i second that b & between outraged, yourself, uncle $cam, debs, cloned poster & the others who bring such wealth with their links – i salute you
i don’t know about the rest of you but here i am following the fitzgerald investigation to unseemly hours in the morning even for a debauchée such as i
it is a sad testimony to the nature of the whore media that the great majority of the information that is usefull is found here or through you all
in my work here – it is a central tenet – to widens people’s areas of knowledge & expertise – on discovering & researching the things they do not as yet understand
it is not just commentary but very precise information. it is a material that i need not only for my work but also for sustaining a belief in surviving
unfortunately – i am such an imbecile – that i cannot offer here what i would like to – & one day one of you will teach this imbecile how to link – so that i too can bring fruit to the table
welcome & thanks

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 19:20 utc | 3

Outraged? No! Relieved! Ecstatic to finally have DeLay booked. Can’t wait for the trial. I have the popcorn ready.
If there was outrage, it would be that Fitzgerald is making us wait so long to finally find out who in the Bush Administration is getting indicted, and in turn, will be resigning…
Just my two cents!

Posted by: Luke | Oct 20 2005 20:30 utc | 5

Luke, you have to be patient because…(here’s my take)
Fitz knew from the very gitgo that he had a whopper of a case including all the criminal acts by about half the govt to get us into war. This may include 9/11 stuff, probably does since Cheney was fingered by Ruppert as the on-the-scene orchestrator of all those crashes.
Look at it this way; so far none of the allegations of complicity has stuck because there were always moles in place to neutralise them. So Comey sez to Fitz, we know how to get these guys don’t we, and Fitz nods sagely.
You know the rest, a fully vetted loyal team, hermetically sealed process, NO LEAKS. And unconstrained power over everybody so no-one can take the ball away.
I will not be surprised when he finally finishes the job, to see Scalia f’rinstance, in handcuffs. And all the rest of course including the dub.
If I’m wrong I promise to eat my words publically. We don’t have much longer to wait for the hammer to fall, so hang on.

Posted by: rapt | Oct 20 2005 21:15 utc | 7

rapt – you are too optimistic – but it’s a nice mental picture

Posted by: mistah charley | Oct 20 2005 21:47 utc | 9

mistah ou mastah charley really i am an imbecile

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 22:26 utc | 11

l

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 22:36 utc | 13

b
please delete my imbecilic attempts at linking – mistah charley – obviously my motor skills leave much to be desire – tho even as they are – they are consdierably better than bush’s

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 22:38 utc | 15

16 Fatal Words
Chickens Come Home to Roost on Cheney
By RAY McGOVERN
Former CIA analyst
Indictments are expected to come down shortly as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald completes the investigation originally precipitated by the outing of a C.I.A. officer under deep cover. In 21-plus months of digging and interviewing, Fitzpatrick and his able staff have been able to negotiate the intelligence/policy/politics labyrinth with considerable sophistication. In the process, they seem to have learned considerably more than they had bargained for. The investigation has long since morphed into size “extra-large,” which is the only size commensurate with the wrongdoing uncovered-not least, the fabrication and peddling of intelligence to “justify” a war of aggression.

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 22:44 utc | 17

thank you also my little fitzgerald investigator annie
this growing up in public
my first link
feel i have been deflowered

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 22:51 utc | 19

Bravo r’giap! No. You just bloomed.

Posted by: beq | Oct 20 2005 23:15 utc | 21

Giap and b, make this a great blog

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Oct 20 2005 23:40 utc | 23

Not to change the subject…
Government by Temper Tantrum
by Doug Thompson from Capitol Hill Blue
“President George W. Bush’s temper tantrums are on the rise with White House insiders reporting increasing tongue-lashing of staffers, obscenity-filled outbursts and a leader driven to the edge by what he sees as party disloyalty and a country that no longer trusts him. Conservative backlash over his latest Supreme Court nominee may, in fact, have pushed the President over the edge.”
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7509.shtml

Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Oct 21 2005 0:07 utc | 25

Well, I was looking for somewhere to put this where Billmon might actually notice, but probably he’s already picked it up. Still it’s kind of funny. In Billmon’s own inimitable juxtapostional style, it goes like this:

