The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 10/30/2005 - 11/06/2005

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Two Questions for George Tenet

Finally, the spotlight has started to swing away from Lewis Libby and his allegedly perjurous grand-jury testimony toward where that spotlight should have focused all along: on the CIA�s incompetent, weird � and possibly treasonous�response to Vice President Cheney�s inquiry about Iraq�s interest in purchasing yellowcake from Niger.

All this raises two important questions for George Tenet, who was Director of Central Intelligence during all the time that �Plamegate� was going on:

� Why did the CIA, under your direction, treat the Vice President�s query about Iraqi efforts to purchase yellowcake in Niger so casually?

� When Joe Wilson started blabbing in public about his CIA mission to Niger � and lying about what he reported to the CIA upon his return � why didn�t you say something rather than allow the President�s credibility to be shredded?

These days George Tenet � to whom President Bush inexplicably awarded the Medal of Freedom, our country�s highest civilian honor�is raking in a fortune on the lecture circuit. Perhaps someone in his next audience will take the opportunity to ask these questions and insist on answers � which is more than any of the hot-shot reporters in Washington seems interested in doing.

The real Michael Moore

Working-class hero image is carefully scripted

Michael Moore's success as a filmmaker and "working-class hero" is part of a carefully crafted image that bears little connection with reality, finds author Peter Schweizer in his new book "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."
Don't be fooled by the scraggly beard, the baggy jeans, the plaid shirts and the baseball caps, explains Schweizer.

Don't be fooled by his claim to be from the working-class town of Flint, Mich., he writes.

Don't be fooled by his various claims to have made no more than $19,000 a year, $15,000 a year or $12,000 a year before his first hit, "Roger & Me," the author says.

In fact, Moore didn't even grow up in Flint, but rather nearby Davison. His father was not the working stiff struggling to make ends meet that he portrays, but a General Motors employee who worked from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. and played golf every afternoon at a private country club and who had four weeks of paid vacation and retired comfortably at the age of 53.

Before "Roger & Me" hit it big in 1989, Moore had already received an advance from a New York publisher for $50,000, another $50,000 from Mother Jones magazine upon termination as an editor and a $20,000 grant from Ralph Nader. After "Roger & Me," he became fabulously wealthy by nearly any standard.

When Moore flew to London to be interviewed by the BBC or to promote a film, he flew the Concorde and stayed at the Ritz. But, according to the book, he would also keep a room at a cheap hotel down the street where he would meet with journalists to maintain his image as a "man of humble circumstances."

His 10-acre, waterfront home today is on Michigan's Torch Lake, one of the three most beautiful lakes in the world, according to National Geographic. He was accused by authorities of despoiling a wetland � just like many of the greedy, robber-baron land-grabbers he criticizes � when he tried to expand his private beach.

Moore also owns a penthouse in New York City. That was his official residence until 2003 when he switched to Michigan. That coincided with the success of "Bowling for Columbine," which brought him millions in profits � profits that would have been taxed at a rate of 7.7 percent in New York, as opposed to 3.9 percent in Michigan, saving him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One of the secrets to Moore's success, writes Schweizer, is his virulent anti-Americanism, which has wide appeal abroad. Moore, for instance, has sold twice as many books in Germany alone as he has sold in the U.S.

"Moore's books and films sell well overseas because anti-Americanism is a popular idiom," writes Schweizer. "Says Andrian Kreye of Munich, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 'German readers feel safe regurgitating anti-Americanism so long as it's an American who says it first.'"

Wilson 'outed' his wife in 2002

Disclosed in casual conversations a year before Novak column

A retired Army general says the man at the center of the CIA leak controversy, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, revealed wife Valerie Plame's identity in a casual conversation more than a year before she allegedly was "outed" by the White House through a columnist.

Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WorldNetDaily that Wilson mentioned Plame's status as a CIA operative in at least three, possibly five, separate conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel's "green room" in Washington, D.C., as they waited to appear on air as analysts.

Vallely says, according to his recollection, the first time Wilson mentioned his wife's job was around February or March of 2002 � more than a year before Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column identified her, citing senior administration officials, as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

"He was rather open about his wife working at the CIA," said Vallely, who retired in 1991 as the Army's deputy commanding general in the Pacific.

WND learned of Vallely's claim through his interview Thursday night on the ABC radio network's John Batchelor show.

Vallely told WND that, in his opinion, it became clear over the course of several conversations that Wilson had his own agenda, as the ambassador's analysis of the war and its surrounding politics strayed from reality.

"He was a total self promoter," Vallely said. "I don't know it if was out of insecurity, to make him feel important, but he's created so much turmoil, he needs to be investigated and put under oath."

Vallely said, citing CIA colleagues, that in addition to his conversations with Wilson, the ambassador was proud to introduce Plame at cocktail parties and other social events around Washington as his CIA wife.

"That was pretty common knowledge," he said. "She's been out there on the Washington scene many years."

If Plame were a covert agent at the time, Vallely said, "he would not have paraded her around as he did."

"This whole thing has become the biggest non-story I know," he concluded, "and all created by Joe Wilson."

Victoria Toensing � who worked on the legislation in her role as chief counsel for the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence � said Plame most likely was not a covert agent when White House aides mentioned her to reporters.

The federal code says the agent must have operated outside the United States within the previous five years. But Plame gave up her role as a covert agent nine years before the Rove interview, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

Kristof said the CIA brought Plame back to Washington in 1994 because the agency suspected her undercover security had been compromised by turncoat spy Aldrich Ames.

Wilson's own book, "The Politics of Truth," states he and Plame both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997 and never again were stationed overseas � placing them in Washington at least six years before the 2003 "outing."

Moreover, asserted Toensing, for the law to be violated, White House aides would have had to intentionally reveal Plame's identity with the knowledge that they were disclosing a covert agent.

House Vote Counters Court's Eminent Domain Ruling

Contending that the Supreme Court has undermined a pillar of American society, the sanctity of the home, the House overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday to block the court-approved seizure of private property for use by developers.

The bill, passed 376-38, would withhold federal money from state and local governments that use powers of eminent domain to force businesses and homeowners to give up their property for commercial uses.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling in June, recognized the power of local governments to seize property needed for private development projects that generate tax revenue. The decision drew criticism from private property, civil rights, farm and religious groups that said it was an abuse of the Fifth Amendment's "takings clause." That language provides for the taking of private property, with fair compensation, for public use.

The court's June decision, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., changed established constitutional principles by holding that "any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party."

The ruling in Kelo v. City of New London allowed the Connecticut city to exercise state eminent domain law to require several homeowners to cede their property for commercial use.

With this "infamous" decision, said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., "homes and small businesses across the country have been placed in grave jeopardy and threatened by the government wrecking ball."

The bill, said Chip Mellor, president of the Institute for Justice, which represented the Kelo homeowners before the Supreme Court, "highlights the fact that this nation's eminent domain and urban renewal laws need serious and substantial changes."

But opponents argued that the federal government should not be interceding in what should be a local issue. "We should not change federal law every time members of Congress disagree with the judgment of a locality when it uses eminent domain for the purpose of economic development," said Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.

The Bush administration, backing the House bill, said in a statement that "private property rights are the bedrock of the nation's economy and enjoy constitutionally protected status. They should also receive an appropriate level of protection by the federal government."

The House bill would cut off for two years all federal economic development funds to states and localities that use economic development as a rationale for property seizures. It also would bar the federal government from using eminent domain powers for economic development.

"By subjecting all projects to penalties, we are removing a loophole that localities can exploit by playing a 'shell game' with projects," said Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, a chief sponsor.

Tax Panel May Shrink Mortgage Deduction

That most sacred of tax breaks, the mortgage interest deduction that has helped millions buy homes, could vanish if President Bush and Congress follow the recommendations of his tax advisory board.

Nine tax experts, tasked with developing simpler and fairer tax laws, concluded that the deduction does more for wealthier taxpayers than for people struggling to buy a home. But mortgage bankers and real estate agents see irreparable harm if the tax break disappears.

The National Association of Realtors estimated that housing prices could decline 15 percent, bad news for owners who have seen the value of their homes increase.

"You're going to be taking away from Middle America," said David Lereah, the association's chief economist. "Everyone, whether you use the mortgage interest deduction or not, the value goes down. You've just reduced the retirement nest egg for everyone."

The current tax break lets homeowners deduct interest paid during the year on a mortgage up to $1 million and a home equity loan worth up to $100,000. Homeowners also benefit from breaks that let taxpayers deduct state and local property taxes from the federal bill.

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform urged the administration to do away with the deduction and replace it with a credit worth 15 percent of interest paid during the year. They would scrap the deduction for property taxes, too.

Mortgages eligible for the tax break would be limited by a formula reflecting the average regional price of housing. If in place today, that range would spread from $227,000 to $412,000. Mortgages for second homes and interest paid on home equity loans would not be eligible for the credit.

Taxpayers who currently own homes would have five years before they had to use the new credit. During that period of transition, a taxpayer could still take a deduction but the size of the mortgage eligible for a tax break would gradually fall. At the end of five years, everyone would be using the proposed credit.

