What we KNOW about Rove and why the press should start asking questions.

Froomkin nails it

He also gives us quite an overview of all that we DO know about Rove's behavior. It ain't prety.

The time for questions has arrived. The press and the TV news media need to do their damn jobs, or will the bloggers have to do it for them, again?

Roves attorney carefully chose his words. He did not say that Rove had been cleared of wrong-doing nor did he say that he was innocent. He said only that Fitzgerald's office does not plan to indict Rove and that he plans no further comment on anything.

Why is he not singing from the rooftops that his client is purer than the driven snow? Because he isn't?

But, since Rover is no longer in criminal jeopardy, for the Plame leak, at least, there is nothing keeping Wilson from filing a civil suit.

That is one way of getting to the truth. I doubt seriously that we can depend on the media or the press.

White House Briefing -- News on President George W Bush and the Bush Administration:

"The White House has long maintained -- spuriously, I might add -- that the ongoing criminal investigation precluded them from answering any questions even vaguely related to Rove's conduct.

Now, without charges against Rove in the offing, the media should demand answers to a slew of questions. The overriding issue: Just because Rove wasn't charged with a crime doesn't mean his conduct meets the standards the public expects from its White House.

If Rove was irresponsibly lax with classified information, if he intentionally misled the press, the press secretary and the president, if he conspired with fellow White House aides to punish someone who spoke out against the president -- all of which appears to be the case -- what is he still doing serving as the president's most trusted aide?"

The liberation of Karl Rove

What Sidney has to say.....

Comment is free: The liberation of Karl Rove:

"The special prosecutor's decision not to seek indictment of President Bush's chief political adviser and deputy chief of staff Karl Rove suggests two possibilities. "

Image of U.S. falls again

Image IS the problem:

The Image of being a democracy, the Image of having a moral compass, the Image of being a world leader...image, image, image.

What we need is authenticity!

Screw Image! It's all a lie anyway, and that is the problem.

Image of U.S. falls again - Americas - International Herald Tribune:

"As the war in Iraq continues for a fourth year, the global image of America has slipped further, even among publics in countries closely allied with the United States, a new global opinion poll has found.

Favorable views of the United States dropped sharply over the past year in Spain, where only 23 percent now say they have a positive opinion, down from 41 percent in 2005, according to the survey, which was carried out in 15 nations this spring by the Pew Research Center. In Britain, Washington's closest ally in the Iraq war, positive views of America have remained in the mid-50s in the past two years, still down sharply from 75 percent in 2002.

Other countries where positive views dropped significantly include India (56 percent, down from 71 percent since 2005); Russia (43 percent, down from 52 percent); and Indonesia (30 percent, down from 38 percent).

In Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States, only 12 percent said they held a favorable opinion, down from 23 percent last year.

Declines were less steep in France, Germany and Jordan, while people in China and Pakistan had a slightly more favorable image of the United States this year than last.

The ebbing of positive views of the United States coincides with a spike in feeling that the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. This perception was shared by majorities in 10 of the countries surveyed, including Britain, where 60 percent said the world had become more dangerous since Saddam Hussein's removal from power in 2003.

Over the past year, support for the U.S.-led fight against terrorism also declined again, Pew found.

Reporter Left Behind Details 'Ruse' With Bush in Iraq

Under armed guard?

Damn.

This really is The Soviet States of America!

Reporter Left Behind Details 'Ruse' With Bush in Iraq:

"NEW YORK: President Bush's sudden trip to Baghdad caught White House reporters by surprise -- deliberately so. But, as always, a few were chosen as pool reporters for the trip, as detailed by E&P this morning.

Now, in a pool report from one of the reporters left behind, Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the Baltimore Sun, we get a glimpse of the ruse and how the reporters here, at Camp David, experienced it -- under armed guard, as it happens. "
Read On ^

Rove Got Away With 'Misleading' the Media

Yeah, right. Rover is busy throwing Cheney under a bus

AP's Yost: Rove Got Away With 'Misleading' the Media:

"WASHINGTON The decision not to charge Karl Rove shows there often are no consequences for misleading the public.

