Reporters Must Testify

In a perfect world, Judith Effing (Queen of All Iraq) Miller would be made to testify and then go to jail. And then while she was IN jail, every day for the next three or four years, a mother, father sister, brother or child of one the soldiers who death she facilitated, would come and visit her and she would be forced to view what she helped bring about in person.

But that's just my view. Matt Cooper should pray to God that his name is dissociated from Judy Miller's at the earliest possible occasion.

And Dan Abrams should recuse himself from discussing it on the air and let someone else comment on the case.

Oh, and Frist!

~shouldn't THIS be a major story in the US press?

China overtakes US as world's leading consumer
By Emad Mekay

The report also examines China's growing influence on the US economy, which has become heavily dependent on Chinese capital to underwrite its fast-growing debt. If China ever decides to divert this capital surplus elsewhere, either to internal investment or to the development of oil, gas, and mineral resources elsewhere in the world, the US economy will be in trouble, the report says.

China's record-high domestic savings and huge trade surplus with the US are just two of the most visible manifestations of its economic strength. It is now China, along with Japan, that is buying the US treasury securities that enables the US to run the largest fiscal deficit in history. "China's eclipse of the US as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader," Brown said.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GB18Ad01.html

I found it interesting that the media is saying it's about the first amendment; yet they've been behaving like sleeping beauty for the last 4 years. When they wake up, they might realize they've abused the 1st amendment so much that they can no longer maintain any respect for their argument.

For the last 12 years leaks and unidentified sources have been used to propragate lies and spin and the real research and intent of the freedom of the press has been squashed.

The barking press has been tamed. They are instead a bunch of demesticated runts who can't feed for themselves anymore.

Is Novakula going to get off scott-free on this?

Is this kind of Christianity Christian?
By Joan Chittister, OSB

http://nationalcatholicreporter.org/fwis/fw021705.htm

[snip]
I understand the so-called "conservative" agenda. I even share its concerns. They are real and they are important. But they are also incomplete -- which is why I doubt that, as they are being framed right now, that they are either "right" or "religious." The agenda is simply too narrow, too concentrated on issues around human sexuality alone, and too self-centered to be the agenda that drove Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem curing lepers, feeding the hungry and raising the dead to life.

NancyJane:
My understanding is that Novak may have already told them who he got the info. from. Plus, he allegedly got it after other sources new. However, that's his story, and he's sticken to it!

I'm conflicted too. I think that Val Plame had a reasonable right to expect that her identity would be protected, and that her safety would be the ultimate goal. Someone spoke her name to reporters. Someone gave the okay for her name to go out into the wider world. Someone thought it would be a good idea. Novak I despise worse than Miller. I can see them being forced to give up the leaker(s)I can see myself expecting that no matter which party was in power. That it was done by the current party in power, seems to be an indication that they would sell out anyone to keep their power, and that is the scary thing. I want to know who did it, who authorized, how far up the food chain it goes. I don't much care how the reporter/source relationship gets trampled on in this case. These people played with the life of someone working to keep Americans safe. If compromising one CIA operative is so easy, then politics and scooping other reporters is more important than the safety of every one of us, isn't it?

Perhaps the ACLU should volunteer to help Novak. Wouldn't that be a hoot.

What WMD commission?

One of the most serious American intelligence failures of recent years was the inaccurate U.S. assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Yet the work of a special commission appointed by President Bush to assess those failings likely will remain out of view to the public, undermining the commission's credibility and the country's ability to understand why its leaders had wrong information on a key policy matter.

~snip~
The commission is chaired by former U.S. Sen. Charles Robb, a Virginia Democrat, and Laurence Silberman, a senior circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It is scheduled to deliver its final report to the president by March 31.

Several press accounts indicate that the report will largely, if not entirely, remain secret, and that it's possible that not even Congress will be allowed to see it. Moreover, the "inquiry won't blame individual officials for the errors that contributed to President Bush's decision to start the war," the San Francisco Chronicle reported. If the report does focus more on future issues rather than take a hard look at what went wrong in the U.S. analysis of Iraq, the primary architects of the war will be off the hook personally and politically.
more~
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~417~2697955,00.html

Afternoon chuckle, and yet, he actually said it...

