Gonzales withholding Plame emails

Sources close to the investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson have revealed this week that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not turned over emails to the special prosecutor's office that may incriminate Vice President Dick Cheney, his aides, and other White House officials who allegedly played an active role in unmasking Plame Wilson's identity to reporters.

Moreover, these sources said that, in early 2004, Cheney was interviewed by federal prosecutors investigating the Plame Wilson leak and testified that neither he nor any of his senior aides were involved in unmasking her undercover CIA status to reporters and that no one in the vice president's office had attempted to discredit her husband, a vocal critic of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. Cheney did not testify under oath or under penalty of perjury when he was interviewed by federal prosecutors.

Hubbard

http://mattbors.com

What to do with the prisoners?

Foreign policy and human rights experts appear to agree with a soon-to-be-released United Nations report calling on the U.S. to shut down its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – but most believe that simply closing it misses a larger point: What to do with the prisoners?

And many of those interviewed by us are fearful that the George W. Bush administration will use the source of the report – the admittedly flawed United Nations Human Rights Commission -- to discredit its findings.

Currently in draft but expected to be released shortly, the report found that U.S. treatment of Guantanamo detainees violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. It urges the U.S. to close the facility and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.

Compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, the report is the result of an 18-month investigation ordered by the Commission.

The Nader effect

Two ghosts stalk the national Democratic Party in its pitiful, 21st century incarnation. One is George McGovern, who taught them that only Republican values matter in a national election. The other is Ralph Nader, who taught them who the real enemy is.

The present hamstrung state of the party is the result of its abject fear of these ghosts, which has given it a permanent moral stammer. A party that doesn't believe in itself is doomed to lose over and over, even if it represents the majority of the people and even - as Al Gore demonstrated in 2000 - when it gets the most votes.

While the ghost of McGovern, who was mauled by Richard Nixon in 1972, is the most deeply ingrained and enfeebling, seeming to guarantee uncritical Democratic support ("we love America, honest") for every cynical Republican military or civil-liberties outrage concocted in the name of national security, the ghost of Nader is the most life-threatening. Its effect is emetic, causing an immediate discharge of rationality among the party faithful at every hint of a challenge from the party's values base. The Nader Effect causes Democrats to upchuck the very medicine that will save it.

Cheney’s dodge: Taking responsibility

When Dick Cheney surfaced on Feb. 15 long enough for an interview with Fox News eminence Brit Hume -- an event that CNN’s Jack Cafferty promptly likened to “Bonnie interviewing Clyde” -- the vice presidential spin emerged from a timeworn bag of political tricks. Cheney took responsibility. Whatever that means.

The New York Times website swiftly made its top headline “Cheney Takes Full Responsibility for Shooting Hunter.” Just before Fox News Channel aired interview segments at length, the summary from anchor Hume told viewers that Cheney had accepted “full responsibility for the incident.” Hours later, the Washington Post’s front-page story led this way: “Vice President Cheney accepted full responsibility yesterday...”

Ironically -- while news outlets kept using the phrase “full responsibility” -- the transcript of the interview posted on FoxNews.com shows that Cheney never used any form of the word “responsibility.”

Whatever their exact words, the politicians who can’t avoid acknowledging culpability are often the beneficiaries of excessive media plaudits for supposedly owning up to what they’ve done wrong.

NCPA President's letter in response to Bush accusation that pharmacists are inflating Medicaid drug prices

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

February 14, 2006

Dear President Bush,

The nation’s community pharmacists are offended by your comments last week in Manchester that pharmacists are overcharging the Medicaid system. This statement is disingenuous and untrue. In fact, nearly all Medicaid prescriptions have a cap (“FUL” or “MAC”) placed on them by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and by the state Medicaid programs designed specifically to make it impossible to “overcharge” the Medicaid system.

The National Community Pharmacists Association represents the nation’s community pharmacists—small businesses where 60,000 health care professionals work and where nearly 400,000 Americans are employed to serve millions of patients each day. Nearly half of community pharmacies are located in towns with populations of less than 20,000.

What really happened back at the ranch

THE FACTS

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting partner, mistaking him for a covey of quail.  As of this writing, the victim remains in the intensive care unit.

This is the first time since 1804, when Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, that a sitting vice president has shot anybody.

The shooting occurred at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, about 60 miles southwest of Corpus Christi, where the vice president and several companions were hunting quail.  The shooting victim was a 78-year-old man named Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, Texas.  Whittington was reportedly 30 yards away from Cheney when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest.  Cheney was using a 28-gauge shotgun.  Each of the hunters was wearing a bright orange vest at the time.

Suicide Girls: an anti-Arab, anti-woman-ran company

Dressed up as punk and Feminist, the SuicideGirls will be at the Arena in Qld., inevitably parading piercings, dyed hair, skin art and the other ingredients which effectively guaranteed the sensation its success.

There will be readers who will have acquainted themselves with Suicidegirls.com, and book, and burlesque review, alike. Championed by "pro-sex"-identified "Feminists" and Pop Culture's darlings, each are capitalist triumphs.

However, company president of the SuicideGirls Sean "Spooky" Suhl's inarguably questionable contracts, misogyny, pro-war neo-conservatism and lies should be common knowledge by now.

As should be Suhl's equally grotesque ideas about the Palestinians:

"I just said that all the Palestinians dying of smallpox is hopeful thinking for me. Sue me. It's a death cult not a civilization and them finally being wiped out by their buddy Saddam sounds like such a fitting end."

Removing Attorney General Gonzales

The Attorney General is supposed to be America’s top lawyer. His job duties require him to direct the law enforcement efforts of the federal government. Alberto Gonzales seems to think that he works for Bush and Cheney instead of the American people. When Gonzales was first advanced for his position by the Bush White House, Democrats feared that Gonzales would politicize the Justice Department and overlook or excuse law-breaking by the Bush Administration.

Attorney General Gonzales has demonstrated in his recent testimony before Congress concerning the illegal NSA wiretapping authorized by the Bush White House that the worst fears of his Democratic opponents were justified. The performance of Gonzales before Congress was a clear example of excusing political abuse of office. He reminded many observers of similar performances by Nixon’s former Attorney General John Mitchell. Mitchell disgraced his office by trying to cover-up the crimes of the Nixon White House. Both Nixon and Mitchell were eventually forced from office.

Debating impeachment among Democrats

Can you even imagine Republicans, even if they were in a minority in Congress, debating whether or not to call for the impeachment of a Democratic president known and documented as guilty of a wide range of high crimes and misdemeanors?  In particular, if you can imagine that, can you imagine the Republicans who opposed impeachment arguing that they were doing so for strategic political reasons?

This is hard to imagine, because the Republicans won a majority in Congress by loudly proclaiming what they would do if they had it.  The main thing they said they would do and still say they will do is oppose the agenda of the Democrats.

Meanwhile, Democratic voters and lapsed voters keep waiting for the Democrats to have an agenda.  Polls show that most of us want strong positions on single-payer health care, clean elections, ending the war, shifting to renewable energy, investing in education, restoring the minimum wage, restoring New Orleans, and other policies that incumbent Democrats are usually - at best - taking baby steps on. 

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