sinan and Tom Wagner in Baghdad and Abbas Fayadh in Basra contributed to this report. Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press. 9:52:35 PM     comment []

Christianity: Keeping The World Ignorant SinceYear One  The Jesus Nazis are having an unusually busy day. What with all the dancing in the streets over the Alito nomination, one would think they wouldn't have much time to inflict their usual misery. But never underestimate Organized Religion's capacity, and rapacity, for cruelty, hatred, pettiness and stupidity.   Methodists Defrock Lesbian Minister - - - - - - - - - - - - By LUCAS L. JOHNSON II Associated Press Writer October 31,2005 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The highest court within the United Methodist Church defrocked a lesbian minister Monday for violating the denomination's ban on "self-avowed, practicing homosexual" clergy. The nine-member Judicial Council -- seven of whom heard the case Friday in Houston -- issued a ruling from its offices in Nashville. A church panel decided in December that the Rev. Irene "Beth" Stroud, 35, by being in a lesbian partnership, engaged in practices that the church has declared incompatible with Christian teachings. The panel's decision was overturned by the Northeast Jurisdiction Committee on Appeals, but the Judicial Council backed the original ruling. The Judicial Council ruled Monday that the appeals committee "erred in reversing and setting aside the verdict and penalty from Rev. Stroud's trial." Thomas Hall, counsel for the United Methodist Church said the decision provides some relief, but is "not the end of this whole conversation." "An issue like this takes so much energy on both sides, and takes the focus off a lot of the great things the church is doing," Hall said. "This gives us some space so we can hopefully channel our energies into the great things we're doing." The UMC is the nation's third-largest denomination. Stroud, who became an associate pastor at Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown in 1999, has said she never revealed her sexual orientation in documents related to her ordination, but didn't keep it a secret. She said she decided to come out in 2003 because she felt she was being held back in her faith by not sharing the complete truth about her life. A complaint was filed against her last year. "I thought I was prepared for anything, but still the news came as a blow," Stroud said in a phone interview. "It's a sad day for me and for my family and for my congregation and, I think, a sad day for the United Methodist Church." Stroud will continue as a lay staff member at her congregation, preaching, supervising children's and youth work and conducting pastoral visits. She told the congregation Sunday that she and her partner are applying to be foster parents. "There's really no question that the United Methodist Church practices discrimination. That's been made abundantly clear," she said. Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press   Wisconsin School Cancels Fashion Show - - - - - - - - - - - - October 31,2005 | MILWAUKEE -- A Roman Catholic school is canceling a fashion show by the manufacturer of a popular line of dolls and children's books amid criticism that American Girl is contributing to an organization that support abortion rights and acceptance of lesbians. St. Luke School in Brookfield notified its parents of the decision through bulletins at Masses over the weekend. Money raised through ticket and raffle sales was to go toward a new playground and a refurbished library. "It's a bargain we'll just have to pass up," wrote Frank Malloy, St. Luke pastor. "The cost is too high. Our integrity isn't for sale." American Girl spokeswoman Julie Parks said no other groups have canceled because of the issue. The fashion shows include the company's popular historic dolls being carried by girls who dress up in the same outfits. Two national groups -- the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago and the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. -- have raised questions about the American Girl brand and its parent company, Mattel Inc. because of the company's fund-raising for Girls Inc. Girls Inc. offers a wide range of programs and resources to help educate and encourage girls in everything from science to health. That includes information about abortion and contraception along with sexual abstinence. The organization also affirms lesbian sexual orientation. Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press.     12:34:43 PM     comment []

Alito's way In 1991 Judge Alito wrote a dissenting opinion in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals decision (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey) that struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring women to notify their husbands before getting an abortion. The line from that dissent that's getting quoted most often: “The Pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands’ knowledge because of perceived problems -- such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands’ previously expressed opposition -- that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion." Of course, the Pennsylvania Legislature could also have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to not tell their husbands because their husbands might beat the crap out of them. Or that their husbands do not in fact have any legal say in what they do with their body. Or that “women do not lose their constitutionally protected liberty when they marry,” which is how the Supreme Court wound up putting it when the case got to it. -- Rebecca Traister, Salon.com 12:25:23 PM     comment []

Six American Soldiers Killed in Iraq By THOMAS WAGNER Associated Press Writer October 31,2005 | BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military said six American soldiers were killed in two bombings Monday, making October one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops in Iraq this year. In the worst attack, four Task Force Baghdad soldiers died when their patrol struck a roadside bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad, the military said. A similar bomb hit a patrol near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers from the 29th Brigade Combat Team. The deaths raised to 2,024 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in 2003. Monday's attacks also increased the death toll for American forces in October to more than 90, making it the deadliest month in 2005 for U.S. troops in Iraq since January, when 107 were killed. Elsewhere, U.S. jets bombed two insurgent safe houses near the Syrian border Monday in an attack aimed at al-Qaida in Iraq, and coalition forces swept through several areas of Baghdad, taking nearly 100 suspected militants into custody, the U.S. command said. In other violence, two separate mortar attacks by insurgents in Baghdad and northern Iraq killed three people and wounded 11. A car bomb and two drive-by shootings in the capital killed a construction contractor and wounded six people, police said. On Sunday, gunmen killed Ghalib Abdul-Mahdi, the brother of Shiite Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, and a top trade ministry official escaped assassination in another part of the capital. The U.S. command also said Sunday that a Marine died of injuries suffered Saturday in a roadside bombing west of the capital. U.S. Marines supported by warplanes and helicopters have been raiding targets in towns and villages near Iraq's desolate border with Syria in an effort to disrupt Iraqi and foreign insurgents. The U.S. jets attacked a safe house apparently being used by a senior al-Qaida in Iraq cell leader in Obeidi, a border town 185 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. The jets also used precision-guided munitions to attack a second house suspected of being a base for attacks against American and Iraqi forces, the U.S. command said. Its statement mentioned no casualties and did not identify the al-Qaida in Iraq leader. At the local hospital, Dr. Ahmed al-Ani claimed 40 Iraqis, including 12 children, were killed in the attack. But the claim could not be independently verified. U.S. officials also reported a Saudi-born al-Qaida militant known only as Abu Saud was killed by coalition forces Saturday near Obeidi. On Friday and Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted several raids in Baghdad, detaining 98 suspected insurgents and finding large weapons caches, the U.S. command said Monday. One cache, found hidden in a building in a second-story crawl space beneath a bathtub, included 13 AK-47 assault rifles, three machine guns, 20 AK-47 barrels, a pistol, U.S. currency and an ammunition stockpile, the military said. At 9 a.m. Monday, two mortar rounds hit the Hamah intersection near Iraq's Oil Ministry in central Baghdad, killing a civilian, wounding four, and damaging several vehicles, said police Mohammed Abdul Ghani. A similar attack occurred in Bani Saad, a town near Baqouba city, which is 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Two mortar rounds hit a local Iraqi army headquarters, killing two soldiers and wounding seven, police said. Insurgents, who often use roadside bombs and suicide bombers in their attacks, appear recently to have been firing more mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in their strikes. Gunmen seriously wounded police Maj. Hazim Shebib and his driver in an attack early Monday morning in Dora, one of Baghdad's most violent areas, said police Capt. Talib Thamir. In a weekend interview with U.S. cable television station FOX News, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani complained that American commanders were stalling on giving Iraqi forces a bigger role in battling the insurgents. "We ask them for things to change, they agree, and then nothing happens," Talabani said. He said the Iraqis would prefer for coalition forces to concentrate on protecting oil pipelines and other key infrastructure. Fox said the U.S. military declined comment on Talabani's remarks. Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press 12:22:01 PM     comment []

White House Ethics, Honesty Questioned 55% in Survey Say Libby Case Signals Broader Problems By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, October 30, 2005; A14 A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey. The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an "isolated incident." And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush. In the aftermath of the latest crisis to confront the White House, Bush's overall job approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls. Barely a third of Americans -- 34 percent -- think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton's standing on this issue when he left office. The survey also found that nearly seven in 10 Americans consider the charges against Libby to be serious. A majority -- 55 percent -- said the decision of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald to bring charges against Libby was based on the facts of the case, while 30 percent said he was motivated by partisan politics. "One thing you can't ever, ever do even if you're a regular person is lie to a grand jury," said Brad Morris, 48, a registered independent and a field representative for a lumber company who lives in Nashua, N.H. "But multiply that by a thousand times if you have power like [Libby had]. And if anybody wants to know why, ask Scooter. He's financially ruined; he'll be paying lawyers for the rest of his life." Taken together, the findings represent a serious blow to a White House already reeling from the politically damaging effects of the slow government response to Hurricane Katrina, the continuing bloodshed in Iraq, the ongoing criticism of its since-repudiated claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the bungled nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. The ethics findings may be particularly upsetting to a president who came to office in 2000 vowing to restore integrity and honor to a White House that he said had been tainted by the recurring scandals of the Clinton years. On Friday, a federal grand jury in Washington indicted Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, on two counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice in the course of Fitzgerald's investigation into the disclosure of the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to reporters. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has accused the Bush administration of going to war in Iraq based on intelligence officials knew was untrue. The survey of 600 randomly selected Americans represents a snapshot of initial reactions to the Libby indictment. Those views could quickly change as the public learns more about the charges and as Republicans and Democrats mount competing campaigns to shape public attitudes. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus four percentage points. Those campaigns may play an influential role in the public's final conclusions about the leak investigation. In the 24 hours after Fitzgerald's news conference, the survey and follow-up interviews found many Americans confused as to what, if anything, to make of the complicated indictment. Ellen Mulligan, 34, a Republican and part-time art teacher who lives in Hamden, Conn., was one of these. "If I understood what happened, Vice President Cheney's adviser spoke to his wife and then she leaked the secret," Mulligan said. That is not an allegation in the indictment, but though Mulligan may not know exactly what happened, the scandal for her is both typical Washington and part of a broader pattern of ethical challenges in this administration. "My actual opinion is more, 'Here we go again.' Every administration has their secrets and has some corruption," she said. But she is disappointed with Bush on the ethics front. "I think Bush's actions in certain situations are pretty much unethical, [though] not illegal. . . . He's definitely not his father. His father seemed more wholesome, more down-to-earth." The survey found some areas of general agreement. Most Republicans, 57 percent, said that the obstruction of justice and perjury charges are serious, compared with 81 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents. But once past the specifics of the charges against Libby, Republicans and Democrats differed dramatically. While a large majority of Democrats (76 percent) said the case is a sign of broader ethical problems in the administration, an equally large majority of Republicans (69 percent) said it was an isolated matter. Most Republicans continued to give Bush high marks for his handling of ethics in government, while Democrats overwhelmingly graded him poorly. The survey also suggests the emergence of an appealing fresh face in public life: special prosecutor Fitzgerald. Fifty-five percent said Fitzgerald brought the charges against Libby based on the facts of the case and not for partisan political reasons. Less than a third -- 30 percent -- said Fitzgerald was politically motivated. "I was very impressed by him," said Dorothy Harper, 56, an immigration lawyer and a St. Louis Democrat, who watched portions of Fitzgerald's news conference. "He was very impressive. He obviously knew what he was doing." Many Americans believe that others may be involved in the disclosure of Plame's identity to the news media. Nearly half -- 47 percent -- believe that senior White House adviser Karl Rove did something wrong in connection with the case, including nearly a fifth who believe that Rove acted illegally. On Friday, Rove was not indicted, though Fitzgerald's investigation is continuing. A smaller but still significant proportion -- 41 percent -- believe Cheney did something wrong, while 44 percent believe he did not. Most Americans believe Bush had nothing to do with the incidents that resulted in the indictment brought against Libby: 55 percent said the president was not at fault, while 12 percent said he probably did something illegal, and 21 percent said he did something "unethical but not illegal." © 2005 The Washington Post Company 9:09:33 AM     comment []

	Friday, October 28, 2005

Pardon My Drool. . .     'Official A' Stands Out in Indictment - - - - - - - - - - - - By PETE YOST Associated Press Writer October 28,2005 | WASHINGTON -- In a sign of the trouble lingering for the Bush administration, the indictment handed up Friday in the CIA leak probe refers to someone at the White House known as "Official A." The unidentified official could become a courtroom witness against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who left his job as vice presidential aide shortly after his indictment on charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury. Although other officials are mentioned but not named in the indictment, all were identified Friday afternoon during briefings at the Justice Department. Except for "Official A." The mysterious official is identified in the indictment only as "a senior official in the White House." No mention is made of Karl Rove, the president's political adviser who remains under investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. It has been known that columnist Robert Novak spoke to Rove on July 9, 2003, saying he planned to report over the weekend that Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, had worked for the CIA. Rove told the columnist he had heard similar information. Friday's indictment says "Official A" is a "senior official in the White House who advised Libby on July 10 or 11 of 2003" about a chat with Novak about his upcoming column in which Plame would be identified as a CIA employee. Late Friday, three people close to the investigation, each asking to remain unidentified because of grand jury secrecy, identified Rove as Official A. Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press   9:44:15 PM     comment []

Just the Start: Where Fitzgerald Looks Next The big news with regard to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the apparent effort by the Bush-Cheney administration to punish former Ambassador Joe Wilson for revealing how the White House deceived the American people about the threat posed by Iraq is not the anticipated indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Make no mistake, it is exceptionally significant that Cheney's closest aide and political confidante over the past two decades, I. "Scooter" Libby, now appears likely to be charged with two counts of making false statements to federal agents, two counts of perjury and obstruction of justice for misleading and deceiving the grand jury about how he learned that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a Central Intelligence Agency operative. But if all that came out of Fitzgerald's two-year-long investigation into a case that touches on fundamental questions of government accountability, abuse of power and the dubious "case" that was made for going to war in Iraq, this would be no more that a footnote to the sorry history of the Bush-Cheney era. What matters is that, if published reports are accurate, the Libby indictment is not all that will come of this investigation. Fitzgerald met for close to an hour on Wednesday with U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The chief judge has overseen the inquiry into the leaking of the name of Wilson's wife to journalists in an effort to discredit the former ambassador. It is Hogan who has the power to extend the term of the grand jury, which was to expire Friday, or to give Fitzgerald a new grand jury with which to continue the investigation. If, indeed, the inquiry will continue, as now appears likely, then we have reached the Churchillian moment when it can be said: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." There will be those who are excited by the prospect that an extended investigation might actually "get" White House political czar Karl Rove, who has long been a subject of the inquiry but was spared indictment Friday. That's very possible, as Fitzgerald has reportedly informed Rove's lawyers that he is still under investigation. But this will never be the inquiry that it can and should be if it merely tags Libby and Rove for wrongdoing. The fundamental responsibility of the special prosecutor, and the one that he now has an opportunity to pursue, is to determine whether the Bush-Cheney administration set out to punish Wilson for exposing the fact that the president and the vice president had deliberately and dramatically inflated claims regarding Iraqi programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. The Congress and the media, which should have served as watchdogs on the administration before and after the start of the war, failed in their duty. And, while it is now commonly accepted that the president and the vice president stretched the truth to the breaking point in their feverish campaign to win support for action against Iraq, the specific details of the administration's abuse of intelligence materials have yet to be adequately established. It is in the establishment of those details, and the facts surrounding them, that it becomes possible to understand why so many powerful people were so determined to destroy Wilson's reputation and that of his wife. It is, as well, where questions about the precise roles of the president and the vice president in this whole sordid affair can, and must, be clarified. This is why 40 members of the U.S. House have urged Fitzgerald to expand the inquiry to examine whether Bush, Cheney and members of the White House's Iraq War Group conspired to deceive Congress into authorizing the war – thus committing the federal crime of lying to Congress. Of course, there will be those who argue that such an investigation would be too broad an extension of the special prosecutor's brief. But that's just the latest line from those who have always wanted to close down this inquiry. The simple fact is that, if Patrick Fitzgerald wants to get to the truth about who was behind the attempt to discredit Wilson and Plame, he has to examine the reason why the White House cared so very much about what was said regarding the use and misuse of intelligence. That is the examination that Fitzgerald can and should now begin. John Nichols' biography of Vice President Cheney, Dick: The Man Who Is President (The New Press, 2004) is currently available nationwide at independent bookstores and at www.amazon.com. An expanded paperback version of the book, which Publisher's Weekly describes as "a Fahrenheit 9/11 for Cheney" and Esquire magazine says "reveals the inner Cheney," will be available this fall under the title, The Rise and Rise of Richard B. Cheney: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Most Powerful Vice President in American History (The New Press). 1:23:46 PM     comment []

