Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Libby Trial Opens With Simple Tales and Complex Plots


It's simple, said special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald during his opening argument at the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby: Vice President Dick Cheney's onetime chief of staff lied to the FBI and a grand jury to cover up his and Cheney's involvement in the leak that outed Valerie (Plame) Wilson as a CIA official.

This is a twisted, complicated and dark tale, said Ted Wells, a lead lawyer for Libby: one of conspiracies, bureaucratic infighting, turf wars, backroom deals, terrorist plots (involving nuclear weapons and anthrax) against the United States, and assorted memory lapses, convenient and accidental. Libby merely engaged in no-harm-intended forgetfulness, Wells insisted, and, moreover, he was "set up" by Karl Rove as a "sacrificial lamb" in a White House melodrama starring Cheney, who supposedly was defending Libby from a White House effort designed to protect Rove at all costs.

Both lawyers told the jury that the case--in which Libby faces five charges of obstructing justice, perjury and making false statements to government investigators--is not about the war in Iraq or the administration's use of false information to sell the public on the war.

And as the two legal teams began their courtroom battle, new information was disclosed about the leak affair, including the revelation that Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary at the time of the leak, had identified Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer to NBC News reporter David Gregory a week before the leak appeared in Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 column, and that Fleischer, during the subsequent criminal investigation, took the Fifth Amendment and demanded (and received) immunity before testifying to Fitzgerald's' grand jury. Fleischer told the grand jury that he had learned about Valerie Wilson's CIA affiliation first from Libby and then from Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. (This directly implicated yet two more White House officials in the scandal.) Gregory, though, did not report the information, and he later declined to talk to Fitzgerald about his conversation with Fleischer. Fitzgerald never subpoenaed him. (In a response to an email from a colleague asking about today's disclosure, Gregory emailed, "I can't help you, sorry.") The first day of the trial also brought the news that after the Justice Department opened an investigation of the CIA leak in fall 2003, Cheney pressured the White House press office to make a statement clearing Libby of any wrongdoing.

Libby, Fitzgerald argued, committed a straightforward crime: lying to the FBI and the grand jury, as each was investigating the leak. The case, Fitzgerald acknowledged, has been playing against a large backdrop: the war in Iraq and the controversy regarding the Bush administration's selling of the war. He also conceded that it grew out of the leak scandal and the question of who in the Bush administration had outed Valerie Wilson to reporters after Joseph Wilson publicly accused the White House of having twisted and misrepresented the prewar intelligence. But Fitzgerald attempted to focus the jury on a limited matter: several statements Libby made to the FBI and the grand jury about his role in the leak affair.


In those statements--made during two FBI interviews and two grand jury appearances--Libby said that though he had once possessed official information about Valerie Wilson's CIA employment, he had forgotten all about that, that he then heard about her CIA connection from reporters (mainly, Tim Russert of Meet the Press), and that he subsequently discussed this gossip (not official information) with other reporters. His explanation was essentially this: I forgot to remember what I had once known but had forgotten.

Fitzgerald vowed that he would demonstrate this was a pack of lies. He previewed evidence and testimony cited in the indictment and pretrial submissions that (according to Fitzgerald) shows that Libby in June and early July 2003 was an active gatherer of official (and classified) information on Joseph Wilson and his wife. Fitzgerald pointed to several witnesses who will testify that Libby requested information on the Wilsons from them when they were government officials: Marc Grossman, the No. 3 at the State Department, Robert Grenier, a CIA official, Craig Schmall, a CIA briefer, and Cathie Martin, a spokesperson for Cheney. (Fitzgerald said that Libby called Grenier out of meeting to receive information on the Wilsons from him.) He also noted that Libby, according to Libby's own notes, had learned from Cheney that Valerie Wilson worked at the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA. (This is a unit within the agency's clandestine operations directorate.)

And then Fitzgerald said that he would produce several witnesses to prove that Libby, after obtaining official information on the Wilsons, conveyed some of it to two reporters (Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time) and to the White House press secretary at the time, Ari Fleischer (with the warning the material was "hush-hush").