For homeowners with a small mortgage who don't itemize their deductions, the credit means a new tax benefit defraying the cost of housing.

Taxpayers who bought $1 million homes expecting a generous tax break could be in for a shock, said Michael Fratanponi, senior director of single family research and economics at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

"That's going to really bite," he said.

Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said the proposed credit won't help homeowners in regions of the country, like New York and California, where housing prices have skyrocketed.

"It seems to ignore the plight of a first-time buyer in an expensive market," he said.

Because the panel would convert the deduction to a credit, taxpayers who pay income tax at marginal rates over 15 percent will see their benefits shrink.

Clint Stretch, director of tax policy for Deloitte Tax, calculated that housing gets more expensive, for example, for a family carrying a $500,000 mortgage and earning income in the 25 percent tax bracket. The proposal would take away $4,400 of the tax benefit.

Stretch said the shock might be as much psychological as financial.

"It also has a piece of American dream about it," he said. "It's not just what people get now, but what they hope and dream they're going to have someday. I think a lot of taxpayers who would never have a mortgage above the (limits) sure hope they would."

Chertoff outlines border security plan

The federal government aims to slow illegal immigration dramatically by hiring more Border Patrol agents, building more fences and ending a policy that has allowed thousands of captured illegal immigrants to be released within the USA, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says.

Warning that "time is not on our side" in the push to make the nation safer from potential attacks by foreign terrorists, he told business leaders here Wednesday that his plan reflects a "legal and civic obligation ... to secure our borders."

Chertoff, who toured the border with agents in El Paso on Tuesday, said his plan calls for:

� Adding 1,500 Border Patrol agents to the current force of 11,000.

� Building more fences. Chertoff has authorized completion of a 14-mile wall near San Diego � a project that had been stalled for a decade by lawsuits from environmentalists. A law passed by Congress allowed him to waive environmental-protection laws. "We are not talking about building a giant wall across our borders," he said. "But in areas where it makes sense to do so, we will look at ... improvements."

� Ending the "catch and release" policy that allows tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico to stay in the USA.

In fiscal 2005, Chertoff said, the Border Patrol caught 160,000 non-Mexican illegal immigrants. Because there wasn't enough detention space to hold them until their cases could be heard in immigration courts, 120,000 were released. Most of those didn't show up for court. Chertoff plans to add 2,000 detention beds in 2006 � bringing the total to 21,000 � and he has ordered faster removal of illegal immigrants.

Ore. Judge Upholds 'Gay Marriage' Ban

A judge on Friday upheld a gay marriage ban adopted last year by Oregon voters, sweeping aside arguments by gay rights supporters that the measure was flawed.

In his ruling, Marion County Circuit Judge Joseph Guimond rejected opponents' arguments that Measure 36 contained too many changes that should have been voted on as separate amendments. Critics also said it interfered with local governments' home rule rights.

Friday's ruling was the latest setback for gay rights backers in Oregon, where more than 3,000 marriage licenses were granted to same-sex couples in Multnomah County in the spring of 2004 before a judge halted the practice.

The constitutional ban on gay marriage was overwhelmingly approved by Oregon voters in the November 2004 election.

Short of achieving full marriage rights, gay rights backers mounted an effort in the Legislature earlier this year to pass a civil unions bill extending most of the benefits and rights of marriage to same-sex couples, but the bill died in the Oregon House.

Gay rights activists had hoped that a favorable ruling from Guimond would create new political momentum for efforts to extend benefits to same-sex couples.

Sen. Bob Graham Forgets Much in CIA Leak Critique

Former Senator Bob Graham says the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby has "pulled back the veil" from the Bush administration's "misuse" of intelligence information in the run-up to the Iraq war.

In a Friday morning conference call from the office of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Florida Democrat told reporters it was "impossible to believe" that Libby acted as a "rogue agent" in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Graham failed to mention that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald explicitly stated in his press conference announcing Libby's indictment that there was no allegation of wrongdoing on the part of the Vice President.

He also failed to mention that Libby is not charged with outing a CIA agent, a charge that Fitzgerald did not deem credible enough for an indictment.

Andrew McCarthy, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, finds fault with Graham's characterization of Joseph Wilson.

"Joe Wilson," McCarthy says, "is a serial liar when it comes to both the background of the entire Niger episode and his account of it, which includes a claim that he saw forged documents that he could not conceivably have seen because they were not even in the possession of the United States at the time he went on his mission.

"Nevertheless, he claimed to reporters afterwards that he had seen them, and they were obviously forgeries."

McCarthy's claims are supported by a bipartisan report of the Senate Intelligence Committee in July 2004 that concluded the evidence gathered by Wilson actually increased, rather than decreased, the likelihood that Saddam Hussein was actively seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger.

Moreover, McCarthy is supported by British intelligence, which has yet to back off its similar conclusion that Saddam was seeking yellowcake from Niger.

A June 28, 2004 story by the Financial Times claims the British were not alone. The Times detailed a strong consensus among European intelligence services that Niger was engaged in illicit negotiations regarding yellowcake uranium with North Korea, Libya, Iran, China and most importantly, Iraq.

"The abundant evidence," says McCarthy, "is that the Bush administration's claims about Niger were true. The curious thing is why they confessed error over something they hadn't made an error about in the first place."

Times Cuts Patriotism from Marine's Letter

The New York Times cut patriotic comments from a letter written by a U.S. Marine before he was killed in Iraq.

The family of Cpl. Jeffrey Starr slammed the Times for selectively excerpting the letter he wrote to his girlfriend, intending for her to read it in the event of his death.

A November 2 Times story about soldiers killed while serving multiple tours of duty mentioned 22-year-old Starr, who was serving his third tour of duty when he died, and included this excerpt from his letter:

"I kind of predicted this ... A third time just seemed like I�m pushing my chances.�

In fact, the letter read in its entirety (emphasis added):
"I kind of predicted this, that is why I�m writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I�m pushing my chances. I don�t regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it�s not to me. I�m here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.�

Starr�s mother Shellie told the New York Post that the "part of the letter about freedom and dying for it was much more important for him than what they wrote from the letter.�

Poll: Majority but 'Hesitant' Support for Alito

Early support for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is considerably weaker among such key groups as evangelicals, Republicans and the wealthy than it was for John Roberts, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

The survey put public sentiment for Alito closer to the level of early backing for the failed nomination of Harriet Miers.

About four in 10 respondents - 38 percent - say they back the confirmation of Alito, a federal appeals court judge from Philadelphia. Twenty-two percent say they strongly support him.

For Roberts, now the chief justice, 47 percent said in July that they supported his confirmation, 36 percent strongly.

Almost two-thirds of evangelicals supported Roberts' confirmation with half strongly backing him. For Alito, about half of evangelicals support his confirmation, one-third strongly. There were similar drops among Republicans and among people who make more than $75,000 a year.
Alito's selection followed the implosion of the Miers nomination, which could leave some people slow to embrace President Bush's latest nominee, said presidential scholar Charles Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"That has led to a hesitancy among some Republicans, conservatives and evangelicals," Jones said. "The Miers experience really raised doubts about the president and his judgment, it's more of a wait-and-see."

Despite Bush's call for the Senate to confirm Alito by the end of December, the Senate put off hearings until Jan. 9, giving Judiciary Committee investigators and the public more time to delve into his background and record as a judge.

Bush, in Argentina for a 34-nation Summit of the Americas, told reporters he was "disappointed in the date but happy they do have a firm date for his confirmation hearing."

Rioting Spreads From Paris Across France

Marauding youths torched nearly 900 vehicles, stoned paramedics and burned a nursery school in a ninth night of violence that spread from Paris suburbs to towns around France, police said Saturday. Authorities arrested more than 250 people overnight - a sweep unprecedented since the unrest began.

For the first time, authorities used a helicopter to chase down youths armed with gasoline bombs who raced from arson attack to arson attack, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said.

The violence, which was concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations but has since spread, has forced France to address the simmering anger of its suburbs, where immigrants and their French-born children live on the margins of society.

With 897 vehicles destroyed by daybreak Saturday, it was the worst one-day toll since unrest broke out after the Oct. 27 accidental electrocution of two teenagers who believed police were chasing them. Five hundred cars were burned a night earlier.

In a particularly malevolent turn, youths in the eastern Paris suburb of Meaux prevented paramedics from evacuating a sick person from a housing project, pelting rescuers with rocks and torching the awaiting ambulance, an Interior Ministry official said.

A nursery school was badly burned in Acheres, west of Paris.

The town had previously escaped the violence, the worst rioting in at least a decade in France. Some residents demanded that the army be deployed, or that citizens band together to protect their neighborhoods. At the school gate, Mayor Alain Outreman tried to calm tempers.

"We are not going to start militias," he said. "You would have to be everywhere."

