Why the single word title? Sounds a lot like Coulter: Slander, Treason and Godless. I don't think you are receiving as much of the credit of this book as Isikhoff is. Why?

David

Does your book identify who leaked to Pincus? Does it identify who gave Miller the name "Valerie Flame"?

Tim L - Not a good point. You might want to check out Fitzgerald's August 27, 2004 affidavit for what his understanding of the requirements for charging Libby with an IIPA violation would be - in effect, that he thought he could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby knew or believed that Plame had done undercover work during the previous five years. All you can draw from Armitage's non-indictment is that Fitzgerald did not think he could prove - probably because he did not think that - Armitage knew or believed she had done work under cover overseas during the previous five years. Very different from saying Plame was not covert under the meaning of IIPA, which Fitzgerald has repeatedly refused to comment on one way or the other.

I don't think
Posted by: TRH at August 28, 2006 11:31 PM

Why start now?

What is your excuse? Why not post the whole quote, or are you thinking? Sorry, that may be asking too much of you. Good nite!

As HUBRIS will make clear, Rove's leak (to Robert Novak and Matt Cooper) and Libby's leak (to Judith Miller and Cooper) were part of a campaign to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson. That's no conspiracy theory. The available evidence proves this point.

But will Bush loyalists read it and determine for themselves if the argument holds water, or will they continue to argue speciously that it wasn't a leak because Plame wasn't under cover? What part of CLASSIFIED and CIA NOC is not 'under cover'? Where did those claims come from?

I could go on. But I'll stop here.
Posted by David Corn at August 28, 2006 11:09 PM

How about more tomorrow? Also, tell us about your promotional appearences. I'd enjoy watching them. Off to Diane Rehm archives...

PS. Send a copy to Letterman.

David: "...Fitzgerald ultimately concluded that he did not have a case....under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose identifying information about a covert CIA officer only if that official knows the officer is undercover). Obviously--again--Fitzgerald believed...that he did not have a case against Armitage. Why is this so hard to understand?"

David,

I am with you on this "only if" line of reasoning! As for "Why this is so hard to understand?"....My guess, the simple and most plausible answer is just not `juicy enough' to professional `Conspiracists'! Like I said, a bungled comeback against a snake, your friend Joe Wilson! He is at the apex of the Leaker Pyramid, end of story!

As for the WH mounting an above-board counterattack to Wilson, my guess is since it would involve the CIA and likely also The State Dept., the WH felt it would be too time-consuming...all the while, Wilson is `out there'! Much faster to discredit your opponent; it's a time-honored & politics-as-usual route!

Goodnight!

But will Bush loyalists read it and determine for themselves if the argument holds water, or will they continue to argue speciously that..

well since the bush loyalists (loyalists! excellent use of terminology!) on this blog can't seem to even bring themselves to read one of the many links that are provided on a regular basis by the bush decriers (ha ha) then it's doubtful if a single one of them will read Hubris!.

Leaks from the Hubris book will have more responses once the book is on shelves for sale.

From the previous blog, #138 uncleded, it is an excellent quote.

Cornposters, if you have some names of good peace and justice organizations, peace share with me. I have a list of some organizations. Can you give some additional names for the list? Thank you for any help!

Peace and Justice Organizations

1. Father John Dear

2. Code Pink

3. Gold Star Families for Peace

4. Pax Christi USA

5. Amnesty International

6. Catholic Peace Fellowship

7. Voices for Creative Nonviolence

8. Veterans for Peace

9. United for Peace and Justice

10. Traprock Peace Center

I have really tried to feel some sort of concern over this whole Plame fiasco. Beyond the thought that no one would be punished for it, which looks more and more likely to be the case, I think she has a civil suit at best, and I hope she wins it. I have been distracted by the endless bloodshed and destruction our country is waging against the innocent people of the middle east, with the help and provocation of Israel. I will continue to hope that justice will be brought to bear on those guilty of the deaths of thousands and that what has gone around will come around to those who deserve it.

"Obviously, Fitzgerald ultimately concluded that he did not have a case to make against any of the leakers under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose identifying information about a covert CIA officer only if that official knows the officer is undercover)."

END OF STORY.....................................

You know I don't like to get all up in Corns face But: The marketing of this book so far is disappointing to me. Isakoff came off like a gossip columnist on "Softball w/Norah O'Donnell" today. I didn’t see Corn, that’s not allowed on Comcast. A book named "hubris" should have a less hubristic debut. I can already hear the marginalizing of this book in the right wing echo chamber. I'm sure the book has more to say than "Armitage". But I’ve read “a couple of liberals let Rove off the hook”, and “Novak is not a dribbling fool after all”. Books aren’t record albums, and they shouldn’t be marketed as such.

Saladin
"I have been distracted by the endless bloodshed and destruction our country is waging against the innocent people of the middle east, with the help and provocation of Israel. I will continue to hope that justice will be brought to bear on those guilty of the deaths of thousands and that what has gone around will come around to those who deserve it."

Right on.

Except for the "I will continue to hope that justice will be brought to bear on those guilty of the deaths of thousands and that what has gone around will come around to those who deserve it" part. You see that is what gets us all into trouble to start with. "Retribution" a religious word, a sin, (if I was religious I would not believe in retribution).

This'll piss ya off...

Rape victim’s mom tells the story of her daughter being refused the Plan B pill by a doctor

*here's what my friend sent about this link...

If you go to the web site at www.letssaythanks.com you can pick out a thank
you card and the Xerox Corporation will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't just pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services. It is FREE and it only takes a second.

Let's Say Thanks

OOOooh , the bots are all excited, think Dave touched a nerve or two.

OOOooh , the bots are all excited, think Dave touched a nerve or two.

OOOooh , the bots are all excited, think Dave touched a nerve or two.

spam was unintentional.

Amazing isn't it. These guys pore over the fake Bush National Guard memo like scholars examining the Dead Sea scrolls, but when it comes to a subject they don't like, they suddenly go blind.

So here's the condensed version for the benefit of the acutely obtuse:

Armitage leak.

Rove leak too.

Libby leak too.

Libby lie to grand jury.

Fitz indict Libby for lying.

Got it?

NO ANNIHILATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!

Slowly Sidling To Iraq's Exit
Many GOP Candidates Part Company With Bush
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; Washington Post
By Election Day, how many Republican candidates will have come out against the Iraq war or distanced themselves from the administration's policies? August 2006 will be remembered as a watershed in the politics of Iraq. It is the month in which a majority of Americans told pollsters that the struggle for Iraq was not connected to the larger war on terrorism. They thus renounced a proposition the administration has pushed relentlessly since it began making the case four years ago to invade Iraq. That poll finding, from a New York Times-CBS News survey, came to life on the campaign trail when Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), one of the most articulate supporters of the war, announced last Thursday that he favored a time frame for withdrawing troops. Shays is in a tough race for reelection against Democrat Diane Farrell, who has made opposition to the war a central issue. After his 14th trip to Iraq, Shays announced that "the only way we are able to encourage some political will on the part of Iraqis is to have a timeline for troop withdrawal." In July Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) returned from Iraq with an equally grim view. Americans, he said, lacked "strategic control" of the streets of Baghdad, and he called for a "limited troop withdrawal -- to send the Iraqis a message." Just the month before, Gutknecht had told his fellow House members that "now is not the time to go wobbly" on Iraq. Nearly as significant as the new support for troop withdrawals is the effort of many Republicans to criticize President Bush without taking a firm stand on when the troops should come home. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), facing a challenge from Democrat Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran, took a page from former president Bill Clinton's playbook by triangulating between Murphy and the president. A Fitzpatrick mailing sent earlier this month said that Fitzpatrick favored a "better, smarter plan in Iraq" that "says NO to both extremes: No to President Bush's 'stay the course' strategy . . . and no to Patrick Murphy's 'cut and run' approach." Notice: A Republican is suggesting that Bush's Iraq policy is extreme. That would not have happened in 2004. Other Republicans have taken their distance from the president more subtly. In May Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), facing a difficult rematch against Democrat Lois Murphy, called on Congress "to step up and be more assertive in assessing the level of progress" in Iraq. He added: "The Iraqi government needs to know that American patience and support are not blank checks that Iraqi politicians can cash with American lives and tax dollars." And judging from the Web sites of other Republicans in close races, many would prefer to make the Iraq issue disappear between now and November. Consider the campaign Web site of Rep. Mike Sodrel (R-Ind.), who faces a serious opponent in Democrat Baron Hill, a former House member. On the "Issues" portion of his campaign site, Sodrel is proud to describe his stands on border security, gas prices and energy, tax relief, creating jobs, veterans, health care, supporting small business, and agriculture. As of yesterday evening, there was no entry for Iraq on the site, though he does discuss the issue on his House Web site. All this Republican uneasiness underscores the importance of the New York Times-CBS poll showing that 51 percent of those surveyed found no link between the war in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism, an increase of 10 percentage points since June. A majority now rejects the administration's core foreign policy argument. The cracking of Republican solidarity in support of Bush on Iraq has short-term implications for November's elections and long-term implications for whether the administration can sustain its policies. With a growing number of Republicans now echoing Democratic criticisms of the war, Republican strategists will have a harder time making the election a referendum on whether the United States should "cut and run" from Iraq, the administration's typical characterization of the Democrats' view.
And even the war's strongest supporters are offering increasingly critical assessments of past decisions. Last Tuesday Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recited a litany of past administration statements -- "stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders" -- as indications that "we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be." On Friday McCain reiterated his loyalty to the Iraq mission, but he had already made his point. The Republicans' restiveness suggests that Bush may not be able to stick with his current Iraq policy through Election Day. Even if he does, he will come under heavy pressure from his own party after Nov. 7 to pursue a demonstrably more effective strategy -- or to begin pulling American forces out.

IF.....