Looking ahead to his European trip, Bu$h said he knows that some allies think that his only concern is national security, and he said that national security is at the top of his agenda. Yet, he said, "We also care about hunger and disease. We care about the climate."

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, announced Thursday it posted a 16.2 percent increase in profits for its fourth quarter, beating Wall Street expectations. Its earnings for the full year topped $10 billion for the first time.

Wal-Mart president and chief executive Lee Scott called it a solid performance but added “we can do better.”

I read the First Amendment to say that we have freedom to speak. The press has the right to speak to us. What I don't read is the right of any one of us, press or not, to break the lw while we are speaking. If there is a law, and one cannot plead that they didn't know about a law, AGAINST revealing the names of covert operatives, free speech should not cover breaking a law. You can't hide in the First Amendment to break the law.

Is that too totally simplistic? I guess I am just going on the morals and values that I would use when practicing my free speech. I'd make a lousy reporter, thats for sure.

Will Pitt FYI: Find the Cost of Freedom
http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/2/17/85035/7270

Camilo Mejia | Regaining My Humanity
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021705Z.shtml

DIVINE INTERVENTION
A BuzzFlash Interview
Susan Jacoby, the author of 'Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,' dissects the fundamentalist antipathy
to free thought -- and discusses how dangerous the 'God is on our side' philosophy is to government.
http://www.alternet.org/story/21288/

~~a thought-provoking op/ed:

SPEAKING FREELY
Light on the hill, darkness of the heart
By Toni Momiroski

The Iraqi election has come and gone as did the Afghan election before it, yet democracy is none the better. While many have spent countless hours weighing up the pros and cons of the Iraqi election fallout, what stands out here more than the achievements of democracy - or lack of them - is the dark shadow of a disease of the human heart.

In the main, the election in Iraq has not truly been about democracy but about belief systems. Some wrongly continue to think today, as they did before the election, that some beliefs, as well as some members of society, are more equal than others. In real terms this disease is expressed in the form of who may justly own and use weapons of mass destruction and who has a monopoly on the form that democracy takes and how it is spread and enforced on the world. In theoretical frameworks of the mind, this reality is expressed in terms of light and righteousness that seemingly have the magical ability to explain it all in terms of reality on the ground.

~snip~
The line in the sand must be articulated by what humanity has in common and not by what divides us. We all have the aspiration to live, smile and cry. We all experience in the same way the pain of disappointment and have expectation for success. We create as best we can, and eventually die. None of us were chosen by necessity, but we all have the capacity to achieve. We must stop at its roots discrimination that dictates that some are more valuable members of society than others. Democracy is not a light, but a passing ray on the way to some new point. History has taught us at least this much.

Let Iraq and all others shape their world in the form that they desire without influences and manipulations from would-be pretenders to the throne of light and righteousness, be they British, American or Israeli. We are, after all, the deeds that we personally do and not the achievements of our ancestors and the promises made to them. This was the whole purpose behind the French, Russian and American revolutions. We've clearly learned nothing from the past.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GB10Ak04.html

Is Novakula related to Dracula? Not as up on all our pseudonyms.

I know that rights shouldn't be selective. That used to be the nice thing about the Constitution. But there has been so much self-protection with how neo-cons pursue anything in policy, media, cover-ups, saying one thing and meaning another. Zippo transparency.

I'm with spinnaker. I want to know what Miller knew, and her rationale, for pushing Iraq onto us. Public revelation under oath. Rushing to war illegally and immorally just hasn't come up, though, and we're set to repeat!

Yet Miller has nothing, I can see, to do with the relevance or responsibility to what Novak did to Plame and our security. If her source for her non-published story confirms anything he said in private, what does that mean and to whom? Are they going everywhere else but Novak, to protect the White House?

And Marc, are we saying the pushing of intelligence by that shadow group, and Bush, will never be covered by anyone answerable and believed by the public? We could have said anything we wanted on the campaign trail or at the Convention, but without media or public hearings, why would voters believe us?

