Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Fred Phelps, who set up the controversial Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka

Sky Report Channel

Patrick Fitzgerald Appointed by Longtime Crony

Patrick Fitzgerald Appointed by Longtime Crony

Blogger Thought: What else would you expect from Newsmax?

The secret society and the Niger forgeries

Cannonfire


Josh Marshall has done remarkable, ground-breaking work on the Niger forgeries and their movement through the murky world of Italian parapolitics. Yet he doesn't give his readers some necessary history.In his latest look at the controversy, he draws from a recent (as-yet untranslated) article in La Repubblica on the forgeries. Marhsall correctly identifies the piece as a limited hang-out (although he does not use that term). Marshall:
And this one says the culprits are Rocco Martino, the Italian woman who works in the Niger embassy in Rome and the SISMI operative Martino named as his ultimate source. The motive, says Repubblica, was money.I've never named the SISMI colonel whom Martino said he (indirectly) got the documents from. But now Repubblica has. So I will too: his name is Antonio Nucera...My experience with this case, going back almost two years now, is that whenever damaging new information was about to come out on the forgery mystery, the Italian government-cum-intelligence agencies put out substantial new information about what happened mixed with disinformation aimed at throwing people off their trail. And when I say 'their trail', I mean the complicity of Italian intelligence in the documents hoax itself.We must also discuss the complicity of Michael Ledeen, who has long-standing ties to the ultra-right "Super-SISMI" faction within Italian intelligence. "Super-SISMI" grew out of the fascist secret society P2.One need not trace the P2 links very far to understand why La Repubblica chose to tell only a partial truth. The owner of that influential newspaper is Silvio Berlusconi, the shady media tycoon who became Prime Minister of Italy -- and a close ally of George W. Bush. Berlusconi, like Ledeen, was a member of P2. From the excellent Wikipedia entry:
...in 1981 a scandal arose on the discovery by the police of Licio Gelli's secret freemasonry lodge (Propaganda Due, or P2) aiming to move the Italian political system in an authoritarian direction to oppose communism. A list of names was found of adherents of P2, which included members of the secret services and some prominent personalities from the political, industrial, military and press elite, among which Silvio Berlusconi, who was just starting to gain popularity as the founder and owner of "Canale 5" TV network. The P2 lodge was dissolved by the Italian parliament in December 1981 and a law was passed declaring similar organizations illegal, but no specific crimes were alleged to individual members of P2. Berlusconi later (1989) sued for libel three journalists who had written an article hinting at his involvement in financiary crimes and in this occasion he declared in court that he had joined the P2 lodge "only a very short time before the scandal broke" and "he had not even paid the entry fee". Such statements, however, conflicted with the findings of the parliamentary commission appointed to investigate the lodge's activity, with material evidence, and even with previous testimony of Berlusconi, all of which showing that he had actually been a member of P2 since 1978 and had indeed paid a 100,000 Italian liras entry fee. Because of this he was indicted for perjury, but the crime was extinguished by the 1989 amnesty.Despite the dissolution order, the old P2 ties still bind. We can't expect accurate reporting on the forgeries from a journal financially tied to the very network that produced the forgeries.Joshua Marshall avoids discussing this strange milieu for understandable reasons: The books and articles exposing P2 have largely faded from memory. Most moderate-minded Americans do the sigh-and-eye-roll routine whenever anyone mentions the words "secret society." In order to maintain credibility, today's writers must pretend not to have read the material published in the 1980s.The La Repubblica partial hangout -- "Look thus far, and no further" -- comes after former CIA operatives Larry Johnson and Vince Cannistraro disclosed the existence of an Italian Parliamentary Commission report on the authorship of the forgeries. Fitzgerald, we are told, has read this report. According to this story, the forgers were Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf of the CIA, aided by Michael Ledeen. (A side note: Can we classify Ledeen as CIA? His resume suggests that he -- like Valerie Plame/Wilson -- may have functioned as an NOC officer. He certainly has long-standing ties both to P2 and to various players in the "rogue CIA" netowrk discussed by Joseph Trento in Prelude to Terror.)I strongly urge readers to study both Justin Raimondo's piece on the forgeries, as well as Xymphora's recent take. I can't agree with some of what Mr. X says. He refers to "the CIA" as though that organization were not internally factionalized. He also views Ledeen as "fundamentally an idiot." That's not my take on the man.However, Xymphora echoes a point I've previously made when he suggests that someone within CIA (John McLaughlin? Just a guess...) set the Wilson affair into motion. X:
The CIA could have sent anybody they liked to Niger to investigate the situation. While Wilson was a logical choice, there were many other logical choices. If they were so deeply concerned about the undercover status of his wife, isn't it odd that they picked Wilson? ...Why didn't Tenet object to the sixteen words? He signed off on the State of the Union address, after complaining about similar words in Bush's Cincinnati speech only a few months earlier. Did he just get tired of hitting his head against the wall? Or was he very happy to see the sixteen words?To which I'll add one further point: Why (assuming Raimondo's information is correct) did pros like Clarridge and Wolf countenance such a bad forgery? Some might speculate that the Niger forgeries represented a variation on the gambit played on Dan Rather. Perhaps a group within CIA hoped to avert war by tricking Bush into accepting evidence later proven false. Although I remain unpersuaded by that scenario, the idea does have a certain appeal.
# posted by Joseph : 5:15 AM

