Republicans Support the Troops!

Well, if I'd ever thought otherwise, this certainly cleared it up for me. I'm a-gunna run riyut out 'n git me one-a dem purty yello ribbuns for ma trunk...

Lying, filthy, hypocrites...

Thanks again, Elsie...and just when I'm supposed to be winding down!


Click here: AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

American vets from Iraq war not qualified to serve in public office, GOP US House candidate says in Ohio by John in DC - 7/28/2005 06:10:00 PM

This is bad, seriously. Paul Hackett is running as the first Iraq war vet to run for Congress, and now his GOP opponent, Jean Schmidt, just said that being an American vet from the Iraq war is the wrong kind of experience for a member of Congress. I kid you not.The Swift Boaters started it last year with Kerry, and Bush did the same thing to McCain in 2000. Slur a guy because he's a vet. And now we have a GOP candidate for Congress saying that service in the Iraq war apparently disqualifies you for being a member of Congress.Any US service members watching?

This is what I'm talking about. You think the Republicans are automatically your friends? Ask yourself why the only ones upset about all of you guys getting killed, maimed, sent to war based on a lie, not being given any plan to win the war, not even being given body armor three years after hostilities commenced - why the only people upset about all of that are Democrats?

Then listen to this woman.

Any questions?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/

To Karl with Love

With thanks to Elsie who knows my humor best...

Click here: Niagara Falls Reporter Opinion

KARL ROVE: AN AMERICAN TRAITOR
By Bill Gallagher


DETROIT -- It is the holy of holies, the sanctum sanctorum, the secret underground bunker where Vice President Dick Cheney, the Bushevik Buddha, holds court, shares his wisdom and issues orders. It is also a crime scene. It's the dark cave where Cheney and other conspirators plotted the outing of an undercover CIA officer. And when their treasonous deed was exposed, they used this vile den to map their cover-up plan, which mounting evidence shows may well have included perjury and obstruction of justice.

President George W. Bush was certainly involved as the initiator of the crimes, and he bears the ultimate responsibly for the felonious behavior of his loyal followers. Given his short attention span, aversion to details and unwillingness to work long hours, the sordid task was delegated to others.

The president never saw the implications of selling the big lie that Saddam Hussein was seeking enriched uranium in Niger to use as fuel for an imaginary nuclear weapons program. First of all, Bush had sold so many lies -- as he does to this day, linking Iraq to 9/11 -- that he figured, no big deal about the Niger hoax.
And never forget, our "war president" only sees the world in clear, unequivocal terms. Saddam is "evil." We are fighting for "freedom." So if the president must exaggerate, deceive or flat-out lie to make his case, George W. Bush just shrugs.
When former ambassador Joseph Wilson went public and challenged the Bush administration's phony claims that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium for its nuclear program, the president may have cared little about the exposure, but men around him smelled big trouble.

They knew that, when Wilson told the truth, others might follow. Nip it in the bud. Punish Wilson and fire a warning shot to intimidate others. You talk, and you'll pay a price. While the president went to work in his own way -- trying to learn how to ride a new bike, pumping iron, playing video games and watching sports on TV -- three of his closest confidants knew what needed to be done and began the dirty work.

Karl Rove, Bush's "brain," relished the task. It involved his specialties: vengeance and destroying enemies. I can hear it now. The year is 2003. Rove, in the midst of a White House Bible-study class, ducks out for a minute and gets on the phone with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

Rove: "Scooter, did you read what that f----r Joe Wilson wrote in the New York Times? We'll f--k him like no one has ever f----d him."

Libby: "Right you are, Karl. We've got to break his legs and I know just how. His wife is in the CIA. I saw the State Department memo on her. She's been doing covert stuff for years. You'd never know it. She keeps a real low profile and does WMD analysis. She does her job and she's a babe."

Rove: "Scooter, I can't believe this. I'll bet she got the Africa assignment for Wilson and he got paid to go out and screw us over."

Libby: "No, she didn't, Karl. It was one of those other f---ks in Langley who tried to scuttle us at every turn. But she did know he was going over there. Her name is Plame, Valerie Plame. But she sometimes goes by Wilson."

Rove: "Does Dick know this?"

Libby: "Sure, he showed me the memo. He's down in his den. Let's check in with him."

Rove: "I'll be there in 10 minutes. I've got Cardinal Law on hold, and I've got to wrap up my Bible-study class."

The next scene takes place 10 minutes later in Cheney's secret bunker.

Cheney: "What's up, guys? Don't bring me any bad news and spoil my day. The price of sweet crude is going out of sight and Rummy just told me he ordered his auditors to lay off Halliburton and quit all this chicken-sh-t documentation stuff. Hell, we're at war. What's up?"

Libby: "Remember that State Department memo about Joe Wilson's wife?"
Cheney: "Of course. I still can't understand what she sees in that bastard Wilson."
Rove: "Dick, Scooter and I were sort of thinking out loud about that and one way to f--k Wilson and send a message to any other loudmouth liberal traitors might be to drop his wife's name and her connections on a few friendly reporters."

Cheney: "She's fair game, my friends. Who'd you have in mind?"

Rove: "Well, Bob Novak, of course. He'll do it in a minute. I thought about Brit Hume, but it's too obvious. We can't use Fox all the time. Maybe we should drop a dime on a few others to cover our tracks?"

Libby: "I could call Tim Russert. He's usually helpful, and he likes you, Dick."

Rove: "Matt Cooper from 'Time' would go for it, and we could ask Chalabi to slip it to Judy Miller at the Times. She'll repeat anything he tells her. Besides, we owe her for all those front-page stories."

Cheney: "Do it yourself, Karl. Chalabi will ask for money. Sounds like a plan. Let me know what happens."

Rove: "Any down sides to this?"

Cheney: "Don't get caught. But, Karl, remember, all we have to do is win another term and this will all be behind us."

Libby: "Besides, this is all about national security and we can use that to protect ourselves."

Rove: "Should I tell the president?"

Cheney: "I'll handle that, Karl. I'll tell him what we've decided."

Unfair? Implausible? No. This dramatic re-enactment creates scenes that portray the Busheviks just as they are -- ruthless apparatchiks willing to do and say anything to crush an enemy. Their actions were unlawful and treasonous. When they got caught in their treachery, they lied and broke more laws in an attempt to save their own hides.

While Karl Rove is usually viewed as the central figure in this blossoming scandal, Dick Cheney's dirty fingerprints are found everywhere in these serial crimes and deceptions.

Cheney, more than anyone else in the Bush administration, was eager to make the public case that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous threat to our national security and that the invasion of Iraq was the only way to stop him.

Since the facts didn't support those wild claims, Cheney was hell-bent to fabricate them any way he could. He had his old pal, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, set up his own operation in the Pentagon to cherry-pick, shape and "fix" intelligence to ramp up the case against Iraq.

Cheney would personally handle the troublesome CIA. He, Libby and others would pull up to CIA headquarters on Saturday mornings to review the work being done on the Iraq "threat." Like mafia heavies, they'd pull up in their big black cars, burst through the doors and oversee the intelligence-refining process.
Munching on doughnuts, they'd look over the shoulders of professional CIA intelligence analysts, looking for holes in their work and scouring for any scintilla of evidence that Saddam was planning to build nukes.

There wasn't much to go on. But when Cheney's thugs would find crumbs, they'd slip them over to Rummy's boys, who would try to make them into something more tasty for Lord Halliburton to chew on.

That's why Cheney went crazy when Joe Wilson blew the lid off their lies. If he got away with it, what about others at the CIA? This could open up floodgates at the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council. Not to mention what the Brits might reveal about the phony reasons for war (See: Downing Street Memo).

So Cheney, Rove and Libby set out to discredit and harm Joe Wilson, a career diplomat George H.W. Bush had hailed as a "hero" when Wilson served as acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War. The slimy plot failed in part. They outed Valerie Plame, but her husband kept talking. We'll never know, though, how many others were driven into silence.

The plot began unraveling when former attorney general John Ashcroft, in a moment of forced candor, had to admit he had too many conflicts of interest to conduct a fair investigation into who leaked the identity of the CIA officer. The probe required a special prosecutor.

Now, Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, is moving beyond the question of whether White House officials broke the law when they exposed an undercover agent into far more dangerous waters for the conspirators. The prosecutor is after the big sharks.

