The Common Ills

 
Sidney Blumenthal vs. Norman Solomon on Karl Rove, the Democrats and Iraq

Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton, takes on Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" on Iraq, the Democrats, the invasion of Iraq and much more. [includes rush transcript - partial]
 
Two excerpt from the hour with Sidney Blumenthal and Norman Solomon.
 
First:
 
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: Well, Karl Rove is waging a communications battle in the way he wages communications battles. He is trying to act -- he's acting as though this is -- this matter is going to be decided by a court of Washington pundits. He is leaking stories now. There are stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post that are clearly leaked by his lawyer trying to depict him in a light in which he is innocent of the charges, but that's not how this is going to be decided. It's going to be decided by the prosecutor. And I think that Rove is in a panic mode. He's acting in a very frenetic way, and he is undermining himself, and he is undermining his principal, the President.
 
AMY GOODMAN: How is he undermining himself?

SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: He's undermining himself by putting out all of these stories and keeping this at a -- in the forefront of the news. He has regarded his defense as though it is the defense of the administration himself. He cannot separate himself. Furthermore, the President has not separated him. He walked to Marine One, his helicopter, accompanied by Karl Rove, a clear statement that he stands by Rove. So, Bush has embraced Rove, as well. This is -- Bush -- Rove's damage control, in my view, has created more damage. This so-called master of communications is undermining himself in terms of communications, but in the end, none of that matters. It all comes down to Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, and what he decides to do.

Second:

NORMAN SOLOMON: And I think this raises also the question of the role of the Democratic Party here. Under Howard Dean, the Democratic Party in the United States now has a pro-war position. Let me repeat that. The Democratic Party has a pro-war position as the war in Iraq continues. And so, how well-positioned is the Democratic Party and its leadership, such as it is, to raise these issues about lies on behalf of war and also raise these issues about the meaningfulness of this war. When -- during the Vietnam War, and I know Sid Blumenthal, as well as myself, were active in writing about that war at the time, we had a situation where there were many people in the Congress who had a similar position to Howard Dean and most in the Democratic Party leadership today on this war. During the Vietnam War, they said, “Well, we can’t cut and run. We can't pull out.” That was a pro-war position. And so what kind of political discourse can we have about lies about a war that continues right now?

One other thing I'd like to mention. In 1968, as previously, and I was able to hear this in person at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 1968, Senator Wayne Morris, the senior Senator from Oregon, a Democrat said, and I'm quoting here from transcript, “I do not intend to put the blood of this war on my hands.” Here we are in the midst of the Iraq war, and I am looking for one United States senator willing to say that he or she is unwilling to put the blood of this war on his or her hands. We don't have a single senator today willing to say that.

 
Dallas e-mails the latest from Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler.  Dallas picked the bottom part on the New York Times for the excerpt:
 
 

INANITY RULES IN THE CAPITAL: How inane was the idea that, if Rove didn't actually name Wilson's wife, that would mean that he hadn't IDed her? Duh. The idea was always completely inane--and three days ago, King Karl gave it up. His lawyer, Robert Luskin, spoke to  the National Review's Byron York:

YORK (7/12/05): A few other notes: Luskin declined to say how Rove knew that Plame "apparently" (to use Cooper's word) worked at the CIA. But Luskin told NRO that Rove is not hiding behind the defense that he did not identify Wilson's wife because he did not specifically use her name. Asked if that argument was too legalistic, Luskin said, "I agree with you. I think it's a detail.”
Duh. If you're more than seven years old, you always knew how inane that claim was. But inanity is the mother's milk of our national discourse. Three days later, here's the New York Times' David Johnston, saying that "critics of Bush"--no one else--think this claim is pure crap:
JOHNSTON (7/15/05): White House officials may argue that Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak did not amount to leaking the name of the agent. But to critics of Mr. Bush--including the Democrats who have called for Mr. Rove’s resignation--think that is splitting hairs, and Mr. Rove in effect confirmed her identity, even if he did not name her.
Three days after Rove killed this turkey, Johnston says that “critics of Bush” think it’s silly. Apparently, those “critics of Bush” include lawyer Luskin, who gave up this dog three days back.

Note: This passage has been dropped from NYT on-line editions. We don't blame the Times for dumping this embarrassing turkey. Good Lord! At the Times, you had to be a "critic of Bush" to think this claim didn’t make sense.

The article Somerby's referring to is David Johnston & Richard W. Stevenson's.  (Go to first Times post today for the link.)  And David E. Sanger "contributed to the article."  (I didn't note the "contributed" credit.  There's above the title and then there's end credits.)  Print edition readers, go to A14, it's second column, below the pull quote. 

 
We've got two Matthew Rothschild's "This Just In"s too note.  The first is entitled "Remembering Gaylord Nelson:"

I went to the memorial service for Gaylord Nelson, a giant of progressive politics.

The former governor of Wisconsin, who also served in the U.S. Senate for 18 years, took on Joe McCarthy, championed civil rights, was an early and courageous opponent of the Vietnam War, an advocate of auto and tire safety, a fighter for Legal Services and for Head Start, and above all, an ardent environmentalist. He was the first Senator to propose a ban on DDT, and he helped shepherd through the landmark environmental laws of the 1970s.

Gaylord Nelson was the father of Earth Day. It was his idea. And when he left the Senate, he continued for the rest of his life to work on the issue of the environment at the Wilderness Society.

On Earth Day 2000, he wrote: "Forging and maintaining a sustainable society is The Challenge for this and all generations to come. At this point in history, no nation has managed to evolve into a sustainable society. We are all pursuing a self-destructive course of fueling our economies by drawing down our natural capital--that is to say, by degrading and depleting our resource base--and counting it on the income side of the ledger. . . . We have finally come to understand that the real wealth of a nation is its air, water, soil, forests, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats, and biodiversity. Take this resource away, and all that is left is a wasteland."

The above is an excerpt and we'll note that Rothschild steers those interested to Bill Christofferson's biography of Nelson entilted The Man From Clear Lake.

And don't miss "Hillary on the Right:"

There was Hillary Clinton instead calling for 80,000 more troops for the Army so that the United States can be fully equipped to patrol the far corners of the empire at a moment’s notice.

Hillary, the darling of the Democrats for 2008 (pssst, I don’t think she can win!), has been steadily repositioning herself on the far rightward reaches of the Democratic Party when it comes to the Pentagon.

She’s always been for the Iraq War, and she still is.

And in case you needed any other clue about where she stands, she was accompanied by Joe Lieberman at her press conference calling for more troops.

 
Kara e-mails to note the latest GOP Hypocrite of the Week Award.
 
Kara:  Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.  The envelope please
. . .  The winner is . . . <gasps> it's a, it's a tie or a mulitple win.  Republicans Who Condone Treason, come pick up your award!"
 
 
Maria steers us to Jude, as did Ryan.  Jude's pulling together from her real time commentary to reconstruct the outing of Valerie Plame.  I'm not sure where to quote (indicates read the whole thing) so we'll go with the top of the "Dick Don't Know Joe:"
 
 ..If Dick Cheney didn't know Joseph Wilson, someone awfully close to him certainly did.

I am repeating these words, once again, from Matt Cooper's TIME magazine article. The words in quotation came from Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "Scooter" needed to disseminate the storyline good and fast - before the public could effectively point their finger at Dick Cheney.
"The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so." Other senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have also claimed that they had not heard of Wilson's report until recently.

I gave you a blog entry in September, 2003. "Dick Cheney denies Joe Wilson Three Times"

Read it again. Think about it carefully. Why was it so important, in September, 2003, for Cheney to get out on the political talk shows and swear, hot and heavy on a stack o'Bibles, that he didn't know Joe? Why didn't Tim Russert ask more pointed questions at the time - when he could have?
 
Janet (Ivy Leaves) e-mails to comment on the Karl Rove:
 
It seems that to come under this law, one must have authorized access to the secret information that is revealed. Why would Karl Rove be authorized? I suspect that pinning him down as the source will force him to reveal HIS source, and so on, quite possibly leading to the president or vice president themselves.
 
My apologies to Janet who gave permission to be quoted sometime Thursday.  I'm obviously running behind.  And a number of e-mails are coming in noting Attorney X's commentaries.
There have been two thus far: here and here. 
 
Brad e-mails to note that Anthony Lappe (Guerilla News Network) will be on The Majority Report tonight with Janeane.  (He's a regular guest on Fridays.)
 