In 2003, while Rove allowed the White House to tell the news media that he had no role in leaking Valerie Plame's CIA identity, the presidential aide was secretly telling the FBI the truth.

It's now known that Rove had discussed Plame's CIA employment with conservative columnist Robert Novak, who exposed her identity less than a week later, citing two unidentified senior administration officials.

Rove's truth-telling to the FBI saved him from indictment."

Lewis Retained Defense Attorney, Several Weeks Ago

Another Rethug lawyers up.

....and we thought the Rethugs hated trail lawyers.

Lewis Retained Defense Attorney �Several Weeks Ago�:

"Faced with a widening federal investigation into his ties to a high-powered lobbying firm, House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis has retained a criminal defense attorney, said sources close to the California Republican. "

Rove/Bush pull an O.J. today

Boiling Mad: Rove/Bush pull an O.J. today:

"George W. Bush's scheme to lead the U.S. into an unjust and illegal war, which has created more terrorists, raised oil prices, and diluted U.S. efforts to capture bin Laden, escaped justice today."

Let's hold a grudge on Iraq

Somebody needs to pay for this mess!

As a matter of fact, a whole lot of people need to pay and keep paying for the next 4 years or so.

WorkingForChange-Let's hold a grudge on Iraq:

"AUSTIN, Texas -- Iraq and the media, the media and Iraq -- over and over. Last week was supposed to be a good media week for Iraq -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was dead. Taken out, we said, by a combination of American and Iraqi troops with Jordanian intelligence.

The churlish might note this was the second time the American military had announced Zarqawi's death -- but, hey, we've announced the capture of Osama's No. 2 guy at least seven or eight times. Others claimed Zarqawi was never that important to begin with, indeed had been built up by our side. Still, that's a goal for our side, as they say in World Cup play.

Then reality got a bit bumpy. Zarqawi wasn't exactly dead when we found him. We put him on a stretcher and cleaned him up -- the fog of war intervened. "

BuzzFlash Interview: Greg Palast Uncovers the 'Armed Madhouse' of the Bush Reign

We have been saying this for two years.

The war in Iraq has served to slow down oil production in an ever-expanding consumer market and boost consumption. It takes a helluva lot of oil to fight a war, let alone two.. Then there were the tax breaks for buying the biggest SUVs available and the announced patriotism of consuming, traveling; using as many petroleum products as we could possible find.

Bush's buddies and supporters are becoming wealthy beyond most people's ability to even imagine.

It's the corporatists, stupid!



BuzzFlash Interview: Greg Palast Uncovers the 'Armed Madhouse' of the Bush Reign:

"We were screaming in the streets: no blood for oil, which, of course, you know, most Americans consider a bargain, blood for oil, as long as it's not their blood, right? But in fact, it wasn't blood for oil. It was blood for no oil. It was blood to make sure that not too much oil would flow and bust the market. Oil had been down under Bill Clinton to eighteen bucks a barrel. Now it's over $70 a barrel. -- Greg Palast"

CIA Asset maintains job in Iraq through three governments.

Apparently in charge of death-squads and the like.

The Plank:

" Shahwani is the head of an Iraqi intelligence structure (or, if you prefer, secret police) which is independent of the interior or defense ministries. And funny thing about that: He took his job under the Iyad Allawi interim administration, meaning he's kept his job despite two changes of government. Why might that be? Well, when last anyone checked in--anyone being the intrepid Hannah Allam and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder--it was because the CIA refused to turn over Shahwani's intelligence bureau to Iraq's elected Shia officials. According to Allam and Strobel, CIA paid Shahwani's salary and kept funding his agency, largely out of the fear that it didn't want to turn over intelligence assets to a government with ties to Iran. I have absolutely no information that Shahwani is still on CIA's payroll. But after a year and yet another change of government following Knight Ridder's story, Shahwani--unique among Iraqi officials--is still in place. Hmm."

Iraq's Pentagon Papers; where are they?