Tip of the Iceberg? Rove is still under investigation, so there's still hope there. Who knows who else will go down if Libby starts ratting people out. Stay tuned. Who, me? Cheney Adviser Indicted in CIA Leak Case By JOHN SOLOMON and PETE YOST, Associated Press Writers 8 minutes ago Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case. Karl Rove, President Bush's closest adviser, escaped indictment Friday but remained under investigation, his legal status a looming political problem for the White House. The indictments stem from a two-year investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into whether Rove, Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame or lied about their involvement to investigators. The five-count indictment accuses Libby of lying about how and when he learned about CIA official Plame's identity in 2003 and then told reporters about it. The information was classified. Any trial would shine a spotlight on the secret deliberations of Bush and his team as they built the case for war against Iraq. Bush ordered U.S. troops to war in March 2003, saying Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program posed a grave and immediate threat to the United States. No such weapons were found. The U.S. military death toll climbed past 2,000 this week. Moments before the indictments were released, Bush stepped off Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House after a brief trip to Norfolk, Va. As the documents were released, Vice President Dick Cheney was giving a speech in Georgia. Libby, 55, is considered Cheney's alter ego, a chief architect of the war with Iraq. A trial would give the public a rare glimpse into Cheney's influential role in the West Wing and his behind-the-scenes lobbying for war. Though Libby has worked in relative obscurity, he is one of the administration's influential advisers because of his proximity to Cheney, one of the most powerful vice presidents in history. According to the indictment, Libby also engaged in obstruction of justice by impeding Fitzgerald's investigation. The charges, though all felonies, are likely to be portrayed by some Republicans as technicalities. Trying to put a brave face on one of the darkest days of his presidency, Bush traveled to Norfolk, Va., earlier in the day to deliver a speech on terrorism. "Thanks for the chance to get out of Washington," he said. Rove's lawyer said he was told by special prosecutor Fitzgerald's office that investigators would continue their probe into the aide's conduct. Fitzgerald's office said Rove would not be indicted Friday, said people close to the Republican strategist, speaking only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy. Rove is deputy White House chief of staff. Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, "The prosecutor has performed his job in pursuing this case vigorously and fairly. However the charges really beg the larger question — what did the president and vice president know about these and related matters, and when did they know it?" The Democratic National Committee urged Bush to delay his weekend trip to the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., and confront the case. The lack of an indictment against Rove was a mixed outcome for the administration. It keeps in place the president's top adviser, the architect of his political machine whose fingerprints can be found on virtually every policy that emerges from the White House. But leaving Rove in legal jeopardy keeps Bush and his team working on problems like the Iraq war, a Supreme Court vacancy and slumping poll ratings beneath a dark cloud of uncertainty. Rove, who testified four times before the CIA leaks grand jury, has stepped back from some of his political duties such as speaking at fundraisers but is said to be otherwise immersed in his sweeping portfolio as deputy White House chief of staff. After weeks of hand-wringing about possible indictments in the investigation, Before he left for the speech in Norfolk, the president chatted with Cheney and Rove in the Oval Office along with smiling aides. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said, "Mr. Rove will continue to cooperate fully with the special counsel's efforts to complete the investigation. We are confident that when the special counsel finishes his work, he will conclude that Mr. Rove has done nothing wrong." Rove's legal problems stem in part from the fact that he failed initially to disclose to prosecutors a conversation in which he told Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper that Plame worked for the CIA. Rove says the conversation slipped his mind. Senior Republicans inside and outside the White House have wondered whether the case has been a distraction for Rove. They point to the failed Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, which was derailed by conservative activists, many of them allies of Rove. He helped build Bush's political career on the strength of ties to the religious conservative movement. Both charming and sharp-tongued, Rove is well liked by his colleagues and respected by his opponents, a take-no-prisoners political operative who is steadfastly loyal to his boss and relentlessly partisan in his approach. He didn't graduate from college, but is one of the most well-read White House advisers. He spent most of his career in Texas, but quickly established himself as a Washington insider. White House credibility has been on the line from the start. Spokesman Scott McClellan, after checking with Rove and Libby, assured reporters that neither man was involved in the leak. Months later, reports surfaced that suggested they were involved. On July 7, the president told reporters that if anyone in his administration committed a crime in connection with the leak, that person "will no longer work in my administration." Weeks later, he backpedaled from that assertion. Columnist Robert Novak revealed Plame's name and her CIA status on July 14, 2003. That was five days after Novak talked to Rove and eight days after Plame's husband, former ambassador Wilson, published an opinion article in the Times accusing the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq. Wilson has accused the White House of revealing his wife's identify to undercut his allegations against Bush. Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. 1:10:13 PM     comment []

Meanwhile, the president talks about 9/11 As a federal grand jury meets to consider indictments against one or more members of his administration, George W. Bush is in Norfolk, Va., where he's standing before a sea of digitized American flags and talking about the threat that terrorists pose to the United States. -- Tim Grieve, Salon.com     11:08:15 AM     comment []

	Thursday, October 27, 2005

Now Who's The "Girly Man"? There would be few things sweeter than watching nerdy Phil Angelides kick this clown's ass.   Poll: Gov. Schwarzenegger's Measures Lag - - - - - - - - - - - - By TOM CHORNEAU Associated Press Writer October 27,2005 | SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "year of reform" initiatives are proving a tough sell to California voters despite a multimillion dollar advertising blitz, according to a poll released Thursday. None of his measures on the Nov. 8 ballot has majority support, and two are opposed by wide margins. The bombardment of radio and television ads from Schwarzenegger and his opponents have generated voter interest in the election, the Public Policy Institute of California poll found. So far, that interest has failed to translate into support for the governor's agenda. "There's still a long way to go, but the governor is still looking to find the key to what will change public opinion," poll director Mark Baldassare said. "While his measures may not have moved in a negative direction, there's no sign that voters have any more inclination to support his package." Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,079 likely voters over seven days ending Oct. 23. There was a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Voters also remain skeptical of the former action star turned politician, with a majority disapproving how he has handled the job. Only 38 percent approve of his performance in office, while 57 percent disapprove. Schwarzenegger is promoting four of the eight special election initiatives. He wants to make teachers work more years to gain tenure, institute a state spending cap, change the way legislative districts are drawn and make public employee unions get members' written permission before their dues could be used for political purposes. The spending cap (favored by just 30 percent of likely voters) and the redistricting measure (favored by 36 percent) are furthest behind, according to the poll. Schwarzenegger's campaign team disagreed with the findings and said internal polling showed support for three initiatives -- not the state spending cap. "The voters are saying they want to like him, they want him to do well, and they want him to succeed," said John McLaughlin, the governor's pollster. --__ On the Net: Public Policy Institute of California- http://www.ppic.org Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press   10:54:23 PM     comment []

The Daily Chuckle   Suicide Mistaken for Halloween Decoration 2 hours, 26 minutes ago The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said. The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said. The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles. State police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Oldham and neighbors said people noticed the body at breakfast time Wednesday but dismissed it as a holiday prank. Authorities were called to the scene more than three hours later. "They thought it was a Halloween decoration," Fay Glanden, wife of Mayor William Glanden, told The (Wilmington) News Journal. "It looked like something somebody would have rigged up," she said. Copyright © 2005 9:38:48 PM     comment []

Good Idea. I've always thought conservatism was pretty criminal.   DeLay: Conservatism Being Criminalized - - - - - - - - - - - - By WENDY BENJAMINSON Associated Press Writer October 27,2005 | HOUSTON -- Rep. Tom DeLay, under indictment on campaign finance violations, railed against Democrats in a letter Thursday, accusing them of engaging in "the politics of personal destruction." The letter, sent to constituents and contributors, connected his case with investigations into possible misconduct by White House adviser Karl Rove and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. "What we're fighting is so much larger than a single court case or a single district attorney in Travis County," the Texas Republican wrote. "We are witnessing the criminalization of conservative politics." DeLay stepped down as House majority leader after he was indicted Sept. 28 on charges he illegally funneled corporate campaign contributions to candidates for the Texas Legislature. DeLay has launched an aggressive defense, seeking to have the judge removed because of his Democratic political activity and accusing the Democratic district attorney who charged him, Ronnie Earle, of pursuing the case for political reasons. The letter was prepared for the Republican Party newsletter in DeLay's home county of Fort Bend. Party chairman Eric Thode said he also e-mailed it to about 2,000 Fort Bend County households and to state and national elected and party officials. Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press.  5:48:48 PM     comment []

WHITE HOUSE Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel By Murray Waas, special to National Journal © National Journal Group Inc. Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005 Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources. Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said. The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war. The disclosures also come as Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wraps up the nearly two-year-old CIA leak investigation that has focused heavily on Libby's role in discussing covert intelligence operative Valerie Plame with reporters. Fitzgerald could announce as soon as tomorrow whether a federal grand jury is handing up indictments in the case. Central to Fitzgerald's investigation is whether administration officials disclosed Plame's identity and CIA status in an effort to discredit her husband, former ambassador and vocal Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, who wrote newspaper op-ed columns and made other public charges beginning in 2003 that the administration misused intelligence on Iraq that he gathered on a CIA-sponsored trip to Africa. In recent weeks Fitzgerald's investigation has zeroed in on the activities of Libby, who is Cheney's top national security and foreign policy advisor, as well as the conflict between the vice president's office on one side and the CIA and State Department on the other over the use of intelligence on Iraq. The New York Times reported this week, for example, that Libby first learned about Plame and her covert CIA status from Cheney in a conversation with the vice president weeks before Plame's cover was blown in a July 2003 newspaper column by Robert Novak. The Intelligence Committee at the time was trying to determine whether the CIA and other intelligence agencies provided faulty or erroneous intelligence on Iraq to President Bush and other government officials. But the committee deferred the much more politically sensitive issue as to whether the president and the vice president themselves, or other administration officials, misrepresented intelligence information to bolster the case to go to war. An Intelligence Committee spokesperson says the panel is still working on this second phase of the investigation. Had the withheld information been turned over, according to administration and congressional sources, it likely would have shifted a portion of the blame away from the intelligence agencies to the Bush administration as to who was responsible for the erroneous information being presented to the American public, Congress, and the international community. In April 2004, the Intelligence Committee released a report that concluded that "much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency for inclusion in Secretary Powell's [United Nation's] speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect." Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee say that their investigation was hampered by the refusal of the White House to turn over key documents, although Republicans said the documents were not as central to the investigation. In addition to withholding drafts of Powell's speech -- which included passages written by Libby -- the administration also refused to turn over to the committee contents of the president's morning intelligence briefings on Iraq, sources say. These documents, known as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, are a written summary of intelligence information and analysis provided by the CIA to the president. One congressional source said, for example, that senators wanted to review the PDBs to determine whether dissenting views from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Department of Energy, and other agencies that often disagreed with the CIA on the question of Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction were being presented to the president. An administration spokesperson said that the White House was justified in turning down the document demand from the Senate, saying that the papers reflected "deliberative discussions" among "executive branch principals" and were thus covered under longstanding precedent and executive privilege rules. Throughout the president's five years in office, the Bush administration has been consistently adamant about not turning internal documents over to Congress and other outside bodies. At the same time, however, administration officials said in interviews that they cannot recall another instance in which Cheney and Libby played such direct personal roles in denying foreign policy papers to a congressional committee, and that in doing so they overruled White House staff and lawyers who advised that the materials should be turned over to the Senate panel. Administration sources also said that Cheney's general counsel, David Addington, played a central role in the White House decision not to turn over the documents. Addington did not return phone calls seeking comment. Cheney's office declined to comment after requesting that any questions for this article be submitted in writing. A former senior administration official familiar with the discussions on whether to turn over the materials said there was a "political element" in the matter. This official said the White House did not want to turn over records during an election year that could used by critics to argue that the administration used incomplete or faulty intelligence to go to war with Iraq. "Nobody wants something like this dissected or coming out in an election year," the former official said. But the same former official also said that Libby felt passionate that the CIA and other agencies were not doing a good job at intelligence gathering, that the Iraqi war was a noble cause, and that he and the vice president were only making their case in good faith. According to the former official, Libby cited those reasons in fighting for the inclusion in Powell's U.N. speech of intelligence information that others mistrusted, in opposing the release of documents to the Intelligence Committee, and in moving aggressively to counter Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration distorted intelligence findings. Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee backed the document request to the White House regarding Libby's drafts of the Powell speech, communications between Libby and other administration officials on intelligence information that might be included in the speech, and Libby's contacts with officials in the intelligence community relating to Iraq. In his address to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, Powell argued that intelligence information showed that Saddam Hussein's regime was aggressively pursuing programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons Only after the war did U.N. inspectors and the public at large learn that the intelligence data had been incorrect and that Iraq had been so crippled by international sanctions that it could not sustain such a program. The April 2004 Senate report blasted what it referred to as an insular and risk- averse culture of bureaucratic "group think" in which officials were reluctant to challenge their own longstanding notions about Iraq and its weapons programs. All nine Republicans and eight Democrats signed onto this document without a single dissent, a rarity for any such report in Washington, especially during an election year. After the release of the report, Intelligence Committee, Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said they doubted that the Senate would have authorized the president to go to war if senators had been given accurate information regarding Iraq's programs on weapons of mass destruction. "I doubt if the votes would have been there," Roberts said. Rockefeller asserted, "We in Congress would not have authorized that war, in 75 votes, if we knew what we know now." Roberts' spokeswoman, Sarah Little, said the second phase of the committee's investigation would also examine how pre-war intelligence focused on the fact that intelligence analysts -- while sounding alarms that a humanitarian crisis that might follow the war - failed to predict the insurgency that would arise after the war. Little says that it was undecided whether the committee would produce a classified report, a declassified one that could ultimately be made public, or hold hearings. When the 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee was made public, Bush, Cheney, and other administration officials cited it as proof that the administration acted in good faith on Iraq and relied on intelligence from the CIA and others that it did not know was flawed. But some congressional sources say that had the committee received all the documents it requested from the White House the spotlight could have shifted to the heavy advocacy by Cheney's office to go to war. Cheney had been the foremost administration advocate for war with Iraq, and Libby played a central staff role in coordinating the sale of the war to both the public and Congress. In advocating war with Iraq, Libby was known for dismissing those within the bureaucracy who opposed him, whether at the CIA, State Department, or other agencies. Supporters say that even if Libby is charged by the grand jury in the CIA leak case, he waged less a personal campaign against Wilson and Plame than one that reflected a personal antipathy toward critics in general. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Powell as Secretary of State, charged in a recent speech that there was a "cabal between Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense [Donald L.] Rumsfeld on critical decisions that the bureaucracy did not know was being made." In interagency meetings in preparation for Powell's U.N. address, Wilkerson, Powell, and senior CIA officials argued that evidence Libby wanted to include as part of Powell's presentation was exaggerated or unreliable. Cheney, too, became involved in those discussions, sources said, when he believed that Powell and others were not taking Libby's suggestions seriously. Wilkerson has said that he ordered "whole reams of paper" of intelligence information excluded from Libby's draft of Powell's speech. Another official recalled that Libby was pushing so hard to include certain intelligence information in the speech that Libby lobbied Powell for last minute changes in a phone call to Powell's suite at the Waldorf Astoria hotel the night before the speech. Libby's suggestions were dismissed by Powell and his staff. John E. McLaughlin, then-deputy director of the CIA, has testified to Congress that "much of our time in the run-up to the speech was spent taking out material... that we and the secretary's staff judged to have been unreliable." The passion that Libby brought to his cause is perhaps further illustrated by a recent Los Angeles Times report that in April 2004, months after Fitzgerald's leak investigation was underway, Libby ordered "a meticulous catalog of Wilson's claims and public statements going back to early 2003" because Libby was "consumed by passages that he believed were inaccurate or unfair" to him. The newspaper reported that the "intensity with which Libby reacted to Wilson had many senior White House staffers puzzled, and few agreed with his counterattack plan, or its rationale." A former administration official said that "this might have been about politics on some level, but it is also personal. [Libby] feels that his honor has been questioned, and his instinct is to strike back." Now, as Libby battles back against possible charges by a special prosecutor, he might be seeking vindication on an entirely new level. -- Murray Waas is a Washington-based journalist. His previous articles, focusing on Rove's role in the case, Libby's grand jury testimony, the apparent direction of Fitzgerald's investigation, and the Secret Service records that prompted Miller's key testimony also appeared on NationalJournal.com   Copyright 2005 by National Journal Group Inc. The Watergate · 600 New Hamphire Ave. NW Washington, DC 20037 202-739-8400 · fax 202-833-8069 5:12:45 PM     comment []

Quote of the Day   "The Judiciary Committee carefully did not intrude on the president’s executive privilege. The committee studiously avoided asking what advice Ms. Miers gave to the president, and that limitation would have been continued in any hearing with an adequate range of questions available to enable the committee to decide on her qualifications for the court." --Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Judiciary Committee Chairman, responding to the White House's claim that Miers' nomination was withdrawn due to a dispute over papers allegedly covered by executive privilege.  3:20:53 PM     comment []

