On October 29th, 2005 Rob Port from SayAnythingBlog.com became a Blog Father! HalfThePolitics.com, Port’s Blog Son, was born in an painful month long delivery that started out at some other blog.
Although, I’m hoping that I was either adopted or that mom is really hot!
Condoleezzombie
La Shawn Barber follows Condigate. Apparently, USA Today used a photoshop filter that made Condoleezza Rice look zombiefied. It wasn’t the first time the MSM used photo doctoring to villianize individuals. After this story appeared on the DrudgeReport.com the picture was quickly removed. Hmm.
Meanwhile, Little Green Footballs uncovers a photo alteration of a different kind.
Sunnis Do Vote!
The Indepundit notes that “Sunnise are turning to the ballot box.” Despite others telling you that their non-participation invalidates the constitution of Iraq. Confederate Yankee says, “al Qaeda’s strategic war is lost, their tactical capabilities steadily
eroded. The terrorists have the ability to still kill, sometimes
spectacularly, but they no longer have any chance of containing a
nation of people that has demonstrated that it wants freedom, and is
willing to trust the ballot more than the bullet.”
Other Political Shorts
Iran announced today that Isreal should be “wiped off the map.”
Meirs really really really really doesn’t want to become the next Supreme Court Justice.
No announcement on the fate of Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and the rest of “Plamegate“
Cindy Sheehan sits down in Washington D.C. Good Media Whore.
The Governor of Louisana should take note on how Florida Governor Jeb Bush is handly the criticism of the aid supply:
Gov. Jeb Bush took the blame Wednesday for frustrating delays at centers distributing supplies to victims of Hurricane Wilma, saying criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was misdirected.”Don’t blame FEMA. This is our responsibility,” Bush said at a news conference in Tallahassee with federal Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who oversees the agency.
Miers Isolated From Social Turmoil As Teen
Print Story: Miers Isolated From Social Turmoil As Teen on Yahoo! News
Less spending, in this case, is a good thing!
The Bush administration has abandoned research into a nuclear “bunker-buster” warhead, deciding instead to pursue a similar device using conventional weaponry, a key Republican senator said Tuesday.Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., said funding for the nuclear bunker-buster as part of the Energy Department’s fiscal 2006 budget has been dropped at the department’s request.The nuclear bunker-buster had been the focus of intense debate in Congress, with opponents arguing that its development as a tactical nuclear weapon could add to nuclear proliferation.
The WashingtonPost has updated with A History of Indictments at White House. I think their definition of ‘recent history’ differs from my own. I’m not going to look at something from 1973 and compare it to what is happening today because I wasn’t even born yet! Even comparing the indictments during the Clinton administration might be unfair. I’m going to shorten the list to indictments that have happened in the last 5 years.
In October 2005, David H. Safavian, the top procurement official for President Bush, resigned. Three days later, he was arrested and indicted on five felony counts connected to criminal investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. At the time the indictment covered, from May 2002 to January 2004, Safavian had been serving as the chief of staff at the General Services Administration. Case pending.
Just one? What a shame. What kind of commentary can I give on just one indictment? The good people at Indictment Central better start handing out some of those indictments (minty flavored). I guess I’m going to have to resort to my Alias comparison. Not only does most of the public know about Sydney Bristow’s status as an undercover agent for the CIA. She is actually involved in a blacks ops unit called, Authorized Personal Only (APO). It’s completely off the records and there is no official statement on its existence. It’s weird because EVERY single individual in the government knows that APO exists and they all know Sydney by first name. Yet, unlike real life events, THE PRESS NEVER PUBLISHES HER NAME!
If Rove, Libby, Cheney go down for this I fully expect someone in the media to pay as well (SEE: Robert Novak). I’m as conservative as they come, but revealing the identies of those who are on the front lines in the War Against Terror is a treasonous move. Then again Sydney Bristow would’ve slapped some sense into Mr. Novak.
CBS’ JOHN ROBERTS: Lawyers familiar with the case think Wednesday is when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will make known his decision, and that there will be indictments. Supporters say Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, are in legal jeopardy…
This afternoon the Standard posted a new column by Stephen Hayes on the credibility of Joseph Wilson: “The Incredibles.” Steve’s column was provoked by today’s Washington Post story by Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus: “Husband is conspicuous in leak case.”
Chris Matthews is so confident about yesterday’s NY Times story that he offered a guest to dance on his grave if he’s wrong.
MATTHEWS: (Click for Video) Whoa whoa whoa, I’ll hold you to that Ron. I’m going to let you come back and I’m going to give you the chance to dance on my grave if it’s not true, that the New York Times has a good piece of information here about a piece of evidence that has been introduced to the grand jury.