Libby's story to the FBI and the grand jury was that on July 10, 2003--four days after Joe Wilson had published an op-ed article noting he had inside information proving the administration had misrepresented the case for war--he had called Russert, that Russert had told him that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, and that he (Libby) had believed that he was learning about her for the first time. (Libby testified that he was "taken aback" when he heard from Russert that Wilson's wife was a CIA official.) Yet, according to Fitzgerald, Libby had already discussed Valerie Wilson and her CIA affiliation with Fleischer on July 7 and with Miller on July 8. "You cannot learn something startling on Thursday that you were giving out on Monday and Tuesday," Fitzgerald declared. He charged that Libby had concocted the Russert tale to "wipe out" the fact that Libby had earlier been told about Valerie Wilson by Cheney. "This is not a case about bad memory," he maintained. Libby, he said, had been caught in a cover-up.

A diagram of Fitzgerald's case would be a straight line: Libby sought official information, he shared this classified material with reporters, he then made up a story to hide all this from investigators. To get a graphic representation of Well's argument, take a large pot of spaghetti--with plenty of sauce--and hurl it against the wall. Then look at the wall.

In his opening statement, Wells said the case was about forgetting--and about White House payback, Karl Rove's manipulations, dueling between the CIA and 1600 Pennsylvania, conspiring between NBC News and the prosecutors, and much more. Libby, he declared, "is totally innocent." He argued that Libby had done nothing wrong, that he had not "pushed" any reporters to write about Valerie Wilson, that that he had no reason to lie, that he was not concerned about losing his job, but that he was "concerned about being set up...about being the scapegoat for this entire Valerie Wilson controversy." Wells claimed that after the criminal investigation had begun, Libby met with Cheney and complained that "people in the White House" were "trying to sacrifice me...and trying to protect Karl Rove." (At that point, White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who had replaced Flesicher, had publicly declared that Rove was not involved in the leak--even though Rove, as would later become public, had been the primary source for the Novak column.)
Responding to Libby's gripe, Cheney wrote a note that said, "Not going to protect one staff [and] sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

The "meat grinder," according to Wells, was the White House's fierce effort to rebut criticisms from Joe Wilson. Libby, he claimed, had indeed talked to reporters about Joe Wilson, but only to challenge Wilson's charges on the merits, not to discuss Wilson's wife. And this had taken place during the intense firestorm that Wilson had set off with his op-ed article. Because the CIA had screwed up the prewar intelligence, Wells suggested, Libby, acting on orders from Cheney and Bush, was trying to combat the popular perception--fueled by Wilson--that the White House had cooked the books on the way to war. After the criminal investigation began, Wells continued, the White House was willing to toss Libby to the wolves because Rove, the mastermind of the GOP, was too valuable to lose.

It was a bit fuzzy. How did Rove set up Libby to make false statements--honestly or not--to the FBI and the grand jury? Wells did not explain that. But his defense had much more to it. While trying to depict Libby as a pawn in a big-picture nightmare, he also characterized the case as even more narrow than did Fitzgerald. He argued that Fitzgerald's prosecution rested on "snippets"of three conversations Libby had with reporters that lasted no longer than 20 or 30 seconds. (Those reporters would be Russert, Cooper and Miller.) These journalists, he said, each did not have the clearest recollections of the calls, and none had good notes of the exchanges. He even noted that Russert--who has testified he did not know anything about Wilson's wife when he spoke with Libby--might be wrong and that it is possible that Russert had heard about Wilson's wife from David Gregory, his colleague at NBC News. But, Wells added, Russert was never asked about this possibility because he cut a deal with Fitzgerald to talk only about his phone call with Libby. What was going on here? Wells wondered, hinting at improper government-media collusion.

Wells also had another explanation of the Russert-Libby meeting. Maybe Libby, when he testified about it, confused Russert with Novak. Wells said that Novak will testify that he did speak to Libby at the time of the Russert conversation and might have told Libby that he was about to publish a column about Wilson's wife. So perhaps Libby had indeed learned about Wilson's wife from a reporter (Novak) and simply had a good-faith memory slip, mistakenly attributing that call to Russert. After all, Wells asked the jurors, who can recall what phone conversations he or she had three months earlier? Libby, he added, "was known in the office for having a bad memory," and Libby was quite busy with national security issues "trying to connect the dots so we don't have another 9/11." (Wells introduced a schedule of the week of July 7, 2003, showing that Libby received briefings every morning that included information about possible terrorism attacks on the United States.)