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

RUDYARD KIPLING (1865-1936)

"It is not so much that man is a herd animal, said Freud, but that he is a horde animal led by a chief."
Ernest Becker

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
Mohandas K. Gandhi

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head -that's assault, not leadership."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"There's nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't clearly articulate why we're doing what we're doing."
James Kouzes and Barry Posner

At least 100 die as militia force Iraqi troops out of town
By Jerome Taylor
Published: 29 August 2006 The Independent
At least 100 people were killed across Iraq yesterday in a day of intense gun battles and suicide bombings, contradicting US military claims that the security situation in the war-torn nation was improving. A total of 34 bodies, including seven civilians and 25 Iraqi government soldiers, were brought into the central hospital in the town of Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, after fighting between government forces and gunmen of the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Fifty militiamen were also killed in the gunfight, according to the Iraqi defence ministry. In a separate development, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the Interior Ministry in Baghdad during the midmorning rush hour, killing 16 people, including 13 policemen, and wounding up to 62. On Sunday, a further 60 people were killed in attacks across the country from Kirkuk in the Kurdish-held north to Basra in the south.
The latest violence was a reminder of how easily Iraq could slip back into the type of endemic sectarian violence that characterised much of the first half of this year after the destruction in February of a Shia shrine in the town of Samarra. More than 10,000 Iraqis - the vast majority in Baghdad - have been killed in the past four months alone, a figure that would send shockwaves through the international community were it in any other part of the world.
The US military admitted that there had been a spike in violence in Baghdad, but insisted that things were improving since US-led forces launched Operation Forward Together last month in an attempt to pacify the capital. Maj-Gen William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, said violence in Baghdad had dropped by half since July, and that life was returning to normal in some areas of the capital. The British Defence Secretary, Des Browne, echoed such sentiments during a visit to Iraq yesterday to meet key Iraqi politicians including the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "I recognise there are continuing challenges and I've seen some violence over this weekend which suggests there's much more work to be done," Mr Browne told a joint news conference with the Iraqi Defence Minister, Abdul Qader Jassim. "But as Prime Minister Maliki said in an interview this weekend, things are improving and the challenge is to maintain that improvement." The intense fighting in Diwaniyah will be of particular concern to British forces stationed in the Shia-dominated south of Iraq. Reports suggested that militiamen had driven government forces out of the city and had set up checkpoints in the suburbs. If the Mehdi Army has pushed the government out of the Shia-dominated city it will be a major snub to Mr Maliki, who has promised to rid Iraq of militias. Confronting Mr Sadr's Shia militias was never going to be an easy task. His movement holds 30 parliamentary seats and five cabinet posts, and his militiamen are well-armed and dedicated. The cleric is also undeniably popular among Iraq's Shia majority, particularly the poorer classes. In 2004, Mr Sadr led an uprising against the American-led coalition which threatened to draw the post-Saddam government and US military into a bitter conflict with Iraq's Shia while simultaneously trying to subdue what was then an emerging Sunni insurgency. The fighting was only stopped when the head of Iraq's Shia community, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, ordered the Mehdi Army fighters to lay down their arms.

Good morning, Cornuts! Morning read/reaction w/touch of humor by Jack Kelly! ReHash of HUBRIS' left out!

August 29, 2006
Plame and the 'Bush Lied' Meme
By Jack Kelly

A new book by Michael Isikoff, an investigative reporter for Newsweek, and David Corn, who writes for the far left wing magazine The Nation, casts many powerful people in Washington in an unflattering light -- but not the people who Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn wish to besmirch.

A brief review for those of you who have lives, and who consequently haven't been following closely the details of the Plame Name Game: In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

First in leaks to reporters, and then in his own op-ed in the New York Times, a retired diplomat, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, said the president was lying. His claim to speak with authority was that in the spring of 2002, the CIA had sent him to Niger to see if Saddam had tried to buy uranium there.

Mr. Wilson's charge was important because it marked the beginning of the "Bush lied" meme about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But investigations by the Senate Intelligence Committee; the Robb-Silberman Commission on prewar intelligence, and the British Butler Commission all concluded it was Mr. Wilson who was not telling the truth. Saddam had indeed tried to buy uranium in Africa, as even Mr. Wilson himself had acknowledged to the CIA officers who debriefed him after his Niger trip.

One of the false claims Mr. Wilson made was that he had been sent to Niger at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney. In his July 14, 2003 column, Robert Novak disclosed that he had been sent instead at the insistence of his wife, Valerie Plame, who worked at the CIA.

Ms. Plame had once been an undercover operative. Concern was expressed that the leaker had violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

Mr. Wilson blamed the leak on White House political guru Karl Rove, claiming it was payback for his "whistle-blowing." A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed to investigate the charge. Mr. Fitzgerald eventually indicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then the chief of staff to the vice president, on a charge of having lied to a grand jury about from whom he had learned of Ms. Plame's occupation. He is awaiting trial.

No indictments have been brought on the charge Mr. Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate, because it is clear there was no violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The act applies only to those who are operating under cover overseas, or who have done so within five years of the disclosure of their identities. Ms. Plame had been manning a desk at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. for longer than that.

Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn disclose....

Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn write that: "the Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about prewar intelligence."

They add, lamely, that: "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."

They don't mention that Mr. Isikoff and (especially) Mr. Corn have been among the journalists flogging this meme, and the time that it takes to research and write a book indicates they've known for quite some time that it isn't true. They're only willing to tell the truth, now, for money.

Pandemoniac,

I know I jump on you liberals pretty hard sometimes, but I save my true scorn for the feckless Republicans, both in Congress and in the Administration.

Think of all the subjects on which they rode to power in 1994. They have now abandoned all of their principles, if, indeed, they had any to begin with.

Their only argument now is, "Things may be bad with us, but they'll be worse with Democrats." Now, that's a hell of a platform.

Perhaps a few years in the political wilderness will refocus them.

Mr. David Corn,

"it is fine for White House officials, when they battle a policy critic, to leak classified information (disregarding any potential consequences) rather than to counter that critic in an aboveboard and open manner?

It is fine by the Bush Loyalists, Bushbots and trolls.

Bush and his criminal enterprise can do anything legal or not. It is just any in opposition that must follow the law and praise dear leader or face the consequences.

Thanks

Kirk

Happy on Caffeine,

Thank you for your post. It is just another reminder that the left in this country will tell any lie themselves in order to discredit our President.

It has been well known for some time that Wilson himself "outed" his wife. If he was so concerned for her "cover" he should have kept his big, lying mouth SHUT!

David,
You should try to get on Democracy Now with Michael Isikoff. As you know, he's been a guest on her show before. And she asks pertinent questions. Her audience is reallllly big. And you can watch the show on the internet like your blogspot or whatever it's called. Hey, you and Mr. Isikoff should do a blogspot together.

David wrote....
But is May, a national security hawk, suggesting that it is fine for White House officials, when they battle a policy critic, to leak classified information (disregarding any potential consequences) rather than to counter that critic in an aboveboard and open manner?
------------
This is one of the things I detest the most about the bush administration. Their mentality is so junior high and it follows through in all their actions. It is devastating this country. The Iraq war. Katrina. The tax breaks for the rich. Everything this administration does is done with a maturity factor of about age 13. And now they're talking about Iran. Somebody needs to say NO to them.

David,
I'm delighted to see that your book is gaining so much attention. I have requested our local bookstore order several copies.

Thanks for pursuing this tale of intrigue and convoluted actions by this misadmistration. Keep your eye on the ball. Don't let up.

Later,
th

Who is Valerie Plame and why does she wear the pants in her marriage? Oh that's right her husband is a liberal and worked for John Kerry.

Now that Chris Mathews and MSNBC have much of the last three years invested in this story... I can't tell you how many times I've heard him say how he believes this goes all the way to the 'Evil' Dick Cheney.... This is akin to Dan Rather claiming the Air Guard story about Bush is fact although his proof is based on forged documents.

You folks are really getting desparate.

I'm really amazed. This 'jack kelly' character can write a whole article of lies, from one end to the other, and our trolls soak it all in again! Bush didn't lie?? Saddam tried to buy uranium in Niger??... when he's got boatloads of it already in Iraq. Forged papers gave this administration a good cover story to scare the idiot americans with the 'mushroom cloud' bullshyt. It was a LIE, you idiot bushbots. Joe Wilson is an honest and true American patriot. One of these days, hopefully during bush's impeachment trial, you'll get the truth rammed down your throats again.

This is akin to Dan Rather claiming the Air Guard story about Bush is fact although his proof is based on forged documents.

That's correct b/b. The secretary of that guard unit's commander verified it was true. She said the info in it was all correct, but she didn't type THAT memo. Said she typed on almost identical one, with the same 411.
Yep, bush did a cut and run from his N/G duties, then claimed a medal winner in the Vietnam War was a traitor. You should be ashamed.

David Corn, I would suggest not dealing with the National Review at all. When I first started college, I was without strong political convictions. I would go to the school library and randomly pick out political magazines. One of them was National Review. I thought it was atrocious. Stupid caricatures, poorly written diatribe, unsubstantiated nonsense all assailed my malleable eyes. I was undecided before then, but after reading that horrible toilet paper of a magazine, I knew which way NOT to go. Point being: we don't feed the trolls here, because it just gives them something to do, and they keep coming back for more; the folks at National Review are the same way. They are not worth your time, and any attempt to deal with them will only allow them the opportunity to make fun of you.

For Corn blog's resident Saladin/Nasrallah! Some possible Happy news!!!!!

NASRALLAH'S BLUNDER
LEBANESE TURN ON HEZ CHIEF
Amir Taheri

August 29, 2006 -- WELL, what do you know: What was presented as a "Great Strategic Divine Victory" only a week ago is now beginning to look more like a costly blunder. And the man who is making the revisionist move is the same who made the original victory claim: Sheik Hassan Nasrallah....

In a TV interview in Beirut Sunday, Nasrallah admitted second thoughts about the wisdom of capturing the two Israeli soldiers, an incident that triggered the war:...

For a roundabout way of eating humble pie, this was not bad for a man whom Western media have portrayed as the latest Arab folk hero or even (as one U.S. weekly put it) a new Saladin.

Why did Nasrallah decide to change his unqualified claim of victory into an indirect admission of defeat? Two reasons.

The first consists of facts on the ground:
Hezbollah lost some 500 of its fighters, almost a quarter of its elite fighting force. Their families are now hounding Nasrallah to provide an explanation for "miscalculations" that led to their death.

Throughout southern Lebanon, once a stronghold of Hezbollah, pictures of the "martyrs" adorn many homes and shops, revealing the fact that many more Hezbollah fighters died than the 110 claimed by Nasrallah. What angers the families of the "martyrs" is that Hezbollah fighters had not been told that the sheik was starting a war to please his masters in Tehran, and that they should prepare for it....

The "new Saladin" has also lost most of his medium-range missiles without inflicting any serious damage on Israel. Almost all of Hezbollah's missile launching pads (often placed in mosques, schools and residential buildings) south of the Litani River have been dismantled.

Worse still, the Israelis captured an unknown number of Hezbollah fighters and political officers....

The second reason why Nasrallah has had to backtrack on his victory claims is the failure of his propaganda machine to hoodwink the Lebanese. He is coming under growing criticism from every part of the political spectrum, including the Hezbollah itself.