Lynda e-mails to note that Laura Flanders (Saturday & Sundays seven to ten p.m. est) is still on vacation,  "Bill Crowley will fill in Saturday and someone named Harrison on the Edge Sunday. Kyle Jason's playing the music of Sam Cooke and Daniel Wolff who wrote the biography You Send Me will be on. [Airs 10pm to 12am est Saturday.] On EcoTalk, Betsy's going to be talking about G8 and Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes who cofounded Earth Day with Nelson will be one of the guests."  [Betsy Rosenberg's Eco-Talk airs Sunday mornings from seven am to eight am.)
 
 
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Posted at 10:46 pm by thecommonills
 

BuzzFlash: "Ambassador Joe Wilson's Letter to the Senate Select Intelligence"

BuzzFlash: "Ambassador Joe Wilson's Letter to the Senate Select Intelligence"

From BuzzFlash, "Ambassador Joe Wilson's Letter to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee:"

First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee." That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife sent to her superiors that says "my husband has good relations with the PM (prime minister) and the former Minister of Mines, (not to mention lots of French contacts) both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD reports officer stated the "the former ambassador's wife offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department Intelligence and Research officer that the "meeting was apparently convened by [the former ambassador's wife] who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue." In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD Reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the Reports Officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments". I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement. It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July, 2003. They reported on July 22 that: "A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. "But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They (the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story) were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,'" he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.'
"We paid his (Wilson's) airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article Columnist blows CIA Agent's cover, dated July 22, 2003). In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip: "'She did not propose me," he [Wilson] said--others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too."

There is more and please read it. We've noted what I'm remembering as an abridged version of this previously posted by BuzzFlash. Pages 477 -418 of Wilson's The Politics of Truth contains the Times' op-ed for those e-mailing to request a way to read it other than paying to view it at the Times.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 10:44 pm by thecommonills
 

NYT: "Head of Hospital at Guantanamo Faces Complaint" (Neil A. Lewis)

NYT: "Head of Hospital at Guantanamo Faces Complaint" (Neil A. Lewis)

Lawyers for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have filed an ethics complaint with the medical licensing board of California asking that the commander of the Guantánamo detainee hospital be disciplined on the ground of providing improper care.
[. . .]
It maintains that Captain Edmondson has supervised a system in which doctors sometimes withhold medicine from prisoners if they are deemed not cooperative enough with their interrogators. The complaint does not assert that Captain Edmondson has been a direct participant in that effort, but says he is responsible for its occurrence.

Amidst the Focus on the Fool coverage and the "I've always been honorable and doing it for the team so I'm stepping down . . . because I'm being investigated" it's hard not to notice the issue of "balance" in the Times today. It appears to be right wing, right wing, right wing, oh here's a Democrat. It's a funny kind of duck-duck-goose reporting. Anybody else noticing that or is it just me? Maybe I'm seeing things?

Instead of noting that, we note the above. A tiny article, truly it's five paragraphs, by Neil A. Lewis entitled "Head of Hospital at Guantanamo Faces Complaint." It's a small article, but it's an important one. It's one about accountability. And it's no shock to anyone who's aware of Jane Mayer's recent article ("The Experiment") in The New Yorker. (Again, click here for a summary of Mayer's article as well as links to Mayer's interviews discussing the article -- two on Democracy Now! and one in The New Yorker.)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 10:43 pm by thecommonills
 

NYT: "Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer" (David Johnston & Richard W. Stevenson)

NYT: "Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer" (David Johnston & Richard W. Stevenson)

On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as "no partisan gunslinger." Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, "Oh, you know about it."
That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Rove's account to investigators about what he told Mr. Novak was similar in its message although the White House adviser's recollection of the exact words was slightly different. Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he had heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard Ms. Wilson's name.

The above is from "Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer" by David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson.

From the article:

The disclosure of Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak raises a question the White House has never addressed: whether Mr. Rove ever discussed that conversation, or his exchange with Mr. Cooper, with the president. Mr. Bush has said several times that he wants all members of the White House staff to cooperate fully with Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation.
In June 2004, at Sea Island, Ga., soon after Mr. Cheney met with investigators in the case, Mr. Bush was asked at a news conference whether "you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found" to have leaked the agent's name.
"Yes," Mr. Bush said. "And that's up to the U.S. attorney to find the facts."

I'm tired and exhausted (and the day's just beginning) so take this that I'm in bad mood. At another time, this might look like a well reported article.

It doesn't to me right now. First of all, while they do a tiny paragraph on the law, they fail to say to readers, "Unlike what Victoria Toejam told us earlier in the week, the law says . . ." Readers who read every day are unaware that they've been misled.

They have been misled. That's why we've screamed and hollered here for people to tell us what the law says. (And we've been very fortunate here to have Attorney X to walk us through.)

Victoria Toejam, a friend of Novak's, a pundit, a Republican, is hardly the person to be conveying what the law means. Think I'm just too skeptical?

Let's go to David Corn ("De-Spinning the Save-Rove Spin"):

* Today's Washington Post reported this: "Victoria Toensing, who helped write the [Intelligence Identities Protection Act], has said that there is likely no such evidence [that could convict the leaker] in this case, because the statute was designed to have a high standard and requires proof of intent to harm national security." Well, I would respectfully suggest that Toensing--a good Republican lawyer and commentator, which is not how she is identified in the Post, who is always willing to talk to me--should go back and review the law she helped write. It reads:
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Where's the part that says the leaker has to leak purposefully to harm national security? There is no such standard. Perhaps the Post reporters should also read the law.

Someone else went over that yesterday as well. (Maybe Bob Somerby, maybe Jude, maybe Bill Scher. I'm not trying to avoid crediting, I'm just really, really tired.) But why is it that people outside newspapers are going over the law and reporters for newspapers (Corn writes for The Nation -- a weekly magazine, he occassionally does pieces for LA Weekly) aren't?

We said here earlier this week that people needed to be informed of the law. We stated that if it was confusing to anyone at the Times, all it would take would be one phone call to Floyd Abrams. We're still not getting the impression that the Times understands the law. Maybe they do.

If that's the case, they need to revisit what Toejam told them. Like the Washington Post, they ran with it. It's not apparently accurate. Readers need to know that. This is an ongoing story, it needs to be in the text of the next article. Which may be Saturday, in which case, it needs to be repeated on Sunday. This is nonsense. The Times didn't identify her as a friend of Novak's. They made it appear that she's just a disinterested party. It's time for them to say, "According to a legal opinion commissioned by the Times, this is what the law says . . . Earlier this week, we reported the opinion of Vicky ToeJam. Contrary to that opinion, the law in fact says . . ."

I could ridicule this article from here to tomorrow for a variety of reasons. Realizing I'm tired and in a bad mood, I'll be kind. I'll point out that it's not all Stevenson and Johnston's fault. The reporting on this has been sorry from the start. To lay the blame solely at their feet misses the point of how the paper works. When, for instance, Vicky ToeJam popped up this week, the editor should have asked, "Who's Vicky ToeJam?" The reporter should have replied, "She claims she co-wrote the act." The editor should have then asked, "Is there anything else we need to know about her?"

At that point, her close friendship to Robert Novak should have been noted. If it was, the editor should have made sure it went in the article. If it wasn't noted by the reporter, the editor now needs to figure out why it wasn't noted. It's an important detail. Media Matters pointed it out in January. (Though that didn't prevent the Washington Post from again making the same mistake. But we focus on the Times.) Someone messed up. The Times needs to figure out if it was the reporter or the editor.

And I'll even give the benefit of the doubt (I'm that tired) to the reporter if it was his error. He may have been under a tight deadline. Fine. But you correct the mistake. You do it promptly. That hasn't happened. And since it was put out in an article and the topic continues to be covered, it needs to be noted in an article.

There are other problems with the article but we'll make that the focus for now.

I'll also note that BuzzFlash has a letter by Joseph Wilson. We'll do an excerpt in another entry.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 10:42 pm by thecommonills
 

Indymedia Roundup: Russ Feingold interviewed (Chris Lugo & Sharon Cobb), Robert McChesney interviewed (Joseph McCombs)

Indymedia Roundup: Russ Feingold interviewed (Chris Lugo & Sharon Cobb), Robert McChesney interviewed (Joseph McCombs)

Russ Feingold was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. He was the first Senator to introduce legislation into the US Senate demanding a timetable for ending the war in Iraq and he is a leading proponent of national health care. Feingold was in Nashville on Saturday, July 9th to address the statewide conference of Democracy for Tennessee, an organization dedicated to running progressive Democrats candidates in Tennessee.


Chris Lugo, Tennessee Indymedia: Could you address the resolutions introduced in the House and Senate to bring the Troops home?