"The case is far more complex than what you heard," Wells told the jurors, referring to Fitzgerald's opening presentation. He certainly made it seem more complex. He promised to raise critical questions about the credibility of key witnesses. He said he would show Libby had no motive to lie. His strategy is to litigate the controversy, create multiple and intricate narratives, cast doubt on the testimony of reporters and government officials. He's being a good defense attorney. He does not have to prove anything; he only has to sow confusion--so that at least one juror says, I can't sort all this out. Fitzgerald has some strong facts on his side. (How could Libby have testified he was "taken aback" when Russert supposedly told him about Valerie Wilson's CIA connection, if Cheney had already informed him about her CIA position?) But Libby's legal team has a lot of spaghetti to throw at the jury. This will not be an easy trial for either side.
******

DON'T FORGET ABOUT HUBRIS: THE INSIDE STORY OF SPIN, SCANDAL, AND THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR, the best-selling book by David Corn and Michael Isikoff. Click here for information on the book. The New York Times calls Hubris "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations" and "fascinating reading." The Washington Post says, "There have been many books about the Iraq war....This one, however, pulls together with unusually shocking clarity the multiple failures of process and statecraft." Tom Brokaw notes Hubris "is a bold and provocative book that will quickly become an explosive part of the national debate on how we got involved in Iraq." Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor of The New Yorker notes, "The selling of Bush's Iraq debacle is one of the most important--and appalling--stories of the last half-century, and Michael Isikoff and David Corn have reported the hell out of it." For highlights from Hubris, click here.

42 comments:

Saladin said...

Of course this trial isn't about the war, we wouldn't want to address that issue! Far more important to figure out who lied and when! More distraction.
I didn't watch the SOTU because I can't stand to listen to him spout off endless lies, I already know if his lips are moving it's BS, why waste electricity on that?

Saladin said...

January 24, 2007
The Empire Turns Its
Guns on the Citizenry
by Paul Craig Roberts
Antiwar

In recent years American police forces have called out SWAT teams 40,000 or more times annually. Last year did you read in your newspaper or hear on TV news of 110 hostage or terrorist events each day? No. What then were the SWAT teams doing? They were serving routine warrants to people who posed no danger to the police or to the public.

Occasionally Washington think tanks produce reports that are not special pleading for donors. One such report is Radley Balko's "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America" (Cato Institute, 2006).

This 100-page report is extremely important and should have been published as a book. SWAT teams ("special weapons and tactics") were once rare and used only for very dangerous situations, often involving hostages held by armed criminals. Today SWAT teams are deployed for routine police duties. In the U.S. today, 75-80 percent of SWAT deployments are for warrant service.

In a high percentage of the cases, the SWAT teams forcefully enter the wrong address, resulting in death, injury, and trauma to perfectly innocent people. Occasionally, highly keyed-up police kill one another in the confusion caused by their stun grenades.

Mr. Balko reports that the use of paramilitary police units began in Los Angeles in the 1960s. The militarization of local police forces got a big boost from Attorney General Ed Meese's "war on drugs" during the Reagan administration. A National Security Decision Directive was issued that declared drugs to be a threat to U.S. national security. In 1988 Congress ordered the National Guard into the domestic drug war. In 1994 the Department of Defense issued a memorandum authorizing the transfer of military equipment and technology to state and local police, and Congress created a program "to facilitate handing military gear over to civilian police agencies."

Today 17,000 local police forces are equipped with such military equipment as Blackhawk helicopters, machine guns, grenade launchers, battering rams, explosives, chemical sprays, body armor, night vision, rappelling gear, and armored vehicles. Some have tanks. In 1999, the New York Times reported that a retired police chief in New Haven, Conn., told the newspaper, "I was offered tanks, bazookas, anything I wanted." Balko reports that in 1997, for example, police departments received 1.2 million pieces of military equipment.
=============
I suspect the govt. is beginning to realize that we the people are armed and getting more pissed by the day!

capt said...

