Friday, August 12, 2005

Think Progress » 21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak

Think Progress » 21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak

Thus far, the media coverage of the outing of Valerie Plame has focused on a few central figures, most of all Karl Rove. But the evidence that has come to light to date suggests involvement by numerous Bush officials at all levels across multiple departments.

Think Progress has created a comprehensive database cataloguing the connections of 21 administration officials to the outing of an undercover CIA agent. It will be updated regularly to reflect news developments on the case and will serve as a reference for anyone looking for the most up to date information on the investigation.

Here is what ABC’s The Note has to say about it:

In an age when the general public would be shocked at the degree to which major news organizations are wholly dependent on interest groups for their research, this one will get some Gang of 500 bookmarking.

Check it out and spread the word.


MSNBC News Pics

'Vanity Fair' Rips Media 'Conspiracy' in Covering Up Role in Plame Scandal

'Vanity Fair' Rips Media 'Conspiracy' in Covering Up Role in Plame Scandal

By Greg Mitchell

Published: August 11, 2005 9:00 PM ET

NEW YORK In an article in the September issue of Vanity Fair (not yet online), Michael Wolff, in probing the Plame/CIA leak scandal, rips those in the news media -- principally Time magazine and The New York Times -- who knew that Karl Rove was one of the leakers but refused to expose what would have been “one of the biggest stories of the Bush years.” Not only that, “they helped cover it up.” You might say, he adds, they “became part of a conspiracy.”

If they had burned this unworthy source and exposed his “crime,” he adds, it would have been “of such consequences that it might, reasonably, have presaged the defeat of the president, might have even -- to be slightly melodramatic -- altered the course of the war in Iraq.” In doing so they showed they owed their greatest allegiance to the source, not their readers.

And their source was no Deep Throat, not someone with dirt on the government -- the source “was the government.”

So in the end, he concludes, “the greatest news organizations in the land had a story about a potential crime that reached as close as you can get to the president himself and they punted, they swallowed it, they self-dealt.” And why did they do it? Well, “a source is a source who, unrevealed, will continue to be a source.”

Even after the news first emerged last month that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the media still waited days to even ask the White House press secretary about it. It was a story, "in full view, the media just ignored."

The title of the Wolff article is "All Roads Lead to Rove."

Wolff mocks Time’s Matt Cooper and Norman Pearlstine and can’t seem to make heads or tails of “genuinely spooky” Robert Novak. He holds off full judgment on the Times’ jailed reporter Judith Miller, while noting the "baloney" she retailed for the White House. But he pointedly notes, concerning Miller, that reporters are born “blabbermouths” and even when they don’t write or print a certain story they are prone to “serve it up to everybody they know.”

He closes with a frontal blast at the media, many members of which will soon be exposed, he predicts, for having “lined up for these lies” spun by the White House.

Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P.

The Bubble Magician


The Bubble Magician
Originally uploaded by tarotastic.
This was taken a The Big Chill Festival. August 5-7 2005, Eastnor Castle, England. What a fantastic festival!! This bubble was courtesy of Bubble Inc!!

This was the #1 photo by Flickr - Interesting on the date August 11th 2005.

IMG_2466


IMG_2466
Originally uploaded by jgionet.

Spelunking Through the Chaos: 1983 fake newscast/film features nuke explosion in Charleston Harbor

Spelunking Through the Chaos: 1983 fake newscast/film features nuke explosion in Charleston Harbor

Mr Smith's Evening Breakfast


Mr Smith's Evening Breakfast
Originally uploaded by Sarrah.

City to Release Oral Histories of 9/11 Friday - New York Times

City to Release Oral Histories of 9/11 Friday - New York Times

August 12, 2005
City to Release Oral Histories of 9/11 Friday
By JIM DWYER
A rich vein of city records from Sept. 11, including more than 12,000 pages of oral histories rendered in the voices of 503 firefighters, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians, will be made public today.

The histories - a mosaic of vision and memory recalling the human struggle against surging fire, confusion, and horror - were compiled by the New York City Fire Department beginning in October 2001, but to this date, no one from the department has read them all or used them for any official purpose.

The city has announced that it will also release today a written log of calls to the 911 system, many from trapped office workers, as well as tapes of fire dispatchers. Other records, including tapes of 911 operators, are being assembled and are not yet ready for release, city officials said.

The New York Times sought the records under the freedom of information law in February 2002, but the Bloomberg administration refused to make them public and the newspaper sued the city. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, ordered the city to release most, but not all, of the records.

