Duty to Warn
The prosecutor investigating the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie
Plame Wilson has secured at least one indictment in the case from a majority
of the 23 grand jurors, lawyers and intelligence officials close to the case
said Wednesday.
The final outcome of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's 22-month federal probe is expected to end Friday with indictments of White House officials. The situation remains fluid, however, and several new scenarios have developed over the past 48 hours that could delay an announcement, lawyers close to the probe said late Wednesday.
Rumors swirled Wednesday afternoon that Fitzgerald was going to seek an extension of the grand jury, which expires Friday. That scenario now seems highly unlikely, sources close to the case said.
However, intelligence officials and those familiar with the case have indicated that Fitzgerald could convene a new grand jury to investigate forged documents used by the Bush Administration that purported to show Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger.
The final outcome of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's 22-month federal probe is expected to end Friday with indictments of White House officials. The situation remains fluid, however, and several new scenarios have developed over the past 48 hours that could delay an announcement, lawyers close to the probe said late Wednesday.
Rumors swirled Wednesday afternoon that Fitzgerald was going to seek an extension of the grand jury, which expires Friday. That scenario now seems highly unlikely, sources close to the case said.
However, intelligence officials and those familiar with the case have indicated that Fitzgerald could convene a new grand jury to investigate forged documents used by the Bush Administration that purported to show Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger.
Right Wing Power Politics Overwhelm President’s Supreme Court Pick
Harriet Miers’ withdrawal from her Supreme Court nomination demonstrates that ultraconservatives are so determined to swing the Supreme Court sharply to the right that they pounded their own president’s nominee into submission, and now demand a nominee with unquestioned far-right credentials, said Ralph G. Neas, President of People For the American Way.
“It’s an astonishing spectacle. The unelected power-brokers of the far right have forced the withdrawal of President Bush’s own Supreme Court nominee, before a confirmation hearing has even been held. President Bush’s complete capitulation to the far-right interest groups is astounding. The ultra-right wing dominance of Republican Party politics is complete, and they have dealt a terrible blow to an already weakened President and his administration,” said Neas. “Right-wingers are openly saying they elected Bush to put a battle-ready ultraconservative on the court to replace the moderate Sandra Day O’Connor, and they’re demanding a new choice – bipartisanship, moderation and mainstream Americans be damned.”
Harriet Miers’ withdrawal from her Supreme Court nomination demonstrates that ultraconservatives are so determined to swing the Supreme Court sharply to the right that they pounded their own president’s nominee into submission, and now demand a nominee with unquestioned far-right credentials, said Ralph G. Neas, President of People For the American Way.
“It’s an astonishing spectacle. The unelected power-brokers of the far right have forced the withdrawal of President Bush’s own Supreme Court nominee, before a confirmation hearing has even been held. President Bush’s complete capitulation to the far-right interest groups is astounding. The ultra-right wing dominance of Republican Party politics is complete, and they have dealt a terrible blow to an already weakened President and his administration,” said Neas. “Right-wingers are openly saying they elected Bush to put a battle-ready ultraconservative on the court to replace the moderate Sandra Day O’Connor, and they’re demanding a new choice – bipartisanship, moderation and mainstream Americans be damned.”
Embattled New York Times reporter Judith Miller acted as a "middleman"
between an American military unit and the Iraqi National Congress while she
was embedded with the U.S. armed forces searching for weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq in April 2003, and "took custody" of Saddam Hussein's
son-in-law, one of 55 most wanted Iraqis, RAW STORY has found.
Moreover, in one of the most highly unusual arrangements between a news organization and the Department of Defense, Miller sat in on the initial debriefing of Jamal Sultan Tikriti, according to a June 25, 2003 article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28385-2003Jun24?language=prin…) published in the Washington Post.
Moreover, in one of the most highly unusual arrangements between a news organization and the Department of Defense, Miller sat in on the initial debriefing of Jamal Sultan Tikriti, according to a June 25, 2003 article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28385-2003Jun24?language=prin…) published in the Washington Post.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to determine whether Vice President Dick Cheney had a role in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson, individuals close to Fitzgerald say. Plame’s husband was a vocal critic of prewar intelligence used by President George W. Bush to build support for the Iraq war.