Last week he hurriedly cancelled a series of victory marches planned for Beirut's Shiite suburbs after leading Shiite figures attacked the move as "unmerited and indecent." Instead, every village and every town is holding typical Shiite mourning ceremonies, known as tarhym (seeking mercy), for the dead.

Nasrallah has tried to rally his base by distributing vast sums of Iranian money through his network ....But if Nasrallah had hoped to buy silence, if not acquiescence, he is being proved wrong. Some Lebanese Shiites are scandalized that they are treated by Iranian mullahs as mercenaries, and see Nasrallah's cash handouts as diyah (blood money) for their dead. And a dead man whose family receives a diyah cannot claim the status of "martyr" and enjoy its prerogatives in paradise.

As the scale of the destruction in the Shiite south becomes more clear, the pro-Hezbollah euphoria (much of it created by Western media and beamed back to Lebanon through satellite TV) is evaporating. Reality is beginning to reassert its rights.

And that could be good news for Lebanon as a nation. It is unlikely that Hezbollah will ever regain the position it has lost. The Lebanese from all sides of the political spectrum are united in their determination not to allow any armed group to continue acting as a state within the state.

....As the scale of Nasrallah's blunder becomes clearer, it is unlikely that Hezbollah would be able to forge such alliances in the future.

....Lebanon has already moved into the post-Nasrallah era. And that is the only good news to come out of the mini-war he provoked.

Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates

It is difficult to take when the radical right wingers continually attempt to write off the facts about the Plameleak as "conspiracy theories". They make excuses for the Bush administration leaks that have "allegedly" compromised U.S. national security, and they have invalidated demands of accountability.

D.Corn stated "But is May a National Security hawk, suggesting that it is fine for White House officials when they battle a policy critic, to leak classified information (disregarding any political consequences) rather than to counter that critic in an above board and open manner"

These right wingers blindly followed the most criminal and destructive " WMD conspiracy theory" blindly tens of thousands of people are dead..dead as a direct result of the use of this "WMD cosnpriracy theory". They continue to have the nerve to call the evidence of a crime being committed by the outing of Valerie Plame a "conspiracy theory".

The inability of these "hawks" to come down off their perch and admit that the Plameleak is a very serious issue, demonstrates just how deep the problems in our nation continue to be.

31
Posted by: Tim at August 29, 2006 09:33 AM

It is not Wilson's fault that Libby, Rove, and Armitage dislosed CLASSIFIED information about Valerie Plame's status as a CIA officer. It may not have been criminal but no one doubts that they did it. You're still drinking the kool-aid, arent you. Timehhh.

"What I am wondering is how this latest outing of Armitage(by Corn and Isikoff) will be used to provide cover for the other folks who have wet spots on their pants?

Does it matter who leaked first?

Someone posted this yesterday.
"When a firing squad is assembled to execute amomeone does anyone care whose bullet hit first?"

Let's just hope through Fitzgerald's investigation the guy with the biggest piss stain on his britches gets flipped. CHENEY

Posted by: kathleen at August 28, 2006 03:27 PM

It is always good to hear the delusional troll!

BUSH NEVER LIED!

It is like a fine wine, it gets better and better, funnier and funnier.

ROTFLMAO!

capt

#85 Saladin (previous post) "How this situation got so turned around so that the country that signs is the bad guy and the one that refuses is the victim is beyond me."

You were wise to post an article about Mordechai Vanunu he explains the ongoing contradictions in regard to Israel's stockpiles of uninspected nuclear, biological and chemical weapons best.

He is one of my heroes.

12 "Obviously, Fitzgerald ultimately concluded that he did not have a case to make against any of the leakers under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act END OF STORY

Posted by: MP5 at August 29, 2006 12:52 AM

Bush loyalists will defend abuse of power by people like Rove, Libby and Armitage because it was not found to be prosecutable, in fact, potentially not illegal.

The revelation of Plame's (classified) status at the CIA, on it's face, it is bad government. Bushco made a choice, counter-attack the claims in Wilson's Op-Ed or counter-attack Wilson. Defend it if you will, but realize it's not the style kind of goernemnt that serves any American well.

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.": John Milton

=

"For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling instruments." Noam Chomsky

=
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That's our problem.": Howard Zinn, from 'Failure to Quit'

=
"With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter's definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority" Stanley Milgram, 1965

Stanley Milgram was a psychologist who performed a series of experiments that proved conclusively that obedience to authority was so ingrained in the average US citizen they were prepared to cause lethal harm to others when instructed by authority figures to do so.

All those who took part were first asked if they would be capable of killing or inflicting severe pain on their fellow human beings. 100% replied categorically 'no'.
http://tinyurl.com/cm6xq

===

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

15 Except for the "I will continue to hope that justice will be brought to bear on those guilty of the deaths of thousands and that what has gone around will come around to those who deserve it" part. You see that is what gets us all into trouble to start with. "Retribution"
Posted by: uncledad at August 29, 2006 01:11 AM

I agree. Eye for an Eye is so Old Testament. . . and it forms an never ending circle. Eye for an Eye is an unenlightened approach to conflict resolution.

Bush and the platic turkey will be the last two american military members to leave Iraq. Cut and Run republicans.

York has taken on the role of Bob Woodward (after his deception was exposed) questioning and undermining the importance of Fitzgerald's investigation in his article at National Review "The Cia leak fiasco".

He alsowants us to believe that journalist are omnipotent.

"But now, after all the investigating, all the work, and the setting of terrible precedents for forcing reporters to testify in court or go to jail, the CIA-leak case hasn’¥ moved much beyond where it was in that frenzied week in October 2003. And unlike the old independent counsels, who were required by law to issue a report on their investigation, Fitzgerald has no obligation to explain his actions to anyone. Some questions that are unanswered now might well remain unanswered forever.

Hopefully York will be eating his words when Fitzgerald flips Libby and gets to Cheney.

Fugitive Polygamist Leader Arrested

LAS VEGAS (Aug. 29) - The fugitive leader of a polygamist Mormon sect has been arrested in southern Nevada, the FBI said Tuesday.

Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was taken into custody after he and two other people were pulled over late Monday by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas, FBI spokesman David Staretz said.

The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was wanted in Utah and Arizona on suspicion of sexual misconduct for allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and older men.

uncledad 15, justice and retribution are two different things. I meant no religious connotations in that statement.
Kathleen, I agree, Vanunu sacrificed his freedom to reveal the truth behind the lies. Any other country in the world, especially, God forbid, one of the Arab countries, caught lying about 200 nuclear weapons, (who knows how many Israel has in it's stockpile now) would be subjected to the most harsh condemnation imaginable. Look what Iraq suffers, and they didn't even have one!

I know I jump on you liberals pretty hard sometimes, but I save my true scorn for the feckless Republicans
Posted by: factchecker at August 29, 2006 09:28 AM

That's good to hear. Here's a good place for you to take your 'true scorn' www.redstate.com We'll all come visit sometime.

35 Who is Valerie Plame and why does she wear the pants in her marriage?
Posted by: Billy Beer at August 29, 2006 10:03 AM

Your skirt matches your blouse beautifully. We know who wears the pants in your marriage, Billy.

Hopefully York will be eating his words when Fitzgerald flips Libby and gets to Cheney.

Posted by: kathleen at August 29, 2006 11:17 AM

I think Fitz is playing for the big fish too.

Happy #2, I wish you would change your handle, I scroll past the happy troll and it is hard to tell which is which. And I will repeat, justice is not "eye for an eye." If that were the case anyone could get away with every sort of crime and not risk punishment. The leaders who are responsible for these crimes against humanity deserve the full penalty of law to be executed against them, and if that means execution itself, then so be it. I would not shed a tear over dead, murdering tyrants.

In all, it was one of the deadliest 24 hours in Iraq in recent weeks and comes amid assertions by the Iraqi government and U.S. military that they are prevailing over extremists fueling the sectarian violence that's gripping the capital . On Sunday, gunmen and bombers claimed at least 69 lives.

"The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing," Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on CNN's "Late Edition" program Sunday. Multinational forces have created an atmosphere of "reconciliation" in the country, Maliki said, and "Iraq will never be in a civil war." - Excerpted from: At Least 23 Dead in Iraq Violence
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Ellen Knickmeyer
The Washington Post Monday 28 August 2006

****************************************

Excuse me?

I supported President Bush's decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. At Wolfowitz's request, I helped advance the case for war, drawing on my work in previous years in documenting Saddam's atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds. In spite of the chaos that followed the war, I am sure that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein.

It is my own country that is worse off -- 1,100 dead soldiers, billions added to the deficit, and the enmity of much of the world. Someone out there has nuclear bomb-making equipment, and they may not be well disposed toward the United States. Much of this could have been avoided with a competent postwar strategy. But without having planned or provided enough troops, we would be a lot safer if we hadn't gone to war.

Peter W. Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia, is a fellow at the Center For Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. In the 1980s, he documented Iraqi atrocities against the Kurds for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

(link)

Iran's President Wants Debate With Bush
Ahmadinejad Challenges Authority of U.N. on Nuclear Dispute
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, AP

TEHRAN, Iran (Aug. 29) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday challenged the authority of the U.N. Security Council as Iran faces a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment and he called for a televised debate with President Bush on world issues.

Iran last week responded to a Western incentives package aimed at getting Tehran to roll back its nuclear program. Iranian officials said the Islamic country did not agree to halt enrichment - the key demand - before engaging in further talks.

Ahmadinejad called the response an opportunity for the two sides to resolve the issue and he didn't rule out the possibility of direct talks with the United States.

"The opportunity the Iranian nation has given to other countries today is a very exceptional opportunity for a fair resolution of the issue," he said.

The Iranian president also called Israel a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East.

"The Zionist regime has deprived the Palestinian nation and other nations of the region of a single day of peace. In the past 60 years, it has imposed tens of wars on the Palestinian nation and others," he said.
===========
bush, debate? That's a laugh. He can barely string two sentences together when he ISN'T under pressure. Must be the superior IQ.

sCorn is in damage control! he he he

sCorn thought he had hit a home run with Hubris only to find out it was a foul ball. It's a full count now, and his confidence in hitting the ball at all has been shattered. He's hoping to get a walk to coast the rest of the game. Can't wait to see what the next pitch will bring to CornNut land! har har har

Thom Hartmann: 'Reclaiming the issues: Islamic or Republican Fascism?'

In the years since George W. Bush first used 9/11 as his own "Reichstag fire" to gut the Constitution and enhance the power and wealth of his corporate cronies, many across the political spectrum have accused him and his Republican support group of being fascists.