THE STATE OF OUR DIS-UNION


[…]

Many, if not most, of the 47 million uninsured in this country don't opt out of health care because they choose to; they are uninsured because they can't afford to buy health coverage on their own. Most of them won't be affected at all by the $15,000 standard deduction, since they pay no taxes to begin with. This also conveniently dismisses those who have pre-existing conditions that make health care either impossible or impossibly expensive to get.

Bush is implying that Americans are irresponsible in their use of the health-care system and that "gold plated" plans - those costing more than $15,000 a year - drive up insurance premiums and shut out the poor.

The reality is that for most, being uninsured is a terrifying condition, not a "lifestyle choice."

As it stands, the president's proposal is the imperial equivalent of saying "Let them eat aspirin."

More HERE

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Bush is an idiot - he can't see reality through his Rove colored glasses.



capt

capt said...

Murdoch enters bid battle for Tribune


[…]

Tribune's board said this week it was "carefully considering all alternatives", including "potential transactions with third parties as well as actions the company may take alone".

While the board has stated that it would prefer an offer for the entire company, some potential bidders have focused on its various parts.

Carlyle Group, the private equity firm, has expressed interest in Tribune's television stations, while David Geffen, the Hollywood media mogul, made a separate $2bn all cash bid for the Los Angeles Times, which Tribune rejected.


More HERE

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SSDD, eh?



capt

capt said...

Bid talks for subs yard surface between BAE and Rolls-Royce



BAE Systems is in talks with Rolls-Royce over a £200 million bid for Devonport as part of moves to consolidate Britain’s submarine industry, The Times has learnt.

BAE has also lined up Carlyle Group, the private equity investor, as an alternative should it be unable to agree terms with industry partners.

The companies that build and maintain Britain’s nuclear submarines are under pressure from the Ministry of Defence to consolidate. The MoD believes that this will guarantee Britain’s submarine capability through the first half of this century.

The need to consolidate has taken on fresh urgency with the Government’s decision to replace the Trident nuclear submarine fleet. The MoD wants to use the new Trident contract, expected to be worth up to £25 billion for three or four submarines, as a carrot to lure industry into collaboration.

BAE builds the Navy’s submarines at its Barrow-in-Furness facility. Rolls provides the engines. Devonport, owned by a consortium including KBR, Balfour Beatty and Weir Group, maintains and fuels the fleet. The Plymouth yard is for sale and is expected to fetch about £200 million.

Babcock International, the support services group, is understood to be considering a bid for Devonport, but analysts said that BAE, Britain’s largest defence contractor, effectively will dictate terms in this deal.

The issue for BAE is deciding how to achieve the consolidation that the MoD requires. Several options are under consideration. The one the MoD is believed to favour is Rolls and BAE acquiring Devonport. The two would run the joint venture with BAE as lead partner.

However, Rolls may balk at spending money on Devonport, a non-core asset. In that case BAE could go it alone in bidding for Devonport. It has started talks with Carlyle to use private equity money. In that case Carlyle would buy Devonport and merge it with BAE’s Barrow assets to form a joint venture. BAE is thought to be examining all these options, but talks are at an early stage.

BAE said: "Consolidation in the submarine sector is fully in line with the Government’s aspirations." Rolls-Royce was unavailable for comment.

More HERE

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Good to know the Carlyle Group are doing their part.



capt

Gerald said...

I have read that Rove has immunity. Libby trial is over. Rove can lie on the stand and nothing can be done to prosecute him for perjury. Let's hear no more about the Libby trial.

We must find an exit strategy for Bush to leave office before January, 2009.

Gerald said...

I have read that Rove has immunity. Libby trial is over. Rove can lie on the stand and nothing can be done to prosecute him for perjury. Let's hear no more about the Libby trial.

We must find an exit strategy for Bush to leave office before January, 2009.

Gerald said...

There is something wrong with the system

Gerald said...

