At a moment like this, why not state the obvious. Bush Lied. Cheney Lied.

[understandinglife]

They all lied.

And, they committed treason.

And, who knows how many people have died because of it.

And, we never will.

So, what are YOU going to do about it?


Peace.

[texpatriot2004]

1. True. Here's something we can do.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5147243&mesg_id=5147243

[understandinglife]

57. CBS To Report Fitzgerald Will Make His Decision Known Tomorrow

CBS To Report Fitzgerald Will Make His Decision Known Tomorrow
From the CBS Evening News, to air at 6:30PM:

CBS’ JOHN ROBERTS: Lawyers familiar with the case think Wednesday is when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will make known his decision, and that there will be indictments. Supporters say Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, are in legal jeopardy.

Link:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/25/decision-tommorow


Peace.

[understandinglife]

2. Larry Johnson: "Who Told Dick Cheney"

Thanks to the NY Times one more piece of the tangled web woven by White House operatives has unraveled and we now know that Vice President Cheney told Scooter Libby that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. It also seems pretty clear that the notes show that Libby lied to the Grand Jury when he claimed he learned the name from reporters. Libby faces big trouble. Although the NY Times story reports that Libby's notes indicate that George Tenet told Cheney about Plame, there are some intriguing unanswered questions. For starters it is highly unlikely that George Tenet showed up at the White House and just happened to know the name of Valerie Plame. Someone at the White House asked for it first. Tenet clearly came prepared to respond to a White House request. I'm sure the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, knows who called CIA to ask the question.

More at the link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/10/who_told_dick_c.html

All the Beltway levees have been breached. Blood-infused lies are gushing and flooding the entire infrastructure of the Bush neoconster regime.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

22. "Reading over Larry Johnson's thoughts on the Times article about Libby ..

... and Cheney, I agree that it's quite unlikely that George Tenet would just have happened to mention Joe Wilson's wife's role at the CIA or her possible connection to the decision to send him on the trip to Niger.

Indeed, the Times article itself says "Mr. Libby’s notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson."

The Times article reports that the Libby notes, which record these details, are from June 12th, 2003. Thus, presumably, though we can't say definitively, the Cheney-Tenet conversation occurred only a short time earlier.

<clip>

Josh Marshall has more at the link:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006822.php

Yes.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

23. "Cheney, September 14th, 2003 ..."

VP Cheney ... "guess the intriguing thing, Tim, on the whole thing, this question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa. In the British report, this week, the Committee of the British Parliament, which just spent 90 days investigating all of this, revalidated their British claim that Saddam was, in fact, trying to acquire uranium in Africa. What was in the State of the Union speech and what was in the original British White papers. So there may be difference of opinion there. I don’t know what the truth is on the ground with respect to that, but I guess—like I say, I don’t know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn’t judge him. I have no idea who hired him and it never came...

MR. RUSSERT: The CIA did.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Who in the CIA, I don’t know.

This would have been three and a half months after Cheney reportedly received a detailed briefing on just what had happened from George Tenet.

Link to the September 14, 2003 interview:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244

Link to Josh Marshall's illumination:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006823.php

dickie boy, you are so fried ...


Peace.

[symbolman]

34. Listen folks

Cheney could conceivably walked RIGHT INTO CIA HEADQUARTERS and walked OUT with all he needed on both Plame and Wilson.. in my Film "Rove's War" (and please FUCK the NYTIMES and THEIR Timeline, support a DU member who researched this for a year ang go to Takebackthemedia.com for MY Timeline, 150 minutes of RED MEAT :) ) I have a clip of Ray McGovern sitting in the Downing Street Memo Hearing after a question by Maxine Waters,

"Is it unusual for a sitting Vice President to visit the CIA? No..

It's UNHEARD OF.."

Even Bush's FATHER didn't visit the CIA headquarters and it's NAMED after him..

McGovern went on to say that according to what he's been told CHeney had visited the CIA HQ between 8 and 12 times, but that's only what's been DOCUMENTED..

I Filmed that just for you, help ME keep doing it, support a DU member, screw the media, WE have the goods right here :)

[understandinglife]

36. You deserve very much credit and support for all you have diligently ...

... documented and continue to do.

Thank you.


Peace.

[symbolman]

41. Well SAME back ATCHA :)

I just want a front row seat when the STONING begins, and will someone tell Mr Bush that it doesn't involve Drugs, but the effect if pretty much the same, just like if you did all the drugs your did in your whole life only all at ONCE :)

Gotta have a Program if you want to enjoy the game, eh?