The investigation into who leaked the officer's name to reporters has now turned toward a little known cabal of administration hawks known as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which came together in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by Bush chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the Vice President’s office.
Fitzgerald’s examination centers on a group of players charged with not only selling the war, but according to sources familiar with the case, to discredit anyone who openly “disagreed with the official Iraq war” story.
The investigation into who leaked the officer's name to reporters has now turned toward a little known cabal of administration hawks known as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which came together in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by Bush chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the Vice President’s office.
Fitzgerald’s examination centers on a group of players charged with not only selling the war, but according to sources familiar with the case, to discredit anyone who openly “disagreed with the official Iraq war” story.
Toledo -- More than seventy-five local, state, and national organizations sent a letter today to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the Congressional oversight and appropriations committees for the Department of Defense (DOD), seeking an end to a data collecting project called the Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies (JAMRS) Recruiting Database.
Toledo's Student and Family Rights and Privacy Committee, the group now pressuring Toledo Public Schools to restrict military recruiters, is in full support of this effort to end the JAMRS recruitment database because it violates the Privacy Act while collecting data on 30 million people ages 16 to 25 from a vast array of sources such as drivers license or selective service registrations. Other organizations from the Toledo area that have joined this nationwide effort include the Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition, Sylvania Franciscan Sisters, the Interfaith Justice and Peace Center, and the Toledo League of Pissed Off Voters.
Toledo's Student and Family Rights and Privacy Committee, the group now pressuring Toledo Public Schools to restrict military recruiters, is in full support of this effort to end the JAMRS recruitment database because it violates the Privacy Act while collecting data on 30 million people ages 16 to 25 from a vast array of sources such as drivers license or selective service registrations. Other organizations from the Toledo area that have joined this nationwide effort include the Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition, Sylvania Franciscan Sisters, the Interfaith Justice and Peace Center, and the Toledo League of Pissed Off Voters.
Once again, an old song acts as muse for Daniel Patrick Welch. Repopularized by a current Volkswagen ad, the Donovan lyric tweaks Welch’s sense of the futility of resistance in the quagmire that is today’s American political landscape. From a personal perspective, the writer describes watching as all his European friends flee one by one, a sort of metaphor for the international rejection of the would-be Pax Americana.
To understand fully the nature of the American dilemma, one has only to view it from slightly outside the bubble. My wife and I have been restricted from foreign travel for various bureaucratic and financial reasons; but our sanity depends on hundreds of connections around the globe for perspective and comfort. The sea change in this perspective from without reveals the utter hopelessness of the U.S. position, and underscores a grave warning to those still willing or able to listen at home.
To understand fully the nature of the American dilemma, one has only to view it from slightly outside the bubble. My wife and I have been restricted from foreign travel for various bureaucratic and financial reasons; but our sanity depends on hundreds of connections around the globe for perspective and comfort. The sea change in this perspective from without reveals the utter hopelessness of the U.S. position, and underscores a grave warning to those still willing or able to listen at home.
Recent events have shown that a corruption culture has taken hold of the dominant corporate business community and their allies in American politics. The corruption culture threatens both our economic way of life and American Democracy.
The criminal charges filed against Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay, the insider stock trading investigation of Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist, the huge increases in energy prices as a result of deliberate market manipulation of supply by oil refineries and the White House aides (Karl Rove and Cheney’s Chief of Staff Libby) role in outing a CIA agent for partisan political reasons have it clear that corruption by the powerful is out of control. The intentionally created California electric energy crisis of Bush’s first term, the MCI-Worldcom frauds, the Enron frauds, the charges against Ohio Governor Taft, the criminal trial of former Illinois Governor Ryan, the voter intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party in Ohio and elsewhere are all strong evidence that America is facing a breakdown in business ethics and political commitment to American Democracy.