The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post are both reporting that Fitzgerald's team is looking at possible perjury in Rove and Libby's statements to FBI agents and in their testimony before a federal grand jury. The two most powerful White House staffers are also suspected of obstructing justice by trying to cover up their prominent roles in leaking Plame's identity.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, told the Los Angeles Times his client "has, from the beginning, been candid, forthcoming and accurate." Matt Cooper, of "Time" magazine, says he phoned Rove to discuss Plame's CIA job and that Rove confirmed she worked at the agency. It turns out Rove never mentioned this conversation during his first interview with the FBI. Candid? Forthcoming? Accurate?

The Washington Post reports Libby testified that he learned about Plame from NBC's Tim Russert. But Russert flatly denies that story. In a written statement, the Post reports Russert "told the prosecutor that 'he did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a CIA operative' and that he did not provide such information to Libby in July 2003." Someone committed perjury and I don't think it's that fine Irish-Catholic lad from Buffalo.

People in the intelligence community are outraged over Plame's outing and the administration's cavalier attitude.

James Marcinkowski is a former CIA operations officer and was a classmate of Plame's when they trained for service in the agency.

Marcinkowski now works as an attorney for the city of Royal Oak, Mich., and we have had several conversations about the scandal. He told me the identities of covert officers have been revealed in the past, but said, "Never in the history of the CIA has the White House been responsible and that's what makes this so outrageous."

Scene: Cheney's secret bunker, last Thursday night, 8 p.m., just before the president's bedtime.

President: "Hey, Dick. What's all this stuff about ole Turd Blossom and Scooter being in deep sh-t? They can't really send them to jail. What the hell did they do wrong? Ya know, I'm a war president. You're my vice president. We're up against evil. We're being strong leaders."

Cheney: "Well, sir, that's right, but they might have some problems. That's why we have the best lawyers anywhere lined up. In the worst-case scenario, if Karl and Scooter are convicted, all you have to do is pardon them. I'll explain what you have to do when the time comes. I feel terrible about this."

President: "Me too, Dick. Hey, I got an idea. I'll give 'em both Presidential Medals of Freedom. I like doing that and it does make people feel better when they really f----k-up big time. I was wonderin', though -- Laura mentioned this -- are me and you in any trouble on this thing?"

Cheney: "No, sir, not in the least. We cannot be charged with crimes while in office. The only way they can get at us is through impeachment and we control the Congress."

President: "That's good. But I hate to think people would start talkin' impeachment about trivial things, like that stuff we said about Saddam, the war and what we did to that liberal traitor Wilson."

Cheney: "No, sir. Don't worry. Impeachment is for grave, serious matters. Good night, Mr. President."

President: "You bet, D.C. Dick. By the way, can't tell ya enough what a great job yer doin' fur my administration."

Cheney: "Thank you, sir." (Muttering under his breath) "Go f--k yourself."

Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.

Yet another twist...

And deep within all of these twists and turns lies the truth. "Bring it on!"


washingtonpost.com

Bush Aide Learned Early of Leaks Probe

By Dafna LinzerWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, July 25, 2005; A02

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.


Many details of the investigation led by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald are unknown. Sources close to the case have said Fitzgerald is looking into possible conflicts between what President Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove and vice presidential staff chief I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury, and the accounts of reporters who spoke with the two men.


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.


Asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" about the column, Gonzales said the Justice Department had informed his office around 8 p.m. and that White House lawyers said he could wait until the next morning before notifying the staff. He did not say why he called Card.


"I specifically had our lawyers go back to the Department of Justice lawyers and ask them, 'Do you want us to notify the staff now, immediately, or would it be okay to notify the staff early in the morning?' And we were advised, go ahead and notify the staff early in the morning, that would be okay." He said most of the staff had left by the time the Justice Department called and that "no one knew about the investigation."


But he acknowledged telling one person: "the chief of staff. And immediately the next morning, I told the president. And shortly thereafter, there was notification sent out to all the members of the White House staff," Gonzales said.


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.


The case centers on the White House response in the days after July 6, 2003, when former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq's weapons arsenal to justify war. In an op-ed piece, Wilson wrote that the government sent him to Niger to investigate assertions that Iraq had tried to acquire materials there for a nuclear weapon and that he had reported back, before the war, that no proof had been found to support the allegations.


Eight days after Wilson's article appeared, Robert D. Novak published a syndicated column suggesting that the administration did not take Wilson's findings seriously and noting that Wilson's wife -- Plame -- was a CIA operative who had suggested him for the trip.
After accusations that someone in the administration had jeopardized an operative's cover in political retaliation, the Justice Department appointed Fitzgerald in December 2003 to investigate.


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."

© 2005 The Washington post

Seems like "everyman for himself," eh?"

What are these criminals hiding???

Now bush lies about his OWN lies but I guess when you're amoral, that's what you do. IT'S NOT ABOUT ROVE, IT'S NOT ABOUT ROVE, IT'S NOT ABOUT ROVE who should be jailed in any event. IT'S ABOUT TREASON. AND THEY'RE ALL INVOLVED. COME ON, AMERICA, WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WHEREVER YOU ARE...

Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak

Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak
By DONNA DE LA CRUZThe Associated PressFriday, July 22, 2005; 3:22 PMWASHINGTON -

- Former U.S. intelligence officers criticized President Bush on Friday for not disciplining Karl Rove in connection with the leak of the name of a CIA officer, saying Bush's lack of action has jeopardized national secIn a hearing held by Senate and House Democrats examining the implications of exposing Valerie Plame's identity, the former intelligence officers said Bush's silence has hampered efforts to recruit informants to help the United States fight the war on terror. Federal law forbids government officials from revealing the identity of an undercover intelligence officer."I wouldn't be here this morning if President Bush had done the one thing required of him as commander in chief _ protect and defend the Constitution," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst. "The minute that Valerie Plame's identity was outed, he should have delivered a strict and strong message to his employees.Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff, told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in a 2003 phone call that former U.S.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues, according to an account by Cooper in the magazine. Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the agency, but has said through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name.In July 2003, Robert Novak, citing unnamed administration officials, identified Plame by name in his syndicated column and wrote that she worked for the CIA. The column has led to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. New York Times reporter Judith Miller _ who never wrote a story about Plame _ has been jailed for refusing to testify.Bush said last week, "I think it's best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. And I will do so, as well."

Dana Perino, a White House spokesman, said Friday that the administration would have no comment on the investigation while it was continuing.Patrick Lang, a retired Army colonel and defense intelligence officer, said Bush's silence sends a bad signal to foreigners who might be thinking of cooperating with the U.S. on intelligence matters."This says to them that if you decide to cooperate, someone will give you up, so you don't do it," Lang said. "They are not going to trust you in any way".Johnson, who said he is a registered Republican, said he wished a GOP lawmaker would have the courage to stand up and "call the ugly dog the ugly dog"."Where are these men and women with any integrity to speak out against this?" Johnson asked. "I expect better behavior out of Republicans.