How May We Screw You? Redux They may not be a international cancer like SprawlMart, but of course smaller companies like this one can be every bit as ugly, small-minded and petty to their employees. I suppose that when they fired this woman they had no idea it would create any sort of flak whatsoever. . .   Wife fired for missing work after soldier left for war Wednesday, October 26, 2005 By Ted Roelofs The Grand Rapids Press CALEDONIA -- On Oct. 16 at an Army airfield in Indiana, Suzette Boler wrapped her arms around her husband and through tears wished him the best. Army Spc. Jerry Boler, 45, was bound for Fort Dix, N.J., and duty in Iraq. He expects to put his life on the line guarding convoys from insurgent attacks. Suzette Boler, of Caledonia, returned home that Sunday night and prepared the next day to return to her receptionist job at a small Caledonia employee benefits firm. She had taken four unpaid days off to see her husband of 22 years off to war. Late Monday afternoon, Boler, 40, answered the phone. She was told to come in the next day and pick up her things. She was fired. "It was a shock," Boler said. "I was hurt. I felt abandoned by people I thought cared for me. I sat down on the floor and cried for probably two hours." Officials at Benefit Management Administrators Inc. confirmed Boler was fired for failing to show up for work the day after she bid goodbye to her husband. "We gave her sufficient time to get back to work," said Clark Galloway, vice president of operations for Benefit Management. "We are totally supportive of our troops and anything that is necessary to equip them and to encourage them as a company." But Galloway maintained support was not in any way diminished by the way it handled Boler's employment at the firm. "You cannot connect those dots," he said. Galloway said Boler's firing was based on "multiple factors" but declined to elaborate. Although Boler said she had nothing to hide and furnished a statement authorizing the company to release her personnel file, Galloway declined to do so. "We don't want to get into a litigative scenario." Boler's termination notice said she was fired for "no show" or, more specifically, for failing to show up for work that Monday. The notice, dated Oct. 17 and signed by human resources manager Edie Hogan, also said: "Met with Suzette regarding spouse leaving for service. Gave her extra time off for over 1 month, had full week off prior to. Told her she must be back on 10-17-05 for work." Hogan could not be reached for comment. Boler disputed she took "extra time off" for a month. She said she asked several weeks before her husband's departure if she could leave one hour early each day to spend more time with him. She made up the time each day by coming in a half-hour early and skipping lunch, she said. "They approved that," she said of that arrangement. Boler also had a different understanding of when she had to be back at work after her five-hour drive to Indianapolis. Although she and her husband moved to West Michigan 14 years ago, Jerry Boler, a diesel mechanic, decided to remain with his Indiana-based Guard unit, the 150th Field Artillery Regiment. Boler said she originally was granted two weeks of unpaid time off to say goodbye to her husband. As a part-time employee, she was not given vacation time. On Oct. 4, she said, she was summoned to Hogan's office and told she was asking for too much. Boler recalled Hogan asking her, "Would you please do your best to be there Monday morning?" Boler said she agreed to try but did not know then when her husband would leave. She said she promised to be there Tuesday for certain. Boler worked for the company for 14 months, making $9 an hour and working three days a week answering phones, entering claims information and greeting visitors and clients. Boler considered herself a reliable employee with good work habits, noting she worked for 10 years as a supervisor for a truck stop restaurant at U.S. 131 and 76th Street SW. Michelle Velthouse, former general manager at Country Horizons, recalled Boler worked her way up from a waitress job to supervisor before leaving three years ago. Velthouse considered her a valuable employee. "She would come in even if she had a day off if we needed help. Whatever I needed, she would do it -- cook, do dishes, she would do anything, Velthouse said. "She was very well-liked." On Sept. 6, Benefit Management sent Boler a letter congratulating her for a year of service with the firm, adding her "knowledgeable contributions have helped our company become what it is today." Boler conceded her husband's impending departure was tough on her emotionally and might have distracted her at work in the weeks before she was fired. "I was more and more worried about what was going on at home, but I did my job," she said. Her last day at work, Boler said, she sent an e-mail to Edie Hogan and vowed to try to do better. "I said I would try much harder to keep my private life separate. I told her I would see her on Tuesday," she said. ©2005 Grand Rapids Press   10:17:32 AM     comment []

	Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Ellen Sourball Update The face that sent a million children screaming into the night   The other day I posted a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial taking issue with Bush's appointment of political hack and right-wing nutjob Ellen Sauer(smelling of fermentation or staleness)brey(the sound made by an ass) to the position of Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Well, it seems that the Sauerbrey nomination is attracting the attention of Congress as well.    Democrats rap Bush's pick for State Department job By Vicki AllenTue Oct 25,10:48 PM ET Senate Democrats on Tuesday questioned the qualifications of the Bush administration's choice to oversee international refugee and population issues and compared her to Michael Brown, who was blamed for bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the resume of Ellen Sauerbrey, twice a candidate for Maryland governor and chair of President George W. Bush's 2000 campaign in that state, was heavier on Republican politics than on dealing with refugee crises. They also said Sauerbrey's anti-abortion views would detract from efforts to get international help for refugees. Twelve women's advocacy groups wrote a letter to Bush urging him to withdraw the nomination. They said Sauerbrey has "shown outright hostility toward women's rights and toward international family planning and related programs" in four years as U.S. representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Sauerbrey told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee she had the management experience and the heart to become the assistant secretary of state in charge of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. "I think most important, you need to have the compassion and caring for helping to protect vulnerable people," Sauerbrey said. She cited her experience in women's rights issues, which she said are central to helping refugees who are largely women and children. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed Sauerbrey's nomination. "I strongly support Ellen Sauerbrey because of her devotion to human rights and human liberty, values that are key to the president's foreign policy," Rice said in a statement. Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat, said she was troubled by Bush's choice to head the agency with a $700 million annual budget. "I question the wisdom of putting someone in that position who I believe has shown zealotry on the issue of reproductive health, including family planning," Boxer said. "What it says to me is that there's this focus on anti-choice that I'm afraid is going to be a diversion." Democrats said people in that post before had extensive backgrounds working with international refugee issues. "You're having to labor in the shadow of Michael Brown is what I think is happening here," said Sen. Paul Sarbanes (news, bio, voting record), a Maryland Democrat. He was referring to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who resigned last month under fire after FEMA's sluggish response to Katrina after it was disclosed he had minimal experience dealing with disasters. As FEMA is the first responder in national disasters, the State Department bureau is the first responder for international refugee crises, Boxer said. "But I don't think we've seen the requisite experience," she said. The 12 organizations that wrote to Bush included the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Feminist Majority and Advocates for Youth. Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.   11:59:36 AM     comment []

Cold Comfort The sad fact of the matter, of course, is that there is no presidential election this year and we are stuck with this smirking ape for another three years. The good news is that the various scandals and blunders, and the rancor within his own party will ensure lame duck status. And, hopefully, the numbers below bode well for 2006.   Maybe if CNN and the rest of the mainstream media had done their job, this would all be moot. But that's another story. Or is it?   Poll: Bush would lose an election if held this year (CNN) -- A majority would vote for a Democrat over President Bush if an election were held this year, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday. In the latest poll, 55 percent of the respondents said that they would vote for the Democratic candidate if Bush were again running for the presidency this year. Thirty-nine percent of those interviewed said they would vote for Bush in the hypothetical election. The latest poll results, released Tuesday, were based on interviews with 1,008 adults conducted by telephone October 21-23. In the poll, 42 percent of those interviewed approved of the way the president is handling his job and 55 percent disapproved. In the previous poll, released October 17, 39 percent approved of Bush's job performance -- the lowest number of his presidency -- and 58 percent disapproved. However, all the numbers are within the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, so it's possible that the public's opinion has not changed at all. More than half, 57 percent, said they don't agree with the president's views on issues that are important to them, while 41 percent said their views are in alignment with those of Bush on important issues. Democrats preferred on issues On separate issues, a majority of those questioned felt the Democrats could do a better job than Republicans at handling health care (59 percent to 30 percent), Social Security (56 percent to 33 percent), gasoline prices (51 percent to 31 percent) and the economy (50 percent to 38 percent). Forty-six percent also believed Democrats could do better at handling Iraq, while 40 percent said the GOP would do better. In 2003, 53 percent said Republicans would better handle Iraq and only 29 percent believed the Democrats would do better. The only issue on which Republicans came out on top was in fighting terrorism: 49 percent said the GOP is better at it, while 38 percent said the Democrats are. And there was a dramatic shift downward in the latest poll, compared with September, in the percentage of people who said that it was a mistake to send U.S. troops to Iraq. This time, 49 percent said it was a mistake, versus 59 percent who felt that way last month.   By the way, does it seem odd that with all the bad news out of Iraq, and the lopsided results of similar polls in the opposite direction, that the number of people who consider Iraq "a mistake" has actually dropped ten points since last month?   11:44:11 AM     comment []

The Sprawl-Mart Watch An occasional update of the nefarious activities of one of the world's most malignant corporations.        How May I Screw You?   October 26, 2005 Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO, New York Times An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart. In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive. To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)." The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid. Wal-Mart executives said the memo was part of an effort to rein in benefit costs, which to Wall Street's dismay have soared by 15 percent a year on average since 2002. Like much of corporate America, Wal-Mart has been squeezed by soaring health costs. The proposed plan, if approved, would save the company more than $1 billion a year by 2011. In an interview, Ms. Chambers said she was focusing not on cutting costs, but on serving employees better by giving them more choices on their benefits. "We are investing in our benefits that will take even better care of our associates," she said. "Our benefit plan is known today as being generous." Ms. Chambers also said that she made her recommendations after surveying employees about how they felt about the benefits plan. "This is not about cutting," she said. "This is about redirecting savings to another part of their benefit plans." One proposal would reduce the amount of time, from two years to one, that part-time employees would have to wait before qualifying for health insurance. Another would put health clinics in stores, in part to reduce expensive employee visits to emergency rooms. Wal-Mart's benefit costs jumped to $4.2 billion last year, from $2.8 billion three years earlier, causing concern within the company because benefits represented an increasing share of sales. Last year, Wal-Mart earned $10.5 billion on sales of $285 billion. A draft memo to Wal-Mart's board was obtained from Wal-Mart Watch, a nonprofit group, allied with labor unions, that asserts that Wal-Mart's pay and benefits are too low. Tracy Sefl, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Watch, said someone mailed the document anonymously to her group last month. When asked about the memo, Wal-Mart officials made available the updated copy that actually went to the board. Under fire because less than 45 percent of its workers receive company health insurance, Wal-Mart announced a new plan on Monday that seeks to increase participation by allowing some employees to pay just $11 a month in premiums. Some health experts praised the plan for making coverage more affordable, but others criticized it, noting that full-time Wal-Mart employees, who earn on average around $17,500 a year, could face out-of-pocket expenses of $2,500 a year or more. Eager to burnish Wal-Mart's image as it faces opposition in trying to expand into New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, Wal-Mart's chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., also announced on Monday a sweeping plan to conserve energy. He also said that Wal-Mart supported raising the minimum wage to help Wal-Mart's customers. The theme throughout the memo was how to slow the increase in benefit costs without giving more ammunition to critics who contend that Wal-Mart's wages and benefits are dragging down those of other American workers. Ms. Chambers proposed that employees pay more for their spouses' health insurance. She called for cutting 401(k) contributions to 3 percent of wages from 4 percent and cutting company-paid life insurance policies to $12,000 from the current level, equal to an employee's annual earnings. Life insurance, she said, was "a high-satisfaction, low-importance benefit, which suggests an opportunity to trim the offering without substantial impact on associate satisfaction." Wal-Mart refers to its employees as associates. Acknowledging that Wal-Mart has image problems, Ms. Chambers wrote: "Wal-Mart's critics can easily exploit some aspects of our benefits offering to make their case; in other words, our critics are correct in some of their observations. Specifically, our coverage is expensive for low-income families, and Wal-Mart has a significant percentage of associates and their children on public assistance." Her memo stated that 5 percent of Wal-Mart's workers were on Medicaid, compared with 4 percent for other national employers. She said that Wal-Mart spent $1.5 billion a year on health insurance, which amounts to $2,660 per insured worker. The memo, prepared with the help of McKinsey & Company, said the board was to consider the recommendations in November. But the memo said that three top Wal-Mart officials - its chief financial officer, its top human relations executive and its executive vice president for legal and corporate affairs - had "received the recommendations enthusiastically." Ms. Chambers's memo voiced concern that workers were staying with the company longer, pushing up wage costs, although she stopped short of calling for efforts to push out more senior workers. She wrote that "the cost of an associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity. Moreover, because we pay an associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart." The memo noted that Wal-Mart workers "are getting sicker than the national population, particularly in obesity-related diseases," including diabetes and coronary artery disease. The memo said Wal-Mart workers tended to overuse emergency rooms and underuse prescriptions and doctor visits, perhaps from previous experience with Medicaid. The memo noted, "The least healthy, least productive associates are more satisfied with their benefits than other segments and are interested in longer careers with Wal-Mart." The memo proposed incorporating physical activity in all jobs and promoting health savings accounts. Such accounts are financed with pretax dollars and allow workers to divert their contributions into retirement savings if they are not all spent on health care. Health experts say these accounts will be more attractive to younger, healthier workers. "It will be far easier to attract and retain a healthier work force than it will be to change behavior in an existing one," the memo said. "These moves would also dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart." Ron Pollack, executive director of Families U.S.A., a health care consumer-advocacy group, criticized the memo for recommending that more workers move into health plans with high deductibles. "Their people are paying a very substantial portion of their earnings out of pocket for health care," he said. "These plans will cause these workers and their families to defer or refrain from getting needed care." The memo noted that 38 percent of Wal-Mart workers spent more than one-sixth of their Wal-Mart income on health care last year. By reducing the amount of time part-timers must work to qualify for health insurance, Wal-Mart is hoping to allay some of its critics. One proposal under consideration would offer new employees "limited funding" so they could "gain access to the private insurance market" after 30 days of employment while waiting to join Wal-Mart's plan. Such assistance, the memo stated, "would give us a powerful set of messages to use in combating critics. (For instance, 'Wal-Mart offers associates access to health insurance after they've worked with us for just 30 days.')" Steven Greenhouse reported from New York for this article, and Michael Barbaro from Bentonville, Ark.   Wal Mart's Shameful Lawsuit From Fired Up! America: For Responsible Government, Strong Communities and Secure Families Submitted by Roy Temple on Tue, 08/16/2005 - 7:38am. Wal Mart Today's St. Louis Post Dispatch has a front page story regarding an outrageous action by retail giant Wal Mart.  In September 2000, Debbie Shank, a shelf stocker at Wal Mart suffered massive injuries in a collision with a tractor trailer rig. She subsequently sued the trucking company and driver, and received a substantial settlement.  According to the story, brain damage forces her to use a wheelchair and limits her upper body movement to one arm and two fingers.  The settlement proceeds go to cover the costs of her ongoing care.  Because her health care costs were paid for by Wal Mart's self financed health care plan, Wal Mart is now suing her to recover the medical expenses from the proceeds of her lawsuit settlement. If Wal Mart is successful, the family will be left without adequate means to provide for her care. This is WRONG, and Wal Mart needs to know it.  They shouldn't get by with allowing their flack to say that they filed the suit merely to preserve their legal options.  That's a frivilous use of our court system.  The reality is, they are hedging their bets to gauge public reaction.  It should be swift and severe.  If you would like to sign an open letter to Wal Mart CEO Lee Scott, click here. Trackback URL for this post: http://www.firedupamerica.com/trackback/66 11:16:30 AM     comment []

	Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Quote of the Day   "He must know that the way he did that, relying on his own judgment and instinct, was not good." --anonymous Bush advisor, on the Harriet Miers nomination 6:22:53 PM     comment []

The Buck Stops Everywhere But Here If this was your toddler, you'd call it a temper tantrum. And, like your toddler, it's everybody's fault but his. Next on the agenda, the President will hold his breath and turn blue until that mean old Mr. Fitzgerald leaves him alone.   Published on Monday, October 24, 2005 by the New York Daily News Bushies Feeling the Boss' Wrath Prez's anger growing in hard times - pals by Thomas DeFrank   WASHINGTON - Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say. With a seemingly uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq, the White House is bracing for the political fallout from a grim milestone that could come any day: the combat death of the 2,000th American G.I. Last week alone, 23 military personnel were killed in Iraq, and five were wounded yesterday in a relentless series of attacks across the country. This week could also bring a special prosecutor's decision that could shake the foundations of the Bush government. The President's top political guru, Karl Rove, and Vice President Cheney's right-hand man, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, are at the center of a two-year criminal probe into the leak of a CIA agent's identity. Many Bush staffers believe indictments are likely. "He's like the lion in winter," observed a political friend of Bush. "He's frustrated. He remains quite confident in the decisions he has made. But this is a guy who wanted to do big things in a second term. Given his nature, there's no way he'd be happy about the way things have gone." Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it. Lately, however, some junior staffers have also faced the boss' wrath. "This is not some manager at McDonald's chewing out the help," said a source with close ties to the White House when told about these outbursts. "This is the President of the United States, and it's not a pleasant sight." The specter of losing Rove, his only truly irreplaceable assistant, lies at the heart of Bush's distress. But a string of political reversals, including growing opposition to the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina's aftermath and Harriet Miers' bungled Supreme Court nomination, have also exacted a personal toll. Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the "blame game." They describe him as beset but unbowed, convinced that history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency even if they damage him and his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections. At the same time, these sources say Bush, who has a long history of keeping staffers in their place, has lashed out at aides as his political woes have mounted. "The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about," said one Bush insider. "Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share." The vice president remains Bush's most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics. Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical." A second senior Bush loyalist disagreed, saying Bush knows "some of these things are self-inflicted," like the Miers nomination, where Bush jettisoned contrary advice from his advisers and appointed his longtime personal lawyer. "He must know that the way he did that, relying on his own judgment and instinct, was not good," another key adviser said. Despite the turmoil, Bush is determined to soldier on, already preparing for two major overseas trips in November and helping shape next year's legislative agenda. "I've got a job to do," he told reporters last week. "The American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to." © 2005 Daily News, L.P. 6:17:53 PM     comment []

Once Again, The American Public Wises Up Too Late   Majority of Americans now feel Iraq war was wrong: poll Tue Oct 25,10:23 AM ET For the first time, a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do", according to a poll published in The Wall Street Journal. Fifty-three percent of those asked in the Harris Interactive survey felt that "taking military action against Iraq was the... wrong thing to do", against 34 percent who thought it was correct, the newspaper said. The percentage of people opposing the US-led invasion of the country in March 2003 was up from a figure of 49 percent in a parallel poll in September, rising above 50 percent for the first time since the surveys began. A year before, in September 2004, both sides were even at 43 percent. The latest poll also found that 66 percent of Americans believed President George W. Bush was doing a "poor" or "only fair" job of handling Iraq, against 32 percent who deemed it "excellent" or "pretty good". With the number of US military fatalities in Iraq approaching 2,000, 44 percent of those polled said the situation for US troops in Iraq was getting worse, compared to 19 percent who thought it was improving. Sixty-one percent were not confident US policies in Iraq would succeed, two points higher than in September. The poll asked the opinions of 1,833 people online from October 11-17. Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse 1:44:36 PM     comment []

Another Neocon Milestone We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.                                        --T.S. Eliot   U.S. death toll hits 2,000 CNN is reporting that the U.S. death toll in Iraq has now reached 2,000. As Reuters notes today, it's hard to come by a reliable estimate of the number of Iraqis killed in the war. Nongovernmental agencies say it's at least 25,000. -- Tim Grieve, Salon.com 12:57:47 PM     comment []