You're busy, Marc. Interesting the kind of profits Wal-Mart can bring without concern for worker's rights, health care, and so much more.

Let's Here it for the Land of The Free... (aka, this could really hurt our tax revenue)

U.S. tourism may be casualty of war on terror
Travel execs cite concerns overseas visitors don't feel welcome

(AP) -- Mickey Mouse has a bone to pick with Uncle Sam.

Some U.S. travel executives -- including those who run Disneyland and Walt Disney World -- think the government needs to do more to improve the country's image with foreign tourists who increasingly are choosing other places for their vacations.

Tourism officials ascribe the decline partly to anti-Americanism that arose after the country launched military action in Afghanistan and Iraq...

The stakes involved are huge. Visitors from abroad accounted for about $93.5 billion in spending and economic activity in the United States in 2004, according to Commerce Department estimates. That's slightly larger than U.S. exports of automobiles, engines and parts.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/02/17/travel.image.problem.ap/index.html

~~WalMart isn't the only co. in Bu$hworld doing well...

Carlyle doubles return to investors
by Lisa Gewirtz

The Carlyle Group returned $5.3 billion to investors last year, more than double the $2.1 billion it returned the previous year, according to a summary the firm released Monday, Feb. 14, of its investment activities for 2004.
"It was our best year ever," said William Conway Jr., the Washington-based private-equity group's co-founder and managing director.

http://tinyurl.com/5hsml

[for anyone who may have forgotten who owns "The Carlyle Group", go google]

MG and Spinnaker are right. About Miller. She sure was sure in all her writings, and was hailed as such an expert. Going to war, being one of the RAH RAH cheerleaders for it, now that I'm going back over her articles and her face all over MSM TV. Would she have taken payment for being a cheerleader? Could it have been worth more than the NCLB payoff? Or was it all just her? Novakula might be one of Vlads relatives, I agree, but is she one of Satan's handmaidens, or just a Bushie shill?

tut, Somehow doubt it was payola with Miller, but she was fed info, had contact with Chalabi, and loved being inside. Liked her cache.

Saw her on a Foundation think tank panel way, way before the election, and she was sure Bush would be re-elected because of Iraq. Never will forget her assurance, and the UN people were being cagey.

Why am I not surprised about Carlyle?

Check out this cartoon.

http://blackcommentator.com/126/126_cartoon_draft.html

Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at February 17, 2005 03:04 PM

Another Carlyle connection came up in a piece Sandy did on the LightUp blog on our soon-to-be-deployed killer robots ( Sad Day for Johnny 5
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=373 ).

Sandy provided a link to a story identifying Carlyle as a partner in the enterprise:

US plans 'robot troops' for Iraq
The US military is planning to deploy robots armed with machine-guns to wage war against insurgents in Iraq.
[SNIP]

According to Bob Quinn, a manager with Foster-Miller, the US-based company which worked with the military to develop the robot, the only difference for a soldier is that "his weapon is not at his shoulder, it's up to half a mile away".
[SNIP]

The Foster-Miller company is owned by the QinetiQ Group, a joint venture between the UK's Ministry of Defence and US-based holding company, Carlyle Group.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4199935.stm

Posted by: Marc Trager at February 17, 2005 02:57 PM

Ummmmmm.... if corporations, including Disney, et al., want tourists to come to America, then we can't have any 'terraist alerts' going on, can we? That would be counter-prodictive to improving the economy.....

~re-visit this old WaPost article from '02

Bush's Fancy Financial Footwork

By David Ignatius
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page A15

It's not something George W. Bush talks about much -- indeed, it's a fact that has been virtually purged from his official biography -- but for four years in the early 1990s, Bush was a director of a company that ultimately collapsed under the weight of its junk-bond financing and management mistakes.

