BREAKING: FBI has been monitoring ACLU, others, to see if they're promoting terrorism

Holy shit.

The FBI reportedly has collected 1200 pages of material on the ACLU alone, and it's been monitoring other legitimate American civil rights and environmental groups, over the past several years, and they've collected it as part of the war on terror, because, apparently, the ACLU has something to do with harboring or fomenting terrorism. They also included peaceful and legal protests at the Republican convention in NY as apparent terrorist activities.

Absolutely disgusting. And boy did the FBI pick the wrong people to take on. I mean, Jesus, are you people just stupid? Yeah, pick on an organization filled with teams of lawyers who are the best experts in the country on government officials who pick on organizations illegally.

It seems Karl Rove may have some company in jail. Wonder who, Karl or the FBI agents, get to play the bitch?

Pam Spaulding has more. Read the rest of this post...

FYI - which Bush admin officials have testified over Rove scandal

From the Wash Post, November 26, 2004:

Among those who are known to have been interviewed by the FBI or testified before the grand jury are Bush White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, political adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis I. Libby, Republican National Committee consultant Mary Matalin, former Cheney press aide Catherine Martin, White House press secretary Scott McClellan, communications director Dan Bartlett, deputy press secretary Claire Buchan, and former assistant press secretary Adam Levine. Bush and Cheney also have been interviewed, as has Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

And Ari too. Read the rest of this post...

NYT: White House lied about Rove (ok, that's my headline, not theirs)

But it's the gist of what they report in tomorrow's paper.

Mr. Rove's allies have said that he did not initiate any conversations with reporters and that he was merely warning them off what he said was faulty information. But White House statements over the past two years have left the impression that administration officials were not involved in identifying Ms. Wilson.

Karl Rove, the White House, and all of their allied to the media for two years about Karl Rove and Scooter Libby's involvement in the Plame leak. No reason to start believing them now. Read the rest of this post...

The lipstick lesbian daring to confront radical imams

I went to a talk this woman gave in DC at the New America Foundation. Fascinating woman. And a really fascinating interview with her in the Sunday Times of London.

A snippet:

Irshad Manji has already been dubbed ‘Osama’s worst nightmare’ for her criticisms of Islam. Now she wants Britain’s Muslims to stand more firmly on the side of freedom.

No wonder Irshad Manji has received death threats since appearing on British television: she is a lipstick lesbian, a Muslim and scourge of Islamic leaders, whom she accuses of making excuses about the terror attacks on London. Oh, and she tells ordinary Muslims to “crawl out of their narcissistic shell”. Ouch....

Doesn’t the violent Muslim minority show Islam is flawed? “I ask myself the same question,” she grimaces. Far from regarding Muslims as oppressed they have a “supremacy complex — and that’s dangerous”. This, she contends, is true even among moderates. “Literalists” who consider the Koran the “perfect manifesto of God” have taken over the mainstream; and far from misreading Islam, as Tony Blair and the Muslim Council of Britain insist, terrorists can find encouragement for murder in the Koran.

The underlying problem with Islam, observes Manji, is that far from spiritualising Arabia, it has been infected with the reactionary prejudices of the Middle East: “Colonialism is not the preserve of people with pink skin. What about Islamic imperialism? Eighty per cent of Muslims live outside the Arab world yet all Muslims must bow to Mecca.” Fresh thinking, she contends, is suppressed by ignorant imams; you can see why she has been dubbed “Osama’s worst nightmare ”.

“The good news,” she insists, “is it doesn’t have to be like this.” She wants a reformation in Islam, returning it to its clever, fun-loving roots. “The world’s first ‘feminist’ was an 11th-century Muslim man. Baghdad had one of the first universities in the 9th century; the Spanish ‘Ole!’ comes from ‘Allah’; Islam even gave us the guitar.”

Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post catches Ken Mehlman lying

See Ken lie. Lie, Ken, lie.

Media, do not let Mehlman and other Republicans run off at the mouth lying to you, then simply regurgitate what he tells you - or on TV, just let him tell his lies unchallenged. It's happening far too often - Mehlman says "Rove never leaked" and you guys just sit there and take it, when you know damn well that Rove's own lawyer said that Rove leaked. Don't let Mehlman just lie.

Mehlman's other lie was caught today by Howard Kurtz in the Wash Post, to Howie's credit.