Rigorous Intuition: The Left, the Right, and the Wrong

Rigorous Intuition: The Left, the Right, and the Wrong

News Hounds: 'Nuff said

News Hounds: 'Nuff said

News Hounds: Sean Hannity Calls Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson "A Left-Wing Radical"

News Hounds: Sean Hannity Calls Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson "A Left-Wing Radical"

"Don't believe everything you read."

Left I on the News

Stewart Hits One Out � Lean Left

Stewart Hits One Out � Lean Left

Tags: Daily Show, Bill Kristol

The Blog | Arianna Huffington: The Post-Judy Fallout: Where is Sulzberger Now? | The Huffington Post

The Blog | Arianna Huffington: The Post-Judy Fallout: Where is Sulzberger Now? | The Huffington Post

The Blog | David Fiderer: Whom Should I Believe? Victoria Toensing or My Own Lying Eyes? | The Huffington Post

The Blog | David Fiderer: Whom Should I Believe? Victoria Toensing or My Own Lying Eyes? | The Huffington Post

Outside the Gates: Film Criticism, Charles Clarke and Me

Outside the Gates: Film Criticism, Charles Clarke and Me

Tags: Iraq War

Dick Cheney, Check these out. They are all very revealing.

Donnie Fowler, Please Tell the Truth

Another Day in the Empire

The Lost Gospel: Book Review by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

The Lost Gospel: Book Review by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Gun Possession Now OK at FEMA Temporary Housing

