“These revelations about Plame’s surveillance of the American Turkish Council are significant because the ATC is connected to powerful neocons like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith (and, to be fair, to powerful anti-Iraq War activists like Brent Scowcroft and Joe Wilson.) And Edmonds implies that at least some on the ATC neocon side of this scandal are heavily involved in the nuclear black market: Feith and Perle, along with former Ambassador to Turkey Marc Grossman, are fingered by Edmonds as figures of interest.

One only has to recall that Perle and Feith are close allies of Scooter Libby, one of the original leakers of Plame’s identity to the media, to conclude that Libby may have had more than one motive in seeing Plame’s career and the whole Brewster Jennings operation destroyed. While several Beltway journalists, including the liberal Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, have tried to virtually chase Patrick Fitzgerald out of town by peddling the GOP storyline that going after the Plame leaker(s) amounts to “criminalizing politics,” this new evidence suggests that the leak may not have been done in the spirit of good, old fashioned Washington hardball after all: A good case could now be made that outing Plame was an intentional act pepetrated to protect real criminal activity. Casting the investigation in such a light may show that a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act could still be in play.”

Anything you can shed light on, Larry?

Spread the word!:

http://petitiononline.com/noorkhan/petition.html

The group of former “intelligence” (sic) officers that he seems to lead should have spent as much effort doing their jobs (instead of padding their fat asses on the public payroll) as they expend on trying to prevent George Bush from doing his job.

Maybe if they had done more than drink coffee and take government-paid junkets, we wouldn’t know the date of 9/11.

By making this leak an “ongoing investigation”, BushWorld can now dodge all questions, and surpress evidence as being required by the prosecution.

The American people have an near-absolute right to know everything that is being done in their name, including when such things are being _to_ them. Of course, there are a few exceptions where national security is truly the issue, and the Congress has pre-approved it.

It’s clear that Bush wants dictatorial powers. He even stated at one time his job would be easier if he were dictator. I say we should take him at his word, and thus we as a patriotic people must have his sorry ass removed from our White House.

Chances are, Bush will go down over campaign funding. Abramoff will testify against whichever legislators don’t go along. Then we can get a new figurehead who’s innocent of all Bush’s crimes and we can go another 4 or 8 years while we gradually figure out whether anything is changing.

My best suggestion for the long run is to campaign for instant runoff voting at your town or county level. Get that in and start campaigning at the state level. Eventually we might get meaningful national elections, and if not at least the example might help somebody else.

As for your wish, I fervently hope it comes true, for all our sakes.

I honestly don’t know what happened to journalistic standards. I appreciate that journalism is a business, but I thought it was a business built on integrity and some modicum of ethical standards. It seems to me, that it’s now at least 60% capitalism, 30% partisan politics, and the other 10% split between self-gratification (ego if you like), and a smidgen of common decency and ethical standards (even Malkin has made one article critical of some in this Administration in the past six months, so I guess she has a moral stand on one issue. Too bad she lacks that conviction on all the other issues.)

BTW, I use those percentages as indicators only. I am certain that the real split varies widely. That just seems to be the mean to me.

Cheers.

Cross-posted at DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5724269&mesg_id=5724269

Happy New Year,
Bob

I don’t post here often, but I do read whatever you write, here and at TPMCafe.

Just want to thank you, from my heart, for your fight and your passion on behalf of the Constitution and all Americans.

God bless you and everyone who loves this country and will fight in the coming year, harder than ever, to take back our constitutional civil rights from all these wannabe dictators under “Little Boots” Bush.

Good luck to you and us all, and Happy New Year!

my new years ‘hope’ is that 2006 will be the year of the ‘frog-march’, the year where bush, cheney, and their embedded crooks in our congress are all marched off in frog-march style to the nearest federal jail cell for their treason, thefts, murders, and their criminal mismanagement of our nation’s affairs.

one can always ‘hope’ for truth, justice, and the american way to prevail.

happy new year and may your new years wishes be fulfilled.

Secretive or covert operations are fine as long as they are done within the bounds of the law. When those operations venture well beyond the law, then that information needs to be made public and the responsible parties held accountable. How many other secret programs are out there? How many are violating the law, not to mention undermining the public’s trust in its elected and appointed government officials?

I hope you get your gift, Larry. It will be one that all of us can enjoy.

Happy New Year! Be safe.