The Fox in the Henhouse

A rooster in England defended a henhouse against a marauding fox. Owner Tim Stone arrived on the fur and feather-strewn scene to see the fox limping off and his prize rooster strutting around and crowing like mad. Stone said:

"He didn't have a scratch on him so I can only imagine he beat the fox within an inch of his life. I don't think he'll be coming back."

We need Rooster Cogburn to get the fox (Bushites) out of our henhouse (energy policy).

101st Fighting Keyboardists

Here's a quote by George Orwell for today's chickenhawks:

To a surprising extent, the warlords in shining armor, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.

Stonehenge Mystery Solved

The origin of the 80 massive bluestones that make up Britain's enigmatic Stonehenge have mystified scientists. The stones weigh up to 4 tons each and are not native to their famous site at Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England.

Researchers at Bournemouth University believe they've discovered where the stones came from. They were quarried in the Presli Hills in Wales, 240 miles away from their present location.

The site of the quarry is about an acre, located at one of the highest points of Carn Menyn, a mountain in southwest Wales.

Archaeologist Timothy Darvill reports in British Archaeology:

"Within and outside the enclosure are numerous prone pillar stones with clear signs of working."

A geochemical analysis of the stones at the quarry show they are identical to those at Stonehenge.

The Preseli Hills had spiritual meaning for the people living near Stonehenge, he says, which is why they took the trouble to drag the stones all the way to their temple, at about 2500 B.C.

Discovery has an interesting article on this research.

Ancient Footprints May Rewrite American History

Humans were strolling the shores of an ancient Mexican lake 25,000 years before they were thought to have colonized the Americas, new research suggests. Geochronologist Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K. discovered fossilized human footprints in an abandoned quarry near the Cerro Toluquilla volcano southeast of Mexico City.

The footprints were left by people approximately 3 1/2 to 6 feet tall; about a third were small enough to be children's.

Their presence suggests that people arrived in the Americas about 40,000 years ago, and challenges the prevailing view that settlers first crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska at the end of the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago when a land bridge was in place. Humans could have crossed earlier by water instead of by foot.

Gonzalez says they think there were several migration waves into the Americas at different times by different groups of humans.

Discovery and Live Science have articles about this fascinating discovery.

I've said before on ROfblog, that Native Americans believe that they inhabited this continent much earlier than scientists had stated and the traffic over the Bering Strait went in both directions.

Native Americans say that their ancestors didn't come over the land bridge from Asia some 13,000 years ago. In fact, they have long asserted that their ancestors were here much longer than that and the traffic on the land bridge was in the opposite direction. Native American oral history may be proven correct after all.

For decades the prevailing view was that the first Americans were hunters who crossed a land bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska 13,500 years ago but recent discoveries have spurred controversial theories that they may have come from Europe instead, or they may have been here earlier than previously suspected.

A NOVA documentary is airing on PBS. Check your local listings.

Tom Cruise: A Sect Symbol

Tom Cruise chose Paris as the setting for his proposal to Katie Holmes, but France doesn't return his affection. The French have decided to not make Tom Cruise an honorary citizen because of his affiliation with Scientology, consider a cult by many French authorities. Paris officials vowed "never to welcome actor Tom Cruise, a spokesman for Scientology and self-declared militant for this organization." One official called the actor a "sect symbol."

Bush Will Go After Social Security Again

I've been hearing on news reports that Bush plans to start attacking social security again. Bradford Plummer on MoJo blog explains why this year may be Bush's last chance to try to destroy social security:

Basically, the Social Security Trustees have been consistently predicting low productivity growth over the past four years, which has in turn helped them write annual reports that predict massive actuarial imbalances for the program 30 years down the line. Happily, though, here in the real world we've had very high productivity growth over the past four years, which suggests that the long-term outlook for Social Security is in reality much better than the Trustees' "Intermediate Cost" projections imply. (And the administration knows this—in fact, the FY2006 budget predicted much rosier growth numbers for the future than even the Social Security Trustees' most optimistic numbers.)

At some point, and probably as soon as next year, the Trustees' will have no choice but to revise their projections to reflect the robust growth we've actually had. When that time comes, the public will be able to see very clearly that the long-term outlook is better than we've been led to believe and Social Security is not, in fact, in the throes of a crisis requiring drastic measures or privatization. The alarmists will all be exposed come 2006 or so, and it really is Custer's Last Stand right now.

Watch for a big, last-ditch effort on the part of the Bushites, Senator Grassley, et al.

Nutty "Science" Update

The following was a "newsletter exclusive" from The Week magazine so I can't offer a web link, but the following was in an email they sent to me:

An anti-pornography campaigner has asked conservative groups to raise $3 million so she can conduct MRI scans on thousands of porn users’ brains. Dr. Judith Reisman of California is hoping to confirm her theory that pornography is an actual poison—specifically, an “erototoxin”—that inflicts physical damage on the human brain. If the studies prove her right, Reisman believes, “these toxic media should be legally outlawed, as is all other toxic waste.”

I visited Dr. Reisman's web site and found that she's endorsed by none other than Dr. Laura Schlessinger (why am I not suprised?) who says the following:

"Dr. Reisman has produced a scholarly and devastating study revealing the ugly and frighteningly dangerous pseudo-scientific assault on our children's innocence."

She's also endorsed by Charles E. Rice, Professor, Notre Dame Law School who says:

"Dr. Reisman’s study supports the conclusion that Alfred Kinsey’s research was contrived, ideologically driven and misleading. Any judge, legislator or other public official who gives credence to that research is guilty of malpractice and dereliction of duty."

Apparently they want to discredit Kinsey's research to justify their homophobic belief system.

Is Judith Miller Protecting John Bolton?

The Washington Note Archives:

" TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.

The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.'"

Bush is probably going circumvent the Senate and appoint Bolton during their recess in the coming week. If he gets that recess appointment will he have diplomatic immunity from prosecution?

Apparently Judith Miller is willing to stay in jail to protect treasonous lawbreakers.

Good News & Bad News

The good news is that Tucker Carlson's new show on MSNBC has tanked so badly, it's being moved out of prime time. He'll be on at 11:00 p.m. opposite Jon Stewart. I love the irony!

HoustonChronicle.com - MSNBC dumps Carlson from prime-time slot: "MSNBC will shift Tucker Carlson's low-rated talk show out of prime-time in much of the country ... with ex-Fox News Channel anchor Rita Cosby filling his time slot."

The bad news is that they're filling Carlson's prime time spot with someone I've never heard of - someone they got from Faux Snooze. Tivo used to record programs on Faux for me until I remembered to put 3 thumbs down on them before deleting them.

Here's some more good news. Keith Olbermann is kicking Chris Matthews' butt in the ratings. Hardball used to be MSNBC's top rated show.

Capitalism Trumps Freedom and Democracy

Microsoft created software for the Chinese government that prevents bloggers from using words like "freedom" and "democracy" on the web.

Bill Gates praised the Chinese leaders:

"It is a brand new form of capitalism, and as a consumer it's the best thing that ever happened."

More at The Guardian

I'm speechless.

Why CAFTA Passed

With ... CAFTA in serious trouble, a prominent business leader recently laid it on the line: Business groups are prepared to cut off campaign contrubtions to House members who oppose the pact. "If you are going to vote against it, it's going to cost you,' said Thomas J. Donahue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

This might explain why 15 Democrats caved and supported CAFTA.

The Progressive reports:

Democrats gave Bush this victory, and workers and the environment this defeat, here and in Central America.

You see, 15 Democrat sided with Bush and multinational corporations by voting for CAFTA (see list below). If only two of those Democrats had voted with their party, CAFTA would be dead.