[EuroObserver]

54. So, for a (decent) donation you send me a copy of the DVD set? n/t

[EuroObserver]

55. Dodgy Dossier

"...the original British White papers..." known as the Dodgy Dossier locally.

Blair also lied, knowingly; and made others lie on his (and his masters') behalf.

[understandinglife]

45. ReddHedd: "That moment when that piece clicks into place in your brain ...

... had one of those this morning while unloading my dishwasher. Judy Miller went to jail because Fitz had a hunch -- or some third hand information -- that she knew something that was an interlocking piece to the entire conspiracy puzzle.

And Fitz wasn't going to rest until he got it.

<clip>

From Oh! So That's Why Judy Went to Jail! by ReddHedd on October 25, 2005

More at the link:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/oh-so-thats-why-judy-went-to-jail.html

Yep.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

48. Gary Hart: "Here is the Crime in Outing a CIA Agent"

<clip>

I served on the first Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee in the late 1970s and have continued to be a strong believer in and supporter of the CIA. I deplore those who want to diminish it, politicize it, or require it to produce bogus intelligence it would not otherwise produce simply to fit some preconceived political or ideological agenda. In almost every case where the CIA has malfunctioned, it did so under pressure from one political administration or another.

So, there's the crime. To casually and willfully endanger the life of an undercover CIA agent is a felony. You either believe in taking the laws of the United States seriously or you do not. Citizens - even highly placed ones - do not get to pick and choose which laws they will obey and which they will not. Miller and her publisher may think she's a hero, but I don't. It is well established that there is no First Amendment protection for a journalist or anyone else to withhold evidence of a crime.

There is one final irony to this story. On Christmas Eve in 1975, I got a call at my home from the director of the CIA, William Colby. He asked if I would intervene with the White House to obtain presidential approval to have Welch buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a hero fallen in service to his country. I quickly called President Ford's chief of staff on Colby's behalf and made the request. Within two hours, the president had agreed to sign the order permitting Welch to be buried at Arlington.

The chief of staff's name was Richard Cheney.

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/here-is-the-crime-in-outi_b_9489.html

Yes, the 'rule of law' applies to all.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

53. "any action which exposes any part of a covert network weakens our ...

... national defense. No matter what motive. No matter how accidental. No matter how much they may regret it now.

And those assets and agents working alongside or under the exposed agent face the same exposure if they can be traced back to each other in any way.

To have this done by someone accidentally (or even on purpose for motives that they think, however misguided, are pure ones), is bad enough. These CIA agents are human beings with families, and often with a very patriotic and difficult history of working for this country without falling into any of the darker conduct which is so rightly criticised.

When the person who outs you is a member of your own government, and it is done for political payback purposes -- then what does that do?

<clip>

More at the link:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/ripped-from-shadows.html

I'll never forget the first moments of reading Novak's article - like someone had hit me so hard I couldn't breath. As the anger grew I kept saying to myself - "well, just a matter of hours before Novak and others are being arrested."

Not.

I'm still amazed.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

49. Larry Johnson: "It is About Death Not Sex"

It is About Death Not Sex

byLarry C. Johnson

October 25, 2005

The patethic whiney column by Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times today makes one wonder if we must see the actual bodies before we understand the damage done to this country when White House officials exposed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Valerie, who was still working under non-official cover, was in the process of converting to official cover. All that means is that she would no longer have to travel overseas and face the threat of death if caught while carrying out espionage activities. No, in the future, she would have traveled with a black U.S. diplomatic passport and would have been entitled to Geneva Convention protections. However, she would have still been undercover and still protected by the law.

Notion advanced by Kristoff and some other journalists that Fitzgerald is a prosecutor, a la Ken Starr, run amuck. While Starr brought the Clinton White House to its knees because the President lied about sex with an intern, the current case is far more serious than blow job from a willing adult.

<clip>

What will become increasingly obvious in the coming days is that the White House was fully organized in its effort to attack Joe and Valerie Wilson. Too bad the Bush Administration has not shown the same enthusiasm for finding Osama Bin Laden or rescuing the three Americans that have been held terrorists in Colombia for the last three years. If the Bush White House spent the same amount of time looking for terrorists rather than conspiring to attack the reputation and livelihood of American citizens they would have made significant progress in the war on terrorism. Instead, terrorist attacks in which people were killed and wounded rose to unprecedented levels last year and more than 2000 Americans have died in Iraq. This scandal is not about semen stains on a blue dress. This scandal is about destroying and diverting national security resources for petty political gains and using the power of the White House to attack American citizens. If that is not justification for impeachment than nothing mets the test.