Gun Possession Now OK at FEMA Temporary Housing

What I Saw in Tylertown - Newsweek Gulf Hurricane 2005 Coverage - MSNBC.com

What I Saw in Tylertown - Newsweek Gulf Hurricane 2005 Coverage - MSNBC.com

mparent7777: The Stinky Inky

mparent7777: The Stinky Inky

mparent7777: Documents Show U.S. Operatives Killed Detainees: Docs here/story

mparent7777: Documents Show U.S. Operatives Killed Detainees: Docs here/story

mparent7777: Wurmser: Raw Story has it wrong, but that's good

mparent7777: Wurmser: Raw Story has it wrong, but that's good

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report - New York Times

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report - New York Times


October 25, 2005
Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report
By DAVID JOHNSTON, RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL
This article is by David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson and Douglas Jehl.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.
Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.
The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.
Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.
Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson's undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent's identity can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent's undercover status.
It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry.
White House officials did not respond to requests for comment, and Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, would not comment on Mr. Libby's legal status.
Mr. Fitzgerald is expected to decide whether to bring charges in the case by Friday, when the term of the grand jury expires. Mr. Libby and Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, both face the possibility of indictment, lawyers involved in the case have said. It is not publicly known whether other officials also face indictment.
The notes help explain the legal difficulties facing Mr. Libby. Lawyers in the case said Mr. Libby testified to the grand jury that he had first heard from journalists that Ms. Wilson may have had a role in dispatching her husband on a C.I.A.-sponsored mission to Africa in 2002 in search of evidence that Iraq had acquired nuclear material there for its weapons program.
But the notes, now in Mr. Fitzgerald's possession, also indicate that Mr. Libby first heard about Ms. Wilson - who is also known by her maiden name, Valerie Plame - from Mr. Cheney. That apparent discrepancy in his testimony suggests why prosecutors are weighing false statement charges against him in what they interpret as an effort by Mr. Libby to protect Mr. Cheney from scrutiny, the lawyers said.
It is not clear why Mr. Libby would have suggested to the grand jury that he might have learned about Ms. Wilson from journalists if he was aware that Mr. Fitzgerald had obtained the notes of the conversation with Mr. Cheney or might do so. At the beginning of the investigation, Mr. Bush pledged the White House's full cooperation and instructed aides to provide Mr. Fitzgerald with any information he sought.
The notes do not show that Mr. Cheney knew the name of Mr. Wilson's wife. But they do show that Mr. Cheney did know and told Mr. Libby that Ms. Wilson was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency and that she may have helped arrange her husband's trip.
Some lawyers in the case have said Mr. Fitzgerald may face obstacles in bringing a false-statement charge against Mr. Libby. They said it could be difficult to prove that he intentionally sought to mislead the grand jury.
Lawyers involved in the case said they had no indication that Mr. Fitzgerald was considering charging Mr. Cheney with wrongdoing. Mr. Cheney was interviewed under oath by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what the vice president told Mr. Fitzgerald about the conversation with Mr. Libby or when Mr. Fitzgerald first learned of it.
But the evidence of Mr. Cheney's direct involvement in the effort to learn more about Mr. Wilson is sure to intensify the political pressure on the White House in a week of high anxiety among Republicans about the potential for the case to deal a sharp blow to Mr. Bush's presidency.
Mr. Tenet was not available for comment Monday night. But another former senior intelligence official said Mr. Tenet had been interviewed by the special prosecutor and his staff in early 2004, and never appeared before the grand jury. Mr. Tenet has not talked since then to the prosecutors, the former official said.
The former official said he strongly doubted that the White House learned about Ms. Wilson from Mr. Tenet.
On Monday, Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby both attended a cabinet meeting with Mr. Bush as the White House continued trying to portray business as usual. But the assumption among White House officials is that anyone who is indicted will step aside.
On June 12, 2003, the day of the conversation between Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby, The Washington Post published a front-page article reporting that the C.I.A. had sent a retired American diplomat to Niger in February 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq had been seeking to buy uranium there. The article did not name the diplomat, who turned out to be Mr. Wilson, but it reported that his mission had not corroborated a claim about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material that the White House had subsequently used in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
An earlier anonymous reference to Mr. Wilson and his mission to Africa had appeared in a column by Nicholas D. Kristof in The New York Times on May 6, 2003. Mr. Wilson went public with his conclusion that the White House had "twisted" the intelligence about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material on July 6, 2003, in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times.
The note written by Mr. Libby will be a crucial piece of evidence in a false-statement case against him if Mr. Fitzgerald decides to pursue it, lawyers in the case said. It also explains why Mr. Fitzgerald waged a long legal battle to obtain the testimony of reporters who were known to have talked to Mr. Libby.
The reporters involved have said that they did not supply Mr. Libby with details about Mr. Wilson and his wife. Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, in his account of a deposition on the subject, wrote that he asked Mr. Libby whether he had even heard that Ms. Wilson had a role in sending her husband to Africa. Mr. Cooper said that Mr. Libby did not use Ms. Wilson's name but replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too."
In her testimony to the grand jury, Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, said Mr. Libby sought from the start of her three conversations with him to "insulate his boss from Mr. Wilson's charges."
Mr. Fitzgerald asked questions about Mr. Cheney, Ms. Miller said. "He asked, for example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of his interview with me or was aware of them," Ms. Miller said. "The answer was no."
In addition to Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller, Mr. Fitzgerald is known to have interviewed three other journalists who spoke to Mr. Libby during June and July 2003. They were Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC News.
Mr. Pincus and Mr. Kessler have said that Mr. Libby did not discuss Mr. Wilson's wife with them in their conversations during the period. Mr. Russert, in a statement, declined to say exactly what he discussed with Mr. Libby, but said he first learned the identity of Mr. Wilson's wife in the column by Mr. Novak.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