The Fifteen Democrats who voted for CAFTA

Melissa Bean, IL

Jim Cooper, TN

Henry Cuellar, TX

Norm Dicks, WA

Ruben Hinojosa, TX

William Jefferson, LA

Jim Matheson, UT

Greg Meeks, NY

Dennis Moore, KS

Jim Moran, VA

Solomon Ortiz, TX

Ike Skelton, MO

Vic Snyder, AR

John Tanner, TN

Ed Towns, NY

Frist & Stem Cell Research

People are wondering why Cat-Killer Frist is bucking the Bushites and the right wing religious nutjobs in his support for funding stem cell research. We know he wants to run for president and the nutjobs will have enormous influence in the GOP primaries - so why is he risking their wrath?

Big pharmaceuticals want funding for stem cell research!

Squeezed between those who fund his campaigns and those who might vote against him, big pharmas won!

If Frist isn't successful at furthering his political career, he can also go back to killing kitties (his alternate career choice).

Bolton Caught in a Lie

Reuter's reports that Bolton lied to Congress about whether he'd been questioned in Plame-Gate. The official story, of course, is that he forgot about it.

The State Department reversed itself on Thursday night and acknowledged that President Bush's U.N. ambassador nominee gave Congress inaccurate information about an investigation he was involved in.

The acknowledgment came after the State Department had earlier insisted nominee John Bolton's 'answer was truthful' when he said he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years.

'When Mr. Bolton completed his form during the Senate confirmation process he did not recall being interviewed by the State Department inspector general. Therefore his form as submitted was inaccurate in this regard and he will correct the form,' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said that should have been noted on the questionnaire, for which nominees swear out affidavits stating the information is true and accurate.

'It now appears that Mr. Bolton's answers may not meet that standard,' Biden wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Fugeddabodit!

When questioned about the discrepancy, Bolton said, "I am not a crook." Okay I made that last part up.

Oops!

Brazilian did not wear bulky jacket:

"Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot dead in the head, was not wearing a heavy jacket that might have concealed a bomb, and did not jump the ticket barrier when challenged by armed plainclothes police, his cousin said yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with the Metropolitan police, Vivien Figueiredo, 22, said that the first reports of how her 27-year-old cousin had come to be killed in mistake for a suicide bomber on Friday at Stockwell tube station were wrong."

One part of the news story was correct though - he's still dead.

The War on Terror Has Ended

The new phrase is "Struggle against extremists". No word on whether we've lost or won the war, but how you market it.

The linguistic shift has been brought on by circumstances. Increasingly, Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and do not believe the President when he insists the 2003 invasion was part of the "war on terror" that began on 11 September 2001.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military most certainly is at war. But on the home front, the only visible manifestation is tightened security. It has become harder to convince the public that the country is indeed at war in the generally accepted sense.

Now that the war on terror is over, can we declare war on a different emotion? How about a war on fear, or a war on nightmares? I know, how about a war on lying about war?

Judy Miller Journalist or Shill for Bushites?

Arianna Huffington has the scoop on who originally leaked Valerie Plame's name and she says it was Judy Miller, who is now in jail for not revealing her source. It appears that Judy Miller was a shill for the White House and is now determined to not testify:

"...It's July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson's now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has 'manipulate[d]' and 'twisted' intelligence 'to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.' Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war -- and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller's credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an 'unnamed government official'). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her "source" at the White House -- because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn't the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn't to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson's motives. Which Novak did.

Amazingly, however, even as her reporting has been debunked -- and her sources discredited -- Miller has steadfastly refused to apologize for her role in misleading the public in the lead up to the war. Indeed, in an interview with the author of Bush's Brain, James Moore, she, in the words of Moore, "remained righteously indignant, unwilling to accept that she had goofed in the grandest of fashions", telling him: "I was proved fucking right."

As recently as March 2005, in an appearance at Berkeley, she stubbornly refused to express regret. Indeed, she showed that she shares a key attitude with the Bush administration: an unwillingness to admit mistakes when faced with new realities. She even compared herself to the president, saying that she was getting the same information he was getting… and suggested that since he hadn't apologized, why should she? Maybe she's angling for the Tenet treatment: promote faulty intel, get a Medal of Freedom. Miller also echoed the words of Don Rumsfeld ("You go to war with the Army you have") when she justified her flawed reporting on WMD by saying "You go with what you've got". Really? Wouldn't it be better to wait until what you've got is right?"

I wish Douch-bag Novak was in jail with Miller.

Bolton Might Have Lied in His Confirmation

MSNBC aired a report last Thursday that stated Bolton testified before the federal grand jury investigating who leaked the identity of Plame but he didn't mention it when asked in a questionnaire for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee comfirmation hearings. PlameGate could be the scandal that keeps on giving.

From Reuters:

Senate Democrats urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday to say whether U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton was questioned in the investigation of the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are trying to determine if Bolton answered a routine questionnaire truthfully when he indicated he had not been interviewed or asked to supply information for a recent grand jury investigation.

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said Bolton, a blunt-spoken conservative who has drawn fire for his abrasive style, should not be sent to the U.N. post until lawmakers have a definite answer on the veracity of his response.

Citing reports President Bush may bypass the Senate and appoint Bolton while Congress takes its upcoming summer recess, Boxer said, "I urge in the strongest possible way" the Senate be allowed to continue work on the nomination.

The Senate is expected to start its monthlong recess this weekend. Under a recess appointment, Bolton could serve only until January 2007, when the next Congress convenes.

The White House still won't release Bolton's documents. I wonder what else they're hiding?

Schwarzenegger: California Republicans Suffer Buyer's Remorse

Doug Gamble, a former writer for Ronald Reagan thinks recalling Gray Davis was a mistake:

"From a long-range, strategic point of view, did California Republicans make a mistake in backing the 2003 recall of Governor Gray Davis? The more Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like he's starring in a remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man the more it appears that they may have.

Perhaps it would have been preferable for Republicans to let Davis twist slowly in the wind until the end of his second term, continuing on in his passive, caretaker fashion and piling up new records for incompetence and real or perceived corruption. It's inconceivable there was anything he could do in his final four years to improve his image.

Then, after he had alienated many independents and even some Democrats as the most hapless governor in recent memory, a Republican would have had a good shot at winning a full term in 2006. I believe Bill Simon, for example, who lost to Davis by a mere five points in 2002, could have staged an "I told you so" comeback against any Democrat next year, given the taint that Davis would have left on the party.

But if Schwarzenegger proves to be a disaster it could send the GOP back to the gubernatorial wilderness indefinitely. As the old saying goes, the bigger they are the harder they fall, and that seems to be the current reality affecting the governor.

For most of this year he has been operating under the cloud of Murphy’s Law -- “If anything can go wrong it will” -- and, as they used to say on rock and roll radio, the hits just keep on coming. The latest blow is a judge’s ruling that Schwarzenegger’s redistricting plan must be dropped from the ballot in November’s special election because supporters used two versions of it in the qualifying process.

Having earlier backed away from his proposal to overhaul public employee pensions, the governor has seen the four wheels originally driving his “Year of Reform” Hummer cut down to two, a measure dealing with teacher tenure and a complicated state spending plan.

This latest setback comes on the heels of a mini-scandal that resulted in the governor ending a previously undisclosed multi-million dollar deal with a fitness magazine publisher following conflict of interest accusations. Then there are the polls, where the Public Policy Institute of California has Schwarzenegger’s approval rating at only 34 percent, down from 57 per cent a year ago, with the poll taken before the magazine flap.

Parting company with many of my Republican friends, I believed from the moment he joined the recall election with his ego-driven, gimmicky announcement on Jay Leno’s TV show that Schwarzenegger was less about advancing California’s or the GOP’s interests and more about advancing his own. With no discernable political qualifications for leading America’s most populous state, had he been Arnold Schwarzenegger, certified public accountant, say, instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie star, his candidacy would have been a joke.

The cult of personality that got him elected has not been enough for most Californians to overlook his blunders. If he loses next year the genesis of Schwarzenegger’s downfall might be traced to last December when he bragged about kicking nurses’ butts, foolish bullying that turned off many independents and Democrats he needs for reelection. He’s unlikely to get them back.

It also appears that the emperor has no clothes. Most Californians polled believe the state is on the wrong track, despite Schwarzenegger’s pledge to turn it around, and have caught on to the fact that constant campaigning is not governing.