More at the link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/10/it_is_about_dea_1.html

Peace.

[understandinglife]

61. CIA Book of Honor

Yes, it is about death.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

58. Raw Story as of 1600 PDT - "REPORT: LIBBY INDICTED..."

Peace.

[mike_c]

3. 1,997 U.S. military personnel for a start....

They should stand trial for each one of those deaths, although I suppose war crimes charges for crimes against humanity should have priority....

[understandinglife]

4. I agree with you and so does the World Tribunal on Iraq and ...

... lots of other folk.

We tried to deliver this message with www.missionnotaccomplished.us earlier this year. So many others, most notably Cindy Sheehan and her brave colleagues, have done much more.

I think all the efforts to bring truth to full view and justice to those who have committed treason, mass murder, torture, war of aggression and other crimes against humanity, will prevail.

We must make it so.


Peace.

[fooj]

6. It WILL be so, UL! There is NO other option.

Keep the faith. Truth is our most powerful weapon.

Peace.

[understandinglife]

5. Steve Cobble: "Off With Their ... WHIG"

Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants to look under Bush's WHIG, and see what's festering there.

The WHIG is the White House Iraq Group, the secret group that was quietly formed in 2002 in order to sell the war to the American people--whether they wanted it or not, whether it was legal or not, whether the facts about WMDs were there or not.

Rep. Kucinich has introduced H. Res. 505 (http://www.pdamerica.org/field/text505.pdf), a Resolution of Inquiry demanding "all documents from 2003 pertaining to the taskforce organized by Andrew Card, consisting of Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Nicholas E. Calio, James R. Wilkinson, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis Libby, known as the White House Iraq Group."

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-cobble/off-with-theirwhig_b_9451.html

Nice. Click on the link: http://www.pdamerica.org/field/text505.pdf and read it and send it to everyone you know and ask them to call their Congressperson and urge them to support Rep Kucinich, for starters.



Peace.

[understandinglife]

28. Rep Kucinich: Expose the WHIG

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) has introduced a Resolution of Inquiry to demand the White House turn over all white papers, minutes, notes, emails or other communications kept by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).

"This group, comprised of the President and Vice President's top aides, was critical in selling the Administration's case for war," Kucinich said. "We now know that the Administration hyped intelligence and misled the American public and Congress in their effort to 'sell' the war."

This Resolution must be voted on in the House International Relations Committee by November 9th, 2005. The same committee, on September 14, came within one vote of passing a Resolution of Inquiry into the Downing Street Memo (H. Res. 375).

That near victory came after a great deal of citizen activism. This time we need to persuade all of the Democrats on the Committee to push a little bit harder and a few more Republicans to do the right thing. Co-Sponsorship of the Resolution by members not on the committee helps this effort.

Email Your Congress Member:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/72

More Information and How to Get Involved:
http://www.AfterDowningStreet.org/whig

Thank you Congressman Kucinich and AfterDowningStreet.org for taking action.


Peace.

[symbolman]

33. They MISSED ONE!

I've got a picture of a WHIG group meeting in my film, and the pic that most people see is CROPPED.. Standing off to the left and barely visible is GONZALES..

HE is part of the WHIG group, someone might want to pass the word.. I believe the uncropped photo of the WHIG group I have in my film "Rove's War" (a Chronology of Plamegate, the 2 DVD set at Takebackthemedia.com) shows the pic WITH Gonzales in it..

Pass the word.. better yet, I have to call Conyers Office in the next few days, I'll let them know, but if you have contacts there, LET THEM KNOW - I'll find the PIC..

[understandinglife]

37. "GONZALES....." Key person, I agree. And, we know, because of ...

... the nature of the August, 2005 memo from Comey to Margolis that Gonzales, like Ashcroft, had to recuse himself in the Fitzgerald issue.

Gonzales is identified by Think Progress in their gang of 23:

http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal#gonzales

And, what he did during August of 2003 to stall the response of the WH to the DoJ must be investigated if Fitzgerald hasn't already.


Peace.

[symbolman]

39. Between him, Card and Tenet

they gave the White House a BONUS round of shredding, 84 HOURS FOLKS, COUNT 'EM!

[mod mom]

40. Let's hope this is remembered by our hero Fitz!

[understandinglife]

42. It is one aspect of this ordeal I have a particularly special interest ...

... in learning more. Since the CIA was pressuring the DoJ to investigate well before Justice relented, one wonders just how much CIA had in terms of records that would reveal any destruction of files at the WH.