Billmon
If such a scenario were true, one could easily understand why Scooter and Judy would prefer not to mention their June meeting in their initial remarks to the grand jury. This, however, also would have been extraordinarily stupid, since it turns out that Judy called on Scooter at his digs in the Old Executive Office building, where she would have had to have been logged in and out.
Did that really not occur to them? These aren’t stupid people, so it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t — almost as hard as imagining that Patrick Fitzgerald didn’t think to subpoena the OEO vistor logs.
National Journal
New York Times reporter Judith Miller told the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case that she might have met with I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby on June 23, 2003 only after prosecutors showed her Secret Service logs that indicated she and Libby had indeed met that day in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, according to attorneys familiar with her testimony.

Thanks to Needlenose for the convenient quotes. I’ve been looking around for anyone reacting to this and Swopa seems to have been the only one to pick up on the Billmon connection so far.

Posted by: DrBB | Oct 21 2005 1:32 utc | 27

Me last. Keep forgetting to re-enter my info after I clean out the cookies folder. Guess I shouldn’t worry so much about housecleaning.

Posted by: Juannie | Oct 21 2005 1:58 utc | 29

http://tinyurl.com/d9nqq
Mute, numb, outrage…

Posted by: tempo tempo | Oct 21 2005 2:18 utc | 31

I asked the following in a different thread and no one commented. Can someone please explain why this article is dated Wednesday, January 26, 2005?
Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract
Maggie Gallagher got 25k to promote marriage.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 21 2005 2:26 utc | 33

US nuclear war-plans fly around the internet
The document is a rare unpolished look at how the Cold War doctrine of nuclear first strike – previously spun as “deterrence” – has taken on a new dimension.
It reveals that the threshold for actually using nuclear weapons has been lowered dramatically.
And it outs the untruth of George Bush claiming that the US is reducing the importance of its nuclear arsenal.
Oh, but don’t pay attention to Greenpeace, the’re not w/us, the’re w/the terrists! GW will keep you safe!
Skip directly to the PDF here…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 21 2005 3:32 utc | 35

Will Fitz be allowed to get anywhere near AIPAC?? I think they already have a readily controllable toad on that beat. As long as they bring down Georgie boy, I don’t care. I fear they won’t.
Anyway, I just discovered that even on a dialup line I can listen to radio on the web, so I wondered if others are similarly enjoying it. If so, what stations do you recommend? I suggest barflies check out this alternative radio station in Boulder.
link Especially Alternative Radio. I heard Great Program today. I’ll try to find more info. on the speaker & post later.

Posted by: jj | Oct 21 2005 4:15 utc | 37

Wonder what sorts of “negotiations” are going on now betw. them. If georgie lets cheney fall, what will dickie say about him in his memoirs. So was it clever of that bastard Reid, to tie up georgie’s lawyer in her own battles now that he most needs her. Mommy can I pardon him before he has to resign??

Posted by: jj | Oct 21 2005 4:34 utc | 39

congrats, rgiap.
deflowered? looks more like you had a multiple o. in that post. tantric linking…
..and let me add my welcome back to Outraged and Pat and Slothrop.
who has bubbly chilling in anticipation of Fitzmas? I don’t want to get my hopes up…but someone is surely going down.

Posted by: fauxreal | Oct 21 2005 4:39 utc | 41

It is good to be able to be back … thankyou b … without your incredible untiring efforts there would be no MOA … and that would be heartbreaking …
My friend RememberingGiap, dear Annie & DeAnander, LonesomeG, Slothrop, GylanGirl, Cloned Poster, Juannie, B real, Pat, rapt, Uncle $cam, Dan of Steele, Debs is Dead, Hannah K O’Luthlin, Fauxreal, Mistah Charley, Flahharry, Clueless Joe, Noisette, and all other MOA’rs not mentioned by name (including you lurkers out there who are yet to loosen your virtual bonds and post) … our outrage peaks and subsides … we must pace ourselves or become overwhelmed in these cruel and despotic times, yes ?
The MOA is, for me, at least, an intrinsically one of a kind ‘Safe Harbor’, where largely ‘free thinkers’ of any viewpoint can share thier knowledge, experience, analysis, insight, research, or simply, raise thier individual voice from out of the silence … a site with an almost physical ambience of acceptance, comraderie and constructive debate and commentary … dare I state the obvious, is it not the whole of our unique and diverse individual contributions that makes MOA so very special ?
Barkeep, a round of drinks, if you please. A toast to MOA and all the posters who make it what it is !
PS Its also a rare joy to not be bothered by grammar and spelling ‘nazis’ when one occassionally fires off rapid snapshot posts … we’re all largely more interested in the content than the ‘presentation’, are we not ? … 😉