Can the citizenry prevail? Possibly not. The structure, always against progressives (and rigged against us by the southerners in the earliest days of the Republic) is increasingly against us as ruling class Republicans and Democrats divvy up the Congressional Districts by jerrymandering, and the Democrats come more and more under the sway of the same corporate donors as the Republicans. But the right is as likely as not to over-reach and destroy themselves (along with us, of course--is this actual grounds for hope?).

But most Americans do, after all, seem to have some kind of conscience and to want to actually do as little harm as possible. Conservatives and their "ideas" do get steadily left behind in spite of the advantages they hold. Until the election, Cheney and Bush, at least publicly, tried to walk the tightrope between appearing strong and appearing ruthless. They fell off, and were reprimanded in the only way the system allows. With "the Surge", it does seem that their ruthlessness is being revealed for all to see. The real problem is the Democrats, not because they are cowardly or weak, as most pundits suggest, but because we don't know if the source of their weakness is fear or corruption. If it is fear, they might wake up, enforce the Constitutional checks and balances, and lead the country out of the dangerous mess we are in, but if it is corruption, if they are only just Big Corporation suck-ups, then there is no hope at all.

Gerald said...

Yes and Yes

Gerald said...

So where is the moral outrage over getting involved in places we just don't belong? Maybe if we had minded our own business, the Arabs and the other Muslims wouldn't hate us as badly as they do. In fact, it's a miracle that we aren't shunned by more nations than we are. If not for our wealth and economic opportunities for other nations to deal with us, we might well be the pariah of the world. I see this nation, instead of celebrating the collapse of the militant USSR and trying to get the world moving in a better direction, I see us emulating The Soviet Union. The Cold War is over. The leaders of our country just can't "get it". We seem to always be looking for an enemy, an "Evil Empire" that we can challenge. Why don't we, instead of causing death and destruction like Cambodia and Laos, follow a path where we can do some good for people. If we want to stop hunger and famine, there are countries in Africa that could use our help. China right now has a visible and growing presence in Africa. They are trying to bring stability and progress to the continent. In the process they are making friends and customers for their goods. This is while we are throwing billions down a sewer in a land that has hardly ever known anything but war and savagery. Whether a foreign power is in Iraq or not, it has throughout history, been a place where war and famine have always been a way of life. The few times that they have managed to have a long periods of peace, they have been a rich and wonderful civilization, until civil war or invasions from foreign powers came and put Iraq down again. We aren't doing the people of Iraq any favors by being there. It's time to bring our Armies home.

It's also time for Americans to reinvent this Nation of ours. The last 25 years have not been, shall we say a learning stage? It seems that in the last twenty-five or thirty years we have lost our direction as a people. We need to focus on our own sense of morality. We need to stop being a country that has a mind set of "What's in it for me?" into a nation that thinks, "How can we solve these problems?" When I hear George W. Bush say with a completely straight face, that people who are fighting against us in Iraq "Hate us for our freedom", I can't believe my own ears. That is absolutely preposterous. Who would hate somebody for their freedom? Let me say this to poor old dumb George, if you really think they "hate us for our freedom", they probably hate us a lot less since you became our President. We've lost so much of our freedom that they'll probably start falling in love with us pretty soon. George, the way this world works is Karmic. What goes around, comes around. What we do to make this world a better place will come back to us tenfold. We need to be the America that we can become. What people said America once was, if in fact it ever really was, we can become again. We can become that light in an otherwise dark and dismal world. We need to do this, not only because it's morally right, but because it's the only way out of this mess we find ourselves in. We need to do the best we can to just do the right thing. Just because it's the right thing to do.

Gerald said...

Hitler Bush pleads for a second chance. I say never give a hypocrite a second chance. Bush is an asshole personsified. Will he give our dead and maimed soldiers a second chance? Will he give the dead and maimed Iraqis a scond chance? Will he give the dead and maimed Iranians a second chance through his dropping of nuclear bombs on Iran?

Hitler Bush does not deserve a second chance. He is a nutcase: impeach the hypocrite.

Gerald said...

Praying Rach Day: January 24

Let us not forget Fr. John Dear who goes on trial January 28 for speaking out against our oppressive Nazi nation. Fr. John Dear may again be a prisoner of conscience in one of Nazi America's concentration camps.