On the right,The John Birch Society's website editor recently opined of the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretap program: "This is to say that from the administration's perspective, the president is, in effect, our living constitution. This is, in a specific and unmistakable sense, fascist."

On the left, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. specifically indicts the Bush administration for fascistic behavior in his book "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy."

Genuine American fascists are on the run, and part of their survival strategy is to redefine the term "fascism" so it can't be applied to them any more. Most recently, George W. Bush said: "This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

More.

*******************************

A fine article relying heavily on a piece written by Vice President Henry Wallace on April 9, 1944 for the NYTimes, when we were battling the actual fascists, as to whom the fascists are and what they represent.

bush, debate? That's a laugh. He can barely string two sentences together when he ISN'T under pressure. Must be the superior IQ.

Saladin

It could be worse! It could be Kerry who has a lower IQ than Bush! You silly CornNuts!

Wayne Madsen

Aug. 28, 2006 -- SPECIAL REPORT FROM EUROPE. Information visas (I-Visa) -- a Bush administration method for controlling the foreign media's coverage of the United States.

You're a foreign journalist and you want to visit the United States to cover a story. If you think it is as easy as hopping on an airplane, even if you are a citizen or resident of a visa-waiver country, guess again. Journalists wishing to travel to the United States -- whether they are with print, television, radio, or Internet media -- must first obtain an "I-Visa" from the U.S. embassy or selected consulates responsible for their jurisdictions. Freelance journalists who are not under contract to a U.S.-recognized media organization need not apply.

Journalists must fill out a detailed application in which they are required to outline what story they are writing about and they must personally visit the U.S. embassy and consulate for "administrative processing, biometric collection and a personal interview." Biometric processing at the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen entails having one's thumb electronically scanned. Journalists visiting some U.S. diplomatic missions for the interview cannot bring in "electronic devices (cell phones, PDAs, laptops ) [or] backpacks, suitcases and attach? cases." At certain missions, U.S. embassy security personnel refuse to store such items during the interview process. Others confiscate cell phones and tag them for pick up after the interview process (needless to say, the interview process might last a bit longer if the local U.S. spooks decide to examine the journalist's cell phone call list and perform certain "modifications." At the Madrid embassy, the only bags that are permitted inside the compound are those having medical purposes, such as insulin kits.

Journalists must also provide their addresses in the United States and the names and addresses of people they will be interviewing. So much for freedom of the press and the protection of journalists' sources.

Right now, it is fortunate that most countries are not reciprocating against U.S. journalists in kind. In fact, there are very few countries that require special visas for journalists. The United States and a few tin horn dictatorships are among the few countries that restrict admittance and travel for foreign journalists. Israel severely restricts media access to the West Bank and Gaza. On the other hand, Cuba provides freer access for foreign journalists than does the United States. It is just that a vocal jingoistic minority in southern Florida and their lickspittles in the Bush administration don't want any American journalists to witness for themselves the relative freedom for foreign journalists to report from Cuba. Ask Cuban authorities about the total lack of restrictions on journalists reporting on and photographing conditions inside the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay from their side of the fence and then consider the draconian restrictions places on U.S. and foreign journalists inside the U.S. military concentration camp.

If the Republicans and neo-cons are not run out of Washington soon, the situation for American journalists abroad may change dramatically. And the public's right to know will be the major casualty in such an event.
===========
Story here

This is reaching comic proportions.

It could be worse! - LBH

Where? In Iraq? In Afghanistan? In North Korea? In Lebanon? In Iran? In Sudan?
In New Orleans?

Sorry David,

If the Plame incident was not a conspiracy to get Bush, then there have never been any conspiracies used in politics.

The truth?
definiton of conspiracy-
"An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act."

Sadly, both parties(and affiliated networks) work to subvert each others legitimacy. It is the nature of politics.

one more defintion that you need to consider:
"delusional monomania"

I'd offer the definition, but you seem to be living it.

I would like to know whats up with libs and the wacky eyes,( Combs, Corn, etc) and the slured speech? When you clowns are born do they beat you all with the fugly stick?

RS 63

Yes, yes,yes,yes,yes & yes!

I guess you didn't see the article I posted yesterday. Bolton is calling for the UN to not be cowards and send in troops to Sudan. The UN is refusing to do their job once again.

66 -

Part of the Sudanese problem is a clash of modernity vs. traditional being played out in clashes between nomadic and agricultural societies. Granted, this is only part of the problem, but it illustrates that just sending troops doesn't necessarily deal with the issues at hand.

The Sudan aside, I don't know what you could be thinking.

Robert, are there resources in The Sudan that the west may covet? If not they will have to go it alone like the poor Tibetans, hampered by geographic disabilities.

#65
Seriously, who are you working for because you do the neocons no favors. My God....
By the way, slured is....slurred.

After all, Sudan is believed to hold Africa's greatest unexploited oil resources, even greater than those of the Gulf of Guinea. US oil companies are barred from operating in Sudan and other Western companies are chased from the country by the Washington administration. The Canadian oil company Talisman Energy is even facing charges of "complicity in genocide and war crimes" in a US court due to its past engagements in Sudan. At present, Asian oil companies dominate the field in Sudan.

For China, Sudan has become an important oil provider and an important country to build a national sector of internationally operating oil companies. The rapidly growing Asian economic giant has urgent strategic needs to secure its own oil sources - only during the first seven months of this year, Chinese oil imports had risen by 40 percent compared to the anterior year. An estimated six percent of China's oil imports are from Sudan, a number that Beijing officials want to increase. Large investments are already made and others are planned.

Interview With Ray McGovern, Part 1 and 2
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 21 August 2006

...we're dealing with people who ... well, in my days in government, were widely known as "the crazies." I kid you not. This was the case from the very top levels of government, and I can speak personally of that, down to the lowest analysts in the CIA.

I'd come in on a Monday morning and somebody would say, "Hey Ray, guess what the crazies did on Friday afternoon." And I'd know exactly what the allusion was to. It would be [Paul] Wolfowitz, it would be [Richard] Perle, it would be that whole coterie of folks. Now, to his great credit the first President Bush had the good sense to keep close to him people with good sense. General Brent Scowcroft, his National Security Advisor, Jim Baker, his Secretary of State, and they told him, "Mr. President, you can't get rid of the crazies because the right wing of our party would be up in arms, so let Perle and Wolfowitz hang around at the middle reaches of the Pentagon, but for God's sake don't let them get this country into trouble." And he did. And he listened. And when Wolfowitz came out with that crazy report in 1992 that foreshadowed all this business, the Defense Policy Review, and someone leaked that to the New York Times, Baker and Scowcroft went right into the president's office and said to the first President Bush, "You've got to disavow this right away." Which he did.

Now, imagine our surprise, those of us who knew about the crazies, when we found them in the key policy-making positions. Not only they, but the likes of convicted felon Elliot Abrams, who is running our policy toward the Middle East right out of the White House as Deputy National Security Advisor, right now as we speak.

So it seems to me what has happened here is that they have, together with the infamous Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal, of which Colonel Wilkerson, Colin Powell's Chief of Staff often speaks, Cheney/Rumsfeld and this coterie of neo-conservatives plus Elliot Abrams, who fits that category, had decided, "Well, we're going to input the rest of that famous study that several of them wrote back in 1996, called, 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.'
===========
Very enlightening reading.

Thanks Robert, I'm sure they will be experiencing the many blessings of gun point democracy in the very near future.

Bolton Urges Deployment Of U.N. Troops To Darfur

Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006

UNITED NATIONS -- U.S. Ambassador John Bolton on Monday urged the Security Council to adopt a resolution transferring peacekeeping operations in Darfur to U.N. troops, saying the "time for talk is over."

"It is time for action. It is time for this council to uphold its responsibility and pass a resolution immediately authorizing the deployment of U.N. forces," Bolton told the Security Council.

Bolton spoke after the Security Council discussed the handover of peacekeeping from the financially strapped African Union, which says it can't handle long-term peacekeeping. Sudan, which opposes such a force, refused to send anyone to the meeting.

Since a May peace agreement was reached by the Sudanese government and one of the region's major rebel groups, violence, sexual abuse and displacement of people has increased dramatically, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland told the council.

"Every day that we delay adds to the tragic loss of life and suffering of the people of the Sudan," Bolton said.

Egeland cited a report that more than 200 women and girls in one camp have been sexually assaulted in less than two months as one example. "Our warnings have become a black reality that calls for immediate action," said Egeland.

RS, just sending troops is a first step that could save these 200 girls from being raped.

To walk a million miles, one must take the first step.

I ask that you support John Bolton in demanding the UN fulfill it's responsiblities to humanity and send in the troops.

Too funny!

Isikoff is being smeared as a left wing wacko for co-authoring a book with sCorn. There goes his reputation! har har

When David turns up the heat, they turn up the hate.

History will look back, see the kerfluffle about the speculation about who revealed Plame's name/identity, and the severity of the punishment called for by progressives- and ask one question...

Where is the hatred and vilification of Armitage, in light of the anger and rage expressed by the left when they previously had Rove/Cheney/Bush in their sights?

You now have the unenviable task, Mr. Corn, of hyping a perjury case-which you once believed was part of a conspiracy, while trying to downplay Armitage's role, which was far more relevant to the reason for the investigation.

In effect, you have led a digital lynchmob to an abandoned building, inciting them with the promise of finding a 'traitor', and upon seeing that you have found someone other than the person you were looking for, but of equivalent guilt in regards to 'treason', now must tell the mob-

"Not the traitor we wanted. Let him go."

I have been watching the Katrina aftermath segments on Democracy Now. God, it just makes me want to cry. I was there 17 years ago. I know who the backbone of New Orleans is. It is the black population who works day after day in the restaurants, hotels, clubs. The tourist industry is maybe the most important facet of that city. And now the developers, owners...whoever else, are trying to rid New Orleans of the very population who treated me as a guest. It was the black population that I met when I was in New Orleans. They treated me very cordially and made me want to come back.

The black population is the backbone of New Orleans. They are the culture of New Orleans. There will be no reason to go back to that city when it becomes whiteified.

The black population should have been treated with the respect they deserve. Instead they are being forced out of homes that did not get a drop of flood water in them. Why? Because developers want the property. It's close to the French Quarter. The white parts of the city are getting the repairs and the funding. Are the black areas? No. Why? What excuse works?

New Orleans should be ashamed. Not just for the way it has treated its most valuable citizens but it should also be ashamed at its stupidity in not recognizing what those citizens do for the city.

that's very admirable of bolton to suggest that something actually be done to protect the girls of darfur! i support such an endeavor.