The privately held company, called Caterair International Inc., was created in 1989 when Marriott Corp. spun off its airline catering business to investors organized by the Washington investment bank the Carlyle Group. If you haven't heard of it, Carlyle is a sleek financial operation that does its deals with help from a roster of former government big shots such as former defense secretary Frank Carlucci, former secretary of state James A. Baker III and even former president George Herbert Walker Bush. As of 2001, a newspaper article pegged Carlyle's value at about $12 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48301-2002Aug6

[if Carlyle was worth 12B in '01, can you imagine what they're worth now????????]

On.to.Victory,

Coincidentally, Oncall posted this on the preceding thread:

Bu$hco is doing well, thank-you very much:

The Carlyle Group returned $5.3 billion to investors last year, more than double the $2.1 billion it returned the previous year, according to a summary the firm released Monday, Feb. 14, of its investment activities for 2004.
"It was our best year ever," said William Conway Jr., the Washington-based private-equity group's co-founder and managing director.

http://www.thedeal.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=TheDeal/TDDArticle/StandardArticle&c=TDDArticle&cid=1107993040392&r=InFs&p=M4YD5AR2

Posted by: oncall at February 17, 2005 03:09 PM

I have this vision, like in some old cartoon, of all the dollars in the whole country being picked up by the legion of ants at the picnic and being marched off to a hole labeled 'bushites'

i can even hear the cartoon music, and see the grins on the faces of the happy ants, named halliburton, cheney, baker, carlye, big oil, big pharma, wall street, daddy bush, momma bush, and all the baby bushes......

the picnic is over. there is no more 'more' for them to take from us. when the poor people who think wal mart is a godsend can't even afford their wal marts, then what?

i should have ended that....

got serfs?

Posted by: Bob Evans at February 17, 2005 03:31 PM

bob e & oncall~
they say great minds think alike:)
oncall~ had you ever heard of "Caterair" before? That was news to me....and yet another company that daddy & Jim Baker gave W, that he turned into a failure~

now i have this song stuck in my head, so you can all just sing along with me......

(wal mart, the new company store)

Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

i can even hear the cartoon music, and see the grins on the faces of the happy ants, named halliburton, cheney, baker, carlye, big oil, big pharma, wall street, daddy bush, momma bush, and all the baby bushes......

the picnic is over. there is no more 'more' for them to take from us. when the poor people who think wal mart is a godsend can't even afford their wal marts, then what?

