Wash. Post is back on the Plame case

Apparently, according to Walter Pincus, Fitzgerald is trying to figure out the story behind who sent Wilson to Niger:

The origin of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's trip to Niger in 2002 to check out intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase uranium has become a contentious side issue to the inquiry by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is looking into whether a crime was committed with the exposure of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, as a covert CIA employee.

The battle is between the CIA's version of events and the Bush Administration's version of events. The CIA maintains "that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife..." Yet, Rove and company dreamed up their own version:

Senior Bush administration officials told a different story about the trip's origin in the days between July 8 and July 12, 2003. They said that Wilson's wife was working at the CIA dealing with weapons of mass destruction and that she suggested him for the Niger trip, according to three reporters.

Oh, the Bush team is backed up by their State Department and some Republican Senators.

Interesting. Are we looking at a conspiracy here? Read More......

Open Thread

What's up? Read More......

AP: Cindy Sheehan is gaining momentum

Good piece from AP, which is popping up on news websites across the country:

In her fifth day quietly camping out on a road near President Bush's ranch, a grieving mother protesting the war that took her son's life has captured the nation's attention.

Cindy Sheehan's simple vigil has pulled at many people's heartstrings and stirred anger in others, symbolizing the country's divided opinion of the war in Iraq.

Dozens from across the country have started to camp out with her, pitching tents in muddy ditches and hanging anti-war banners; others have sent flowers. One activist called her "the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement." Her name was among the most popular search topics Wednesday on Internet blogs.

And, I really love this quote from Cindy:

"Before my son was killed, I used to think that one person could not make a difference," she said Wednesday under a tent where she has slept since arriving Saturday. "But one person that is surrounded and supported by millions of people can be heard."

Wow.

Of course, they had to quote someone from the other side...and believe it or not, they found a freeper:

But Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the Washington, D.C., chapter of FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies since Sept. 11 and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said Sheehan's protest is misguided and is hurting troop morale.

"She has a political agenda that goes way beyond her son's death in combat," Taylor said.

Is there already a division of freepers on the ground in Iraq?

Great work, Cindy Sheehan. You sure have captured our hearts and attention. Read More......

Big new good report on blogs, netroots

The New Politics Institute, which is a project of the New Democratic Network Political Fund, released a report today on the emerging blogosphere that's definitely worth a look.

Written by Matt Stoller of BOPNews.com and Chris Bowers of MyDD.com, it's a very good primer of blogs, what are they, the numbers, etc. It also has a list (at the end) of the top blogs AND netroots sites, by rank, and I think we come in around 7, though among just blogs we're 4 or 5 depending how you count things.

And if you want to get issue specific, AMERICAblog is the number one blog devoted to taking on the religious right, and the number one gay rights blog as well, which is cool too.

Acros the board, a good place to be.

Anyway, Chris and Matt are great guys, so it's worth a read, and is a good resource for folks wanting to know more about these darn blogs and just what are they. Read More......

National Guard member 2 weeks away from finishing his 6 year commitment forced to go to Iraq for a year, against his will, and now he's dead

From Editor & Publisher, a must read:

Two days before he left for Iraq last November, Gennaro Pellegrini, Jr., a 31-year-old Philly cop and up-and-coming boxer, questioned the "so-called war." He will not be returning from it.

Once again, all you military folks out there, ask yourselves why it's the liberal/Democratic blogs who are upset over this service member's death and not the conservative/Republican blogs, the ones who supposedly care more about the military?

The author of this piece, Will Bunch, has his own blog here. Read More......

You get fired for having an affair. And, the punishment for torture is?

Okay, front page in the Washington Post today:

In a rare move, the Army relieved a four-star general of his command amid allegations that he had an extramarital affair with a civilian, Army officials said yesterday.

Now, remind me....how has the Military punished the generals who oversaw torture?:

The Army has been hurt over the past year by detainee-abuse cases and has been accused of not going after top officers allegedly involved in such abuse. Army officials said relieving Byrnes was meant to show the public that the service takes issues of integrity seriously.

"We all swear to serve by the highest ideals, and no matter what rank, when you violate them, you are dealt with appropriately," said one Army officer familiar with the case. "Relief of command is a huge consequence. He's had an extraordinary career, but at the end of the day, the Army has to hold people accountable for their conduct."