What could go wrong for the governor next? Well, the current heat wave has Southern California flirting with power outages. If there’s a repeat of the statewide interruptions of 2001, California will go black and Arnold will go Gray."

The Other People

When I was young, I had trouble making sense of the Bible because it said God created Adam and Eve, and they were the first people, and yet their sons found wives to marry. The author of the Bible didn't explain who these other people were. A CAW article by Oberon Zell titled, We Are the Other People explains this and why those others were born without the stigma of original sin.

...There we were, around six thousand years ago, living in our little farming communities around the Caspian Sea, in the land of Nod, when this dude with a terrible scar comes stumbling in out of the sunset. He tells us this bizarre story, about how his mother and father had been created by some god named Jahweh, and put in charge of a beautiful garden somewhere out west, and how they had gotten thrown out for disobedience after eating some of the landlord's forbidden magic fruit of enlightenment. He tells us of murdering his brother, as the god of his parents would only accept blood sacrifice, and of receiving that scar as a mark so that all would know him as a fratricide. The poor guy is really a mess psychologically, obsessed with guilt. He is also obsessively modest, insisting on wearing clothes even in the hottest summer, and he has a hard time with our penchant for skinny-dipping in the warm inland sea. He seems to believe that he is tainted by the "sin" of his parent's disobedience; that it is in his blood, somehow, and will continue to contaminate his children and his children's children. One of our healing women takes pity on the poor sucker, and marries him...

...suffice it to say that those of us who are not of Semitic descent (i.e., not of the lineage of Adam and Eve) cannot share in the Original Sin that comes with that lineage. Being that the Bible is the story of that lineage, of Adam and Eve's descendants and their special relationship with their particular god, Yahweh, it follows that this is not the story of the rest of us. We may may have been Cain's wife's people, or Seth's wife's people, or some other people over the hill and far away, but whichever people the rest of us are, as far as the Bible is concerned, we are the Other People, and so we are continually referred to throughout. Later books of the Bible are filled with admonitions to the followers of Jahweh to "learn not the ways of the Pagans..." (Jer 10:2) with detailed descriptions of exactly what it is we do, such as erect standing stones and sacred poles, worship in sacred groves and practice divination and magic. And worship the sun, moon, stars and the "Queen of Heaven." "You must not behave as they do in Egypt where once you lived; you must not behave as they do in Canaan where I am taking you. You must not follow their laws." (Lev 18:3) For Yahweh, as he so clearly emphasises, is not the god of the Pagans. We have our own lineage and our own heritage, and our tale is not told in the Bible.

We were not "made" like clay figurines by a male deity out of "dust from the soil." We were born of our Mother the Earth, and have evolved over aeons in Her nurturing embrace. All of us, in our many and diverse tribes, have creation myths and legends of our origins and history; some of these tales may even be actually true. Like the descendants of Adam and Eve, many of us also have stories of great floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other cataclysms that wiped out whole communities of our people, wherein "I alone survived to tell the tale." Nearly all of our ancestral tribes (and especially those of us who today are reclaiming our own Pagan heritage) lack that peculiar obsessive body modesty that seems to be a hallmark of the original sin alluded to in the story of the Fall....

I've excerpted a couple of paragraphs here but you might want to read the entire article which consists of Zell's explanation to "Yahweh's Witlesses" about why some of us don't need their salvation.

Thanks to Dawn who found this and shared it.

Is Karl Rove Having An Affair?

I thought Rove and Gannon/Guckert were an item, but gossip suggests that Karl Rove, who is married, has a very special lady friend. Radar Online has this:

For years, political insiders in the Lone Star State have whispered about Rove’s close friendship with lobbyist Karen Johnson, a never-married, forty-something GOP loyalist from Austin, Texas. The two first became close when Johnson sat on the board of then-Governor George W. Bush’s Business Council over a decade ago. Their friendship reportedly deepened after Bush appointed Johnson—a little-known spokesperson for the Texas Good Roads Association—to a seat on his Transportation Department transition team in 2000. The plum appointment enabled Johnson’s lobbying firm, Infrastructure Solutions, to snare such high-paying clients as Aetna and the City of Laredo. Sources say Johnson now frequently travels between Washington D.C. and Austin, where she frequently appears at Rove’s side at parties and unofficial functions.

Although there is no evidence that their relationship is anything but professional, the close association between the married White House aide and the comely lobbyist has long raised eyebrows in conservative Texas circles. Asked about the pair, a prominent political journalist who has written extensively about Rove says, “I’ve heard the stories, but I would never write about Karl and Karen. If you want to keep your job as a reporter in Texas, you make believe you don’t see them together.”

In the post-Lewinsky era, Washington’s press corps has mostly avoided reporting on the private lives of public officials. But as the political climate in the capitol grows more poisonous, Rove’s close friendship with the lobbyist has attracted increased scrutiny from opponents eager to prove that Bush’s dirty trickster is sitting on some dirty laundry of his own.

Asked to comment on Rove’s relationship with Johnson, a White House spokesman firmly declined to discuss the matter, saying that their relationship was “the business of these two individuals who have personal lives…I don’t think that’s something that the White House should comment on.” A new air of civility in Washington? Don’t count on it.

Any Big Fish in that Net, Fitzgerald?

The independent prosecutor may be investigating how the CIA got blamed for those 16 (false) words in Bush's state of the union speech when he claimed that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa. This could become really, really interesting (my fingers are crossed). I found this gem in Washington Post:

"The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.

Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004, the sources said.

It remains unclear whether Fitzgerald uncovered any wrongdoing in this or any other portion of his nearly 18-month investigation. All that is known at this point are the names of some people he has interviewed, what questions he has asked and whom he has focused on.

It appears that the Bushites have made some enemies in the CIA and they might be willing to expose the "fixing" of intelligence as well as avenge the wrong done to one of their covert operatives.

Why They Hate Us

Seumas Milne of The Guardian says we Americans really have some cheek to refuse to admit that our foreign policy could have provoked the Muslim world's hostility. It was deemed treasonous to suggest that the Muslims had legitimate grievances against the U.S. Instead, Americans retreated into the comforts of banalities such as, "They hate our freedom." It is an insult to the dead to pretend that there was no motive for the London suicide bombings. The attacks were quite obviously "driven by a worldwide anger at U.S.-led domination and occupation of Muslim countries. And it is only since Britain began supporting that agenda that Britain became a target.

We have moments of silence to honor the British and American victims of suicide bombers, but our media don't even mention the number of Iraqis who've been killed because of Bush's Crusade against Saddam Hussein and no one here publicly honors them in memorial. The McLaughlin Report regularly reports an estimate of Iraqis who've died, but it's the only media source who even mentions it. I believe we'll be at risk of terrorist attacks until we stop our occupation of middle eastern countries and get into rehab for our addiction to oil.

Image from Don't Blame Me I Voted for Kerry. Thanks to Dawn for finding that web site.

Alzheimer's Disease Rampant Among Republicans

Dada, in his Odds and Ends section, noted that there seems to be an epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease among Republicans with the latest being John Roberts' inability to remember his membership in the Federalist Society although he held a leadership position with the group.

We all know how Ronald Reagan suffered from the disease. Although his diagnosis hadn't been made public yet, it was obvious to us that he was suffering from a cognitive disorder when he made the following statement with a straight face:

March 3, 1987 (from a televised address in which he admitted to the findings of the Tower Commission)

"A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not."

From The Boston Globe we learn:

"Last week, White House aides contacted news organizations that had reported that Roberts was a member of The Federalist Society and declared that he was not a member, even though he had occasionally delivered speeches at group events. Many media outlets, including the Globe, published corrections.

But over the weekend, a liberal group unearthed a Federalist Society leadership directory from 1997-98. It lists Roberts, then a partner in a Washington law firm, as having served on a steering committee for the group's District of Columbia chapter. Nonetheless, the White House insisted yesterday that there is no proof that Roberts ever paid the $50 annual dues that would technically make him a member. The society keeps its membership list confidential.