Just wondering ;)


Peace.

[understandinglife]

7. Yahoo is helping spread the word. Good for Yahoo. Give it a vote.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051025/pl_nm/bush_leak_cheney_dc

Anyone wondering why he bought that mansion on the Eastern shore. House arrest for the remainder of his sorry life, perhaps, perhaps.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

8. dupe

Peace.

[wiggs]

9. At a moment like this...

The potential for this kind of moment has been there for four years. Amazing that it takes an almost certain filing of indictments for discussion of corruption and wrongdoing to bubble up to the front page. The story, and many others, have been there all along. A few principled journalists and/or a handful of congressional patriots (from both sides) should have derailed this abomination long ago.

[understandinglife]

10. "The story, and many others, have been there all along." Could not be ...

... more correct. Thank you for your cogent and accurate assessment of the way it is and has been.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

11. COVER-UP: The Publisher and Executive Editor of The New York Times ...

... Sanctioned a Cover-up in a Criminal Investigation

It should now be painfully obvious that the top leadership of The New York Times sanctioned, and participated in, a scandalous--if not legally liable--cover-up in a federal criminal investigation into how the name of a CIA covert operative was divulged to the press as part of an act of revenge against a Bush Administration critic of the war in Iraq. The Valerie Plame case traces back directly to an effort by the White House to rebut criticism of its abuse of intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

There is corruption at the highest levels of The New York Times. Irreparable damage has been done to the reputation of the most eminent newspaper in the world. The resignations of both Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and Bill Keller, should be on the table--not to mention the reporter known as “Miss Run Amok.” Both men have been engaging in what might be termed “limited, modified hangouts” as they shift from one foot to the other in offering explanations of their own conduct in regard to the license granted Judith Miller, and the role of the Times in the handling of the Plame story.

<clip>

Conclusion

It is true, as Arianna Huffington has so cleverly phrased it, one “could get whiplash reading The New York Times these days.” Or as Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post put it on Monday: “For months, Judy Miller has been kicked around by critics outside the Times, while her detractors at the Gray Lady did their sniping on a not-for-attribution basis. Until now. Bill Keller’s criticism the other day, accusing Miller of misleading the paper about her role in the Plame case, has been followed by broadsides from the ombudsman and, in a much-buzzed-about column, Maureen Dowd.

The crisis at the New York Times IS about much more than Judy Miller. Perhaps the Miller/Times scandal will encourage the newspaper to think critically about itself in larger terms, that is, about maintaining less proximity to power in a national security state.

by William E Jackson Jr on October 24, 2005

Much, much more at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-e-jackson-jr/coverup-the-publisher-a_b_9455.html

That snow-ball that's gonna crush the neoconsters is getting bigger and accelerating by the second ...


Peace.

[lonestarnot]

12. Liars liars liars

<>

[understandinglife]

13. "Whom Should I Believe? Victoria Toensing or My Own Lying Eyes?"

"'There is not one fact that I have seen that there could be a violation of the agent identity act,' said Victoria Toensing, a lawyer who helped draft the 1982 act." The Washington Times, October 10, 2005

Did anyone else read the Foreign Intelligence and Identities Act? I did, and it appears to fit Scooter Libby like a glove. Here, step-by-step, is why I think Toensing may be, shall we say, embellishing.

There are several ways to violate the Act, but 50 U.S.C. 421 (a) seems to apply:

"Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."

Going through the elements, one by one:

Full analysis by Steve Fiderer at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/whom-should-i-believe-vi_b_9456.html

Peace.

[understandinglife]

14. Remember what former Federal Prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega said:

If not, here's a link you may find useful in the days/weeks ahead as you educate your fellow citizens on what it means to have a White House and Pentagon full of traitors:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5038953


Peace.

[understandinglife]

51. Laura Rozen: "Hadley's meeting with Pollari, at precisely the time"

Following the exposure of the discredited Niger allegations in the summer of 2003 by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, White House officials at first sought to blame the CIA for the inclusion of the controversial "16 words" in the president's speech. Although then–National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Hadley eventually accepted some responsibility for the mistake, the White House undertook a covert campaign to discredit Wilson and exposed the CIA affiliation of his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson.

Yet if anyone knew who was actually responsible for the White House's trumpeting of the Niger claims, it would seem from the Repubblica report that Hadley did. He also knew that the CIA, which had initially rejected the Italian claims, was not to blame. Hadley's meeting with Pollari, at precisely the time when the Niger forgeries came into the possession of the U.S. government, may explain the seemingly hysterical White House overreaction to Wilson's article almost a year later.