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2005 4:51 utc | 43

jj, I have a favorite Internet radio station — it is Radio 8 from the BBC.
BBC 6 music
They seem to be focus on the midlands, Manchester, the 80s, there’s a great funk program, lots of live recordings from John Peel and the BBC archives, with hourly BBC news breaks.
Tom Robinson (Tom Robinson Band) and the lead singer from Iron Maiden are both DJs as well … surprisingly posh accents!
Anyway, I like to turn this on from time to time, hearing about the music scene in London and the festivals. It’s also kind of great because they are about 8 or nine hours ahead of Pacific time so in the mid-day I can hear them ramping up the weekend in the UK.
No commercials!
Thanks Uncle for the suggestions as well.

Posted by: jonku | Oct 21 2005 5:42 utc | 45

Songs of the times?
James McMurtry Makes it in Dayton.

The song met the town. Last Sunday night James McMurtry performed “We Can’t Make It Here” (see counterpunch.org 9/30/05 for all the lyrics) at the Canal Street Tavern in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton gets mentioned in the song as the hollowed-out shell of manufacturing that it is.
The crowd of 100 punctuated “We Can’t Make It Here” with hoots, hollers, claps, “yeah’s” and “right on’s.” The man was testifyin’. The song, which came midway through the show, received the longest ovation I’ve ever seen for a song that wasn’t a regular-show closer or an encore.
Dayton’s 5,700 Delphi automotive workers will lose their jobs unless they agree to have their wages slashed by 60-70%. Had a Delphi executive been in the bar that night he would have been ripped to pieces and thrown out on the street without a twinge of remorse. The crowd’s joy of hearing the truth, mixed with anger at capitalist reality, was palpable all through “We Can’t Make It Here.” Think anybody’s going to clap for the lies, irrelevancies and misdirections of CNN, Fox News or the New York Times?

Lyrics here.
Dayton has been a Republican stronghold, so this has to be troublesome to them even if it is anecdotal. I’m seeing more songs like this at the station where I work and people are requesting them. People like Eliza Gilkyson, Buddy Miller, Todd Snider and Jon Langford have always been favorites of left leaners, but red state icons like Merle, Kinky and Willie are singing about where we are as well.
I played a Johnny Cash special today in which Roseanne talked about how her father was in critical care just before the US invasion of Iraq. (He died 6 months later.) He had pneumonia and they had to hook him up to tubes to drain his lungs. He went under for a couple days and when he came out of it the first thing he asked about was Iraq. She said, “it’s happened Dad” and he just moaned “Oh, no, no, no.” Red staters have never questioned his Christianity or his patriotism. Hope this cognitive dissonance points some of them in the right direction.
McMurtry is in my town next month. I’ll be there to sing along.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Oct 21 2005 5:49 utc | 47

Radio 6 I mean.

Posted by: jonku | Oct 21 2005 5:53 utc | 49

yep, McMurtry kicks ass, they play him alot on Boot liquor radio.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 21 2005 6:04 utc | 51

Uncle, you’re not kidding.
From the Joint Nuclear Operations pdf you linked above:

(2) Use of nuclear weapons within a theater requires that nuclear and conventional plans be integrated to the greatest extent possible and that careful 29
consideration be given to the potential impact of nuclear effects on friendly forces. JP 3- 30
12.1, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Theater Nuclear Planning (S), 31
forthcoming, will provide theater planners the nuclear weapons data necessary to 32
determine troop safety information such as minimum safe distances, collateral damage 33
distances and least separation distances. 34

This looks like rules of engagement for Tactical Nuclear Weapons, I think that means little ones that you can drop or send by some kind of cannon.
We always think of the bomb as a huge thing that will wipe out a city but I think they have small ones that if you “determine troop safety information such as minimum safe distances, collateral damage” can be used in a battlefield.
No mention of course about how long after the bombed area is unsafe, what about collateral damage to the people who live downwind?
I’d like to see more discussion of this topic.