''He certainly had given speeches and had participated in events, but he certainly had no recollection of being a member, and that is still the case today,' Dana Perrino, a spokeswoman for the White House, said yesterday."

But on Monday, presidential press secretary Scott McClellan said, "He doesn't recall ever paying dues or being a member."

Apparently Roberts and the Bushites are hiding something more than his association with The Federalist Society because they've decided to block the release of his papers from work in the solicitor general's office from 1989-93.

The White House intends to deny the Senate Judiciary Committee documents from Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' work in the solicitor general's office from 1989-93, a senior Bush administration official said Monday.

"They will not be released," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the decision has not been made public.

That kind of secrecy has delayed the Bolton nomination, so perhaps the Democrats will decide to filibuster Roberts too?

Fear & Loathing in the White House

Now we learn that the Bushites were given 12 hours to destroy evidence before they were notified of an investigation. Those 12 hours may eventually compare to Nixon's 18 minute tape gap (his loyal secretary valiantly claimed she might have accidently erased some of the incriminating evidence). Let's see what Alberto Gonzales has to say for himself this time. Perhaps preserving evidence for a criminal investigation is as "quaint" as the Geneva Convention's articles are on torture.

"Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday that he spoke with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. immediately after learning that the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. But Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, waited 12 hours before officially notifying the rest of the staff of the inquiry.

Gonzales said yesterday on "Fox News Sunday" that he is among the group of top current and former Bush administration officials who have testified to the grand jury about the unmasking of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative. Gonzales, who has recused himself from the case, would not discuss details of his testimony but said he learned about Plame's work from newspaper accounts.

In the New York Times yesterday, columnist Frank Rich cited news reports from 2003 that when Gonzales was notified about the investigation on the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, he waited 12 hours before telling the White House staff about the inquiry. Official notification to staff is meant to quickly alert anyone who may have pertinent records to make sure they are preserved and safeguarded.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), appearing on the same program, questioned why Gonzales would not have notified the staff immediately by e-mail and suggested that Fitzgerald pursue whether Card may have given anyone in the White House advance notice of the criminal investigation.

"The real question now is, who did the chief of staff speak to? Did the chief of staff pick up the phone and call Karl Rove? Did the chief of staff pick up the phone and call anybody else?" Biden asked.

Asked on CBS why he did not investigate the leak when it first became public, Gonzales said: "This is the kind of issue that I felt that we should wait and see whether or not there would be some kind of criminal investigation. And of course, there was."

Apparently, they'd prefer to find out from someone else whether they had criminals on the staff. That makes perfect sense in a twisted world. For example, if I suspected an employee was stealing I wouldn't want to look into the issue because someone else might notify the police. I would just wait to see if the police would want to investigate - if anyone got around to calling the police, that is.

Frank Rich wrote an excellent piece for The New York Times:

When a conspiracy is unraveling, and it's every liar and his lawyer for themselves, the story takes on a momentum of its own. When the conspiracy is, at its heart, about the White House's twisting of the intelligence used to sell the American people a war - and its desperate efforts to cover up that flimflam once the W.M.D. cupboard proved bare and the war went south - the story will not end until the war really is in its "last throes."

But the scandal has metastasized so much at this point that the forgotten man Mr. Bush did not nominate to the Supreme Court is as much a window into the White House's panic and stonewalling as its haste to put forward the man he did. When the president decided not to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a woman, why did he pick a white guy and not nominate the first Hispanic justice, his friend Alberto Gonzales? Mr. Bush was surely not scared off by Gonzales critics on the right (who find him soft on abortion) or left (who find him soft on the Geneva Conventions). It's Mr. Gonzales's proximity to this scandal that inspires real fear.

As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months.

The first: for half a year White House hands made the fatal mistake of thinking they could get away with trashing the Wilsons scot-free. They thought so because for nearly three months after the July 6, 2003, publication of Mr. Wilson's New York Times Op-Ed article and the outing of his wife in a Robert Novak column, there was no investigation at all. Once the unthreatening Ashcroft-controlled investigation began, there was another comfy three months.

Only after that did Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel, take over and put the heat on. Only after that did investigators hustle to seek Air Force One phone logs and did Mr. Bush feel compelled to hire a private lawyer. But by then the conspirators, drunk with the hubris characteristic of this administration, had already been quite careless.

It was during that pre-Fitzgerald honeymoon that Scott McClellan declared that both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, had personally told him they were "not involved in this" - neither leaking any classified information nor even telling any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the C.I.A. Matt Cooper has now written in Time that it was through his "conversation with Rove" that he "learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A." Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of "telling," "involved" or "this" is. If these people were similarly cute with F.B.I. agents and the grand jury, they've got an obstruction-of-justice problem possibly more grave than the hard-to-prosecute original charge of knowingly outing a covert agent.

Most fertile - and apparently ground zero for Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation - is the period at the very outset when those plotting against Mr. Wilson felt safest of all: those eight days in July 2003 between the Wilson Op-Ed, which so infuriated the administration, and the retaliatory Novak column. It was during that long week, on a presidential trip to Africa, that Colin Powell was seen on Air Force One brandishing the classified State Department memo mentioning Valerie Plame, as first reported by The New York Times.

That memo may have been the genesis of an orchestrated assault on the Wilsons. That the administration was then cocky enough and enraged enough to go after its presumed enemies so systematically can be found in a similar, now forgotten attack that was hatched on July 15, the day after the publication of Mr. Novak's column portraying Mr. Wilson as a girlie man dependent on his wife for employment.

On that evening's broadcast of ABC's "World News Tonight," American soldiers in Falluja spoke angrily of how their tour of duty had been extended yet again, only a week after Donald Rumsfeld told them they were going home. Soon the Drudge Report announced that ABC's correspondent, Jeffrey Kofman, was gay. Matt Drudge told Lloyd Grove of The Washington Post at the time that "someone from the White House communications shop" had given him that information.

Mr. McClellan denied White House involvement with any Kofman revelation, a denial now worth as much as his denials of White House involvement with the trashing of the Wilsons. Identifying someone as gay isn't a crime in any event, but the "outing" of Mr. Kofman (who turned out to be openly gay) almost simultaneously with the outing of Ms. Plame points to a pervasive culture of revenge in the White House and offers a clue as to who might be driving it. As Joshua Green reported in detail in The Atlantic Monthly last year, a recurring feature of Mr. Rove's political campaigns throughout his career has been the questioning of an "opponent's sexual orientation."

The second narrative to be unearthed in the scandal's early timeline is the motive for this reckless vindictiveness against anyone questioning the war. On May 1, 2003, Mr. Bush celebrated "Mission Accomplished." On May 29, Mr. Bush announced that "we found the weapons of mass destruction." On July 2, as attacks increased on American troops, Mr. Bush dared the insurgents to "bring 'em on." But the mission was not accomplished, the weapons were not found and the enemy kept bringing 'em on. It was against this backdrop of mounting desperation on July 6 that Mr. Wilson went public with his incriminating claim that the most potent argument for the war in the first place, the administration's repeated intimations of nuclear Armageddon, involved twisted intelligence.

Mr. Wilson's charge had such force that just three days after its publication, Mr. Bush radically revised his language about W.M.D.'s. Saddam no longer had W.M.D.'s; he had a W.M.D. "program." Right after that George Tenet suddenly decided to release a Friday-evening statement saying that the 16 errant words about African uranium "should never have been included" in the January 2003 State of the Union address - even though those 16 words could and should have been retracted months earlier. By the next State of the Union, in January 2004, Mr. Bush would retreat completely, talking not about finding W.M.D.'s or even W.M.D. programs, but about "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

In July 2005, there are still no W.M.D.'s, and we're still waiting to hear the full story of how, in the words of the Downing Street memo, the intelligence was fixed to foretell all those imminent mushroom clouds in the run-up to war in Iraq. The two official investigations into America's prewar intelligence have both found that our intelligence was wrong, but neither has answered the question of how the administration used that wrong intelligence in selling the war. That issue was pointedly kept out of the charter of the Silberman-Robb commission; the Senate Intelligence Committee promised to get to it after the election but conspicuously has not.