While the Niger yellowcake claims have provoked much drama in American politics, their provenance is decidedly Italian. The Repubblica investigation offers new insights into what motivated the Berlusconi government and its intelligence chief Pollari to go to so much trouble to bring those claims to the attention of their allies in Washington.

For Berlusconi and Pollari, according to La Repubblica, the overriding motive was a desire to win more appreciation and prestige from the Americans, who were seen as eager for help in making their sales pitch for war. On Monday, the newspaper described the atmosphere in 2002: "Berlusconi wants Sismi to be big players on the international security scene, to prove themselves to their ally, the United States, and the world. Washington is looking for proof of Saddam's involvement … and wants info immediately."

<clip>

From La Repubblica's Scoop, Confirmed: Italy's intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries first surfaced.

By Laura Rozen

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10506

Motive established.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

52. Kagro X: "But Wilkerson has changed my outlook a bit. Just a bit."

Maybe W. has heard this one before: It's not what you know, it's who you know. Even your team of evil geniuses and their bag of dirty tricks wasn't enough to overcome every single career intelligence and diplomatic officer in the United States. Perhaps the lesson is that you didn't slit enough throats on Inauguration Day, 2001. Or maybe, just maybe, the lesson is that you never should have started down that path at all.

Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time.

Yeah, Larry. (I'm gonna call you Larry, now. I feel closer to you.) You'd choose frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time. You, me, and the Framers, too. In fact, I'm pretty sure they did just that. Wrote it down, too.

Like I said, we're not kidding when we whisper the word "treason."

Much more at the link:

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/10/just_how_big_is.html

No whispering for me. It's TREASON.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

15. "A fissure may be opening between Vice President Dick Cheney and his top

... aide over the investigation into the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity.

I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, first learned of agent Valerie Plame's identity in a conversation with Cheney weeks before her name became public in July 2003, the New York Times reported last night, citing lawyers involved in the case.

<clip>

One lawyer intimately involved in the case, who like the others demanded anonymity, said one reason Fitzgerald was willing to send Miller to jail to compel testimony was because he was pursuing evidence the vice president may have been aware of the specifics of the anti-Wilson strategy.

From Cheney, Libby May Be at Odds Over CIA Leak-Case Investigation on October 25, 2005

More at the link:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a1Q4b0Hy7Ikc&refer=home

Bloomberg.com has been doing some serious neoconster dinging these past several days. Interesting.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

16. "Presumably at that point Fitzgerald did not have Scooter's notes ...

... which indicate that Cheney told him, but now Fitz has them. So those must've materialized recently. Where did they come? And when? Is Scooter trying to play "Let's Make a Deal?" And is the fact that they were leaked to the press -- with all their damning implications for Cheney -- an indication that Scooter is no longer willing to fall on a sword for his boss?

Much more from Jane Hamsher at the link:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/nyt-libby-learned-of-plames-identity.html

chomp. chomp. chomp. ... the beltway rap ....


Peace.

[understandinglife]

17. "Cheney lied. Under oath. Put any Republican (and a few DINOs) in the ...

... wayback machine, and they will tell you -- this is an impeachable offense.

Much more from Jane Hamsher at the link:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/dick-cheney-perjury-bitches-perjury.html

dickie boy, you're fried.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

59. "It's the kind of dirty, junior high politics that Junior delights in."

The day after Joe Wilson's July 8, 2003 op-ed piece in the NYT was published, Bush and his entourage were on their way to what they hoped would be a historic tour of Africa. Bush was hoping to trump Bubba by arranging for a longer and more extensive trip than any American president had thus far undertaken.

Yet from the moment the plane took off, all Ari Fleischer seemed to want to talk about was Joe Wilson. I mentioned it yesterday, but I'll quote it here again, from Wilson's book:

Within a day, Fleischer was putting a different spin on the situation and downplaying the importance of my report. At one briefing after another, he had something to say about me, and by doing so gave the journalists another news cycle to talk about the sixteen words rather than about the president's trip. Instead of containing the burgeoning press frenzy, Fleischer kept giving the story legs, so much so that it soon overwhelmed the president's agenda in Africa.

If Bush wasn't in on the "smear Wilson" campaign and didn't care about it, I have to believe he would've told Ari to put a sock in it and focus instead on all the great photo ops this current trip was affording him. It was his big chance to con Tony Blair into believing he actually gave a shit about Africa, and pretend his medieval policies on contraception weren't responsible for wiping out large swaths of the population.