Posted by: jonku | Oct 21 2005 6:07 utc | 53

lonesomeG, that’s real cool.
I think the man in black(tm) is awesome, especially I walk The Line and Ring Of Fire come to mind.
The first tv footage I ever saw of the inside of a jail, actually probably the only time, is when Johnny Cash went to I think it was Fulsom Prison and did a show. That must of been over twenty years ago. Maybe as long back as 1969 — “Recorded in 1969 (or 8) for a TV broadcast” from a comment on Amazon about the live album Live At San Quentin.
I had a friend from Dayton Ohio, he explained that Dayton was actually part of the South because it was by the Mississippi. Made sense to me. US geography is kinda hard because I never paid any attention.

Posted by: jonku | Oct 21 2005 7:08 utc | 55

@jonku
I am currently in Dayton, Ohio as I write this and you may take my word for it that we are not anywhere near the Mississipi River. I’m absolutely confounded by the “part of the south” observation.

Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 21 2005 7:18 utc | 57

@jonku
Tactical nuclear weapons appear to be the way that the US strategists have been heading for a while.
When the French insisted on continuing their testing in the Pacific during the ’90s one of their excuses was that they were just using ‘small’ atomic weapons and in fact they weren’t weapons at all they were construction tools. Knock over that mountain build that road blah blah.
The people living in the vicinity ie anywhere in the South Pacific were somewhat put out by this half assed, half truth chiefly because, the fissures in the reefs were already there and whatever radioactivity was released deep down was finding it’s way back to the surface. Catching tuna that glow in the dark is no less difficult that the standard non-glow variety but more to the point one is less likely to leave ones teeth behind in the soft tuna flesh, if the tuna is original non-glow rather than the new-improved glow variety.
But there I go digressing again. The point I wanted to make was that when we (we being the people living in the part of the planet that was getting irradiated) all got upset about the French desire to watch things go boom, the Australian government attempted to use it’s ‘special relationship’ with Washington to get them to lend a hand leaning on what is now known as “Old Europe”.
The land of Oz was told in no uncertain terms that the test would go ahead because the French were supplying valuable data to the US.
In fact it appeared to the OZ functionary that I spoke with (who admittedly was very low on the totem pole) that the French were subcontracting for the US, by doing testing which some tiresome piece of paper the US had signed with the Ivans, prohibited Amerika from doing themself.
I apologise for having absolutely no links to substantiate this but am unfortunately feeling lower than the proverbial snake’s belly today. But please google away.
I rabbited on a while ago about the paradoxical effect induced by blowing the crap outta other humans without boots on the ground, aka troops, following the meat jigsaw.
It tends to make people fight harder. Because the Japanese put their cue in the rack after Hiroshima and Ngasaki it was prolly received wisdom that the same would happen anytime the old alpha particles were let loose on the population.
Remember public service careers are not built on the arrivistes adopting the current received wisdom. Some 57th rate mind has probably made it past the level of his/her incompetence, by hiring a Rand consultant to put out a ‘scoping study’ on the need to integrate nuclear capability into mainstream weapons systems and the tactics for utilising those systems.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 21 2005 7:53 utc | 59