Posted by: tutterfly at February 17, 2005 03:35 PM

~~~but tutter
that is precisely why they have to conquer the Mid-east...they have sucked the US dry & went off in search of $$$$$$$$ across the globe....how very unfortunate for the people of the Mideast, that's where nature stored the oil....

On another topic, Common Cause has a new message on congressional redistricting reform, sent to their membership via E-mail and posted on their blog:

We are teaming up with Gov. Schwarzenegger to fix a "broken system"
By Chellie Pingree
Posted on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:34:02 PM EST

I want to let you know that this afternoon we are going to join forces with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to put an end to California's failed system for drawing Congressional and state Legislative boundaries. Together we are going to call on California legislators to support a joint plan to establish an independent redistricting panel of nonpartisan judges and to create fair criteria that will lead to more electoral competition and more accountability to the voters.
[SNIP]

http://www.commonblog.com/story/2005/2/17/13342/0732

Freedom of speech only goes so far. One may not yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater as a practical joke. (I would put the false terrorist alerts in that classification, but that's only my opinion.) One may not lie about people or situations without being sued for libel or slander in a court of law. There are certain accepted societal norms and legal limits on freedom of speech. (Read QB VII by Leon Uris - it's a novel, but speaks to the heart of the laws surrounding slander; it was also a very well-done TV movie many years ago.)

The limits of freedom of speech being a given, one may also hold whatever opinions one wants, and speak or write those those opinions without being censored. The fact that a great many people hold the opinion that Bush is anything from outright insane to being an uneducated doofus is just that: an opinion. (Well, okay. He may quite likely have mental problems, but I'll leave that to the people with the expertise in psychiatric fields to express their opinions on the matter, even if I can figure out the answer for myself by doing my own research.)

The media has an obligation to tell people the truth, good, bad, or indifferent. They have op-ed writers to give opinions on any given topic, but they still have an obligation to tell people the truth, and give us facts, with or without editorial opinions. Omitting information is the "sin of omission" and rates as an implied lie, and withholding the truth from people is, IMHO, just as bad as outright lying or distorting the truth (which is another reason why the current mainstream media does not have my respect). Reporting illegal activities is, by implication, "the right thing to do" and implies good moral and ethical behavior on the part of the journalists. I'm thinking of Watergate here, and what that revealed as far as illegal activities and actions by the Nixon administration. To that end, a journalist's sources need to be protected. The investigative journalists told us facts and truths, no matter how unpleasant they were for us to hear - but that was then and this is now, and we no longer have that class of journalists.

Outing a CIA agent is illegal, and puts that agent's life in danger, as well as the lives of the people with whom the agent works, and likely that agent's family, too. That's the distinction. The fact that the journalists crossed the line from reporting illegal activities and the cover-ups by an administration, and have crossed the line to actually committing a crime by outing a CIA agent is illegal, and doesn't carry the implied obligation of protecting sources while reporting illegal activities. They have committed a crime by outing a CIA agent and putting people's lives in danger, which constitutes reckless endangerment of lives on top of everything else.

The journalists have an ethical and moral obligation to report illegal activities (i.e. Watergate) and then their sources ought to be fully protected. By committing a crime (outing a CIA agent) in the process of reporting, then their sources probably ought not be protected.

Why hasn't Novak been brought up on charges? Why hasn't Novak been obligated to reveal his sources??? Wasn't Novak the one who originally outed Plame??? (Or am I mis-remembering the sequence of events?) If what Miller and Cooper wrote aided the rush to war.... their sources need to be outed, for the simple reason Bush's war in Iraq has already been declared illegal, unjust, immoral, and unethical, and his actions, and the actions of people in his administration, need to be examined in the full light of day - we're all tired of the unnecessary secrecy. Committing an illegal act crosses ethical and moral boundaries that don't sound like they need to be covered by the freedom of the press and protecting sources (call it yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater). There are gray areas here, many shades of gray, and we need to be very, very sure of the sequence of events, who wrote what, when, and why, so the First Amendment rights of all of us are protected. And, I still think Novak needs to be brought up on charges and forced to reveal what he knew and from whom. Miller and Cooper can't be the patsies in this whole debacle.

Crossing the boundaries over to committing an illegal act and endangering lives in the process, while claiming 'freedom of the press' and protecting sources.... I have a problem with that.

I have ethical and moral quandries about this topic. We need media reform, and good journalists now more than at most any other time in history. I'm wholeheartedly in favor of freedom of the press, and IMHO media has a moral and ethical obligation to tell people facts, and tell people the truth, even if they print op-ed pieces besides facts. If any journalists were brave enough to tell us the truth about what has been going on behind the scenes in the current administration and reveal all the immoral, unethical, and illegal activities we suspect (or know) are going on (and that would be a very, very long list!), but had to protect sources, then I'd say that journalist has every right to keep the sources secret; they would be doing what's ethically and morally right to reveal illegal activities. I, for one, would love to see a Bushgate.... The people have a right to know the truth about our government, and the truth about our elected and appointed government officials. We need to have absolute transparency in our government if we are to succeed as a nation.