Why would he allow Joe Wilson to have the limelight and shit all over his big PR campaign? 'Cos Wilson was Poppy's guy, that's why, Bush is his mama's boy -- as Arianna noted, he's a guy born on third base who thinks he's hit a triple. He can't talk back to Poppy. Hell, he can't even talk back to Scowcroft. But he sure could grind Joe Wilson into the ground with a faux-cowboy boot heel.

From I'll Believe in Santa Claus Before I'll Believe Dubya Didn't Know About TraitorGate by Jane Hamsher on October 25, 2005

Much more at the link:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/ill-believe-in-santa-claus-before-ill.html

Bye, bye, georgie boy, bye, bye ....


Peace.

[understandinglife]

18. "Of course, that question is going to seem like little more than a ...

...footnote next to the political firestorm of the Vice President of the United States having known all along about the secret information at the heart of a criminal investigation, and not revealing it.

More at the link:

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2160?PHPSESSID=c24b07ab5534a89e35eea2192c9d2c44

Do you think anyone is sleeping inside the Beltway tonight.

I suspect the members of the GJ are getting a very good nights rest, deservedly.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

19. "WAVE..Goodby to the Bad Guys..Check Mate..."

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/10/who_told_dick_c.html#comment-10592417

:hi:


Peace.

[understandinglife]

20. Oh, Walter, give it a rest, dude. You are so over.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102401690.html

Bye, bye ............


Peace.

[understandinglife]

21. Think Progress: "Cheney ... it’s clear he misled the American people."

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/25/cheney-played-dumb

Yes, it is.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

24. Tom Engelhardt: "Something tells me he isn't planning on going anywhere ..

... soon (i.e., Fitzgerald).

While we await the indictments to come, consider the strange history of the 1982 CIA shield law that triggered the process (as Steve Weissman explains it below). It was a backlash law, a dream law of the right; it was a response to the 1960s, to the Church Committee's revelations of CIA assassination plots, coup attempts, black propaganda operations and the like, to the urge to put even minimal constraints on an "intelligence" agency that had run amok in the world; and it was a response to the "rogue" CIA agent Philip Agee who named names.

<clip>

If Patrick Fitzgerald indicts anyone this week for violating the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (as opposed to a myriad of other possible charges), there will be a certain blowback aspect to it as well. After all, the Plame case lies at the unexpected end of a cycle of blowback (defined more loosely) that started with the right's response to Agee. Now, the most extreme government in American memory could buckle under the weight of the dream law its predecessors came up with at a moment when George Bush the elder, a former CIA director (January 1976 to January 1977) was Ronald Reagan's vice president. So, as you prepare for this week, consider the strange, circuitous route we've taken to the present moment and where we might be heading.

Outing CIA Agents: Valerie Plame Meets Philip Agee

By Steve Weissman

As we approach the week when Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury will undoubtedly issue indictments against White House officials, the seldom considered 1982 CIA shield law under which the Plame case was first launched deserves some attention. When Karl Rove, I. Lewis Libby, and possibly others decided to reveal the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, they clearly wanted to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, for undermining administration claims that Saddam Hussein sought "yellowcake" uranium from Niger to build nuclear weapons. But by publicly ruining Plame's undercover career, they were undoubtedly also sending a very personal message to CIA types and other insiders not to question Mr. Bush's rush to war in Iraq.

As despicable as this White House treachery may have been, those of us who oppose it need to regain some lost perspective. Being bashed by Team Bush does not turn the Central Intelligence Agency into the home team or necessarily make Valerie Plame a modern-day Joan of Arc; nor should her outing stop journalists or anyone else from blowing the cover of her fellow agents when they are found engaging in kidnappings, torture, or attempts to overthrow democratically elected governments.

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Though poorly drafted and hard (but not impossible) for prosecutors to use, the "Anti-Agee law" acts as a gag on whistleblowers, journalists, scholars, and activists who might want to expose covert wrongdoing. Worse, in the wake of the Plame outing, several members of Congress want to extend the law, creating even more of a British-style Official Secrets Act.

Whatever Karl Rove or Lewis Libby did to reveal Plame's identity, they should be punished, as should the President and Vice President they serve. But let's not jump overboard. Making a bad law worse would prove exceedingly shortsighted, especially for anyone who cherishes a free press or fears the unchecked power of the FBI, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

More at the link:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=30695

Worthy of considerable deliberation and very restrained legislation.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

25. "Anticipating that indictments could come down against senior White House

... officials this week, House Democratic leaders have spent recent days devising a Caucus-wide plan to further highlight GOP ethical missteps and national security compromises, ROLL CALL will report in Tuesday editions, RAW STORY has learned.