Part of the Republican defense, as expressed by Mehlman on NBC, is that Rove didn't know Plame's name or that she was a covert operative. Mehlman cited a New York Times report that, in his words, "says Karl Rove was not Bob Novak's source, that Novak told Rove, not the other way around . . . This information at least came to Mr. Rove from journalists, not from a classified source."

But the article said that when syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to report Plame's name and CIA job in July 2003, mentioned her, Rove replied he had "heard that too," indicating Rove had already obtained the information elsewhere.

Two points for Kurtz. But far too many TV shows over the past few days have let Mehlman lie about both of these issues when the facts are ALREADY established.

This administration has lied to the media for two years. They claimed Libby and Rove had nothing to do with the leak, and they did. The administration outright LIED to the media and now they're lying again. The media can't do anything about the first, but they certainly can do something about the current crop. Kurtz's article is a good start. Read the rest of this post...

CBS's Bob Schieffer rips Bush

Schieffer's point: If the president wanted to know the answer, he could have just asked his staff 2 years ago.

Great video of his commentary today, at Crooks and Liars. Read the rest of this post...

Too bad Ken Mehlman can't tell the difference between a racist murderer and his victim

Though, in all fairness, Republican leaders are so used to beating up on minority victims like blacks, gays, women, and others, it's understandable how old habits die hard for haters like Mehlman.

Mehlman today on CNN:

The NAACP unfortunately in the 2000 campaign likened the president to James Byrd, who was a racist killer in east Texas, who the president brought to justice.

In fact, James Byrd was the African-American victim who was dragged to his death, tied dangling from a truck in Texas. Of course, President Bush opposed the hate crimes law that was offered in Texas in honor of Byrd, so it's understandable why Mehlman can't get his facts straight.

(Hat tip to Atrios) Read the rest of this post...

America's Taliban, the fundamentalist Christian hate groups, now have cousins across the sea - the Tory Taliban

From the Guardian:

The crowded field for the Tory leadership contest starts to thin today with Alan Duncan, one of the Conservatives' most socially liberal figures, dropping out of the race.

In a forceful article in the Guardian, Mr Duncan claims "the moralising wing" of his own party treat "half our own countrymen as enemies". He dubs this group the "Tory Taliban" and warns that if unchecked it will condemn the party to oblivion.

Mr Duncan argues that the party repels too many of its natural supporters, still communicates amateurishly, and should be shamed by the absence of a single Muslim MP in its ranks. The party's social attitude, he says, has been its achilles heel....

The first openly gay Tory MP, Mr Duncan combines a quick wit, sharp communications skills and a determination to rid the party of the social censoriousness that leaves so many in turn disapproving of the Tories.

Interesting that religious right hate groups are dooming conservatives in England just as in America. Read the rest of this post...

Blogging In The New York Times

Thomas Friedman's latest column in the NYT is worth checking out because it makes some good points about the sad fact that most suicide bombers around the world are Muslim.

But this piece is a landmark for very different reasons because Friedman -- for all intents and purposes -- is blogging in that column. He referenced articles available in the Financial Times and the Independent in the UK...and linked to both of them. Now, major papers have linked to government documents or extra info they compiled while creating a story. But linking to the work of competing newspapers around the world? That is a big step for an institution like the NYT and it's due solely to the growing popularity of bloggers. Can readers' comments be that far behind? Read the rest of this post...

Success!

Read the rest of this post...

NY Post Readers Blast Paper For Supporting Rove

It happened on Friday, when a story about Rove prompted a Letters page filled with people blasting Rove and only one in support. It happened again today. The NY Post ran an editorial praising Rove and calling Wilson a low-down, dirty dog. I didn't even bother linking to it. Today's Sunday letter section is FILLED with letters from readers -- all of them criticizing the paper and condemning Rove and not getting sidetracked into a he said-he said debate. Two corkers:

If Rove was doing a public service — one that was not a crime — then why didn't he make his statements on the record?

But, when accusing and smearing the veracity and patriotism of Wilson, [at least Wilson] had the guts to make his statement for all to know.

Rove intentionally leaked information. Whether that is a crime is irrelevant.

The real issue is that both Rove and President Bush's administration have consistently denied that he had any connection to the leak.
Charles Caldarola
Manhattan

I was surprised to read your editorial, which attacks Wilson as a liar and praises Rove for doing everything right.

