Appeals court upholds CIA leak lawsuit dismissal
Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:47am EDT
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former CIA analyst Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and several former Bush administration officials for disclosing her identity to the public.

The Court of Appeals in Washington dealt another setback to the former spy, who has said her career was destroyed when officials blew her cover in 2003 to retaliate against her husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.

Plame's outing led a lengthy criminal investigation, which resulted in the conviction of Cheney's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Report Iraq contractor cost may top 100B
Published: Aug. 12, 2008 at 10:07 AM
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- A government report indicates that from the invasion of Iraq until the end of 2008 the United States will have spent some $100 billion on private contractors.

h/t to CLG for the following compilation of the Russia/Georgian war -

Cheney issues warning to Russia 11 Aug 2008 U.S. Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney said Russia faces serious consequences with the United States and its allies if it continues attacks against Georgia. A Cheney spokeswoman said the vice president told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that Russia's actions "must not go unanswered," CNN reported Monday.

'Oil, Israel and Iran' Among Factors that Led to Georgia War 10 Aug 2008 Analysis of the war in Georgia points to a fight over a major oil route as the main reason for hostilities, but also to an Israeli connection. Channel 2's expert on the Muslim world, Ehud Ya'ari, told viewers of the central evening newscast that Russia and neighboring countries were vying for control of a strategic oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Israel is expecting to receive oil and gas through the pipeline. By using the ethnic Russian population in South Ossetia to destabilize Georgia, Russia was making a play for the pipeline, he said. The Georgian move against South Ossetia was motivated by political considerations having to do with Israel and Iran, according to Nfc. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili decided to assert control over the breakaway region in order to force Israel to reconsider its decision to cut back its support for Georgia's military.

Israel Has $1 Billion Invested in Georgia 10 Aug 2008 The Israeli-Georgia connection is estimated to be worth $1 billion, according to a former Georgian ambassador to Israel. The Jewish state and private investors have provided military assistance and advisors to Georgia, where pipelines pump oil destined for Israel. A new pipeline is being built to bypass Russian territory. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Israeli companies in Georgia have begun evacuating their staff and that Israeli tourists are leaving for home.

Russian troops close in on Georgian capital as full-scale war looms 11 Aug 2008 Russia's punitive campaign in the Caucasus threatened to spiral into an all-out war against the independent state of Georgia tonight, with Russian troops seizing control of several strategic towns a couple of hours from the capital, Tbilisi, and aircraft pounding Georgian infrastructure. Vastly outnumbered by the Kremlin's ground forces and airpower, the Georgian government announced it was pulling back its troops to defend the capital Tbilisi against a feared Russian onslaught....

More below the fold....

Three key questions still unanswered in anthrax case
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Thursday, August 7, 2008

WASHINGTON — Despite the Justice Department's pronouncement that former Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins unleashed the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people, three central questions about the case remain unanswered:

_ Can the FBI prove that a flask of anthrax in Ivins' bioweapons laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Md., contained the same mutated strain of finely milled powder that was in the envelopes that were mailed to two U.S. senators?

_ Did Ivins, who committed suicide last week, have the technical capability to produce that form of anthrax?

_ Why, after he came under suspicion in 2005 or earlier, was Ivins allowed to retain a high-level security clearance that enabled him to continue working in the bioweapons laboratory at Ft. Detrick, apparently until this summer?...

George Tenet And White House Admit Iraq's Intelligence Chief Told Them Iraq Had No WMD
August 05, 2008
Ron Suskind was on NPR this morning to discuss his new book The Way of the World, which alleges Iraq's intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush told the US before the war that Iraq had no WMD.

NPR asked George Tenet and the White House for comment, and, remarkably enough, they both essentially admitted this was true.

SUSKIND: What we now know from this investigation is that a secret mission was conducted in which a British manager, intelligence agent, met with the head of Iraqi intelligence in a secret location in Amman, Jordan. And what the Iraqi intelligence chief told the British—and essentially the Americans, because we're all in this together—is that there were no WMD in Iraq. And what that meant is that we knew everything that became so obvious by the summer after the invasion. And the president made a decision essentially to ignore that intelligence...

NPR: We have called key players in Ron Suskind's account...George Tenet says the Iraqi failed to persuade, and a White House spokesman adds that any information the Iraqi may have provided was, quote, "immaterial."

Excellent news wrap on Rove being held in contempt by the American News Project . Only problem is their fucktarded embed code auto plays and can't be disabled. So, click link above or here to view...

HAS AMERICA BECOME FASCIST?
Thu, 2008-07-31 11:17.
By Sherwood Ross

If it hasn’t gone the way of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens(New Orleans), tortures its enemies(Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire(Iran), flouts international treaties(UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on(FISA), and intimidates, its critics(No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well.

Webster’s defines fascism as “a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism.” A comparison of 20th century fascist and communist regimes with President Bush’s USA indicates the machinery for a full-blown totalitarian takeover is now in place, even if no coup has occurred. As Naomi Wolf writes in “The End of America”(Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill’s Section 333 allows the president “to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops without the permission of a governor when ‘public order’ has been lost…” and to “send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or ‘other condition.’”