Um. . .Isn't This What Martha Stewart Went to Jail For? The best part is, if Ole Evil Eye has to resign, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen--a Democrat!--gets to pick his replacement. Bill Frist, moments before his face broke Letters Show Frist Notified Of Stocks in 'Blind' Trusts Documents Contradict Comments on Holdings By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 24, 2005; A01 Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was given considerable information about his stake in his family's hospital company, according to records that are at odds with his past statements that he did not know what was in his stock holdings. Managers of the trusts that Frist once described as "totally blind," regularly informed him when they added new shares of HCA Inc. or other assets to his holdings, according to the documents. Since 2001, the trustees have written to Frist and the Senate 15 times detailing the sale of assets from or the contribution of assets to trusts of Frist and his family. The letters included notice of the addition of HCA shares worth $500,000 to $1 million in 2001 and HCA stock worth $750,000 to $1.5 million in 2002. The trust agreements require the trustees to inform Frist and the Senate whenever assets are added or sold. The letters seem to undermine one of the major arguments the senator has used throughout his political career to rebut criticism of his ownership in HCA: that the stock was held in blind trusts beyond his control and that he had little idea of the extent of those holdings. The extent of Frist's knowledge of the inner workings of his trusts and his family's health care company is related to a recently launched federal investigation of possible insider trading involving the liquidation this summer of Frist's HCA stock. Within weeks of Frist's decision to sell his holdings in June, HCA shares fell sharply because of a weak earnings report. Frist has said he possessed only publicly available and not "insider" information about the company when he directed the sale and, therefore, did nothing wrong. Last week, Frist told reporters that he is "absolutely confident in the outcome" of the inquiries by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission because he "acted properly at every point." He declined to address specifics about the investigations but said he is providing information as quickly and fully as possible. Frist, a heart-surgeon-turned-politician, has been actively involved in shaping national health care legislation, including passage of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, while maintaining a major financial interest in his family-founded health care business. Two watchdog organizations -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights -- filed complaints with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics this yearcharging Frist with having a conflict of interest and questioning why he sold his shares after a decade of saying he did not need to. Frist and his family have a dozen federal trust accounts, which are essentially piles of stock controlled by professional money managers. Under the terms of his "qualified" trust agreements set up in 2000, Frist is barred from contacting the managers except under specific circumstances. The managers, however, are required to contact him when the funds they control undergo certain changes -- an arrangement similar to those of several other senators. In January 2003, after winning election as majority leader, Frist was asked on CNBC whether his HCA holdings made it difficult for him to push for changes in Medicare, a federal health program for seniors that added to the hospital company's revenue. "I think really for our viewers it should be understood that I put this into a blind trust," Frist replied. "So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock." He added that the trust was "totally blind. I have no control." Two weeks before that interview, M. Kirk Scobey Jr., a Frist trustee, informed the senator in writing that one of his trusts had received HCA stock valued at between $15,000 and $50,000. "He [Frist] could have been more exact in his comments," said Bob Stevenson, spokesman for Frist. Stevenson added that Frist might better have said he did not know to what extent he owned HCA shares. Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said she was surprised that Frist had ever claimed before this summer's liquidation that he might have owned no HCA stock. "Did he say that? What was he thinking of?" she asked. "How did he know to tell the trustee to sell it [his HCA stake] if he didn't know that he had it in the first place?" Disclosures by the trustees to the Senate and to Frist indicate that Frist and his family probably owned a great deal of HCA stock at the time. When Frist's federal trusts were created in late 2000, the trustees disclosed that one trust alone contained between $5 million and $25 million in HCA shares and that each of seven other trusts held more than $1 million of the stock. Frist was notified in November 2002 that 14,781 HCA shares had been sold from one of his trusts. But he was not told that all of his HCA shares had been disposed of until this summer -- after he had directed his trustees to sell them all, the documents show. Questions about his HCA holdings have been a staple of Frist's public life. The Nashville-based company, the country's largest chain of for-profit hospitals, was founded in 1968 by Frist's father, Thomas F. Frist, his brother, Thomas F. Frist Jr., and Jack C. Massey, the former owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Its stock made up the majority of Frist's wealth and was used to help him secure some of the financing for his first Senate campaign. During his first run for the Senate in 1994, Frist was accused of having a "mammoth conflict of interest" by his Democratic opponent, then-Sen. Jim Sasser. Frist promised to put his HCA stock in a blind trust to avoid the problem. This year, as he contemplated a bid for the White House in 2008 and worried about the appearance of conflicts, Frist abruptly changed tactics, aides said. Rather than defend his stock held in trust, he asked his trustees to sell all his HCA shares. Stevenson said Frist's concerns involved the perception of a conflict rather than any real conflict of interest. In 1997 and 1999, the ethics committee cleared Frist to participate in Senate debates involving Medicare and health maintenance organizations despite his "substantial" holdings in HCA. The committee did not take into account whether Frist's holdings were in blind trusts in reaching its decisions. Frist said last week he was not required to set up a blind trust after he went to the Senate, but he wanted to "apply the highest ethical standards I possibly could. I thought, why not raise the bar, why not do a good deed . . . and avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest." Senate rules prohibit any lawmaker with a blind trust from contacting his trustees unless the ownership of an asset poses a potential conflict of interest "due to the subsequent assumption of duties" by the lawmaker. The lawmaker can then ask the trustees to dispose of the asset. Frist did not take on any new duties this year. But a Frist adviser said the senator had been thinking about selling his HCA stake from the time he was elected majority leader in 2002. Frist had not known that he could sell his shares until this spring, the adviser asserted, and so went ahead with the sale based on his nearly three-year-old wish. Staff writer Charles Babington and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report. 8:29:30 AM     comment []

The New and Improved Web: Now With More Tangles! Just when you thought it couldn't get more delicious. . .   Report: Libby first learned about Plame from Cheney "They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them." At various times over the course of the Valerie Plame investigation, it has been reported that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told prosecutors that they learned of Plame's identity from journalists. In July, a source told Bloomberg News that Libby had told Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned about Plame from Tim Russert. At about the same time, a source told the Washington Post that Rove had told investigators that he thought he first learned about Plame from a reporter whose identity he couldn't recall. And just last week, sources told the Post and the AP that Libby and Rove discussed Plame's identity among themselves before Bob Novak revealed it in his column -- but that the two men discussed only information reporters had given them. The truth? Lawyers involved in the case tell the New York Times that Libby first learned of Plame's identity from Vice President Dick Cheney. According to the Times, Fitzgerald has obtained notes written by Libby that show that he and Cheney had a conversation in which Cheney told him that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and may have helped arrange his trip to Niger. The conversation happened weeks before Novak's column appeared, the Times says. The significance? First, as the Times explains, the notes "place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war." Cheney's conversation with Libby may not have violated any laws -- as the Times notes, both men presumably have security clearances that authorize their access to such information -- but evidence of the conversation underscores the breadth of White House concerns about Wilson and sheds light on what increasingly appears to be the broad scope of Fitzgerald's investigation. According to Libby's notes, Cheney learned about Plame from former CIA Director George Tenet. Second -- and assuming that Cheney himself isn't in legal jeopardy, more important -- the existence of the notes would seem to make it much more likely that Fitzgerald will bring a perjury, obstruction of justice or false statement charge against Libby. If Fitzgerald is building such a case against the vice president's chief of staff, he couldn't ask for better evidence than notes, taken by Libby himself, that contradict the testimony Libby gave to the grand jury. Next question: Where did Karl Rove really learn about Valerie Plame? -- Tim Grieve, Salon.com 8:19:26 AM     comment []

	Monday, October 24, 2005

Reporting for duty Iraq war vet Paul Hackett is aiming for a Senate seat -- and a progressive revival of the Democratic Party. By Bill Frogameni Oct. 25, 2005 | Marine Reservist Maj. Paul Hackett might be the one to put some real fight back into the Democratic Party. In a head-turning first run for office, Hackett, the first Iraq war veteran to enter the national political arena, narrowly lost a ongressional bid against Republican Jean Schmidt in a special election held last summer in Ohio's most conservative district. Despite a serious financial handicap, little political experience and a blunt political demeanor -- he called George W. Bush "chicken hawk" and "son of a bitch" with regard to the war -- Hackett's strong showing fired up Democrats nationwide. Now the 43-year-old personal injury lawyer and war vet is gunning for Capitol Hill again, channeling his bravado into a 2006 run, launched officially on Monday, against Ohio's two-term Republican Sen. Mike DeWine. Some of Hackett's political rise can be attributed to ongoing ethical scandals that have rocked the Ohio GOP -- including Gov. Bob Taft's recent guilty plea for accepting illegal gifts. Hackett's volunteering to fight in Iraq, landing him in perilous locations like Fallujah and Ramadi, no doubt also earned him respect -- as have his candid criticisms of a war increasingly unpopular with Americans. But perhaps most important is how Hackett conveys the kind of straight-shooting image that Democrats have been struggling so mightily to regain. He doesn't hesitate to endorse same-sex marriage, decry right-wing religious zealotry or, as an NRA member, disagree with other liberals about gun control. In a wide-ranging interview, Hackett spoke with Salon about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, rethinking the failed war on drugs, reviving the progressive side of the party, and more. In your congressional race, your opponent praised your service but said she thought you should "support our president" with regard to the war. What do you say to people who fault you for criticizing a war you volunteered to fight? This is the United States and freedom of speech and freedom of political dissent are what make this country great. I served and I'm entitled to speak my mind. I back the president to the extent that I was willing to fight in his war -- and I did it voluntarily and happily, and I'd do it again. You supported invading Afghanistan, but you've said you think we went to Iraq based on lies. You do agree with the president, however, in that you don't think we can "cut and run." What would you do differently in Iraq? First of all, if this president wanted to succeed in Iraq, the first thing he would have done is listen to the generals in the very beginning when they said it would take more than 150,000 troops. General Shinseki said that and was summarily fired. That was before the invasion of Iraq. But what would you do now? If I were the president, I'd tell the military to figure out how we systematically and in organized fashion get our troops out of there, because the war's over. It's not going to get any better. When you ran for Congress, you favored better training for Iraqi forces. Now you're saying we should get out? There are two options: Increase troop strength or train the Iraqi military with a match of one American soldier for every Iraqi soldier. That's not going to happen. Everybody knows that, so if we're not going to train the Iraqi military, let's quit spending our money and spending our lives. Here's the problem: We've been there two-plus years and there's nothing objective this country can point at and say, "This is what we've improved since we've been over there." The infrastructure is worse -- the electrical grid, the water grid, the sewage grid, the road system. All that infrastructure is worse today than when we got there two-plus years ago. The Bush administration says there's progress. Bullshit. I've been there. There's no success unless you call painting schools success. We've painted a lot of schools. Let's talk about the so-called moral values issues that you say spurred you to run for Congress last summer. You were upset about what you called Republican grandstanding on Terri Schiavo, abortion and gay marriage. Why are these the No. 1 issues in the United States when we've got an economy which is in even more dire danger of reaching rock bottom than it was when I embarked on the congressional race? Frankly, these social issues are simple and straightforward. I'll be happy to take each one individually. Gay marriage and gay rights: I'm fond of saying, "Who cares?" The debate is about whether or not American men and women can walk into a courthouse and get equal treatment under the law regardless of their sexual preference. Anything less than that is un-American. And abortion? It's bad -- nobody thinks it's good. The question is: "What do we do to eliminate it?" Period. The only thing that's going to eliminate it is education, not religious fanaticism. Until education eliminates it, it must remain safe, legal and rare [as possible]. And the right-wing uproar over Terri Schiavo? Outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. And most Americans agree with that. The only Americans that don't are religious fanatics. They've got more in common with Osama bin Laden than I've got with them. You sound like someone who could be held up as a liberal champion. Still, your position on guns is probably upsetting to doctrinaire liberals. How do you reconcile your position on gay marriage and gun control? I don't need Washington, D.C., or the government in my private life. Period. I don't need them to dictate to my wife the decisions she can make with a doctor. I don't need a Washington politician to tell my neighbors what they can do in the privacy of their bedroom. And I don't need Washington politicians to tell me what guns to keep in my gun safe. John Edwards' "two Americas" theory was central to the Kerry-Edwards campaign last year. After the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, do you subscribe to this theory? I look at it like there's one America. We're all in the same boat. We all have responsibilities. Those of us who've enjoyed success in life have a responsibility to give back to this country. And we have a responsibility, frankly, in a Christian sense -- or, for that matter, in a Muslim sense or a Jewish sense -- to take care of those who are less fortunate and make sure they get by. If that's what Edwards means by "two Americas," yeah, I subscribe to that. I perceive the religious fanatics in the Republican Party as socially irresponsible in many ways and that's one of the ways they're socially irresponsible -- that they are unwilling to help those who are less fortunate. What do you propose to help solve our looming energy crisis? First of all, leadership starts at the top. I couldn't help but smile when I saw President Bush, with this great anguish and difficulty, asking Americans [in the wake of Katrina] to consider conserving their energy consumption. Conservation is a part of the solution. Also, we need to spend the money to fund the research to come up with an alternative source of energy to fuel our cars and electrify our houses, and our industry. That can be done. I'm not a scientist, but I have confidence in the United States. We had the Manhattan Project and we put a man on the moon; I'm absolutely confident we can come up with a way to reduce and eventually eliminate our dependency on petrochemicals. But until that happens, we should be asking Americans to buy fuel-efficient vehicles. And we should be asking the American automobile industry to produce fuel-efficient vehicles. What about the environment? First of all, I wouldn't drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. That oil isn't even going to be online for another 10 or 11 years. And I would enforce all of the EPA laws this administration is working overtime to dismantle. There's a lot of money to be made in setting [good environmental] standards, in developing fuel-efficient vehicles and vehicles powered by alternative fuel. What do you think of the drug war as it's been "fought" for the last 30 years? What would you do differently to deal with the drug problem? Obviously the drug war is not working. With many Republican and Democratic administrations their solution is to build more prisons and put more people in jail. I'm not comfortable saying legalize it, but I think there needs to be an honest discussion about providing money to educate people and to treat people who have an addiction. Many Americans ask why we have to get touchy-feely about this. Well, I'll tell you why: because we're spending billions and billions of dollars to warehouse people in jail, and that ain't workin'. You've described yourself as a fiscal conservative. How would you bring that to today's Washington? We've got to cut the pork. There's some congressman up in Alaska who wants to build a $50 million bridge to nowhere. That's just one example of thousands. We subsidize large corporations, give them tax breaks, and they ship our jobs overseas. Decrying bad spending is a favorite pastime in politics. Can you elaborate about what else you consider to be misspent funds? Well, let's look at all the countries we spend billions to support who don't deserve our support. They don't deserve it because they're a threat to the United States -- their governments are dictatorships and they're not productive members of the world community. Take a look at Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and lots of others. What do Democrats need to do to win and get the country back on track? Stand up and fight for what they believe in and not be afraid of it. I think [there's been] a failure of ideas, a failure of leadership and a failure of having a message to convey. I'm harshly critical of the Democratic leadership to the extent that they stood by and had no critical comment or discussion leading up to their OK'ing the war in Iraq. Does the Democratic Party stand for progressivism anymore? There are pockets within the party that do. The constituents and the grass roots and the people out here in Ohio stand for that. I think they've been let down by their leadership. Do you count yourself among the party's progressives? Sure, if "progressive" means standing up for the things that made this country great. If it means fighting for working Americans, fighting for an economy that allows working Americans to survive and provide for their families, and if it means demanding a rational discussion about how our military is used or misused ... If that's what progressive stands for, yeah, you bet I'm progressive. -- By Bill Frogameni, Salon.com  11:05:53 PM     comment []

Quote(s) of the Day   "Something needs to be said that is a clear message that our rule of law is intact and the standards for perjury and obstruction of justice are not gray. And I think it is most important that we make that statement and that it be on the record for history. I very much worry that with the evidence that we have seen that grand juries across America are going to start asking questions about what is obstruction of justice, what is perjury. And I don’t want there to be any lessening of the standard. Because our system of criminal justice depends on people telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is the lynch pin of our criminal justice system and I don’t want it to be faded in any way." --Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) on the impeachment of Bill Clinton, 2/2/99   "I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars." --Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), on the Fitzgerald investigation, Meet the Press, 10/23/05    Hutchison: Hypocriticus emeritus 1:40:01 PM     comment []