77 - whitey is still in possession of the stick!

Remembering Katrina

Two hours before dawn, at the threshold of the darkest week in the history of New Orleans, a hand shook Cyril Crutchfield awake in lower Plaquemines Parish, 45 miles southeast of the city.

"Wake up. Wake up! Water's comin' in."

Crutchfield sat up on the hard table that had been his makeshift bed in the darkened cafeteria of Port Sulphur High School. He could hear Hurricane Katrina in the night, its wind keening and moaning with unnerving power, much stronger than when he had fallen asleep two hours earlier.

It sounded like a beast. A living thing.

The floor of the high school's sturdy cafeteria stood 3 feet above ground. But water was seeping under the door.

A flashlight beam cut the darkness.

"We got to move, man."

....Alerted, the city in 24 hours completed the largest mass exodus in its history. About two-thirds of the metro area's citizens drove to safety, to upstate Louisiana or to higher ground in such states as Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia.

But hundreds of thousands remained behind, too poor, too frail or too isolated to leave.

Many others, Crutchfield among them, elected to stay. They remained because they did not believe Katrina would be a mass killer. In particular, they did not think Katrina could kill them, that it could kill them in neighborhoods that had never flooded, inside a modern American city ringed by large-scale flood defenses fashioned by the Army Corps of Engineers.

They were confident, and they stayed.

In the course of a morning, Katrina would envelope them in arguably the largest natural disaster in U.S. history -- and certainly American civil engineering's greatest failure, as levees and floodwalls failed across the metro area.

The toll: 1,464 Louisianians dead, almost all of them in the New Orleans area. One hundred and forty square miles of a major city flooded for six weeks; St. Bernard Parish demolished, wall to wall; lower Plaquemines Parish devastated; southern Slidell and much of Metairie north of Interstate 10 flooded. In all, 160,000 homes destroyed or substantially damaged across five parishes.

And a more enduring tragedy: the forced relocation of about 240,000 New Orleanians who may never return.

First would come the hell of flood and fire and thousands of isolated fights for survival that befell the city that first day, Aug. 29 -- followed by the wholly unanticipated but unspeakably cruel aftermath of official sluggishness and incompetence that left Katrina's weakened survivors abandoned, exposed and dehydrated for days before the last could be evacuated.

And finally, the unrelenting heartbreak Katrina has inflicted every day since then: the misery of impoverishment, separation and uncertainty as tens of thousands rebuild broken lives and restore neighborhoods rendered into bleak moonscapes of flood damage. Tens of thousands more have found themselves effectively exiled in another city, another state, indefinitely cut off from New Orleans in a place arbitrarily picked a year ago by the flight schedule of an evacuation team.

LBH,

I generally have much more respect for Jan Egeland than I do for John Bolton, and I will allow that the situation in Darfur is tragic and rape is only a part of the problem, which does nothing to minimize the sexual violence aspect of the issue.

That said, whose troops? On whose dime, under whose supervision? If the Sudanese resisted would they have to fight their way in?

Furthermore, you specifically mention, "RS, just sending troops is a first step that could save these 200 girls from being raped." I hope you are aware that U.N. peacekeeping forces have been implicated in the past in acts of sexual violence. Just sending troops does not necessarily mean an end to sexual violence. It is prevalent
in our own military, in our military academies, and in our recruiting.

'Conspiracy theorist--moi? Where have I proposed a conspiracy theory?'

For starters in your July 16, 2003 column, where you several times made statements like:

'Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

'It sure looks that way, if conservative journalist Bob Novak can be trusted.'

All throughout your piece you hammer that idea home. BASED ON THE NOVAK COLUMN.

And, now we all know you were wrong.

'The White House had the option of presenting a public case against Joe Wilson after he wrote his op-ed article criticizing the Bush administration. It could have sought to declassify information it believed was necessary to present its side of the story. That is not what Rove and Libby did.'

In fact, that's exactly what Libby did. He was instructed that the President de-classified the NIE and he shared that with Judy Miller.

All Rove did was respond to Novak's question about Wilson's wife and also to Matt Cooper's questions--about which we can't know the truth if the presiding judge in Libby's trial is telling the truth about Cooper's e-mails contradicting his story.

#81
Robert, as you know, Jan Egeland is a Norwegian. Let LBH choke on that! To him, all Norwegians are traitors and cowards for giving in to the Germans in 1940!

Ya betcha!

LBH has no base of knowledge to draw upon in asserting his point of view, just assumed superiority as inconsequential as the emporer's new clothes. Har har har

Intelligent conservatives are smart enough to know when to abondon the sinking ship. Bush loyalists tend to show an intellect deficit disorder for which there is no magic pill. Har har har.

#83
Very weak. I give you a C-.

meanwhile, the war on arabs continues.

STAYING THE COURSE OF COURSE!
bushco '08

bushco inc. we're your go-to guys!
specializing in:
strategic tower removals
depleted uranium seeding
budget and pension appropriations
now featuring no-bid contracts!

Rumsfeld: Bush foes lack courage on terror
POSTED: 1800 GMT (0200 HKT), August 29, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused critics of the Bush administration's Iraq and counterterrorism policies of lacking the courage to fight terror. In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration's critics as suffering from "moral and intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security. Addressing several thousand veterans at the American Legion's national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s. "I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism" he said.
Rumsfeld spoke to an American Legion convention as part of a coordinated White House strategy, in advance of the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, aiming to take the offensive against administration critics at a time of doubt about the future of Iraq and how long U.S. troops must remain there. Rumsfeld recalled a string of recent terrorist attacks, from the 9/11 attacks to bombings in Bali, London and Madrid, and said it should be obvious to anyone that terrorists must be confronted, not appeased. "But it is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons," he said, adding that part of the problem is that the American news media have tended to emphasize the negative rather than the positive. He said, for example, that more media attention was given to U.S. soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib than to the fact that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith received the Medal of Honor.

-----------------------------

This man has for sure not learned history's lesson!

#85
Erling and Robert,
Here's a little something you may need if or when you are in Minnesota.

How to Talk Minnesotan

and

the book

Always comes in handy...don't you know.

I will say that the one most disturbing thing about the various commentary on Hubris is the lack of mentioning David Corn's name as co-writer. It happened again on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, although Keith wasn't on last night.

Other than that, as Capt says, any reaction is good right now. The more publicity the merrier.

Saladin,

I agree with you on the fact that the media ignores the mass killing going on and like Den, decry the obsessive coverage of the Jon Benet Ramsey boondockle and the media's inability to let go and report on the more important things in life. Still, at this point in the game, we are consigned to pay attention to what the media covers as the election nears. We're monitoring so to speak.

Also, it is of prime importance that we support our sponsor. Afterall, if it weren't for David Corn and the loyal people he has attracted, we wouldn't be here. And, I'm sure, as David C. notes, there is much more to the book. Hence the title of Hubris in answer to some of the questions asked here. "Hubris", governmental arrogance, is a historical term that also describes the behavior of past leaders such as Bismarck or the Kaiser who started WWI. And it's a beauty of a word to describe Bushco.

Erling,

Thank you for all of your lovely, informative posts. I've enjoyed them.

#90
Erling,
Rumsfeld is one of our foremost comics. I was hoping to see him on the Emmy's. Everything he says is funny.

Carey,
I think I've ready that you are from New Orleans. I posted an article from the newspaper there. It was a human interest story. Very good.

Police find 26 bodies in Baghdad
POSTED: 1758 GMT (0158 HKT), August 29, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi police found 26 bodies Tuesday in different neighborhoods of Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
Eleven bodies were discovered near a school in southwestern Baghdad's Turah neighborhood, the ministry said. Six bodies were found dumped in the Um al-Maalif district, also in the southwestern part of the capital, the ministry said. The men were blindfolded and had their hands tied behind their backs. Some showed signs of torture. Iraqi police were working to identify the bodies, the ministry said. About 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Baghdad, an attack on the Baquba office of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr killed two and injured another, a police official said. Attackers pounded the office with mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades, damaging part of the building, the official said. Gunmen also killed seven people and wounded four in four other shootings in Baquba, a police official said. On Monday, a U.S. soldier was killed in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, a military statement said. The soldier was assigned to the Army's Regimental Combat Team 7 and "died from wounds sustained due to enemy action," according to the military. Separately, a Nebraska National Guard soldier died Monday of injuries he sustained when his vehicle rolled over into a canal near Balad, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Baghdad, on August 21. Since the start of the war in 2003, there have been 2,626 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict. Iraqi troops may have been executed
Several of the bodies of 23 Iraqi soldiers killed during intense fighting last weekend in southern Iraq against followers of al-Sadr show signs of being executed, Iraqi defense sources said Tuesday. A high-ranking Defense Ministry official said some of the soldiers were captured, then killed at short range -- execution-style -- during fighting in Diwaniya, a city more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Baghdad. Thirty-eight militiamen were killed in the battle, U.S. and Iraqi military officials said. U.S. attorney general visits Iraq
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales arrived Tuesday in Baghdad, where he met with Department of Justice employees and Iraqi officials trying to rebuild the country's legal system. "People have great ambitions and dreams for a great Iraq, but those can only be realized if there is a rule of law in this country and if there is security," Gonzales said after touring a new legal facility. "What we are trying to achieve will take time. We are making progress, but we have more work to do." The U.S. Congress, he said, recently approved $100 million for the Iraqi court system and prisons.

Erling

I do not view all Norwegians as cowards. I did say that they surrendered to the Nazi's. There were many brave underground freedom fighters. According to your own philosophy you would not have been one of these barve freedom fighters. You would have been an appeaser. Chew on that!

I also said, as Norwegian, I really don't care what your criticism is of our President or democracy is.

#96
I wouldn't be throwing too many stones LHB. You haven't proven your courage to anyone on this blog.

Sorry,
LBH.

If we are going to be annihilated, let us have at least competent representation.

Just sending troops does not necessarily mean an end to sexual violence. It is prevalent
in our own military, in our military academies, and in our recruiting.

RS

Exactly why Bolton is the right man for reforming the corrupt UN.

#96
I would fight an OCCUPYING force like the Germans with all my ability, which to day consist of substantial military experience. (What about your own military experience, you sure seem to know a lot how to solve problems by the use of force!) Does "Fighting an OCCUPYING force" ring a bell?

Cry-baby neocons!

Waaaa!

You said something bad about his pwesident.

HA!

BUCK FUSH! He is screwing the whole effin planet why should anybody not have the freedom to express themselves, from any country? I am sure there are many that support the insane and failed policies.

