Republican Humor

Who's the SPY? or SPIES!

Are we about to see a neo-con bloodbath?

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...I have come into possession of information that points to an official who is the most likely target of the FBI investigation into who allegedly passed intelligence on deliberations on US foreign policy to Iran to officials with the pro-Israeli lobby group, AIPAC, and to the Israelis, as alleged by the CBS report. That individual is Larry Franklin, a veteran DIA Iran analyst seconded to Feith’s office. - warandpiece
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"But according to one senior government source, the investigation has been ongoing for over a year and has also focused on other officials in Feith's operation who may have passed other information on to Israel." Newsweek
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It's hitting the fan - SPY inside the Pentagon

CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy."

This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome."

The case raises another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?

With ties to top Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the analyst was assigned to a unit within the Defense Department tasked with helping develop the Pentagon's Iraq policy. - CBS

The Coward of Crawford goes to NY

What exactly is he afraid of? Every cop, National Guardsman, and state trooper in the state of NY has been summoned to midtown to protect him. Streets blocked off, barricades erected, trains shut down. Helicopters, snipers, searches. No one's getting into MSG without credentials. What is this about? Bush will NEVER live this down.

Aug. 20--When president Bush accepts the Republican nomination in two weeks, he will enter Madison Square Garden on a specially made blast- and bullet-proof stage, the Daily News has learned.

The platform is being constructed off-site from the Garden, sources said.

"It's a whole different" stage from the one that will be used during the other hours of the Republican National Convention, which runs from Aug. 30 through Sept. 2, the night Bush arrives, said one source. - NY Daily News 8-20 archived, mirrored here

Like this?


[image by YellowDog_Buck]

George Bush, the Coward of Crawford

Senator Max Cleland, Vietnam Veteran, is denied access at the gate of Bush's "ranch" as he attempts to deliver a letter signed by nine U.S. Senators demanding Bush call off the Swift Boat Liars and their smears against John Kerry. How cowardly must Bush be to turn THIS man away at the gate?

Kos on Plame

We've heard rumors that there are rumors going around about the Plame case. Kos has some:

I've received some unsubstantiated rumors that Fitzgerald's office is nearing the end of its investigation, and that it will issue three indictments including Scooter Libby. According to these rumors, John Hannah, a Libby deputy, has been "turned" by the investigators and is singing like a canary. Hannah has already been linked to the case. If indeed he has turned state's witness, it would present a major breakthrough in the case.

As for timing, while the investigators hoped to wrap up the investigation within the next four to six weeks, that timeline is now in doubt and may, in fact, be put off until after the election.

Those are the rumors. Take them with a grain of salt.- kos

There are more rumors, at the link.

Watch Kerry's New Ad - Starring John McCain

This one's a winner! Bush has that too familiar deer-in-the-headlights look while McCain rips into him in the 2000 debate. Too funny! Excellent ad. And right to the point.

link to >>>Watch the New Ad

Meet Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds began working as an FBI translator on September 20, 2001. She speaks Farsi, Turkish and Azerbaijani.

NORVILLE: All of which were languages that would have been probably useful in trying to discern some of the chatter that any al Qaeda-linked terrorists might have been...

EDMONDS: Correct.

NORVILLE: ... picked up by the United States. When did you start having doubts about the way the department of translations was being operated?

EDMONDS: Well, actually, it started immediately. Within a few weeks after I started working there, I came across some really serious issues, from security breaches to certain documents from pre-9/11 and also post-9/11 that were being either intentionally blocked or mistranslated, and also some really significant security breaches that had been already confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. And I started reporting these issues within the bureau from November, December, 2001, until March, 2002.

And I did not blow the whistle immediately. I took these issues all the way up to Director Mueller and his assistant, Dale Watson. And finally, when they refused to take any action, I took these issues to the Department of Justice‘s inspector general‘s office and to the Senate.

NORVILLE: I want to talk specifically about what you say took place in the office. One of the things was you say that there was a translator, a Turkish translator, who was putting aside documents that related to people with whom this individual was familiar. And you charge that that person was engaged in espionage. - MSNBC

She was fired in March 2002, for blowing the whistle.

Sibel Edmonds speaks Farsi, Turkish and Azerbaijani.

Swift Boat Liars - Another Rove Dirty Trick?

You don't have to read the entire NY Times expose to get the picture. Just look at the accompanying graphic and it all becomes very clear. It's classic Rove. Which is why Kerry has filed a complaint with the FEC. I have no doubt we will find Rove's fingerprints all over this. For a guy who never finished college, Rove's certainly made himself useful around the WH.

Kerry’s complaint to the Federal Elections Commission about the ads produced and aired by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth alleges "overwhelming evidence” that the veterans group is “coordinating its expenditures on advertising and other activities designed to influence the presidential election with the Bush-Cheney Campaign,” Kerry spokeswoman Allison Dobson told NBC News. -MSNBC

Swift Boat Liar Exposed

Rove seems to be off his game. The smears against Kerry just won't stick. Watch out for Plan B - October Surprise, Iran.