Regardless of whether Rove has technically committed a crime, he has leaked classified information — apparently for political purposes.

If not jailed, I suggest Rove quit his White House job and go fight with the brave soldiers in Iraq.

They are there largely due to his actions.
Roy Reed
Port Arkansas, Texas

Obviously, the VAST majority of letters they were received were like this or the Post wouldn't have printed all of them without one letter supporting Rove on Sunday. But I can't imagine this is truly indicative of the opinion of most Post readers. So someone deserves credit for rallying the troops and getting a lot of people to write a lot of letters. Congrats!

Now, how are the letters to the editor running in your local papers? Let us know when a Rovegate story prompts a lot of letters and how they break down pro- and anti-Rove. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Off in search of the new Harry Potter book... Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi Troop Levels: Bush Lies

Everyone's known from the start that US forces won't leave Iraq until the Iraqi people themselves can keep their country safe. That's why Bush has played games with the number of Iraqi troops that are properly trained. He's been purposefully misleading the American people -- first by throwing out any numbers he thinks he can get away with and then pretending they actually mean something.

Bush and his surrogates keep pounding away at the idea that 140,000 Iraqi troops have been trained (adding sotto voce that this number includes troops broken down into three groups -- some ready to battle on their own, some who can fight side by side with the US and the rest who, apparently, have been given an "I'm an Iraqi soldier" baseball cap and sent on their way).

That figure -- 140,000 -- is a lie, plain and simple. Bush knows perfectly well that the facts don't back him up and yet he stood in front of the American people on national television in primetime last month and lied. As we've said before, only 2,500 are fully trained (that is, can fight on their own -- which is the only standard that matters). About 8,900 can fight with our help. That means about 130,000 of those troops Bush keeps mentioning can't fight even with our help. So 90% of the Iraqi troops are useless in battle.

Now more news is coming out. A terrific London Review of Books article on corruption in Iraq also takes a pass at those Iraqi troops:

This February, the State Department glowingly reported that almost 82,000 Iraqi police and 60,000 troops had been trained.

These figures are grossly misleading. According to the GAO’s March report to Congress ‘the reported number of Iraqi police is unreliable because the Minister of the Interior does not receive consistent and accurate reporting from the police forces around the country. The data does not exclude police absent from duty.’ As for the army, ‘Ministry of Defense reports exclude the absent military personnel from its totals. According to DOD officials, the number of absentees is probably in the tens of thousands.’ Furthermore the State Department no longer reports on whether Iraqi security forces have the required weapons, vehicles, communication equipment and body armour. Bluntly, ‘US government agencies do not report reliable data on the extent to which Iraqi security forces are trained and equipped.’ The GAO further found that the Iraqi police are being trained for ‘community policing in a permissive security environment’ rather than getting ‘paramilitary training for a high-threat hostile environment’. It’s hardly surprising that close to 2000 Iraqi police have been killed.

This is all horribly reminiscent of American policy in Vietnam. American troops are staying in Iraq to stiffen Iraqi forces who are dying in droves in an escalating counter-insurgency war that neither the Americans nor the Iraqi forces are prepared for. The Americans originally allocated $5.8 billion to build the Iraqi security forces. In February this year, George Bush asked Congress for another $5.7 billion to go towards this task.

And the Independent in the UK gives further detail about how corruption has left Iraq with a "ghost army."

The Iraqi armed forces are full of "ghost battalions" in which officers pocket the pay of soldiers who never existed or have gone home. "I know of at least one unit which was meant to be 2,200 but the real figure was only 300 men," said a veteran Iraqi politician and member of parliament, Mahmoud Othman. "The US talks about 150,000 Iraqis in the security forces but I doubt if there are more than 40,000...."

The corruption started under the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 when Iraqis, often with little experience, were appointed to senior positions in ministries. The Iraqis did not act alone. "The Americans were the partners of the Iraqis in all this corruption," says Dr Othman. The results of the failure to buy effective arms are visible at every Iraqi police or army checkpoint. The weapons on display are often ageing Kalashnikovs. The supposedly elite police commandos drive about in elderly pick-ups with no armour. The ministry of the interior was recently unable to provide a presidential guard with 50 pistols.