Elsberg wants someone to step up

Iraq's Pentagon Papers - Los Angeles Times:

"A JOINT resolution referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) calls for the withdrawal of all American military forces from Iraq by Dec. 31. Boxer's 'redeployment' bill cites in its preamble a January poll finding that 64% of Iraqis believe that crime and violent attacks will decrease if the U.S. leaves Iraq within six months, 67% believe that their day-to-day security will increase if the U.S. withdraws and 73% believe that factions in parliament will cooperate more if the U.S. withdraws.

If that's true, then what are we doing there? If Iraqis don't believe that we're making things better or safer, what does that say about the legitimacy of prolonged occupation, much less permanent American bases in Iraq (foreseen by 80% of Iraqis polled)? What does it mean for continued American armored patrols such as the one last November in Haditha, which, we now learn, led to the deaths of a Marine and 24 unarmed civilians? "

Think Progress � Bush Administration Developing Plans To Keep 50,000 U.S. Troops In Iraq For Decades

Why is anyone suprised by this?

There has to be someone there to staff all of the permanent bases Bush has been planning for Iraq. How many was that? 14?

Think Progress � Bush Administration Developing Plans To Keep 50,000 U.S. Troops In Iraq For Decades:

"The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is making plans to keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely:

Mr. Bush on Friday made clear that the American commitment to the country will be long-term. Officials say the administration has begun to look at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts."

Ray McGovern: The Courage to Face the Consequences

The time is coming when everyone will know exactly what must be done, but wil anyone have the courage to do it?

Ray McGovern: The Courage to Face the Consequences:

"Hope is here. The cold light of truth is piercing the cloud of lies conjured by Donald Rumsfeld and others about the war in Iraq - even in the defense secretary's own bailiwick. "

Bolton Let's Big Fart at the U.N; someone strike a match!.

Bolton would be obnoxious even if he never said a word, because he must be the ugliest human baing on Earth outside of a freak show

At the U.N., Bluster Backfires:

"John R. Bolton, the ambassador in question, has a rich history of losing friends and failing to influence people. He was notorious, even before arriving at the United Nations last year, for having said that 10 stories of the U.N. headquarters could be demolished without much loss; he had described the United States as the sun around which lesser nations rotate -- mere 'asteroids,' he'd branded them. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Senate refused to confirm Bolton as U.N. ambassador. 'Arrogant,' 'bullying,' and 'the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be,' Sen. George Voinovich called him."

It is time for the Bushites to go, one way or the other.

Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium - Home:

"The last few weeks have seen disastrous news breaking over the Bush administration, like Katrina come again. This time, though, it's not hurricane winds and surging seas, but waves of innocent blood overtopping the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates to turn the White House crimson. Report after report of horrific atrocities, long held back by a levee of lies, fear, obfuscation and the natural confusion of war, has broken through, flooding the imperial capital with the reeking, corpse-filled backwash of the vast criminal folly committed by its grubby little Caesar.

So great is the stench of moral corruption that even America's corporate media, for so long a simpering handmaiden to the ruling thugs, have been forced to take notice, just as they did, all too briefly, during the Bushist abandonment of New Orleans. New sites of shame have entered the American lexicon: Haditha, Ishaqi, Hamdaniyah, Samarra, places where horrors large and small, confirmed and alleged, comprehensible and unfathomable, have marked this beginning of the fourth year of occupation. "

Can we spell Whistleblower?

The large majority of Americans are not as dumb as the government and much of the mainstream media and press appear to think we are.

We know the difference between a whistleblower, who believes that the government, or some other powerful entity, is breaking the law in such a way as to be harmful to the American people, or democracy and our way of life, and an administration snake, who prefers slithering around in back channels, in order to smear critics and intimidate political opposition.

That the press and TV news media seems not to know the difference is, indeed, frightening.

If the administration has something to say, let them say it from a podium or shut the hell up!

Meanwhile, whistleblowers should be given medals of freedom, unless those awards have totally lost all meaning in Bushworld, a distinct possibility

Public Secrets:

"Why does The Washington Post willingly publish 'classified' information affecting national security? Should Post journalists and others who reveal the government's secrets be subject to criminal prosecution for doing so? These questions, raised with new urgency of late, deserve careful answers.