Senator Russ Feingold:

I am pleased to see that one of the most conservative members of the House and one of the biggest leaders of the pro-Iraq war movement introduced a bill that put a timetable on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. What I did in the Senate, and I was the first one to do this is to introduce a resolution that would cause the President within thirty days to give us his mission statement of what we are doing there, what the timetable is for accomplishing the steps that have to be accomplished and a timetable for withdrawing the troops. So there are different approaches but it is a sign when you see a bipartisan group like we did in the House come together and when I do a resolution like mine some Republicans came up to me and said, "you know I am not sure about your language but maybe we can work together." There is a very fundamental anxiety about this Iraq intervention that the President is trying to repress and deny but it is real and it is growing and it is growing in places like South Carolina not just places like Massachussets.

How did your colleagues respond to that?

Some concern. Many of my colleagues are afraid of being associated with the idea of withdrawing the troops because whenever it is mentioned the President says we can't just cut and run but of course that is a false choice. There aren't just two choices, to stay forever or cut and run -what we need is a rational approach that tells not only the American people but the Iraqi people that we have a plan to leave someday, that we are not just trying to occupy it, this is the way to take the wind out of the sails of the insurgents and the terrorists. In fact, one of the retired generals told me off the record, I said "wouldn't we be better off if we had some vision of when we are going to leave" and he said "nothing would be better to take the wind out of the sails of the terrorists." I think the President doesn't understand the dynamic there. This has become a recruiting ground for terrorists all over the world. We don't know who perpetrated the London bombings but we may find out that these are people who were trained in Iraq because Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, says that that is what is happening. The people are being trained in urban warfare and are being exported around the world so I think that we have been playing into the hands of the terrorist by getting into a situation that we were not prepared for.

Can you comment on Rumsfeld's statement that we will be in Iraq for twelve more years?

Well, that is more honest than some of the things I have heard. I certainly oppse being there that long but I think that when you get yourself caught in an insurgency that has the ability to recruit people from all over the world because they want to do target practice on our kids then you are asking yourself for a very long duration. I mean ask the French what happened in Algeria, ask the Soviets what happened to them in Afghanistan, this is the kind of thing we have gotten ourselves into and it is not the best way to counter Al Queda and I really wish we could get back to the approach we were taking after 9/11 but before we got into Iraq, that is what I am urging the President and the Congress to do.

So what would your exit strategy be?

Well, I think the President should identify the steps that have to be taken, I mean he has roughly referred to things such as how many police need to be trained, how many military need to be trained, when the constitution should be done, but what we need to do is sort of set forth those pieces of it, do everything we can to get other countries to assist in training people and also to provide troops to replace our troops so that there could be more of an international force and basically say "look we are going to be here about this long" and "we believe this can be done within this time frame" and it has to be somewhat flexible, you don't want to be too rigid about it. You know, this idea of a timetable worked with the transfer of sovereignty, it worked with the elections. We said we are going to do it on this date, people weren't sure it was going to happen, what happened was positive. So it is sort of illogical, in fact the President said in his recent speech, which was frankly one of the worst foreign policy speeches I have ever heard, he said "we can't put more troops in because people will think that we will stay there forever." That is exactly why we need some kind of vision for when we are going to leave, otherwise people are going to think we are going to stay there forever and so the very logic that the President uses requires us to realize it is going to help the Iraqi democracy if the central issue in Iraqi politics doesn't become how do we get Americans out of here because you can be sure that is going to be the central issue if we don't have any vision of when we are going to leave.
Have you spoken with Senator Frist about the health care crisis in Tennessee?

I have not, but I look forward to it now that I have been here and heard a lot of the different things going on. It is a very important, very difficult story, the history of Tenncare and one of the things I have done here is heard some of the concerns that have occured, some of the positive visions that Tenncare had in the first place but there are lessons to be learned for any efforts that we have on national health care from this experience.
Sharon Cobb: Where do we go from here with the Patriot Act and how do we reform it?

Well, we have reached across the isle on the Patriot Act and I didn't have to do it. The pressure on a lot of conservative Republicans back in their home states became very intense after people realized the points I had made when I voted against the Patriot act. People realized that their library records are vulnerable. I was the only Senator who voted against the Patriot act, there were about sixty House members who voted against it. People realized their houses could be searched without any warning, and that their houses were being searched even if they had nothing to do with terrorism, in fact even if they had done nothing wrong. So our goal here is not to repeal the Patriot Act but to fix those provisions so that it focuses on terrorists, not on law abiding citizens. There is a bipartisan bill called the 'Safe Act' which a bill would fix many of the provisions that caused me to be the sole vote against the Patriot act.
Chris Lugo is an editor with the Tennessee Independent Media Center
Sharon Cobb is an independent journalist based in Nashville and editor of sharoncobb.blogspot.com


The above, sent in by Brent, is from Chris Lugo's "Interview with Senator Russ Feingold on Iraq, the Patriot Act and Tenncare" from Tennessee Independent Media Center.

Erika e-mails to note Joseph McCombs "No News, Good News: Talking with media agitator Robert McChesney about propaganda, PBS, and punditry" (The Village Voice):

McCombs: I read a New York Times article from March regarding government-produced "news segments," with their own video footage, that have been termed "good news reporting."
McChesney: In a more sane society, it would be the sort of thing that would get a government thrown out of office if we took our Constitution seriously. When the Bush administration engaged in the explicit propaganda activities that violate not only the spirit, but the letter of the law, the so-called conservatives, who are supposedly in favor of small government, were absolutely stone cold quiet.
Does that silence suggest that they were complicit with it, or that they were embarrassed by it?
It just suggests that they are unprincipled because they weren't outraged by it.
Is there a role that the government can play insofar as just providing the raw video that they have?
The government shouldn't be doing this stuff. Period. I don't understand what the point of that is.
Just trying to get at where the opposing viewpoint comes from --
The opposing viewpoint, in terms of those who are in favor of the government doing propaganda?
Having a role in the news reporting process.
The government has a huge role in the news gathering process. That's not the question. The issue is whether the government should be aggressively doing PR and trying to shape the news by creating bogus stories. And that is indefensible. There is no "other side" of that one.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com. This is one of three indymedia roundups.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 10:40 pm by thecommonills
 



Monday, July 18, 2005
NYT: "Plan Called for Covert Aid in Iraq Vote" (Douglas Jehl & David E. Sanger)

NYT: "Plan Called for Covert Aid in Iraq Vote" (Douglas Jehl & David E. Sanger)

Ava, Jess, Ty, Dona, Jim and myself went through this morning's New York Times. No surprise, there's not a great deal of breaking news. (No surprise because the Sunday edition, due to it's size, goes to print earlier.)

The article we all felt was most important appears on A6 of this morning's paper. Douglas Jehl and David E. Sanger's "Plan Called for Covert Aid in Iraq Vote."


In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a
plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political
parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional oposition, current
and former government officials said Saturday.
In a statement issued in
response to questions about a report in the next issue of The New Yorker,
Fredrick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that "in
the final analysis, the president determined and the United States government
adopted a policy that we would not try -- and did not try -- to influence the
outcome of the Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for
office."
The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any
covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which
the White House declined to elaborate.



Seymour Hersh, the author of The New Yorker piece (Jehl and Sanger note this), argues that aid was provided. The article's not yet available online (and may not be, Jane Mayer's article "The Experiement" was never made available online). The new edition will go out tomorrow so you can check the site tomorrow (and probably later today) to see if it's gone up yet.

Sidebar, if you like the excerpt appears above, give credit to Ava who showed me the trick while we were working on our TV review this morning. If there aren't complaints, it'll probably be how excerpts are done in the future (with the Democracy Now! post being the exception since it's e-mailed in)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.  Also note, go to the main site for more.  I'm having mouse problems and copying and pasting is impossibly frustrating at the moment.  My apologies.]

Posted at 04:01 am by thecommonills
 

Casa Blanca perocupada por posibles procesamientos

Casa Blanca perocupada por posibles procesamientos

Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" trece cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana.

Casa Blanca preocupada por posibles procesamientos
El Washington Post informa que funcionarios de la Casa Blanca están preocupados de que la investigación por la revelación de identidad de la agente encubierta de la CIA, Valerie Plame, pueda conducir al procesamiento de funcionarios del gobierno este año. Mientras tanto, los demócratas aumentan los pedidos para eliminar el permiso de acceso a la seguridad del hombre conocido como el "cerebro de Bush", además de solicitar su despido. Hay pedidos de audiencias a Rove en el Congreso y uno de los que encabeza la acusación en la Cámara es el demócrata de California Henry Waxman.
"Se trata de un asunto serio porque afecta la seguridad nacional del país y es aún más serio porque nuestra seguridad nacional pudo haber corrido peligro por motivos políticos".