mparent7777: Making a killing

mparent7777: Making a killing

firedoglake: Matthews Finds Spine (Or Ratings Bonanza) With Traitorgate

firedoglake: Matthews Finds Spine (Or Ratings Bonanza) With Traitorgate

Audio: Daryl Smith interview of Eric Hufschmid

Daryl Smith

Audio: Interview From Website, Daryl Smith Karen Kwiatkowski

Daryl Smith

Video (20 second) of Questioning the Moon Shoot

Buzz Aldrin has a pleasant reasonable discussion with the questioner.

Audio: Daryl Bradford Smith interviews John Kaminski

Daryl Bradford Smith, interviews

Kaminski attended the October 2005 meeting in New York City where Scott Ritter promoted the idea that Al Qaeda is the principal terrorist threat to America.
Kaminski calls Ritter, Hersh and Sibel Edmonds "gate keepers"

Daily Kos: Wurmser was member of OSP

Daily Kos: Wurmser was member of OSP

Investing - Where the World's Best Real Estate Investor is Betting Now - FORTUNE - Page 1

Investing - Where the World's Best Real Estate Investor is Betting Now - FORTUNE - Page 1

Investing - Where the World's Best Real Estate Investor is Betting Now - FORTUNE - Page 1

Investing - Where the World's Best Real Estate Investor is Betting Now - FORTUNE - Page 1

Morgan Reynolds: Champion for Truth

Wing TV - Connect The Dots


Morgan Reynolds: Champion for Truth by Victor Thorn


During our interview last Friday with Morgan Reynolds, two times I said, “We need more people like him in the patriot movement.” And y’know what? I was right. We do.Here’s a guy – a former economics professor at Texas A & M University and a former chief economist in the Labor Department during George Bush’s first term – who could have simply faded into the distance and rested on his laurels. But instead of accepting the status quo … instead of retiring … and instead of playing it safe, this guy comes out swinging last Spring with an article that boldly pronounced that the government’s version of events in regard to the World Trade Center collapse was a lie and that, in fact, the towers were destroyed via a controlled demolition.Reynolds’ revelations were posted all across the Internet, as well as in The Washington Times, and all of a sudden this subject wasn’t simply confined to ‘conspiracy theorists.’ Now an actual ‘insider’ stepped forward and heroically revealed what so many others had been diligently trying to expose. Now, whenever anyone says, “If there’s such a huge conspiracy in relation to 9-11, why isn’t anyone from the government coming forward?” Well, now somebody has, and we should be lauding this gentleman with the gratitude and respect that he deserves.Explaining why he made this bold move, Reynolds said, “I remember watching both wounded WTC Towers on television and my first reaction was, "Those buildings won’t fall." When they did, I couldn’t believe it” [9/11: 80 Minutes of Unilateral Disarmament]. So, not only has Reynolds given credibility to the 9-11 truth movement, but he also serves as a symbol for others in the government who – when faced with blatant wrongdoing by our (s)elected officials – should speak out and bring these matters to the forefront rather than simply accepting the status quo and letting the guilty parties get away with their crimes.Of course there are repercussions to doing the right thing, but as Reynolds told us last Friday, “The truth should be sung, though the heavens fall.”I couldn’t have said it any better, and for uttering these inspirational words, we at WING TV are giving Morgan Reynolds a standing ovation. Keep up the great work, sir!

The $10.5 Billion REFCO Smoking Gun

The $10.5 Billion REFCO Smoking Gun

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firedoglake: Is the Smoking Gun Turning Into a Mushroom Cloud? (Fitzgerald)

firedoglake: Is the Smoking Gun Turning Into a Mushroom Cloud?