The real crime here remains the sending of American men and women to Iraq on fictitious grounds. Without it, there wouldn't have been a third-rate smear campaign against an obscure diplomat, a bungled cover-up and a scandal that - like the war itself - has no exit strategy that will not inflict pain.

Schwarzenegger Blinks Again

Schwarzenegger insisted that California needed an expensive special election this November to pass some measures the Democrats were blocking. One of those iniatives would have privatized pensions of public workers and after it became public that spouses of firefighters and police officers would be deprived of death benefits, the ballot iniative was withdrawn.

Ahnie desperately wanted to redistrict California before the next election (presumeably to send more Repugs to Congress) but that measure was thrown out by a judge. There's not much left of his attempt to transfer power to the governor's office.

Sand kicked in face of strong-man governor:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has relished the role of the fearless 'Terminator' armed for battle against an army of special interests, is suddenly looking more like Gulliver -- besieged, tied down, and overrun by his opponents.

And no wonder: After months of campaigning, fund raising and warning of a Nov. 8 special election he insisted was 'guaranteed,'' the governor's team blinked this week. Campaign adviser Mike Murphy floated a trial balloon -- most likely to gauge Democratic Party as much as voter reaction -- with Friday's public acknowledgement that Team Schwarzenegger has discussed the impossible: dumping the much-heralded special ballot altogether."

In areas like redistricting of legislative lines, and budget, he said firmly, "the governor is committed to fixing a broken system and will continue to fight for those reforms.''

But the official line from the governor's office hasn't diminished speculation over the possible effect on Schwarzenegger if the election is a no-go.

"How do you declare victory in defeat?'' is the first challenge the governor faces, said Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution research fellow who has acted as an adviser to Schwarzenegger.

"What the Democrats have done here undeniably has been very effective,'' said Whalen. "They have attacked Schwarzenegger's policies; they have attacked his character, his ethics, his trustworthiness, and it has driven down his poll numbers.''

The question now for Democrats: "Is it smart politics to try to rub his face in the dirt? There's a risk for them in going too far ... and overplaying the hand.''

But veteran Democratic strategist Garry South said there's hardly an outpouring of pity for the GOP action-hero-turned-governor with this latest development. "He's gotten himself into this pickle," he said. "This was all about testosterone, and we'll have to see whether his glands outduel his brain on how to get out of this mess.''

Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman also seemed to be enjoying the governor's predicament. Strategy is limited, she said, when you're hanging on the side of a cliff.

They should either cancel that special election or we should use it to recall the Gropinator and elect a real governor.

Schwarzenegger: The Most Corrupt Sitting Governor

Lawrence O'Donnell made this statement about the Gropinator's lack of ethics last night on The McLaughlin Report and he predicted that the Goobernator will never win another election. O'Donnell is apparently in the "great minds" category because I made a similar prediction yesterday (he'll go back to Hollywood with his tail between his legs).

Ahnie has multiple ethics issues and the Los Angeles Times reports about the one that involved muscle magazines and supplements:

Since becoming governor, Schwarzenegger has remained closely involved with the bodybuilding world and with the supplement companies whose products promise such things as ripped muscles, "thermonuclear" energy and better sex.

According to documents and interviews with industry leaders, Schwarzenegger has continued to give the industry advice. He has participated in private meetings about government regulations. The governor also received personal income from the Arnold Classic bodybuilding contest, which serves as a showplace for supplements.

Democrat Party chairman, Art Torres, signed a complaint against Governor Goober:

In the filing, Democrats accused Schwarzenegger of arranging for $8 million in illegal payments from American Media Inc., which publishes a pair of body building magazines that, until last Friday, had the governor as their executive editor.

The payments were illegal honoraria and unlawful gifts to a public official, said Lance Olson, the Democratic Party attorney who filed the suit. The filing also said the governor had violated state conflict of interest rules when he vetoed a bill that would have banned high school athletes from using dietary supplements, aiding the industry that's the biggest advertiser in both Flex and Muscle & Fitness magazines.

....

"Now we go to war, in all likelihood,'' said Kevin Spillane, a GOP consultant. "Filing that complaint conveyed the level of seriousness the Democrats have for a negotiated settlement.''

I love the irony here. Ahnie started the year with a State of the State speech in which he promised to kick the Democrats' butts. Instead, the state Democrats are handing his butt to him in a paper bag.

Rove & Libby: Slowly Unraveling

Lawrence O'Donnell, on the McLaughlin Report tonight, predicted that Rove and Libby will be charged with conspiracy. He said this in the final segment, so I believe he was stating his opinion, rather than fact.

It seems likely that Rove was so confident that Cooper and Time Magazine would protect his identity that he lied to the investigator and to the grand jury. It's ironic that he got outed for outing someone else.

The Wasington Post reports:

"Lawyers involved in the case said there are now indications that Fitzgerald did not initially know or suspect that Rove was Cooper's primary source for the reporter's information about Plame. That raises questions about how much Rove disclosed when first questioned in the inquiry or how closely he was initially queried about his contacts with reporters. Rove has testified before a grand jury and been questioned by FBI agents on at least five occasions over the past two years.

Two lawyers involved in the case say that although Fitzgerald used phone logs to determine some contacts between officials and reporters, they believe there is no phone record of Cooper's now-famous call to Rove in the days before Novak's column appeared. That is because Cooper called the White House switchboard and was reconnected to Rove's office, sources said.

Also, when first questioned in the days after Plame's name appeared in the press, Rove left the impression with top White House aides that he had talked about her only with Novak, according to a source familiar with information provided to investigators.

Initially, Fitzgerald appeared focused on the theory that Libby had leaked Plame's identity, according to lawyers involved in the case. He had interviewed three other reporters about their conversations with Libby, but all three indicated he either did not discuss Plame or did not reveal her identity.

He also sought testimony from Cooper about his July 2003 story in Time. In 2004, Cooper obtained a waiver from Libby to discuss their conversation, as had the three other reporters.

Cooper and his attorneys were surprised that Fitzgerald agreed to ask Cooper questions only about his conversations with Libby, sources familiar with the investigation said.

The sources said Fitzgerald looked surprised in the August 2004 deposition when Cooper said it was he who brought up Wilson's wife with Libby, and that Libby responded, "Yeah, I heard that, too."

The prosecutor pressed Cooper to then explain how he knew about Wilson's wife in the first place, and Cooper said he would not answer the question because it did not involve Libby, the sources said...

The prosecutors have appeared keen to see if they can fill in some gaps in Rove's memory about how he learned about Plame, and they have repeatedly asked witnesses if Rove told them how he knew about Plame."

If the source for this information is correct, it exonerates Libby. My suspicious mind wonders if this source was Libby's lawyer. It would really be fun if they're starting to turn on each other.

Guess Who Came to Dinner

Photographed by Rob Watson.

Kitty Yoga

Downward Dog Pose (thanks Cookie Jill)

Scientology Nonsense

Scientology can't be so great if it produces people who behave like Tom Cruise (someone who acts like a 13-year-old because he has a new girlfriend and who presumes to know more about mental health treatments than health care professionals).

In the 1970s, I dated a man who was involved with est and he wanted me to go to a meeting with him. I politely told him I wasn't interested and I thought that was the end of the discussion but on our next date we attended a theatical performance and a friend of his "just happened" to be there. The two of them tried a "hard sell" technique on me. I lost my temper, dumped my date and didn't attend any est seminars.