There's a reason why we're hearing these questions now. We live in tense times. The country is anxious about war and terrorism. Washington is more sharply divided along ideological lines than at any time since I came to work at The Post in 1963. The Bush administration has unabashedly sought to enhance the powers of the executive branch as it wages what it calls a 'war on terror,' many of whose components are classified secrets.

These are new circumstances, but to a reporter who has been watching the contest between press and government for four decades, what isn't new here seems more significant than what is. What isn't new is a government trying to hide its activities from the public, and a press trying to find out what is being hidden."

Keep the Internet neutral, fair and free - Jun 9, 2006

If there is one thing that Corporate America, and their puppets in goovernment hate, it is anything having to do with egalitarianism, fairness or freedom.

CNN.com - Commentary: Keep the Internet neutral, fair and free - Jun 9, 2006:

"But why change a good thing? Right now, the Internet is a level playing field for everyone. The wonky term for this is 'Net neutrality.' When the Internet is neutral, everyone can use it, just like everyone can use public roads or airwaves. All businesses on the Internet get an equal shot at success."

Democracy is on life-support in America

Either we do something about this, or we can expect all manner of American living to become untenable.

The American people must be prepared to do whatever it takes to stop the foolishness of long lines and paperless voting machines.

tbe Progressive American:

"Republicans, and even a surprising number of Democrats, have been anxious to leave the 2004 Ohio election debacle behind. But Mr. Kennedy, in his long, heavily footnoted article ('Was the 2004 Election Stolen?'), leaves no doubt that the democratic process was trampled and left for dead in the Buckeye State. Mr. Kerry almost certainly would have won Ohio if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots.

Mr. Kennedy's article echoed and expanded upon an article in Harper's ('None Dare Call It Stolen,' by Mark Crispin Miller) that ran last summer. Both articles documented ugly, aggressive and frequently unconscionable efforts by G.O.P. stalwarts to disenfranchise Democrats in Ohio, especially those in urban and heavily black areas.

The point man for these efforts was the Ohio secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who was both the chief election official in the state and co-chairman of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio � just as Katherine Harris was the chief election official and co-chairwoman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Florida in 2000.

No one has been able to prove that the election in Ohio was hijacked. But whenever it is closely scrutinized, the range of problems and dirty tricks that come to light is shocking. What's not shocking, of course, is that every glitch and every foul-up in Ohio, every arbitrary new rule and regulation, somehow favored Mr. Bush. "

It is high time for the Senate to stand up to BuCheney

Is there any such thing as courage in elected Washington anymore?

With few exceptions, the cowardice in DC is breath-taking.

It remains up to the people to resuscitate our Democracy and Bill of Rights.

Blind Man's Bluff - New York Times:

"For more than six months, a few senators have been fumbling around in the dark, trying to write laws covering a domestic wiretapping operation that remains a mystery to most of them. Their ideas are far from radical; some just want to bring the White House back under the rule of law by making the spying retroactively legal. But Vice President Dick Cheney, who is in charge of both overseeing the spying and covering it up, has now made it crystal clear that the White House does not intend to let anything happen. It's time for the Senate to stop rolling over and start focusing on uncovering the extent of the spying and enforcing the law.

A good place to start is by compelling the executives of the major telecommunications companies to testify about reports that they have turned over data on the phone calls of millions of Americans without a court order. Those reports were a reminder that this is not a debate about whether the government should spy on terrorists by tapping their phone calls. President Bush wants Americans to believe that critics of the program oppose that, but nobody does. The real issue is that Mr. Bush does not want to bother with legal niceties like getting a warrant or to acknowledge Congress's power by accounting for his actions"

Lieberman keeping his options open

Lieberamn should join the Likud Party and be done with it.

The Bristol Press - Lieberman keeping his options open:

"BRISTOL - In the wake of a statewide poll that shows U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman winning re-election easily if he runs as an independent, the three-term Democratic incumbent refused Friday to rule out the possibility."