Drinking Liberally®

Simply unbelievable! The Courier-Journal reported Thursday and editorialized today about grand jurors investigating the Fletcher administration's merit system hiring practices. It appears that the jittery grand jurors asked the judge overseeing them if the government could sue them if they handed down more indictments. Since grand juries meet in secret, it was odd that the judge addressed the matter in open court. I re-read the article twice and still could not make heads or tails of why they felt intimidated. Here is the editorial in today's CJ:

A Frankfort moment

Whatever your politics, you have to feel for the citizens serving as grand jurors in the JOBTROT case.

They've been called to civic duty. That duty is to examine evidence and issue indictments if there's probable cause to believe a crime has occurred. That's it.

But this straightforward task has become another of Frankfort's royal political messes, with the jurors in the middle.

It's not just that they've been slandered as partisan dupes and character assassins for doing their duty as they saw it.

It's that now, with prosecutors continuing to push for more indictments and Gov. Ernie Fletcher contending that more indictments are unconstitutional after the pardon he issued, they're fearful as well as bruised.

So fearful that on Thursday, in a bizarre, only-in-litigious-America moment, they sought out a judge to reassure them that they can't be sued and left to defend themselves for doing what they were called to do.

When citizen-jurors are afraid of being punished for performing their civic duty while big-shot lawbreakers are resting easy in pardoned unaccountability, you know you're in good ole Frankfort, Ky.

Legally, the Governor may be right that the amnesty he issued, however unwise, premature and overly broad, forecloses further legal proceedings.

Practically, however, it's going to stink if he succeeds in shutting down the grand jury against its will, without a full release of evidence and a full accounting of responsibility.

Too many people, from scapegoated state workers to anxiety-ridden jurors, are paying too high a price for the Governor's unwillingness to simply say: "We did it, it was wrong, there's no good excuse, and I've pardoned everybody else because it was my fault. I'm sorry."

Instead, the floor is covered in blood, the air is full of pathetic justifications for calculated violations of law, and the machinery of justice is being jammed by partisan corrosion.

It's not just the jurors who should be worried.

Posted by vicki at 11:50 AM | Comments (2)

Posted by Mojo at 01:25 PM

And what has he (Fitz) done? Good ol' Scooter (what kind of adult keeps a knickname like that?) is expected to be indicted today. Rove is in so darn deep, our *Elliot Ness* is extending the grand jury to rope in that traitor. Hooy, boy! Karma's a bitch! Get 'em, Fitz.

Update: Libby indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and giving false statements.

Posted by vicki at 08:02 AM | Comments (1)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President George W. Bush's embattled nominee for the
U.S. Supreme Court, White House counsel Harriet Miers, announced on Thursday she was withdrawing her name from consideration. In a letter to Bush released by the White House, Miers said she was concerned that the Senate confirmation process "presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country."

Miers had come under criticism from Democrats and conservative Republicans alike and many conservatives had demanded she withdraw her nomination because she lacked judicial experience.

As a reason for pulling out, Miers cited the need to maintain privacy of internal records of her White House service that members of Congress wanted to see but Bush wanted to keep confidential.

This is the start of a VERY beautiful day....

No Announcement Today in CIA Leak Probe

WASHINGTON - Two key White House aides await their fate in the
CIA leak probe after a prosecutor spent three hours before a grand jury that could hand up indictments and rock the Bush administration. A spokesman for the prosecutor said there would be no public announcements before Friday, the day the grand jury's term expires. The White House braced for the possibility that Vice President
Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, could become a criminal defendant by week's end. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, remained in jeopardy of being charged with false statements.

Libby and Rove arrived for work at the White House Thursday as usual. Rove attended the daily meeting of the senior staff, but Libby did not and was said to be in a security briefing. Libby misses senior staff about half the time because of intelligence briefings and other issues on Cheney's schedule, an official said.

Separately, Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, said there would be no announcements in the probe on Thursday.

Rove's legal team made contingency plans, consulting with former Justice Department official Mark Corallo about what defenses could be mounted in court and in public.

Fitzgerald met with Rove attorney Robert Luskin at a private law firm office Tuesday, heightening White House fears for Rove's future.

In 2003, eight days after former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat, columnist Robert Novak disclosed the identity of Wilson's wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

After checking with Rove and Libby, the White House categorically denied that either aide was involved in leaking Plame's identity.

Fitzgerald was appointed nearly two years ago to determine whether any presidential aides violated a federal law that prohibits the intentional unmasking of an undercover CIA officer.

The prosecutor also has discussed other charges with defense lawyers in recent weeks, including false statements, obstruction of justice and mishandling of classified information.

The grand jury's term expires on Friday, and the panel met with Fitzgerald's team for about three hours Wednesday before adjourning for the day.

The administrative assistant to Thomas Hogan, chief judge of U.S. District Court in the nation's capital, disclosed that Hogan met with Fitzgerald. The assistant, Sheldon Snook, declined to say what was discussed.

Prosecutors wrapping up a criminal investigation can meet with the chief judge to request that a new grand jury be impaneled or simply to inform of impending indictments. Grand juries also can be extended, although the one investigating the Plame leak is two years old.

Beyond Libby and Rove, Fitzgerald also has interviewed officials at the State Department and CIA about their conversations with the White House and their access to information about Plame and a trip her husband took for the CIA to check on pre-
Iraq war intelligence.

The public appeared divided about the controversy. A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll taken over the weekend found 39 percent of Americans believe the leak of Plame's name was illegal, another 39 percent believed it was unethical but not illegal and the remainder saw nothing wrong or were not sure.

During the investigation, prosecutors forced testimony from journalists about confidential sources. They assembled evidence that Rove talked about Wilson's wife with columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper before both reporters wrote stories outing Plame. And the prosecutors gathered evidence that Libby gave information about Wilson's wife to Cooper and on three occasions to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

When Novak disclosed Plame's name, the columnist said he had two senior administration officials for sources. Rove is said to be one of the sources, but the other isn't publicly known.