Arctic Map Vanishes, and Oil Area Expands

Maps matter. They chronicle the struggles of empires and zoning boards. They chart political compromise. So it was natural for Republican Congressional aides, doing due diligence for what may be the last battle in the fight over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to ask for the legally binding 1978 map of the refuge and its coastal plain.
It was gone. No map, no copies, no digitized version.
The wall-size 1:250,000-scale map delineated the tundra in the biggest national land-use controversy of the last quarter-century, an area that environmentalists call America’s Serengeti and that oil enthusiasts see as America’s Oman.
The map had been stored behind a filing cabinet in a locked room in Arlington, Va. Late in 2002, it was there. In early 2003, it disappeared. There are just a few reflection-flecked photographs to remember it by.
All this may have real consequences. The United States Geological Survey drew up a new map. On Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee passed a measure based on the new map that opened to drilling 1.5 million acres of coastal plain in the refuge.
The missing map did not seem to include in the coastal plain tens of thousands of acres of Native Alaskans’ lands. On the new map, those lands were included, arguably making it easier to open them to energy development.

Posted by: b | Oct 21 2005 8:17 utc | 61

anyone see” 2 days in october” on pbs american experience? best accounting of us in vietnam, and protest of the war — on a personal / national level i’ve seen. echo of my own experience to a T. all there. and played out all over again in iraq.

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 21 2005 9:27 utc | 63

The Army Times thinks there’s something funny
about FNU LNU . If this case drops down the memory hole we’ll have a better idea of this Brooklynite’s real allegiance.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 21 2005 11:26 utc | 65

@ Noisette
Yeah, I have the same impression of the Beeb: it’s still well done and professional, but one can’t help feeling that all the talking heads are cleared by the CIA and MI5 before they appear (with the exception of the “Talking Movies” people).
Here’s a link to more detail on the
‘infiltrated translator’ For me, the money quote comes in a footnote on page 4 of this New York Federal Court Document which is a deposition by John Long, the FBI agent in charge of the case

Because the purpose of this affidavit is to set forth only those facts necessary to establish probable cause, I have not described all of the relevant facts and circumstance of which I am aware.

Maybe its “much ado about nothing” but I’d like to hear what Sibel Edmonds might have to say on the matter.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 21 2005 12:02 utc | 67

CluelessJoe, Welcome to Lurker’s Anonymous.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 21 2005 13:56 utc | 69

Like countless counterinsurgent forces before, U.S. troops find themselves frustrated by their enemy’s ability to blend in with the local population.
“They could be right in front of you and you wouldn’t know it,” said Adkins. Meanwhile, the Americans, in their uniforms and vehicles, are easily identifiable targets for the Taliban.
“They have an enemy,” Adkins said. “We don’t.”
October 24, 2005 By Sean D. Naylor, Army Times staff writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan  The rocket-propelled grenade flew out of the night and hit the Humvee with a loud boom, blowing a hole in the driver’s door and spraying his leg with molten shrapnel.

and another turning point in Iraq

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2005 14:28 utc | 71

As far as Dayton being a part of the South, the issue is primarily this:
As the automobile industry grew explosively during the first half of the 20th century, the states most involved in the auto and ancilliary industries, which had been originally settled almost a century earlier, experienced a second great wave of migration to fill the newly emerging industrial jobs. Primarily, we are talking Michigan, Ohio, and to a lesser extent, Indiana. The migration drew from two principle areas, the Appalachians, for whites, and the South, which drew both poor whites and blacks. The results of this migration can be detected linguistically, culturally, musically, and politically. To this day, one can still hear a Southern twang in parts of Michigan, and country music on many radio stations. This also accounts for the red streak in politics which runs through those states. The cultural mixing made Michigan a flashpoint for music. On the white side, much of the 60’s Detroit scene, MC5, Iggy Pop, etc. represent working class whites coming into contact with the intellectual ferment of Ann Arbor. On the black side, no auto industry, no Motown–now that’s a sobering thought!
Anyway, this is why much of the midwest has so much of a Southern feel to it.