Aumentan pedidos de renuncia de Karl Rove
En Washington, se intensifican los pedidos de renuncia de Karl Rove, principal asesor del presidente Bush, por su participación en la revelación de identidad de la agente encubierta de la CIA. Durante casi dos años la Casa Blanca negó que Rove hubiera revelado el nombre a la prensa, sin embargo Newsweek informó el domingo que Rove habló personalmente con un reportero de la revista Time acerca de la agente, Valerie Plame, a pesar de que no mencionó su nombre. El portavoz de la Casa Blanca Scott McClellan se rehusó el lunes a responder preguntas sobre Rove, argumentando que era demasiado pronto y que había una investigación de por medio. Sin embargo, cuando hace dos años surgieron las acusaciones a Rove, la Casa Blanca negó sistemáticamente la responsabilidad del funcionario. En septiembre de ese año, McClellan expresó a los reporteros que había hablado con Rove y que "no es cierto" que haya estado involucrado en la revelación del nombre. Por su parte, el presidente ha repetido en diversas oportunidades que despediría a cualquier persona involucrada en la revelación de información confidencial. El lunes el líder de la minoría del senado Harry Reid afirmó que "confío en que cumplan la promesa".


Bush se niega a hablar del papel de Rove en caso de divulgación de la CIA
El presidente Bush afirmó el miércoles que no hablaría del papel de su principal asesor Karl Rove en la revelación de la identidad de la agente encubierta de la CIA Valerie Plame, hasta tanto no culmine la investigación federal. Karl Rove estaba sentado detrás de Bush cuando el presidente realizó los comentarios.
PERIODISTA: ¿Ha hablado usted con el jefe de personal Karl Rove sobre el asunto de Valerie Plame? ¿Considera que actuó en forma inadecuada al hablar con los reporteros?
BUSH: He dado instrucciones a todas las personas a mi cargo para que cooperen completamente con la investigación... Además no adelantaré juicio sobre la investigación basándome en la información de los medios. Hay una investigación en curso y prefiero hablar una vez que haya culminado la investigación.
PERIODISTA: Sr. Presidente, Rove se le acercó para discutir este tema, ¿cuándo habló del hecho de que mantuvo conversaciones con periodistas acerca de Valerie Plame?
BUSH: Hay una investigación en curso y se trata de una investigación seria. Por lo tanto es muy importante que la gente no juzgue por adelantado la investigación basándose en la información de los medios. Y reitero, prefiero hablar sobre este asunto una vez que haya culminado la investigación".
Escuchábamos al presidente Bush hablando ayer con la prensa. Demócratas solicitan a Bush que retire permiso de seguridad a Rove
Mientras tanto, los demócratas de la Comisión Permanente de Inteligencia de la Cámara de Representantes solicitaron al presidente Bush que revocara los permisos de seguridad y el acceso a información confidencial a Rove. En una carta al presidente, los nueve demócratas de la Comisión exhortaron a Bush para que tome medidas inmediatas. El representante demócrata de Massachusetts, John Tierney, indicó que, "es indignante que a pesar de que el Sr. Rove haya admitido, a través de su abogado, que reveló la identidad de una funcionaria encubierta de la CIA, aún tiene acceso a información confidencial del más alto nivel".

Partido Republicano publica "Temas de discusión" para atacar a Joe Wilson
El presidente del Comité Nacional Republicano Ken Mehlman ha hecho circular páginas de los denominados temas de discusión del escándalo con la intención de desacreditar al embajador Joe Wilson, esposo de la funcionaria encubierta de la CIA.
Los puntos de discusión dan instrucciones a funcionarios republicanos para atacar la credibilidad de Wilson y su reveladora misión de Nigeria, donde encontró que no había pruebas de que Irak hubiera intentado importar uranio de ese país africano. El embajador considera que la identidad de su esposa fue revelada como venganza hacia su persona, luego de haber desacreditado uno de los principales motivos de la invasión a Irak.
Diputado Peter King afirma que "habría que apuntar" a Tim Russert Por otra parte, el congresista republicano de Nueva York Peter King expresó en el programa Scarborough de MSNBC que, "Joe Wilson no tiene derecho a quejarse y creo que deberían apuntar a gente como Tim Russert y otros que le prestaron tanta atención a este tipo. En lugar de fijarse en Karl Rove deberían preocuparse por ellos. Quizá Karl Rove no sea perfecto, pero vivimos en un mundo imperfecto y le doy crédito por su valentía". Escuchábamos al republicano de Nueva York Peter King.

Wilson acusa a la Casa Blanca de "campaña para desprestigiarlo"
Ahora pasamos al escándalo de Karl Rove y la CIA. El embajador Joseph Wilson acusó a la Casa Blanca de llevar adelante lo que denominó una "campaña para desprestigiarlo" y solicitó al presidente Bush que despidiera a Rove por haber revelado la identidad de su esposa, la agente encubierta de la CIA Valerie Plame. Wilson habló ayer en una conferencia de prensa en el Capitolio, junto con el senador demócrata Chuck Schumer.
Escuchamos a Joe Wilson:
"El hecho de que alguien decidiera divulgar información confidencial con un fin político es simplemente inaceptable. Es inaceptable para los demócratas. Es inaceptable para los estadounidenses. Es inaceptable para los republicanos, para los estadounidenses y para la seguridad nacional del país... Sin perjuicio de si se violó una ley, resulta evidente que se violaron normas éticas a las que deberíamos atenernos los funcionarios públicos y es por esa razón que además de la renuncia de Rove, pido que el presidente cumpla su palabra de despedir a cualquiera que esté implicado en la revelación de información confidencial".
Las acusaciones de Wilson tuvieron lugar luego de que el Presidente del Comité Nacional Republicano, Ken Mehlman enviara un correo electrónico a los periodistas con una lista de "Las 10 peores barbaridades y falsedades de Joe Wilson", junto con otros mensajes que cuestionaban su veracidad. La controversia llegó el jueves a los pasillos del Congreso, donde los legisladores del Senado dedicaron 90 minutos para debatir legislación relacionada con el caso. El senador Schumer, quien ha presentado proyectos de ley para revocar el permiso a Rove de acceder a información de seguridad del más alto nivel, criticó las maniobras de los republicanos para cuestionar la credibilidad de Wilson y tildó los ataques de "injustos, contrarios al espíritu estadounidense y kafkianos".
Por su parte, los republicanos acusaron a los demócratas de llevar a cabo una campaña para desprestigiar a Rove.
Escuchamos al senador republicano Kay Bailey Hutchinson:
"Hasta el momento no hay ningún indicio de que Karl Rove haya violado la ley y considero equivocado salir al cruce porque Karl Rove sea, sin duda, amigo y confidente del presidente."

Bush prometió que continuaría guerra antiterrorista
El presidente Bush prometió ayer que continuaría la denominada guerra antiterrrorista.
President George Bush:"Hay un solo camino. Seguiremos haciendo frente al enemigo y pelearemos hasta que sea derrotado."
Por otra parte, una nueva encuesta de CNN revela que la mayoría de los estadounidenses consideran que la guerra de Irak ha convertido a Estados Unidos en un lugar menos seguro del terrorismo. El porcentaje de encuestados que respondieron de esta manera aumentó de 39% a 54%, tras los ataques de Londres. Solamente un 40 % de los estadounidenses opinan que la guerra de Irak ha logrado que el país sea más seguro.


Informe: 128.000 iraquíes murieron desde invasión de Estados Unidos
Un nuevo estudio de una organización humanitaria iraquí señala que 128.000 iraquíes murieron desde que Estados Unidos invadió el país en marzo de 2003. El grupo Iraqiyun estima que un 55 % de los muertos son mujeres y niños menores de 12 años. Por su parte, el Instituto Universitario de Altos Estudios Internacionales de Ginebra también intentó hacer una estimación del número de iraquíes muertos y concluyó que unos 39.000 iraquíes han muerto como resultado del combate o la violencia armada desde que comenzó la guerra.


Decenas de niños murieron tras explosión en Irak
Al menos 26 personas, en su mayoría niños, murieron en Irak tras la explosión de un coche bomba en Bagdad. Una bomba explotó cerca de un vehículo del ejército estadounidense, en momentos que los soldados supuestamente repartían caramelos a niños iraquíes. Un testigo señaló que: "los niños se juntaron alrededor de los estadounidenses que repartían caramelos, hasta que de pronto un coche bomba que transitaba por una calle lateral, explotó." Este atentado constituye el peor ataque registrado contra niños iraquíes desde el pasado septiembre, cuando una triple explosión de coches bomba mató a 37 niños. El ataque también ocurrió mientras los niños tomaban caramelos de los soldados.