As the White House's original denials collapsed, administration defenders said that the source of any information Rove and Libby may have passed on about Plame came from reporters and not from classified sources.

But in the past two weeks, that assertion has been undercut with the revelation that Libby got information from Cheney before the aide met with reporters, and that Rove may have gotten information from Libby.

Prosecutors have zeroed in on inconsistencies. Rove and Cooper differed over the original reason for their contact. Prosecutors have raised concern that Rove at first testified only about his contact with Novak without acknowledging the Cooper discussion.

After Rove's attorney located an e-mail referring to that conversation, Rove volunteered to return to the grand jury and discuss his conversation with Cooper.

Posted by Mojo at 09:45 AM | Comments (1)

DL Buddy, John, posted this on the Louisville Forum and it's too good not to post here as well. From http://Firedoglake.blogspot.com

Bon Appetit

Bill Frist (R-TN): To not remove President Clinton for grand jury perjury lowers uniquely the Constitution's removal standard, and thus requires less of the man who appoints all federal judges than we require of those judges themselves.

I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail.

Lindsey Graham: Should he be impeached? Very quickly; the hardest decision I think I will ever make. Learning that the president lied to the grand jury about sex, I still believe that every president of the United States, regardless of the matter they called to testify about before a grand jury should testify truthfully and if they don't they should be subject to losing their job.

I believe that about Bill Clinton and I'll believe that about the next president. If it had been a Republican, I would have still believed that and I would hope that if a Republican person had done all this that some of us would've went (sic) over and told him, You need to leave office.

Henry Hyde (R-ILL, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee): But when circumstances require you to participate in a formal court proceeding and under oath mislead the parties and the court by lying, that is a public act and deserves public sanction. Perjury is a crime with a five-year penalty.

James Sensenbrenner: (R-WI): What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are president of the United States, if you lie when sworn "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," you will face the consequences of that action, even when you don't accept the responsibility for them.

Chuck Hagel (R-NB): There can be no shading of right and wrong. The complicated currents that have coursed through this impeachment process are many. But after stripping away the underbrush of legal technicalities and nuance, I find that the President abused his sacred power by lying and obstructing justice. How can parents instill values and morality in their children? How can educators teach our children? How can the rule of law for every American be applied equally if we have two standards of justice in America--one for the powerful and the other for the rest of us?

Mitch McConnell (R-KY): Perjury and obstruction hammer away at the twin pillars of our legal system: truth and justice. Every witness in every deposition is required to raise his or her right hand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God. Every witness in every grand jury proceeding and in every trial is required to raise his or her right hand and swear to tell the truth. Every official declaration filed with the court is stamped with the express affirmation that the declaration is true. In the words of our nation's first Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay: `if oaths should cease to be held sacred, our dearest and most valuable rights would become insecure.'

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 10:27 PM

Oh, the screaming hypocracy of it all.

Posted by vicki at 09:51 AM | Comments (3)

Yes, I know that terrible landmark was reached yesterday. But when I saw the headline in today's Times and the front page picture of a young mother and widow of the presumptive 2000th soldier killed, it made me cry. Her late husband was on his 3rd tour of duty in Iraq. That is hellish! The military is playing roulette with our soldiers lives. Nobody should have to face a "third time's a charm" with their lives in this miserable boondogle. Bu$h, Rummy, Cheney and the neoCon-artists have a massive amount of blood on their hands.

Of course, nobody bothers counting the dead we liberated in Iraq. Makes you wanna weep.

Posted by vicki at 07:28 AM

I hope all of you with cable have been able to catch the Colbert Report, with Stephen Colbert. He is the former pompus ass *reporter* from the Daily Show. Oh, its good. It's on channel 59 at 11:30 PM. Over the top patriotism, anti-intellectual hilarity! We TiVo it every night. Here is the LINK

....

Posted by vicki at 11:46 PM | Comments (5)

Check out this letter to the editor in today's Courier Journal. I laughed myself silly. Hoo, boy!

'Has earned our trust'
Conservatives who are upset with President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers should relax and consider a few things.

Despite all the lies by the left-wing, Democratic news media to the contrary, the President is one of the most decent, honest, truthful presidents in history, and he has staffed his administration with people of similar quality. All his nominees to the judiciary heretofore have been outstanding, and it's important to remember that Miers, as White House counsel, played a key role in making these great choices.

Despite Miers' lack of a paper trail, Bush has earned our trust in making this nomination.

GARY GRAVES

Louisville 40215

Posted by vicki at 10:15 AM | Comments (4)

New Web Software a Challenge to Microsoft

By ANICK JESDANUN AP Internet Writer

October 23,2005 | NEW YORK -- A quiet revolution is transforming life on the Internet: New, agile software now lets people quickly check flight options, see stock prices fluctuate and better manage their online photos and e-mail.

Such tools make computing less of a chore because they sit on distant Web servers and run over standard browsers. Users thus don't have to worry about installing software or moving data when they switch computers.

And that could bode ill for Microsoft Corp. and its flagship Office suite, which packs together word processing, spreadsheets and other applications.

The threat comes in large part from Ajax, a set of Web development tools that speeds up Web applications by summoning snippets of data as needed instead of pulling entire Web pages over and over.

"It definitely supports a Microsoft exit strategy," said Alexei White, a product manager at Ajax developer eBusiness Applications Ltd. "I don't think it can be a full replacement, but you could provide scaled-down alternatives to most Office products that will be sufficient for some users."

Ironically, Microsoft invented Ajax in the late 90s and has used it for years to power an online version of its popular Outlook e-mail program.

Ajax's resurgence in recent months is thanks partly to its innovative use by Google Inc. to fundamentally change online mapping. Before, maps were static: Click on a left arrow, wait a few seconds as the Web page reloads and see the map shift slightly to the left. Repeat. Repeat again.