"Patrick Fitzgerald is really investigating a policy dispute." --The Wall Street Journal Yeah, and Watergate was "just a third-rate burglary". . .   Walker's World: Bush at Bay By MARTIN WALKER UPI Editor WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources. This suggests the inquiry by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame has now widened to embrace part of the broader question about the way the Iraq war was justified by the Bush administration. Fitzgerald's inquiry is expected to conclude this week and despite feverish speculation in Washington, there have been no leaks about his decision whether to issue indictments and against whom and on what charges. Two facts are, however, now known and between them they do not bode well for the deputy chief of staff at the White House, Karl Rove, President George W Bush's senior political aide, not for Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The first is that Fitzgerald last year sought and obtained from the Justice Department permission to widen his investigation from the leak itself to the possibility of cover-ups, perjury and obstruction of justice by witnesses. This has renewed the old saying from the days of the Watergate scandal, that the cover-up can be more legally and politically dangerous than the crime. The second is that NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government. Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House. This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated. This was the same charge that imperiled the government of Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, after a BBC Radio program claimed Blair's aides has "sexed up" the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. There can be few more serious charges against a government than going to war on false pretences, or having deliberately inflated or suppressed the evidence that justified the war. And since no WMD were found in Iraq after the 2003 war, despite the evidence from the U.N. inspections of the 1990s that demonstrated that Saddam Hussein had initiated both a nuclear and a biological weapons program, the strongest plank in the Bush administration's case for war has crumbled beneath its feet. The reply of both the Bush and Blair administrations was that they made their assertions about Iraq's WMD in good faith, and that other intelligence agencies like the French and German were equally mistaken in their belief that Iraq retained chemical weapons, along with the ambition and some of technological basis to restart the nuclear and biological programs. It is this central issue of good faith that the CIA leak affair brings into question. The initial claims Iraq was seeking raw uranium in the west African state of Niger aroused the interest of vice-president Cheney, who asked for more investigation. At a meeting of CIA and other officials, a CIA officer working under cover in the office that dealt with nuclear proliferation, Valerie Plame, suggested her husband, James Wilson, a former ambassador to several African states, enjoyed good contacts in Niger and could make a preliminary inquiry. He did so, and returned concluding that the claims were untrue. In July 2003, he wrote an article for The New York Times making his mission -- and his disbelief -- public. But by then Elisabetta Burba, a journalist for the Italian magazine Panorama (owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi) had been contacted by a "security consultant" named Rocco Martoni, offering to sell documents that "proved" Iraq was obtaining uranium in Niger for $10,000. Rather than pay the money, Burba's editor passed photocopies of the documents to the U.S. Embassy, which forwarded them to Washington, where the forgery was later detected. Signatures were false, and the government ministers and officials who had signed them were no longer in office on the dates on which the documents were supposedly written. Nonetheless, the forged documents appeared, on the face of it, to shore up the case for war, and to discredit Wilson. The origin of the forgeries is therefore of real importance, and any link between the forgeries and Bush administration aides would be highly damaging and almost certainly criminal. The letterheads and official seals that appeared to authenticate the documents apparently came from a burglary at the Niger Embassy in Rome in 2001. At this point, the facts start dribbling away into conspiracy theories that involve membership of shadowy Masonic lodges, Iranian go-betweens, right-wing cabals inside Italian Intelligence and so on. It is not yet known how far Fitzgerald, in his two years of inquiries, has fished in these murky waters. There is one line of inquiry with an American connection that Fitzgerald would have found it difficult to ignore. This is the claim that a mid-ranking Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, held talks with some Italian intelligence and defense officials in Rome in late 2001. Franklin has since been arrested on charges of passing classified information to staff of the pro-Israel lobby group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Franklin has reportedly reached a plea bargain with his prosecutor, Paul McNulty, and it would be odd if McNulty and Fitzgerald had not conferred to see if their inquiries connected. Where all this leads will not be clear until Fitzgerald breaks his silence, widely expected to occur this week when the term of his grand jury expires. If Fitzgerald issues indictments, then the hounds that are currently baying across the blogosphere will leap into the mainstream media and whole affair, Iranian go-betweens and Rome burglaries included, will come into the mainstream of the mass media and network news where Mr. and Mrs. America can see it. If Fitzgerald issues no indictments, the matter will not simply die away, in part because the press is now hotly engaged, after the new embarrassment of the Times over the imprisonment of the paper's Judith Miller. There is also an uncomfortable sense that the press had given the Bush administration too easy a ride after 9/11. And the Bush team is now on the ropes and its internal discipline breaking down, making it an easier target. Then there is a separate Senate Select Intelligence Committee inquiry under way, and while the Republican chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas seems to be dragging his feet, the ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, is now under growing Democratic Party pressure to pursue this question of falsifying the case for war. And last week, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, introduced a resolution to require the president and secretary of state to furnish to Congress documents relating to the so-called White House Iraq Group. Chief of staff Andrew Card formed the WHIG task force in August 2002 -- seven months before the invasion of Iraq, and Kucinich claims they were charged "with the mission of marketing a war in Iraq." The group included: Rove, Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and Stephen Hadley (now Bush's national security adviser) and produced white papers that put into dramatic form the intelligence on Iraq's supposed nuclear threat. WHIG launched its media blitz in September 2002, six months before the war. Rice memorably spoke of the prospect of "a mushroom cloud," and Card revealingly explained why he chose September, saying "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." The marketing is over but the war goes on. The press is baying and the law closes in. The team of Bush loyalists in the White House is demoralized and braced for disaster.   © Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc.   Cast of Characters Grows in CIA Leak Drama By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press WriterMon Oct 24,12:29 AM ET It began with a clumsy forgery, led the president to backtrack on his own State of the Union address, already has sent one person to jail and has ruined another's career as a covert operative. The cast of characters in this latest tale of Washington intrigue — the CIA leak investigation — keeps growing as a federal prosecutor tries to sort out who told what to whom and whether any of it was a crime. Those caught up in the maelstrom include a power couple with a big secret, a duo of no-longer-anonymous Bush administration officials and a constellation of media heavyweights with secrets, too. It runs the spectrum from the biggest of big fish, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, to the merest of minnows, White House functionaries. MEET THE WILSONS Up until three years ago, Joe and Valerie Wilson looked like just another upscale couple on the Washington scene, juggling serious jobs while keeping up with 2-year-old twins. He was a former ambassador turned international business consultant. She was an analyst for a Boston-based energy company — a working soccer mom, in the view of one of her neighbors. As it turns out, Valerie really was a clandestine CIA agent and an expert on weapons of mass destruction, exactly the threat that Bush held out as the primary justification for going to war in Iraq. And, as it turns out, Joe's experience as an African envoy also made him a player. CIA officials asked him to travel to Africa in February 2002 to check out a report that Niger sold uranium to Iraq in the late 1990s for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson quickly concluded the report was bogus. (Documents related to the purported sale later were exposed as a forgery.) The unsubstantiated uranium deal surfaced again in Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address. Six months later, Wilson went public in a big way with his accusations that the administration had twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. Writing in The New York Times under the headline, "What I didn't Find in Africa," Wilson set off a firestorm that inevitably led to attacks on his credibility. Six days after Wilson's article appeared, conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote that "two senior administration officials" had told him that Wilson's wife, identified by her maiden name as Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative who had suggested sending Wilson on the trip. The CIA denied Plame had suggested her husband for the job. But in that instant, her career as a covert officer was over. Then came the question that won't go away: Who outed Valerie Plame? THE PROSECUTOR It is Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's job to answer the question. When Fitzgerald was tapped in December 2003 to lead the leak investigation, he was introduced at the Justice Department as "Eliot Ness with a Harvard law degree and a sense of humor." All humor aside, Fitzgerald, 45, is known as an aggressive prosecutor used to making people nervous. He also is known to be scrupulously fair. He has been relentless in questioning everyone from Bush down to assistant press secretaries. As is often the case in the scandal-prone capital, his examination has expanded to look at whether any witnesses gave false testimony, mishandled classified information or obstructed justice. The son of an Irish immigrant father who worked as a doorman in Brooklyn, N.Y., Fitzgerald joined the U.S. attorney's office in New York. He prosecuted terrorists in the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa before taking his current job in 2001 — U.S. attorney in Chicago. Even as he keeps official Washington on tenterhooks, Fitzgerald is probing allegations of payoffs and fraud at City Hall in Chicago, where some politicians would rather he'd just leave town for good. "I'm just going to do my job until the telephone rings and somebody tells me not to," he said in August. CALL ME ANONYMOUS Two of the most influential aides to Bush and Cheney now are known to have discussed Wilson's wife with reporters on condition of anonymity. But both aides say they were simply trading information that came from other reporters in gossipy Washington and reject any suggestion they were trying to punish Wilson for criticizing the president. Presidential adviser Karl Rove is the mastermind behind Bush's two successful presidential campaigns. A White House aide with a bulging portfolio, Rove has been called before Fitzgerald's grand jury four times. Prosecutors have advised him that they no longer can assure he will escape indictment. Rove talked to at least two reporters about Wilson's wife. Rove's history with the Bush family goes way back. In 1992, he was fired from the re-election campaign of the first President Bush on suspicion of leaking details of the campaign's Texas operation to none other than Novak. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff and foreign policy adviser, has been called before the grand jury at least once. Grand jury testimony shows he met three times with a New York Times reporter before the leak of Plame's identity, initiated a call to an NBC reporter and was a confirming source about Wilson's wife for Time magazine. In the latest twist, Rove has testified that it is possible that Libby was his source. Who else might be under the microscope? Rove sent an e-mail to top national security aide Stephen Hadley discussing one of his conversations related to Wilson. Wilson himself speculated last year that the leak might have come from Elliott Abrams, a figure in the Reagan administration Iran-Contra affair and now a member of Bush's National Security Council. He said another possibility was that a lower-level official in Cheney's office — John Hannah or David Wurmser — leaked Plame's identity at the behest of higher-ups "to keep their fingerprints off the crime." WHO KNEW? It was Novak who first reported Plame's CIA connection, but other reporters also were talking with administration officials about Wilson and his wife. The Times' Judith Miller went to jail for 85 days before sharing with the grand jury what she knew. After Libby personally assured her that he had waived her pledge of confidentiality, Miller told the grand jury about three conversations with him. She said Libby was the first to suggest a CIA tie for Wilson's wife but did not reveal her name. She never wrote about the CIA connection because her focus was elsewhere. Time reporter Matt Cooper went before the grand jury once and told of conversations with Rove and Libby. He said Rove indicated Wilson's wife worked at the CIA but didn't reveal her name or that her work was covert. Libby confirmed Plame's CIA connection, again without giving her name or specifying her covert status. "Is any of this a crime?" Cooper wrote in a first-person account this summer. "Beats me." Who else knew? Last year, NBC's Tim Russert answered some of the prosecutor's questions about conversations he had with Libby. Libby told the grand jury he had heard about Wilson's wife from Russert, but Russert told authorities he did not know her identity until it was published and therefore couldn't have been Libby's source. Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus answered investigators' questions about a conversation with an unidentified administration official. Under the arrangements for his testimony, Pincus did not identify the official to investigators, who already knew the official's identity. Novak, for the record, says the leak about Plame first came to him as a "an offhand revelation" from an official who is "no partisan gunslinger." Novak apparently has cooperated with prosecutors, though neither he nor his lawyer has said so. Are there other reporters who heard secrets they shouldn't have been told? In September 2003, The Washington Post reported that White House officials had called at least six reporters and disclosed Plame's identity — so far, five names have surfaced. BIG FISH: Part of the fascination with the leak investigation revolves around what, if anything, Bush and Cheney knew about the leaks and when. Fitzgerald is said to be investigating for possible Cheney involvement, in particular. Both the president and vice president have been questioned by investigators, although not under oath. One important question is what Bush and Cheney might do if top aides like Rove or Libby are found to have been the leakers. Bush initially pledged to fire any leakers but later gave himself more wiggle room by promising to fire anyone who is found to have committed a crime. In a way, the whole Wilson saga can be traced back to Cheney and Bush. It was Cheney's interest in the alleged Iraq-Niger deal that led the CIA to dispatch Wilson to Africa. And it Bush's use of the debunked claim in his State of the Union address that led Wilson to publish his doubts. LITTLE FISH Inevitably, some little fish get snagged in nets intended for bigger catch. Count Adam Levine among them. The former White House press aide was called before the grand jury last year, mainly to answer questions about press office procedures. Investigators may have decided to question him simply because higher-ups in the press office were away during the week just prior to publication of Novak's column. Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press 1:28:48 PM     comment []