Gerald said...

I am having a difficult time linking up with Watching America to share their articles.

Bush claims that Iraq may be at the abyss. He failed to go on and say that Nazi America is already in the abyss of hell.

Gerald said...

The glory of Bush is man fully and totally dead.

capt said...

Gerald,

I added Watching America to the "Link List" for easy access.

Quick Tip: Use the "right click" then "open in new window" from the links. It keeps the original page open.



capt

Gerald said...

Everytime Bush speaks, I am more convinced that he is a total idiot

Gerald said...

Thank you capt

I enjoy reading opinions from foreign newspapers on the other side of the pond.

Gerald said...

Posters, if you read some of my posts, you know my perceptual opinion of Bush. BUSH IS A TOTAL IDIOT WITHOUT ANY DOUBT!!!!!

David B. Benson said...

Micki --- Satire is best when it is unintentional. Err, what did you find satirical?

Capt --- Please quit messing with blogger.com. I know its all your fault... ;-)

capt said...

I won't run, says Kerry



Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' losing presidential candidate in 2004, intends to stay out of the race for the White House in 2008, a Democratic official said.

This official said Kerry intends to seek a new six-year term in the Senate.

Kerry plans to disclose his political plans in remarks on the Senate floor later in the day, according to this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting a formal announcement.

Kerry, 64, who lost the White House when the state of Ohio fell to President George W. Bush on election night two years ago, was attending a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting and unavailable for comment.

His decision leaves a field of nine Democrats running or signaling their intention to do so, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, Kerry's vice presidential running mate in 2004.

The Republican field is similarly crowded with Bush constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.

Kerry's 2004 campaign drew widespread criticism from fellow Democrats after his defeat. His critics said he had failed to make a forceful enough response to Republican criticism as well as charges by conservative groups that he did not deserve the medals he won for combat in the Vietnam War.

The Massachusetts senator stirred unhappy memories for Democrats last autumn, when he botched a joke and led Republicans to accuse him of smearing US troops in Iraq.

He apologized, then hastily scrapped several days of campaigning for fellow Democrats as party leaders urged him to avoid becoming an unwanted issue in a campaign they were on the way to winning.

The Massachusetts lawmaker decided to clarify his political plans on a day in which he participated in a debate over the war in Iraq by invoking memories of Vietnam. At the committee hearing, he said a memorable question he first posed in 1971 had relevance today: "How do you ask a man to be the last person to die for a mistake?" In 1971, a young John Kerry was testifying about the Vietnam War.

Despite his difficulties on a national level, Kerry customarily rolls up large victory margins at home in Massachusetts. He won his first term in 1984.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I think it is a good thing in the long run. I am most interested in hearing some new names or even just some fresh ideas.



capt

capt said...

DB,

There I fixed it! (kidding)




capt

capt said...

Senate Panel Votes Against Bush on Iraq



WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush's plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as ``not in the national interest,'' an unusual wartime repudiation of the commander-in-chief.

The vote was 12-9 and largely along party lines.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Oh my, Bunnypants will have his bunnypant's in a wad.



capt

capt said...

Indecision 08: Clusterf@#k to the WhiteHouse



Fulfilling his "solemn duty" as a fake newsman, Jon Stewart jumps on the hysterical mainstream media bandwagon of analyzing Presidential polls — 21 months before the election.

Download (WMV)

Download (MOV)

"So there it is…twenty-one months before Election Night '08. Wow. 24 hours news networks, that's a lot of airtime to fill."


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

TDS is the only serious news these days.



capt

Gerald said...

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
State of the Union Speech: Bush Bull About Economy Rejected By Dems (transcript), Jim Webb

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans....When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them. In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today. And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons....

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt. Roosevelt spoke strongly against [this division]. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves "as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other." And he did something about it. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action....If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.


***

capt said...

Ari Fleischer's name comes up in 'CIA leak' trial



Lost in most of the coverage today about the opening arguments in the "CIA leak" trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby is this:

It came out in court Tuesday that former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer may have told reporters that Valerie Plame was a CIA officer before her cover was "blown" in a July 14, 2003, column by conservative commentator Robert Novak.