Posted by: Malooga | Oct 21 2005 16:08 utc | 73

you really can’t make this shit up
Suddenly, it’s a vast left-wing conspiracy
from this story at the Weakly Standard
Criminalizing Conservatives

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 21 2005 16:53 utc | 75

sorry about the cut & paste
don’t even know the ethics of this
but a post at dkos
which refers to the legal basis of fitzgeralds investigation seems to me to be of paramount importance especially in face of his opponenets ;
Ignorance breeds BS (4.00 / 2)
Perhaps the ohh so wise pundits who are attacking Fitzgerald as an “overzealous prosecutor” should look at some facts before they start spewing out their lies.  For instance:
-The specific terms of Fitzgerald’s  appointment.
James Comey, the Deputy Attorney General under Ashcroft who was deignated Acting Attorney General for the purpose of appointing the Special Counsel to conduct the leak investigation, spelled out the scope of the assignment given to Fitzgerald: He was authorized
“to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, [his] investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses.”
see Letter from James B. Comey, Acting Attorney General, to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney, Northern District of Illinois (Feb. 6, 2004), which is quoted in Judge Tatel’s opinion in the D.C. Court of Appeals decision upholding enforcement of the Judy Miller and Matt Coooper subpoenas. So, Fitzgerald’s pursuit of possible perjury or obstruction charges is an express part of what he was tasked to investigate, not the whim of a runaway prosecutor.
-Judicial Review of the Investigation-
The foundation for, and evidence aupporting, Fitzgerald’s investigation has been reviewed by a United States District Court Judge and by the United States Court of Appeals in connection with the enforcement of the Miller and Cooper subpoenas.  District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who incidentally was appointed to the bench in 1982 by Ronald Reagan, after reviewing the classified evidence presented by Fitzgerald in support of subpoena enforcement concluded in his opinion enforcing the subpoenas that:
Assuming, arguendo, that the DOJ guidelines did vest a right in the movants in these cases, this Court holds that the DOJ guidelines are fully satisfied by the facts of this case as presented to the court in the ex parte affidavit of Patrick Fitzgerald. Furthermore, assuming arguendo that this Court were to determine that the journalists did possess a qualified privilege – a holding which this Court has explained is simply not supported by case law – the ex parte affidavit has also established that Special Counsel would be able to meet even the most stringent of balancing tests. The information requested from Mr. Cooper and Mr. Russert is very limited, all available alternative means of obtaining the information have been exhausted, the testimony sought is necessary for the completion of the investigation, and the testimony sought is expected to constitute direct evidence of innocence or guilt.
Judge Hogan’s decision was affirmed by a three judge panel of the D.C. Courft of Appeals.  Judge David B. Satelle, who was appointed to the Court in 1987 by Reagan, ironically to fill the seat vacated by Antonin Scalia when he moved up to SCOTUS, wrote the opinion for the Court, in which he concluded:
However, all believe that if there is any such privilege, it is not
absolute and may be overcome by an appropriate showing. All further believe, for the reasons set forth in the separate opinion of Judge Tatel, that if such a privilege applies here, it has been overcome.
In a concurring opinion, Judge Karen L. Henderson, who was appointed to the court in 1990 by Bush I, even more ironically to fill the seat vacated by Ken Starr when he moved on to conduct his re-enactment of the Spanish Inquisition, concluded that:
the Special Counsel’s evidentiary proffer overcomes any hurdle, however high, a federal common-law reporter’s privilege may erect.
Judge David Tatel, a Clinton appointee, noted the extensive evidence presented by Fitzgerald in support ocf the subpoenas.  His discussion of that evidence filled 8 pages of the opinion, which were redacted in the published version beacause of their classified nature.  Judge Tatel concluded that:
In sum, based on an exhaustive investigation, the special
counsel has established the need for Miller’s and Cooper’s testimony. Thus, considering the gravity of the suspected crime and the low value of the leaked information, no privilege bars
the subpoenas.
Judge Tatel also made several interesting observations about the investigation.
In essence, seeking protection for sources whose nefariousness he himself exposed, Cooper asks us to protect criminal leaks so that he can write about the crime. The greater public interest lies in preventing the leak to begin with.
(snip)
Were the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security or more vital to public debate, or had the special counsel failed to demonstrate the grand jury’s need for the reporters’ evidence, I might have supported the motion to quash. Because identifying appellants’ sources instead appears essential to remedying a serious breach of public trust, I join in affirming the district court’s orders compelling their testimony.
So, who’s better qualified to assess the legitimacy of Fitzgerald’s investigation? The pundits who have seen absolutely none of the evidence gathered by Fitzgerald? I think not. The facts, rather than the winger disinformartion, support the conclusions of the judges of the Court of Appeals regarding both the strength of the evidence presented by Fitzgerald and “the gravity of the suspected crime” and the “nefariousness” of the leakers actions, which were described as “criminal leaks” that were “harmful to national security” and a “serious breach of the public trust.”
We all need to be confronting the wingers and their lies with these truths.
Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to Stand Naked
by Sabarte