Four arrests linked to Chinese spy ring

Four persons arrested in Los Angeles are part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering ring, federal investigators said, and the suspects caused serious compromises for 15 years to major U.S. weapons systems, including submarines and warships.
U.S. intelligence and security officials said the case remains under investigation but that it could prove to be among the most damaging spy cases since the 1985 one of John A. Walker Jr., who passed Navy communication codes to Moscow for 22 years.
The Los Angeles spy ring has operated since 1990 and has funneled technology and military secrets to China in the form of documents and computer disks, officials close to the case said.
The ring was led by Chi Mak and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, along with Mr. Chi's brother, Tai Wang Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, officials said.
Key compromises uncovered so far include sensitive data on Aegis battle management systems that are the core of U.S. Navy destroyers and cruisers.
China covertly obtained the Aegis technology and earlier this year deployed its first Aegis warship, code-named Magic Shield, intelligence officials have said.
The Chinese also obtained sensitive data on U.S. submarines, including classified details related to the new Virginia-class attack submarines.
Officials said based on a preliminary assessment, China now will be able to track U.S. submarines, a compromise that potentially could be devastating if the United States enters a conflict with China in defending Taiwan.
Mr. Chi, an electrical engineer, also had access to details on U.S. aircraft carriers and once was aboard the USS Stennis. A Pentagon report made public earlier this year said China's military is building up capabilities to attack U.S. aircraft carriers.
China also is thought to have obtained information from the spy ring that will assist Chinese military development of electromagnetic pulse weapons -- weapons that simulate the electronic shock caused by a nuclear blast -- that disrupt electronics.
It also is thought to have obtained unmanned aerial vehicle technology from the spy ring.
All four persons were arrested yesterday and charged with theft of government property. Law-enforcement officials said that the charges are expected to be upgraded to espionage or espionage-related once the nature of the information involved is fully investigated.

Bin Laden Publicly Quiet for Long Time

Osama bin Laden has been publicly silent for the longest period since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The question for U.S. intelligence: What, if anything, does it mean?

The terror leader with the $25 million bounty on his head issued two audio statements in December, the last known public word.

He was last seen in a videotaped message to Americans on Oct. 29, saying the United States could avoid another Sept. 11 attack if it stopped threatening the security of Muslims.

"Any state that does not mess with our security has naturally guaranteed its own security," bin Laden said in a translation of an address aired on Al-Jazeera discussing the 2004 presidential elections.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the longest bin Laden had gone without issuing a new public statement _ audio or video _ was just over nine months. He's now let 10 months pass, and counting.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, say there isn't evidence to suggest he's dead. The working assumption is that bin Laden is alive, even if he isn't churning out tapes.

Ben Venzke, chief executive at the IntelCenter, a government contractor that does support work for the intelligence community, said terrorism analysts are paying attention.

"This is the first time things have changed in years. Messages have generally come in a consistent pattern, and now they are not," Venzke said. "It is likely that these changes in messaging by al-Qaida are the result of planning and a P.R. strategy, as opposed to their computer broke."

He noted it was also the first October since 2002 that bin Laden had not delivered a message addressed specifically to Americans.

The terror leader is believed to be hiding in a rugged area along the Afghan-Pakistani border, where the government in Islamabad has little control and tribal loyalties run deep.

Venzke notes there could be a number of factors contributing to bin Laden's public silence. He may have decided to change the messenger. His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, has been much more vocal, issuing seven messages this year. In years past, he and bin Laden have delivered roughly the same number of messages.

Or the earthquake in Pakistan could have inhibited bin Laden's ability to transmit messages. Or a tape could have been destroyed in the rubble. Yet al-Zawahri has managed to send out a message since the earthquake, calling on Muslims to provide aid.

Bin Laden also could be plotting an attack on the United States and has made a strategic messaging decision to keep quiet in the lead-up to the attack, Venzke said.

In a recent interview, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, retired Vice Adm. Scott Redd, said bin Laden can't communicate with his followers the way he had in the past.

"The more you communicate, the more you try to directly run an organization, the more vulnerable you are," Redd said. "And he is pretty deep in hiding. We know he is not communicating very much."

Friday, November 04, 2005

Did You Know that Weapons of Mass Destruction Have Been Found in Iraq?


EXPLODED: 22 myths about the War on Terror that Osama bin Laden hopes you'll believe

* 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium

* 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons agents

* 17 chemical warheads containing cyclosarin (a nerve agent five times more deadly than sarin gas)

* Over 1,000 radioactive materials in powdered form meant for dispersal over populated areas

* Roadside bombs loaded with mustard and "conventional" sarin gas, assembled in binary chemical projectiles for maximum potency

This is only a PARTIAL LIST of the horrific weapons verified to have been recovered in Iraq to date. Yet Americans overwhelmingly believe U.S. and coalition forces have found NO weapons of mass destruction.

The question is: WHY do they believe this lie?

In Disinformation Richard Miniter reveals:

* Three common myths about the Bush Administration that have been spread widely by Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11

* The 9/11 hijackers used box-cutters to take control of the four planes they hijacked, right? Wrong -- and how this popular myth got started

* How bin Laden declared war on America five separate times and pursued his jihad war against the United States throughout the 1990s -- contrary to liberal media claims that no one had heard of him before 9/11

* Bush knew? No -- as is clear from this close examination of the CIA memo that supposedly warned him about possible hijackings before 9/11

* Are U.S. troops in Iraq to make the world safe for Halliburton? No -- in fact, Halliburton has not made a fortune in Iraq, and is even trying to sell its division that runs Iraqi operations

* A war for oil? Why the U.S. is not fighting one in Iraq or anywhere else

* Clear, uncontested, proven links between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda

* Suitcase nukes? Relax: most of the information causing the panic about them has come from one Russian general who has changed his story many times

* Borders out of control? How, as unlikely as it sounds, there are actually no known cases of Al Qaeda terrorists sneaking across the Mexican border

* Why so many people are so eager to believe these War on Terror myths, no matter how outlandish they are

Miniter marshals the evidence -- all the evidence -- that shoots down this dangerous disinformation and refutes the legions of shallow media talking heads who mindlessly repeat it. If you want the real truth about the War on Terror and what we must do in order to win it, Disinformation is the indispensable starting point.

"Is Paris Burning ?"

Small, mobile groups of youths hit Paris' riot-shaken suburbs with waves of arson attacks, torching hundreds of cars, as unrest entered its second week Friday and spread to other towns in France.

A woman on crutches was doused in flammable liquid and set on fire earlier this week as she tried to get off a bus in a Paris suburb, a judicial official said Friday. She suffered severe burns.



In the eastern city of Dijon, teens apparently angered by a police crackdown on drug trafficking in their neighborhood set fire to five cars, said Paul Ronciere, the region's top government official.

Another 11 cars were burned at a housing project in Salon-de-Provence, near the southern city of Marseille, police said.

Overnight in the Paris region, at least 520 cars were set ablaze, up from previous nights, the Interior Ministry said. It said five police were slightly injured by thrown stones or bottles.

But unlike previous nights, there were few direct clashes with security forces, no live bullets fired at police, and far fewer large groups of rioters, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official for the worst-hit Seine-Saint-Denis suburb northeast of Paris.

Instead, he said, the unrest was led by "very numerous small and highly mobile groups," with arson attacks that destroyed 187 vehicles and five buildings, including three sprawling warehouses.

"The peak is now behind us," said Gerard Gaudron, mayor of Aulnay- sous-Bois, another badly hit town. He told France-Info radio that parents were determined to keep teenagers home to prevent unrest. "People have had enough. People are afraid. It's time for this to stop."

In the northeast suburb of Sevran on Wednesday, youths doused a woman on crutches with flammable liquid and set her on fire with a burning rag as she struggled to get off a bus, a judicial official said, citing the bus driver's report to police. The driver, who had ordered passengers to leave the bus because flaming objects were blocking the road, helped the injured woman get off, the official said.

Justice Minister Pascal Clement deplored the incident Friday, saying it caused him "great emotion."

The rioting started Oct. 27, after youths were angered over the deaths of two teenagers _ Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17. They were electrocuted in a power substation where they hid, thinking police were chasing them.

Traore's brother, Siyakah Traore, on Friday urged protesters to "calm down and stop ransacking everything."

"This is not how we are going to have our voices heard," he said on RTL radio.

Car torchings are a daily fact of life in France's tough suburbs, with thousands burned each month, police say. Police intelligence has recorded nearly 70,000 incidents of urban violence this year, including attacks on police and rescue services, arson, throwing projectiles, clashes between gangs, joy-riding and property destruction, Le Monde reported.

What sets this unrest apart is its duration, intensity and the way it rapidly grew beyond the original flashpoint of Clichy-sous-Bois in northeast Paris to become a broader challenge for France. No urban violence of this nature has lasted this long, said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Center for the Study of French Political Life.

Many of the riotous youths are the French-born children of immigrant parents. The unrest has laid bare discontent simmering in suburbs and among immigrant families who feel trapped by poverty, unemployment, and poor education.

France's Muslim population, estimated at 5 million, is Western Europe's largest. Immigrants and their children often complain of police harassment and job discrimination.

National police spokesman Patrick Hamon, however, said there was "nothing that allows us to say that Islamists" were behind the recent unrest.