Surely nobody is complaining about the BUSHLIES blog being against the LIES of Bush?

That would be silly, eh?

capt

The Want Ads

Here is a want ad in today's newspaper.

Nazi America is looking for new immigrants. The new immigrants need to feel comfortable in an environment that glorifies mass murders and war crimes.

Nazi America has a ruler who has received fame and fortune through mass murders and war crimes. New immigrants who enjoy murders and crimes may, too, receive fortune and fame.

If Nazi America fits your comfort zone, you are encouraged to call for more information at 1-800-GO-ARMY-1. You will never regret this decision.

You haven't proven your courage to anyone on this blog.
Posted by: Jeanne at August 29, 2006 02:45 PM

Sorry,LBH.
Posted by: Jeanne at August 29, 2006 02:46 PM

LBH postings have all the earmarks of a bully; loud bluster and intimidation. Bullies talk a good game and fold long before the quiet unassuming person who has much less to say but nonetheless complete pride and committment in getting their job done. Somethings about LBH we know already. . . others we'll never know. Jeanne, are apologizing for being rude or for being wrong?

#104
I got his name wrong. I can never remember the order of his initials.

American Soldiers

2,960 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan for Bush and his lies.

#101
That was good Erling. Very good.

Capt
We have Bushsupporters in Norway as well, but they're a small minority of the population!

Erling

#108
Are they trolls?

Waaaa!

You said something bad about his pwesident.

HA!

BUCK FUSH! He is screwing the whole effin planet why should anybody not have the freedom to express themselves, from any country? I am sure there are many that support the insane and failed policies.

Surely nobody is complaining about the BUSHLIES blog being against the LIES of Bush?

That would be silly, eh?

Capt

Wow, at first I thought this was a Butthead post until the capt signature at the end.

Hey capt, I never said Erling couldn't express himself you idjit! I said I don't give a rats ass what he thinks just like I don't give a rats ass about your little tantrum.

Now quit reading and responding to my damn posts!

You're nothing but troll food!!!

VIDEO: Whistleblower uses YouTube to tell his story

An article in this morning's Washington Post reveals that for the first known time, a whistleblower working on a US Government contract has posted a video on YouTube making his case about a problem inside government. RAW STORY has located the video referred to in the Post article and made it available here.

The Washington Post story tells the case of Michael De Kort, an engineer for Lockheed Martin, who worked on a US Coast Guard contract to replace the patrol boats used by the service. The contract is worth billions of dollars. In the video, De Kort, a 41-year old, fails to give his name, but commented in an interview after being contacted by the Post.

The Washington Post notes that De Kort appears to be the only known whistleblower to use YouTube to date. Nonetheless, they add "The video also has caught the eye of people in high places. De Kort's video has been covered by defense trade magazines, and yesterday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter to the Coast Guard asking for an answer to De Kort's "extremely distressing" allegations."

The video is provided by RAW STORY and can be viewed below. The full Washington Post story is available at the paper's website.
-------------
The video is at the link site.

Bush White House said subpoenaed by wiretap lawyers

Two attorneys representing claimants in a lawsuit over wiretapping by the National Security Agency claim that they have sent subpoenas to the White House today, RAW STORY has learned.

Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, who say they represent hundreds of plaintiffs in lawsuits against Verizon, AT&T, and the US Government, will announnce today that they are serving both the Bush administration and Verizon with subpoenas.

The announcement is due to arrive at 4:30 PM, outside of Verizon headquarters in New York, RAW STORY has confirmed.

Mayer tells RAW STORY that the subpoenaes, directed to President George Bush, the Office of Legal Counsel, the Department of Justice, and the Chief Legal Counsel for Verizon, have already been sent, and should reach their targets tomorrow.

The conservative crack-up

Here at home, George W. Bush is now viewed with suspicion by conservatives. He too is not what they had reason to hope for. Wild deficit spending and ill-considered foreign adventurism is not the conservatism of Buckley and Will. Nor apparently of the American people, given the president’s approval ratings.

No wonder conservatives are frustrated. Bush is a failure, Benedict a disappointment.

It should be an interesting autumn.

#110
Why do you post remaks about my postings if you "don't give a rats ass" what I think?
LBH, got 'ya!

To the rest of you, I bid you g'nite. I have a TV program to watch before I hit the sack. (It's 9:20 PM on this side of the Big Ocean. See you all on the blog tomorrow!

I said I don't give a rats ass what he thinks
Posted by: LBH at August 29, 2006 03:11 PM

You fight with him. You lose. Then you say you don't care. Waaaaaaaa.

Does "Fighting an OCCUPYING force" ring a bell?

Erling

Ya, isn't that what we did when we liberated your ass from the Germans?

Alan,

You are the one who is clueless regarding the Plame affair and Saddam's desire to procure more uranium! If you could just try for once to THINK instead of accepting the lies of the left you might learn something.

For example, can you think of a reason Saddam would want more uranium? (tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...)

Here's something to be proud of.

The Bush Record: More Poverty, More Uninsured

President Bush says "the foundation of our economy is solid, and it's strong." That's true, for some: corporate profits have now climbed to their highest share of GDP since the 1960's .

But new Census Bureau data show the real state of the current economy. The Bush record on combating poverty and insuring more Americans is an undisputed failure.
------------
The site has pretty little graphs and everything. A picture tells a thousand words. I think we should be thanking the majority in Congress too.

LBH,

So who is the real "Happy" at #115? I wonder.

Wait until the ACLU hears about this! And you CornNuts thought Abu grab was bad! har har

Saddam's cartoon capers

Monday August 28, 08:11 AM

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is being made to watch his appearance in cult cartoon South Park while he is behind bars.

The deposed leader on trial in Iraq was featured in the movie spin-off as the lover of the devil. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut featured Hussein and Satan attempting to take over the world together.

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said US Marines guarding the former dictator during his trial for genocide were making him watch the movie "repeatedly".

"I have it on pretty good information from the Marines on detail in Iraq that they showed him the movie last year. That's really adding insult to injury. I bet that made him really happy," Stone said.

What would Jesus say

A great article!

I offer a contrary opinion. I certainly don't regard anyone in this administration as a Christian. Quoting scripture is a glib and facile skill. As Shakespeare pointed out, even the Devil was good at quoting the scriptures -- to manipulate Jesus as he fasted in the desert. I regard our leaders as war criminals, offenders against humanity who should be impeached and tried. They serve a demonic system, which visits many multitudes with early death.

What, then, would Jesus have to say? A great deal. But first, I think, he would break down and weep. He would weep because he longs to give us peace, but his gift now, as then, is rejected. "If this day you only knew what makes for peace," he would say between sobs.

Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, according to the Gospel of Luke (19:42). But then he takes action. He turns over the tables of injustice. He demands its restoration as a house of prayer, a place of peace, where oppression and violence are banished. Jesus gives his life taking action, speaking out, loving everyone, practicing nonviolence, and leading us to the living God of peace.

U.S. data show one in eight Americans in poverty

In the world's biggest economy one in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Tuesday, releasing a figure virtually unchanged from 2004.

The survey also showed 15.9 percent of the population, or 46.6 million, had no health insurance, up from 15.6 percent in 2004 and the fifth increase in a row.

Posted by: Tim at August 29, 2006 03:25 PM

No Tim, you are the one who is clueless about Saddam WMD development.

The NIE, which Bush partilly declassified for Cheney/Libby, was the concensus opinion regarding intelligence on Iraq. The NIE stated the conclusion that there was no credible evidence Saddam was trying to secure yellowcake from Niger. The CIA didn't believe. It was taken out of the SOU before it was put back in. Why do you think, Timehhh? Do you think, Timehh? Think. tick-tock tick-toc.

Wow! Talk about a soreloserman!

Kerry Revives 2004 Election Allegations
Aug 28 7:34 PM US/Eastern

By DAVID HAMMER
Associated Press Writer

Sen. John Kerry didn't contest the results at the time, but now that he's considering another run for the White House, he's alleging election improprieties by the Ohio Republican who oversaw the deciding vote in 2004.
An e-mail will be sent to 100,000 Democratic donors Tuesday asking them to support U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland for governor of Ohio. The bulk of the e-mail criticizes Strickland's opponent, GOP Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, for his dual role in 2004 as President Bush's honorary Ohio campaign co-chairman and the state's top election official.

"He used the power of his state office to try to intimidate Ohioans and suppress the Democratic vote," said Kerry's e-mail.

Kerry, D-Mass., conceded the election when he lost Ohio and its 20 electoral votes. A recount requested by minor-party candidates showed Bush won by about 118,000 votes out of 5.5 million cast. But Kerry's e-mail says Blackwell "used his office to abuse our democracy and threaten basic voting rights."

Multiple lawsuits by outside groups were unsuccessful in challenging Ohio's 2004 election. One case filed by the League of Women Voters is still in U.S. District Court in Toledo. It claims Ohio's election system discriminates against minority voters.

Blackwell, who is black, says the election was run fairly, citing 1 million more votes cast than in 2000 and record turnout among black voters.

"People will say anything for money," said Blackwell campaign spokesman Carlo LoParo. "Fortunately, the historical record contradicts Senator Kerry."

Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said the campaign welcomes Kerry's support.

#119
Who's the real Tim?

In the world's biggest economy one in eight Americans

One CornNut to every seven neo-cons sounds pretty good to me!

Tim

The Happy spoofer is most likely an offspring of a one night stand by O'Rielly and Panty Queen.

Har har har

Eight Words

Dear Cornposters:

I have written a number of posts on Catholicism. Yet, my Catholicism comes down to only eight words. These eight words are from Jesus of Nazareth. LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU!!!

Sincerely,

Gerald

National Review Online
August 29, 2006 8:24 AM

Rove and Libby: Hubris Authors Never Contacted Us
The CIA-leak investigation book —†without two key figures

By Byron York

Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, the new book by the Nation’≥ David Corn and Newsweek’≥ Michael Isikoff, is the most in-depth single account yet of the CIA-leak investigation. But representatives of two central figures in the case, former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby and top White House aide Karl Rove, say the authors never got in touch with them, much less interviewed them, for the book.

Ҏeither Isikoff nor Corn ever contacted us to discuss anything about the book,Ӡsays Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for the Libby defense team.

җe were never contacted,Ӡsays Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove.