Investigadores militares no descubrieron torturas en Guantánamo
Investigadores militares examinaron los supuestos maltratos a prisioneros de la prisión de Guantánamo y afirman no haber encontrado pruebas de que se realicen torturas o de que los altos mandos impongan políticas erróneas de interrogatorios. De todas maneras, documentaron maltratos a un sospechoso terrorista, como colocarle una correa y obligarlo a que se comporte como un perro. Si bien algunos interrogadores y personal militar enfrentan penas, el pedido de los investigadores de sancionar al ex comandante de la prisión fue desestimado por un general de alto rango.

General de Guantánamo fue pieza clave en Abu Ghraib
Sin embargo, surgen informes de que un comandante, el Mayor General Geoffrey Miller, está vinculado al maltrato de prisioneros, tanto en Guantánamo como en Abu Ghraib. El diario The Washington Post informa que meses antes de que el mundo conociera de los maltratos y torturas en la prisión de Abu Ghraib en Irak, los interrogadores de Guantánamo obligaron a un prisionero a colocarse ropa interior femenina en la cabeza, lo enfrentaron a perros feroces de los militares y ataron una correa a sus cadenas. El diario cita la investigación militar recientemente publicada. Las técnicas fueron aprobadas por el Secretario de Defensa Donald Rumsfeld para ser aplicadas en el interrogatorio a Mohamed Qahtani, el supuesto "vigésimo secuestrador del avión el 11/9" como parte de un interrogatorio especial que tenía el propósito de lograr que el detenido hablara. The Washington Post revela que, sin embargo, los descubrimientos del informe indican claramente que las fotografías de maltratos en la prisión de Abu Ghraib no fueron un invento de un pequeño grupo de osados oficiales de la policía militar. El informe muestra que se registraron maltratos varios meses antes de que Estados Unidos invadiera Irak. La investigación también sostiene la idea de que los soldados creían que colocar capuchas a los detenidos, obligándolos a aparecer desnudos frente a mujeres y humillarlos sexualmente son técnicas de interrogación válidas para aplicar a los detenidos. El mayor General Geoffrey Miller dirigió el centro de detención en la Bahía de Guantánamo y más adelante contribuyó a establecer operaciones de Estados Unidos en Abu Ghraib. Miller viajó a Irak en septiembre de 2003 para ayudar en la instalación de Abu Ghraib y más adelante envió "Equipos de Tigres" de interrogadores y analistas de Bahía de Guantánamo como asesores y entrenadores. Algunas semanas antes de irse de Abu Ghraib, los perros militares fueron utilizados en interrogatorios y soldados de la policía militar del turno de la noche humillaron a los detenidos desnudos y los maltrataron. Miller hubiera sido el oficial de mayor rango en ser disciplinado por maltratar a detenidos hasta el momento, pero el General Bantz Craddock, director del Comando del Sur de Estados Unidos, se negó a seguir la recomendación.

Ex primer ministro Allawi: Irak está al borde de "guerra civil"
El ex primer ministro iraquí, Iyad Allawi, advirtió que Irak está al borde de una guerra civil. En una reciente entrevista con el Sunday Times de Londres señaló que "el problema es la falta de visión y de una política clara de los estadounidenses en Irak. La política debería apuntar a construir la unidad nacional en Irak, sin la cual seguramente terminemos en una guerra civil". Por último, subrayó que, "estamos prácticamente en la primera fase de una guerra civil".

Patrulla fronteriza arresta dos activistas humanitarios en Arizona
En Arizona, el grupo humanitario No More Deaths (No más Muertes) realizará hoy una conferencia de prensa tras el arresto de dos de sus miembros. El grupo ofrece alimento y asistencia médica a inmigrantes indocumentados que cruzan la frontera de México a Arizona a través del desierto. Agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza arrestaron el sábado a dos miembros del grupo cuando llevaban a tres inmigrantes, entre ellos un joven de 13 años, a un hospital local para que recibiera asistencia médica. Los dos voluntarios fueron acusados por el delito de tráfico de indocumentados y obstrucción a la justicia. El mes pasado el grupo ayudó a rescatar a 175 inmigrantes desahuciados en el desierto. Por otra parte, se estima que desde octubre hasta la fecha, 151 inmigrantes murieron mientras atravesaban la frontera.

Informe: Ex-presidente francés autorizó hundimiento de buque de Greenpeace
Cientos de activistas de Greenpeace se reunieron el domingo en París para conmemorar el 20º aniversario del hundimiento del buque de la organización Rainbow Warrior. El buque se hundió en un puerto de Nueva Zelanda el 10 de julio de 1985 luego que una explosión abriera su casco. El fotógrafo de Greenpeace Fernando Pereira murió en el incidente, en momentos que el buque se dirigía a protestar contra las pruebas nucleares en el Pacífico Sur. El diario francés Le Monde reveló el fin de semana que el fallecido presidente Francois Mitterrand autorizó personalmente el hundimiento del buque. El diario obtuvo una explicación escrita a mano por el jefe de la agencia francesa de espionaje donde se revela que Mitterrand había autorizado el hundimiento del buque. Un ex tripulante del Rainbow Warrior hizo uso de la palabra durante la ceremonia de conmemoración.


Maria: Hello. In English, here are thirteen headlines from Democracy Now! I'll repeat myself from last week: "Read the headlines in English below and ask yourself 'Is there anyone I can pass this on to?'" A lot of you e-mailed to say you alerted at least one person that Democracy Now! is providing their headlines each day in Spanish and English for reading and listening to. Let's try again to get the word out.


White House Worried About Possible Indictments
The Washington Post is reporting that White House officials are privately saying that they are concerned that the investigation into the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame will lead to an indictment of someone in the administration later this year. This comes as Democrats escalate their calls for the man known as "Bush's brain" to be stripped of his security clearance and fired. There are also calls for Congressional hearings. One of those leading the charge in the House is California Democrat Henry Waxman.
Henry Waxmann (D, California):"This is a serious matter because it affects the national security of this nation. It's an even more serious matter because if our national security has been jeopardized, it's been jeopardized for political purposes."


Calls Increase For Karl Rove To Resign
In Washington calls are intensifying for President Bush's chief advisor Karl Rove to resign because of his role in the outing of an undercover CIA agent. For nearly two years the White House has denied Rove had any part in the leak, but on Sunday Newsweek revealed that Rove personally spoke with a reporter from Time Magazine about the agent, Valerie Plame, although he did not state her name. On Monday, White House press spokesperson Scott McClellan refused to answer questions about Rove claiming that it would be premature to do so since the investigation is ongoing. But two years ago when allegations about Rove first emerged the White House repeatedly denied he played any role in the leak. In September of that year McClellan told reporters that he had spoken personally with Rove and that it was "simply not true" that Rove had any role in the leak. As for the president, he has repeatedly said he would fire anyone involved in the leak of classified information. On Monday Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said "I trust they will follow through on this pledge."


Bush Refuses to Comment on Rove's Role in CIA Outing
President Bush said Wednesday he would not comment on the role that his powerful senior advisor Karl Rove may have played in revealing the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame until a federal criminal investigator has finished his work. Bush made his comments with Karl Rove sitting behind him.
REPORTER: Can I ask you if you have spoken with your deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, about the Valerie Plame matter? And do you think he acted improperly in talking about it with reporters?"
BUSH:I have instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate in this investigation.......I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports. We're in the midst of an ongoing investigation, and I will be more than happy to comment further once the investigation is completed.
REPORTER: Mr. President, on that note, has Mr. Rove come to you and discussed -- when did he discuss the fact that he had conversations with reporters about Valerie Plame? And based on that, do you feel as though it was appropriate in 2003 for your spokesman to say definitively that Karl Rove had nothing to do with the Valerie Plame?
BUSH: We're in the midst of an ongoing investigation. And this is a serious investigation. And it is very important for people not to prejudge the investigation based on media reports. And, again, I will be more than happy to comment on this matter once the investigation is complete."
Dems Call on Bush to Strip Rove's Security ClearanceMeanwhile, all of the Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have called on President Bush to revoke Rove's security clearances and access to classified information. In a letter to the President, all nine Democrats on the Committee urged him to take immediate action. Massachusetts Democrat John Tierney said "It is outrageous that even though Mr. Rove has acknowledged, through his attorney, that he disclosed the identity of a covert intelligence officer, he continues to have access to our nation's highest level of classified intelligence."

GOP Releases 'Talking Points' to Attack Joe Wilson
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman has been circulating pages of so-called talking points on the scandal that focus on attempting to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson, the husband of the outed CIA operative. The talking points instruct GOP operatives to attack Wilson's credibility and his fact-finding mission to Niger, in which Wilson found that there was no evidence Iraq had attempted to import uranium from the African nation. Wilson has long charged that his wife was outed in retaliation for his debunking of one of the administration's key justifications for the invasion of Iraq.