"It's slow. It's frustrating," said frequent map user Fred Wagner, a petroleum engineer in Houston. "We're all getting spoiled with wanting things to happen."

So he sticks with Google Maps these days. There, he can drag the map over any which way and watch new areas fill in instantly. He can zoom in quickly using an Ajax slider.

No more World Wide Wait.

"Everybody went, `Ooooh, how did they do that?'" said Steve Yen, who runs a company developing an Ajax spreadsheet called Num Sum. "It turns out the technology's been there for awhile."

Jesse James Garrett, an Adaptive Path LLC usability strategist who publicly coined the term `Ajax' 10 days after Google Maps launched in February, said such examples "convinced a lot of Web designers to take another look at something they may have previously dismissed as experimental."

Also contributing are faster Internet connections, more powerful computers and better browsers able to handle Ajax, which is short for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.

Consider e-mail.

Until recently, Web mail meant sending forms back and forth online. Check an item to delete and hit a button. A remote mail server receives instructions and responds with an entirely new page, which is missing only the one deleted item.

Enter Yahoo Inc. and an interface it is testing using technology from an Ajax pioneer it bought, Oddpost. Delete an item this time, and Ajax reconfigures the page immediately without waiting for a response.

Open a message to read, and the browser fetches only the message's body -- it already has the subject line and other header information and doesn't have to waste time duplicating that data.

Yahoo also is developing an Ajax tool that instantly updates flight options as travelers narrow their choices of airports, airlines and travel times.

This summer, Time Warner Inc.'s America Online Inc. started using Ajax to let users rearrange, display and switch photo albums with fewer clicks.

And last week, Dow Jones & Co.'s MarketWatch began embedding news articles with stock quotes updated several times a second, blinking green and red as prices fluctuate.

"A Web page takes longer to load than that," said Jamie Thingelstad, MarketWatch's chief technology officer. "Your computer would just be hung."

Microsoft, which uses Ajax in a new map offering and an upcoming Hotmail upgrade, is even starting to build new tools to promote Ajax development -- even as it pushes a next-generation alternative.

The alternative technology, known as XAML, will permit even richer applications over browsers. Alas, unlike Ajax, it will run only on Microsoft's Windows computers -- no Macs, no Linux.

Startups, meantime, are embracing Ajax for Office-like tools. Such applications won't replace Office but could find a niche -- parents collaborating in a soccer league could jointly update a Num Sum spreadsheet with scores, while users too poor to buy Office or students always on the go could compose a letter from anywhere using Writely word processor.

Scott Guthrie, who oversees the Microsoft Ajax tools called Atlas, believes Ajax has a future but not one at odds with Microsoft's.

"Ultimately when you want to write a word processing document or manage a large spreadsheet, you are going to want the capabilities ... that are very difficult to provide on the Web today," Guthrie said.

Computer-intensive applications like Adobe Systems Inc.'s Photoshop image editor and high-end games won't come to browsers anytime soon.

Even Google had to create desktop mapping software, called Google Earth and requiring a download, to permit 3-D and advanced features.

"Ajax cannot do everything," said Bret Taylor, who oversees Google's mapping products. "Web applications have a way to go."

Other limitations are intentional. For security reasons, a browser cannot seamlessly access files or other programs on a computer. And, of course, Web applications require a persistent Internet connection -- making work difficult on airplanes.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen also worries that loss of productivity -- a minute here, a minute there, multiplied by thousands of employees -- will offset any savings in installation costs.

"When you do a lot of transactions, you want something that's optimized for the transaction, not something optimized for information browsing," he said.

Among other criticisms, developer tools for Ajax aren't as mature as those for one of its chief rivals, Macromedia Inc.'s Flash. And many Ajax programs don't work well beyond Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox browsers.

Yet Web-based applications are increasingly appealing at a time separate computers for home, work and travel are common and people get used to sharing calendars and other data with friends and relatives.

Ajax can make those experiences richer.

"There's a lot of power sitting on that Web browser ... that people are just tapping into," said White of eBusiness Applications. Web developers "are beginning to push its limits in terms of creative uses and new applications."

Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

About time someone challenged the monopoly of Microsoft. Their products track your every move and are full of bugs.

Posted by vicki at 12:28 AM | Comments (1)

For more information about LPAC, go to http://louisvillepeace.org/lpac.html

The Louisville Peace Action Committee (LPAC) will join groups across the nation in marking the death of 2000 US troops. We will have our action on 4:00pm the Friday afternoon after this news announcement. We expect this will be 10/28 or 11/4. Unfortunately, the latest US offensive and the high death rate this week (6 more Marines were killed today) means this action may be 10/28. We are looking at the long sidewalks at Lexington & Grinstead, extending to Cave Hill as our
location for this action. We'll keep you posted on exact time, place, and details. We need t-shirts, lots of t-shirts. We hope to get 2000 t-shirts, large and small. As you go through your summer clothes, please save your old t-shirts so that we can hang them on 100ft. lengths of clothesline. We'll have signs to explain that each shirt represents one US soldier lost in Iraq. You can bring your t-shirts to my house 1312 Willow Ave. or Johanna's 2132 Alta Ave. Marcia Schneider kindly offered to donate 4000 feet of rope for this action. We also need names of people who can organize people from their churches or other groups to join this action and hold up the shirts and signs. Please let me know if you can help & please pass the word. We will also mark the deaths of tens of thousands of
Iraqi civilians.

Posted by Maria at 08:29 PM | Comments (2)

From today's Courier Journal:

2 state GOP officials indicted


Friday, October 21, 2005

Men charged in hiring inquiry

By Tom Loftus
tloftus@courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Two Kentucky Republican Party officials who volunteered for Gov. Ernie Fletcher were indicted yesterday on allegations that they conspired with the administration to fill state jobs on the basis of politics.

Party Treasurer Dave Disponett, who had an office in the Capitol, was indicted on three counts of criminal conspiracy to commit political discrimination. He is accused of helping to hire his nephew for a $35,702-a-year state transportation job.