Hubris was rushed into release before its scheduled October publication date, and copies of the book are not yet available publicly. But throughout the CIA-leak affair, Cornճ reporting has relied heavily on former ambassador Joseph Wilson, the husband of CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson. Corn was, in fact, the first person to publish a story explicitly raising the possibility that Mrs. Wilson was a Ҥeep-coverӠCIA officer. Based on an interview with Wilson (who Corn said did not talk about his wifeճ status), Corn wrote on July 16, 2003 Ѡjust two days after the original Robert Novak column that started the CIA leak controversy Ѡthat ҡ pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as Ԯonofficial coverՠand who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material.Ӡ

Ӕhe Wilson smear was a thuggish act,ӠCorn, who is also the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, concluded. Today, Corn is posting updates about Hubris at his website, bushlies.com.

In response to an e-mail asking whether he and Isikoff had contacted Rove and Libby, Corn responded:

Your impression is wrong —†as you will see when you read the book and the source note. Mike —†who also got your note —†will reply to you with some more details about his dealings with the Rove and Libby camps. At one of the Libby hearings, as Wells was walking into the courtroom, I asked if he was talking to reporters, he said no. Mike, I believe, also tried to reach him and/or Jeffress and got nothing. Ask him about that. And we did put a request into the White House that covered a host of matters and got nothing from it. So it's simply not true we did not talk to —†or try to talk to —†the Rove and Libby sides. You might want to wonder about whoever told you that.

In an excerpt of Hubris published in Newsweek, Isikoff writes that Novak ңaused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer.ӠBut when it was originally published, Novakճ column caused virtually no stir at all Ѡuntil Corn published an article claiming that Mrs. Wilson worked under "nonofficial cover" for the CIA. And even then, there wasnմ much notice until New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer picked up on Cornճ article and demanded an investigation. Those demands, combined with a leaked letter to the Justice Department from then-CIA Director George Tenet calling for an investigation, eventually created the political pressure that caused the Justice Department to begin a formal probe, which continues today under special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

AUTHOR’ì NOTE: A few hours after this story was posted, Isikoff responded with the following note:
I told [Rove lawyer Robert] Luskin I was working on a book late last year on all this and reminded him again in April at the time I was talking to him about Rove's last grand jury appearance as we went over—†yet again —†the Rove, Cooper and Novak issues that I was writing about for the magazine. (I have operated under the assumption that he and others didn't have a different version of the truth for a book than they do for the readers of Newsweek.) Mark [Corallo] was interviewed for the book last December (about a matter he dealt with at the Justice Department) and I spoke to him periodically over the next six months about matters relating to Rove. At one point, he even helped put me in touch with a source for the book. Barbara Comstock certainly knew I was working on a book for at least the last six months and I certainly spoke to her during that period. (The Libby lawyers have consistently no commented me and David, as they have everybody else.) Finally, Dan Bartlett was sent a lengthy email that included questions for the book relating to Rove unrelated to the leak case. He chose not to respond.

—†Byron York, NR’≥ White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President —†and Why They’¨l Try Even Harder Next Time.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDcyMDRjOGRkNTk5M2ZiYThhZjIyZjQ4ZDM5MGMwYzE=

LBH likes to say "Panty" Har Har Har.

Tim,

I know I'm as smart as you because I get all my facts from little green men that beem me up to their space ship in the middle of the night. After an all nighter of probing my orifices I can tell you I am smarting more than you. Did that make sense?

I like to watch Panty put on his panties. Har Har

I share with you my Jesus.

I think he expects his followers to do the same today -- to weep, take action and speak out. Jesus wants us to see every human being on the planet as our very sister and brother. He wants us to stand in loving solidarity with everyone, even those named as enemies. He wants us to grieve with them and defend them. He wants us to stop every form of violence, to resist our government's unjust policies and wars, and to practice justice and peace. He would have us take action -- hold our peace vigils, write letters, pray and fast, serve the needy, and organize locally for justice.

And he would have us speak out, have us say a few basic things: Stop the war on Iraq. Make reparations, bring the troops home, let the United Nations resolve the crisis. Don't bomb Iran. Or Syria. Or anyone for that matter. Seek nonviolent solutions for peace.

Oh ya, Panty likes to watch me put on his panties too. Har Har

#122 Jeanne, that's 12.5% of our population who are poor! What of the working poor? Maybe 4 in 8 or 50%? A poor popuation of 62.5%? What a country!!!

This is truly quite remarkable. Before reading this, I had assumed that Mr. Corn was a pathological liar. I now have to consider the possibility that he is, instead, suffering from some sort of delusional disorder.

In either case, one supposes that Mr. Corn would deny that the sky was blue if it did not fit his pre-conceived notions about the non-existent political world which he has constructed for himself and attempted to foist off on the rest of us.

The lid has been blown off your fantasy world, Mr. Corn. It is time to attempt to regain what tiny shred of credibility and dignity you might be able to reclaim for yourself and just admit to the fact that cornlies would be a much more apt name for your website.

"Conservatives" cheer on Judge Posner's highly un-conservative defense of federal police powers

In one sense, this is nothing new. In order to defend the Bush administration's lawlessness, self-proclaimed conservatives have been advocating legal theories which are the very antithesis of the strict constructionism and originalism they claim to espouse. They insist, for instance, that the President has the power to engage in warrantless eavesdropping on Americans under Article II, even though Article II mentions not a word about surveillance or eavesdropping (such powers instead presumably "emanate" from the "penumbra" of the Executive's generalized Commander-in-Chief powers). Similarly, they contend that the 2001 AUMF "implicitly" repealed eavesdropping limitations imposed by FISA even though that statute also failed to say a word about eavesdropping, surveillance or FISA.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Greenwald - in rare form. Am I the only person that thinks the FISA courts do not pass muster (re: fourth amendment)?

capt

Jeanne, That's fascinating. A whistleblower telling his story directly to the taxpayers, the people paying the salaries of those perpetrating the coverup. We've truly entered a new era of journalism. The backwash can't shriek about this being the product of some "left-wing media conspiracy."

The military-industrial-political complex should be very worried about this as a precedent.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has some explaining to do. Wonder if he's up for re-election this year.

I hope there are some attorneys willing to demonstrate REAL patriotism by helping De Kort out on a pro bono basis.

"let the United Nations resolve the crisis." Good luck with *that*.

This is truly quite remarkable.

Indeed it is. You typed a full 132 words and managed to communicate zero (0, nada) substance.

Would it be too much to hope that you're trying to make a living as an conservative essayist?

Love the poor and your life will be filled with sunlight and you will not fear the hour of death. St. Vincent DePaul, the first social worker

Sen. John Kerry didn't contest the results at the time, but now that he's considering another run for the White House, he's alleging election improprieties by the Ohio Republican who oversaw the deciding vote in 2004.

Screw Kerry. If the Dems are stupid enough even to consider making him or Clinton the nominee, they may as well declare the White House a Republican preserve.

Drewp,

You are so correct! Conservative writers are so hard for liberals to comprehend. This is why I wrote this post just for CornNuts, to help the CornFused like yourself.

sCorn is in damage control! he he he

sCorn thought he had hit a home run with Hubris only to find out it was a foul ball. It's a full count now, and his confidence in hitting the ball at all has been shattered. He's hoping to get a walk to coast the rest of the game. Can't wait to see what the next pitch will bring to CornNut land! har har har

Hey, who's spoofing me? I don't like spoofers. Does that sound right? I'm confusing myself now.

Good luck with *that*.

Funny. A simple "good luck" once conveyed that kind of sarcasm. Now twice as many words are used for the same purpose. Maybe it's the effect of da tube. No copy editors to clean things up.

Good leakers? Bad leakers? What constitutes a good leaker as opposed to a bad leaker?

I must admit that as a person in the advanced stages of middle age, June Allison's "Depends" commercials crossed my mind.

What also crossed my mind today, are the potential lethal consequences of black holes. Today, there was a very eery article about Earth's theoretically-possible demise by being just a little too close to a black hole. BTW, black holes are the most powerful force in the solar system. If this possible scenario is in the cards, Earth is toast.

When one thinks about black holes, one can easily view the Bush administration as a big, black hole. Really! The gravitational pull into "bad leaking," military quagmires, trillion dollar deficits, lying, deceit, and incompetence are truly beyond belief.

Happy likes being the offspring of O'Reilly and Pandemoniac.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Judicial Watch Smears Judge Who Ruled Warrantless Wiretapping Is Illegal, Media Takes The Bait

Last week, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was unconstitutional. Subsquently, Taylor was attacked by the conservative group Judicial Watch which claimed that she had a "conflict of interest" because she "serves as a Secretary and Trustee for a foundation that donated funds to the ACLU of Michigan, a plaintiff in the case."

Judicial Watch's allegation has garnered extensive media coverage. It's a bogus charge. Here are the facts:

Over the last two years the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan has donated about $50 million to charitable causes. Its $45,000 in grants to the ACLU represents just .09% of their total giving.

The money to the ACLU had nothing to do with their activities relating to this litigation or government surveillance. The grant funded "a gay rights project."

Judge Taylor is one of 50 community members on the foundation's board. It wasn't a personal decision by Judge Taylor.

None of this information was disclosed by Judicial Watch. Once you know the facts, there is not a "reasonable question about [her] impartiality" based on the foundation's activities. That hasn't stopped the media (or the blogosphere) from breathlessly reporting the "story."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Remember way back when the truth of a thing mattered? When "reporters" and the media were shamed to have reported a complete falsehood?

capt

Selective Prosecution of
War Crimes

by Ivan Eland
In Saddam Hussein's war crimes trial for the 1988 Iraqi "Anfal" campaign that gassed Kurdish villages, his defense lawyers have argued that Iraqi forces were really attempting to strike Iranian forces and the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga militias that were in and supported by the hamlets. In other words, the lawyers are asserting that the innocent Kurds who were killed were collateral damage in an effort by the Iraqi government to rid its territory of Iranian fighters and their Kurdish allies during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. Curiously, this defense sounds similar to Israel's defense of killing more than one thousand Lebanese and perpetrating widespread destruction of Shi'ite neighborhoods, apartment houses, water services, electrical power stations, ports, factories, roads, and bridges in Lebanon in its efforts to punish Hezbollah. Yet Saddam Hussein is on trial for war crimes and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is still in office.

Of course, rabid supporters of Israel would be horrified at a comparison between a democratically elected leader and an autocratic tyrant. But we are not talking about the selection method for leaders here; we are comparing their specific actions during wartime. Supporters of Israel would also note that the Israelis did not use poison gas in Lebanon. But although chemical weapons provide a grisly death, they kill far fewer people than explosive bombs. Because they have been wrongly included in the ominous-sounding category of "weapons of mass destruction" (nuclear weapons are probably the only true, practical weapons of mass destruction), their use implies a war crime from the get-go. That is not to defend Saddam's use of these area weapons against villages, it is merely to say that the Israelis are no less guilty of committing war crimes by leveling entire villages in southern Lebanon simply because they used conventional bombs to do it.