So, this is how the Army is dealing with abuse? They hold accountable the guy having an affair, not anyone actually involved in the abuse cases. Read More......

Catholic Church Sinks To New Low

I don't know how I missed this. But apparently Catholic leaders in Canada are angry that the country won't adapt its own religious precepts as the law of the land and keep gays and lesbians as second class citizens. So what do they do? Threaten to refuse to baptize babies with gay and lesbian parents. That's right, Cardinal Quellet promises to deny baptism to an innocent baby because he thinks the parents are evil. The Advocate has an impassioned essay on this. As the writer puts it, the children of murderers can be baptized. The children of rapists can be baptized. The children of child molesters can be baptized. But the children of gays and lesbians? No. After Cardinal Quellet has read that essay, he might want to reflect on this passage:

"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."
-- Ezekiel 18:20 (KJV) Read More......

Right Wingers Step up Attack on Cindy Sheehan

Drudge got the ball rolling, now O'Reilly and Malkin are on the slime attack against Cindy Sheehan.

Think Progress has the details along with a link to Crooks and Liars. But you have to know that Michelle Malkin spoke for Cindy's son:

I can’t imagine that Casey Sheehan would approve of such behavior.

You know, every time you think the right wingers can't sink any lower, they do.

You have to read what Atrios has to say about Malkin. Read More......

More States Demanding Paper Trail For Voting

USA Today has a story on the growing number of states that are demanding electronic voting machines provide a paper trail voters can check themselves. (My state, New York, just passed a law, thank God. We're about to replace aging machines. Has yours?) There's a graphic showing which states have laws or are at least considering them. Among the nine states that aren't even thinking about this issue: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I suppose they're still reeling from letting blacks vote.

Some election experts fear that paper backup records will add a layer of complexity to an already delicate system. That could lead to even worse problems in the 2006 elections, such as jammed printers and long voting lines, they say.

"The unintended consequence of a (paper trail) mandate could diminish, rather than enhance, voter confidence," says Conny McCormack, who runs elections in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction, Los Angeles County.

"When we start using paper trails in a live election, all of these problems are going to become apparent," says Linda Lamone, administrator of the Maryland Board of Elections. "Problems with paper ballots are going to cause a whole new cloud over the system."

One example already has cropped up. In a California test July 20 of touch-screen voting machines with add-on printers, nearly 20% of the machines experienced problems, including paper jams and computer crashes. The machines were made by Diebold, a leading manufacturer of touch-screen computer voting equipment.

That's right. The experts think attaching a printer to a voting machine is just too darn complicated. McCormack groused that she didn't see a lot of voters double-checking the paper printout, forgetting the fact that because they CAN, there's less likelihood of fraud. Lamone of Maryland -- who thinks all-electronic voting is nifty -- worries about fights over which record is the "official" one, the electronic record or the paper record.

And paper could be lost! Recounts could take weeks! Yes, imagine taking ten days to do a manual recount when deciding who your Congressman or Senator or Governor or President will be. Does she have ADD or something?

I say throw out all the machines and use a paper ballot -- lots cheaper and dead-accurate. But for God's sake, people, make sure your check mark is legible. And how about passing laws that says election supervisors must be non-partisan and unaffiliated with ANY campaigning by either party? And not a nincompoop, either? Read More......

Famine? What Famine?

Bush apparently isn't the only world leader who can disconnect from reality.
The "president" of Niger -- Mamadou Tandja -- sees no famine, just foreign plots.

"The people of Niger look well fed, as you can see," President Tandja says. All the talk of mass starvation is just "foreign propaganda", deception by relief agencies to obtain increased funding. "It is only by deception that such agencies receive funding," he tells the BBC.

What problems there are, he says, "are not serious."

Oh, well, that's cleared up then. Read More......

Denver Post to Novak: Fess up

Great Editorial:

It's time for Robert Novak to give a public accounting of what led up to his 2003 newspaper column in which he revealed the identity of a heretofore clandestine CIA operative, Valerie Plame.

The Denver Post says Novak wants to talk about it on his terms, but that's no longer a valid position:

In writing his Aug. 1 column, Novak ignored his lawyers' advice to maintain his silence. It was a reasonable decision - his end of the Plame story has been bottled up for too long and Novak has wanted to speak his piece. But it's not reasonable for the columnist to discuss the Plame matter when it suits him but continue his silence when it doesn't. The questions continue to mount, with Miller in jail and Rove and Libby on the hot seat.