New York Post reports:

"Celebrities like Kirstie Alley and John Travolta say Scientology is open and free, but the sci-fi religion's leadership sure hates being scrutinized in the press. When the church learned that Glamour magazine was working on an expose about a former Scientologist for its September issue, it immediately sent two emissaries to Conde Nast headquarters. An insider at Glamour said, 'The story is about a woman who grew up in the church and literally fled to the country to escape her husband, mother and the Scientologists she lived with. During our fact-checking, we called the L.A. headquarters and several hours later two Scientologists showed up at Conde Nast and had security call the editor of the story to tell her she had visitors. In our offices, they demanded to see the story but we declined, noting we don't release stories until they are on stands. They showed up twice more that week with DVD's and books about Scientology and then finally with their comments. During the last visit, the Scientologists saw the latest issue of Glamour with Nicole Kidman on the cover with the tagline tease, 'Nicole opens up about Tom,' and demanded copies.' "

Democrats 1 - Schwarzenegger - 0

Tom Delay got away with redistricting Texas to pump up Repugs in Congress, so the Gropinator was going to try the same thing in California. The Repugs hired a bunch of people to circulate petitions and they got enough signatures to put a redistricting iniative on the ballot, but they got caught changing the text before it would appear on the ballot and now it's hasta la vista baby.

A Sacramento judge's decision to jettison Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's redistricting initiative from the November ballot throws another roadblock in the way of his efforts to reshape state government.

"The Hummer's got two flats and driving almost on empty," Democratic political consultant Gale Kaufman said Thursday after Judge Gail Ohanesian ruled that the initiative's supporters violated California's constitution by using two versions of the measure in the qualifying process.

Tonight the Daily Show did a segment about the Goober's publicity stunt when he had city workers dig a pothole so he could fill it in front of the cameras. I blogged that right after it happened on June 4th.

The latest polls show that Bush is more popular in California than the Terminator and we don't like Bush much either.

The Public Policy Institute of California poll found 38 percent approve of Bush's performance in office, and just 34 percent said they approve of the job California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing.

When this term is done, I'm betting Ahnie will decide to go back to Hollywood with his tail tucked between his legs.

Rove & Libby: Perjury or Obstruction of Justice?

It appears that Rove and Libby are having some difficulty keeping their stories straight:

Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

Lewis "Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.

Libby, 54, didn't return a phone call seeking comment.

Will someone be frog-marching soon?

Patrick Fitzgerald Catching Other Big Fish?

Perhaps John Bolton and Karen Hughes will be caught in the net with Karl Rove. What a nice stew that would make.

In another indication of how wide a net investigators have cast in the case, Karen Hughes, a former top communications aide to Mr. Bush, and Robert Joseph, who was then the National Security Council's expert on weapons proliferation, have both told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that they were interviewed by the special prosecutor.

Ms. Hughes is to have her confirmation hearing on Friday on her nomination to lead the State Department's public diplomacy operation. Mr. Joseph was recently confirmed as under secretary of state for arms control and international security. As part of their confirmation proceedings, both had to fill out questionnaires listing any legal matters they had become involved in.

The Democrats blocked the confirmation of John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N. because they wanted some paperwork that the Bushites wouldn't give them. I wonder what the Dems were fishing for?

In his disclosure form for his confirmation hearings, Mr. Bolton made no mention of being interviewed in the case, a government official said. In the week after Mr. Wilson's article appeared, Mr. Bolton attended a conference in Australia.

Read more about it in this New York Times article by David Johnston.

Tucker Carlson: Fair and Balanced?

I'm a big fan of Countdown with Keith Olbermann. It's my favorite TV source for news right after The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Because Countdown is on MSNBC, I've also been noticing ads for Tucker Carlson's new show on that channel and they're selling it as "fair and balanced".

This is the same Tucker Carlson who filled Robert Novak's seat on Crossfire.

Is the ad a deliberate canard or is it intended as a joke? Or is MSNBC trying to compete with Faux Snooze? Maybe Faux has successfully redefined the term "fair and balanced" from its traditional meaning. Is "fair and balanced" now a code phrase for Repuglicspeak?

My opinion of Tucker Carlson is that he's Dennis Miller in a bow-tie; smug, insufferable, and obnoxious.

How Do Wars Start?

How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read. -Karl Kraus

Schwarzenegger: How Low Can He Go?

From Reuters we learn that the ethically challenged Goobernator has dropped to new lows in a poll that was taken before people discovered that:

1. He was moonlighting for a fitness magazine that derives its income primarily from supplements AND he vetoed a bill that would have regulated those supplements.

2. A judge has threatened his administration with contempt of court.

3. He's exploiting a loophole in the law to skim money from political action committees by collecting rent from them in a building he owns.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval rating dropped to a new low even before a controversy developed about his hefty side income from fitness magazines, according to a poll released on Thursday.

Only 34 percent of adult Californians approve of the job Schwarzenegger is doing as governor, compared with 51 percent who disapprove, according to a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The institute's poll mirrors sinking numbers in a Field Poll last month among registered voters which found approval dropped to 37 percent from 55 percent in February.

Plame-Gate: Memo Contradicts GOP Talking Points

Rove's lawyer and GOP talking points have been claiming that Rove didn't break the law because he didn't KNOWINGLY out a covert operative, but the Washington Post finds out that the memo Colin Powell had on Airforce One in June of 2003 clearly classified Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as SECRET:

Plame's Identity Marked As Secret: "A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked '(S)' for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the 'secret' level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as 'secret' the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret."

It'll be interesting to see if Patrick can prove that Rove saw the memo. Of course he did, but can't they prove it? And I'm betting that Rove outed Valerie Plame Wilson with Bush's blessings.

Reproductive Rights Going... Going...

I learned about politics from my dad, a yellow-dog Democrat, who told me that I could always count on the Republicans to do the wrong thing, but I couldn't always count on Democrats to do the right thing. That statement is still operative. Under the influence of the Christian right, we can count on Republicans to continue working to undermine our reproductive rights and we can't count on the Democrats to work to protect those rights.

Republicans, under the influence of right wing extremists have defunded the United Nations Population Fund, reinstated the global gag rule and are throwing money at abstinence-only education. As a result HIV rates have been increasing and a new resistant strain of the virus is developing.

In a recent speech, Hillary Clinton called abortion "a sad, even tragic choice for many," and she praised faith-based programs adding, "the jury is still out" on abstinence-only education even though it's promoting falsehoods and religious instruction. These "educators" have claimed that HIV can be spread through sweat and tears, that condoms fail 31% of the time and that women having abortions risk sterility. Apparently telling the truth is not a family value. When I receive requests for contributions to Clinton's campaign, I use the postage-paid envelope to send my opinion of her pandering to the right and I don't include a contribution either.

The Democrats demonstrated their lack of commitment to our rights by choosing anti-choice Harry Reid as minority leader of the Senate and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (who won't be getting any campaign contributions from me either) is recruiting at least two pro-life Democrats for key Senate Races in 2006.

Even Howard Dean says the party should make room for "pro-life" Democrats and blogger Markos Moulitsas of Daily KOS, echoes those sentiments. When people disagree with his opinion, he invites "that women studies set" to go read other blogs.

We have alternative blogs to read but we also need another political party.

Bush's Supreme Court Nomination

I decided to try my drinking game during Bush's speech tonight, but I failed. His jaw was jerking at the end of every sentence and I couldn't keep up, so I gave up on drinking and started counting. His jaw jutted forward or jerked sideways at least 32 times. I probably missed a few because the camera cut away several times. No one has talked about this since before debates last year, but I believe one of the following things is happening:

1. He's taking a prescription drug for a mental health problem.
2. He's using an illegal drug like speed or cocaine.

It scares me to know that someone with such a twitchy jaw has his finger of the "nookyoolur" button.

Rove Investigated for Obstruction of Justice

Apparently the Plame investigation is finally leaking after two years and sources say Rove is going down. According to a web exclusive by Murray Waas at American Prospect Online:

"White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove's first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said.

Also leading to the early skepticism of Rove's accounts was the claim that although he first heard that Plame worked for the CIA from a journalist, he said could not recall the name of the journalist. Later, the sources said, Rove wavered even further, saying he was not sure at all where he first heard the information. "

There's some speculation that Novak cooperated with the investigation rather than risk going to jail. I'm so hoping this is true and we'll get to see Rove frog-marched into a holding cell. And I don't believe for a minute that Bush didn't know or didn't sanction the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.