J. Marshall Hughes, the party's chairman for the 2nd Congressional District, was indicted on two counts of the same conspiracy charge.

Since the special grand jury was impaneled in June, it has indicted 13 people on charges alleging violations of the state merit law. Disponett and Hughes are the first people charged who held no official jobs within the Fletcher administration.

Disponett, a Lawrenceburg building contractor, did not respond to phone messages yesterday. His lawyer, Larry Roberts of Lexington, declined to comment.

Hughes, a Bowling Green lawyer, also did not return calls. His lawyer, Steve Thornton of Bowling Green, questioned the validity of the indictment.

"I'm a little perplexed that an unpaid volunteer would have any hiring authority and could be indicted for hiring practices," Thornton said.

One count against each charges that Disponett and Hughes generally conspired with administration officials to break the merit law, which forbids the hiring and firing of civil service workers on the basis of political affiliation or beliefs.

Disponett was charged with two additional counts alleging he violated the law by having a role in the hiring of his nephew Tony Disponett as a highway superintendent and Jamie Gray, brother-in-law of Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer, as an administrative specialist.

Hughes was charged in a second count with allegedly playing a part in filling a district administrative manager job with Marjorie Ann Stewart, who headed Fletcher's 2003 campaign for governor in Edmonson County.

Each count is a misdemeanor that carries a penalty of 30 days to six months in jail, forfeiture of any state office and a ban on state employment for five years.

Court battle over pardons
The grand jury has issued indictments three times since Fletcher issued a pardon order Aug. 29. Fletcher pardoned nine people and said his order also covered anyone who might later be indicted in the investigation for actions up until that date, other than himself.

Fletcher called yesterday's indictments "a sad miscarriage of justice" in a statement released by his office. "The fact that these two individuals are private Kentucky citizens -- not state employees -- should send a chill to all citizens of this commonwealth who are exercising their rights of free speech in communication with their government," Fletcher said.

Darrell Brock, chairman of the state Republican Party, had no comment on the indictments, said party spokesman Michael Clingaman. Brock previously was indicted by the jury on a conspiracy charge and pardoned by Fletcher.

The attorney general's office contends that the pardon cannot apply to someone not named in the pardon. Disponett and Hughes were not named.

"It is our belief that the law does not allow the governor to pardon unnamed people for uncharged offenses," said Scott Crawford-Sutherland, the assistant attorney general working with the grand jury.

The question of the pardons' scope is before a judge in Franklin Circuit Court.

Hughes' lawyer, Thornton, said he believes Hughes is covered by the pardon.

Crawford-Sutherland also said the two can be charged even though they were not state officials.

"If an individual hypothetically was sitting in the governor's office and their role was to basically shuttle preferred job candidates into merit positions -- pre-selected individuals into merit positions in state government -- by working with people that did have appointing authority, they are no less accountable," Crawford-Sutherland said.

Volunteers for Fletcher
The Courier-Journal reported in April that Disponett had an office on the first floor of the Capitol. Doug Hogan, Fletcher's spokesman at the time, said Disponett was a volunteer who handled assignments for Fletcher including interviewing applicants for appointed jobs -- but never merit jobs.

Hughes also was a volunteer involved in interviewing non-merit job applicants who worked out of the same office when he was in Frankfort, Hogan said.

A month later, after Attorney General Greg Stumbo began investigating administration hiring practices, Disponett decided to move out of the office.

The indictment issued yesterday alleges Disponett conspired with three former Transportation Cabinet officials to break the merit law between Sept. 1, 2004, and May 1. The goal was to give Disponett's nephew, Tony Disponett, a job as "Highway Superintendent I."

In an interview with The Courier-Journal, Dave Disponett said last April he had nothing to do with the hiring of his nephew April 1.

Records of the investigation filed with the court indicate Dave Disponett was involved in his nephew's hiring. In an interview with investigators, former Administrative Services Commissioner Dan Druen described numerous discussions with Dave Disponett about the effort to hire Tony Disponett.

Tony Disponett could not be reached at his Lawrenceburg home for comment.

How lucky for Disponett (sounds FRENCH!) that his phone suddenly went dead. Hahahahahaha!

Posted by vicki at 12:39 PM

This is just disturbing. What in the name of God is trickling down from the top of the Pentegon? Read it and weep big, fat tears. From today's NY Times:

Army Examining an Account of Abuse of 2 Dead Taliban

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The Pentagon announced Wednesday night that the Army had started a criminal investigation into allegations that American soldiers in Afghanistan had burned the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters and then used the charred and smoking corpses in a propaganda campaign against the insurgents.

The events were shown on an Australian television program, broadcast there on Wednesday night, depicting what is described as an American psychological operations team broadcasting taunts over a loudspeaker toward a village thought to be harboring Taliban fighters and sympathizers, according to a transcript of the program. It was posted on the Web site of the Special Broadcasting Service, http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/. An American soldier, an Afghan soldier, and two Taliban had just been killed in fighting there, the transcript of the program said.

According to the program's translation of the taunts, which were delivered in the local language by American forces on the scene, a soldier identified as Sgt. Jim Baker, said: "You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve the bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."

After news agencies reported the broadcast, the Pentagon said such acts were forbidden and began the criminal investigation.

Several senior officials said preliminary indications suggested that the video and the program's translation were accurate, and that the incident posed the potential to do further harm in the Islamic world to the image of the United States, already badly tarnished by the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

The reference to the bodies "facing west" appeared to be a deliberate mocking of the Islamic requirement to face Mecca during prayers. The Muslim faith prohibits cremation and holds respect of the body of the dead as a central tenet.

The American soldiers told a freelance photojournalist who recorded the incident that they burned the bodies for hygienic reasons, he said in an interview in the studios of the SBS program "Dateline."

But human rights organizations said Wednesday that burning bodies was an act of desecration in the Islamic faith and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

A statement issued by the Central Command said "desecration, abuse or inappropriate treatment of enemy combatants" were never condoned and that they would violate United States policy "as well as the Geneva Convention."