Over the last three and half years, The Times has obtained some of these records through unofficial channels, and they can be found on the Web at www.nytimes.com/sept11. These include the dispatch tapes, nearly 100 of the Fire Department oral histories, and a log of calls to Emergency Medical Service dispatchers that were channeled through the 911 system.

A group of families of people who died in the attack intervened in the suit brought by The Times, also urging release of the records. One of those family members, Rosaleen Tallon, noted that Zacarias Moussaoui, an admitted member of Al Qaeda who is accused of plotting with the Sept. 11 hijackers, long ago obtained the same documents in preparation for his criminal trial that were being denied to her and other families by the Bloomberg administration. The city also initially refused access to the records to investigators from both the 9/11 Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but relented when legal action was threatened.

In the Fire Department accounts, the testimony of many fire officers and firefighters was both moving and blunt. When the accounts obtained by The Times were made public, they opened a new dimension to the discussions about fire operations that day and pointedly raised questions about whether some of the department's deaths might have been avoided.

In the histories, the firefighters recalled losing touch with one another that morning and being unable to deliver or hear warnings about the imminent collapse of the towers. They described the physical toll of climbing 20 and 30 flights of stairs, laden with gear and outfits that weighed nearly 100 pounds. They included descriptions of a loss of command of the firefighters going up the stairs, the lack of communication between the police and fire departments, and the small measures by which people survived or died.

The accounts include such serendipities as an aide to a chief, who stood by his side in the lobby of the south tower at the Trade Center site, then left for the adjoining hotel to use a bathroom. Shortly after he left, the south tower collapsed, killing everyone inside.

For all their power, the oral histories are individual narratives, the accounts of men and women who saw the day, at times yards from death. They were originally gathered on the order of Thomas Von Essen, the city fire commissioner on Sept. 11, who said he wanted to preserve those accounts before they became reshaped by a collective memory. He was succeeded as commissioner in January 2002 by Nicholas Scoppetta. Some of the oral histories were reviewed, but not all, a spokesman for Mr. Scoppetta said last night. Mr. Scoppetta declined to be interviewed.

Sally Regenhard, the mother of Christian Regenhard, a firefighter killed that day with his engine company, had been one of those who joined the suit for the release of the records, in hope that the oral histories might provide some clue on where her son had been.

"It has been almost four years, and I've been waiting for any information on my son," Mrs. Regenhard said. "He disappeared that day with his entire engine company. No one can tell me what happened to him - not even the smallest detail."

Early in his administration, Mr. Scoppetta refused to release the oral histories because he said he had been advised by federal prosecutors that their publication might impede the prosecution of Mr. Moussaoui. The department also advanced the position in court that the firefighters who had provided the oral histories did so with specific promises of confidentiality.

The department withdrew that claim. Mr. Scoppetta later found little support from federal prosecutors, judges, or defense lawyers for the position that Mr. Moussaoui's right to a fair trial would be hampered by publishing the recollections of firefighters or paramedics.

The city found more success in another line of argument: that release of certain records would violate the privacy of the dead, or cause emotional distress to the living. The Court of Appeals allowed the oral histories to be edited under a limited set of circumstances. It also refused to order the city to release all of the 911 tapes, saying that the callers voices should not be made public. The other half of the conversations, involving the operators who spoke with the callers, will eventually be made public.

"We're gratified that it's finally being done," said David E. McCraw, a lawyer for The Times. "We believe it should have been done a long time ago. We believe the public is ultimately the beneficiary. We hope the city will move quickly to release the 911 tapes."



C

CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times

CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times

One of the grubby little secrets of the Great Potomac Grease Pit -- otherwise known as the U.S. government -- is that the massive amount of bribes given and taken there often has little effect on the final outcome of policy decisions and legislation.

Something Diff: Madonna

TCS: Tech Central Station - Damn That Market Mentality!

TCS: Tech Central Station - Damn That Market Mentality!

Comments by This Blogger:

It's a Miracle! I agree with the point of view of a post at TCS.

Vague Nihilism: The Unsung Sniper of Baghdad

Vague Nihilism: The Unsung Sniper of Baghdad

Newsweek Poll: Bush’s Battle - Newsweek Politics - MSNBC.com

Newsweek Poll: Bush’s Battle - Newsweek Politics - MSNBC.com

Blogger Comment: Gotta give Newsweek some credit for articles like these.

Woman says 'McDonald's diet' took off weight - Diet

Woman says 'McDonald's diet' took off weight - Diet

Humint Events Online: Truly Dysfunctional Times

Humint Events Online: Truly Dysfunctional Times

The Raw Story | Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq

The Raw Story | Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq

Medhufushi.