	Saturday, October 22, 2005

Does Philip Giraldi Hate America? I heard about this piece on Al Franken's show. As you read it, just keep remembering that it's from THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE!!!!!   October 24, 2005 Issue Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative Money for Nothing Billions of dollars have disappeared, gone to bribe Iraqis and line contractors’ pockets. by Philip Giraldi The United States invaded Iraq with a high-minded mission: destroy dangerous weapons, bring democracy, and trigger a wave of reform across the Middle East. None of these have happened. When the final page is written on America’s catastrophic imperial venture, one word will dominate the explanation of U.S. failure—corruption. Large-scale and pervasive corruption meant that available resources could not be used to stabilize and secure Iraq in the early days of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), when it was still possible to do so. Continuing corruption meant that the reconstruction of infrastructure never got underway, giving the Iraqi people little incentive to co-operate with the occupation. Ongoing corruption in arms procurement and defense spending means that Baghdad will never control a viable army while the Shi’ite and Kurdish militias will grow stronger and produce a divided Iraq in which constitutional guarantees will be irrelevant. The American-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority could well prove to be the most corrupt administration in history, almost certainly surpassing the widespread fraud of the much-maligned UN Oil for Food Program. At least $20 billion that belonged to the Iraqi people has been wasted, together with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Exactly how many billions of additional dollars were squandered, stolen, given away, or simply lost will never be known because the deliberate decision by the CPA not to meter oil exports means that no one will ever know how much revenue was generated during 2003 and 2004. Some of the corruption grew out of the misguided neoconservative agenda for Iraq, which meant that a serious reconstruction effort came second to doling out the spoils to the war’s most fervent supporters. The CPA brought in scores of bright, young true believers who were nearly universally unqualified. Many were recruited through the Heritage Foundation website, where they had posted their résumés. They were paid six-figure salaries out of Iraqi funds, and most served in 90-day rotations before returning home with their war stories. One such volunteer was Simone Ledeen, daughter of leading neoconservative Michael Ledeen. Unable to communicate in Arabic and with no relevant experience or appropriate educational training, she nevertheless became a senior advisor for northern Iraq at the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad. Another was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s older brother Michael who, though utterly unqualified, was named director of private-sector development for all of Iraq. The 15-month proconsulship of the CPA disbursed nearly $20 billion, two-thirds of it in cash, most of which came from the Development Fund for Iraq that had replaced the UN Oil for Food Program and from frozen and seized Iraqi assets. Most of the money was flown into Iraq on C-130s in huge plastic shrink-wrapped pallets holding 40 “cashpaks,” each cashpak having $1.6 million in $100 bills. Twelve billion dollars moved that way between May 2003 and June 2004, drawn from accounts administered by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The $100 bills weighed an estimated 363 tons. Once in Iraq, there was virtually no accountability over how the money was spent. There was also considerable money “off the books,” including as much as $4 billion from illegal oil exports. The CPA and the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Board, which it controlled, made a deliberate decision not to record or “meter” oil exports, an invitation to wholesale fraud and black marketeering. Thus the country was awash in unaccountable money. British sources report that the CPA contracts that were not handed out to cronies were sold to the highest bidder, with bribes as high as $300,000 being demanded for particularly lucrative reconstruction contracts. The contracts were especially attractive because no work or results were necessarily expected in return. It became popular to cancel contracts without penalty, claiming that security costs were making it too difficult to do the work. A $500 million power-plant contract was reportedly awarded to a bidder based on a proposal one page long. After a joint commission rejected the proposal, its members were replaced by the minister, and approval was duly obtained. But no plant has been built. Where contracts are actually performed, their nominal cost is inflated sufficiently to provide handsome bribes for everyone involved in the process. Bribes paid to government ministers reportedly exceed $10 million. Money also disappeared in truckloads and by helicopter. The CPA reportedly distributed funds to contractors in bags off the back of a truck. In one notorious incident in April 2004, $1.5 billion in cash that had just been delivered by three Blackhawk helicopters was handed over to a courier in Erbil, in the Kurdish region, never to be seen again. Afterwards, no one was able to recall the courier’s name or provide a good description of him. Paul Bremer, meanwhile, had a slush fund in cash of more than $600 million in his office for which there was no paperwork. One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag. Three-quarters of a million dollars was stolen from an office safe, and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it “before the Iraqis take over.” Nearly $5 billion was shipped from New York in the last month of the CPA. Sources suggest that a deliberate attempt was being made to run down the balance and spend the money while the CPA still had authority and before an Iraqi government could be formed. The only certified public-accounting firm used by the CPA to monitor its spending was a company called North Star Consultants, located in San Diego, which was so small that it operated out of a private home. It was subsequently determined that North Star did not, in fact, perform any review of the CPA’s internal spending controls. Today, no one can account for billions of those dollars or even suggest how the money was spent. And as the CPA no longer exists, there is also little interest in re-examining its transparency or accountability. Bremer escaped Baghdad by helicopter two days before his proconsulship expired to avoid a possible ambush on the road leading to the airport, which he had been unable to secure. He has recently been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor he shares with ex-CIA Director George “Slam-dunk” Tenet. Considerable fraud has been alleged regarding American companies, much of which can never be addressed because the Bush administration does not regard contracts with the CPA as pertaining to the U.S. government, even though U.S. taxpayer dollars were involved in some transactions. Many of the contracts for work in Iraq were awarded on a cost-plus basis, in which an agreed-upon percentage of profit would be added to the actual costs of performing the contract. Such contracts are an invitation to fraud, and unscrupulous companies will make every effort to increase their costs so that the profits will also increase proportionally. Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company, has a no-bid monopoly contract with the Army Corps of Engineers that is now estimated to be worth $10 billion. In June 2005, Pentagon contracting officer Bunny Greenhouse told a congressional committee that the agreement was the “most blatant and improper contracting abuse” that she had ever witnessed, a frank assessment that subsequently earned her a demotion. Halliburton has frequently been questioned over its poor record keeping, and critics claim that it has a history of overcharging for its services. In May 1967, a company called RMK/BRJ could not account for $120 million in materiel sent to Vietnam and was investigated several times for overcharging on fuel. RMK/BRJ is now known as KBR or Kellogg, Brown and Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been the focus of congressional, Department of Defense, and General Accountability Office investigations. Defense Contract Audit Agency auditors have questioned Halliburton’s charges on a $1.6 billion fuel contract, claiming that the overcharges on the contract exceed $200 million. In one instance, the company charged the Army more than $27 million to transport $82,000 worth of fuel from Kuwait to Iraq. Halliburton has also been accused of billing the Army for 42,000 daily meals for soldiers, though it was only actually serving 14,000. In another operation, KBR purchased fleets of Mercedes trucks at $85,000 each to re-supply U.S. troops. The trucks carried no spare parts or even extra tires for the grueling high-speed run across the Kuwaiti and Iraqi deserts. When the trucks broke down on the highway, they were abandoned and destroyed rather than repaired. Responding to complaints, Halliburton refused to permit independent auditing and inspected itself using so-called “Tiger Teams.” One such team stayed at the five-star Kuwait Kempinski Hotel while it was doing its audit, running up a bill of more than $1 million that was passed on to U.S. taxpayers. Another U.S. firm well connected to the Bush White House, Custer Battles, has provided security services to the coalition, receiving $11 million in Iraqi funds including $4 million in cash in a sole-source contract to supply security at Baghdad International Airport. The company had never provided airport security before receiving the contract. It also received a $21 million no-bid contract to provide security for the exchange of Iraqi currency. It has been alleged that much of the currency “replaced” by Custer Battles has never been accounted for. The company also allegedly took over abandoned Iraqi-owned forklifts at the airport, repainted them, and then leased them back to the airport authority through a company set up in the Cayman Islands. Custer Battles reportedly set up a number of shell companies in offshore tax havens in Lebanon, Cyprus, and the Cayman Islands to handle the cash flow. Two former company managers turned whistleblowers have charged that the company defrauded the U.S. government of at least $50 million. The Bush administration’s Justice Department has only reluctantly, and under pressure from a Newsweek exposé, supported the rights of the plaintiffs in the case. The White House has indicated that it is not interested in assisting other investigations of fraud in Iraqi contracting, preferring to regard the CPA as a “multinational entity” and thereby limiting its vulnerability in American courts. Another American contractor, CACI International, which was involved in the Abu Ghraib interrogations, was accused by the GAO in April 2004 of having failed to keep records on hours of work that it was billing for and of routinely upgrading employee job descriptions so that more could be charged per employee per hour. Both are apparently common practices among contractors in Iraq, and audits routinely determine that there is little in the way of paperwork to support billings. The GAO report also confirms that many private security contractors in Iraq have been charging the U.S. government exorbitant fees for their services, frequently because the contracts allow security costs to be rolled into the overall cost of the contract without being itemized. In one case, contract security guards were effectively being billed at $33,000 per guard per month while the average rate for a security specialist worked out to between $13,000 and $20,000 per month. The CPA also spread its largesse around the U.S. armed forces, distributing over $600 million in cash to four regional commanders to fund reconstruction projects as part of the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program. An audit of one region disclosed that 80 percent of the funds could not be accounted for, and more that $7 million in cash was missing. It is widely believed that many of the contracting agents working under the regional commands literally stole the money. In one reported instance, an American contracting officer doubled the price of a multimillion-dollar contract and brazenly explained that the extra money would be for his retirement fund. Unfortunately, the corruption of the occupation outlived the departure of Paul Bremer and the demise of the CPA. A recent high-level investigation of the Iraqi interim government concluded that the corruption is now so pervasive as to be irreversible. One prominent businessman estimates that 95 percent of all business activity involves some form of bribery or kickback. The bureaucrats and fixers who live off of bribery are referred to by ordinary Iraqis as “Ali Babas,” named after the character in The Thousand and One Nights who was able to access riches from a treasure cave by saying “open sesame.” For the average Iraqi businessman, there was formerly only one hand out, that of Saddam’s designated minion. Now every hand is out. The educated and entrepreneurial are leaving the country in droves, as is most of the beleaguered Christian minority. Huge government appropriations are approved by Iraqi lawmakers and then simply disappear. Meanwhile, life for the average Iraqi does not improve, and oil production, water supplies, and electricity generation are all at lower levels than they were when the U.S. took control in 2003. The only thing that everyone knows is that all the money is gone and daily life in Iraq is worse than it was under Saddam Hussein. The undocumented cash flow continued long after the CPA folded. Over $1.5 billion was disbursed to interim Iraqi ministries without any accounting, and more than $1 billion designated for provincial treasuries never made it out of Baghdad. More than $430 million in contracts issued by the Petroleum Ministry were unsupported by any documentation, and $8 billion were given to government ministries that had no financial controls in place. Nearly all of it disappeared, spent on “payroll,” wages for “ghost employees” in the Ministries of the Interior and Defense. In one case, an Army brigade receiving money to support 2,200 men was found to have fewer than 300 effectives. 602 actual guards at the Ministry of the Interior were billed as more than 8,200 for payroll purposes. Iraqi Airways carried 2,400 employees even though it had not operated for over a year and had no planes. The airline itself was sold to an unidentified buyer without any paperwork to show for how much it was sold and what assets were included. It has been alleged that the buyer might well have been Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi. Nearly all payrolls in the national guard and national police were also inflated, leading to uncertainty over how large the security forces actually were—still an open question. Absentees from the nominal rolls of police and soldiers provided by government ministries are believed to number in the tens of thousands, and as the United States Congress has figured out, frequently cited figures on available trained manpower are largely imaginary. Even the “coalition of the willing” partners have been quick to cash in. Polish helicopters purchased as part of a $300 million deal with arms maker Bumar Ltd. were found to be obsolete, largely unflyable, and were actually rejected by the Iraqis. Bullets purchased from Poland by the Defense Ministry cost three times the normal international price. Five Polish peacekeepers have been arrested for demanding $90,000 in bribes. Both British and American soldiers have also demanded bribes from shopkeepers and travelers. In yet another instance of take-it-while-you-can, a senior Interior Ministry official flew to Beirut in a helicopter accompanied by $10 million in newly printed Iraqi dinars. He has yet to return. Interim Iraqi President Iyad Allawi’s Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan transferred $500 million to a bank account in Lebanon, allegedly to buy weapons, in a case that continues to be murky. Shaalan is reportedly vacationing abroad and has not returned to Iraq. A Bremer favorite at the Defense Ministry, Ziad Tareq Cattan, was responsible for a number of shady arms-procurement deals. A warrant has been issued for his arrest, an unusual occurrence, and he is avoiding detention by staying with family in Erbil in Kurdistan. Countless billions will never be accounted for, and the full cost of corruption has yet to be tallied. Sources report that much of the money that was designated for the development of a national army and police force is actually going to units that are exclusively Kurd or Shi’ite in expectation of a day of reckoning over the country’s oil supplies. The Kurds have made no secret of their desire to continue their autonomy-bordering-on-independence and have stated that they regard Kirkuk as their own. The Shi’ites have possession of the oil-producing region to the south and are using their control of the Interior Ministry to fill police ranks with their own pro-Iranian Badr Brigade members as well as militiamen drawn from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. The Sunnis are the odd men out, virtually guaranteeing that, far from becoming the model democracy the U.S. set out to build, Iraq will descend deeper into chaos—aided in no small part by the culture of corruption we helped to fortify.   Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is a partner in Cannistraro Associates, an international security consultancy. October 24, 2005 Issue 11:09:31 AM     comment []

And The Hacks Just Keep on Coming. . . Here's another one. In Ellen Sourball's two runs for governor of Maryland she revealed herself as a dour, humorless, nasty arch-conservative, somewhere to the right of the Wicked Witch of the West, and with a public policy IQ in the single digits. But she's been a loyal party whore for years, and as such warrants, we suppose, a cushy job somewhere in the administration. This is the kind of person that a president would normally appoint to the ambassadorship of, say, Liechtenstein. But not this president. Oh no no no. . . Bush just doesn't learn from his mistakes. Probably because in whatever grey matter that wasn't burned away from overindulgence in the 70's and 80's, they aren't considered mistakes. The people around him who do his thinking most likely figured appointments like this one would be considered "minor" in comparison to the Supreme Court and FEMA, and would fly under the public radar. A few months ago they probably would have: for more than four years the administration's genius at politics has shielded the American public from its idiocy at policy. But times have changed, and it isn't that Bush and his White House are getting any dumber, it's that the public seems--finally--hip to just how goddamned dumb they've always been.        Posted on Sat, Oct. 22, 2005 Editorial | State Department Vacancy Another worrisome pick The bungled aftermath of Hurricane Katrina showed America the danger of appointing a crony with the wrong credentials to lead the nation's response to disasters. Michael Brown's Federal Emergency Management Agency blew it by not backing up state and local governments in getting aid more quickly to Katrina victims. He was shooed out of FEMA even before New Orleans was drained of flood water. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will probably vote Tuesday on whether to confirm the nomination of Ellen Sauerbrey to lead the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. They should reject her for this post - or risk a Brown-out on a global scale. President Bush's choice of Sauerbrey places a higher premium on political loyalty than on competence and experience. That's the wrong priority for the agency that oversees the U.S. response worldwide to man-made and humanitarian crises. Unlike Brown, Sauerbrey can claim considerable government service on her resumé; it's just irrelevant government service to lead this bureau. She was a long-serving GOP member of the Maryland legislature, twice was the Republican nominee for governor, and led President Bush's 2000 election campaign in that state. Her opposition to abortion has been threaded through the work she has done for Bush, including her current appointment as the U.S. representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She should not be turned down for this post because she is antiabortion. Population issues are a small part of the bureau's brief. But neither should she be put in charge because she shares the view of Bush and his core constituency on an issue they hold dear. The bureau's most important task is responding to refugee crises that occur around the world, such as getting life-saving aid to victims of the recent earthquake in Pakistan and last December's tsunami. It also helps coordinate aid for refugee flows that result from fighting, such as during the Kosovo crisis. The person most qualified to oversee these operations is someone who has an expertise in disaster management. Brown's FEMA experience showed it isn't enough that the chief is surrounded by staffers who have done relief work for decades. It's the person at the top who must know the pieces that need to click in immediately after a disaster. It's the person at the top who makes the first decisions in the heat and confusion of a calamity that can lead either to helping or failing people in great need, innocent victims whom Americans are glad to help with their tax dollars. Previous chiefs of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration have had that technical expertise. Sauerbrey's lack of it should lead senators to reject her nomination and ask the President to put competence above all else. © 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. 11:01:44 AM     comment []

Smug Shot Will Ronnie Earl slap the smile off this prick's face? Stay tuned. 9:50:18 AM     comment []

	Friday, October 21, 2005

Endgame?   White House Defense Shaky in CIA Leak Case By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 25 minutes ago Even if White House aides leaked a covert CIA officer's identity, they were simply passing along information they'd already heard from the news media, the administration's supporters maintain in a defense that looks increasing shaky as new evidence accumulates. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald now knows that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, met three times with a New York Times reporter before the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, that Libby initiated a call to NBC newsman Tim Russert and that Libby was a confirming source about the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson for a Time magazine reporter. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove has testified that it's possible Libby was his source before Rove talked to two reporters about the CIA operative. Where Libby first heard the information still isn't publicly known, but a full three weeks before Plame's name first showed up in print, Libby was telling New York Times reporter Judith Miller that he thought Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, according to Miller's testimony. While Libby maintains that he didn't know Plame's name until it was published in the news media, the now-public evidence suggests Libby at least was aware that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and that he spread the information. Prosecutors must determine whether it was part of an effort to undermine the credibility of Plame's husband. Leaking the identity of a covert agent can be a crime, but it must be done knowingly. Plame's name was first made public by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July 2003, eight days after Wilson published an op-ed piece in The New York Times saying the Bush administration had manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs to justify going to war. Novak's column said Plame worked for the CIA and that she had suggested her agency send Wilson, a former ambassador, on a mission to Africa that raised questions about the prewar intelligence. Until this week, "the news media did it" was a standard defense among Republicans trying to protect the Bush administration from the political fallout of Fitzgerald's criminal investigation. Loyalists said that even if White House aides had passed on information, they didn't get it from classified sources and were simply repeating what they heard from journalists. In grand jury testimony shown to Rove, Libby said he had told Rove about information he had gotten about Wilson's wife from Russert, according to a person directly familiar with the information. Prosecutors, however, have a different account from Russert. The TV network has said Russert told authorities he did not know Wilson's wife's identity until it was published and therefore could not have told Libby about it. Russert also says that it was Libby who initiated the contact with him. In Miller's case, she was interviewing Libby on June 23, 2003, for a story on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the vice president's chief of staff suggested a CIA tie for Wilson's wife, Miller has said. "This was the first time I had been told that Mr. Wilson's wife might work for the CIA," Miller wrote in a first-person account over the weekend. Miller said this week that she never wrote a story about Wilson's wife because "it wasn't that important to me. I was focused on the main question: Was our WMD intelligence slanted?" Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.   Possible cover-up a focus in CIA leak case-lawyers By Adam Entous 53 minutes ago Prosecutors investigating the outing of a covert CIA operative opened a Web site on Friday to post possible indictments next week and were said by lawyers in the case to be focusing on whether top White House aides tried to conceal their actions from investigators. Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser, and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, are at the center of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Plame's identity was leaked to the media after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, challenged the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq. The lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Fitzgerald appeared likely to bring charges next week in the nearly two-year leak investigation. The CIA leak grand jury, which expires on October 28, convened on Friday with two of the lead prosecutors present, but it was unclear what issues they were working on. Fitzgerald is expected to meet with the grand jury for a possible vote on indictments as early as Tuesday or Wednesday. Lawyers involved in the case said prosecutors have likely already started laying out their final case to jurors, either for bringing indictments or to explain why there was insufficient evidence to do so. After the grand jury broke up, the two prosecutors, lugging giant legal briefcases, left the courthouse without comment. In what some lawyers interpreted as a sign Fitzgerald would bring indictments, the Justice Department created a special Web site for the leak investigation at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html. "It raises the prospects" of indictments, one lawyer in the case said, arguing it was doubtful Fitzgerald would launch the site if he had no intention of taking action. Others in the case suggested it could be part of an effort by Fitzgerald to increase pressure on potential targets to cut a deal. "We're all grasping at straws," one lawyer conceded. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, dismissed all the speculation. "I caution you not to read into it," he said. While Fitzgerald could still charge administration officials with knowingly revealing Plame's identity, several lawyers in the case said he was more likely to seek charges for easier-to-prove crimes such as making false statements, obstruction of justice and disclosing classified information. He also may bring a broad conspiracy charge, the lawyers said. Legal sources said Rove may be in legal jeopardy for initially not telling the grand jury he talked to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Plame. Rove only recalled the conversation after the discovery of an e-mail message he sent to Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, had no immediate comment. Luskin said earlier this week that Rove "has at all times strived to be as truthful as possible and voluntarily brought the Cooper conversation to Fitzgerald's attention." Libby could be open to false statement and obstruction charges because of contradictions between his testimony and that of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other journalists. Miller has testified she discussed Wilson's wife with Libby as many as three times before columnist Robert Novak publicly identified her. Libby has said he learned of Wilson's wife from reporters, but journalists have disputed that. Wilson says White House officials outed his wife, damaging her ability to work undercover, to discredit him for accusing the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war in a New York Times opinion piece on July 6, 2003. Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited 5:50:19 PM     comment []

News from the 'wood. . .It's good!!!   Nicholl finalists named   Recent features penned by fellows include 'Ring Two,' 'Brothers Grimm'   By LAURA GREFE, Variety.com   The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has announced 10 finalists for the 2005 Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. As many as five finalists may go on to win individual $30,000 fellowships, which recipients are expected to use to produce a feature-length screenplay during the fellowship year. Finalists were chosen from 5,879 submissions. The Nicholl Committee will be chaired by 1992 Nicholl Fellow Susannah Grant and includes writers John Gay, Fay Kanin and Hal Kanter; cinematographers John Baily and Steven Poster; editor Mia Goldman; thesp Eva Marie Saint; exec Bill Mechanic; producers Gale Anne Hurd, David Nicksay and Buffy Shutt; and agent Ron Mardigian. Recent features penned by Nicholl fellows include 1996 fellow Ehren Kruger's "The Ring Two," "The Skeleton Key" and "The Brothers Grimm" and Grant's "In Her Shoes" and "Erin Brockovich." This year's finalists are "Masterpiece," Shannon Elizabeth Slater, Somerset, U.K.; "Chalk," Weiko Lin, Los Angeles; "The Days Between," Morgan Read-Davidson, Downey, Calif.; "Dogwoods," Robert Zameroski, Stevenson Ranch, Calif.; "Fire in a Coal Mine," Seth Resnik, West Hollywood, and Ron Moskovitz, Los Angeles; "Pirates of Lesser Providence," Colleen Cooper De Maio, Los Angeles; "Ring of Fire," Gian Marco Masoni, Santa Monica; "Sane," Robin Brown, Santa Monica; "No Country," Michael D. Zungolo, Philadelphia; and "The Last Wish Girl" Lauren Sheppard, Austin, Texas. Like this article? Variety.com has over 150,000 articles, 40,000 reviews and 10,000 pages of charts. Subscribe today! http://www.variety.com/emailfriend 8:22:37 AM     comment []

	Thursday, October 20, 2005

I'm Shocked! Shocked!!!   Progressive Broadcaster Squelched PFAW Says Pentagon Pulling Ed Schultz from American Forces Radio Looks like Retribution Washington – People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas said his organization will ask activists to pepper the Pentagon with calls to put Ed Schultz’s talk radio program on the American Forces Radio Network (AFRN), after plans to air the program were scrapped by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber, the “coach” of the now-infamous staged, scripted satellite feed featuring President Bush and troops in Iraq. Schultz, who does a nationally syndicated talk radio show from his home in Fargo, North Dakota, received word last week that his show would debut today on the taxpayer-funded radio network for U.S. troops around the world. Last Friday, Schultz played excerpts of Barber coaching the troops in the satellite feed. At 6 a.m. today, Schultz’s producer, James Holm, received a phone call from Allison Barber. Barber informed Holm that AFRN would not air Schultz’s show today, and that she could not guarantee the show would ever be added to the network. “It certainly looks like retribution. Why else would a top Pentagon official personally reverse a decision made far below her rank?” asked Ralph G. Neas, President of People For the American Way. “It looks again like this administration is using brute force to quash voices of dissent and limit criticism of its actions. That’s just wrong.” Neas pointed out that Schultz, who calls himself a “red-meat eating, gun-toting progressive,” would provide a much-needed voice of balance on the AFRN network, where the schedule is packed with such well-known ultraconservatives as Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Neas said he would write to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urging that Schultz’s show be added immediately to worldwide distribution on AFRN, as was originally planned, and informing him that PFAW members and activists would be urged to call the Pentagon to ask that the decision to not air Schultz’s show be reversed. “The men and women of the Armed Forces deserve to hear different points of view. The Armed Forces Radio Network was never intended to be a propaganda machine for the government, but a voice of freedom for servicemen and women all across the world,” said Neas. 5:18:02 PM     comment []