"This command takes all allegations of misconduct or inappropriate behavior seriously," Maj. Gen. Jason K. Kamiya, the American commander of daily tactical operations in Afghanistan, said in a separate statement issued by the Central Command. "If the allegation is substantiated, the appropriate course of action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and corrective action will be taken."

General Kamiya continued, "This command does not condone the mistreatment of enemy combatants or the desecration of their religious and cultural beliefs."

In the past, allegations of disrespect for Islam by American forces have sparked heated and even violent reactions in the Muslim world.

Pentagon and Bush administration officials said Wednesday night they were trying to determine details of the incident, which the program said happened earlier this month in Gonbaz, a village in southern Afghanistan about 60 miles from the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

"Really bad news," said an administration official who follows Afghan issues closely.

"This is very serious," a senior military official said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the pending investigation.

The program's video was taken by Stephen Dupont, a freelance Australian photojournalist who was embedded in the American unit to document its operations. Mr. Dupont's photographs from the region have been widely published.

In a separate interview posted on the network's Web site on Wednesday, Mr. Dupont said soldiers from an unidentified airborne unit appeared to believe they were doing the right thing in laying the corpses of the two dead Taliban toward Mecca, and then setting them on fire.

The video shows flames swirling around two charred corpses, their legs and arms outstretched, and a group of five American soldiers watching from a rocky ledge.

A spokesman for Mr. Dupont, Robert Pledge, said Wednesday night that the incident took place on Oct. 1, and involved soldiers from the First Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

Mr. Dupont said the first group of soldiers told him, "We've been told to burn the bodies; the bodies have been here for 24 hours and they're starting to stink so, for hygiene reasons, this is what we've got to do."

But then Mr. Dupont said a second group of soldiers from a psychological operations unit intentionally used the burnt bodies as a propaganda tool. "They deliberately wanted to incite that much anger from the Taliban so the Taliban could attack them," Mr. Dupont said.

In the program, Sergeant Baker's taunt is heard first. Then a second soldier, who was not identified, chimes in singling out several mullahs by name: "Your time in Afghanistan is short. You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Talibs but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are."

In the interview with the producers, Mr. Dupont explained that the American soldiers had been trying to bait the Taliban fighters to shoot at them. "They want the Taliban to fight them because they can't find them otherwise." [end article]

I'm beyond words. This administration has been pro-torture all along. Bu$h is threatening his first veto unless Congress allows for the torture of foreign prisoners. Such a fine Christian man.

Posted by vicki at 10:36 AM

UFB !!!!!

This is NOT coming from some conspiracy rag... it's from US News and World Report !!

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051018/18whwatch.htm?track=rss

White House Watch: Cheney resignation rumors fly

Posted 10/18/05
By Paul Bedard

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"It's certainly an interesting but I still think highly doubtful scenario," said a Bush insider. "And if that should happen," added the official, "there will undoubtedly be those who believe the whole thing was orchestrated – another brilliant Machiavellian move by the VP."

Said another Bush associate of the rumor, "Yes. This is not good." The rumor spread so fast that some Republicans by late morning were already drawing up reasons why Rice couldn't get the job or run for president in 2008.

"Isn't she pro-choice?" asked a key Senate Republican aide. Many White House insiders, however, said the Post story and reports that the investigation was coming to a close had officials instead more focused on who would be dragged into the affair and if top aides would be indicted and forced to resign.

"Folks on the inside and near inside are holding their breath and wondering what's next," said a Bush adviser. But, he added, they aren't focused on the future of the vice president. "Not that, at least not seriously," he said.

Posted by Mojo at 11:04 AM | Comments (1)

States Protest Contributions to Drug Plan

NY Times

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: October 18, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 - The Bush administration notified states on Monday that they would have to pay billions of dollars to the federal government next year to help finance the new prescription drug benefit for people on Medicare.

Administration officials said the 2003 Medicare law required them to charge the states, in exchange for taking over the states' Medicaid drug costs. But state officials immediately took issue with the calculations, saying federal officials had overstated the amounts owed by some states.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the required state contributions, also known as clawback payments, will total $6 billion in the current fiscal year and $124 billion from 2006 to 2015.

Some states, including Texas, are openly resisting the requirement for such payments. But federal officials said that if states did not comply, the money could be deducted from federal payments to the states for other programs like Medicaid.

One purpose of the 2003 Medicare law was to relieve states of prescription drug costs for low-income Medicare recipients. But as states do the arithmetic, many have concluded that they will lose money because they must give back most of the savings.

In calculating the amounts owed by each state, the Bush administration used a complex formula that takes account of per capita drug costs for people entitled to both Medicaid and Medicare.

These figures vary greatly from state to state. The administration estimated that total drug costs in 2006 would be less than $220 a month, on average, for each "dual eligible" beneficiary in some states, including Arizona, Arkansas, California, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and South Carolina.

But it said that total per capita drug costs would exceed $300 a month in other states, including Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The administration assumed that per capita drug spending would rise 35 percent from 2003 to 2006. But some states, like Michigan, said they had aggressively managed Medicaid drug costs, so their actual costs rose much less than the Bush administration had assumed.

In an interview, Paul Reinhart, the Medicaid director in Michigan, estimated that Medicaid drug costs would rise 15 percent, rather than 35 percent, in his state.

David Parrella, the Medicaid director in Connecticut, said: "There's room for disagreement with the calculations. We're not really happy, but we accept the number we've been given."

Mr. Parrella said his state had 68,000 people eligible for Medicaid and Medicare and would owe about $10.6 million a month.

On Monday, the administration unveiled a new online tool to help Medicare beneficiaries choose a prescription plan from the dozens of plans available in each state.

But some of the information was not yet available from the "prescription drug plan finder" at the federal Web site, www.medicare.gov.