Some 1,300 riot police fanned out overnight across Seine-Saint-Denis, as the unrest entered its second week and followed Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's vow Thursday to restore order.

Youths fired buckshot at riot police vehicles in Neuilly-sur-Marne, east of Paris, and a group of 30 to 40 harassed police near a synagogue in Stains to the north where a city bus was torched and a school classroom partially burned, Cordet said.

In Trappes, to the west, 27 buses were incinerated. But the unrest was scaled back from the sometimes-ferocious rioting of previous nights, when bullets were fired at police and firefighters without causing injuries.

Payrolls Expand in Oct.; Jobless Rate Dips

America's payrolls grew by a rather tepid 56,000 in October, a sign that the nation's job market is slowly regaining its footing after the beating administered to the Gulf Coast area by Hurricane Katrina. The unemployment rate dipped to 5 percent of the labor force.

The latest snapshot released by the Labor Department on Friday offered fresh insights into the impact of Katrina, the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history.

Importantly, job losses in September turned out to be just 8,000, according to revised figures. That was smaller than the 35,000 decline in jobs that was reported a month ago, suggesting the damage to the job market from Katrina wasn't as terrible as many had feared. Still, the storm was certainly felt: The drop in payrolls in September was the first nationwide employment decline in two years.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, edged down to 5 percent in October as some people opted to leave the civilian labor force for any number of reasons. The jobless rate in September had crept up to 5.1 percent.

5 al-Qaida senior members killed in Iraq

The multinational force operating in Iraq revealed Friday that several senior officials of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization were killed in an air raid last month.

The air raid was launched, by the multinational force, on Oct 29 against a site in the western Iraqi town of Hasseiba. Those killed included Abu Talha, one of the organization's leaders and Abu Asil, who was a North African and was a close companion to Abu Mus'aab Al-Zarqawi.

Abu Asil was also in charge of recruiting terrorists in the Middle East area.

"The multinational force has identified five senior Al-Qaeda members among the killed," a statement by the multinational force said. It added that three houses were destroyed by the air raid including one which was used as a site for the meetings of Al-Qaeda leaders.

Three other leaders were killed, including Abu Raghd, Abu Usama and Abu Salman -- all identified by their nick names.

The statement stated that Abu Asil was a foreigner who was closely associated with Abu Mus'aab. "Abu Asil's job was also to train suicide attackers," the statement said.

As for Abu Raghd, he led the foreign fighters cell and was in charge of planning and implementing attacks against the multinational force.

As for Abu Salman and Abu Usama, they were both leaders of the local Al-Qaeda branch in the Hasseiba. (end) mag.

Media Bias on Trial in Libby Case

Attorneys for Lewis "Scooter" Libby are likely to question whether the political bias of news outlets involved in the Leakgate case played a role in testimony by their reporters against top White House officials, reports the Wall Street Journal.

"Just wait until defense counsel starts examining their memories and reporting habits, not to mention the dominant political leanings in the newsrooms of NBC, Time magazine and the New York Times," warns the Journal in an editorial on Friday.

NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert - the star prosecution witness against Mr. Libby - should offer particularly fertile ground on this count.

His "Meet the Press" broadcast was among the first to showcase claims by Leakgate accuser Joe Wilson, the disgruntled former Clinton official who famously charged that the White House lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

After Wilson's wife was allegedly "outed" as a result of leaks now attributed to Libby and others, the Wilsons posed for two pictorial spreads that ran in Vanity Fair magazine, where Mr. Russert's wife, Maureen Orth, has served as special correspondent since 1993.
Another problem for prosecutors: Russert's claim that he had no way of knowing that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA before his conversation with Libby - when senior NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, who works under Russert, has described Plame's CIA connection as "widely known."

Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper offers another troubling indication of political bias that defense attorneys could cite as evidence of a lack of objectivity by some of Libby's media accusers. Cooper is married to Mandy Grunwald, a longtime advisor to Hillary Clinton - who bashed Libby's alleged crime last week as "reprehensible."

Then there's the New York Times own Judy Miller, who finally gave up what she knew about Libby after an 85-day stint in jail.

"Rest assured," says the Journal, "that Ms. Miller's evocative self-description, 'Miss Run Amok,' will surface on cross-examination."

Dean Seals 'Embarrassing' Papers

Howard Dean's decision to seal some of his gubernatorial papers for a decade was legal, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The ruling overturned a finding by a state trial judge last year that neither Dean nor the secretary of state had the authority to seal the documents.

Dean and the secretary of state agreed when Dean left office in 2003 to seal until 2013 roughly 93 boxes of papers that he considered sensitive.

Past Vermont governors had sealed portions of their papers, though for
not as long.

"We didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor," Dean told reporters at the time.
He later said he made the comment in jest, but as his 2004 presidential campaign took off, opponents began calling on him to open up the documents, and the Washington-based group Judicial Watch sued to gain access to the papers.

"Dean's political aspirations and his desire to prevent anything from ruining them are not sound arguments for secreting such an enormous quantity of government documents from the public," Judicial Watch President Thomas Fitton said at the time.

Dean, who served as governor from 1991 to 2003, is now the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

L.A. PUBLIC SCHOOLS BUS STUDENTS TO ANTI-BUSH PROTEST!

More than 800 Los Angeles Unified students walked out of their high schools Wednesday as part of a nationwide protest against the administration.
Adults accompanied groups of students "in all cases" as they left from 10 high schools -- Los Angeles High, Van Nuys High, Downtown Business Magnet, Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet, Marshall High, Hamilton High, Fairfax High, Orthopaedic Hospital Me dical Magnet, Lincoln High and Belmont High, said Dan Isaacs, the district's chief operating officer.

"Our issue... was safety, and I think we fulfilled our mission, frankly," Isaacs said.
The groups varied in size from 10 to 250, he said. The district sent staff, school police and youth relations personnel to walk with the teenagers and made buses available to take the students back to school when they got tired.

Some students may have splintered off from their groups, but Isaacs said he expected the majority either returned to campus or went home for the day, which was relatively free of incidents.

Van Nuys High was temporarily placed on lockdown after a group of 20 to 25 students left around 11:10 a.m. for the protest, said LAUSD spokeswoman Ellen Morgan.
The principal called for the lockdown "for the safety of the remainder of the students," Morgan said.

She said the principal reported that after the group of students left school, other teens were running around the campus "causing a disturbance."

The lockdown was lifted around lunchtime, Isaacs said.

She denied students at Reseda High were prevented from joining the protest.
"About 50 kids were thinking about walking out, but, coincidentally, LAPD were bringing some truants back to the school, so when the kids saw LAPD they turned around and went back to their classes."

She added, "There weren't any incidents that we're aware of."

One of the protest's organizers, Edith Lagos, of the New York-based The World Can't Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime, claimed police prevented students at Van Nuys High and Reseda High from joining the event.

The group asked Los Angeles adults and children to skip work or school -- the anniversary of President Bush's re-election -- and gather along Wilshire Boulevard.

More Moore Hypocricy !


Filmmaker Michael Moore has made a career out of trashing corporations and said he doesn't own any stocks due to moral principle.

How then did author Peter Schweizer uncover IRS documents showing that Moore's very own foundation has bought stocks in some of America's largest corporations � including Halliburton, other defense contractors and some of the same companies he has attacked?

In his blockbuster new book "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy," Hoover Fellow Schweizer reveals the glaring contradictions between the public stances and real-life behavior of prominent liberals including Al Franken, Ralph Nader, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.

But he reserves some of his sharpest barbs for Moore.

In his first documentary "Roger & Me," Moore skewered General Motors, Schweizer points out.

In "The Big One," he went after Nike and PayDay candy bars.

"Bowling for Columbine" was an attack on the American gun industry.

Oil companies played a major role in "Fahrenheit 911."

His upcoming film "Sicko" pillories drug companies and HMOs.

On his television shows "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth," he criticized HMOs and defense contractors.

He once said that major defense contractor Halliburton was run by a bunch of "thugs," and suggested that for every American killed in the Iraq war, "I would like Halliburton to slay one mid-level executive."

Publicly, Moore has claimed he wants no part of these companies and won't own stock.

In his book "Stupid White Men," he wrote: "I don't own a single share of stock."

He repeated the claim in a 1997 letter to the online magazine Salon, saying: "I don't own any stock."

Privately, however, he tells the IRS a different story, Schweizer discloses in his book.

The year that Moore claimed in "Stupid White Men" that he didn't own any stock, he told the IRS that a foundation totally controlled by Moore and his wife had more than $280,000 in corporate stock and nearly $100,000 in corporate bonds.

Over the past five years, Moore's holdings have "included such evil pharmaceutical and medical companies as Pfizer, Merck, Genzyme, Elan PLC, Eli Lilly, Becton Dickinson and Boston Scientific," writes Schweizer, whose earlier works include "The Bushes" and "Reagan's War."

"Moore's supposedly nonexistent portfolio also includes big bad energy giants like Sunoco, Noble Energy, Schlumberger, Williams Companies, Transocean Sedco Forex and Anadarko, all firms that 'deplete irreplaceable fossil fuels in the name of profit' as he put it in �Dude, Where's My Country?'