The "A" Team

Schwarzenegger's political arm, California Recovery Team, has a Web ad on news compendium 'Rough and Tumble' that seems to compare him to former Govs. Hiram Johnson and Edmund G. 'Pat' Brown.

Rocklin and Roseville Today quotes (in the bottom section of their web page) Todd Harris, CRT spokesman:

'I don't know that we're comparing Gov. Schwarzenegger to Governors Johnson and Brown but . . . there have been important reform-minded governors in the past and that is the model Gov. Schwarzenegger looks to,' said CRT spokesman Todd Harris.

Asked how Schwarzenegger is similar to Brown, a Democrat known for expanding California's government, Harris said, 'They both have 'A's in their names.' "

Yep! They really are that smart.

I Love Helen Thomas

I caught some of Helen Thomas' no nonsense questioning of Scott McClellan today:

HELEN THOMAS: What is his [Bush's] problem? Two years, and he can't call Rove in and find out what the hell is going on? I mean, why is it so difficult to find out the facts? It costs thousands, millions of dollars, two years, it tied up how many lawyers? All he's got to do is call him in.

McCLELLAN: You just heard from the President. He said he doesn't know all the facts. I don't know all the facts.

HELEN THOMAS:Why?

McCLELLAN: We want to know what the facts are. Because --

HELEN THOMAS: Why doesn't he ask him?

McCLELLAN: I'll tell you why, because there's an investigation that is continuing at this point, and the appropriate people to handle these issues are the ones who are overseeing that investigation. There is a special prosecutor that has been appointed. And it's important that we let all the facts come out. And then at that point, we'll be glad to talk about it, but we shouldn't be getting into --

HELEN THOMAS: You talked about it to reporters.

MR. McCLELLAN: We shouldn't be getting into prejudging the outcome.

What ABC's New Poll Tells Us About the GOP

A new ABC poll shows that 75% of respondents (Republicans and Democrats) believe that Bush is not cooperating in the Plame-leak investigation.

Just a quarter of Americans think the White House is fully cooperating in the federal investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity, a number that's declined sharply since the investigation began. And three-quarters say that if presidential adviser Karl Rove was responsible for leaking classified information, it should cost him his job.

Skepticism about the administration's cooperation has jumped. As the initial investigation began in September 2003, nearly half the public, 47 percent, believed the White House was fully cooperating. That fell to 39 percent a few weeks later, and it's lower still, 25 percent, in this new ABC News poll.

This poll shows us that 25% of people polled are completely delusional, seriously deranged or otherwise out of touch with reality.

This view is highly partisan; barely over a tenth of Democrats and just a quarter of independents think the White House is fully cooperating. That grows to 47 percent of Republicans — much higher, but still under half in the president's own party. And doubt about the administration's cooperation has grown as much among Republicans — by 22 points since September 2003 — as it has among others.

These numbers show that Republicans' grip on reality is less firm than that of Democrats and Independents. The cause of their pathology can probably be linked to their faith-based (fairy tale) religious beliefs and the fact that many of them watch the Faux Snooze channel.

There's less division on consequences: 75 percent say Rove should lose his job if the investigation finds he leaked classified information. That includes sizable majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats alike — 71, 74 and 83 percent, respectively.

At the same time, in September 2003 more Americans — 91 percent — said someone who leaked classified information should be fired. The question at that time did not identify Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and one of George W. Bush's closest advisers, as the possible source of the information.

Rove & Libby Tried to Discredit Wilson

The Los Angeles Times reports that Rove and Libby were so intent on discrediting Joe Wilson, they began talking directly to the press:

Top Aides Reportedly Set Sights on Wilson:

Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Prosecutors investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, a CIA officer who had worked undercover, have been told that Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat." Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said.

The disclosures about the officials' roles illustrate White House concern about Wilson's July 6, 2003, article, which challenged the administration's assertion that Iraq had sought to purchase nuclear materials. Wilson's article appeared as Rove and other Bush aides were preparing the 2004 reelection campaign strategy, which was built largely around the president's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein....

News of the high-level interest in discrediting Wilson comes as White House defenders, most notably officials at the Republican National Committee, argue that Rove has been vindicated of suspicion that he was a primary source of the leak. Knowingly revealing the identity of a covert operative is a federal crime.

Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.

And the press's role as a mouth piece for partisan hackery comes under criticism from Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post:

For those who see the secretive Bush administration as a reincarnation of the Nixon regime, the disclosure that Rove served as a source for Time's Matt Cooper and columnist Robert Novak looks like the slow unraveling of a scandal that has now reached the top level of the White House. Scott McClellan is cast in the Ron Ziegler role, refusing to answer a barrage of reporters' questions about Rove after his previous answers were rendered inoperative...

Even the media's preferred narrative -- built around the sanctity of anonymous sources -- comes up short. Unlike Deep Throat, who was risking his FBI career by telling Woodward about the Nixon spying operation and cover-up Rove and whoever else leaked Valerie Plame's CIA connection to Novak and other journalists were doing partisan dirty work, and some may have been committing a crime. Cooper and others have argued that they can't make a distinction between "good guy" and "bad guy" sources -- a promise is a promise -- but helping White House officials finger a covert operative is not exactly the kind of work that builds public support for the Fourth Estate.

Time Inc. has come under a barrage of journalistic criticism for caving to pressure -- and ignoring Cooper's objections -- in surrendering the reporter's notes and e-mails to a special prosecutor, thus announcing to all potential sources that a pledge of confidentiality could crumble. (Cooper, who describes his grand jury testimony in the new issue of Time, says he was "upset" by the company's decision.) Woodward was never subpoenaed during Watergate, but Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham withstood enormous pressure from the White House, including threats against the company's television licenses.

The New York Times, unlike Time, is standing firm despite losing in the courts, and Miller chose to change her address to the Alexandria Detention Center rather than betray her sources. But since she never wrote a story about any of this, it's hard to argue that her source cultivation produced important journalism.

In short, we have the unusual spectacle of a nationally known, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter being jailed and little public outcry. Not even journalists are unanimous about Miller; in his brief demanding her imprisonment, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald cited a Los Angeles Times editorial and a Chicago Tribune column by Steve Chapman challenging the media's absolutist stance on sources.

This is a tangled tale in which no one looks good. And that goes double for Novak, the syndicated columnist and CNN commentator who disclosed Plame's CIA connection in July 2003, based on "two senior administration officials."

Novak's refusal to say whether he was subpoenaed or has cooperated with Fitzgerald is starting to draw fire from other journalists. William Safire wrote in the Times that "Mr. Novak should finally write the column he owes readers and colleagues perhaps explaining how his two sources, who may have truthfully revealed themselves to investigators, managed to get the prosecutor off his back." Jay Rosen, chairman of New York University's journalism department, wrote on his PressThink blog that other media people should shun Novak and that if he "says he can't talk until the case is over, then he shouldn't be allowed to publish or opine on the air until the case is over."

Niger Mischief

No Quarter is quickly becoming my favorite source of information about the Valerie Plame outing, the "fixing" of intelligence to justify a war against Iraq, and other misdeeds of the Bushites. Note today's entry by CIA agent Pat Lang:

Niger Mischief: "It is very clear now that this document was forged by a couple of the shadowy ex-government characters who dwell in the environs of Washington and was planted in Italy on the basis of the personal contacts of one of them with the intention of influencing the debate over Iraq in this country. How do I know that? Well, I just do in the way that intelligence officers learn things. Good sources, multiple sources, first person accounts, probabilities, that is how one learns things. Could I swear to it in court? No. Intelligence conclusions are not things that can be sworn to in court.