The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006...

Apparent suicide in anthrax case - Bruce E. Ivins, a scientist who helped the FBI investigate the 2001 mail attacks, was about to face charges.
By David Willman August 1, 2008

A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.

Ivins, whose name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case, played a central role in research to improve anthrax vaccines by preparing anthrax formulations used in experiments on animals.

Used to be actions like this were considered obstruction of justice, you know, back when we had "the rule of law"...

EPA tells its staff: Don't answer watchdogs' queries
Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: July 28, 2008 06:38:29 PM

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency has told its staff not to answer questions from the agency's internal watchdog, news reporters or the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, according an internal memo that an environmental group released Monday.

The June 16 memo to the staff of the EPA's enforcement division told them that if they're contacted by the EPA inspector general's office, an independent internal watchdog that monitors the agency, or by the Government Accountability Office, the investigators who work for Congress, they're to forward the call or e-mail to a designated person.

"Please do not respond to questions or make any statements," it adds. The memo sets down the same procedure, with different contact people, for queries from reporters.

EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith wouldn't say whether any specific incident triggered the memo, but said it was consistent with existing policies and intended to coordinate responses.

John Walke, a former EPA air pollution attorney, said the inspector general's office ordinarily has unfettered access to agency employees so they can speak candidly and anonymously...

What a crock of shite! This whole bunch of torture-mongering bastages belong in jail awaiting trial for Capital Crimes...

Justice Advised CIA in '02 About Legal Waterboarding
By Joby Warrick Friday, July 25, 2008; Page A08

Lawyers for the Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its officers could legally use waterboarding and other harsh measures while interrogating al-Qaeda suspects, as long as they acted "in good faith" and did not deliberately seek to inflict severe pain, according to a Justice Department memo made public yesterday.

The memo, apparently intended to assuage CIA concerns that its officers could someday face torture charges, said interrogators needed only to possess an "honest belief" that their actions did not cause severe suffering. And the honest belief did not have to be based on reality.

"Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it," stated the Aug. 1, 2002, memo signed by Jay S. Bybee, then an assistant attorney general with the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo was one of three released by the Justice Department under a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The heavily redacted memos offer insight into the administration's legal maneuvering as it sought to justify the CIA's program of aggressively interrogating high-level al-Qaeda operatives held in secret prisons overseas. The program included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, as well as sleep deprivation and other measures intended to weaken resistance and coerce confessions...

US House committee investigates Bush 'expansion' of constitutional powers
Devin Montgomery July 26, 2008 at 2:10 PM ET
[JURIST] Witnesses before the US House Judiciary Committee on Friday presented sharply divided opinions [C-span video, flash; hearing materials] on whether the White House [official website] has overstepped its constitutional authority during George Bush's presidency, and whether or not such alleged abuses would justify his impeachment. Committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) opened the hearings outlining the allegedly excessive actions by the administration:

It is no secret that I have grave and serious concerns about excesses in executive branch authority. At my direction this Committee has spent a considerable portion of its time, energy and resources investigating allegations concerning the politicization of the Department of Justice; misuse of signing statements; misuse of authority with regard to detention, interrogation and rendition; possible manipulation of intelligence regarding the Iraq War; improper retaliation against critics of the Administration, including the outing of Valerie Plame; and excessive secrecy by the Administration including the misuse of various privileges and immunities. I believe the evidence on these matters is both credible and substantial and warrant the response of the executive branch, under oath if at all possible.

White House Blocks Release of FBI Files - Privilege Is Cited in CIA Leak Case
By Dan Eggen Thursday, July 17, 2008; A04

The White House yesterday blocked a House committee's attempt to obtain internal FBI reports about the leak of a CIA officer's identity, asserting that notes from interviews of Vice President Cheney and other administration officials are protected by executive privilege.

The move further escalates the conflict between President Bush and the House Government Reform Committee, which had issued a subpoena to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in an attempt to get the records.

Cheney and other officials were interviewed as part of a probe by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald into the leak of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. The investigation eventually resulted in the conviction of Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the panel's chairman, said yesterday that Bush's claim of executive privilege in the case is "ludicrous" and vowed to move ahead with a contempt citation against Mukasey.

Update 07-19-08: Gramm has subsequently been ousted from the McSame campaign after a week of attempted spin and damage control....

When I first heard of Phil Gramm's elitist utterances of "mental recession" and "we've sort of become a nation of whiners" I bellowed "Let them eat cake!"

So it was with no small satisfaction when Dem strategist Chris Kofinis delivered the political line of the week Friday eve on Countdown when he referred to "Foreclosure Phil" Gramm as coming from the "Marie Antoinette School of Economics".

I find Kofinis' analysis spot-on. This one should be repeated ad-nauseum and put in campaign ads 'til election day! And why is it an A-hole elitist like Gramm can so in-eloquently put foot in mouth and not be lambasted for the elitist swine that he is? (rhetorical question) Obviously it's only candy-assed, latte'-swillin', limo-drivin' Dems who're lambasted by the corporate media-whores for being "ELITIST"...