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Sources say House Democratic leaders have held several private meetings to shape their Members’ message if federal indictments are issued against senior White House adviser Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Depending on the nature and extent of the indictments, Democrats plan to argue that senior White House officers put America’s safety in jeopardy by leaking the name of the covert CIA operative. They will further argue that Republicans broke all ethical boundaries to try to convince the public that the Iraqi conflict was in their best interest.

More at the link:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/House_Democratic_leaders_privately_planning_indictment_1024.html

They seem to be preparing and I particularly like the quote -- “It gets right back to the president.”

In_deed.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

26. Sheehan: "It is time to exercise our sacred duty as human beings."

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Tomorrow I will be calling on President Bush to answer my original question: "What Noble Cause?" There is absolutely no noble cause. Our children and the Iraqi people are dying and suffering for no cause except for power and money greedy criminals.

The numbers are staggering. More American soldiers have been KIA in the first 32 months of Iraq so far then in the first 4 years of Vietnam. This isn't another Vietnam people, this is worse.

We cannot allow the people who are running our country to keep on running it into the ground.

It is time to exercise our sacred duty as human beings.

From by Cindy Sheehan on October 25, 2005

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-sheehan/not-one-more_b_9457.html

Cindy Sheehan knows exactly what she is going to do and why.

Excellent role model for those still wondering what they should do.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

27. NYT Ignores The Big Fact About Scandal Everyone Should Know: Bush Lied

The MSM is proving bizarrely insistent on ignoring the single most important fact surrounding RoveGate, the one fact that explains why the White House went to such extremes to scorch-earth Joe Wilson for coming forward. What's that fact? Joe Wilson spoke the truth and Bush admitted it. The NYT is running a timeline of the scandal, including an intense breakdown of the nine crucial days when Wilson came forward. Here's the TPM breakdown of the events on July 7, 2003.

More at the AMERICABlog link:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/10/nyt-ignores-big-fact-about-scandal.html

So true.

Let the folk at [e-mail] that you know it, in case you are wondering what to do.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

29. Wilkerson, once again, sticks it to the neoconsters in the LA Times:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5159762


Peace.

[understandinglife]

30. Yahoo: Cheney Cited as Source in CIA Leak

NEW YORK - Documents in the CIA leak investigation indicate the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney first heard of the covert CIA officer from Cheney himself, The New York Times reported in Tuesday editions.

The newspaper said notes of a previously undisclosed June 12, 2003 conversation between I. Lewis Libby and Cheney appear to differ from Libby's grand jury testimony that he first heard of Valerie Plame from journalists. The newspaper identified its sources as lawyers who are involved in the case.

<clip>

Link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051025/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_investigation

Give it five stars when you have time.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

31. Boston Globe: "''We'll try to take it back to the president," one Senate

... Democratic leadership aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We'll call for a wholesale housecleaning in the White House, like Reagan did after Iran-Contra, and call on the president to put an end to this culture of corruption."

Link:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/10/25/bush_in_pr_blitz_amid_leak_probe

When the broom stops, W should be gone along with all the other criminal detritus, don't ya thunk mr/ms unnamed dem staffer.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

46. WaPo's Terry Neal: "Let the Rule of Law Prevail"

Let the Rule of Law Prevail

By Terry M. Neal

washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; 6:00 AM

In the 1990s, "rule of law" was hot.

In the 2000s, not so much.

Republicans, who impeached and tried to remove a president who lied about his private sex life, have now decided that the whole "rule of law" thing really isn't all it's cut out to be.

Some Republicans -- anticipating the possible indictment of top White House aides -- are launching a preemptive public relations strike that is stunning in its audacity.

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Perhaps before rushing to judgment on either side of the aisle, the best thing to do would be to sit back, take a deep breath and let the rule of law prevail.

Link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102400656_2.html

Good plan - "let the rule of law prevail."

Sitting back and taking a deep breath -- well, it's always a good idea to keep breathing.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

47. WaPo's Kurtz: "What's a Little Lying Between Friends?"

What's a Little Lying Between Friends?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; 11:18 AM

"Some perjury technicality"?

Did Kay Bailey Hutchison really say that?

She must have. It was on "Meet the Press."

Is this the Republican strategy for dealing with any CIA leak indictments? Saying no real crimes were committed, just a teensy weensy bit of perjury? Turning Patrick Fitzgerald into Ken Starr?