Nevertheless, one must ask why the newsmedia are sitting on this story. The answer seems simple. 'Carrots and Sticks, carrots and sticks.' Work it out. "

Background: You probably already know this but this Niger document Mr. Lang refers to, is the justification used by the Bushites as proof that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear program. They were very likely creating false documents in an effort to "fix intelligence" (Downing Street Memo) so they could invade Iraq. The real reason they wanted to invade Iraq is illusive, but I suspect all or some of the following reasons: oil, personal grudge ("he tried to kill my dad"), oil, religious crusade, oil, Halliburton, oil. Did I miss any?

CIA Officers Say, "Mr. Bush Have You No Shame"?

Several members of the CIA who worked with Valerie Plame are blogging at No Quarter where you go if you are tired of the spin in the "No Spin Zone" and the "Hard Ball" pledge of a host [cough*Chris Matthews*cough*cough] who lobs nerf balls.

In a post titled MR. BUSH, HAVE YOU NO SHAME? Larry Johnson writes:

Every American who cares about our national security and the health of our intelligence services should be outraged over the current campaign being directed by the Republican National Committee to continue to smear the reputation and motives of Valerie Plame, an active employee of the CIA, who is not permitted to answer her critics and must sit quietly by while a group of bullies and cowards like Congressman Peter King, RNC Chairman Mehlman, Cliff May, and Victoria Toensing, among others, spread falsehoods about her status and actions. This is wrong and should not stand.

In another post titled: The Intelligence Challenge: Can We Trust Our President? he says:

Based on published information we can only conclude that partisan politics by people in the Bush Administration overrode the moral and legal obligations to protect clandestine officers and security assets

Beyond supporting Mrs. Wilson with our moral support and prayers we want to send a clear message to the political operatives responsible for this. You are a traitor and you are our enemy. You should lose your job and probably should go to jail for blowing the cover of a clandestine intelligence officer. You have set a sickening precedent. You have warned all U.S. intelligence officers that you may be compromised if you are providing information the White House does not like. A precedent, as one colleague pointed out during our brief appearances, allows you to build out a case based on previous legal actions and court decisions. It’s a slippery slope if it lowers the bar.

Under title of THE REAL OUTRAGE IN THE ROVE PLAME AFFAIR Mr. Johnson references the Senate report as biased:

...read the biased Senate intelligence committee report. Even though it was slanted to try to portray Joe [Ambassador Wilson] in the worst possible light this fact emerges on page 52 of the report: According to the US Ambassador to Niger (who was commenting on Joe's visit in February 2002), "Ambassador Wilson reached the same conclusion that the Embassy has reached that it was highly unlikely that anything between Iraq and Niger was going on." Joe's findings were consistent with those of the Deputy Commander of the European Command, Major General Fulford....

At the end of the day, Joe Wilson was right. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was the Bush Administration that pushed that lie and because of that lie Americans are dying. Shame on those who continue to slander Joe Wilson while giving Bush and his pack of liars a pass. That's the true outrage.

Keep an eye on No Quarter. They know what they're talking about.

Turd Blossom is a Cool Cucumber

In spite of White House and Repugnican spin, the Rove story isn't going away and it looks as though they squandered the opportunity to get a boost in the polls off the London bombings.

USNews.com: White House Week (7/25/05): "... the normally hypereffective White House spin machine threw a rod. 'The main story coming out of the White House this week was all about Karl Rove,' said one Democratic operative, suggesting the White House had instead wanted to 'use the bombings in London to shift the story line back to terrorism and try to get a little boost in the polls.' Senior White House officials fretted that the controversy would depress President Bush's public approval ratings still further and considered mounting a public defense, but they opted to wait out the storm, expecting the issue, eventually, to blow away. 'Rove is personally cool as a cucumber,' said one adviser. 'He has a heck of a lot more information than the rest of us.'"

The Washington Post has an excellent overview of Plamegate, revealing the Bushites' motivation to scare us with stories of WMD and mushroom clouds even though the evidence didn't support their fabrications. When Ambassador Wilson exposed their fraud, they began leaking like a sieve in an effort to silence him and ruin his wife's career as an undercover CIA agent. It's all very sordid.

CostCo vs. Wal-Mart

As a "buy blue" proponent, I shop at Costco and I boycott WalMart. The contrasts in management style between the two companies is interesting.

MoJo Blog: CostCo vs. Wal-Mart: "Most notably, the vast differences in average wage $17.41 per hour at Costco, $12 per hour at Wal-Mart's Sam's Club don't seem to be hurting the former any. And the resulting lower employee turnover 17 percent at Costco compared to 70 percent in the rest of the sector has probably helped the company's productivity. As anyone who's worked at a large retail chain can attest, you don't tend to put in much effort if you're only sticking around for a few months. The other key factor here, as Nathan Newman points out, is that about a fifth of Costco's workers are unionized, which in turn has had ripple effects for the rest of the chain's employees. (Though I believe Costco paid decent wages, and treated its workers fairly, before it acquired the unionized Price Club in 1993.)"

In 2003, investors flipped out at Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal—he was treating his workers and customers much too well for Wall Street's tastes, you see. Sinegal held on, but he seems like the great exception here; most CEOs obviously won't rank "rewarding shareholders" as their fifth priority.

There's more here at MoJo blog and here at the Financial Times.

Evolution Wins This Battle

The Week Magazine reports:

"The Tulsa Zoo has scrapped plans to install an exhibit on the biblical account of creation next to a display on evolution. An oversight board approved the creationism exhibit last month after architect Dan Hicks, the son of evangelical missionaries, accused zoo officials of anti-Christian bias. Hicks said it was unfair to exclude the biblical story of creation while permitting the display of symbols from other religions, such as a statue of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh at the elephant house. The board changed its mind after zoo donations declined amid a public outcry to drop the creationism display. Religion belongs in a place of worship, said board member Dale McNamara. "

Oh Arnie. You are so going down.

A new liberal blog, My Left Wing, has a great diary about Ahnie's latest image problem and asks:

"Can't we just use the special election to recall Schwarzenegger? "

Bush Responsible for London Bombings

John at America Blog discovered that the Bushites leaked information that enabled the London bombings.

ABC News just reported that the British authorities say they have evidence that the London attacks last week were an operation planned by Al Qaeda for the last two years. This was an operation the Brits thought they caught and stopped in time, but they were wrong. The piece of the puzzle ABC missed is that this is an operation the Bush administration helped botch last year.

The London bombers, per ABC, are connected to an Al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore, Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities recovered the laptop of a captured Al Qaeda leader, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, on July 13, 2004. On that laptop, they found plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway. According to an expert interviewed by ABC, "there is absolutely no doubt that Khan was part of a worldwide Al Qaeda operation, not just in the United States but also in Great Britain and throughout the west."

Also important, but not reported by ABC this evening, after his arrest Khan started working for our side - sending emails to his other Al Qaeda buddies, working as our mole.

ABC reports that names in Khan's computer matched a suspected cell of British citizens of Pakistani decent, many of who lived near the town of Luton, England - Luton is the same town where, not coincidentally, last week's London bombing terrorists began their day. According to ABC, authorities thought they had stopped the subway plot with the arrest of more than a dozen people last year associated with Khan. Obviously, they hadn't.

Those arrests were the arrests that the Bush administration botched by announcing a heightened security alert the week of the Democratic Convention. The alert was raised because of information found on Khan's computer (this is in the public record already, see below). In its effort to either prove that the alert was serious, or to try and scare people during the Dem Convention, the administration gave the press too much information about WHY they raised the alert. This put the media on the trail of Khan - they found him, and they published his name.

Because the US let the cat out of the bag, the media got a hold of Khan's name and published the fact that he had been captured - his Al Qaeda contacts thus found out their "buddy" was actually a mole, and they fled. Our sole source inside Al Qaeda was destroyed. As a result, the Brits had to have a high speed chase to catch some of Khan's Al Qaeda associates as they fled, and, according to press reports, the Brits and Pakistanis both fear that some slipped away.

All the details are here on AmericaBlog.

It appears that the Bushites were so intent on scaring us before the elelction or distracting the press from covering the Democrat convention, they released classified information outing their mole. I wonder if we'll ever learn the extent of the damage they did when they outed Valerie Plame?