The Bush administration said that another Web tool would help people find drug plans that covered the drugs they took. This tool is known as a "formulary finder." A formulary is a list of drugs covered by a particular insurance plan.

Consumer advocates who had tested the plan finder said it was not particularly easy to use.

"It's tough to use, even for advocates," said Gail E. Shearer, a policy specialist at Consumers Union.

After repeatedly urging people to review the available options, Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Monday, "It is not time to choose a plan yet."

Enrollment in the plans begins on Nov. 15. Coverage begins on Jan. 1.

Federal Medicare officials said the new benefit would be a boon to people who are 65 and older or disabled. The Medicare Web site promotes the value of the new coverage, saying: "It will pay for about half your drug costs. Almost 1 in 3 people will qualify for extra help paying for their drug costs. It protects you against ever having very high drug expenses."

But Nancy V. Atkins, the Medicaid director in West Virginia and the chairwoman of the National Association of State Medicaid Directors, said: "It's going to be extremely complex and difficult to help people figure out what's the best course for them. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable and well-educated, but the new choices are still confusing. People will have to muddle through."

In West Virginia, 21 companies will offer 52 free-standing prescription drug plans with different co-payments, deductibles and covered drugs.

After a two-week tour of her state, Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, said Monday that she had found "overwhelming interest" in the drug benefit. "Seniors desperately want to understand it,"
Mrs. Lincoln said. [end article]

Yep. We all know how computer literate seniors are, right? Good luck! More money down the tubes for an incompetently run and needlessly complex program. The GOP is incapable of effective governing. Is it 2008 yet?

Posted by vicki at 11:06 AM | Comments (1)

But we found one!

His name is Larry Forgy, failed nominee for KY Governor in 1995 and hactackular GOP apologist. He wrote a piece for the CJ's op ed page this morning. It is stunning. Here is a little snip:

"The Kentucky GOP has experienced enormous success recently. Today, we confront the inevitable forces of reaction against that progress in two forms: a remnant of the old Frankfort crowd and Kentucky's two largest metropoitan newspapers.
The Frankfort clique understandably wants to take back the control of the governor's office with the high paying jobs, contracts and regulatory authority that translate into political money for elections." [end snip]

The emphasis above was mine. I would like Mr. Forgy to define success for me. Is it violating the laws of the merit system? A blanket pardon of all past and future GOP indictees? The rest of the opinion piece is a litany of ways the poor, abused Republicans are being picked on and the craven assertion that they would never get a fair trial in Franklin Circut Court. Spare me! Forgy even threw in Chappaquiddick and Monica for good measure to stir up the wingers.

The fact of the matter is, the GOP, at all levels of government, is broken. They are neither competent or interested in governing. It's all about power and the use of taxpayer money to reward their friends and place the intrests of big business and cronies ahead of best intrest of the public at large. It's that simple.

The entire opinion piece can be found Here.

Posted by vicki at 09:23 AM | Comments (1)

Wow. Several DL friends asked if I saw Matt Lauer interview Bu$h at his photo-op in LA. Bu$h and La La were at a Habitat for Humanity site pretending to be *helping* build a home. Heh. Watch the video and see for yourself just how twitchy, stumbling and ridiculous Bu$h is. Also, note how the actual workers, being used as props, are not amused. They all but roll their eyes as Bu$h verbally staggers through the interview. See it Here, but be prepared to be very afraid.

If Bu$h isn't hitting the bottle again, he's on the crack pipe.

Posted by vicki at 11:39 AM | Comments (2)

From the NY Times: which can be found here

By SARAH LYALL
Published: October 14, 2005
LONDON, Oct. 13 - Harold Pinter, the British playwright, poet and political campaigner who uses spare and often menacing language to explore themes of powerlessness, domination and the faceless tyranny of the state, won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
Mr. Pinter "uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms," the Swedish Academy in Stockholm said in announcing the award, which is worth $1.3 million.

In his versatile and productive career, Mr. Pinter, 75, has written plays and screenplays, directed theater productions, acted on screen and stage, and won awards across Europe. So precise and pared down is his prose, so artful his use of pauses and omissions to invoke discomfort, foreboding and miscommunication that he has his own adjective, Pinteresque, signifying a peculiar kind of atmospheric unease.

In "The Birthday Party," "No Man's Land," "The Homecoming" and other plays, Mr. Pinter dispenses with the easy comforts of fluent speech and has his characters speak in non sequiturs and sentence fragments, interrupt one another, fail to listen, fail to understand. He uses language to convey miscommunication and lack of understanding rather than shared comprehension.

He is an overtly political writer, vehemently opposed to the Iraq war, to the British government under Prime Minister Tony Blair and to what he sees as bullying American imperialism in the Middle East and around the world. A recent poem, "The Special Relationship," refers to the alliance between the United States and Britain but is consumed with bombs exploding, limbs being blown off and the atrocities committed at places like Abu Ghraib.

Posted by vicki at 09:59 AM

From today's NY Times article on the economic impact of hurricane Katrina titled Liberals' Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Debate on Poverty:
Read the entire article Here

"We've had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. "We've gone from a situation in which we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn't actually happening."

Mr. Greenstein's comments were echoed by Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut: "Poor people are going to get the short end of the stick, despite all the public sympathy. That's a great irony."

But many conservatives see logic, not irony, at work. If the storm exposed great poverty, they say, it also exposed the problems of the very policies that liberals have supported.

"This is not the time to expand the programs that were failing anyway," said Stuart M. Butler, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research and advocacy group influential on Capitol Hill.

While the right has proposed alternatives including tax-free zones for businesses and school vouchers for students, Mr. Butler said, "the left has just talked up the old paradigm: 'let's expand what's failed before.' "

Doubt about the effectiveness of some programs is only one factor shaping the current antipoverty debate. Another is political muscle: poor people do not make campaign contributions. Many do not even vote.

A third factor is the federal deficit, which leaves little money for new initiatives. And a fourth is the continuing support for tax cuts, including those aimed at the wealthiest Americans, which further limits spending on social programs.

