Fitzmas Eve (Really this time?) Open Thread

So, is tonight FINALLY Fitzmas Eve? I feel like a five year old just before Christmas waiting for Santa! Here's your drink tonight Mr. President, because if tomorrow is Fitzmas you're going to hope you can drink enough to have a serious hangover.

Holiday Hangover

Scale ingredients to servings
4 oz Bacardi® white rum
5 oz 7-Up® soda

Stir ingredients together in a highball glass. Garnish with a candy cane, and serve.

Open thread away! It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas... Read More......

I hate when the Wash Post scoops me

I was just telling Joe that the fact that the FBI was reportedly asking Valerie Plame's neighbors, just yesterday, if they knew she was CIA before Novak's story broke, shows that Fitzgerald is still considering charging someone with violating the law regarding outing CIA agents.

Then, what do I find, but an article in tomorrow's Washington Post saying just that.

Damn them.

But in brighter news: SWEET!

In a possible sign that Fitzgerald may charge one or more officials with illegally disclosing Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation, FBI agents as recently as Monday night interviewed at least two people in her D.C. neighborhood to determine whether they knew she worked for the CIA before she was unmasked with the help of senior Bush administration officials. Two neighbors told the FBI they were shocked to learn she was a CIA operative.

The FBI interviews suggested the prosecutor wanted to show that Plame's status was covert, and that there was damage from the revelation that she worked at the CIA....

In a sign that Fitzgerald continues to gather evidence, FBI agents interviewed at least two of Wilson's neighbors in the Palisades neighborhood Monday night. Marc Lefkowitz and David Tillotson said yesterday that they told the FBI they had no clue that Plame, who they knew by her married name, Valerie Wilson, worked for the agency until Novak's column appeared.

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New Poll: Bush would lose to Dem, badly, if election held today

Not surprising. Read More......

Y2K?

It's about spreading a message and stopping a disaster. Read More......

Homeland Security monies going to protect Bingo

P-o-r-k-o, p-o-r-k-o, p-o-r-k-o, and pork-o was his name-o. Read More......

Fitz back looking at Rove

Phew...thanks to Talking Points Memo for the tip about this article in the LA Times:

As his investigation nears a conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has returned his attention to White House adviser Karl Rove, interviewing a Rove colleague with detailed questions about contacts that President Bush's close aide had with reporters in the days leading up to the outing of a covert CIA officer.

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Pentagon nominee aims for more positive Iraq stories

Funny, I thought the idea was to aim for victory. Read More......

Wednesday is likely Fitzmas Day

From ThinkProgress:

CBS’ JOHN ROBERTS: Lawyers familiar with the case think Wednesday is when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will make known his decision, and that there will be indictments. Supporters say Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, are in legal jeopardy. But they insisted today the two are secondary players, that it was an unidentified Mr. X who actually gave the name of CIA agent V alerie Plame to reporters. Fitzgerald knows who Mr. X is, they say, and if he isn’t indicted, there’s no way Rove or Libby should be. But charges may not focus on the leak at all. Obstruction of justice or perjury are real possibilities. Did Rove or Libby change statements made under oath? Did they deliberately leave critical facts out of their testimony or did they honestly forget? Some Republicans urged Rove to step down if indicted. Not a happy prospect for president Bush.

Any guesses on the identity of Mr. X?

UPDATE: This bit from the CBS segment is also interesting –

SCHIEFFER: John, I am very interested in Mr. X. Is there any clue or hint as to whether he be - maybe someone who outranks Libby and Rove or would he be a lower-ranking official?

ROBERTS: The best guess is that Mr. X, even though his name is not known and some people are just speculating on who he might be or she might be, is somebody who is actually outside the White House, and in that case would be of a lower rank that both Rove and Libby.

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CIA: Plame leak damaged US national security

I just watched this on CNN this afternoon:

Wolf Blitzer: Does the CIA believe that there was damage done to US national security as a result of Valerie Plame Wilson's name being leaked?

David Ensor, CNN National Security Correspondent: I'm told that in the day that it was leaked there was a quick look done, as there routinely would be, at whether there was damage. Officials simply won't go into the details, but I did speak to one official who did say yes, there was damage, this woman had a long career and she was posing as someone else, and all those people who saw her now know that she wasn't the person they thought that they were dealing with.

This is treason. Read More......

Washington Note has scoop: Indictments tomorrow, target letters today

Steve Clemons from the Washington Note reports:

An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN:

1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.

2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.

3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and "filed" tomorrow.

4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.

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Open Thread

What's the latest? Read More......

