Friday Funnies, Hot Links- Columbus 50th Annual International Festival Info
The Prissy Patriot will return on Sunday
UPDATE: And let's not forget about this one: cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/06/findlaw.analysis.dean.wmd/
Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense? June 6, 2003 by John Dean-former presidential counsel and star witness of the Watergate prosecution
Perhaps most troubling, the president has failed to provide any explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements, yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be? Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?
The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements may actually have been intentional lies.
And...To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
Any questions? Prissy didn't think so...as John Dean sums it up quite nicely.
On Findlaw: A Cheney-Libby Conspiracy, Or Worse? Reading Between the Lines of the Libby Indictment-By JOHN W. DEAN-Friday, Nov. 04, 2005 writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051104.html
Now, however, one indictment has been issued -- naming Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby as the defendant, and charging false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice. If the indictment is to be believed, the case against Libby is, indeed, a clear one.
Having read the indictment against Libby, I am inclined to believe more will be issued. In fact, I will be stunned if no one else is indicted.
And... Thus, from the outset of the investigation, Libby has been Dick Cheney's firewall. And it appears that Fitzgerald is actively trying to penetrate that firewall.
What Is Likely To Occur Next?
It has been reported that Libby's attorney tried to work out a plea deal. But Fitzgerald insisted on jail time, so Libby refused to make a deal. It appears that only Libby, in addition to Cheney, knows what Cheney knew, and when he knew, and why he knew, and what he did with his knowledge.
Fitzgerald has clearly thrown a stacked indictment at Libby, laying it on him as heavy as the law and propriety permits. He has taken one continuous false statement, out of several hours of interrogation, and made it into a five-count indictment. It appears he is trying to flip Libby - that is, to get him to testify against Cheney -- and not without good reason. Cheney is the big fish in this case.
According to today's NYT, the Niger documents were forged by a "freelance spy" in Italy. The Italian government claims they told Duyba around the same time of the infamous "sixteen words" from Dubya's state of the Union address.
There are so many liars or "educated thieves" as one man called them- involved, only a court of law could sort out this mess. Let us hope We the People get our day in court against the perpetrators of this war.
Continue to pressure your representatives. If it were not so catastrophic, it would be nearly humorous how they continue to fail the American people over and over.
Do they think what goes on is not the business of the American people? There is no question most will lose their jobs in the 2006 elections. This Congress is an even bigger failure than Bush's presidency.
Prissy blames Democrats and Republicans for failing to do their jobs. If we knew there were no WMD, no "mushroom cloud"-there would have been no support anywhere-for the invasion of Iraq.
The facts are the American people were sold bad policy, based on false information. If Prissy knew this, they most surely did too. And yet they tell us there is more where that came from...
Hot Links
americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1157929
Center for American Progress by Eric Alterman Where’s Novak? Enough said.
Will we ever have fully satisfactory answers to questions that initially inspired the Fitzgerald investigation, as well as those it has raised in its wake? Likely not. But if reporters and news organizations decide to invest the time and money in trying to find the answers to these and other key questions, they might at least make a start at making amends to their readers, viewers and listeners for accepting administration claims at face value in the first place, and allowing the nation to be led by lies into war. Just one request to Bill Keller and the folks at the Times, however: Could you please keep Judy Miller off the story? She’s done her part….
Yes, she certainly has...some say she should be held responsible for the crafting of her convincing WMD articles which turned out to be little more than propaganda for the Bush Administrations warmongering. And they say they love America...
Abramoff, meanwhile, is already facing the prospect of significant jail time. He has been charged with fraud in connection with an unrelated casino deal in Florida, which ended in a gangland-style killing of the man Abramoff is alleged to have defrauded. (Several people have been charged with that killing, including two employees of a company controlled by Abramoff's business partner, Adam Kidan.) At the same time, the former top procurement official in the White House, David Safavian, has been arrested on charges of lying about a trip he took to Scotland with Abramoff. Another former White House official, Timothy Flanigan, recently withdrew his nomination to become deputy attorney general, after it became clear that he would have to testify under oath to the Senate about his relationship with Abramoff.
On Wednesday, a third former Bush administration official, J. Steven Griles, was asked to account for his relationship with Abramoff, which is detailed in dozens of e-mails obtained by the Senate. Griles claimed that he had never done Abramoff's bidding, despite Abramoff's own boasts that Griles was working on his behalf, and might even consider a job at Greenberg Traurig after he left government. "I can't reconcile what Mr. Abramoff put in e-mails to anyone," said Griles, a former coal industry lobbyist who recently served as deputy secretary of the interior. Alrighty then, they certainly don't allow morals to get in the way of doing business...Dubya sure knows how to pick his friends. His friends may be thieves, but his enemies are honest brokers to the Constitution...
salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/03/abramoff/
Salon-Abramoff-Scanlon School of Sleaze-Wednesday's Senate hearings yielded more scandalous revelations about how the dynamic lobbying duo bilked American Indian tribes out of millions and used the money to win elections for their Republican clients. By Michael Scherer
Don't miss the 50th Annual Columbus International Festival-November 4,5 & 6, 2005 - Veteran's Memorial-$5.00 adults, $2.00 children- More info: unacol.org/main.php3?action=displayarticle&articleid=festival
One Small World
Date: November 4-6, 2005
Time: Friday 6PM-10PM Saturday 10AM to 10PM Sunday 11AM-6PM
Venue: Veteran's Memorial
300 W. Broad St.
Columbus, OH 43215
"Take a trip around the world without leaving Columbus"
A solution to the middle east peace process?
One more thing to hold against the neoRepublicans who got us into a war we could not afford...may they be personally effected by their incompetence. boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2005/11/04/gas_shortage_could_cause_power_outages_this_winter/
Gas shortage could cause power outages this winter-Boston Globe
"A significant amount of the natural gas supply may be out of production," said Ellen Foley, a spokeswoman for ISO New England, the organization that dispenses electricity to the region.
So officials are encouraging residents to conserve power to prevent rolling blackouts, in which some areas lose power for short intervals, during cold spells this winter.
"There is a significant risk there will be insufficient availability from gas-fired generating units to meet peak electrical demands this winter," ISO New England said.
aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=9932
Bush & Rumsfeld could be indicted-Al-Jazeera
It's been revealed that today, more than a year after Abu Ghraib scandal broke out and inhumane and brutal interrogation methods used against the Iraqi detainees at the notorious prison were uncovered, torture continues at that prison and, more people are still being tortured by the U.S. military personnel worldwide. It seems that Bush’s administration is not even considering or intending to stop those tactics, instead it is trying to found a way that legalizes them or makes them easier. In January 2002, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo to President Bush saying that America needs to find a way to sidestep the Geneva Convention as it puts top officials in a serious situation; bearing in mind prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 2441. And thus Gonzales prepared a document trail that can be used to prove that “top administration officials knowingly created a policy of torturing prisoners, and that such a policy could reasonably have been expected to result in the death of some prisoners,” according to GlobalResearch. Recent statement by Abu Ghraib general accusing top officials of involvement in the crimes that were carried out at the jail is a key evidence for convicting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, as well as other administration officials for violation of the War Crimes Act of 1996. And if successfully convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison, or even death.
(US Army Reserves in Iraq in photo below)
Quotes of the Day
The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.~Niccolo Machiavelli
Politics have no relation to morals.~Niccolo Machiavelli
"Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen." It's not the people who are in prison worry me. It's the people who aren't "Libby was indicted on two counts of obstruction of justice, three counts of perjury, and one count of not being as smart as Karl Rove."
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