DEMS DISPLAY NEW SOC. SEC. CALCULATOR, SHOWS AVERAGE AMERICAN LOSES BIG IN BUSH PRIVATIZATION PLAN
US Senator Charles E. Schumer, Senate Leaders Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and Debbie Stabenow today unveiled a new Social Security calculator that demonstrates to Americans what they could lose under the Bush Privatization Plan. The calculator is now available on the websites of most Senate Democrats.
Use the Calculator Here
Read More Here.

http://democrats.senate.gov/index3.html

wait just one danr minute victory4-----

do you mean to tell me that we aren't in the mid east spreading freedom out of the goodness of bushes heart? do you mean to tell me that we could all be one big happy planet if the oil countries would just give us their oil? do you mean to tell me that until the oil countries roll over and play dead, the bushies are going to take good old american greenbacks out of the pockets of their own people?

dear oil countries,
we have decided that we would very much like to control all of your oil. we would really don't like buying it anymore, and those profits you are making by selling to china would sure help out around here. it seems we are flat broke and our citizens would like to keep the few measly dollars we have left them with. we have an offer you just can't refuse. we will free you, set up a really cool democracy for you, and you can repay us out of the oil money you currently have. all you have to do is turn over the oil fields to us. pay no attention to the ruined country next door. we would have made them the same offer, but we had to make an example of what happens when we don't get what we want out of somebody. after all, its time that you get on board with the idea that as the last remaining super power, we are only acting on our god given right to run things as we see fit. in fact, god wrote up this plan.
hey thanks, its a pleasure oppressing you

that was supposed to be one DARN minute

(darn it)

~~tutter
I can't top that!!!
You've given me my best :) of the day~

~oncall
just tried the DEM SS calculator....simple & very effective...got to spread that news, far & wide!

Posted by: tutterfly at February 17, 2005 04:26 PM

Haven't I read that somewhere before?........Yes, I did. It was Bu$h's inaugural speech.

Nonny, the media has deliberately kept the Iraq story vague to the larger populace. Other countries, the UN, may say this is an illegal, immoral war, and the public may vaguely sense it, but officially, here, I don't think so.

I share your outrage, though. We need a movie badly.

And tut, I love your sales pitch.

its not my sales pitch. GOD did it.

should i go before all of you, if i get a chance to cruise past heaven on my way to the other place, i'll be sure to pick up a post card of the pearly gates with the

W/04

bumper stickers on it and mail it off to you. remember to bury me with a few bucks and a book of stamps.

i am having sarcasm overload here today. forgive me for not being more sober and serious. i just can't seem to be as dignified as i should be. if i don't give into the sarcasm once in a while, what i would end up posting would be wiped out as one huge vulgarity. if i don't take the anger off the burner every now and then, it will be a trip to the high porches for me for sure. don't any of the rest of you feel demented with rage at people? it's either this, or i go on a slapping upside the head binge.

(looks like i still have plenty of sarcasm to last me the evening)

"I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work."

-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, quoted by the Washington Post, presumably meant "intelligence work" but also noted it was "beyond my pay grade" to answer some questions from the House Armed Services Committee.

I don't know if this "quote of the day" has been poster here before or not, but I just couldn't stand not to post it again, even if it has. We all knew Rummy's job wasn't to do intelligent work all along, didn't we?

love it Linda,

it's 'hard work' doing 'intelligent work' and we have assurances that some 'folks' must be out there doing it, but for the life of me i can't think of one name that has it covered. at least we have rummy telling a small truth, if inadverdantly.

Press Writer
Last Updated 1:18 pm PST Thursday, February 17, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible White House candidate in 2008, joined 2004 nominee John Kerry and other Democrats Thursday in urging that Election Day be made a federal holiday to encourage voting.

A good nonpartisan idea.
Regarding a federal law allowing all felons to vote would probably infringe on state's rights and probably not going anywhere.

The issue of freedom of speech should be separated from politics and partisanship. This is a complicated issue. What really bothers me is that I think the press has not covered the Valerie Plame topic because they are fearful of bringing the freedom of speech issue up.

Posted by: Marjorie G at February 17, 2005 04:53 PM

I know it's all been kept vague here in the media, except for the Internet - which is the part that has me speechless in outrage.... I'm old enough to remember when the press actually did some good, when journalists did actually live up to a high sense of morals and ethics and told us the truth, whether we liked the truth or not. What we've got now is a censored and controlled press and it frustrates me beyond my ability to express.....

tutterfly... You go girl!!! You're saying things I've felt but haven't calmed down enough to express yet!!! Thanks for saying it for me (us?)...! Carry on with what you were saying and add as much sarcasm as you can muster....

I was half awake, heard the royal "we" when shrubbie was talking about Negroponte (sp?), muted the tube.... It was not a good way to start the day....