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 21 2005 17:51 utc | 77

The Men From JINSA and CSP
On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war–not just with Iraq, but “total war,” as Michael Ledeen, one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year. For this crew, “regime change” by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. Anyone who dissents–be it Colin Powell’s State Department, the CIA or career military officers–is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East–a hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force, clientism and covert action.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 21 2005 18:09 utc | 79

the picture accompanying this article made me laugh. can’t decide if the reference is peckinpah or buñuel. probably the latter, though i’d prefer they found themselves in “the exterminating angel”

Posted by: b real | Oct 21 2005 18:24 utc | 81

ok, maybe that was a little alarming. i probably should have relaxed and read everything first. here’s the raw story link. do we have a plame thread most people are on? are we in merge mojo?

Posted by: annie | Oct 21 2005 18:36 utc | 83

@jj – ouch – please don´t insult r’giap like this.

Posted by: b | Oct 21 2005 20:54 utc | 85

Doug Thompson of Capitol Hill Blue weighs in:
For all practical purposes, governing the nation has stopped at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as aides deal with an increasingly despondent President, mounting scandals and defecting dissidents from the Ship of State.
White House insiders say George W. Bush’s mood swings have increased to the point where meetings with the President must be cancelled, schedules shifted and plans changed to keep a bitter, distracted leader from the public eye.
“He’s like a zombie some days, walking around in a trance,” says one aide who, for obvious reasons, asks not to be identified. “Other times he launches into angry outbursts, cussing out anybody who gets near him.”
…
Wilkerson isn’t the only high-profile Republican operative bailing on Bush. Bruce Bartlett, who served as a Senior Policy Advisor in Bush’s father’s administration, is about to release a book: Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Destroyed the Reagan Legacy. Bartlett lost his job at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative Texas think tank, when word of his book project leaked out.
link
I’m relieved someone is finally focusing on their Deliberate Bankrupting of the Nation; however, Bartlett has the rest backwards – this is the Culmination of the Reagan Legacy, but for picking a few nits.

Posted by: jj | Oct 21 2005 21:18 utc | 87

BEEB:
Host: So Ms. Leila Birghabani – oh did i get that right?
Leila: Yes! But really is BIr…
H: So how do you feel as the first Muslim woman to speak to a council of men, here in London?
L: Fine, fine
H: They listen? Have you had any death threats, you know, nasty things
L: (naively) Well some but nothing too serious (twitches light blue veil)
H: And how do you reconcile what the Koran says with your position as a woman, even a ha err err say a possible advocate for Muslim women worldwide? With your determination and charisma?
L: My deter..? (hesitates) I am not seeking election.
H: But you are a figure amongst Muslim women?
L: I am an individual who ..
H: Yes well we are all individals aren’t we! Marvellous!
L: You spoke of the Koran, but it is patriarchical society that is the main problem.
H: Well does the Koran permit you to speak out about these matters?
L: The Koran is a sacred text, but Islam can be modern.
H: So you are trying to reconcile modernity and tradition? I see you wear the veil? Would you wear a miniskirt?
L: (waves hands with painted nails) ..Dress is not an issue.
(etc. etc.)

Posted by: Noisette | Oct 21 2005 21:47 utc | 89

so much time in your wonderful & stirring company & i’m still learning
one day i shall also learn how to pay attention to keyboards
don’t know if the fitz site is to be read as ominous or as onanastic
someone here complaining on another thread about fitzmas etc -as if we do not understand the gravity of the events we are living through – if anything our sometimes hysteric humour is a a balnce to the terribly apocalyptic rendering of the State & Empire

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 21 2005 23:09 utc | 91