Plame Testifies

Valerie Plame, whose covert CIA operative status was compromised by Bush Administration officials, testified today before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

BREITBART.COM:
Plame said she had no role in sending her husband on a CIA fact- finding trip to Niger. Wilson said in a newspaper column that his trip debunked the administration's prewar intelligence that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Africa.

"I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him. There was no nepotism involved. I did not have the authority," she said.

That conflicts with senior officials at the CIA and State Department, who testified during Libby's trial that Plame recommended Wilson for the trip.

This is a horse of a different color after constantly hearing that Plame herself send Joe Wilson on the "junket" to Niger. I wonder who to believe..

Other wingnuts like FOX puke John Gibson had his own far-fetched theory: "There was a cabal inside the CIA working against the president's policy and they wanted to hide behind their secret status while they did what was essentially an anti-war political hitjob."

Like Father, Like Chimp

Improper pressure on US attorneys from the powers-that-be seems to be nothing new for the Bushites. A story written by Joe Conason explains what happened in the summer of 1992 in regards to a little thing called Whitewater.

CONASON: "In September 1992, a Republican activist employed by the Resolution Trust Corporation provided [an] opportunity [to stop the Clintons and preserve the George H.W. Bush presidency] by fabricating a criminal referral naming the Clintons as witnesses in a case against the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association (the small Arkansas savings and loan owned by Whitewater partner and Clinton friend James McDougal). The referral prepared by L. Jean Lewis lacked merit—as determined by [US Attorney Charles A.] Banks and the top FBI agent in his office—but she commenced a crusade for action against the hated Clintons. The FBI repeatedly rejected or ignored her crankish entreaties." Read rest of story.

In this case, US Attorney in Little Rock, Charles Banks, refused to implicate the Clintons in a baseless scandal just two weeks before the election under political pressure from Bush's Attorney General William Barr. Banks knew (and so did everyone else) that the smear would "lead to media and public inquiries of matters that are subject to absolute privacy. ... an investigation in today’s modern political climate all too often publicly purport to ‘legitimize what can’t be proven’ . . . ". Banks honestly "forfeited his promised judgeship and returned to private practice with his political career ended."

L. Jean Lewis however, "disappeared from public view until 2003, when the White House rewarded her with an important federal job. Those who had observed Lewis in action were astonished when she was named chief of staff to the Pentagon inspector general, at a salary of $118,000 a year."

Is anyone really surprised when it comes to this den of thieves, this crime family? The grandfather financially supported Hitler, the father can't remember where he was on November 22, 1963, when everyone else in the world does remember where they were the day Kennedy was assassinated, and the chimp-son lies the once honorable United States into a war with Iraq under the guise of fighting terrorism, while using the Constitution that he swore to protect as toilet paper.

This is just par for the course for the Bush Crime Family.

The Chiquita Banana Song

WASHINGTON - Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to a $25 million fine after admitting it paid terrorists for protection in a volatile farming region of Colombia.

Let's not forget that the Bush Administration is doing the same thing, not to protect anyone, but to perpetuate the violence in the Middle East.

SO LET'S ALL SING!

I’m Chiquita Banana and I’ve come to say
That I’m in a lot of trouble and I have to pay
Twenty five million dollars is the fine for me
Because I paid protection money to the A.U.C.

Gave money to the terrorists
Protect the employees
We know it was illegal
And so now we’re copping pleas

If you ever own a company and want to make a profit fairly quickly
Make sure not to fund the terrorists or it can get real sticky

Biden On Senate Floor

BIDEN: "Mr. President, you're leading us off a cliff! Stop!"

Not much more I can say about Biden's speech on the Senate floor today. Just watch.

Gonzales: "Mistakes were made."

Alberto "Torture Boy" Gonzales promised to “find out what went wrong here" in the dismissal of federal prosecutors. As Kyle Sampson, chief of staff for Gonzales, resigned on Monday, there was a lot of buzz equating his resignation as being a fall guy on the heels of Scooter Libby taking the heat and his subsequent conviction. But Sen. Chuck Schumer called for Gonzo's resignation "for the sake of the nation."

“Attorney General Gonzales is a nice man,” Mr. Schumer said. “But he either doesn’t accept or doesn’t understand that he is no longer just the president’s lawyer but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution, even when the president should not want it to be so.”

Gonzales promising to find out what went wrong is the equivalent of O.J. Simpson vowing to find his wife's killer. Even though e-mails show that White House involvement regarding the attorney firings began with correspondence between former WH counsel Harriet Miers and Sampson, there can only be two options in this matter: 1) Either Gonzales truly didn't know and therefore has no clue what going on under his nose in his office or 2) he knew full well and is equally responsible. Either way, it's a bad state of affairs.

And let's not forget that we are shown yet another example of the abuse of power in this Administration. What on earth could this amendment in the Patriot Act, enabling the President to replace federal attorneys for an indefinite period and bypassing Senate confirmation, have anything to do with the war on terror?

“We now know that it is very likely that the amendment to the Patriot Act, which was made in March of 2006, might well have been done to facilitate a wholesale replacement of all or part of U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who serves on the Judiciary Committee. “Who authorized all of this? Who asked for that change?”

Who indeed? Federal prosecutors are usually replaced when a new administration takes over. But it is unprecedented that a wholesale change of 93 prosecutors be replaced in the middle of an administration. Sure Clinton did it. So did Bush 41. But it was done at the outset of their tenures, and I defy anyone to find one example of eight prosecutors being dismissed simultaneously while they were either in the middle of investigations against Republicans or unwilling to leak information about investigations against Democrats.

*NOTE: My apologies to the Muppets for using an image of such a likable character in an article depicting such a vile one.

You turn your back for a second...

...and the world goes wacky! Well at least a little wackier than usual.

After a well needed weekend getaway with my lovely fiancee, I come back to find that Chuck Hagel has announced that he'll announce his political future later this year, Alberto Gonzales is feeling his collar tighten (and Jack Cafferty calls him a weasel!), Karl Rove is implicated as being involved in the federal attorney firings and the White House admits it, Pappy Bush collapses on a golf course, Max Cleland bitchslaps Cheney and Bush in a TV interview with Wolf Blitzer, and General Kevin Kiley is the latest head to roll in the continuing Walter Reed scandal.

MAN! What a weekend! I'd love to continue because there's plenty more to cover, but alas, it's accountant appointment day to deal with my 2006 taxes. So hopefully I'll have time to comment on the above stories later.

But let me get an easy one out of the way now. What the hell is an 82 year old man doing playing golf in 94° heat?! Even I get faint after 18 holes in that kind of weather. What an idiot.