In other words, that fake number of 140,000 Iraqi troops is even faker than we thought. These facts don't come from critics or outsiders -- most of them come from the military itself. Ask 50 questions about Karl Rove, please. But how about pounding away on Iraqi troop training. Bush misled the American people in that nationally televised speech -- and Iraqi troop level is the most essential element in creating an Iraq that our soldiers can walk away from in pride. How long is Bush going to lie about it before he gets nailed by the MSM? Read the rest of this post...

So, should the FCC let and the FAA allow cell phone usage during flights?

Curious what you all think.

This article argues that the "cell phone use will interfere with the airplane communications" argument is bogus. Nonetheless, the article doesn't address the "every asshole will be talking on their phone and yelling in the seat next to me about their latest family problem for 3 hours just like all the idiots on Amtrak" argument."

Your take? Read the rest of this post...

Frank Rich: This Scandal Is All About Iraq

Frank Rich reminds us that the Karl Rove scandal took place because Bush was desperate to cover up the lies they'd used to justify the invasion. It's all about Iraq.

This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.

So put aside Mr. Wilson's February 2002 trip to Africa. The plot that matters starts a month later, in March, and its omniscient author is Dick Cheney. It was Mr. Cheney (on CNN) who planted the idea that Saddam was "actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time." The vice president went on to repeat this charge in May on "Meet the Press," in three speeches in August and on "Meet the Press" yet again in September. Along the way the frightening word "uranium" was thrown into the mix.

By September the president was bandying about the u-word too at the United Nations and elsewhere, speaking of how Saddam needed only a softball-size helping of uranium to wreak Armageddon on America. But hardly had Mr. Bush done so than, offstage, out of view of us civilian spectators, the whole premise of this propaganda campaign was being challenged by forces with more official weight than Joseph Wilson. In October, the National Intelligence Estimate, distributed to Congress as it deliberated authorizing war, included the State Department's caveat that "claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa," made public in a British dossier, were "highly dubious." A C.I.A. assessment, sent to the White House that month, determined that "the evidence is weak" and "the Africa story is overblown...."

Once we were locked into the war, and no W.M.D.'s could be found, the original plot line was dropped with an alacrity that recalled the "Never mind!" with which Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to end her misinformed Weekend Update commentaries on "Saturday Night Live." The administration began its dog-ate-my-homework cover-up, asserting that the various warning signs about the uranium claims were lost "in the bowels" of the bureaucracy or that it was all the C.I.A.'s fault or that it didn't matter anyway, because there were new, retroactive rationales to justify the war. But the administration knows how guilty it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.

Read the rest of this post...

This would be a leak of classified info as well

From Newsweek:

In May, the State Department's intelligence unit had prepared a secret memorandum about the provenance of Wilson's journey and its classified results—including the curious fact that Wilson's wife, a CIA agent then working on weapons of mass destruction issues, had been involved in planning the mission, and had even suggested that her husband undertake it.

If Rove, or anyone else, told any journalists, or any other source who didn't have the appropriate security clearances and need to know, that they thought or heard or read that Plame was involved in planning the mission to Niger, that too is classified information that they leaked. That's yet another layer to the possible criminal activity involved in this case. Read the rest of this post...

So now we know the White House lied about Scooter Libby too

That would be Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Scott McClellan lied about him as well when he said Scooter had nothing to do with the leak. Gosh that's a pattern of lies now. One might almost call it a conspiracy of lies.

Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.

Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Watching McLaughlin Group, Pat Buchanan just blamed the US for creating terrorism. Read the rest of this post...

TIME: "What I told the Grand Jury" by Matt Cooper

Snippets of the article in tomorrow's TIME:

Rove went on to say that Wilson had not been sent to Niger by the director of the CIA and, I believe from my subsequent e-mails--although it's not in my notes--that Rove added that Dick Cheney didn't send him either. Indeed, the next day the Vice President's chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, told me Cheney had not been responsible for Wilson's mission....

As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife.

Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status. I told the grand jury something else about my conversation with Rove. Although it's not reflected in my notes or subsequent e-mails, I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, "I've already said too much." This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else. I don't know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years.

This was actually my second testimony for the special prosecutor. In August 2004, I gave limited testimony about my conversations with Scooter Libby.... On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated. Did Fitzgerald's questions give me a sense of where the investigation is heading? Perhaps. He asked me several different! ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA. (He did not, I told the grand jury.) Maybe Fitzgerald is interested in whether Rove knew her CIA ties through a person or through a document.