The author raises some excellent observations of our sorry societal affairs which is ultimately, the root of our problems and the reasons for why we are where we are. I've maintained all along that although this "war" is as much our own signature of our aggressive and violence loving natures, it may be even more so a battle being fought as a very sick, spiritually vacant peoples. Isn't it time we lay down our swords? We've managed to convince ourselves it's a matter of "my gun's bigger than your gun" but the truth lies in "my God's bigger than your God." Wasn't it said somewhere that "all men are created equal?"
Reality Alert - Code Red
by Lynne Glasner
http://www.opednews.com
The lines between reality and delusion get blurred further everyday. In the political arena, Bush uses perfect 1984 language to frame his policies, creating a confused public that can’t distinguish between truth and fiction.Though we’ve always had politicians who veer from the truth and wrap their periodic candidacy into a pretty package, Bush has upped the ante bringing the art of politics to a new level of self-promotion. This phenomenon is reflected in the fuzzy politics that parallels our 21st century fuzzy culture, from real-life video games to reality-based TV shows. In the former the players get starring roles in their own immorality play in which there are no consequences for whatever they do; in fact immoral behavior is often rewarded. In the latter, we get to play voyeur in someone else’s troubles leaving a boring reality on the kitchen table while we feed our fantasies. Then, using someone else’s immoral behavior dished up as humor, we emulate it as if Hollywood were calling with a contract for a new life. In this safe context it’s perceived as funny to be fired; to be a nasty, obnoxious boss; to be an unhappy suburban housewife whose only moments of joy are getting it on with the 20-year-old gardener. As the public walls itself off from ugly realities, our President wraps himself up in the American flag and stands behind a wall of ad hominems to shield the truth from the public. When more people are being shot up in Iraq he says “things are getting better”; when the average American has less earning power now than 8-10 years ago, he says “the economy is on the rise and getting better”; when asked about global warming and its consequences, he says, “the evidence isn’t in yet.” When things start to unravel, he turns up the PR machine. When the polls slip, he goes on national TV and cranks out the old saw that ties 9-11 to Iraq. Bush has adopted the stance of the stereotypical ugly American on a junket who repeats himself more and more loudly in an attempt to make himself understood by the non-English speaking bourgeoisie. “Our strategy to defend ourselves and spread freedom is working,” he tells a public eager to hear something new and optimistic. Discerning reality isn’t his strong suit or maybe it’s just that lying is.In the ‘good ole days’ of the 50s, the role models of the American post-war dream family were woven into the unattainable personas of Jim Anderson and June Cleaver. In those versions of family fantasy, the morals were out-of-reach ideals, not amoral humor. The rebellion against that stereotypical ideal that everyone knew was a fraud but was afraid to ask helped pave the way for the 60s rebellion that really scared off the right wingers who were happy in their paternal dominance that maintained family unity. By the time the Birchers and Goldwaters regrouped in the early 70s a new conservative movement was hatching. Back to the 50s was what they wanted.It was a slow process, but one that has now started to mature into adulthood. It’s not a pretty picture: our obsession with the lives of others, which are apparently eminently more interesting and exciting than our own, is confirmed by the popularity of reality TV. This is what’s reflected in a Middle America on the march in the show of shows. In fact the ‘stars’ are not just like their viewer-audience counterparts, they are one and the same. The ‘actors’ are supposed to be typical Middle Americans, everyone’s neighbor – young twenty somethings who think that winning is everything, or sports moms who need to relive their adolescence through their children because their own adult lives are so boring that anything is better than reality. Is life in America so insufferable and barren that voyeurism is the best entertainment we can find? Is this why conservatives are so obsessed with the personal issues of others? Or are our ideals so stunted that we are actually entertained by watching others compromise any semblance of morality? Do we really have to look that far to find other people whose problems are worse than our own to make us feel OK? Won’t the local homeless shelter provide that reality bite? Or is that reality too real and scary for comfort? The Moral Majority has morphed into an Immoral Minority who dominate the cultural landscape by grabbing the bully horn to pronounce themselves the majority. When viewers watch Bush fend off negative questions with his own grand illusions, it’s like seeing one of the reality TV shows in which a player can do or say anything to stay in the game. In fact, the more outrageous, the better. Truth is not part of the game – the game is in the gaming. Lying is built into the system. Has our culture been reduced to a series of games people play in which reality and delusion are merged? Are we a nation of liars who like watching others lie because it vindicates our own behavior and confirms the lie we tell ourselves—that we’re just like everyone else?In the 50s we aspired to be the Cleavers; now we all want to be Hollywood squares. If everyone lies and cheats to get ahead, it must be OK. The moral high-ground of “Father Knows Best” has been replaced by the last man standing on “Fear Factor” where any behavior is justifiable as long as you win. Our winning President is the last man standing in a nation controlled by the fear factor. In the mirror of the executive office, there’s no there there. But we have a public who believes in the lottery of politics where sales trump salesmanship and power trumps responsibility. In this political pool money buys the get-out-of-jail-free card; everything is stage-managed to appear like chance even though nothing is left to chance.Which came first? Did the ‘red’ voters choose a President who reflects their own mixture of reality with a dose of fantasy - lies in place of truth? Or is the President so taken with himself that he believes he can say anything and call it truth, no matter how outrageous, and the red voters will accept his reality? Does that mean that because Middle Americans lie and are deluded that the US should be led by someone who does the same? Is this leadership or PR that passes for entertainment? In the 70s when “All in the Family” was the big hit show, some people identified with Archie; he was just like them. They didn’t get the humor - what’s so funny about picking on Archie? Now we’ve got Hollywood wannabes play acting Archie’s 21st century counterpart and the not-so-silent majority Middle Americans still don’t get it. They see Bush as the anti-hero and ask why everyone picks on him. We don’t need professional actors to play Archie and Edith; the real Archies and Ediths star in their own psycho-babble 15-minute slot. But this time around, professional actors using a script have been replaced by ordinary, talentless Middle Americans competing for their 15 minutes of fame with only their own fantasy as script. The cast has gone from smart people play-acting stupid to stupid people play-acting what they think is smart because their goals involve winning and wealth – the lottery jackpot. In the updated script the fantasy is the reality of the TV show, which is a fiction created to make us believe in the possibility of an alternative reality to our own.When Jon Stewart points out the disconnect between reality and Bush-speak, if we understand the reality we think it’s funny. If our version of reality meshes with the Bush lottery, we think “The Apprentice” is funny.So the question is which came first – did our schizoid society create the monster Bush or is he the reflection of a schizoid society that can’t tell the difference between truth and fiction? We need a color-coded reality check so we know when to panic.

Blah, blah, blah...

Dear Ms. _____:

Thank you for contacting me regarding proposals to institute a national identification system. I appreciate the benefit of your views on this important issue. Like virtually all Americans, I believe that our government must take necessary steps to fight global terrorism and protect American lives. However, I agree with you that we must not allow terrorists to compromise or diminish the freedoms which define our great country. I firmly believe that security and libertyare not mutually exclusive, and that our new security measures must not impinge on the civil liberties and freedoms that define our great country.

As you may know, Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)introduced H.R. 418, the REAL ID Act, on January 26, 2005. The REAL ID Act would require State departments of motor vehicles toverify documents used to obtain drivers licenses without specifically appropriating funds for this purpose. The NationalConference of State Legislatures estimates that this unfunded mandate will cost States between $500 million and $700 millionover five years to implement. Finally, these licencing requirements also raise privacy issues, since Departments of Motor Vehicles will gain access to private information and are required to hold such information for over ten years. During a Conference Committee with the House of Representatives, most provisions of the REAL ID bill were attached to the final version of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief of 2005 (H.R. 1268). This legislation wasapproved by the Senate by a vote of 100-0 and was signed into law by President Bush on May 11, 2005. I strongly support all funds necessary to equip and protect our troops. So long as they are in danger they need whatever resources military commanders deem necessary to get the job done. That is why, despite my reservations about aspects of the REAL ID Act, I voted in favor of the conference report on H.R. 1268.

However, I am concerned that the provisions of the REAL ID bill included in H.R. 1268 were never debated on the Senate Judiciary Committee and were never properly considered on the Senate floor. Certainly, some reform with respect to identification documents may be required, but this partisan and hasty approach was not the best way to proceed. I will continue to support measures that enhance national security while also respecting the privacy of the majority of law-abiding Americans. Similarly, I will continue to oppose any information gathering system that is too large to be effective or that unnecessarily gathers information on every American.

Thank you again for contacting me. If you would liketo stay in touch with me on this and other issues of importance, please visit my website at http://dodd.senate.gov and subscribe to my online newsletter, the Dodd Digest. Please do not hesitateto contact me again if I can help you in any way.

Sincerely,

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD
United States Senator

Straight out of Betty Crocker...

Recipe for extinction

By John Kaminski –
skylax@comcast.net July 17, 2005

I have a recurring dream. I am on an airplane, sitting in a window seat, gazing contentedly out the window at the tops of puffy clouds and microscopic towns far below, gabbing amiably with the passenger next to me. Soon it becomes apparent that we disagree about our scheduled destination. He insists it's L.A.; I say New York. As I begin to stir in my seat to get up to ask a flight attendant to settle our dispute, we notice the busy stewardesses are conducting an odd exercise. With polite smiles, they are choosing random passengers one by one, and escorting them to the emergency escape hatch. First a boy clutching his skateboard, then a middle-aged woman in a black business suit, then a soccer mom grasping the small hand of her toddler, all willingly step out into thin air as their guides bid them a cordial farewell. Incredulous, I lurch to the far window and witness a Mary Poppins-like trail of passengers plummeting toward the ground. Panicked, I turn back to my seatmate, and he returns my look of horror with an empty-headed, nothing-is-wrong smile. Apoplectic, I race feverishly toward the cockpit, wrench open the cabin door, and discover there is no one inside. The pilots' seats are empty. Astonished, I whirl around and find myself face-to-face with a mannequin stewardess. “Don’t you just love autopilot?” she mutters dreamily. “You know, you just have to have faith. Here, let me show you the door to your future.”