Wilson Charges White House ‘Smear’ Campaign
Now to the Karl Rove/CIA scandal. Ambassador Joseph Wilson has accused the White House of running what he called a "smear campaign" against him and called on President Bush to fire Rove over the outing of Wilson's wife, undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. Wilson spoke yesterday at a Capitol Hill press conference with New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer.
Joe Wilson:"The fact that somebody decided that they would go ahead and leak classified information for the purposes of achieving a political end is simply unacceptable. It's unacceptable for Democrats. It's unacceptable for Republicans. It's unacceptable for Americans and for the national security of this country…Irrespective of whether a law had been violated, it's very clear to me that the ethical standards to which we should hold our senior public servants has been violated and it is for that reason that I have called for, not Karl Rove's resignation, but for the president to honour his word that he would fire anybody who has involved with that leak."
Wilson's accusations came after the Chair of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman sent reporters an e-mail claiming to list "Joe Wilson's Top Ten Worst Inaccuracies and Misstatements," along with other messages challenging his veracity. The controversy spilled out into the corridors of Congress on Thursday, where lawmakers in the US Senate planned to devote 90 minutes debating legislation related to the matter. Senator Schumer, who has co-sponsored legislation calling for Rove's top-level security clearance to be lifted, slammed Republican moves to question Wilson's credibility, calling the attacks "unfair and un-American" and "Kafkaesque." But Republicans are levying a countercharge that the Democrats are running a smear campaign against Rove.
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Texas):"I have seen nothing so far that would indicate that there was any law broken by Karl Rove and I think to jump because Karl Rove because Karl Rove is clearly a friend an confidant of the president- I think is wrong."


Poll: 54% Say Iraq War Made U.S. Less Safe
On Monday President Bush vowed to keep waging the so-called war on terror. Meanwhile a new CNN poll has found that a majority of Americans now believe the war in Iraq has made the United States less safe from terrorism. The percentage of respondents who felt this way jumped from 39 to 54 percent following the bombings in London. Just 40 percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq has made this country safer.



Report: 128,000 Iraqis Have Died Since U.S. Invasion
A new study from an Iraqi humanitarian organization is estimating that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invaded in March 2003. The group -- Iraqiyun -- estimates that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged twelve and under. Meanwhile the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies has also attempted to estimate the number of Iraqis killed. The organization recently estimated that 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the war began.

27 People - Mainly Children - Die in Iraq Blast
In Iraq, at least 26 people have died in a massive car bombing in Baghdad - almost all of the victims were children. The bomb went off next to a U.S. army vehicle. At the time U.S. troops were reportedly giving out sweets to Iraqi children. One witness said: "Children gathered around the Americans who were handing out sweets. Suddenly a suicide car bomber drove round from a side street and blew himself up." The bombing marked the deadliest attack on Iraqi children since September when a triple car bombing killed 37 children. That bombing also occurred while the children were gathering to take candy from soldiers.

Military Finds No Torture at Gitmo
Military investigators examining alleged abuse of prisoners at the Guantanamo Prison camp say they found no evidence that there was torture or that senior leaders imposed faulty interrogation policies, but they also documented treatment such as leashing a terror suspect and forcing him to behave like a dog. A few individual interrogators and military personnel are facing punishment, but a recommendation by investigators to sanction the former prison commander was overruled by a senior general.

General at Gitmo Was Also Key Figure Abu Ghraib
But reports are now emerging that that commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, is linked to the abuse at both Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The Washington Post reports that months before the world learned of the abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, interrogators at Guantanamo forced a prisoner to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains. The paper cites the newly released military investigation. The techniques were approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th 9/11 hijacker" as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee. The Post says that the report's findings are the strongest indication yet that the abuse seen in photographs at Abu Ghraib were not the invention of a small group of thrill-seeking military police officers. The report shows that they were used several months before the United States invaded Iraq. The investigation also supports the idea that soldiers believed that placing hoods on detainees, forcing them to appear nude in front of women and sexually humiliating them were approved interrogation techniques for use on detainees. Major General Geoffrey Miller commanded the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and later helped set up U.S. operations at Abu Ghraib. Miller traveled to Iraq in September 2003 to assist in Abu Ghraib's startup, and he later sent in "Tiger Teams" of Guantanamo Bay interrogators and analysts as advisers and trainers. Within weeks of his departure from Abu Ghraib, military working dogs were being used in interrogations, and naked detainees were humiliated and abused by military police soldiers working the night shift. Miller would have been the highest-ranking officer to face discipline for detainee abuses so far, but Gen. Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command, declined to follow the recommendation.

Ex-PM Allawi: Iraq Is Almost In A "Civil War"
Iraq's former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is warning that Iraq is on the verge of a civil war. In a recent interview with the Sunday Times of London he said "The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq. The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war." He went on to say "We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak."

Border Patrol Arrests Two Humanitarian Activists in Arizona
In Arizona, the humanitarian group No More Deaths is holding an emergency press conference today following the arrest of two of its members. The group offers food and medical assistance to undocumented migrants who cross from Mexico into Arizona via the desert. On Saturday Border Patrol agents arrested two members of the group as they were driving three migrants, including a 13-year-old boy, to a local hospital for medical care. The two volunteers were charged with the felony of transporting an undocumented person and obstruction of justice. Last month the group said it helped rescue 175 migrants in distress in the desert. Since October it is estimated that 151 migrants have died while crossing the border.

Report: Ex-French President Ok'd Sinking of Greenpeace Ship
On Sunday, hundreds of Greenpeace activists gathered in Paris to mark the 20th anniversary of the sinking of the organization's ship the Rainbow Warrior. The ship sank in a New Zealand harbor on July 10, 1985 when an explosion ripped open its hull. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira was killed in the incident. The ship was preparing to head to sea to protest against French nuclear bomb tests in the South Pacific. Over the weekend, the French newspaper Le Monde revealed that the late French President Francois Mitterrand personally approved the sinking of the ship. The paper has obtained a handwritten account of the ship's sinking written by the former head of France's spy agency that says Mitterrand had authorized the ship to be sunk. One former crew member of the Rainbow Warrior spoke at a commemoration ceremony on Sunday.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 03:57 am by thecommonills
 

Saturday, July 16, 2005
NYT: Rove's latest talking point implodes but the Times doesn't notice

NYT: Rove's latest talking point implodes but the Times doesn't notice

Grab the tiger by the tail. That's what the daily reporting on Rove is these days.

As Sidney Blumenthal noted on Democracy Now! yesterday, the grand jury leaks are springing in awfully convenient manner for Karl Rove:

SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: Well, Karl Rove is waging a communications battle in the way he wages communications battles. He is trying to act -- he's acting as though this is -- this matter is going to be decided by a court of Washington pundits. He is leaking stories now. There are stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post that are clearly leaked by his lawyer trying to depict him in a light in which he is innocent of the charges, but that's not how this is going to be decided. It's going to be decided by the prosecutor. And I think that Rove is in a panic mode. He's acting in a very frenetic way, and he is undermining himself, and he is undermining his principal, the President.
AMY GOODMAN: How is he undermining himself?
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: He's undermining himself by putting out all of these stories and keeping this at a -- in the forefront of the news. He has regarded his defense as though it is the defense of the administration himself. He cannot separate himself. Furthermore, the President has not separated him. He walked to Marine One, his helicopter, accompanied by Karl Rove, a clear statement that he stands by Rove. So, Bush has embraced Rove, as well. This is -- Bush -- Rove's damage control, in my view, has created more damage. This so-called master of communications is undermining himself in terms of communications, but in the end, none of that matters. It all comes down to Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, and what he decides to do.

So today's talking points come via a team of reporters in this morning's New York Times. It's entitled "State Dept. Memo Gets Scrutiny in Leak Inquiry on C.I.A. Officer" and it's written by Richard Stevenson. (No "W." in his byline for a change.) But wait, that's not all.

Before we can move on we need to scroll credits: " "By RICHARD STEVENSON . . . This article was reported by Douglas Jehl, David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson and was written by Mr. Stevenson."

Munch on that popcorn a little longer, we're still not done with the credits. "David E. Sanger and Scott Shane contributed reporting for this article." "With special guest-star Heather Locklear."
Okay, I'm kidding on the Locklear part. (I think.)

But that's six reporters from the paper working on this story. And yet I honestly don't think they grasp what they're reporting.

Let's nutshell the article. There's a memo. From June 11, 2003. State Department memo. It refers to Valerie Plame as Valerie Wilson so it's obvious that Novak didn't see it, right?