As Josh Gerstein of The New York Sun writes this morning, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told the jury that:

"Ari Fleischer had conversations (about Plame) with reporters ... (that) he shouldn't have had." And Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells, said that among the reporters Fleischer spoke to was NBC News' David Gregory.

The Nation's David Corn summarizes the news that came out in court about Fleischer this way: "Fleischer, during the subsequent criminal investigation, took the Fifth Amendment and demanded (and received) immunity before testifying to Fitzgerald's' grand jury. Fleischer told the grand jury that he had learned about (Plame's) CIA affiliation first from Libby and then from Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. ... Gregory, though, did not report the information, and he later declined to talk to Fitzgerald about his conversation with Fleischer. Fitzgerald never subpoenaed him."

Tom Maguire at Just One Minute -- who has been blogging about the CIA leak case a long time -- calls the news about Fleischer the "first Plame bombshell." Whether Fleischer played any part in this complicated saga has long been a mystery. But Maguire also notes that players in this complicated case have testified before about who they supposedly spoke to and that it's later turned out they may have had faulty memories.

What's this case all about? Libby, who was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, is accused of lying to a grand jury and investigators about what he did or didn't say to reporters in 2003 regarding Plame. She was a CIA officer -- and is the wife of retired U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson. In 2002, he was sent by the CIA to check out reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. When the Bush administration cited those reports in the build-up to the war with Iraq, Wilson accused it of deception. It was soon after he went public in The New York Times that Plame was "outed." Wilson and Plame say the Bush administration was trying to punish them. Nobody has been accused of a crime in the actual leaking.

All that make sense?

More HERE

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Frankly, no it does not make much sense to me.



capt

Gerald said...

War on the American Republic

David B. Benson said...

Very little from inside the beltway makes sense. Its our very own Wonderland Through the Looking Glass, Alice...

Gerald said...

In Bush’s State of the Union speech on Jan. 23, there could be heard a requiem for the Republic.

“The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And so long as that’s the case, America is still a nation at war,” Bush told Congress.

But that “evil” will always be “at work in the world,” so America will always be “a nation at war” and thus, under Bush’s theories of unlimited Commander-in-Chief powers, the American Republic will be banished permanently.

Bluntly put, Bush and his neoconservative legal advisers don't believe in the “unalienable rights” guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, including ones as fundamental as the habeas corpus right to a fair trial and protections against warrantless searches and seizures.

David B. Benson said...

Gerald --- "War is peace."

Gerald said...

Bush's Fatal Mistake

Saladin said...

Capt, that vote was non-binding, nothing to get his bunnypants in a wad anyway, just more bullshit for the masses, remember, they must LOOK like they're actually opposing SOMETHING!

Gerald said...

As Winston Churchill once put it, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing -- after they've tried everything else." President Bush had better fulfill the second half of the British wartime leader's bon mot quickly.

DBB, the War Is Peace quote must be from Bush's continuous war policies and practices. Our foreign policy in the Middle East is death and destruction so that the Muslims and Arabs will be too busy trying to survive than to build a great culture. We are going to bomb the Middle East back to the Stone Age.

Gerald said...

I Must Puke Again

Saladin said...

Land of Enchantment and Impeachment
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2007-01-12 07:39. Impeachment Process

By David Swanson

There is a decent chance that within the next month or two the New Mexico State Legislature will ask the U.S. House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney. And there is the definite possibility that a Congress Member from New Mexico will take up the matter when it gets to Washington. The Jefferson Manual, rules used by the U.S. House, allows for impeachment to be begun in this manner. It only takes one state legislature. No governor is needed. One Congress Member, from the same state or any other, is needed to essentially acknowledge receipt of the state's petition. Then impeachment begins.