Halloween is Coming! Dress as Your Favorite Republican!   Barbara Bush   Dick Cheney   Donald Rumsfeld   Harriet Miers   Karl Rove (and/or Scooter Libby)   John Roberts   Michael Brown   Ann Coulter   George W. Bush     4:49:28 PM     comment []

Stuffing His Face While New Orleans Drowns. . . "You're doin' a heckuva job, Brownie!" --GWB   Michael Brown   FEMA Official Says Boss Ignored Warnings By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 56 minutes ago Federal Emergency Management Agency officials did not respond to repeated warnings about deteriorating conditions in New Orleans and the dire need for help as Hurricane Katrina struck, the first FEMA official to arrive conceded Thursday. Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA regional director, told a Senate panel investigating the government's response to the disaster that he gave regular updates to people in contact with then-FEMA Director Michael Brown as early as Aug. 28, one day before Katrina made landfall. In most cases, he was met with silence. In an Aug. 29 phone call to Brown informing him that the first levee had broke, Bahamonde said he received a polite thank you from Brown, who said he would check with the White House. "I think there was a systematic failure at all levels of government to understand the magnitude of the situation," Bahamonde said. The testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee contradicted Brown, who has said he wasn't fully aware of the dire conditions until days later and that local officials were most responsible for the sluggish response. Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, who chairs the panel, decried the testimony and e-mail released by Bahamonde on Thursday as illustrating "a complete disconnect between senior officials and the reality of the situation." "His urgent reports did not appear to prompt an urgent response," Collins said. In e-mails to various FEMA officials, including one to Brown, Bahamonde described a chaotic situation at the Superdome, where many of the evacuees were sheltered. Bahamonde e-mailed FEMA officials and noted also that local officials were asking for toilet paper, a sign that supplies were lacking at the shelter. "Issues developing at the Superdome. The medical staff at the dome says they will run out of oxygen in about two hours and are looking for alternative oxygen," Bahamonde wrote in an e-mail to regional director David Passey in a call at 4:46 p.m. CDT on Aug. 28. Less than an hour later, Bahamonde wrote: "Everyone is soaked. This is going to get ugly real fast." Bahamonde said he was stunned that FEMA officials responded by continuing to send truckloads of evacuees to the Superdome for two more days even though they knew supplies were in short supply. "I thought it amazing," he said. "I believed at the time and still do today, that I was confirming the worst-case scenario that everyone had always talked about regarding New Orleans." Later, on Aug. 31, Bahamonde frantically e-mailed Brown to tell him that thousands are evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that "estimates are many will die within hours." "Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical," Bahamonde wrote. Less than three hours later, however, Brown's press secretary wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. "He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes," wrote Brown aide Sharon Worthy. "We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you." Meanwhile, at a separate hearing, lawmakers considering Louisiana's request for $32 billion for Gulf Coast rebuilding were told that Mississippi would need tens of billions of dollars of its own to restore its coastline. Gulf Coast lawmakers and state officials have been pushing for vast infusions of federal aid since Katrina hit Aug. 29, killing more than 1,200 people and forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate. "It will be in the billions, with a 'b,' level, it may be in the tens of billions; it won't be in the hundreds of billions," William W. Walker, head of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, told a House transportation panel. But Rep. John J. Duncan (news, bio, voting record) Jr., chairman of that panel, earlier had said flatly that Congress cannot afford Louisiana's request. "This is just not going to happen," he said. Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press   . . .Which Pretty Much Negates Everything He Said Here:   Ex-FEMA Director Brown Blames Others By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer September 27, 2005--Former FEMA director Michael Brown blamed others for most government failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday, especially Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. He aggressively defended his own role. Brown also said that in the days before the storm, he expressed his concerns that "this is going to be a bad one" in phone conversations and e-mails with President Bush, White House chief of staff Andy Card and deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin. And he blamed the Department of Homeland Security — the parent agency for the Federal Emergency Management Agency — for not acquiring better equipment ahead of the storm. His efforts to shift blame drew sharp criticism from Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike. "I'm happy you left," said Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), R-Conn. "That kind of look in the lights like a deer tells me you weren't capable of doing that job." Rep. Gene Taylor (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., told Brown: "The disconnect was, people thought there was some federal expertise out there. There wasn't. Not from you." Brown appeared before a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe. "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," two days before the storm hit, Brown said. Brown, who for many became a symbol of government failures in the natural disaster that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, rejected criticism that he was inexperienced. "I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it," he said. Brown resigned earlier this month after being removed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from on-site responsibility. Brown will remain on the FEMA payroll for two more weeks, advising the agency, said Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. Brown joined FEMA in 2001 and ran it for more than two years. He was previously an attorney who held several local government and private posts, including leading the International Arabian Horse Association. Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La. told Brown: "I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans." In a testy exchange, Shays compared Brown's performance unfavorably with that of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. "So I guess you want me to be the superhero, to step in there and take everyone out of New Orleans," Brown said. "What I wanted you to do is do your job and coordinate," Shays retorted. "I'm happy to be called not a Rudy Giuliani...a scapegoat ... if it means that FEMA ...is going to be able to be reborn," Brown said. Criticized by Shays for failing to get better equipment to make communication easier among emergency agencies, Brown blamed those above him. "We put that money in our budget request and it was removed by the Department of Homeland Security" he said. Brown said he was "just tired and misspoke" when a television interviewer appeared to be the first to tell him there were desperate residents at the New Orleans Convention Center. Brown said he learned a day earlier that people were flocking there. He blamed "a hysteric media" for what he said were unfounded reports of rapes and murders. He characterized blunt-spoken Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the military coordinator for the disaster, as "a bull in the China closet, God love him." And he said Americans themselves must play a more active role in preparing for natural disasters — and not expect more from the government than it can deliver. Republican Rep. Kay Granger (news, bio, voting record) of Texas told Brown: "I don't know how you can sleep at night. You lost the battle." Brown in his opening statement cited "specific mistakes" in dealing with the storm, and listed just two. One, he said, was not having more media briefings. As to the other, he said: "I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together. I just couldn't pull that off." Both Blanco and Nagin are Democrats. In Baton Rouge, La., Blanco's press secretary, Denise Bottcher, responded: "Mike Brown wasn't engaged then, and he surely isn't now. He should have been watching CNN instead of the Disney Channel," Bottcher said. Despite the appearance by several Democratic Gulf Coast lawmakers, The hearing was generally boycotted by Democrats, who want an independent investigation conducted into government failures, not one run by congressional Republicans. Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., cautioned against too narrowly assigning blame. "At the end of the day, I suspect that we'll find that government at all levels failed," Davis said. He pushed Brown on what he and his agency should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order and improve communication. "Those are not FEMA roles," Brown said. "FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications." Brown said the lack of an effective evacuation of New Orleans before the storm was "the tipping point for all the other things that went wrong." A "mandatory" evacuation was ordered Sunday by Nagin, the mayor. However, buses were not provided and thousands of residents were stranded without transportation in low-lying areas. Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press 3:59:43 PM     comment []

Word of the Day: skank (skngk) 1. (n.) Originally associated with a bad smell and/or scummy or dirty surface, it has come to refer to someone who is either or both physically repugnant for their filth and morally or socially repugnant for their behavior and demeanor.  2. (n.) filth: any substance considered disgustingly foul or unpleasant   Skank 1:44:05 PM     comment []

From the archives. . . Good Morning, America!   Yes, this is a doctored photo, but I found the symbolism irresistable. En   Entertainment   1:35:53 PM     comment []

From the archives. . .   The South: Time To Let Go   When Howard Dean was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he pledged to make the party competitive in every part of the country, including the South. While I have long been an admirer of Dr. Dean and his vision for America (and remain convinced that he would have made a better presidential candidate than John Kerry), I cannot help but feel that for the Democratic Party to put much, if any, emphasis on winning in the South would be a waste of its already limited (compared to the Republicans') resources. For nearly a century, the South was monolithically Democratic. In 1877 Congressional Republicans ended Reconstruction as payment for Southern electors' help in stealing the 1876 presidential election for Rutherford B. Hayes. But Reconstruction, even after yielding to Jim Crow, stuck in the craw of white Southerners for decades afterward (in Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Fourth of July wasn't celebrated again until World War II), and as a result a Republican had about as much chance of being elected to a significant political office below the Mason-Dixon line as a Black Muslim.   That all changed with the stirring of the Civil Rights movement. When Harry Truman integrated the troops and paid nominal attention to the plight of Southern blacks, there arose within his party the "Dixiecrat" rebellion, which was quelled somewhat during the Eisenhower years (it is interesting to note that the deep South still clung to its Democratic prejudices in the elections of 1952 and 1956, casting its vote for liberal intellectual Adlai Stevenson over Dwight Eisenhower). But the Kennedy/Johnson administration's alliance with the mainstream Movement as personified by Dr. King, which culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, spelled the beginning of the end of Democratic dominance in the South. Heavyweight Democratic politicians began defecting to the Republicans, whose standard bearers (Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon) were the very antithesis of Civil Rights, followed by the white rank and file. This has resulted, over the past forty years, of a region that has gone from a Democratic to a Republican monolith. While it is true that there are pockets that remain open to regional Democratic candidacy, the South as a whole needs, I believe, to be written off by the national party. The Western states (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Montana in particular), as stated elsewhere on this blog, are much more fertile Democratic ground. Their brand of conservatism, which is rooted in free-thinking, individualistic, small-"l" libertarianism rather than the Christian fundamentalism of the South, and in many ways eschews the old, outmoded left-right paradigm, is far more open to the rational thought of Progressive Populism that Western Democrats are bringing to them.  In addition, the party needs to commit more resources to Midwestern "battleground" states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, whose Democratic margins have become razor thin of late.  It's true that there is a Progressive tradition in the South that has produced the likes of Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and John Edwards, but it has of late become a politically uncompetitive minority. Remember that, with the exception of Florida, Gore didn't carry a single Southern state, including his own, in 2000, and Edwards was zero help in attracting Southern votes for the '04 ticket.  And while historically the South has produced a proud literary tradition (Willie Morris, Shelby Foote, Harper Lee, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, et. al.), some of the greatest American music (jazz, blues, bluegrass, zydeco, R&B, country & western, rock and roll) and some damn fine food, it is dominated today by NASCAR, football, fake country music (Clint Black, Toby Keith, et. al.), a wildly distorted interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the Republican Party. Progressives should regard the modern South as a Third World country within our borders, a colorful if politically and culturally bass-ackward place to visit on occasion for a good time and a break from the winter cold, but not to take seriously.  In the first years of the Bush administration, particularly after 9/11, Southern conservatives gloated about their control of the agenda, and after the disaster that was the 2004 election became even more emboldened, even more determined to make their grotesque subculture of "Jesusland" the blood-red law of the land. Katrina blew a big hole in their arrogance, and exposed their form of "conservatism" as the bloodthirsty, theocratic, neofascist radicalism it truly is. Let them have Bill Frist, Saxby Chambliss and David Vitter. We'll take Brian Schweitzer, Mark Udall, Janet Napolitano, Bill Richardson and Ken Salazar. The sooner we stop pandering to the South, the sooner they'll become politically isolated and marginalized, the sooner their power will wane, and the sooner there won't be a damned thing they can do to us.   --MDZ   1:30:04 PM     comment []

The Media: Complacency or Complicity?   Scott McClellan's selective -- and successful -- silence We took Scott McClellan to task yesterday for selectively breaking his silence on the Valerie Plame investigation in order to throw cold water on a story suggesting that George W. Bush has known all along that Karl Rove leaked Plame's identity. It turns out that McClellan's work was even a bit slimier than we had noticed -- and that it seems to have worked. During Wednesday morning's untelevised press gaggle, McClellan said he challenged the accuracy of a report in the New York Daily News that said that Bush had rebuked Rove for his role in Plamegate back in the fall of 2003. But when asked to explain the basis for his challenge, McClellan immediately said -- as he always does these days -- that he couldn't discuss an ongoing investigation. When a reporter said that the White House couldn't just challenge the accuracy of a story without saying why, McClellan responded: "Yes, I can. I just did." People laughed. But at the daily press briefing a short time later -- with the TV cameras on -- the White House press corps allowed McClellan to pretend that he'd never broken his silence on the story at all. Here's the transcript: Question: Scott, did the president talk to Karl Rove two years ago about the leak? McClellan: Steve, I appreciate the question. That's a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and I'm just not going to have further comment while that investigation is underway. Question: Because the New York Daily News says the president rebuked Rove two years ago ... McClellan: There are a lot of news reports out there and I've seen a lot of conflicting news reports, and we're just not going to comment any further on an ongoing investigation. Question: It behooves you to ... McClellan: Well, there's a special prosecutor doing his work, Helen, and we want him to come to a successful conclusion. And that's what we're doing, is cooperating -- Question: This is a question that directly affects the president, and -- McClellan: Cooperating with the ongoing investigation. Question:: You should say it's true, or not true. McClellan: As you have known for sometime now, we've been saying that while this is an ongoing investigation what we're going to do from the White House is cooperate fully with that investigation and let the special prosecutor do his work. We're not going to speculate or prejudge the outcome. Question: We're not asking you to speculate. We're asking you, is this report true or not? McClellan: And I've already answered that. Of course, the people watching the press briefing on TV or reading about it on the White House Web site wouldn't know that McClellan had "already answered" the question with anything other than his usual "no comment." Maybe we're missing something, but is there some kind of rule that prevents reporters from raising at the press briefing something that came up earlier at the gaggle? What might have happened if someone at the press briefing had said, "Wait a minute, Scott. You said this morning that you challenged the accuracy of the Daily News report. Why won't you do that again now? Is it because the TV cameras are on? Or is it because you've learned something since this morning that has made you decide not to challenge the accuracy of the story now?" But no one said that. And more important, no one in the mainstream media -- at least no one we've seen yet -- has picked up on the Daily News report. Maybe the other reporters have done their own follow-up on the Daily News report and concluded that the paper had it wrong. But if that's the case, why not say so? When the Daily News ran its story, it explained why it thought that earlier reports exonerating Bush were wrong. If others in the mainstream press think the Daily News story is wrong, why not write something explaining the basis for that view? The more worrying thought is this: Did reporters in the White House press room simply accept McClellan's word about the accuracy of the Daily News report? If that's the case, then it's clear that the White House is still succeeding at manipulating the press, even in the midst of a scandal over the ways in which it has manipulated the press. -- Tim Grieve, salon.com 12:08:49 PM     comment []

And people think we're joking when we say Dick Cheney is really running the country. . .   Colonel Finally Saw Whites of Their Eyes By Dana Milbank Thursday, October 20, 2005; A04 As Colin Powell's right-hand man at the State Department, Larry Wilkerson seethed quietly during President Bush's first term. Yesterday, Colonel Wilkerson made up for lost time. He said the vice president and the secretary of defense created a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign policy. He said of former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith: "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Addressing scholars, journalists and others at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson accused Bush of "cowboyism" and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak." Of American diplomacy, he fretted, "I'm not sure the State Department even exists anymore." And how about Karen Hughes's efforts to boost the country's image abroad? "It's hard to sell [manure]," Wilkerson said, quoting an Egyptian friend. The man who was chief of staff at the State Department until early this year continued: "If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences." With Bush's approval ratings dropping below 40 percent, the administration's vaunted loyalty and party discipline are suffering. David Frum, a former White House speechwriter, is campaigning against confirmation of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Bruce Bartlett, who worked for the president's father, was fired by his think tank this week because he is publishing a book titled "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." And, on Capitol Hill yesterday, Republicans joined in criticizing the administration about Iraq. When Rice said at a hearing that "we have made significant progress" in Iraq, Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) replied: "Well, we all wish that were true, but we can't kid ourselves, either." Wilkerson adds a new dimension to the criticism. A 31-year military veteran and former director of the Marine Corps War College, he worked for Powell in the public and private sectors for much of the past 16 years, and he was often described by colleagues as the man who would say what Powell was thinking but was too discreet to say. Wilkerson's beef with the administration was, for the most part, not ideological. He argues that U.S. forces must remain in Iraq, and he describes George H.W. Bush as "one of the finest presidents we've ever had." Rather, the colonel objected to the administration's secrecy, which allowed Cheney, Rumsfeld and others to subvert the foreign policy apparatus that has been in place since 1947. "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld," he said. By cutting out the bureaucracy that had to carry out those decisions, "we have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, and generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina." If there is a nuclear terrorist attack or a major pandemic, Wilkerson continued, "you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that'll take you back to the Declaration of Independence." Wilkerson, part military man and part academic, said "hell" a lot but also used words such as "desultory" and "titular." Peering from large wire-rimmed glasses, armed with a flag lapel pin, he spoke with barely restrained anger. He had given critical quotes about the administration before, but yesterday's New America Foundation speech was his coming out as an administration critic. He had barbs for lawmakers ("truly abandoned their oversight responsibilities") and said past presidents had also circumvented the national security structure. But, he said, "the case that I saw for four-plus years was a case I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process." Wilkerson blamed Bush, "not versed in international relations and not too much interested," for letting the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal to take over. He blamed Rice for dropping her role as honest broker to "build her intimacy with the president." And he blamed whoever gave Feith "carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw itself." The cabal's end run around the bureaucracy, he argued, stalled nuclear diplomacy with North Korea and Iran. He said top officials "condoned" prisoner abuse and left the Army "truly in bad shape." "You and I and every other citizen like us is paying the consequences," he said, "whether it was a response to Katrina that was less than adequate certainly, or the situation in Iraq which still goes unexplained." The colonel said his old boss is not pleased with his decision to go public with his criticism. Powell, he said, "is the world's most loyal soldier." Wilkerson said he admired that, but he took a different view of loyalty: not to the administration, but to the country. © 2005 The Washington Post Company 12:04:43 PM     comment []