"And in perhaps the ultimate irony, he also has owned shares in Halliburton. According to IRS filings, Moore sold Halliburton for a 15 percent profit and bought shares in Noble, Ford, General Electric (another defense contractor), AOL Time Warner (evil corporate media) and McDonald's.

"Also on Moore's investment menu: defense contractors Honeywell, Boeing and Loral."

Does Moore share the stock proceeds of his "foundation" with charitable causes, you might ask?

Schweizer found that "for a man who by 2002 had a net worth in eight figures, he gave away a modest $36,000 through the foundation, much of it to his friends in the film business or tony cultural organizations that later provided him with venues to promote his books and film."

Moore's hypocrisy doesn't end with his financial holdings.

He has criticized the journalism industry and Hollywood for their lack of African-Americans in prominent positions, and in 1998 he said he personally wanted to hire minorities "who come from the working class."

In "Stupid White Men," he proclaimed his plans to "hire only black people."

But when Schweizer checked the senior credits for Moore's latest film "Fahrenheit 911," he found that of the movie's 14 producers, three editors, production manager and production coordinator, all 19 were white. So were all three cameramen and the two people who did the original music.

On "Bowling for Columbine," 13 of the 14 producers were white, as were the two executives in charge of production, the cameramen, the film editor and the music composer.

His show "TV Nation" had 13 producers, four film editors and 10 writers � but not a single African-American among them.

And as for Moore's insistence on portraying himself as "working class" and an "average Joe," Schweizer recounts this anecdote:

"When Moore flew to London to visit people at the BBC or promote a film, he took the Concorde and stayed at the Ritz. But he also allegedly booked a room at a cheap hotel down the street where he could meet with journalists and pose as a �man of humble circumstances.'"

That's hypocrisy with a capital H!

JUDGE ALITO'S MOTHER HARASSED BY PRESS

The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from exclusive sources that Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.�s 90 year-old mother Rose has become a prisoner in her own Hamilton, NJ home because of a barrage of media requests.

The quiet neighborhood Mrs. Alito has lived in for over 50 years has been turned upside down all week by a swarm of national reporters who have phoned and shown up at the doorstep of not only her but many of her neighbors.

In the last 24 hours alone, she and her neighbors have been contacted by national reporters from NEWSWEEK, CBS� �EARLY SHOW,� THE BOSTON GLOBE and THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

Outside of a trip to a local pizzeria and quick junket to her son�s home an hour and a half away, Rose Alito has been stuck inside all week.

One neighbor, who asked the DRUDGE REPORT to withhold their name so the press wouldn�t call them at home, was stunned at the treatment the 90 year-old grandmother had received. �Mama Alito is just a sweet lady and we don�t understand why she is being hounded by these reporters. She can�t even go outside and tend to her fall flowers. She�s just a proud mother, what do they want?�

When told of the latest Alito episode one Washington insider said, �Why are they harassing Judge Alito�s 90 year-old mother when he has written over 350 legal opinions? The media should leave Judge Alito�s mother alone. �

Developing...

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Eastern Europe Denies Housing Secret U.S. Prisons

European Union officials said Thursday they would investigate a report that the CIA set up secret jails in Eastern Europe to interrogate top al-Qaida suspects.

The international Red Cross also said it asked the United States to let a representative visit detainees if such a facility exists.

Human Rights Watch in New York said Thursday it has evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. The conclusion is based on an analysis of flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004 obtained by the group, said Mark Garlasco, a senior military analyst with the organization.

Poland and Romania were among about a dozen nations that denied having CIA facilities in their territory.

In Poland, an aide to President Aleksander Kwasniewski said authorities there had "no information" of such facilities existing there.

"I repeat: We do not have CIA bases in Romania," the country's prime minister, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, said.

Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Georgia and Armenia also issued denials.

Human Rights Watch said it matched the flight patterns of the CIA aircraft with testimony from some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terrorism who have been released by the United States.

"The indications are that prisoners in Afghanistan are being rendered (taken) to facilities in Europe and other countries in the world," Garlasco told The Associated Press.

"We have been using flight logs of CIA rendition aircraft combined with some witness testimony of people who have been released from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to paint a picture of how the CIA is moving prisoners from Afghanistan to secret detention facilities worldwide," said Garlasco, a former civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Two destinations of the flights in particular stood out as likely sites of any secret CIA detention centers: Szymany Airport in Poland, which is near the headquarters of Poland's intelligence service; and Mihail Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania, Garlasco said.

Garlasco would not specify where Human Rights Watch obtained the flight logs, saying the group does not want to get those who furnished the information in trouble and that releasing the information might endanger access to such information in the future.

Libby Pleads Not Guilty in CIA Leak Case

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff pleaded not guilty Thursday in the CIA leak scandal, marking the start of what could be a long road to a trial in which Cheney and other top Bush administration officials could be summoned to testify.

Libby entered the plea in front of U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a former prosecutor who has spent two decades as a judge in the nation's capital.

Once the charges were read and the judge asked for his response, Libby said: "With respect, your honor, I plead not guilty."

He stood with his recently expanded legal team at the table reserved for the defense during trials as the charges were read. A short time later, they left the courtroom.

Libby bolstered his defense team this week with two well-known criminal trial lawyers, Ted Wells and William Jeffress.

Key al-Qaida figure reportedly captured

A key figure in al-Qaida�s terror network in Europe is under arrest, U.S. counterterrorism officials tell NBC News.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say that the alleged terrorist, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, was recently arrested in Pakistan. Pakistani government officials say they are not aware of any such arrest.

Nasar is an expert in explosives and chemicals who trained recruits at al-Qaida terror camps in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, according to counterterror officials and Nasar's wanted poster on the State Department's Rewards for Justice Web site.

Nasar was born in Syria but is married to a Spanish woman and has Spanish nationality. He has traveled extensively in Europe and has militant connections in Europe, Pakistan and elsewhere, and security experts believe his arrest could prove to be an intelligence bonanza for the CIA and other U.S. and European counterterrorism agencies.

Nasar is known inside the US intelligence world as the �pen jihadist�, a prolific writer whose communiques carry great weight in the militant underworld. He has written extensively on the Internet of his desire to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States, an effort he has described as �dirty bombs for a dirty nation."

Last year, the U.S. government announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Nasar.

Saddam's 500-ton Uranium Stockpile

Thanks to Leakgate Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's decision to indict "Scooter" Libby last week, Bush administration accuser Joe Wilson is once again the toast of Washington, D.C. - recycling the fifteen minutes of fame he first purchased in July 2003 with the claim that Bush lied about Iraq's plan to acquire uranium from Niger.

Why was Bush's uranium claim so important? Because if true, the mere attempt by the Iraqi dictator to acquire uranium would show that he had clear and incontrovertible plans to restart his nuclear program.

Maybe that's why the press seldom discusses the fact that Saddam already had a staggeringly large stockpile of uranium - 500 tons, to be exact.

And if his mere intention to acquire uranium was enough to justify fears of Saddam's nuclear ambition, what would the average person deduce from that fact that he'd already stockpiled a huge quantity of the bombmaking fuel?

In its May 22, 2004 edition, the New York Times confirmed a myriad of reports on Saddam's nuclear fuel stockpile - and revealed a chilling detail unknown to weapons inspectors before the war: that Saddam had begun to partially enrich his uranium stash.
The Times noted:

"The repository, at Tuwaitha, a centerpiece of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program, . . . . holds more than 500 tons of uranium . . . . Some 1.8 tons is classified as low-enriched uranium."


Thomas B. Cochran, director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Times that "the low-enriched version could be useful to a nation with nuclear ambitions."

"A country like Iran," Mr. Cochran said, "could convert that into weapons-grade material with a lot fewer centrifuges than would be required with natural uranium."

The paper conceded that while Saddam's nearly 2 tons of partially enriched uranium was "a more potent form" of the nuclear fuel, it was "still not sufficient for a weapon.

Consulted about the low-enriched uranium discovery, however, Ivan Oelrich, a physicist at the Federation of American Scientists, told the Associated Press that if it was of the 3 percent to 5 percent level of enrichment common in fuel for commercial power reactors, the 1.8 tons could be used to produce enough highly enriched uranium to make a single nuclear bomb.

Luckily, Iraq didn't have even the small number of centrifuges necessary to get the job done.

Or did it?


The physicist tapped by Saddam to run his centrifuge program says that after the first Gulf War, the program was largely dismantled. But it wasn't destroyed.

In fact, according to what he wrote in his 2004 book, "The Bomb in My Garden," Dr. Mahdi Obeidi told U.S. interrogators: "Saddam kept funding the IAEC [Iraq Atomic Energy Commission] from 1991 ... until the war in 2003."

"I was developing the centrifuge for the weapons" right through 1997, he revealed.


And after that, Dr. Obeidi said, Saddam ordered him under penalty of death to keep the technology available to resume Iraq's nuke program at a moment's notice.