Last year the state legislatures of California, Minnesota, Illinois, and Vermont introduced but did not pass resolutions to send impeachment to the U.S. House. The State Senator who introduced the bill in Minnesota is now a member of Congress, Keith Ellison. He is one of many Congress Members waiting for the right moment to impeach Bush and Cheney. The state of New Jersey has a strong activist movement working to introduce and pass impeachment this year. There's a race now to see which state can do it first, which state can redeem these United States in the eyes of the world. New Mexico is jumping into the contest in a big way, with a terrific leading sponsor of the bill, strong Democatic majorities in both houses, and a citizens' movement ready to hold its government to account.

Of course, it is cities, not states, that have really taken the lead on impeachment, as on ending the war. Dozens of cities have already passed resolutions for impeachment. Dozens more have introduced them, and they are pending.
==========
It's a start, we'll see what happens. Of course ms. pelosi will not tolerate any "vengence!" Movin' on now.

David B. Benson said...

Gerald --- Yes, I have a copy of the policy manual right here. Has a drawing of the Mad Hatter Himself on the dust jacket... ;-)

Gerald said...

Bush would never listen to anyone and now he wants to work with people.

Bush, you are a stupid ASS!!!!!!!!!! You are a JERK!!!!!!!!!! You will never learn because you are a dumb person!!!!!!!!!! Here is what your stupid brain fails to comprehend. IF AMERICANS ARE GIVEN CORRECT AND TRUTHFUL INFORMATION, THEY WILL MAKE THE RIGHT DECISIONS. You are an idiot who fails to trust in the American people!!!!!!!!!!! YOU MAKE ME PUKE!!!!!!!!!!

Gerald said...

Here is a comment from me, a below average Joe. WAR CREATES MORE PROBLEMS THAN IT RESOLVES PROBLEMS. IF WE SPENT OUR TIME TRYING TO FINISH GOD'S WORK, WE WOULD BE VERY BUSY IN DOING GOOD AND OUR LIVES WOULD BE MORE COMPLETE. AMERICANS, PLEASE SEEK SIMPLICITY IN YOUR LIVES! PLEASE DO NOT SPEND YOUR LIVES BY COMPLICATING IT WITH STUPID WARS!

David B. Benson said...

Gerald --- Yoou are very modest man. Your post is the first time I have ever seen anybody refer to themselves as below average!

So you must be way above average in modesty...

Saladin said...

Gerald is certainly above average, he sees the truth that so many miss.

capt said...

CIA Leak: Ari Fleischer Took the Fifth, Testified Under Immunity



have long suspected that Ari Fleischer was up to this eyeballs in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity to Bob Novak. Yesterday, during the lawyers’ opening statements in the perjury trial of Scooter Libby, Fleischer’s activities at the time were revealed — as was new information that Fleischer testified about his involvement under a grant of immunity from prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald:

[As] the two legal teams began their courtroom battle, new information was disclosed about the leak affair, including the revelation that Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary at the time of the leak, had identified Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer to NBC News reporter David Gregory a week before the leak appeared in Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003 column, and that Fleischer, during the subsequent criminal investigation, took the Fifth Amendment and demanded (and received) immunity before testifying to Fitzgerald’s’ grand jury.

Fleischer told the grand jury that he had learned about Valerie Wilson’s CIA affiliation first from Libby and then from Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. (This directly implicated yet two more White House officials in the scandal.) Gregory, though, did not report the information, and he later declined to talk to Fitzgerald about his conversation with Fleischer. Fitzgerald never subpoenaed him. (In a response to an email from a colleague asking about today’s disclosure, Gregory emailed, "I can’t help you, sorry.") The first day of the trial also brought the news that after the Justice Department opened an investigation of the CIA leak in fall 2003, Cheney pressured the White House press office to make a statement clearing Libby of any wrongdoing.


What prompted all this was former Amb. Joe Wilson’s column on July 7, 2003, in the New York Times, titled, "What I Didn’t Find in Africa," in which he accused Pres. Bush of lying about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program in his State of the Union speech in January 2003. It appears that Fleischer gave reporter David Gregory Plame’s identity within a day or two after Wilson’s article appeared.

Fleischer had announced his resignation in May 2003, and was a short-timer when Plame’s name was leaked to Novak. He was replaced by Scott McClellan on July 15, 2003, the day after Novak’s column was published.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

It's all in the timing.



capt

capt said...

Two new threads!