•••How much longer, I wonder constantly, will seemingly sensible and honest people continue to put up with this perverted political passion play now besieging the world that is so obviously detrimental to the needs of average people, even willfully destructive of those needs?

The dire predictions of so-called conspiracy theorists are all coming true: senseless wars are being created with transparent lies for the profits of a select few; the populace is infected with obvious poisons from both the medical profession and the food industry who because of recently passed laws are immune from legal action by the victims of these cruel concoctions; and our money is being steadily stolen by inbred elitist bankers who use accounting sleight-of-hand to funnel currency to that same small segment of the population who all seem to be immune from laws that guarantee poverty for the rest of us. Maybe worst of all is the fantasy world created by our commercial mass media, which prohibit any discussion of human values relative to honest government and exacerbate our problems with so-called entertainment dominated by nihilistic and pornographically self-destructive scripts. What kind of spineless, brain dead cretins would tolerate such a blatant conspiracy?

Well, the American people, to name one group, but also most of the people on the planet, who every day choose to trade their hard-won emotional securities and family ties for mindless mechanized titillation, and then cower in their powerlessness because they are all so dependent on a technological system that encourages addiction to mindless consumerism. Most of us are hypnotized by fashionable capitalistic shills who castigate natural self-reliance as antisocial selfishness. We have all been victimized by the alluring softness of high-tech trinkets that sever our contact with the life-giving land and more and more solidify our isolation while causing us to forsake our healthy dependence on those we are inclined to love. How come so few people realize that nobody is free, that everybody is owned by banks? Nobody owns their homes, their cars; even their educations and careers are in significant hock to the banks. You regard your marriage, for those of you who still have one of those, as inauthentic without the sanction of the state. Even your children are not your property; they must be given poisonous vaccinations at birth or public health fascists will take them from you and claim you are unfit parents.

This is law in a world made mad and turned upside down. Isn’t it strange so few Americans have objected to the new, out-front use of torture on people who have never even been tried in a court of law ­ never mind convicted ­ especially when underground reports of those taken prisoner and persecuted at Guantanamo reveal them not as terrorists but as hapless victims abducted to lend apparent authenticity to a minor detail of Washington’s contrived terror fantasies? Why has nobody figured out that our government is not protecting us from terrorists?

Our government creates terrorists so we will in sheer insecure panic support the criminal cabal that is ravaging the world with senseless mass murder, enabling it to keep us in a stirred-up state of dependent fear because that allows it to better control and regiment us into prescripted cadres of servile dupes. This is not freedom, this is slavery ­ terrorized, manipulated slavery to the banks ­ and it is what we face with increasing insecurity every single day. Why do we put up with it? Why don’t we see through the ruse? Especially since our lives depend on seeing through it.

•••Right after the recent bombings in London, I was so impressed by the size of the web chorus immediately pointing out that the deed was a deception, and that four innocent Islamic chaps from Leeds had apparently been set up to take the fall as the culprits for this latest public atrocity from the power elite. These reports dutifully noted that all the suspicious characters, from Rudy Giuliani to Benjamin Netanyahu, were conveniently in place to spin the traditional public myth, just like after 9/11. I thought, each time the The Big Lie becomes a little bit clearer, the human future gets a little bit brighter. But the power of big media is monstrous, and just as with 9/11 and the Iraq war, what is on the lips of people in the street is far different from what is on the minds of intelligent commentators in cyberspace. First it was my neighbor. “Those freaking ragheads. We oughtta just go over there and bomb them all to bits.” Taken aback, I retorted, “We’ve already been doing that for years.” But he would not be placated, or reasoned with. “Nuke ‘em. Nuke ‘em all,” he barked, and stormed off.

Things were no better with my family. “Why do THOSE PEOPLE keep doing these things to us?” several wondered, interrupting their trains of thought from the preparation of a family feast, with no recognition of the continuing American atrocities all over the world. “Oh? Which people are that?” I countered casually, but they didn’t answer. Then came the TV blasts of Muslim-this and Arab-that, the prediction by Bush-shill Joseph Farah that al-Qaeda would strike soon in the U.S. But lost amid all the mawkish mourning of the London tragedy was the excellent story about what al-Qaeda truly was ­ a CIA database that the war machine's spin doctors had long ago morphed into the reincarnation of Dracula's vampires ­ that was posted on the Conspiracy Planet website which I read at http://100777.com/node/1343 (another cool website) that had been sent to me by some friendly Dalits in India (love those Dalits, but the rest of the Indians seem as ugly as Americans and Israelis put together).

And speaking of great webfriends, Lilia Firefly, well-known West Coast tawo seed carrier (Google it), sent me a very telling story that aptly signified the danger of careening from atrocity to atrocity without stopping to think about the context of all these serial depredations. The Downing Street Memos. Remember them? Two weeks down the line and they've already been sucked into the memory hole. The Downing Street Memos, dear American friends, are the documents which prove Bush and Blair had determined to go to war against Iraq and fixed their public pronouncements ­ tailored their phony evidence ­ around this murderous policy. The Downing Street Memos are what should have brought every honest American into the streets as a lynch mob demanding the immediate and public hanging of George W. Bush and hundreds of other U.S. government officials. But this also should have happened after 9/11 when Bush and Daschle agreed to limit the scope of the investigation so as not to jeopardize “national security.” By now you can see by all these non-responses how many honest Americans really exist ­ namely, not nearly enough. The Downing Street Memos are what proves that George W. Bush and his Gang of Ghouls (prominently featuring Judith Miller and The New York Times in the starring role of perverted propagandists) have thrown away 9,000 American lives and 128,000 Iraqi civilian lives for what were provably premeditated lies. The Downing Street Memos verify beyond any doubt what Americans have become ­ irredeemable Zionist Nazi thugs, who will kill anyone for any reason, or no reason at all. The main reason for the London bombings was to disappear the Downing Street Memo story from the world’s headlines, and it worked perfectly.

The satanic chorus of Fox News, CNN, et al chimed in with strategic bits of planted information to brook no doubt that Islamic terrorists were behind the London atrocities, even though the alleged perps ­ now conveniently dead ­ previously exhibited not a sniff of terrorist tendencies. Even an old Mossad chief got in on the act, advocating for World War Three. And several Israeli officials hammered their propaganda point home with remarks like “now you know how we feel.” Yes, we do, I thought. We are being lied to constantly about what is actually happening, and you are blowing us up to prove your point. The mass media are in your pocket and ordinary people are so consumed by their own survival requirements that they can't possibly perceive the twists and turns of all the deceptions, and consequently just accept the pap they hear on their local media outlets, because they don't have the time and energy to pursue the accurate details themselves. Which is just the way they want it, they being the people who control us, conduct fraudulent elections, and bomb whomever they please in pursuit of profit. Nobody I know in cyberspace believes the official story. What appears to have happened is that four innocent patsies were recruited to participate in a terror drill, then deceptively given live bombs that took their lives, and the lives of 50-some others. Once again, the anticipated aftermath was meticulously scripted to defame Muslims.

The ensuing spin goes one better than the trick of 9/11, in which the FBI instantaneously named 19 Arabs as the culprits, then had to suffer the indignity of having eight of the names turn up alive in various places, all claiming that they didn’t do the deed. Of course, the FBI wasn’t embarrassed enough to change their list of 9/11 perps, and the American public was simply too stupid to ask why not. This time around, they figured out a way to kill them all, then planted their papers near the scene. So while their families know these men to be innocent, at least the FBI will have no surprise patsies turning up alive this time. If this caper could be anything other than a Zionist false flag advertisement for its continuing genocide against the worldwide threat known as the Amalek (a.k.a, non-Jews who don’t support Israel), I would like to know what that is.