Dr. Obeidi said he buried "the full set of blueprints, designs - everything to restart the centrifuge program - along with some critical components of the centrifuge" under the garden of his Baghdad home.

"I had to maintain the program to the bitter end," he explained. All the while the Iraqi physicist was aware that he held the key to Saddam's continuing nuclear ambitions.

"The centrifuge is the single most dangerous piece of nuclear technology," Dr. Obeidi said in his book. "With advances in centrifuge technology, it is now possible to conceal a uranium enrichment program inside a single warehouse."


Consider: 500 tons of yellowcake stored at Saddam's old nuclear weapons plant, where he'd managed to partially enrich 1.8 tons. And the equipment and blueprints that could enrich enough uranium to make a bomb stored away for safekeeping. And all of it at the Iraqi dictator's disposal.

If the average American were aware of these undisputed facts, the debate over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would have been decided long ago - in President Bush's favor.

One more detail that Mr. Wilson and his media backers don't like to discuss: the reason Niger was such a likely candidate for Saddam's uranium shopping spree.

Responding to the firestorm that erupted after Wilson's July 2003 column, Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters:

"In case people should think that the whole idea of a link between Iraq and Niger was some invention, in the 1980s we know for sure that Iraq purchased round about 270 tons of uranium from Niger."

Capitol Police Will 'Shoot to Kill' Terrorists

Potential suicide bombers take note; rouse the suspicion of a Capitol Hill police officer and you may end up with a large and fatal hole on your head.

According to a policy adopted in February 2004, members of the Capitol Hill police force are instructed to act immediately if they spot an individual displaying the profile of a suicide bomber, which means they are to shoot to kill if they see no other alternative.

Hill Police Chief Terrence Gainer explained to the Hill newspaper Roll Call that his officers are trained to recognize the usual traits and characteristics of suicide bombers.

Once a potential suicide bomber is identified, he said, they must sound the alarm, protect the public and gain control of the individual, all while assessing the threat level. If need be, they are to use deadly force.

That doesn't mean that Hill cops are expected to be trigger happy, Gainer emphasized, saying that "people should not be misled that when an officer comes across a person who is a suicide bomber that the officer is just going to immediately shoot them in the head. When it comes to the use of deadly force, officers make those decisions based on the totality of the circumstances and based on their training.�

There is a deadly rationale for head shots in dealing with suicide bombers. While in most hostile encounters law enforcement officers are instructed to aim for the center body mass of a suspect, using that tactic would be inappropriate against suicide bombers because a shot to the chest may inadvertently set off the explosive or could only wound a bomber and allow the suspect time to set off a device. Thus officers are taught to aim for the head.

Alito's College Writing Backed 'Gay Rights'

While attending Princeton University, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito chaired a student task force that recommended decriminalizing sodomy, accused the CIA and FBI of invading citizens� privacy and said discrimination against gays in hiring should be forbidden.

A report issued by the 17-student task force in 1971, uncovered by the Boston Globe, resulted from an assignment to study the "boundaries of privacy in American society.�

And it provided "a glimpse of a more liberal Alito than the jurist is now perceived,� according to the Globe.

In a foreword to the report, Alito wrote: "We sense a great threat to privacy in modern America. We all believe that privacy is too often sacrificed to other values; we all believe that the threat to privacy is steadily and rapidly mounting; we all believe that action must be taken on many fronts now to preserve privacy.�

The report criticized government surveillance of what it called "mild dissenters on the war in Vietnam.�

Al Franken Threatens to Sue 'Do As I Say' Author

Liberal radio yakker Al Franken is threatening to sue the author of a bestselling new book that alleges he doesn't practice what he preaches when it comes to affirmative action, according to the author.

Peter Schweizer, author of "Do as I Say, Not as I Do ," told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly Wednesday night:

"Before the book came out, his agent, Jonathan Lazear, called my editor at Doubleday and said they consider the material in the book to be 'legally actionable.' They then followed up with a letter demanding to know where I got all this, 'private information' on Al Franken."

In "Do As I Say," Schweizer reports that Franken has hired 112 employees over the years and only one was black - news that Franken was not pleased to see in print.

But according to Schweizer, Franken isn't denying the charge, telling O'Reilly, "They haven't questioned the validity of the information. They want to know how I got access to private information. And the interesting thing, Bill, is they've said nothing publicly. This is all done behind the scenes. He's not challenged one thing."

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

The NY Times Distorts a Dead Marine's Words

By Michelle Malkin
Last Wednesday, the Times published a 4,624-word opus on American casualties of war in Iraq. "2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, a Grim Mark," read the headline. The macabre, Vietnam-evoking piece appeared prominently on page A2. Among those profiled were Marines from the First Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, including Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr. Here's the relevant passage:

Another member of the 1/5, Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr, rejected a $24,000 bonus to re-enlist. Corporal Starr believed strongly in the war, his father said, but was tired of the harsh life and nearness of death in Iraq. So he enrolled at Everett Community College near his parents' home in Snohomish, Wash., planning to study psychology after his enlistment ended in August.

But he died in a firefight in Ramadi on April 30 during his third tour in Iraq. He was 22.

Sifting through Corporal Starr's laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the marine's girlfriend. ''I kind of predicted this,'' Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. ''A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances."

The paper's excerpt of Corporal Starr's letter leaves the reader with the distinct impression that this young Marine was darkly resigned to a senseless death. The truth is exactly the opposite. Late last week, I received a letter from Corporal Starr's uncle, Timothy Lickness. He wanted you to know the rest of the story -- and the parts of Corporal Starr's letter that the Times failed to include:

"Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

Reader Michael Valois questioned the Times' reporter, James Dao, about his selection bias and forwarded me the exchanges. A defensive Dao (who did not respond to my e-mail inquiry) argued "there is nothing 'anti war' in the way I portrayed Corporal Starr." Dao then had the gall to berate the reader:

"Even the portion of his email that I used, the one that you seem so offended by, does not express anti-war sentiment. It does express the fatalism that many soldiers and marines seem to feel about multiple tours.

Have you been to Iraq, Michael? Or to any other war, for that matter? If you have, you should know the anxiety and fear parents, spouses, and troops themselves feel when they deploy to war. And if you haven't, what right do you have to object when papers like the New York Times try to describe that anxiety and fear?"

Mr. Dao sounds a bit unhinged playing the far-left chickenhawk card. Only people who have traveled to Iraq can criticize a paper's war-related coverage?

And Dao's dead-wrong about Corporal Starr's presumed "fatalism." If you don't believe Corporal Starr's own words, which Dao chose to ignore, listen to Corporal Starr's father, Brian. I asked him this week whether his son was fatalistic. "I don't agree at all. Jeff had an awareness of death, but was very positive about coming home."

Dao apologized to Valois for the tone of his snippy e-mail, but apparently feels no shame or sorrow for distorting a dead Marine's thoughts and feelings about war, sacrifice and freedom.

Will the Times correct Dao's grave sin of omission and apologize? Or will the paper just hope you shrug and look the other way?

Busted! Michael Moore owns Halliburton!



"I don't own a single share of stock!" filmmaker Michael Moore proudly proclaimed.

He's right. He doesn't own a single share. He owns tens of thousands of shares � including nearly 2,000 shares of Boeing, nearly 1,000 of Sonoco, more than 4,000 of Best Foods, more than 3,000 of Eli Lilly, more than 8,000 of Bank One and more than 2,000 of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

If you want to see Moore's own signed Schedule D declaring his capital gains and losses where his stock ownership is listed, it's emblazoned on the cover of Peter Schweizer's new book, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."

And it's just one of the startling revelations by Schweizer, famous for his previous works, "Reagan's War" and "The Bushes."

Alito Voted On Pro-Choice Side In Three Of Four Abortion Cases

In 3 of 4 cases, Supreme Court nominee Alito voted on the side of abortion rights.

If there was any doubt about where US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito stands on abortion, his 90-year-old mother quickly and decisively put that question to rest.
"Of course he's against abortion," Rose Alito told the Associated Press in a telephone interview from her Hamilton, N.J., home.

But the true test of appeals court judges isn't which personal views they hold, but to what extent those personal views may influence how they rule in a particular case.

On this issue, legal analysts disagree in their assessments of Judge Alito. Some say he is a conservative ideologue. Others say he is a smart, careful jurist who leaves personal views behind when he dons his black robes.

The best evidence of his work as a judge are his published opinions. They contain a few surprises and some ammunition - for both the left and the right.

For example, of the four abortion cases in which he participated as an appeals court judge, he voted on the pro-choice side in all but one. A 1995 Alito vote striking down a Pennsylvania abortion restriction in particular is raising eyebrows among some legal scholars.

For example, of the four abortion cases in which he participated as an appeals court judge, he voted on the pro-choice side in all but one. A 1995 Alito vote striking down a Pennsylvania abortion restriction in particular is raising eyebrows among some legal scholars.

"That [1995 case] strongly seems to indicate that Alito is not a policy-driven true-believer who's used every possible opportunity to advance one side's preferred outcome, but instead a judge who has indeed come down on both sides, in different cases," says David Garrow, a constitutional historian and expert in reproductive rights cases at the high court.