It's clear the 74-year-old Novak is tied up in knots. Last week he was put on leave by CNN after uttering a barnyard epithet during an exchange on an unrelated political matter. He stalked off the program just before host Ed Henry was to question him about the Plame leak.

Novak reportedly told Henry beforehand, "My lawyer said I cannot answer any specific questions about this case until it is resolved, which I hope is very soon." Novak put his toe in the water Aug. 1 and should complete his public explanation now.

Not that we'll be able to believe his public explanation, but he should come clean (or as clean as the Prince of Darkness can come.) Read More......

Open Thread

It's yours. Read More......

Opposite Land - was 9/11 Bush's Fault?

So I just watched Curt Weldon on CNN talking about the 9/11 hijackers having been identified by this super-double-secret military intelligence task force in 1999. According to Weldon, unidentified lawyers prevented that information being shared with the FBI for follow up. He didn't identify which lawyers are at fault, but he did tie it to a tone in the culture of the Clinton administration after Waco.

And so, it's all Bill's fault?

Now Weldon has been talking about this for a while. He said in the interview that he said all this in a floor speech in June. So why all this publicity now?

Well, if history is any guide, there is something about to come out which blames Bush for 9/11. Think about it, these guys live in opposite land. Clear Skies? No Child Left Behind? With Iraq getting worse by the day, the one boogie man Bush could always point to is 9/11.

9/11 was a closed issue, the Commission's work was finished. Why bring this up now? Why generate news about this now? To cement in at least the Right Wing's mind that 9/11 was Clinton's fault (like everything). It's just my guess, but expect something to come out (on a Friday afternoon no doubt) which shows some new, tragic Bush administration failure.

-- Rob in Baltimore

Read More......

Four Five More US Soldiers Killed In Iraq

More very bad news from Iraq:

Four U.S. soldiers were killed and six were wounded late Tuesday when insurgents attacked an Army patrol near the northern town of Baiji, the military announced Wednesday.

The killings brought to nine the number of U.S. service members whose deaths have been announced since Saturday while 38 have been killed in the month of August.

Read More......

Amb. Joe Wilson reports that he is "becoming disenchanted" with CIA agent Valerie Plame, since her identity was divulged

From the Onion - the best news source this side of Jon Stewart:

WASHINGTON, DC—Former ambassador Joe Wilson reports that he is "becoming disenchanted" with CIA agent Valerie Plame, since her identity was divulged to reporters in 2002. "I still love her, I suppose," Wilson said. "But I used to be the only one who knew her secret." Contributing to his sense of dissatisfaction, Wilson said, is Plame's newfound interest in public displays of affection, her habit of calling him from work, and her fear of violent reprisals from undercover Middle Eastern assassins.

Read More......

Way too early morning open thread

I am now awoken (awakened?) each morning by a man yelling from 7am on, pretty much every minute or two - just enough of a lag to let you just fall back asleep. He's some crazy guy on the street somewhere within a block or so. Just screams his heart out from 7am to about 10am.

Ah, Paris.... Read More......

Bush To War Vets: You're Liars And Babies

Bush does everything on the cheap, so it's no surprise Bush -- who couldn't be bothered to make sure the soldiers were properly equipped and armored -- now can't be bothered to take care of them once they're home. Apparently, Bush is freaking out over the longterm costs of treating the wounded, so the VA is re-examining some 70,000 cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, because they insist that too many people must be lying in order to rip off the system. Besides, mental problems? Those are for wimps. In part, they can't understand why PTSD cases have jumped from 120,000 in 1999 to 216,000 in 2004. Gee, could it because...um...WE'RE AT WAR?

Never mind that it's difficult for gung-ho soldiers to admit to emotional difficulties in the first place. Never mind how traumatic it is for a soldier to have to undergo examination to "prove" they need help. Now they have to do it all over again, knowing Bush doesn't believe them. And how did this come about? In part, because Sen. Barack Obama asked the VA to look into PTSD because he believed not enough soldiers were getting treatment. Salon has the story. (Thanks to threader Hippodameia for pointing us to this.) Read More......