Indeed, even as he was calling for deep spending cuts last week, Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, who leads the conservative caucus, called tax reductions for the prosperous a key to fighting poverty.

"Raising taxes in the wake of a national catastrophe would imperil the very economic growth we need to bring the Gulf Coast back," Mr. Pence said. "I'm mindful of what a pipe fitter once said to President Reagan: 'I've never been hired by a poor man.' A growing economy is in the interest of every working American, regardless of their income."

Economic growth is crucial to reducing poverty, but the effect of tax rates is less clear. In 1993, President Bill Clinton raised taxes on upper-income families, the economy boomed and poverty fell for the next seven years. In 2001, President Bush cut taxes deeply, but even with economic growth, the poverty rate has risen every year since.

In 2004, about 12.7 percent of the country, or 37 million people, lived below the poverty line, which was about $19,200 for a family of four. The figure was 7.8 percent among whites, 24.7 percent among blacks and 21.9 percent among Hispanics.

Hurricane Katrina gave those figures a face as no statistic can.

"As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region," with "roots in a history of racial discrimination," President Bush said in a Sept. 15 speech from New Orleans. Using the language of the civil rights movement, Mr. Bush pledged "not just to cope, but to overcome."

But liberal critics say his policies will have the opposite effect.

The week before his speech, Mr. Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, a 1931 law that prohibits federally financed construction jobs from paying wages less than a local average. The administration argued that the suspension, which applied only to storm areas, would benefit local residents by stretching financial resources.

Critics said the savings would come at the expense of needy workers.

Likewise, the president suspended rules requiring federal contractors to file affirmative action plans, which his allies called cumbersome.

Posted by vicki at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)

Republican Pollster Advises GOP Candidates To Use Sept. 11 and War on Terror When Discussing The Economy

Recently, a detailed communications analysis to GOP candidates by Republican pollster Frank Luntz fell into Democratic hands. Among his suggestions on how to discuss the poorly performing economy, is to link it to September 11th as well as the War on Terror.

How classless...

[snip]

Recent economic numbers aside, the American people are still very concerned about economic conditions in general and the job situation in particular. There may be two million new jobs created over the past year alone, but the perception is that this is still a very tough job market and that job insecurity is warranted. That's why the language that follows is so important.

THE TEN COMMUNICATION KEYS OF A STRONGER, HEALTHIER ECONOMY

4) September 11th changed everything. So start with 9/11. This is the context that explains and justifies why we have $500 billion dollar deficits, why the stock market tanked, why unemployment climbed to 6% and why we are still in a rebuilding mode. Much of the public anger can be immediately pacified if they are reminded that we would not be in this situation today if 9/11 had not happened, and that it is unfair to blame the current political leadership or corporate America for the consequences of that day.

Without the context of 9-11, you will be blamed for the deficit. The deficit is a touchy subject for both Republicans and Democrats - your supporters are inherently turned off to the idea of fiscal irresponsibility, and Democrats see nothing but hypocrisy. The trick then is to contextualize the deficit inside of 9-11 and the war in Iraq, which Republicans sometimes do, but not early enough in the answer.

5) Link the war on terror to the economy. As the emotional reaction to 9-11 subsides, it is important to remind Americans of the more tangible impact the events of that day continue to exert on their wallets and pocketbooks. It's clear that they understand this even if it is something they themselves would rather not articulate.

Posted by Mark Nickolas on Monday, October 10, 2005 at 10:03 PM in Bush Administration, Economy, Partisan Politics | Permalink

Oh. My. God. The cynical, sleazy, depravity of the GOP knows no depth too low. America, the Reublicans think you are stupid beyond measure.

Posted by vicki at 10:24 AM

It's about TIME he came out and slapped the Democrat leadership awake !!!!

Carville: Dems need stronger narrative to win

By Elizabeth Gibson
October 07, 2005

The problem with Democrat campaign speeches is “litany,” and they need more narrative like Winnie the Pooh stories, political consultant and pundit James Carville said.

At a speech sponsored by the Northwestern College Democrats Thursday evening, Carville told the audience that Democratic candidates can’t succeed by shouting out to every group in a crowd. Instead candidates should tell stories with the three elements of any good story — setup, conflict and resolution.

“No Kumbayah crap,” Carville said.

College Democrats brought Carville to speak in Cahn auditorium with funds from the $60,000 allotted by the Student Activities Finance Board for the group’s fall speakers.

Jenna Carls, president of College Democrats, said the group decided to bring Carville after polling about 50 students in the spring.

The organization will use the remaining funds to bring another speaker later this quarter, Carls said.

All 1,000 available tickets for the free event were taken by 1:05 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Norris Box Office. Tickets went on sale Sept. 23, the same day as NU’s Activities Fair. During the past few days, College Democrats worked to spread the word by placing more flyers and sending more messages to campus listservs, Carls said.

Carville helped lead Bill Clinton to victory in the 1992 presidential election. He has also worked on several foreign campaigns and co-hosted CNN’s “Crossfire” for more than two years before the network canceled the show in June.

At NU Carville focused on what Democrats need to do to reclaim the presidency. The vocal impressions of President George W. Bush and former presidential candidate John Kerry and Carville’s bouts of shouting in his southern accent had the audience alternatively giggling and freezing in silence.

In addition to breaking away from a laundry list of special interests, Carville said, Democrats need to learn that a candidate who can’t campaign can’t succeed.

“If you’re not competent in campaigns, you don’t have a chance to be competent in government,” he said.

Using Al Gore as an example, Carville said being a smart candidate is not enough.

“It’s actually possible to be wise, right and strong,” he said.

But Carville added that no one in Washington likes anyone who is right too often. Howard Dean’s accurate assessment about the failure of the war in Iraq helped kick him out of the running for president despite his passion, Carville said.

In the same way that intelligence and accuracy can’t stand alone, strength without accuracy is a catastrophe, he said. His example: the Republican administration.