•••I receive about 500 e-mails each day, and most frequent question I get is ­ for sure ­ what can we do? For a long time now I've been fielding questions about what to do and have only had the clumsy answer, “Stand securely in your own truth and be an example to others.” But lately I've realized that the world has never been in touch with a reality that we desperately need to achieve if we are to survive. The principal revelation of this reality is that religions control our minds with magical, fictional lies, and if we choose to believe them, we become susceptible to authoritarian propaganda that also is all lies. You can’t prove that Moses, Krishna, Buddha, or Jesus ever walked on this planet, and if you believe in the statements attributed to them, you cannot accurately perceive what is happening to you as the bars on this prison planet are securely constructed around your lives. As long as we continue to believe that we are to bow down to and not criticize these religious stereotypes, we can't adequately challenge the same kind of authoritarianism we get from our corrupt leaders, and as a consequence, the “authorities” have carte blanche to exploit and obliterate us at their whim. And we, in our gratitude for the gifts we have been given, are constrained from challenging them with simple logic. How many times in your life have you heard your preacher, your priest, or your rabbi declare with unctuous certainty, support your leaders, or, my country right or wrong. It all stems from the Biblical injunction, “Render unto Caesar ....” This is not spirituality. This is mind-control. To go against this portentous command, you risk eternal damnation, the loss of your soul, and whatever other dire consequences you may, from your many formative years of conditioning in these matters, contemplate. We need to reach a new reality we have never had, and first among the tasks in accomplishing that is doing away with magic myths that prevent us from seeing what's really going on. Because of their ingrained preconditioning, this solution offends a majority of the world’s population, who since their childhoods have been indoctrinated in one religious system or another, and consequently base their perceptions of the world and its chaotic human society on these magical stories and senseless myths that in a very real way limit their ability to react sensibly to insane pronouncements, like “they hate our freedoms” or “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction,” two deliberate, stupid, and facile lies that have been believed by a majority of the American people. These are lies we tell our children, and lies we tell ourselves. The only legitimate excuse for religious ritual is to calm the fears of children who wonder where their loved ones have gone when their lives have expired.

The unexpected consequence of this seemingly innocent practice is that these children never grow up. Instead, they transfer the feelings of both security and fear they felt toward their parents to an imaginary superbeing whom they regard as an imaginary parent for the rest of their lives. As this is the single most important cultural ritual humans ever undergo, its power and importance was long ago recognized and by those with the psychological need to dominate others, and was cloaked by a profession of altruism that thrived on a certain power to control the lives of others with magical myths that masked the exploitation of innocents by self-labeled aristocrats. The same process continues today. The relationship between holy men allegedly possessing secrets of the afterlife and those who cherish such fantasies because they alleviate the ever present but suppressed fear of death is the dark side of human consciousness, and a corrupt cultural relationship that has lasted for more than five thousand years.

So in a sense, the priestly process can be regarded as satisfying an obvious and universal emotional need. But it is also a recipe for extinction, since holy warriors will always willingly kill for a goal that no one else can see, except the malicious minds of power-mad priests. And mullahs. And rabbis. It has been proven too many times that when the enemy is completely annihilated, then we begin killing each other, because we have learned no other way to live. Our allegiance may not be to one race, creed, or color. If it is, within the rules of the free market, we will eventually claim supernatural superiority for ourselves and begin the holy task of eliminating all the infidels. Clearly written in the Talmud and the Old Testament, it is really the beginning of the task of eliminating ourselves, subliminal marching orders to our own self-destruction. This is what will finish us. It’s time to realize this very small-minded syndrome has been going on for much longer than two thousand years, and it’s a stupid illusion, cultivated for profit by the very perps who besiege us now with all their fake terror alerts, false flag mass murders, and supercilious, sanctimonious soliloquies saying they are acting in the name of God. The choices are two: get real, and let people venerate the awesome miracle of life in any way they wish, or perish, by the sword or by the pox. Time grows short.

•••Here’s another recurring nightmare, one that you, dear reader, have experienced all too frequently in recent years. In it, an angelic being, majestically robed in sacred raiments, benevolently beams down at you and says, in the most soothing voice imaginable, “My God is better than yours ....”

John Kaminski is an Internet columnist whose essays are seen on hundreds of websites around the world. They have been collected into two anthologies, titled “America’s Autopsy Report” and “The Perfect Enemy.” These are for sale on his website, http://www.johnkaminski.com/ Also for sale is “The Day America Died: Why You Shouldn’t Believe the Official Story of What Happened on September 11, 2001,” written for those who still believe the government’s false story of that tragic day.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors sound familiar?

Or perhaps felony???

Prosecutors Zero in on Memo for Clues in CIA Agent Leak

Published on Saturday, July 16, 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle
Prosecutors Zero in on Memo for Clues in CIA Agent LeakThey want to know who on Bush team saw report on Plame
by Douglas Jehl, David Johnston, Richard Stevenson

WASHINGTON - Prosecutors in the CIA leak case have shown intense interest in a 2003 State Department memorandum that explained how a former diplomat came to be dispatched on an intelligence-gathering mission and the role of his wife, a CIA officer, in the trip, people who have been officially briefed on the case said.

Investigators have been trying to learn whether officials at the White House and elsewhere in the administration learned of the CIA officer's identity from the memorandum. They are seeking to determine if any officials then passed the name along to journalists and if officials were truthful in testifying about whether they had read the memorandum, the people who have been briefed said, asking not to be named because the special prosecutor heading the investigation has requested that no one discuss the case.

The memo was sent to Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, just before or as he traveled with President Bush and other senior officials to Africa starting on July 7, 2003, when the White House was scrambling to defend itself from a blast of criticism a few days earlier from the former diplomat, Joseph Wilson, current and former government officials said.

Powell was seen walking around Air Force One during the trip with the memo in hand, said a person involved in the case who also requested anonymity because of the prosecutor's admonitions about talking about the investigation.

Investigators are also trying to determine whether the gist of the information in the memo, including the name of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, had been provided to the White House even earlier, said another person who has been involved in the case. Investigators have been looking at whether the State Department provided the information to the White House before July 6, 2003, when her husband publicly criticized the way the administration used intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, the person said.

The prosecutors have shown the memo to witnesses at the grand jury investigating how the CIA officer's name was disclosed to journalists, blowing her cover as a covert operative and possibly violating federal law, people briefed on the case said. The prosecutors appear to be investigating how widely the memo circulated within the White House and the administration, and whether it might have been the original source of information for whoever provided the identity of Plame to Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist who first disclosed it in print.
On Thursday, a person who has been officially briefed on the matter said that Karl Rove, Bush's senior adviser, had spoken about Plame with Novak before Novak published a column on July 14, 2003. Rove, the person said, told Novak he had heard much the same information, making him one of two sources Novak cited for his information.
But the person said Rove first heard from Novak the name of Wilson's wife and her precise role in the decision by the CIA to send her husband to Africa to investigate a report, later discredited, that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire nuclear material there.
It is not clear who Novak's original source was, or whether Novak has revealed the source's identity to the grand jury.

Rove also talked about the Wilsons with Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, on July 11, 2003, two days after he discussed the case with Novak. After his conversation with Cooper, the Associated Press reported Friday, Rove sent an e-mail message to Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, about the exchange, saying he "didn't take the bait" when Cooper suggested that Wilson's criticisms had been damaging to the administration.
Rove told the grand jury in the case that the e-mail message was consistent with his assertion that he had not intended to divulge Plame's identity but instead to rebut Wilson's criticisms of the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq, the AP reported, citing legal professionals familiar with Rove's testimony.

Dozens of White House and administration officials have testified to the grand jury, and several officials have been called back for further questioning.

The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has sought to determine how much Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman at the time of the leak, knew about the State Department memo. Lawyers involved in the case said Fitzgerald asked a number of questions about Fleischer's role.
Fleischer was with Bush and much of the senior White House staff in Africa when Powell received the memo. A spokeswoman for Powell said he was out of the country and could not comment on the memo. Fleischer said in an e-mail message this week that he would not comment on the case.