Check Out My Nephew's Blog! It's way cooler than mine. If you've always wanted to hear the voice of a pork chop, go to: Exile on Hicks Street     1:04:35 AM     comment []

	Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Christmas in October? So close. . .so very close. . .   AP: Rove, Libby Discussed Reporter Info - - - - - - - - - - - - By JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press Writer October 19,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Top White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby discussed their contacts with reporters about an undercover CIA officer in the days before her identity was published, the first known intersection between two central figures in the criminal leak investigation. Rove told grand jurors it was possible he first heard in the White House that Valerie Plame, wife of Bush administration Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA from Libby's recounting of a conversation with a journalist, according to people familiar with his testimony. They said Rove testified that his discussions with Libby before Plame's CIA cover was blown were limited to information reporters had passed to them. Some evidence prosecutors have gathered conflicts with Libby's account. Rove is deputy White House chief of staff and President Bush's closest political adviser. Libby is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald must determine whether the contacts between the two men concerning Plame's CIA work were part of an effort to undercut her husband's criticism of the Iraq war or simply the trading of information and rumors that typically occurs inside the White House. The prosecutor also is examining whether any witnesses gave false testimony or withheld information from the investigation. His spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment Wednesday. The Rove-Libby contacts were confirmed to The Associated Press by people directly familiar with testimony the two witnesses gave before the grand jury. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the proceedings. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, did not return repeated phone calls this week seeking comment. Rove and Libby have emerged as central figures in Fitzgerald's investigation because both had contacts with reporters who ultimately disclosed Plame's work for the CIA. Federal law prohibits government officials from knowingly disclosing the identity if intelligence operatives. Those familiar with the testimony and evidence said that: During one of his grand jury appearances, Rove was shown testimony from Libby suggesting the two had discussed with each other information they had gotten about Wilson's wife from reporters in early July 2003. Rove responded that Libby's testimony was consistent with his general recollection that he had first learned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA from reporters or government officials who had talked with reporters. Rove testified that he never intended any of his comments to reporters about Wilson's wife to serve as confirmation of Plame's identity. Rove "has always clearly left open that he first heard this information from Libby," said one person directly familiar with Rove's grand jury testimony. That person said Rove testified he believes he heard general information about Wilson's wife on two occasions before he talked with reporters in July 2003 and then learned her name from syndicated columnist Robert Novak. Rove testified he probably first heard of Wilson's wife in a casual social setting outside the White House in the spring of 2003 but could not remember who provided the information. On July 9, 2003, Novak told him he was writing a column that would report that Plame worked for the CIA, and Rove told the columnist he had heard similar information, according to his testimony. Novak published a column the next week that said Plame worked for the CIA and suggested her agency send Wilson, a former ambassador, on a mission that raised questions about prewar intelligence the Bush administration used to justify invading Iraq. Rove testified he told Libby about his contact with Novak about two days after it happened. In testimony shown to Rove, Libby stated that numerous journalists appeared to have learned about Plame's identity in the period before her name was published and that he and Rove talked to each other about their contacts with reporters. Libby's testimony stated that Rove had told him about his contact with Novak and that Libby had told Rove about information he had gotten about Wilson's wife from NBC's Tim Russert, according to a person familiar with the information shown to Rove. Prosecutors, however, have a different account from Russert. The network has said Russert told authorities did not know about Wilson's wife's identity until it was published and therefore could not have told Libby about it. Prosecutors also have evidence that Libby initiated the call with Russert and had initiated similar contact with another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, several weeks earlier. Miller was jailed for 85 days before agreeing to testify before the grand jury. Even if Rove, Libby or other White House aides did not knowingly reveal Plame's covert identity, the prosecutor could consider other charges such as the mishandling of classified information, false statements and obstruction of justice, lawyers have said. Rove was pressed by prosecutors on several matters, including why he failed to mention during the first of his four grand jury appearances that he also had discussed the Plame matter with a second reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. Rove testified during the first appearance about his contacts with Novak in the days before Novak wrote a column outing Plame's identity. When asked generally if he had conversations with other reporters in that session, he answered "no." Rove and his lawyer subsequently discovered an e-mail Rove had sent top national security aide Steve Hadley referring to a brief phone interview he had with Cooper. The e-mail jogged Rove's memory and during a subsequent grand jury appearance, he volunteered his recollections about his conversation with Cooper, and his lawyer provided the e-mail to prosecutors. Cooper also wrote a story about Plame. Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes. © 2005 The Associated Press 11:17:28 PM     comment []

From the archives. . .   Fertile Ground? Democratic pundits have been saying for quite some time now that the West is ripe for the picking. In places where they have already triumphed, Western Democrats have eschewed the old right-center-left paradigm. Knowing full well that what works in Boston, New York or San Francisco doesn't necessarily fly in Cheyenne, Billings or Albuquerque, the Westerners have left knee-jerk Liberalism behind, adopting a strategy of Progressive Populism that has, in the past few years, propelled people like Brian Schweitzer, Bill Richardson, Janet Napolitano and Dave Freudenthal to governorships, and took over the legislatures of Colorado and Montana in our bitter-pill election year of 2004.   Below is an article by Congressman Mark Udall of Colorado, followed by the mission statement of a group called Democrats For The West, which provides a vision for a viable campaign to break the stranglehold of malevolence, corruption and ineptitude the Republican Party has on this nation.  Some of their ideas might not be pleasing to old-line Liberals, to which I say: tough. Adapt or die.   Why Democrats Are Winning in the West By Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) "The people have spoken - the bastards." So said legendary Democratic political operative and Nixon antagonist Dick Tuck after losing his bid for a California state Senate seat in 1964. Democrats may have been mouthing the same words the morning after Election Day as it became clear that Americans reelected President Bush and increased the Republican majorities in both the House and Senate. Pundits have wasted no time insisting that our nation is divided between so-called "red" and "blue" states - as if another civil war were in the works. But Democrats should look beyond red and blue and toward the so-called purple states, particularly in the Rocky Mountain West. For two elections, Western and Southwest voters have turned their states into shades of purple, and if you consider voter attitudes and the changing demographics of the region, it is likely that these states will be permanent battleground states in presidential elections. Any future Democratic electoral strategy must include the West. In 2002, voters elected Democratic governors in Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona. In 2004, Colorado voters elected a new Democratic U.S. senator and a new Democratic House member from a rural, Republican district and put Democrats in control of both chambers of the Colorado General Assembly for the first time in 44 years. In addition, Coloradoans showed their green side by approving ballot measures to build a multibillion-dollar mass-transit project and to require utility companies to derive more of their energy from renewable sources like the wind and the sun. Voters in Utah reelected Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson with 56 percent of the vote, and Montana Democrats swept the governor's office for the first time since 1988 and regained control of both houses of the Legislature for the first time since 1960. In the presidential race, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was competitive in Arizona and did better than expected in Colorado and Nevada while barely losing New Mexico. Why are Democrats winning in this part of the country? With more people moving West and an increasing Latino population, the Four Corners region has added 1 million new registered voters, and many of these voters do not align themselves with a political party. In Colorado, unaffiliated voters make up the second largest group of voters in the state. This surge in unaffiliated voters has created more competitive elections and more ticket-splitting, which dispels the popular belief that the West and Southwest are red states. They're not - they are independent states. Along with demographics, Western Democrats have succeeded on the message front by offering common-sense solutions to challenges Americans face in their daily lives. We understand that environmental protection and economic development go hand in hand. Our economy depends on healthy public lands and clean water and air in which to hunt, fish, mountain bike and ski. We support vibrant rural communities - which often are ignored by policymakers - responsible oil and gas development and reliable transportation systems that move people and goods. Corporations of the New West economy - high-tech, biotech and telecommunications - relocate to our states and create jobs because we offer these amenities and this quality of life. We also support strong families, and that's why we seek ways to create first-rate schools and colleges and universities, to make healthcare more accessible and affordable and to make our communities safer. And, like any responsible parent, we don't want to pass on huge debts to our children, so we believe in fiscal responsibility, sensible tax relief and balanced budgets. Finally, the Republican Party does not have a monopoly on moral values. Western Democrats respect and celebrate people of faith, but when it comes to civil liberties, Westerners want their privacy to be respected and value the right to be left alone. My Mormon ancestors came west to pursue religious freedom and in the process discovered how inspirational our landscapes could be. Our Western culture is rich because of our diversity, not in spite of it. Faith plays an important role in people's lives, and we should embrace that fact and not condescend to it or dismiss it. I'm not suggesting that Western Democrats have all the answers, but for two consecutive elections we have run winning campaigns with independent politicians who understand average Americans, who bridge the New West with the Old West, and who have common-sense solutions to the challenges we face in our nation. By looking west, Democrats can find answers on how to engage voters and win. The future of our party depends on it. Udall represents the 2nd Congressional District in Colorado and was just elected to a fourth term. Democrats Launch Group to Build Strength, Majorities in West Democrats for the West to Provide New Leadership For Nation’s Fast-Growing Region Western Democrats announced the creation of Democrats for the West, a coalition of Democratic leaders and activists from eight interior western states and Alaska. The new organization, composed of Democratic stalwarts such as Stewart Udall, Cecil Andrus and Mike Sullivan, rising stars, and party activists, brings together Democrats from across the region to build long-term governing majorities throughout the West – one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions. “The values of the West are the same values of the Democratic Party,” said former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb. “As Democrats, we will not abdicate the West by default to the Republican Party.” The group, created with help from state Democratic parties, will unite Democrats across state lines, add value to state party efforts, and share ideas and resources. The nine states represented in the new regional endeavor include Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. “Democrats have made significant gains recently in the West,” said Cecil Andrus, former governor of Idaho and Secretary of the Interior. “We believe our region deserves leadership that provides hope and opportunity for all westerners.” Drawing from a rich history of Democratic leadership, Democrats for the West is focusing on common western challenges and opportunities, including: Strengthening the economy of the West and its communities Managing urban growth and enhancing the livability of western cities and towns Addressing federal mandates, such as No Child Left Behind, that are hurting western communities Addressing Indian, Hispanic and other minority concerns Improving access to public lands for hunting and fishing Resolving natural resource conflicts, including water use and conservation and energy development “This is an important coming together of Democrats across the West,” said former Arizona Congressman and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, who helped to create the group. “The current administration has betrayed conservative traditional values like balancing the budget, taking care of our elderly, and protecting our land for future generations. They’re the first anti-conservation administration since before Teddy Roosevelt. They’re not conservatives by any stretch of the imagination and have ignored what has made our country great – traditional western values. We western Democrats understand we can’t afford to squander the precious opportunities and landscapes given to us. This is our common charge as westerners.” Democrats have seen resurgence in the West in recent years, winning governor’s seats in Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming in 2002 and gaining seats in the Idaho and Montana legislatures. Democrats now control both houses in the New Mexico Legislature and mayoral seats in Anchorage, Billings, Boise, Denver, Juneau, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Santa Fe, to name only a few. States across the West, including Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Montana, are expected to be critical in this year’s presidential election. In the near term, Democrats for the West will: Work with national Democratic leaders to focus public attention on the emerging importance and common issues of the West. The group will ask Democratic leaders on all levels to advocate policies and positions that benefit all western citizens, including initiatives to help increase economic opportunities and boost community prosperity across the region. Engage Democrats at the grass-roots level across the West to move the effort forward by training Democratic activists and candidates for all levels of government. Founders Committee members will reach out to state parties, elected officials and activists to invite new ideas and people to build and lead the rapidly growing West. Share success stories of westerners working together to build cities and communities, create good-paying jobs, conserve open space, balance budgets, and protect our rural way of life and magnificent landscape. Invite vigorous discussion about western solutions to western issues among western Democrats at their state platform conventions and other forums, including the Democrats for the West website as well as the op-ed pages of the region’s newspapers. Explore opportunities to establish a regional presidential primary to focus attention on western issues. The Founders Committee for Democrats for the West includes prominent Democratic leaders from across the West. They are: Toney Anaya, former Governor of New Mexico Cecil Andrus, former Idaho Governor and U.S. Interior Secretary Richard Bryan, former Nevada Governor and U.S. Senator Bethine Church, widow of former U.S. Senator Frank Church of Idaho Dennis DeConcini, former U.S. Senator from Arizona Larry EchoHawk, former Idaho Attorney General Cal Rampton, former Utah Governor Karen Shepherd, former U.S. Representative from Utah Mike Sullivan, former Wyoming Governor and U.S. Ambassador Stewart Udall, former U.S. Representative from Arizona and U.S. Interior Secretary Fran Ulmer, former Alaska Lieutenant Governor Wellington Webb, former Mayor of Denver Pat Williams, former U.S. Representative from Montana Regional meetings were held in Salt Lake City in May 2003 and Boise in December 2003 to formulate the development and founding of Democrats for the West. "The western states have been sorely forgotten by the Bush administration," said Dennis DeConcini, former U.S. Senator from Arizona. "Instead of protecting the western interest, they have let it be used for the special interests. There is a better way." "We're proud of our western heritage, and proud of our western Democratic leaders who paved the way for our region and country, leaders like Scott Matheson, Mike Mansfield, Frank Church and Mo and Stewart Udall," said former U.S. Representative Karen Shepherd of Utah. "These great leaders matched our inspiring landscapes with their vision, using their western ideals to put our region on the national map." "I look forward to working with my colleagues in the West to forge a strategy to ensure that the rapidly growing Hispanic population in the region knows that they will be equal partners within the Democratic Party, that their voices will be heard, that their numbers can help tip the balance of power in all of our states, and, that together, we can help improve the quality of life for all westerners," said Toney Anaya, former governor of New Mexico and a national Hispanic leader. "Everyone knows there's a commonality of issues in the West," said former Wyoming Governor Mike Sullivan. "That's why Democrats for the West is so important. Wyoming and the West will benefit by having stronger representation of our issues in the Democratic Party. Wyoming and the West will benefit by having a stronger two-party system." Former U.S. Representative Pat Williams of Montana emphasized that "Democrats for the West is not an alternative to state Democratic Party organizations. We are an enhancer. We plan to help elect more Democrats from the West and help focus national attention on our issues. For too long, we've allowed Republicans to define what our party stands for in the West. We're standing together as westerners to make it clear that Democrats are for the West, Democrats understand the West, and Democrats are good for the West."  11:11:17 PM     comment []

The Long Arm of the Law vs. The Short Neck of the Rattlesnake. . . Arrest warrant issued for DeLay A routine step before court appearance AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A Texas court issued a warrant Wednesday for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to appear for booking, where he is likely to face the fingerprinting and photo mug shot he had hoped to avoid. Bail was initially set at $10,000 as a routine step before his first court appearance on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Travis County court officials said DeLay was ordered to appear at the Fort Bend County jail for booking. The warrant was "a matter of routine and bond will be posted," DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin said. The lawyer declined to say when DeLay would surrender to authorities but said the lawmaker would make his first court appearance Friday morning. The charges against the Texas Republican stem from allegations that a DeLay-founded Texas political committee funneled corporate money into state GOP legislative races through the National Republican Party. Texas law prohibits use of corporate money to elect state candidates. DeLay is charged with conspiracy to violate state election laws and money laundering, felony counts that triggered House Republican rules that forced him to step aside as majority leader. Two separate indictments charge that DeLay and two political associates had the money distributed to state legislative candidates in a roundabout way -- sending it from the political action committee in Texas to the Republican National Committee in Washington and finally back to candidates' campaigns. DeLay has denied wrongdoing. The effort had major political consequences, first by helping Republicans take control of the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections. The Legislature then redrew congressional boundaries according to a DeLay-inspired plan, took command of the state's U.S. House delegation and helped the GOP retain its U.S. House majority. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. 5:05:39 PM     comment []

D'oh! Update. . . I've given up (for now anyway) trying to recover my previous blog postings en masse. I had them back for awhile this morning then lost them again. Being only computer semi-literate doesn't help. I think I might have found a way to cut and paste old individual postings that I get off the internet, so if you see familiar posts crop up in the future they're just favorites of mine that I couldn't let die. If all this sounds confusing to you, imagine how I feel.  1:30:00 PM     comment []

	Tuesday, October 18, 2005

D'oh! For those two or three of you who have been wondering where this blog has been for the last few days, I am pleased to report that my computer is up and running again after a near-disaster. My hard drive fried last Thursday, and I had several anxious hours between the time the emergency tech shook his head, muttered "oh shit" and informed me that he could not find any of my files, and the phone call informing me that "most" of the files were indeed recovered.  Of course, I had no backups. The fact that, according to the technician, I am in the vast majority was of little comfort. I lost all my e-mails and my address book, and several other middlingly important files, and it was a royal bitch getting this blog back on its feet. I'm only now getting fully back into the swing of things, though I still feel like a ballplayer hobbling around on one hamstring. The moral of the story? Don't procrastinate! Back up your files! This could happen to you!        8:02:26 AM     comment []

© Copyright 2006 Michael D. Zungolo. Last update: 5/17/2006; 1:42:47 PM.