Read the rest of this post...

Matt Cooper on Meet the Press, now

I of course can't watch it because RCN cable's NBC feed doesn't work in my apartment. Isn't that special. Anyway, someone please tell me what he's saying. Read the rest of this post...

Newsweek exposes Rove

Newsweek has a long cover story on Karl this week, "Rove at War." It's interesting. There's a lot in the article, but I was struck by a couple key things, mostly around the time of Karl's conversations with Novak and Cooper. Given the tight control Rove has over everything in the White House, his story doesn't make sense:

As "senior adviser," Rove would be involved in finding out. Technically, Rove was in charge of politics, not "communications." But, as he saw it, the two were one and the same—and he used his heavyweight status to push the message machine run by his Texas protegé and friend, Dan Bartlett. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was sent out to trash the Wilson op-ed. "Zero, nada, nothing new here," he said. Then, on a long Bush trip to Africa, Fleischer and Bartlett prompted clusters of reporters to look into the bureaucratic origins of the Wilson trip. How did the spin doctors know to cast that lure? One possible explanation: some aides may have read the State Department intel memo, which Powell had brought with him aboard Air Force One.

Meanwhile, in transatlantic secure phone calls, the message machinery focused on a crucial topic: who should carry the freight on the following Sunday's talk shows? The message: protect Cheney by explaining that he had had nothing to do with sending Wilson to Niger, and dismiss the yellowcake issue. Powell was ruled out. He wasn't a team player, as he had proved by his dismissive comments about the "sixteen words." Donald Rumsfeld was pressed into duty, as was Condi Rice, the ultimate good soldier. She was on the Africa trip with the president, though, and wouldn't be getting back until Saturday night. To allow her to prepare on the long flight home to D.C., White House officials assembled a briefing book, which they faxed to the Bush entourage in Africa. The book was primarily prepared by her National Security Council staff. It contained classified information—perhaps including all or part of the memo from State. The entire binder was labeled top secret.

So the White House was in full defensive spin mode, under the command, of course, of Karl Rove. The article documents how the team put together a strategy and carried it out. However:

Missions accomplished. Except for a few little details. Under a 1982 law, it's a felony to intentionally disclose the name of a "covered" agent with the intent to harm national security. Under another, older statute, it could also be a felony to willfully disclose information from a classified document—which the State Department memo and, apparently, the Condi briefing book were. There is no indication that Rove saw the briefing book (Rumsfeld didn't get one) or that anyone disclosed classified information. But no one in the administration seems to have noticed the irony—or the legal danger—in assembling a top secret briefing book as guidance for the Sunday talk shows. Exactly what papers with what classifications were floating around on Air Force One? Who, if anyone, was dipping into them for info about the Wilson trip?

And if Rove knew Plame's identity, as Novak says, how did Rove learn it? A source close to Rove has said Rove never saw the State memo. The same source told NEWSWEEK last week that Rove "doesn't remember" where he heard the crucial information about Wilson's wife. But, the source said, Rove is "pretty sure he heard it directly or indirectly from a media source."

So the center of the White House political operation allegedly did not read the State Department memo or hear from anyone at the State Department or from the Air Force One trip about the Wilson/Plame memo. That hardly passes the straight face test.

One other thing from the article:

In a familiar Washington twist of fate, Rove's theory of politics is being turned against him—and he is being forced to deploy the Republican machine, which he built on Bush's behalf, for a more personal task: his own defense.

That is really quite phenomenal. Rove is using the federal government (and the RNC) for himself. Rove wasn't elected. Yet, he is in such control over the machinations of government, that he feels quite comfortable using it for his benefit.

When you read this article, and you should, you'll realize again how ruthless the Rove White House is. It's all hard ball politics all the time. They play to win at any cost.

Rove believes in his own omnipotence. He doesn't let pesky laws about national security get in his way. And, that may finally be his undoing. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Morning Open Thread

What's up? 100% humidity in DC, today. Read the rest of this post...

Last, last, last, last, last, last, last, last, last... throes again

Last night 60 killed and 100 wounded in a suicide attack in Iraq. Since Wednesday, Iraqis have had 114 people die in suicide attacks and hundreds wounded. I can't imagine the fear that regular Iraqi people must be feeling because these attacks just never seem to end and the US and UK are completely unable to stop or even limit the attacks. Read the rest of this post...