Medhufushi.
Originally uploaded by ahmedzahid.
If the scenery is not a killer in itself,
the amount of pampering and hospitality certainly is worth dieing.

Everything is here. Sailing to saunas to spas.

Attention to detail is given priority as well as priority to individual comfort.

From bed linen to bath tub to personal bar: Meticulously chosen, logo-ed and hyped. Hyped to a level that the 5 specialised restaurants and bars are not enough in variety, an additional 24 hour in-villa dining service is offered.

Enough,
to put any Robinson Crusoe to pitiful shame. Bet he never even dreamed of
the floating villa.

The floating villa with amenities and privacy worthy of a glittering queen.
The floating villa with its own private sundeck, from where steps lead down to the calm-warm-inviting-azure-blue sea.

The scenic sea. Aaaah!! Heaven.

Hold. Hold it folks. Friends.
Don't just dial yet.This place doesn’t... exist!

The calm-warm-inviting-azure-blue sea got a tad angry on 26 December.
One day after Christmas, last year, giant waves engulfed large parts of the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean.

This is Medhufushi of Triple A group of hotels, before the tsunami.
The entire island was in wrecks.

Damage to the infrastructure was so bad, the resort had to shut down immediately.

Today, after a long delay, there was an announcement in the papers, for invitation to tenders for the reconstruction of this resort.

Expect 10 to 14 months before your calls can be taken.

Is Flocco a Flake-O?, by Carl Worden

Wing TV - Connect The Dots

Limbaugh falsely blamed Clinton administration ... [Media Matters for America]

Limbaugh falsely blamed Clinton administration ... [Media Matters for America]

Tucker Carlson accused of supporting terrorism on MSNBC

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

"I've generally liked Carlson in the past, have always thought he played a far-right idiot rather than being one, but this is so far out of line during a time of war."

Comments by This Blogger:
John in Paris is, of course, clueless on some issues.

Carlson, if not an idiot, is a shill to evil.

ProfessorBainbridge.com: Federal Liberals

ProfessorBainbridge.com: Federal Liberals

Your blogger says: Not sure you'll want to delve into this. If you do, here are some of my thoughts:

1) Bainbridge rhetoric: conservative good, liberal bad. Even though I side with this in regard to judicial practice, Bainbridge seems not to be concerned that Fox News and Republicans are running roughshod over any truth and accountability in today's world.

2) Kevin Drum: Although Bainbridge seems to like Drum better than other so-called liberals, and Drum's blog entry (to which Bainbridge refers) has an interesting discussion with the upshot being that the TV ad about Roberts is too slimly (and unnecessarily so). The particular alternative that Drum is advocating (discrediting the ivory tower ideology) is not the easy target that Drum seems to imply. Bainbridge is there to lead the defense, and the case has powerful arguments on both sides. The Bainbridge side gets the nod as being more directly based on the documents and surrounding facts of our Country's Founders.

News Hounds: Fox Wants NFL To Fire Mick Jagger

News Hounds: Fox Wants NFL To Fire Mick Jagger

Fox has been going after Mick Jagger because of his new song, "Sweet Neo Con", and today the gossip chompers on Fox & Friends decided to take the punishment up a notch by trying to get the NFL to fire him.
8/11/05

Mick Jagger has recently stated that his song does not target President Bush personally.
"It's not aimed at President Bush. It couldn't be called "Sweet Neo Con" if it were."

The trio speculated that Jagger was trying to protect his NFL contract. Steve Doocy said, "Maybe he doesn"t want to be dixie-chicked." So that's exactly what they tried to do.

An impromptu poll was suggested asking viewers if they thought Mick Jagger should be canned by the NFL for writing the song. In a very short time, Doocy reported that only one viewer out of the many responses wanted Jagger to keep his contract to perform at the Super Bowl. E.D. Hill commented that it would be really awkward if President Bush went to the Super Bowl and saw Mick Jagger perform.

comment: Somehow I doubt that Mick Jagger really needs the NFL contract and the Dixie Chicks are doing just fine now and still have their self respect and integrity intact too. Of course, integrity and self respect are non issues in the world of Fox News.

Reported by deborah at August 11, 2005 11:22 AM

optimism


optimism
Originally uploaded by _rebekka.
as opposed to this

Hillary: Feeling the Love - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

Hillary: Feeling the Love - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

Your Blogger Comment: Haven't read it yet.

bgtruth.blogspot.com

The sinking city


The sinking city
Originally uploaded by *Ivan*.