Amnesty International, a human rights group, has accused Israel of military strikes that included "directly attacking civilian objects and carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks." Amnesty concluded that "the evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes, and industry was a deliberate and integral part of the military strategy rather than collateral damage." The group also accused Israel of deliberately targeting food stores and gasoline stations.

Furthermore, the U.S. State Department, because of complaints from human rights groups, has launched an investigation into whether Israel violated U.S. rules banning the use of U.S.-made cluster bombs –†bombs releasing bomblets that explode over a wide area to target people –†in residential areas. The UN Mine Action Coordination Center has confirmed 289 instances of cluster bomb usage by Israel, many of them in civilian areas. Although the investigation is not yet complete, the circumstantial evidence looks damning, and the Israeli track record on this score is not good. According to the Washington Post, as a result of a congressional investigation that discovered the Israelis had violated agreements on the use of U.S.-made cluster weapons during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Reagan administration suspended sales of them to Israel for six years.

In fact, the main difference between Saddam's war crimes and Israel's is that while Saddam denies them, Israeli officials indirectly admit them. Amnesty cites a comment by Israel's top uniformed military official that implied that Israel was trying to punish the Lebanese population and government to get them to oppose Hezbollah. The group noted that Israeli military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz called Hezbollah a "cancer" that Lebanon must expunge "because if they don't, their country will pay a very high price."

Adding to this intentional targeting of civilians for political reasons (when Hezbollah and other non-governmental groups do it, it is called "terrorism") in Lebanon, Israel is currently still conducting a military and economic siege of Gaza. To punish the people of Gaza for electing the wrong party in democratic elections last January, and for Hamas' capture of an Israeli soldier, Israel slapped a blockade on the area that prohibits almost all goods from being exported and restricts imports, except for limited food supplies. Israel bombed an electricity plant in Gaza, making supplies of power and water intermittent, since water supplies depend on electric pumps. Thus, most factories in Gaza are shut down. Also, the Israeli military routinely bulldozes the homes of relatives of people it believes to be Hamas fighters. Trying to kill a population slowly –†by strangling the flow of critical goods and cutting off electricity and water to hospitals, orphanages, schools, and factories producing vitally needed goods –†is little better than attempting to exterminate it quickly with explosive bombs.

To justify its ill-advised invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration regularly gripes about Saddam Hussein's war crimes, while cheering on Israel as it does the same thing in Lebanon and Gaza, just using different weapons.

Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. Having received his Ph.D. in national security policy from George Washington University, Dr. Eland has served as Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Evaluator-in-Charge for the U.S. General Accounting Office (national security and intelligence), and Investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has testified on NATO expansion before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and CIA oversight before the House Government Reform Committee.

Today, I guess I had a gravitation pull to misspell.

Allison is not the correct spelling. Insert "Allyson."

Bush Goes Retro to Avoid Prosecution

by Paul Craig Roberts
When I was a kid, John Wayne war movies gave us the message that America was the good guy, the white hat that fought the villain. Alas, today the U.S. and its last remaining non-coerced ally, Israel, are almost universally regarded as the bad guys over whom John Wayne would triumph. Today, the U.S. and Israel are seen throughout the world as war-criminal states.

On Aug. 23, the BBC reported that Amnesty International has brought war crimes charges against Israel for deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure as an "integral part" of Israel's strategy in its recent invasion of Lebanon.

Israel claims that its aggression was "self-defense" to dislodge Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. Yet, Israel bombed residential communities all over Lebanon, even Christian communities in the north in which no Hezbollah could possibly have been present.

United Nations spokesman Jean Fabre reported that Israel's attack on civilian infrastructure annihilated Lebanon's development: "Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month."

Israel maintains that this massive destruction was unintended "collateral damage."

President Bush maintains that Israel has "a right to protect itself" by destroying Lebanon.

Bush blocked the attempt to stop Israel's aggression and is, thereby, equally responsible for the war crimes. Indeed, a number of reports claim that Bush instigated the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

Bush has other war crime problems. Benjamin Ferencz, a chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg, recently said that President Bush should be tried as a war criminal side-by-side with Saddam Hussein for starting aggressive wars, Hussein for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Under the Nuremberg standard, Bush is definitely a war criminal. The U.S. Supreme Court also exposed Bush to war crimes charges under both the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996 and the Geneva Conventions when the Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld against the Bush administration's military tribunals and inhumane treatment of detainees.

President Bush and his attorney general agree that under existing laws and treaties Bush is a war criminal together with many members of his government. To make his war crimes legal after the fact, Bush has instructed the Justice (sic) Department to draft changes to the War Crimes Act and to U.S. treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

One of Bush's changes would deny protection of the Geneva Conventions to anyone in any American court.

Bush's other change would protect from prosecution any U.S. government official or military personnel guilty of violating Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Article 3 prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." As civil libertarian Nat Hentoff observes, this change would also undo Sen. John McCain's amendment against torture.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, says that Bush's changes "immunize past crimes."

Under the U.S. Constitution and U.S. legal tradition, retroactive law is impermissible. What do Americans think of their president's attempts to immunize himself, his government, CIA operatives, military personnel, and civilian contractors from war crimes?

Apparently, the self-righteous, morally superior American "Christian" public could care less. The Republican-controlled House and Senate, which long ago traded integrity for power, are working to pass Bush's changes prior to the midterm elections in the event the Republicans fail to steal three elections in a row and Democrats win control of the House or Senate.

Meanwhile, the illegal war in Iraq, based entirely on Bush administration lies, grinds on, murdering and maiming ever more people. According to the latest administration estimate, the pointless killing will go on for another 10-15 years.

Trouble is, there are no U.S. troops to carry on the war. The lack of cannon fodder forces the Bush administration to resort to ever more desperate measures. The latest is the involuntary recall of thousands of Marines from the inactive reserves to active duty. Many attentive people regard this desperate measure as a sign that the military draft will be reinstated.

According to President Bush, the U.S. will lose the "war on terror" unless the U.S. succeeds in defeating "the Iraqi terrorists" by establishing "democracy in Iraq." Of course, insurgents resisting occupation are not terrorists, and there were no insurgents or terrorists in Iraq until Bush invaded.

Bush's unjustified invasion of Iraq and his support for Israeli aggression have done more to create terrorism in the Muslim world than Osama bin Laden could hope for. The longer Bush occupies Iraq and the more he tries to extend U.S./Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, the more terrorism the world will suffer.

Bush and the neocon ideology that holds him captive are the greatest 21st-century threats to peace and stability. The neoconized Bush regime invented the war on terror, lost it, and now is bringing terror home to the American people.

har har har.

Bush's unjustified invasion of Iraq and his support for Israeli aggression have done more to create terrorism in the Muslim world than Osama bin Laden could hope for. The longer Bush occupies Iraq and the more he tries to extend U.S./Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, the more terrorism the world will suffer.

Bush and the neocon ideology that holds him captive are the greatest 21st-century threats to peace and stability. The neoconized Bush regime invented the war on terror, lost it, and now is bringing terror home to the American people.

BUSH IS THE GREATEST TERRORIST THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOW. HE IS A COLD-BLOODED MURDERER AND WAR CRIMINAL.

Happy knows LBH is spoofing Happy who is spoofing Happy as a spoofing Happy.

Happy is happy to be smartest spoofer of Happy's.

Happy the spoofer of Happy still likes watching Panty put on panties no matter what the LBH spoofing spoofer say's.

Har har har

This read makes me puke. Check out the first paragraph and cry!

The everlasting puke

George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn into office on January 20, 2001, re-elected on November 2, 2004, and sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005. Prior to his Presidency, President Bush served for 6 years as the 46th Governor of the State of Texas, where he earned a reputation for bipartisanship and as a compassionate conservative who shaped public policy based on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, strong families, and local control.

I meant to say I'm the spoonfed Happy of Happy's who likes to spoof Happy as a Happy spoofer. Happy out!

Har har har

I wonder if Happy's happy that I spoof Happy as Happy the spoofer? I like being Happy.

Gerald, the Terror Nations of Britain, Israel and America will reap what they sow, unfortunately it is the innocent bystanders who pay the highest price.

One must remember that the Bush administration is in a self-destruction mode. One must remember, too, that the Bush administraton has a little over two years in office.

Bush's last year in office can only be described as a total disaster. If the speed of this self-destruction occurs at the present magnitude, even Ted Kennedy could be elected president.

One poster seems to think that the chances of Senator Kerry or Senator Clinton living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are rather remote. Ha! I don't think so.

In politics, nothing is impossible. Nothing! George Bush is president. That in itself seemed impossible. Money seems to open doors.

One minor problem for the Bush administration is now surfacing--not enough army recuitment doors are opening. That's right! It's becoming a harder sell to recriut people for military service. We're stuck in this war, and "stuck" is the key word. We're not going to be "unstuck" for a long, long, long time.

This minor problem will become a major problem. Maybe a million dollars dangling from a money tree might do the trick. Something's got to do the trick. The military is already accepting less-than-desirable individuals. High school graduates are out. Tattoos are okay. A military draft is mostly likely the trick.

When the kids of the affluent are marching off to Iraq, Hello President Clinton. How's Bill doing?

David!
At an Oct. 28 press conference announcing Libby's indictment, Fitzgerald claimed that "in fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson."

Yet, Fitzgerald lied, he definitely knew about Armitage already.

I don't doubt Fitzgerald's intentions and his motives for lying.

Yes, the Captain and the boys are right. This thing stinks like a smelly fish, and you know it, but you won't admit it. Whatever happenned to integrity? Huh David?

The unmitigated HUBRIS of these guys! As David Corn's book, HUBRIS will reveal, these guys are guilty of the worst kind of HUBRIS. Let's all buy David Corn's book, HUBRIS, and read about HUBRIS.

While I am willing to wait to hear what new information Hubris provides, I must say that Corn's defense sounds like a con job and his unwillingness to simply admit that he and Wilson were wrong undermines his credibility (as does his extreme partisanship). It is possible that the book will provide somem facts to rehabilitate Corn, but I doubt it.

Overall, the notion that Corn would write objectively about the facts is like saying Coulter would write an objective story.

"Overall, the notion that Corn would write objectively about the facts is like saying Coulter would write an objective story."

BINGO!

re: Bush, Iraq, 9/11, Jimmy Carter, Lamont et al...
as with Plame, the truth will prevail and the left will fail.