The criminal charges filed against Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay, the insider stock trading investigation of Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist, the huge increases in energy prices as a result of deliberate market manipulation of supply by oil refineries and the White House aides (Karl Rove and Cheney’s Chief of Staff Libby) role in outing a CIA agent for partisan political reasons have it clear that corruption by the powerful is out of control. The intentionally created California electric energy crisis of Bush’s first term, the MCI-Worldcom frauds, the Enron frauds, the charges against Ohio Governor Taft, the criminal trial of former Illinois Governor Ryan, the voter intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party in Ohio and elsewhere are all strong evidence that America is facing a breakdown in business ethics and political commitment to American Democracy.
Slidell, LA -- The residents of Chalmette are glum: three and a half weeks
ago, Hurricane Katrina ravaged their coastal community, a suburb east of
New Orleans. Chalmette was determined to be “100%”; this damage
classification means that all of the homes in the community were badly
damaged by the storm, nearly obliterating the small town. Thirty-seven
year-old Ben Holder, longtime resident and homeowner, came back Monday to
find his two-story home flooded with six feet of brackish water and briny
mud. Holder, like many of the residents I spoke with, has an unusually
optimistic attitude:
“My grandmother and mother-in-law were both drowned in the flood, and my truck is completely destroyed, my boat is upside-down on the roof of my house, which is also upside down; but somehow, by the grace of God, these two little lizards I was keeping upstairs spent ten days alone without food and water and they both of them survived!”
“My grandmother and mother-in-law were both drowned in the flood, and my truck is completely destroyed, my boat is upside-down on the roof of my house, which is also upside down; but somehow, by the grace of God, these two little lizards I was keeping upstairs spent ten days alone without food and water and they both of them survived!”
It's one thing to lie in politics. It's another to be caught in a lie. Bill Frist has been caught in a lie. His political future is over. The immediate question is, can he survive as Majority Leader?
The Tennessee Republican claims he wasn’t privy to any inside information leading up to the sale of his stock in Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the country’s largest for-profit hospital chain founded by Frist’s father, Thomas, and brother, Thomas Jr., weeks before the company reported lower than expected earnings July 13 that sent the stock south.
Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the matter, a spokesman for the senator said last week, to determine if Frist broke any laws.
Frist’s press secretary told the Washington Post last week that Frist decided to sell his stock to eliminate any appearance of a conflict-of-interest due to his work in the senate in shaping the nation’s healthcare policies. So, the senator’s spokesman said, Frist drafted a letter to Northern Trust and Equitable Trust in Nashville June 13 advising them to sell all of his stock in HCA, as well as his wife and children’s investments in the company.
The Tennessee Republican claims he wasn’t privy to any inside information leading up to the sale of his stock in Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the country’s largest for-profit hospital chain founded by Frist’s father, Thomas, and brother, Thomas Jr., weeks before the company reported lower than expected earnings July 13 that sent the stock south.
Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the matter, a spokesman for the senator said last week, to determine if Frist broke any laws.
Frist’s press secretary told the Washington Post last week that Frist decided to sell his stock to eliminate any appearance of a conflict-of-interest due to his work in the senate in shaping the nation’s healthcare policies. So, the senator’s spokesman said, Frist drafted a letter to Northern Trust and Equitable Trust in Nashville June 13 advising them to sell all of his stock in HCA, as well as his wife and children’s investments in the company.
Rising at 4:30am to catch the 6:15 flight to Washington, DC, I was heartened by seeing Neil and Debbie, two freepress.org and Stephanie Miller Show fans seated just in front of me, also headed to the peace demonstration.
The blow-dried corporate media would have to cover this event. After all, I had just watched Anderson Cooper on CNN do the standard “I’m in the rain, I can barely talk, I can’t see, it’s like a white out” routine about Hurricane Rita in Texas. This meant, of course, that Lady Rita was no Katrina. Surely Cooper’s hairdresser could get out the blow-dryer and put him on a quick flight to Washington where the real action was on Saturday.
The hurricane that blew into the nation’s capital was historic: a turning point that marks the death of the Bush presidency. Nothing short of burning the Library of Congress can save W. Rove is probably secretly polling on that option as I write.