Another Afghanistan Success Story

An editor gets sentenced to two years in jail for blasphemy -- he dared to discuss religious issues. (Hey, it could have been worse -- he could have been executed.) Yep, our Afghan success story includes a narco-state with record levels of opium crops, more than half the country under the control of drug lords and the portion of the country that is supposedly under OUR control (I mean, the control of the "good" Afghanis)is under the sway of religious fanatics. Read More......

Another Bush p.r. offensive on Iraq that Americans aren't buying

All Bush ever does is give the same speech about Iraq. Every time there's another horrible turn of events, he makes a major address. But Americans aren't buying his spin campaign according to two new polls.

Harris Interactive, via Political Wire:

shows American sentiment about the situation in Iraq remains generally gloomy, with fewer than a quarter of Americans saying they are confident U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful."

"For the first time, a majority of Americans (53%) feels that military action in Iraq was the wrong thing to do... compared with 34% who feel it was right."

Rasmussen Reports:

Fifty-three percent (53%) of Americans now say that getting U.S. soldiers home as soon as possible is more important than making sure "Iraq becomes a peaceful nation enjoying freedom and democracy." This is the first time that a majority of Americans have held that view.

The Rasmussen Reports survey also shows that just 38% insuring a peaceful and free Iraq is the top priority.

The more Bush speaks, the worse it gets. Read More......

AMERICAblog classified ads to help small blogs, etc.

In order to make them more available to small blogs, cash-strapped individuals, and others, I've lowered the price of our text-only classified ads - you can see them in the left hand column further down - to $25 a week. But in order to guarantee that the classified ad space is available to help the "little guy," I will no longer accept classified ads for large non-profits, highly-trafficked blogs, or anyone else who has enough of a budget to buy our premium or featured ads (the top ads in the left and right columns).

That means, if you're a small blog, have a pet Web site you want to promote, or just want to wish your boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse or dog a Merry Fitzmas, you can use the classifieds to do that. As always, I retain the right to not approve any and all ads - I don't want garbage up there - but I plan to be pretty lenient about this little experiment, at least at the beginning, to see how it plays out.

A small aside. This isn't about making money - $25 a week isn't really going to matter with our monthly costs. Rather, I've decided NOT to make the ads free so that we can avoid everyone and his brother ordering ads that would crowd out the ads that truly can help small blogs, etc.

You can order a classified here. Read More......

More from Powell's former chief of staff: "The ruinous foreign policy of George Bush"

Meeeeow. Read this:

When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New American Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.

But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.

....the ruinous foreign policy of George W. Bush....

It takes firm leadership to preside over the bureaucracy. But it also takes a willingness to listen to dissenting opinions. It requires leaders who can analyze, synthesize, ponder and decide.

The administration's performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it....

Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time.

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2,000 dead - Bush laughs

Watching Bush's speech now. And he's joking around about what to get his wife for her anniversary. Use this thread to discuss his speech. Read More......

Cheney plan allows prisoner abuse

It's amazing how cavalier Cheney and Bush are when it comes to dishing out abuse to detainees. The new plan that they are proposing would allow the CIA to get around the recent Senate vote that forbids abuse. Do these people not see that abuse is counter productive? What a black eye on America these people have been. Why does the GOP hate America and American values?

Cheney's proposal is drafted in such a way that the exemption from the rule barring ill treatment could require a presidential finding that "such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack." But the precise applicability of this section is not clear, and none of those involved in last week's discussions would discuss it openly yesterday.

McCain, the principal sponsor of the legislation, rejected the proposed exemption at the meeting with Cheney, according to a government source who spoke without authorization and on the condition of anonymity.

"This is the first time they've said explicitly that the intelligence community should be allowed to treat prisoners inhumanely," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "In the past, they've only said that the law does not forbid inhumane treatment." Now, he said, the administration is saying more concretely that it cannot be forbidden.

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2,000 dead - for what?

A speech won't bring them back Mr. President. From CNN (via AFP):

The US network CNN, quoting Pentagon sources, reported Tuesday that the number of soldiers killed since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq had reached 2,000 with the deaths of two more soldiers, a toll likely to add pressure on the US administration over its role in the violence-wracked country.

So what are the reasons that Bush has given for these 2,000 dead?

1. 9/11
2. WMD
3. Iraq was a haven for terrorists
4. Spreading Democracy

So what's today's excuse Mr. President? Read More......

AM Open Thread

Something to make you smile this morning: CNN at the top of the hour - what did Vice President Cheney know and when did he know it? Something else to make you smile - could today be Fitzmas?!?!?

Open thread away! Read More......