His four abortion cases include:

� A 1991 challenge to a Pennsylvania law requiring married women to notify their husbands before seeking an abortion. The court struck down the restriction. Alito dissented.

� A 1995 challenge to a Pennsylvania law that required women seeking to use Medicaid funds to abort a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest to report the incident to law enforcement officials and identify the offender. Alito provided the decisive vote striking down the abortion restriction.

� A 1997 challenge to a New Jersey law that prevents parents from suing for damages on behalf of the wrongful death of a fetus. Alito ruled that the Constitution does not afford protection to the unborn.

� A 2000 challenge to New Jersey's ban on so-called partial-birth abortions. Alito struck down the law based on a recent Supreme Court decision.

Analysts are divided over the meaning of Alito's votes and his various writings while on the bench.

"I don't think these cases tell us anything about whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade or not," says James Bopp, general counsel for National Right to Life. "Nor do they tell us whether he supports pro-life as a value."

In the 1995 Medicaid case, Alito cast the deciding vote striking down a Pennsylvania abortion restriction. Analysts say it was a close legal question and Alito could have decided the case either way.

"If he has antiabortion philosophical leanings he did not let that warp his judgment in the case," says Seth Kreimer, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and co-counsel on the winning side in the 1995 case. "But there are a lot more degrees of freedom at the Supreme Court level than at the court of appeals."

Democrats Push to Delay Alito Hearings

Senate Democrats pushed on Tuesday for a 2006 date for hearings on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, challenging President Bush's call for confirmation by year's end.

"There's no way you can do an honest hearing by the end of December, or a fair hearing," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a jab at the White House and the Senate Republican leadership, Leahy said he and the panel's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter could likely agree on a date for confirmation hearings if left to themselves.

Specter, R-Pa., was noncommittal on timing for hearings for Alito, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "This is a swing vote on the Supreme Court.... I don't know enough yet to say whether it's realistic by the end of the year," he said.

Alito has been involved in 1,500 or more cases during 15 years on the appeals court, and he has authored an estimated 300 rulings.

Conservatives in and out of the Senate have greeted Alito's nomination warmly, many saying they hoped he would move the court to the right if confirmed for O'Connor's seat.

Liberals, pointing to rulings on abortion, gun control, the death penalty and other issues, have already raised the threat of a filibuster, an attempt to deny Alito a yes-or-no vote by the Senate. Republicans hold 55 seats in the Senate, and while confirmation requires a simple majority, it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

Republicans have responded to the threat by saying they would seek a vote to abolish the filibuster in cases of Supreme Court and federal appeals court nominations.

A showdown over that issue was narrowly averted last spring when seven lawmakers from each party brokered a compromise. But already, two of the seven Republicans involved in that compromise _ Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina _ have indicated they would side with their leadership this time. That suggests Democrats would lose a showdown if it went that far.

Al Franken, Hillary, Kennedy, Caught!

A new book by a top investigative journalist exposes the blatant hypocrisy of liberals who loudly espouse principles they disregard in their own personal lives.

In ""Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy."
" Hoover Fellow Peter Schweizer reveals the glaring contradictions between the public stances and real-life behavior of prominent liberals including Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Ralph Nader � among others.

"Hypocrisy has proved to be a wonderful weapon for liberals in their war against conservatives," Schweizer writes in the November issue of NewsMax Magazine.

"Yet for all the talk about conservative hypocrisy, there has been very little investigation into the prevalence of hypocrisy on the left."

After two years of research into liberal hypocrisy, Schweizer said, "what I discovered was just stunning."

Schweizer's well-annotated book, published by Doubleday, has just been released and its sure to turn several well-known liberals red with anger.

Among the eye-opening revelations of "Do As I Say":

Filmmaker Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn't invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore's IRS forms, viewed by Schweizer, show that over the past five years he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton, Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Healthcare, Ford, General Electric and McDonald's.

Staunch union supporter Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union. But the $25 million Northern California vineyard she and her husband own is a non-union shop.

The hypocrisy doesn't end there. Pelosi has received more money from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union than any other member of Congress in recent election cycles.

But the Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive hotel in Rutherford, Calif. It has more than 250 employees. But none of them are in a union, according to Schweizer, author of "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty" and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other periodicals.

The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is � that's right, a non-union shop.

Ralph Nader is another liberal who claims that unions are essential to protect worker rights. But when an editor of one of his publications tried to form a union to ameliorate miserable working conditions, the editor was fired and the locks changed on the office door.

Self-described socialist Noam Chomsky has described the Pentagon as "the most vile institution on the face of the earth" and lashed out against tax havens and trusts that benefit only the rich.

But Chomsky has been paid millions of dollars by the Pentagon over the last 40 years, and he used a venerable law firm to set up his irrevocable trust to shield his assets from the IRS.

Air America radio host Al Franken says conservatives are racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action. But fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-American.

Ted Kennedy has fought for the estate tax and spoken out against tax shelters. But he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have shielded most of his family's fortune from the IRS.

One Kennedy family trust wasn't even set up in the U.S., but in Fiji.

Another family member, environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr., has said that it is not moral to profit from natural resources. But he receives an annual check from the family's large holdings in the oil industry.

Barbra Streisand has talked about the necessity of unions to protect a "living wage." But she prefers to do her filming and postproduction work in Canada, where she can pay less than American union wages.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill vetoed a bill seeking to end it. But the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die.

Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively about the right of children to make major decisions regarding their own lives.

But she barred 13-year-old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbid the teen from watching MTV or HBO.

Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros says the wealthy should pay higher, more progressive tax rates. But he holds the bulk of his money in tax-free overseas accounts in Curacao, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

Schweizer writes: "Liberals claim to support affirmative action but don't practice it. They support higher taxes but set up complicated tax shelters to avoid paying them. They claim to be ardent environmentalists but abandon their cause when it impinges on their own property rights.

"The reality is that liberals like to preach in moral platitudes. They like to condemn ordinary Americans and Republicans for a whole host of things - racism, lack of concern for the poor, polluting the environment, and greed.

"But when it comes to applying those same standards to themselves, liberals are found to be shockingly guilty of hypocrisy.

"The media and the American people need to hold them accountable."

Judge Probed Patrick Fitzgerald for Misconduct

A federal judge in Chicago accused Leakgate Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald of prosecutorial misconduct earlier this year and launched an investigation into what he said a misuse of grand jury materials - before Fitzgerald had the probe shut down by a higher court.

In January 2005, U.S. District Judge James F. Holderman accused Fitzgerald's U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago of turning grand jury materials over to a plaintiff's lawyer in a hospital-fraud case, the Associated Press reported at the time.

In addition to threatening to hold one of Fitzgerald's prosecutors in criminal contempt of court, Judge Holderman ordered a misconduct investigation of Fitzgerald and three of his assistants by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The federal judge asked that Fitzgerald be investigated for "misstating the law and other offenses" by the OPR, the arm of the Justice Department that investigates allegations of wrongdoing by prosecutors.

Fitzgerald took the case to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and argued that his office had done nothing illegal.
A three judge panel agreed, ruling that Judge Holderman didn't have jurisdiction to launch a probe of a U.S. attorney.

According to the AP, however, Fitzgerald did acknowledged that his prosecutor should have notified defense attorneys before turning over confidential grand jury materials to the plaintiff's side in the hospital fraud case.

It's not clear whether the Justice Department took any action against Fitzgerald based on Judge Holderman's complaint.

Plamegate's real liar

'SCOOTER" LIBBY'S indictment was not exactly good news for the White House, but it could have been a lot worse. Feverish speculation had been building that Karl Rove would soon be "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs," as Valerie Plame's bombastic hubby, Joe Wilson, had hoped. Or even that Dick Cheney would have to resign.

But with his investigation all but over, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has found no criminal conspiracy and no violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime in some circumstances to disclose the names of undercover CIA operatives. Among other problems, Plame doesn't seem to fit the act's definition of a "covert agent" � someone who "has within the last five years served outside the United States." By 2003, Plame had apparently been working in Langley, Va., for at least six years, which means that, mystery of mysteries, the vice president's chief of staff was indicted for covering up something that wasn't a crime.

Making the best of a weak hand, Democrats argued that the case was not about petty-ante perjury but, as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid put it, "about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president." The problem here is that the one undisputed liar in this whole sordid affair doesn't work for the administration. In his attempts to turn his wife into an antiwar martyr, Joseph C. Wilson IV has retailed more whoppers than Burger King.

The least consequential of these fibs was his denial that it was his wife who got him sent to Niger in February 2002 to check out claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later stated, in a bipartisan report, that evidence indicated it was Mrs. Wilson who "had suggested his name for the trip." By leaking this fact to the news media, Libby and other White House officials were merely setting the record straight � not, as Wilson would have it, punishing his Mata Hari wife.