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/10/25/BL2005102500520_pf.html

Hey, yo, yes you, neoconster spinpros -- try a different talking point real soon now, hint, hint ....


Peace.

[Garbo 2004]

63. Yes, the fish rots from the head. It all has to be thrown out. n/t

[donheld]

32. Some of us have been saying that for years now.

And I will say it till I die.

[understandinglife]

35. I'm with you. And, like I said, I was just stating the obvious ;)

:hi:


Peace.

[DemReadingDU]

38. Excellent , Recommended

Thanks U.L. for gathering these articles here for us to read

[understandinglife]

44. My pleasure.

Peace.

[callady]

43. Exactly

War Crimes

Nominated

[understandinglife]

50. Cindy Sheehan: "I'll be laying down and not getting up,"....

Activists to 'Die' Outside White House
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:54 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Cindy Sheehan and other peace activists plan to ''die symbolically'' for the next four days outside the White House to represent the American soldiers who have died in Iraq.

Sheehan, whose son Casey died in Iraq last year, organized the vigil as the U.S. military death toll in the war neared 2,000.

''I'll be laying down and not getting up,'' Sheehan said Tuesday to a small crowd in which the number of journalists exceeded the number of protesters. ''When they let me out, I'll do the same thing if I get arrested.''

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''Two thousand families have been destroyed for nothing,'' Sheehan said. ''Enough is enough. The killing has to stop sometime.''

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-War-Vigil.html?pagewanted=print

Peace.

[understandinglife]

56. "Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, would not comment on Mr. Libby's legal

... status."

And:

"White House officials did not respond on Monday to requests for comment..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/politics/25cnd-leak.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=7bbb562f916d73cc&hp&ex=1130299200&partner=homepage

As best as I can tell these are the first reports of Libby's lawyer being unwilling to comment on whether Libby has received a 'target letter.' Rove and Libby's lawyers had been quick to make that statement in the past. In the past few days neither of them have.

Interesting.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

60. CNN: Few doubt wrongdoing in CIA leak

Only one in 10 Americans said they believe Bush administration officials did nothing illegal or unethical in connection with the leaking of a CIA operative's identity, according to a national poll released Tuesday.

Link:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/25/cia.leak/index.html

That's well prior to most Americans having had access to an extensive review of the facts.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

62. "Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation is primarily about bringing justice

... to the fallen soldiers of America.

As our country anticipates the beginnings of what we hope will be justice for the leaders who betrayed us, I wanted to remember the soldiers and families who are the greatest victims of the Bush administration's lies. I do not want to lose focus on the fact that politics is more than a parlor game and real humans have died honoring their commitment to our country.

No matter what happens, we need to remember this is not simply about the deceptiveness of Karl Rove and the Bush cabal. Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation is primarily about bringing justice to the fallen soldiers of America. They are the reason we all ought to be demanding the truth.

Below is a piece I wrote about a young Marine, husband and father, who died in the opening day of the war, one of the first of the 2000 casualties for our country. This was written a few weeks after he had been killed in a friendly fire incident at al Nasiriyah. I intend to write more tomorrow about my thoughts on any indictments, especially if they name Karl Rove, a man who I have been writing and reporting about for more than 25 years. I am still skeptical that he will judged by the law. But I remain hopeful.

"To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"

W. H. Auden

In his comfortable home, set on a ridgeline above Tonopah, a surprise awaited Sheriff Wade Lieseke as he returned from his duties in Pahrump, Nevada. Three days of the week, Lieseke lived out of a motel room in Pahrump. Though his home was in Tonopah, on the other side of Nye County, Pahrump was the biggest city in the nation's second largest county. In order to do his job, the sheriff needed to spend a lot of time away from his family. All 18,400 square miles of Nye County, the endless, hazy distances of the Great Basin Desert, were a part of his law enforcement jurisdiction.

<clip>

From One Time, One Night in America by James Moore on October 25, 2005

I urge you to read this exceptional post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/one-time-one-night-in-am_b_9524.html

So very many have died because of Bush and the neoconsters' lies. So many. Soldiers, children, pregnant mothers, grandfathers, .... so many.

NOT ONE OF THEM SHOULD HAVE DIED. THEY ARE DEAD BECAUSE OF GEORGE WALKER BUSH. MURDERER-IN-CHIEF OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

In due respect to what Mr Moore has written, I will not add more to this thread.

p.s. this breaks my heart, bye the way.


Peace.