Fitzgerald has also looked into any role that might have been played by Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Lawyers with clients in the case have said their clients have been asked questions about Libby's conversations in the days after Wilson's article -- in part based on Libby's handwritten notes, which he turned over to the prosecutor.
In addition, several journalists have been asked about their conversations with Libby. At least one, Tim Russert of NBC News, has suggested that prosecutors wanted to know whether Russert had told Libby of Plame's identity. After Russert met with Fitzgerald, NBC said in a statement that he did not provide the information to Libby.

© Copyright 2005 San Francisco Chronicle
###http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0716-03.htm

Changing tracks now...

Well here's a cheery piece of information that ought to make for some good nightmares...thanks, bush...but no doubt he's sleeping well. Sociopaths usually do.

Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs if US Intrudes

By Joseph Kahn The New York Times
Friday 15 July 2005

Beijing - China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan, a senior Chinese military official said Thursday.

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," the official, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, said at an official briefing.

General Zhu, considered a hawk, stressed that his comments reflected his personal views and not official policy. Beijing has long insisted that it will not initiate the use of nuclear weapons in any conflict.

But in extensive comments to a visiting delegation of correspondents based in Hong Kong, General Zhu said he believed that the Chinese government was under internal pressure to change its "no first use" policy and to make clear that it would employ the most powerful weapons at its disposal to defend its claim over Taiwan.

"War logic" dictates that a weaker power needs to use maximum efforts to defeat a stronger rival, he said, speaking in fluent English. "We have no capability to fight a conventional war against the United States," General Zhu said. "We can't win this kind of war."

Whether or not the comments signal a shift in Chinese policy, they come at a sensitive time in relations between China and the United States.

The Pentagon is preparing the release of a long-delayed report on the Chinese military that some experts say will warn that China could emerge as a strategic rival to the United States. National security concerns have also been a major issue in the $18.5 billion bid by Cnooc Ltd., a major Chinese oil and gas company, to purchase the Unocal Corporation, the American energy concern.

China has had atomic bombs since 1964 and currently has a small arsenal of land- and sea-based nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach the United States, according to most Western intelligence estimates. Some Pentagon officials have argued that China has been expanding the size and sophistication of its nuclear bombs and delivery systems, while others argue that Beijing has done little more than maintain a minimal but credible deterrent against a nuclear attack.

Beijing has said repeatedly that it would use military force to prevent Taiwan from becoming a formally independent country. President Bush has made clear that the United States would defend Taiwan.

Many military analysts have assumed that any battle over Taiwan would be localized, with both China and the United States taking care to ensure that it would not expand into a general war between the two powers.

But the comments by General Zhu suggest that at least some elements of the military are prepared to widen the conflict, perhaps to persuade the United States that it could no more successfully fight a limited war against China than it could against the former Soviet Union.

"If the Americans are determined to interfere, then we will be determined to respond," he said. "We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

General Zhu's threat is not the first of its kind from a senior Chinese military official. In 1995, Xiong Guangkai, who is now the deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, told Chas W. Freeman, a former Pentagon official, that China would consider using nuclear weapons in a Taiwan conflict. Mr. Freeman quoted Mr. Xiong as saying that Americans should worry more about Los Angeles than Taipei.

Foreign Ministry officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment about General Zhu's remarks.

General Zhu said he had recently expressed his views to former American officials, including Mr. Freeman and Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the former commander in chief of the United States Pacific Command.

Psst...I hear Comcast is blocking emails that contains the text "Afterdowningstreetmemo.org." Comforting, isn't it? Winston Smith would be so pleased.

As usual...

Paul Krugman is right on the money, bless his patriotic heart!

I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting for the headline, "Karl Rove Indicted on Felony," but with each passing day, the horizon looks a bit less polluted.


Click here: Karl Rove's America - New York Times

July 15, 2005
Karl Rove's America

By PAUL KRUGMAN

John Gibson of Fox News says that Karl Rove should be given a medal. I agree: Mr. Rove should receive a medal from the American Political Science Association for his pioneering discoveries about modern American politics. The medal can, if necessary, be delivered to his prison cell.

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts.

Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

I first realized that we were living in Karl Rove's America during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush began saying things about Social Security privatization and tax cuts that were simply false. At first, I thought the Bush campaign was making a big mistake - that these blatant falsehoods would be condemned by prominent Republican politicians and Republican economists, especially those who had spent years building reputations as advocates of fiscal responsibility. In fact, with hardly any exceptions they lined up to praise Mr. Bush's proposals.

But the real demonstration that Mr. Rove understands American politics better than any pundit came after 9/11.

Every time I read a lament for the post-9/11 era of national unity, I wonder what people are talking about. On the issues I was watching, the Republicans' exploitation of the atrocity began while ground zero was still smoldering.

Mr. Rove has been much criticized for saying that liberals responded to the attack by wanting to offer the terrorists therapy - but what he said about conservatives, that they "saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war," is equally false. What many of them actually saw was a domestic political opportunity - and none more so than Mr. Rove.

A less insightful political strategist might have hesitated right after 9/11 before using it to cast the Democrats as weak on national security. After all, there were no facts to support that accusation.

But Mr. Rove understood that the facts were irrelevant. For one thing, he knew he could count on the administration's supporters to obediently accept a changing story line. Read the before-and-after columns by pro-administration pundits about Iraq: before the war they castigated the C.I.A. for understating the threat posed by Saddam's W.M.D.; after the war they castigated the C.I.A for exaggerating the very same threat.

Mr. Rove also understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics. Attacks on someone who contradicts the official line don't have to be true, or even plausible, to undermine that person's effectiveness. All they have to do is get a lot of media play, and they'll create the sense that there must be something wrong with the guy.

And now we know just how far he was willing to go with these smear tactics: as part of the effort to discredit Joseph Wilson IV, Mr. Rove leaked the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. I don't know whether Mr. Rove can be convicted of a crime, but there's no question that he damaged national security for partisan advantage. If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason.

But what we're getting, instead, is yet another impressive demonstration that these days, truth is political. One after another, prominent Republicans and conservative pundits have declared their allegiance to the party line. They haven't just gone along with the diversionary tactics, like the irrelevant questions about whether Mr. Rove used Valerie Wilson's name in identifying her (Robert Novak later identified her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame), or the false, easily refuted claim that Mr. Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger They're now a chorus, praising Mr. Rove as a patriotic whistle-blower.

Ultimately, this isn't just about Mr. Rove. It's also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser - a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose smear tactics helped President Bush's father win the 1988 election - is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker.

Most of all, it's about what has happened to America. How did our political system get to this point?

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15krugman.html?pagewanted=print

Ya, good question, Professor Klugman. Money, madness, and bloodlust might be good places to start. And how about an examination of our collective "conscienceness" or would that be too disruptive to maintaining the American status quo?

So long as we continue to perceive ourselves as better and more deserving of a people based on the fortuitous nature and place of our birth, the Karl Roves of this world will always find fertile ground on our soil.

Isn't it about time we take a good, hard luck in the mirror?

The Treasonist Architect?

Thank you to Yahoo News


TREASONGATE: IT'S NOT JUST KARL ROVE

By Ted RallTue Jul 12, 7:07 PM ET

NEW YORK--Since Karl Rove surfaced last week as the White House official who probably unmasked a covert CIA agent, new developments appear to confirm that the deputy chief of staff and chief Bush political strategist has committed treason:

In 1985 CIA traitor Aldrich Ames sold the KGB the names of every U.S. spy in the Soviet Union in return for $2 million. Arrests and executions soon wiped out America's human assets in the Soviet Union. As they were caught unprepared by one shocker after another--glasnost, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the implosion of the USSR--intelligence professionals suspected a well-placed mole as the culprit. But Ames wasn't caught for another nine years.

Karl Rove, on the other hand, has already been found out as a likely traitor to the United States. Now we must work backwards. Does his exposure help to explain some of the Administration's most baffling foreign policy blunders?

No matter how remote, we must now consider the possibility that Karl Rove may in the employ of, and/or receiving money from, a terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda. Alternatively, could he be in the employ of a hostile foreign government? If he betrayed a CIA agent, Rove is a traitor and therefore capable of anything. Only an exhaustive investigation of his and his associates' anti-American activities, up to and including those committed by George W. Bush, can resolve these questions.

Internal sabotage offers a tempting explanation for the fact that so much has gone wrong for the United States since 2001. After 9/11 Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan--which had financed the Taliban and trained the hijackers at its camps--but Bush shocked analysts by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq instead. Was Bush's refusal to search for bin Laden in his nation of residence the result of spectacular incompetence--or a continuing alliance with the same Islamists his father's presidency had armed and funded?