Watch the WH "change the subject" PR blitz

The White House spin team is going to be in over drive this week as they face a trifecta of very bad news:

Rarely has a president confronted as many damaging developments that could all come to a head in this week. A special counsel appears poised to indict one or more administration officials within days. Pressure is building on Bush from within his own party to withdraw the faltering Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. And any day the death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq will pass the symbolically important 2,000 mark.

Team Bush is going on a public relations offensive this week to distract us. They are going to change the subject:

To deal with what they consider the darkest days of the Bush presidency, White House advisers have developed a twofold strategy -- confront head-on problems such as the Iraq death toll, while shifting attention to other areas such as conservative economic policies, according to a senior White House official, who spoke about internal deliberations only under the condition of anonymity. Bush advisers are taking clues from the playbooks of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, both of whom weathered second-term scandals.

The White House strategy will unfold over the next several days, starting with yesterday's announcement of a new Federal Reserve Board chairman and continuing today with a presidential speech on Iraq at Bolling Air Force Base. Anticipating a barrage of criticism when the death toll hits 2,000, Bush will try to put the sacrifice in perspective by portraying the Iraq war as the best way to keep terrorists from striking the United States again, the official said. He will make the same case in another speech Friday in Norfolk.

Okay, Bush is going to give a speech to explain Iraq....again. That's worked so well in the past.

And, call me crazy, but I just think it might be really hard to spin away the indictments of top aides who were willing to smear undercover spies during the time of war. Not that they won't try. We just won't let them. Read More......

Halliburton Uses Illegals As Cheap Labor For New Orleans Clean-Up

Unbelievable. First Bush decides to "help" the recovery in Louisiana by making it legal for companies to pay substandard wages, even though the massive rebuilding effort needed after Hurricane Katrina should mean builders and laborers would be in high demand. Then we find out that most of the contracts are going to out-of-state companies.

Finally, and you can't make this up, USA Today reports that Halliburton subcontracted out work to companies that fired some 75 union electricians and then hired at least 10 illegal immigrants in their place. And where were they working? A naval base near New Orleans.

Five years into their regime, and Cheney and his pals can still surprise you with their nastiness and craven greed. Read More......

NYT Ignores The Big Fact About Scandal Everyone Should Know: Bush Lied

The MSM is proving bizarrely insistent on ignoring the single most important fact surrounding RoveGate, the one fact that explains why the White House went to such extremes to scorch-earth Joe Wilson for coming forward. What's that fact? Joe Wilson spoke the truth and Bush admitted it. The NYT is running a timeline of the scandal, including an intense breakdown of the nine crucial days when Wilson came forward. Here's the TPM breakdown of the events on July 7, 2003.

Though it covers the story from almost every possible angle, the NYT timeline omits one crucial fact: Joe Wilson was right. On July 7, 2003 -- the day after Wilson came forward and said Bush shouldn't have included in the State of the Union speech a rumour about Iraq trying to get uranium in Africa -- the White House called major media outlets (including the NYT) and in effect admitted Wilson was right. They no longer stood by those 16 words, one of the central pillars in their argument for going to war.

Isn't it germane to this story that Bush immediately caved on the central point Wilson was making -- even though this meant abandoning a crucial argument for taking this country to war? This should be front and center in every MSM story about this scandal. It's mentioned in almost none of them. This isn't just some obscure scandal about pettiness and politics and leaks. No. This is about Bush lying to the country during the State of the Union address. Tell them this at letters@nytimes.com. Read More......

Maureen Dowd Slaps Down Judith Miller

The New York Times policy of charging for online access to its columnists is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you get to ignore the bland nothings of David Brooks and especially John Tierney. It's a curse because people who don't buy the print edition (or pay extra online) were denied Maureen Dowd's vivisection of reporter Judy Miller. After reading this slapdown of Miller by a top columnist in her own newspaper, it's hard to imagine Miller having the courage to walk into the NYT headquarters ever again.

Dowd rips apart Miller for lying to her editors, mocks the idea that Miller can't remember who first told her about Valerie Plame and for being so cozy with Scooter that she was willing to disguise even his anonymous identification -- against all rules of journalism. When Miller dismisses her legendarily bad coverage of WMDs in Iraq with the banal excuse that "If your sources are wrong, you are wrong," Dowd fires back that "investigative journalism is not stenography."

Finally, Dowd reveals that Miller will write the inevitable book and then wants to get back to reporting about "threats to our country" for the NYT. Dowd writes, "If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hand."

But of course, information can't be bottled up for long on the Internet. Go here to read it in full. (Thanks to reader Ralph Levien for the link.) See NYT, instead of getting more eyeballs to your website (some 12 million a day, by the way), you've forced them to go somewhere else. That's dumb. Read More......