Right? Why right? Why wouldn't he use her previous name? The same way that the right uses "Rodham" to clobber Hillary Clinton with to this day. Novak's not a talented journalist, but as a hack, he knows how to appeal to his base. "She's Wilson's wife! And she doesn't use his last name! Bra burner!"

Nothing's proven about whether or not Novak saw the memo by the fact that he used "Plame" and not "Wilson."

Here's the other big talking point: Rove's "warning" to Matt Cooper, it's okay because he immediately phoned Stephen J. Hadley (deputy national security advisor at the time). So see, Rove didn't do anything wrong.

Far from clearing Rove, that actually adds to the problems.

Why is that?

Rove e-mails (allegedly) Hadley that he "didn't take the bait" when Cooper asked about whether or not Joseph Wilson was damaging the Bully Boy with his statements.

We find out two important things right away. Let's go real slow.

1) Rove put the Bully Boy ahead of national security.

Do we all get that? He "didn't take the bait." No, he didn't. He deflected "the bait" by confirming he'd heard Plame was CIA. (According to the accounts.)

Is this going to be his defense? Is this how it will play out?

When confronted with possible bad polling, Rove confirms that someone's CIA? That's the defense?

Standing by his main man means putting the nation at risk?

That's a defense he wants to stand on?

(Like Blumenthal, I personally believe the leaks are orchestrated by Rove and others interested in saving Rove. Saving Lack of Privacy Rove. I'm just not sure if they're just tossing anything out there until they can find the best talking point or if they're tossing anything out there because they're trying to obscure the issues involved. Regardless, this talking point doesn't make things "rosy.")

Let's walk it through real simple. You're a reporter for Premiere. I'm a p.r. flack for Matt Damon. You call me up and ask, "Is it true that Damon's new movie bombed in previews?"
My response is to confirm you to that the woman filing out the card with her husband at the preview is CIA. I then fire off an e-mail to my boss saying, "Great news! I didn't take the bait! I steered the reporter to a CIA agent!"

Do we see the problem here? Supposedly, Cooper wants to know if the Bully Boy is being damaged by Wilson's statements. Rove deflects. He confirms that Wilson is married to a CIA agent.

Put out two hands in front of you and pretend they're scales. See which one tips when you weigh Bully Boy's polling with identifying a CIA agent.

2) I can't believe they did this. Bully Boy's no brain (neither is Rove) but are people going to pay attention to this defense?

If they are, do they get what the leak is saying?

Rove talked to Cooper before Novak's column was published. Rove told Hadley about the conversation. Let's say Rove just confirmed Plame to Cooper. (That's just as bad and it is identifying, but let's move on to a larger point that I don't think they see in this latest talking point). When Rove sent that e-mail (if he did) to Hadley, we have someone in national security that knows a CIA agent is on the verge of being outed.

I'm sure Condi will offer her "bowels of the agency" or "basement" or whatever looney remark she made re: the sixteen words originally.

It wasn't lower level. Her second-hand man knew. That's the talking point today. Her second- hand man knew that a CIA agent was about to be the topic of the press. What did they do at that moment to find out about leaks? Did they alert the CIA?

Or were they all high fiving and saying "Way to go Karl-ster! You didn't take the bait!"

Let's be really clear, Rove supposedly sent an e-mail to the deputy of national security immediately after getting off the phone with Matt Cooper. Let's go the Times' article:

After his conversation with Mr. Cooper, The Associated Press reported Friday, Mr. Rove sent an e-mail message to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, saying he "didn't take the bait" when Mr. Cooper suggested that Mr. Wilson's criticisms had been damaging to the administration.
Mr. Rove told the grand jury in the case that the e-mail message was consistent with his assertion that he had not intended to divulge Ms. Wilson's identity but instead intended to rebut Mr. Wilson's criticisms of the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq, The A.P. reported, citing legal professionals familiar with Mr. Rove's testimony. Dozens of White House and administration officials have testified to the grand jury, and several officials have been called back for further questioning.

If people are paying attention to today's talking point, Rove just ratted somebody out (though he probably doesn't realize it). Did he tell who he got the information from?

No.

But the talking point advises us that the deputy of national security knows the press is talking about Valerie Plame being a CIA agent. Did Hadley follow up?

Don't toss out any nonsense that, "They may not have known she was undercover!" Hadley's job should have required him to find out what Plame's position was. Regardless of what her job was, the CIA should have been advised what was about to break. And Plame should have been warned.

Was the CIA advised? I don't know. But from Joseph Wilson's reactions, Plame sure wasn't warned. From his statements, she didn't get a heads up. Novak's column appears on the 14th of July. Rove talks to Cooper on the 11th of July. In those three days, what did Hadley do? What was the administration doing? (Yeah, I know, probably helping the story along, but that's not in their talking points.)

How did Hadley follow up? Did he report it to his superior? (Condi Rice.) What measures did they take to protect Plame? She wasn't assigned body guards at the time. Wilson's made no reference to her getting a call that said, "Hey Val, just a heads up, the press are talking about you, you're probably going to be the topic of a story and be named. Those friends and neighbors that don't know anything about who you really work for -- you might want to break it to them."

Hadley's job was not to protect Bully Boy from fading poll numbers. His job was national security.

If people are paying attention to today's talking point, one question should be, "What was done when Hadley was informed?" What steps got taken?

Was the CIA informed what was coming down the pike?

Or was everyone who is supposed to be working for the nation suddenly under the impression that their job was serving on the election committee for the Bully Boy?

From Thursday's mid-morning entry:

Wally e-mails to note Pirate Smile's post at Democratic Underground ("Plame has worked undercover within the past 5 years according to the WP") where Pirate Smile draws our attention to an October 4, 2003 Washington Post article entitled "Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm" (by Walter Pincus and Mike Allen):
After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA.
Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons. -snip-
A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities. "That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.

Shouldn't Hadley have been able to find out what the Washington Post did? Did he attempt to?
What did he do when he recieved Rove's e-mail?

His job wasn't to prop up the Bully Boy, his job was to protect the country. Serving the country, his job, would have entailed passing the knowledge on. Possibly up to Rice, possibly to the CIA.
But there should have been a follow up to determine a) what Plame's position was, b) what risks there were for the CIA and c) ensuring that a warning was conveyed to Valerie Plame and any agents or assets that worked with her.

Was that done?

Let's drop back even further. The Times article tells us that Rove spoke to Novak before he spoke to Cooper. Two days prior which puts that conversation on July 9th. Did Rove also e-mail about that one?

What was our National Security Agency doing when at least one partipant knew that Plame was about to be outed?

Can't blame this one on outmoded computers at the FBI. If there's a breakdown in the sharing of intellegence, it appears to be a human breakdown. It appears to be someone or someones not doing his or their job. Maybe Hadley passed it on up the chain and, if so, maybe his hands are clean.

But all this posturing after the fact by the Bully Boy that he was committed to finding out who leaked Plame's identity -- it's false. He should have known it was coming before Novak's column was published. Rove sure should have told him. Hadley or Rice should have told him. He should have known what was coming down and efforts at questioning the staff should have begun prior to the outing being published.

If I'm not being clear here, Bully Boy wasn't watching someone snag change from a candy machine. This was a national security issue. And the claim that Valerie Plame wasn't undercover (1999 puts her in the five year provision, other reporting carries it further) doesn't negate the fact that the leader of the country should have ensured that action was taken to warn Plame of what the press was asking.

Now maybe that 'triple decker, chocolate mocha joe, double secret background' meant that along with Cooper not talking, Rove was also supposed to be silent? That doesn't wash and not just because of the fact that that Rove allegedly e-mailed Hadley after speaking to Cooper. It doesn't wash because Plame's working for the government. The administration (at least Rove) and our National Security Agency (at least Hadley) know a government employee is about to be a topic in the press. If she were a secretary at the CIA (which she wasn't but some dismissive pundits have portrayed her as such), she still rated a heads up. Her bosses rated a heads up.

What did Rove and Hadley do with the information?

What it looks like, accepting today's talking point, is that they both put Bully Boy ahead of serving the country and ahead of doing their jobs.

Novak's column did not take the administration by surprise. Rove's latest talking point demonstrates that the administration knew people were asking about Plame (at least knew of Cooper, possibly Rove's not claiming he also passed on the news that Novak was snooping around also). There should have been no pressure coming to bear (via the public urged on by David Corn and BuzzFlash) to get the Bully Boy moving on finding out what happened. In fact, the administration should have already been on it.

And instead of offering what appears to be the subtext of the article today (Scoots Libby going down!), the crack team of reporters for the New York Times (look at the list: Douglas Jehl, David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane ) should have included one individual who grasped what we've walked through -- one reporter who picked up the phone and asked Hadley for a statement. The article should have included it even if it were only, "Hadley stated he could not commment . . ."