Are we losing the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq because of Rumsfeld's stubborn insistence on understaffing the military? Or are our leaders intentionally dragging out combat to accomplish their masters' aims: increasing the popularity of radical Islam and the recruitment of terrorists? Even Bush's domestic policies, from tax cuts paid to the rich people least likely to stimulate the economy to his attack on Social Security, seem designed to undermine U.S. stability and prosperity. Was Bush crossing his fingers when he swore to preserve and defend the constitution?

Maybe. Maybe not. The point is: we don't know. But we must find out.

National security is bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans may be divided over various ideological conflicts, but all patriotic Americans should be able to agree on a zero-tolerance policy for treason. Rove, those who worked with him and anyone who protected him must go.

Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

*wink wink, nudge nudge*

TRANSCRIPT: WHITE HOUSE GRILLED ON ROVE...

RAW STORY

The following is a excerpts of a rush transcript of the White House press briefing Monday... You can see the video here.

QUESTION: Scott, can I ask you this: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?

MCCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to a ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation. And I don't think you should read anything into it other than: We're going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing.

QUESTION: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003, when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliot Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this"?

QUESTION: Do you stand by that statement?

MCCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that, as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation, we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time as well.

QUESTION: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk.
You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...


QUESTION: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

QUESTION: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.
You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

QUESTION: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott...
(LAUGHTER)
... because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.
Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation.

MCCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization. And I think you are well aware of that.
We know each other very well. And it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation.
And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this. Because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.
I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.

QUESTION: So you're now saying that after you cleared Rove and the others from that podium, then the prosecutors asked you not to speak anymore and since then you haven't.

MCCLELLAN: Again, you're continuing to ask questions relating to an ongoing criminal investigation and I'm just not going to respond to them. QUESTION: When did they ask you to stop commenting on it, Scott? Can you pin down a date?

MCCLELLAN: Back in that time period.

QUESTION: Well, then the president commented on it nine months later. So was he not following the White House plan?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your questions. You can keep asking them, but you have my response.

QUESTION: Well, we are going to keep asking them.
When did the president learn that Karl Rove had had a conversation with a news reporter about the involvement of Joseph Wilson's wife in the decision to send him to Africa?

MCCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions.

QUESTION: When did the president learn that Karl Rove had been...

MCCLELLAN: I've responded to your questions.

QUESTION: After the investigation is completed, will you then be consistent with your word and the president's word that anybody who was involved will be let go?

MCCLELLAN: Again, after the investigation is complete, I will be glad to talk about it at that point.

QUESTION: Can you walk us through why, given the fact that Rove's lawyer has spoken publicly about this, it is inconsistent with the investigation, that it compromises the investigation to talk about the involvement of Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff, here?

MCCLELLAN: Well, those overseeing the investigation expressed a preference to us that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it's ongoing. And that was what they requested of the White House. And so I think in order to be helpful to that investigation, we are following their direction.

QUESTION: Scott, there's a difference between commenting on an investigation and taking an action...

MCCLELLAN: (inaudible)

QUESTION: Can I finish, please?

MCCLELLAN: I'll come back to you in a minute.

QUESTION: Scott, (inaudible) president spoke about war on terrorism and, also, according to India Globe report there is bombings in London and also bombings in India. And at both places, Al Qaida was involved.
According to the India Globe and press reports, Pakistani television said that Osama bin Laden is now alive and they had spoken with him. And his group is (inaudible) terrorism around the globe is concerned.
Well, now, the major bombings after 9/11 took place in London and (inaudible) fighting against terrorism is concerned.
Where do we stand now? Really, where do we go from London as far as terrorism is concerned? How far can we go after Osama bin Laden now to catch him, because he's still in Pakistan?

MCCLELLAN: What occurred in London is a grim reminder that we are at war on terrorism. We are waging a comprehensive war on terrorism.
You heard the president talk earlier today to the FBI personnel and others who were at Quantico. And the president talked about our global war on terrorism. He talked about our strategy for taking the fight to the enemy, staying on the offensive, and working to spread freedom and democracy to defeat the ideology of hatred that terrorists espouse.
And the president pointed back to the 20th century. He pointed out that in World War II, freedom prevailed over fascism and Nazism. And in the Cold War, freedom prevailed over communism.

MCCLELLAN: Freedom is a powerful force for defeating an ideology such as the one that the terrorists espouse. And that's why it's so important to continue working to advance freedom and democracy in the broader Middle East. And that's what we will continue to do.
And the president also talked about the great progress we've made at home to protect the home front.
The families and friends of those who lost their lives in London continue to be in our thoughts and prayers. We know what it's like to be attacked on our own soil.
And that's why the president made a decision that we were going to take the fight to the enemy to try to disrupt plots and prevent attacks from happening in the first place. And that's exactly what we are doing.
But we're also going to work with the free world to support the advance of freedom and democracy in a dangerous region of the world. For too long we ignored what was going on in the Middle East. We accepted and tolerated dictatorships in exchange for peace and stability, and we got neither.
As the president said, free nations are peaceful societies. And that's why it's so important that we continue to support the advance of freedom, because that's how you ultimately defeat the ideology of hatred and oppression that terrorists espouse.

QUESTION: Does the president continue to have confidence in Mr. Rove?

MCCLELLAN: Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this.

QUESTION: So you're not going to respond as to whether or not the president has confidence in his deputy chief of staff?

MCCLELLAN: You're asking this question in the context of an ongoing investigation, and I would not read anything into it other then I'm simply going to comment on an ongoing investigation.

QUESTION: Has there been any change, or is there a plan for Mr. Rove's portfolio to be altered in any way?


MCCLELLAN: Again, you have my response to these questions.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/TRANSCRIPT_WHITE_HOUSE_GRILLED_0711.html

What...no headlines?

I had reason to stop at a convenience store for gas (not to mention that I paid 2.40/gal) and in entering the store to pay for it, I purposefully looked at the spread of daily paper editions of what used to be called newspapers. No where in them, not one blessed one of them, did I see any where the name R-O-V-E written. Is it going to take something like his running down Pennsylvania Avenue stark naked with Jeff Gannon in hot pursuit for his plight to appear as even a page 3 afterthought? More important than the question of where this story might appear is the question of why does it not?

We are in serious trouble here, folks. Because the answer to why means the opening of Pandora's box and an examination of an adminstration that is hellbent on world domination to the destruction of each and ever one of us that doesn't have a six figure number as the balance in our checkbooks. Where, oh where has our country gone...and why do you stay silent???

Courtesy of Truthout.org:

Go to Original

What Karl Rove Told Matt Cooper

By Michael Isikoff

Newsweek
18 July issue

It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

Last week, after Time turned over that e-mail, among other notes and e-mails, Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. Explaining that he had obtained last-minute "personal consent" from his source, Cooper was able to avoid a jail sentence for contempt of court. Another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, refused to identify her source and chose to go to jail instead.

For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did - and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.

The controversy arose when Wilson wrote an op-ed column in The New York Times saying that he had been sent by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate charges that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson said he had found no evidence to support the claim. Wilson's column was an early attack on the evidence used by the Bush administration to justify going to war in Iraq. The White House wished to discredit Wilson and his attacks. The question for the prosecutor is whether someone in the administration, in an effort to undermine Wilson's credibility, intentionally revealed the covert identity of his wife.

In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA" - CIA Director George Tenet - or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed and suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium from Niger... "

Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published. Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well. "Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper," Luskin told NEWSWEEK.

A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified because he did not wish to run afoul of the prosecutor or government investigators, added that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case. "A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false," the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa.

Fitzgerald is known as a tenacious, thorough prosecutor. He refused to comment, and it is not clear whether he is pursuing evidence that will result in indictments, or just tying up loose ends in a messy case. But the Cooper e-mail offers one new clue to the mystery of what Fitzgerald is probing - and provides a glimpse of what was unfolding at the highest levels as the administration defended a part of its case for going to war in Iraq.
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Call for Impeachment...Now

I could not agree more...

www.larouchepac.com


LAROUCHE CALLS FOR EMERGENCY IMPEACHMENT ACTION AGAINST VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY, THEN BUSH

JULY 6 —"We are going for an early, emergency impeachment," said Lyndon LaRouche in discussion on the evening of July 3. "We don't have time to wait. We can't have Bush and Cheney sitting in the White House when the system blows, which could be a matter of weeks. That would be hell for the human race. We have to blow their cover, and get these guys out now—while we can."