Much more egregious were the ways in which Wilson misrepresented his findings. In his famous New York Times Op-Ed article (July 6, 2003), Wilson gave the impression that his eight-day jaunt proved that Iraq was not trying to acquire uranium in Africa. Therefore, when administration officials nevertheless cited concerns about Hussein's nuclear ambitions, Wilson claimed that they had "twisted" evidence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." The Senate Intelligence Committee was not kind to this claim either.

The panel's report found that, far from discrediting the Iraq-Niger uranium link, Wilson actually provided fresh details about a 1999 meeting between Niger's prime minister and an Iraqi delegation. Beyond that, he had not supplied new information. According to the panel, intelligence analysts "did not think" that his findings "clarified the story on the reported Iraq-Niger uranium deal." In other words, Wilson had hardly exposed as fraudulent the "16 words" included in the 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In fact, the British government, in its own post-invasion review of intelligence, found that this claim was "well founded."

This is not an isolated example. Pretty much all of the claims that the administration doctored evidence about Iraq have been euthanized, not only by the Senate committee but also by the equally bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission. The latest proof that intelligence was not "politicized" comes from an unlikely source � Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, who has been denouncing the hawkish "cabal" supposedly leading us toward "disaster." Yet, in between bouts of trashing the administration, Wilkerson said on Oct. 19 that "the consensus of the intelligence community was overwhelming" that Hussein was building illicit weapons. This view was endorsed by "the French, the Germans, the Brits." The French, of all people, even offered "proof positive" that Hussein was buying aluminum tubes "for centrifuges." Wilkerson also recalled seeing satellite photos "that would lead me to believe that Saddam Hussein, at least on occasion, was � giving us disinformation."

So much for the lies that led to war. What we're left with is the lies that led to the antiwar movement. Good thing for Wilson and his pals that deceiving the press and the public isn't a crime.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Senate Dems Force Rare Closed Session

The U.S. Senate returned to its daily work late Tuesday after Democrats enacted a rare parliamentary rule forcing a private session (search) of the chamber so senators could speak in secret about the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

As a result of the session, in which Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (search) and the panel's Ranking Democrat Jay Rockefeller sparred for 40 minutes about whether Republicans had failed in their oversight of the Bush administration, lawmakers set Nov. 14 as a deadline for six members of the Senate � three from each party � to assess the progress of the committee's investigation into pre-Iraq war intelligence.

"Today the American people are going to see a little bit of light. On Nov. 14, we're going to have a phase-by-phase idea of how they are going to complete this (investigation), finally," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Democrats say the demand for a closed session was prompted by "misinformation and disinformation" given by President Bush (search) and his administration prior to entry into the war in Iraq and a failure of Republicans to look into it.

"If the administration had all the information that they have now back then, they wouldn't even have brought it to the Congress for a vote," Reid said of the Senate's 2002 consent to launch a war against Iraq.

Republicans, who were clearly caught off guard by the Democrats' maneuver, called the move to shut down regular debate "gutter" politics. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (search), R-Tenn., said the chamber was "hijacked" by Democrats.

"Once again, it shows the Democrats use scare tactics. They have no conviction. They have no principles. They have no ideas," Frist said. "But this is the ultimate. Since I've been majority leader, I'll have to say, not with the previous Democratic leader or the current Democratic leader have ever I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution."

But Roberts said Democrats misconstrued the facts about phase two, which aims to look into pre-war intelligence assessments. He said that plans were well under way to finish the work before Democrats held up Senate actions.

"It seemed to me a little convenient for all of a sudden to go into a closed session of the Senate, and call for a full Senate investigation of phase two when the committee is already doing its work. And I think that basically is an unfortunate stunt," Roberts said on the Senate floor after the closed session.

Roberts said phase one oversight involved the Intelligence Committee's probe into the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate issued prior to the lead-up to the Iraq war. The 511-page report that resulted from the phase one investigation was presented to the Sept. 11 commission convened to review the quality of U.S. intelligence prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It issued its report in July 2004.

Roberts said phase two of the investigation grew as a result of the phase one work. The second part of the probe began on Feb. 12, 2004.

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., a member of the Intelligence Committee, and other Republicans said if Democrats had wanted to take issue with Roberts, they could have just asked him.

"Sen. Reid made a number of charges about Sen. Roberts without giving him or me a chance to respond, and then went into closed session. ... It goes a long way to show the level to which politics is dominating procedure here," Bond said.

"If Sen. Reid had come to me and said, 'This is a problem,' which he never did, I would have said, 'Let's talk about it.' I would have said, 'Let's bring in the Intelligence Committee or the leaders, and let's talk about it in a civil, a dignified, a respectful way,'" Frist said.

Judge Removed From DeLay's Criminal Case

In a courtroom victory for Rep. Tom Delay, the judge in the campaign-finance case against the former House Republican leader was removed Tuesday because of his donations to Democratic candidates and causes.

A semi-retired judge who was called in to hear the dispute, C.W. Bud Duncan, ruled in Delay's favor without comment. Duncan ordered the appointment of a new judge to preside over the case.

The ruling came after a hearing in which Delay's attorneys argued that state District Judge Bob Perkins' political donations created the appearance of bias. Perkins, a Democrat, has contributed to candidates such as John Kerry and the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org.

"The public perception of Judge Perkins' activities shows him to be on opposite sides of the political fence than Tom DeLay," defense attorney Dick DeGuerin argued.

Perkins had declined to withdraw from the case, and prosecutor Rick Reed argued at the hearing that DeLay had to prove that a member of the public would have a "reasonable doubt that the judge is impartial" before Perkins could be removed.

"Judges are presumed to be impartial," Reed said.

Perkins did not attend the hearing and did not immediately return a call for comment.

DeLay had no comment as he left the courthouse. Throughout the proceedings, he sat in the front row behind his attorneys with his wife and aides. He often smiled, and occasionally chuckled when Democrats said negative things about him in their testimony.

DeLay's lawyers are also seeking to have the trial moved out of Austin, citing the media attention and noting that Austin, widely perceived as a liberal college town, is "one of the last enclaves of the Democratic Party in Texas."

Judges are elected in Texas and are free to contribute to candidates and political parties. DeLay's lawyers repeatedly said during the hearing that they were not accusing Perkins of doing anything wrong, but that there should not be a public perception of partiality in the case.

The issue came up for Perkins before. He voluntarily stepped aside in a 1994 case against Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perkins had made a $300 contribution to Hutchison's opponent. Hutchison, who was also represented by DeGuerin, was ultimately acquitted of misconduct charges.

Monday, October 31, 2005

In Libby Case, National Security Was Never Breached

While Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found no evidence that a federal law meant to protect covert operatives was ever broken by Scooter Libby or other administration officials, some would have you believe otherwise.

Take, for example, historian Michael Beschloss who appeared on Sunday's "Meet the Press."

Beschloss complained that Bush has yet to apologize for his subordinates actions and that this matter is "a really serious thing."

Beschloss continued: "The act that was to protect the identities of secret agents actually was lobbied for by his father, after the death of a CIA agent whose identity was revealed. This is an administration, especially at a time of the war on terrorism, that would take very seriously a breach like that of national security. So until he gives us some idea of what he thinks about the offense, whether it's now or at the end of the investigation or trial, this is going to be a cloud that sort of lingers."

But the fact is no one has ever been charged with breaching national security, as Beschloss claims.

William Safire of the New York Times, appeared later on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert and hammered home the point: "[T]he most important single fact that emerged from the indictment [of Scooter Libby, the Vice-President's chief of staff � now resigned] is what was not in it.

"This whole thing started as an investigation of the violation of a law," Safire emphasized. "And the law that was violated was you must not deliberately out an agent who is undercover. And what the special counsel found is that law was not broken."

Indeed, at his October 28, 2005 press conference unveiling the five-count indictment against Libby, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took special pains to note, "We have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally, outed a covert agent."

Furthermore, there was no allegation of any conspiracy to violate the federal law to knowingly divulge the identity of anyone working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency � the law that was at the heart of the more than two-year inquiry that began not long after July 14, 2003, when Bob Novak wrote a syndicated column saying that former ambassador Joe Wilson was married to Valerie Plame, who was a CIA official.

Administration officials apparently sought to explain or discredit Wilson's finding by pointing out that his wife Valerie was a CIA official. The CIA bureaucracy was well known to have opposed President Bush's decision to hold Iraq accountable for failing to disclose its WMD program to UN officials.

At the time, Plame was outed by "leaks" from administration sources, Wilson claimed that Bush administration officials had violated a federal statute making it a criminal to out an agent.

Apparently, Fitzegerald found that claim to be nonsense.

"But the most important thing is the whole basis of the political charge that came out of the CIA, which was desperate to try to cover up its own mistakes and its own huge failure in this case, this was an attempt by the CIA to get a Justice Department investigation of a law that had not been prosecuted in -- once, perhaps in 25 years.

"And everybody is walking around thinking, �Well, you see? There was a conspiracy to undermine or uncover an agent.' Well, there wasn't. It was not. And he [Fitzgerald] said it very clearly. And so I think we ought to keep that in mind. This was a cover-up of a non-crime."