Leaks said to have possibly come from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s office will, ostensibly, focus on “lapses of memory� surrounding conversations that occurred over 2 ½ years ago. If so, the supposed leaked information would support the claim by some that this will end up being a Martha Stewart-type case. The original indictment for insider-trading against Ms. Stewart was dropped. Instead, prosecutors brought charges against her for “lying� about charges that were never brought. However, if the leaks are correct, the indictments against President Bush’s Administration members will be brought against the members not remembering precisely what may or may not have been said several years ago.
Fitzgerald Indictments No Longer about Outing of Plame
Update: More Articles and Quotes.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With charges expected as early as Wednesday, federal officials investigating the exposure of CIA operative Valerie Plame conducted last-minute interviews with her neighbors and associates of Karl Rove and other top White House aides, lawyers said on Tuesday.
Marc Lefkowitz, who lives across the street from Plame, told Reuters two FBI agents asked him on Monday if he knew about Plame’s CIA work before her identity was leaked to the press in 2003. Lefkowitz said he told them: “I didn’t know.”
ABC News: CIA leak investigators hold last-minute interviews
A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an “undercover agent,” saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency’s headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
“She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat,” Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.
Rove fight escalates – Nation/Politics – The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper
An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN (since confirmed by another independent source):
1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.
2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.
3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and “filed” tomorrow.
4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.
For what it’s worth, I now think we can expect a series of indictments for perjury and obstruction, which I hope will be followed by an investigation into Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, the CIA, and certain members of the media—and then by a thorough public re-airing of the story recently laid out by Stephen Hayes in The Weekly Standard, which will go a long way toward correcting certain of the established “truths� about pre-war intelligence.As I argued last evening, lying to the grand jury to cover up complicity in a leak is a crime and should be dealt with seriously, and at the discretion of the prosecutor. If these latest leaks (ah, the irony!) are true, Fitzgerald appears to be leaning toward handing out indictments for crimes committed in the course of refuting an objectively dishonest whisper campaign foisted on the nation by Joseph Wilson and likeminded Bush critics in the CIA—and predictably lapped up by a few credulous members of the press—that was meant to weaken the President (by suggesting he took the US to war on false pretenses) and leave him vulnerable in the 2004 elections.
Simple. Clean. And very misleading. The real story is considerably more complicated.
The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons
Technorati Tags: Patrick Fitzgerald, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, CIA Scandal, Sydney Bristow
NYT WEDS: GROWING NUMBER OF REPUBLICANS IN SENATE OPENLY DOUBT MIERS CHANCES FOR COURT… DEVELOPING…
The Political Teen has some video of Senator Robert Byrd snoozing away while fellow Democrat reacts to the death of 2,000 soldiers in Iraq.
The U.S. military death toll in the Iraq war reached 2,000 with the announcements Tuesday of three more deaths.
U.S. Military Deaths Reach 2,000 in Iraq
It’s a damn shame that something our troops have worked so hard for should get short-shrift in favor of stories glorifying the deaths of the troops themselves.
Say Anything – North Dakota’s Most Popular Political Blog
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the force’s combined press center, described the number as an “artificial mark on the wall.”
“I ask that when you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq,” Boylan said in an e-mail. “The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”
WRAL.com – AP National News – Military: 2,000 Dead An Artificial Mark
But only slightly more than 1500 have actually died from hostile fire. More than 400 military members have died due to non-combat causes. And not all of the almost 2000 deaths have actually happened in Iraq. If a military member dies in the AOR, on orders for OIF, his/her death is counted towards “the milestone of 2,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq”.
The Big 2K: The Coming Media MythÂ
Never underestimate MoveOn.org’s willingness to capitalize on death. They are running an ad highlighting two thousand soliders who have died while in service in Iraq (not necessarily as a result of combat) and, of course, asking for money to help them run the ad.
As bird flu is spread continent-to-continent by wild birds, the seasonal migration that is normally one of nature’s wonders is becoming something scary.Could bird flu reach North America through migrating birds? Biologists in Alaska and Canada are keeping an eye out and say it’s possible by next year.
Bird Flu Could Hit U.S. Next Year
This Avian Bird Flu thing is getting very scary. Of course the threat to humans is still minimal.
Of course, the bigger fear is that bird flu will mutate into a flu that is both contagious and deadly to people and which would quickly spread around the globe through international travel. The current bird flu is not easily spread to people.
Let’s hope this doesn’t happen!