The immediate basis for the impeachment is the obstruction of justice and coverup carried out by the White House in the case of the leak of Valerie Plame, LaRouche said. The exposure of Karl Rove's involvement in the leaking, and the contempt-of-court proceedings against reporters Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller, have brought this situation to a head, but the basics were known long ago. The White House, with Dick Cheney in the lead, acted with clear intent to have the information against Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson, leaked, in order to "punish" Wilson for exposing the lies of Cheney about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. And once Robert Novak leaked the information, the White House, led by Dick Cheney, acted to cover up and obstruct justice in the search to unearth and prosecute the guilty parties.

The Plame case is not the only flagrant example of misconduct by Vice President Cheney that would legitimately lead to his impeachment, LaRouche added. As EIR has previously exposed, Cheney has not only committed a fraud against the President and the nation with his lies on Iraq, but also demonstrated notorious corruption in permitting the multi-billion-dollar ripoffs by his former company Halliburton. The evidence is overwhelming.

As for President Bush, LaRouche added, he may not realize what lies he has told, but he should be removed from office on the grounds of incompetence, as indicated by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.

The need for moving toward impeachment of Cheney now is crucial for two reasons, LaRouche emphasized. First, it is now crystal clear, including to leading circles in the U.S. establishment, that the world financial system is headed for a spectacular blowout, either around the collapse of multi-billion-dollar hedge funds, the real estate bubble, or other huge corporate failures. When the blowout comes, the U.S. Senate, if it has not done so beforehand, will have to move aggressively to implement the kinds of protective bankruptcy reorganization measures which LaRouche has outlined, in order to "save the people, not the banks." But this cannot happen if Cheney and Bush are in place to block the necessary action. Thus, they must be confronted with impeachment charges now.

The second reason that Cheney must be impeached now, LaRouche added, is that the United States cannot afford to have him in a position to take over the government officially, once Bush were removed from office. Faced with his decline in popularity, and the reverses in the Congress and Iraq, Bush is quite obviously on the edge of a psychological breakdown, so the time is short. Cheney has to be removed first, just as Agnew had to be removed before President Nixon, back in the early 1970s.

Speaking to a private seminar in Berlin, Germany on June 28, LaRouche made the following argument as to why the impeachment is required now:
"And therefore, if the world is to be saved, these two creatures [Bush and Cheney-ed.] must be kept under control and removed from office—not four years or three years from now, but in the immediate future.
"Because we must, immediately, in the near term, have a decision, by the United States proffered to its partners internationally, which essentially prevents a sudden chain-reaction collapse of the world monetary system into, not a depression, but general breakdown-crisis, a general breakdown-crisis of the type which was discussed theoretically, as a theoretical proposition, at the end of the 19th Century, and the beginning of the 20th; which has never happened before, in modern history, but is about to happen now, under present conditions.

"I continue: Unfortunately, the present U.S. Bush Administration would prevent the needed action, even with its dying breath. Fortunately, the present Bush Administration is already a ruined, lame-duck administration, a Presidency whose deep psychological problems and brutish bunglings, have already brought it into the liability of possibly early impeachment, or retirement to avoid that impeachment. For example, one story that was told to us, is, there might be a plane ride. And on the plane ride, somebody might be sitting next to Cheney. And when they got off the plane, Cheney would go someplace nearby and submit his resignation from office.

"We're in that kind of area, in which, either forced impeachment, impeachment proceedings, or resignations—induced resignations—are maybe the crucial factor in history."

Oh, Gimme a break, please!

Soon the media whores will be telling us that Karl Rove is Santa Claus.....


Click here: The Huffington Post The Blog


07.07.2005 Larisa Alexandrovna

Judith Miller - the Patron Saint of Propaganda

Pardon me while I intrude on the whorish theater of martyrdom now assigned to the likes of Judith Miller. The same Judith Miller who is going to jail to protect whom? Sources such as Chalabi? He is after all one of her sources and has been one for her false reporting regarding WMD.

Yet many talking TV journo-some-things are arguing that it is the principle of a “free press” that is at stake here, not who the source is.

I agree that the principle of a free press is more important than any one journalist or source, but I do not agree that this principle applies to Judith Miller, who unconscionably helped lie a country into war and in doing so relinquished any right or privilege she had as a journalist.
Yes, privileged rights do have responsibilities. Or has everyone forgotten that part of the equation? Since when have fabricated fables based on sources that are questionable at best, qualified as journalism?

When have propaganda and lies, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American troops and god knows how many Iraqis, qualified as anything other than Hearst’s Spanish-American war redux?

While everyone is busy squealing themselves hoarse for Congress to pass a law protecting journalists and their sources, no one is demanding that Congress pass a law protecting citizens from propaganda masquerading as fact and news. This entire farce is loathsome and frankly quite sad.

Unlike elected officials, who can be impeached or simply voted out of office, journalists are largely free to serve as unelected representatives of the people, whereby they act as the filter through which lies are expelled and truth is delivered without bias.

That is a privileged role and it deserves the privileged status of being unhindered and free as part of the quest for truth.

Yet the role of a journalist, because of its very influence and authority, demands serious adherence to the considerable responsibility required of it.

If Dan Rather can be shuffled out of his distinguished career because of a fabricated memo (though one whose content was factual), again leaked by some magical “just-in- time” source, then how has Judith Miller been allowed to continue reporting lies about Iraq’s WMD myth- almost cheerleading those lies -completely unchecked?

* Is Judith Miller honorable? * Is Judith Miller honest? * Is Judith Miller in part responsible for convincing an entire nation that Iraq was a clear and immediate danger to the US? * Is Judith Miller, through her actions, in part responsible for the results of those actions, namely, death and war?

Miller is not remotely honorable or honest precisely because she was part and parcel of the “fixing” of “intelligence” so that a post 9/11 nation could be hijacked into a massacre on both sides of the ocean.

She may have not written the Plame story, but she wrote the Iraq lies, and in doing so she made herself visible as a tool of a corrupt administration, which she now protects by invoking the rights she abused so shamelessly. The rights that honorable journalists, like Gary Webb, respected.

Protecting sources is not the same thing as protecting criminals working against the public interest. Or is the public interest no longer part of the equation either?
So as I watch the Stepford journalists spin a yarn of a press under siege, I wonder where this freedom loving bunch were when those sixteen words started a flame that ignited a catastrophic fire?

Where were you?

I wonder why the lock and load position, multi-channel attack on Newsweek so quickly took effect when Isikoff accurately reported Koran abuse allegations at Gitmo. Remember the “the loss of life” blame game and the criticism of Newsweek’s “negligent” reporting? Remember too that what Newsweek was reporting was factual with regard to abuse allegations!

Where were you?

Yet the very same mainstream juggernaut with its opaque babble and misinformation does not lift a word, not even a vowel in protest of the many lives lost thanks to the propaganda of Judith Miller.

Where were you?

There are many reporters with whom I disagree on many topics and many styles of reporting. But if they are responsible to their privileged position in our society -- their privileged role in representing the interests of the nation and its people -- if they are honorable and if their goal is truth, then I will always defend them. I will defend the principle of a free press and of freedom of speech always.

I cannot, however, defend a mainstream so lazy and bloated with indifference that it cannot see beyond its own specific interests to step up and defend the principle in which both the freedom and the responsibility of that freedom are on equal footing.

Not all journalists are ethical and not all sources are ethical. Do we even need to imagine the astounding power a government could wield if it used journalists to disguise its criminal actions? Do we need to even look beyond our current reality to see what happens when the fourth estate merges with the Executive Branch and in which the fourth estate becomes the weapon against the best interests of the people?

Look around and tell me how an entire country was led to believe that Iraq had WMD and that Al Qaeda was working with Saddam when all fact and all experts pointed the other way.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/larisa-alexandrovna/judith-miller-the-patro_3778.html

Thanks to Elsie.

Speaking of whores, anyone know where Rudy Guiliani's been hiding?