I honestly don't think the Times realizes what they are reporting today. Or maybe they see it as a talking point and didn't feel it needed looking into.

But what they're reporting is that by July 11th, the deputy national security advisor knew that the press was asking about a CIA agent and apparently nothing was done to warn her agency or to warn her. The only phrase that comes to my mind is "Dereliction of duty."

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 02:23 am by thecommonills
 

Friday, July 15, 2005
Victor Navasky on CSPAN's After Words Sunday July 17th

Victor Navasky on CSPAN's After Words Sunday July 17th

For those with time Sunday and looking for an actual discussion (as opposed soundbyes and backslapping, self-congratulations), consider this:

Watch Nation publisher Victor Navasky this Sunday night,
July 17,
on CSPAN's new show
"After Words"
discussing the importance of opinion journalism and his new book.

CSPAN's After Words:
July 17, 2005
Featuring Victor Navasky interviewed by David Frum
6:00pm EST and then again at 8:55pm

Get a taste of Navasky's book, A MATTER OF OPINION, from a recent Nation magazine excerpt.

Listen to Navasky talking with Marc Cooper on a recent episode of the RadioNation AudioBlog.

See the A MATTER OF OPINION website for info and to order copies online.

And check our "After Words" each Sunday night for the finest in televised book commentary.


Finally, check out The Nation to post comments to our blogs, to view news-wire links updated twice each day, to see daily weblog postings, for info on nationwide activist campaigns, and to read exclusive online reports, Nation History offerings and special weekly selections from The Nation magazine!

The above is from an e-mail sent out by Peter Rothberg to people who sign up for alerts at The Nation.

Ted e-mailed about a comment I'd made on A Matter of Opinion in The Third Estate Sunday Review "Five Books, Five Minutes." I'd stated that Navasky's Naming Names was a once in lifetime book. I do feel that. I feel that Backlash is Susan Faludi's once in a lifetime book, for instance, as well. That's not to say that they don't write other wonderful books (or that my judgement can't be wrong). Any good author (and Navasky and Faludi are two) should have several strong books worth reading. But there's one that will stand out for each reader. For me, Naming Names is just not something that can ever be topped. It's a masterpiece, put in the canon because it's interlocking, interwoven and brilliant. That's not saying that you stop reading strong readers. (Or that Navasky -- or Faludi -- couldn't top their own works.) If you think of Tapestry, the Carole King album, think of Kat's review where she spoke of the begrudging praise that usually followed Tapesty from some of, "Carole King never topped it" and Kat's response of who did?

People can complete their masterwork and still continue to be worth reading. Or think of the praise/critical opinion of Joni Mitchell's Blue -- how she poured everything she had into that album. That's how Naming Names is for me when I read it. (And I've read it many times.) That's not meant to suggest that A Matter Of Opinion is "just okay." If you read the discussion, you'll see that people start mentioning incidents and concepts in the book. There's a lot in the book. It's worth reading. It's a strong book.

Ted's impression was that I was saying Naming Names was Star Wars and A Matter of Opinion was The Empire Strikes Back. I've never seen the Star Wars films so that analogy doesn't work for me. But if you haven't read A Matter of Opinion, read it. You might like it better than Naming Names. Different people respond to different things. I felt Navasky not only told history in Naming Names, not only made it come alive but brought you something you didn't see in the other books on that period (McCarthyism).

If it helps any, I think Nabakov's masterpie is Ada and I'm sure not many would pick that book as Nabakov's finest. For different reasons, a book will speak to someone. Which is a point made here all the time. If Katrina vanden Heuvel doesn't speak to you, try Bob Somerby, if Somerby doesn't speak to you, try Jude, if Jude doesn't try Rebecca, or Mike, or Bill Scher, or Betty . . .

Different voices will speak to different people for different reasons. (Can I use "different" one more time in the preceding sentence?)

I think A Matter of Opinion is a strong book, worth reading, worth thinking about and discussing with people you know. If you haven't checked the book out yet, watch the program. If you're not around a TV Sunday evening, it will be archived and you can watch it online. (I'm not crazy about the interviewer, either.) It's a strong book. I've read it and will read it again. If Ted's asking someone else might be wondering so I hope that helps. (And remember, I can be -- and often am -- wrong. You might feel A Matter of Opinion tops Naming Names.)


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 10:49 pm by thecommonills
 

Sunday Chat & Chews (Bernstein MTP; Wilson Face the Nation)

Sunday Chat & Chews (Bernstein MTP; Wilson Face the Nation)

Sunday Chat and Chews. All air Sunday, check your local listings.

NBC's Meet the Press might have been remembered as "Woodward & Bernstein together again" (cue clip from the film Dick) but instead, it'll be known as "MATT COOPER SPEAKS!"

Lineup:

MATT COOPER
White House Correspondent, Time Magazine
JOHN PODESTA
President and CEO, "Center for American Progress"
Former Chief of Staff, President Bill Clinton
KEN MEHLMAN
Chairman, Republican National Committee
BOB WOODWARD
Washington Post
Author, "The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat"
CARL BERNSTEIN
Former Washington Post Watergate Reporter

Apparently Bernstein worked at the Washington Post and then just sat around living off his investments, to judge by the credits above. (No, that's not what Bernstein did. I was making a pointed comment.)

At CBS, here's the lineup for Face the Nation:

Host:
CBS Evening News Anchor Bob Schieffer
Topics:
Karl Rove, The Supreme Court
Guests:
Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson
Rep. Roy Blunt
Republican - Missouri
House Majority Whip
Sen. Charles Schumer
Democrat – New York
Judiciary Committee
Sen. Lindsey Graham
Republican - South Carolina
Judiciary Committee
Jan Crawford Greenburg
The Chicago Tribune

So if I had to watch, which would I choose? ABC's This Week because I love pot luck! I'm joking. This Week still doesn't have their schedule up (or their e-mail sent out). If Carl Bernstein's given the opportunity to speak and to speak about current issues, that should be the strongest segment on Meet the Press. A number of you might want to check out Face the Nation for Joseph Wilson.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Posted at 10:48 pm by thecommonills
 

Democracy Now: Norman Solomon & Sidney Blumenthal; Bob Somerby, Matthew Rothschild, BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week, Jude (Iddybud)

Democracy Now: Norman Solomon & Sidney Blumenthal; Bob Somerby, Matthew Rothschild, BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week, Jude (Iddybud)

Bush Says No to NAACP for 5th Year
President Bush has once again refused to address the national convention of the nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP which was held this week in Milwaukee. Instead, Bush sent the chair of the Republican national Committee, Ken Mehlman who apologized to the group for the so-called southern strategy of the GOP, appealing to white southern racists to win elections. Instead of attending the NAACP conference, Bush addressed the Indiana Black Expo, which presented him with a lifetime achievement award. It marked the fifth consecutive year Bush has turned down an NAACP invitation to speak, making him the first sitting president since Warren Harding to not address the group. President Bush's father was booed when he addressed the group as Vice President in 1986 but still addressed the NAACP when he was elected president.
 
White House Worried About Possible Indictments
The Washington Post is reporting that White House officials are privately saying that they are concerned that the investigation into the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame will lead to an indictment of someone in the administration later this year. This comes as Democrats escalate their calls for the man known as "Bush's brain" to be stripped of his security clearance and fired. There are also calls for Congressional hearings. One of those leading the charge in the House is California Democrat Henry Waxman.

  • Henry Waxmann (D, California):
    "This is a serious matter because it affects the national security of this nation. It's an even more serious matter because if our national security has been jeopardized, it's been jeopardized for political purposes."
The two items above are from today's headlines on Democracy Now! and were selected by Keesha and West.  Democracy Now! ("always worth watching," as Marcia says):
 
Headlines for July 15, 2005

- Rehnquist Says He is Not Stepping Down
- Wilson Charges White House ‘Smear’ Campaign
- Dems Attempt to Strip Rove’s Sec. Clearance
- Times Confirms Rove Talked to Novak About Plame
- Amid Scandal, “Duke” Cunningham Announces Retirement
- Bush Says No to NAACP for 5th Year
- Court Overturns Canada Beef Ban
- First Death Sentence in VT in Decades
 
Political Firestorm Brews in Washington Over Karl Rove and Outing of Undercover CIA Operative

The political firestorm over Karl Rove and the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame continues in Washington. Wilson and top Congressional Democrats are increasing their calls for Karl Rove to be fired over the White House leak. We speak with Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, and Norman Solomon, author of "War Made Easy." [includes rush transcript]
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