Aug 19, 8:18 AM EDT
Navy Documents Cast Doubt on Kerry Critic

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Vietnam veteran who claims Sen. John Kerry lied about being under fire during a Mekong Delta engagement that won Kerry a Bronze Star was under constant fire himself during the same skirmish, according to the man's own medal citation, a newspaper reported.

The newly obtained records of Larry Thurlow show that he, like Kerry, won a Bronze Star in the engagement and that Thurlow's citation said he also was under attack, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Thurlow, also like Kerry, commanded a Navy Swift boat during the Vietnam War. Thurlow swore in an affidavit last month that Kerry was "not under fire" when he rescued Lt. James Rassmann from the Bay Hap River.

Thurlow's records, obtained by the Post under the Freedom of Information Act, include references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at all five boats in the flotilla that day. In his Bronze Star citation, Thurlow is praised for helping a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him." - AP

Highly recommended

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com

While numerous books have been written criticizing the policies and practices of the George W. Bush administration, few have been as foreboding about the meaning of those policies and practices as Mark Crispin Miller's Cruel and Unusual. In Bush and company, Miller sees a regime comparable to the most ruthless authoritarian dictatorships of the modern era and warns that Americans, skillfully duped by a corrupt government and a complicit mass media, are blithely accepting the curtailing of their liberties and the eradication of their democracy. The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the tremendous fear and insecurity they generated among the American people provided, in Miller's estimation, ample opportunity for Bush and company to move the country to a place where dissent is crushed by force, wars are started on lies, and democratic elections will soon be a thing of the past.... - link

Goss would have CIA spying on Americans

Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush’s nominee to head the CIA, recently introduced legislation that would give the president new authority to direct CIA agents to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States—including arresting American citizens.

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But in language that until now has not gotten any public attention, the Goss bill would also redefine the authority of the DCI in such a way as to substantially alter—if not overturn—a 57-year-old ban on the CIA conducting operations inside the United States.

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“This language on its face would have allowed President Nixon to authorize the CIA to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters,” Jeffrey H. Smith, who served as general counsel of the CIA between 1995 and 1996, told NEWSWEEK. “I can’t imagine what Porter had in mind.” - Newsweek

Oh, it's not so hard to imagine what Porter has in mind. He's Dick Cheney's pick, isn't he?

Over the Transom

Pentagon in meetings today about female aspects of Abu Ghraib. The issues are children and women. The Top Brass are being told it is bound to break in the media.

Never forget that the WH commissioned memos from counsel on how to legally justify torturing prisoners. But we haven't heard the half of it yet.

Cheney's Convictions

Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that Democratic Sen. John Kerry lacks "deeply held convictions about right and wrong" as he argued that voters would make a grave mistake if they replaced the current commander in chief. - link

Click here to review Cheney's convictions.

McCain caves

Oops! They did it again!

Last week BushCo was widely suspected of cooking up a false terror alert based on the discovery of four-year-old surveillance files on an Al Queda computer, in order to change the subject from Kerry's convention success. In response to the accusations, the Bushies have outted yet another undercover U.S. intelligence operative. They explained that they were forced to do it, because they were under political pressure. Oh.

Unmasking of Qaeda Mole a U.S. Security Blunder - Experts

LONDON (Reuters) - The revelation that a mole within al Qaeda was exposed after Washington launched its "orange alert" this month has shocked security experts, who say the outing of the source may have set back the war on terror.

Reuters learned from Pakistani intelligence sources on Friday that computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, arrested secretly in July, was working under cover to help the authorities track down al Qaeda militants in Britain and the United States when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.

"After his capture he admitted being an al Qaeda member and agreed to send e-mails to his contacts," a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. "He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the U.S. agents said he was a computer whiz."

Last Sunday, U.S. officials told reporters that someone held secretly by Pakistan was the source of the bulk of the information justifying the alert. The New York Times obtained Khan's name independently, and U.S. officials confirmed it when it appeared in the paper the next morning. - Reuters

Porter Goss on Plamegate

I'm sure this is reassuring to the remaining undercover CIA operatives whose identities have not yet been revealed by the White House.

Rep. Porter Goss said Thursday that the uproar over allegations that White House officials purposely identified a covert CIA agent appears largely political and doesn't yet merit an investigation by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, which he chairs.

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"I would say there's a much larger dose of partisan politics going on right now than there is worry about national security," said Goss, R-Sanibel. "But I would never take lightly a serious allegation backed up by evidence that there was a willful -- and I emphasize willful, inadvertent is something else -- willful disclosure, and I haven't seen any evidence."

Goss said he would act if he did have evidence of that sort.

"Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation," Goss said. - *link*

Must read - will they try to cancel the election?

Ray McGovern (CIA analyst for 27 years, member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) fears BushCO may be in enough trouble that they will try to "postpone" the elections.