“If we just had mediocracy I’d be the happiest person in the world,” Carville said. “You put political hacks in an important position and there are consequences.”

Weinberg freshman Amy Weiss said the College Democrats achieved their goal of exciting students with Carville’s speech.

“I’ve been a big James Carville fan for several years,” she said. “And I’ve been at school, so I feel so out of touch with current events. I feel I’d be interested in anything he’d talk about.”

But it’s not all about party spirit, Carville said.

Democrats need to bring their causes together and work for them actively, he said. For example, the political consultant suggested taking the specific issue of racial affirmative action and helping those of all races with income-based affirmative action.

If Democrats try to single out every issue, they’re back to litany, Carville said. He also said Democrats just can’t say “no” to causes from gay rights to abortion to the poor.

“Sometimes the problem with being a Democrat is being a Democrat,” he said

http://media.dailynorthwestern.com/pages/drudge/434637e79a469.html.

Posted by markhumphreyn at 02:35 PM | Comments (1)

This little beauty was sent to me by by DL pal John. Read it and grin!

Lawrence O'Donnell: Plamegate: The Next Step Yahoo news
Lawrence O'Donnell 47 minutes ago

If Karl Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, is still as easy to read as he has been since I broke the story that his client was Matt Cooper's source, then we now know that Rove has received a target letter from Patrick Fitzgerald. How do we know it? Luskin refuses to deny it.

Fitzgerald does not have to send Rove or anyone else a target letter before indicting him. The only reason to send target letters now is that Fitzgerald believes one or more of his targets will flip and become a prosecution witness at the pre-indictment stage. A veteran prosecutor told me, "If Fitzgerald is sending target letters at the end of his investigation, those are just invitations to come in and work out a deal."

Prosecutors prefer pre-indictment plea bargaining to post-indictment because they have more to offer you, like not being indicted at all or downgrading your status to unindicted co-conspirator. And pre-indictment plea bargaining can greatly enrich the indictments that the prosecutor then obtains. If, for example, Fitzgerald has a weak case against, say, Scooter Libby, imagine how much Rove's cooperation might strengthen that case.

If no one RSVPs to Fitzgerald's invitations, look for indictments as early as next week. If anyone does sit down with Fitzgerald, he will probably have to move to extend the grand jury, which now has only thirteen working days left in its term.

Prediction: at least three high level Bush Administration personnel indicted and possibly one or more very high level unindicted co-conspirators.
[end of Yahoo article]

Hoo Boy! CNN just reported that Rove has been ordered to make his 4th visit to the Grand Jury investigating the Plame leak.

picture added by Mark....

Posted by vicki at 03:43 PM | Comments (4)

More like this, please!

Christopher (Bryant) 2x, distressed by the poverty and violence in Louisville, primarily in public housing neighborhoods, has created The Ceremonial Healing Group. The new board members for this group are diverse--including a former judge, police officer, former teacher, an attorney and former director of programming for at the KY Center for the Arts, Ken Clay.

I know Ken Clay personally from the years I worked at the Arts Center, and he is a fine individual. He not only gives this new group added credibility, but he is a man of action and will certinly do more than just talk about the problems of crime, poverty and violence. You can read more about it in the Courier Journal here.

The intent of this group is to focus on specific issues such as job training, "to improve the economic conditions and social enpowerment of people in the West End, particularly young mothers" in the hope of changing the behaivor associated with despair which can lead to criminality and/or poverty. Mr. 2x is widely praised by city officials for his diplomacy and engaging manner. Let's wish him and his new group all the best.

Posted by vicki at 03:38 PM | Comments (1)

Editorial
Faux News Is Bad News

Published: October 4, 2005

Federal auditors have blistered the Bush administration for secretly concocting favorable news reports about itself by hiring actors to pose as journalists and slipping $240,000 in taxpayer funds to a sell-out conservative polemicist. The government till was also tapped to have political spin doctors track whether the message of President Bush and the Republican Party was being well treated in legitimate news reporting.

In its purchase of self-aggrandizing agitprop, the administration plainly violated the law against spreading "covert propaganda" at public expense, according to the report of the Government Accountability Office. More than that, Bush officials forged a cheesy new low in Washington politicians' endless bazaar of peddling public relations initiatives at taxpayers' expense.

The White House order to close down the ersatz news coverage should have been unequivocal once the real news media uncovered the hired fakers. But administration apologists continued to insist only "legitimate dissemination" of public information was at work in the under-the-table employment of Armstrong Williams, a political talk-show host, to wax breathless over the No Child Left Behind Act.

The scheme was so seamy that auditors were unable to document whether Mr. Williams actually delivered all the articles and talk-show hype that his company claimed in quietly billing the government for $186,000 worth of yessiree-Bob "news." On Friday, a spokeswoman for the current education secretary, Margaret Spellings, reacted to the report by calling these efforts "stupid, wrong and ill advised." We hope she noticed that they were also illegal.

Posted by vicki at 02:31 PM

Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer

Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement

By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 2, 2005; Page A05

As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.

With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.

His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.

Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.

In October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that he personally asked Libby and Rove whether they were involved, "so I could come back to you and say they were not involved." Asked if that was a categorical denial of their involvement, he said, "That is correct."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/01/AR2005100101317.html\

ALSO !!!!!

Source to Stephanopoulos: President Bush Directly Involved In Leak Scandal

Near the end of a round table discussion on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos dropped this bomb:

Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.

This would explain why Bush spent more than an hour answering questions from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. It would also fundamentally change the dynamics of the scandal. President Bush could no longer claim he was merely a bystander who wants to “get to the bottom of it.” As Stephanopoulos notes, if Bush played a direct role it could make this scandal completely unmanageable.

HERE'S THE VIDEO !!!!!

Download file">

I don't know if anything is hitting the fan yet...

But I do smell a nasty odor from the White House !!!

Posted by markhumphreyn at 10:27 AM | Comments (2)