Perhaps most worrisome of all from the administration’s point of view are the fresh photos, film footage, and other reporting of torture in U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and elsewhere that will surface in the coming weeks. This round is said to include details of the rape and other abuse of some of the Iraqi women and the hundred or so children—some as young as 10 years old—held in jails like Abu Graib. U.S. Army Sergeant Samuel Provance, who was stationed there, has blown the whistle on the abuse of children as well as other prisoners. He recounted, for example, how interrogators soaked a 16-year-old, covered him in mud, and then used his suffering to break the youth’s father, also a prisoner, during interrogation.

I suspect it is the further revelations of torture that worries the White House most. Adding to its woes, last week over a hundred lawyers, including seven past presidents of the American Bar Association and former FBI Director William Sessions, issued a statement strongly condemning the legal opinions of government attorneys holding that torture might be legally defensible. The lawyers called for an investigation regarding whether there is a connection between those legal opinions and the abuses at Abu Graib and elsewhere.
- Buzzflash

Judge rules for Fitzgerald in the Plame case

Russert Held in Contempt in CIA Leak Case

WASHINGTON Aug. 9, 2004 — A federal judge held a reporter for Time magazine in contempt of court Monday for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer.

In an order issued July 20 but not made public until Monday, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that Time's Matthew Cooper and "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert were required to testify "regarding alleged conversations they had with a specified executive branch official."

NBC News issued a statement saying that Russert already had been interviewed under oath by prosecutors on Saturday under an agreement to avoid a protracted court fight. The interview concerned a July 2003 phone conversation he had with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Time and Cooper, however, did not agree to be interviewed and intend to appeal the judge's ruling, said Managing Editor Jim Kelly. If Time loses those appeals, Cooper could be jailed under Hogan's order until he agrees to appear and the magazine could be fined $1,000 a day.

This is good progress and gives me hope that Wilson will get his frog march before the election. Scooter Libby!

It depends on what the meaning of sovereignty is

Bush spoke to journalists of color at the recent Unity Conference. Unfortunately for him. Here's his hilarious response to a question on the meaning of U.S. and tribal sovereignty with regard to the war on terror.

"Tribal sovereignty means that it's sovereign," Bush replied. "You're a -- you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." - link

But it's even better if you listen to this audio clip posted at Majority Report Weblog , so you can hear the panic in his voice. And the laughter from the audience.

Ahmed Who?

George Bush, caught with his pants on fire again. Today we learned that Iraq has issued a warrant for the arrest of Ahmed Chalabi (currently in hiding in Iran!). Bush has been giving him the Kenny Boy Treatment, attempting to distance himself from that darling of the neo-cons, the man touted as the next leader of Iraq, the source of all that rich intelligence on WMD's. But it seems that, gosh, George Bush barely knows the guy!

As posted by Timothy Noah at Slate:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Chalabi is an Iraqi leader that's fallen out of favor within your administration. I'm wondering if you feel that he provided any false information, or are you particularly—

A: Chalabi?

Q: Yes, with Chalabi.

A: My meetings with him were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him.

—President Bush, in a Rose Garden exchange with reporters, June 1, 2004.

So I guess Chalabi is more Laura's friend.

What's a Frog March?

But we’ll see. I mean I don’t think we’re going to let this drop. At the end of the day it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. - Joseph Wilson, August 2001

Joseph Wilson is the husband of Valerie Plame,whose status as an undercover CIA agent was revealed by the Bush administration in an apparent act of revenge against her husband. Wilson had challenged George Bush's "16 word" claim in the State of the Union that Iraq sought nuclear materials from Africa.

Frogmarch will attempt to track the many scandals and crimes of the Bush Administration, from the Plame outting to the Chalabi scandal, the PNAC to the OSP.

For a little background, please read this excellent essay by William Rivers Pitt in truthout, excerpted below:

The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC for short, is just another right-wing think tank, really. One cannot swing one's dead cat by the tail in Washington D.C. without smacking some prehensile gnome, pained by the sunlight, scuttling back to its right-wing think tank cubicle. These organizations are all over the place. What makes PNAC different from all the others?

The membership roll call, for one thing:

• Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States, former CEO of Halliburton;
  
• Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense;
  
• Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense;
  
• Elliot Abrams, National Security Council;
  
• John Bolton, Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security;
  
• I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's top National Security assistant;

Quite a roster.

(snip)

Iraq, you see, has been on the PNAC menu for almost ten years.

The goals codified in 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' the manifesto, can be boiled down to a few sentences: The invasion and occupation of Iraq, for reasons that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. The building of several permanent military bases in Iraq, the purpose of which are to telegraph force throughout the region. The takeover by Western petroleum corporations of Iraq's nationalized oil industry. The ultimate destabilization and overthrow of a variety of regimes in the Middle East, friend and foe alike, by military or economic means, or both.

Pitt omits many names from that list for the sake of brevity, but one PNAC'er of special interest today is Ahmed Chalabi, now a wanted man, as the interim Iraqi government has issued a warrant for his arrest. Frog March!