Seems a certain federal prosecutor has rented more office space in DC. Wonder why?

Anyone the White House tells them to, apparently:

White House Insists That CIA Should Be Allowed To Continue Torture Of Detainees

Exception Sought in Detainee Abuse Ban

By ERIC SCHMITT

10/24/05 “New York Times” — – Stepping up a confrontation with the Senate over the handling of detainees, the White House is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from a proposed ban on abusive treatment of suspected Qaeda militants and other terrorists.

But in a 45-minute meeting last Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney and the C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, urged Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who wrote the amendment, to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism, said two government officials who were briefed on the meeting.

Just to be clear, this is the White House saying that torture is ok and necessary. How did we get this far away from a moral center?

From the LA Times:

As anticipation swirled in Washington of potential indictments — and what it would mean for a Bush administration already beset by low approval ratings, the Iraq war and an embattled Supreme Court nomination — a related controversy was brewing in Italy over how the Niger allegations made their way into the intelligence stream.

Hadley had played a prominent role in the controversy over Bush’s claims in his State of the Union address — taking responsibility for the insertion of the 16 words that laid out the allegations.

Let’s see. Kindasleezy’s main boy, Stephen Hadley, meets with Italian intel agents, and bingo, a month later, the infamous, and untrue, 16 words made their way into the SOTU address by Bush. Hmm. It’s important to remember what all this Fitzgerald stuff is about- the lying of America into an optional war.

We’ve had our fill of “today’s the day” on the Plamegate investigation, but this from The Washington Note has plenty of people talking:

October 25, 2005
Indictments Coming Tomorrow; Targets Received Letters Today

An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN (since confirmed by another independent source):

4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.

Hopefully, today will be Fitzmas!

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Notes Show

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.

Sounds as if Libby is tossing his boss to the wolves. Thanks! The sooner we frogmarch Dr. Evil out of the building the better.

Longtime Bush buddy Karen Hughes new job for the boss seems to be traveling around the world and lying to crowds of people, in order to foster goodwill among the savages. Like this:

“Saddam Hussein had gassed to death ‘hundreds of thousands’ of his own people,” Hughes told the hand-picked students, according to the Associated Press. “Hughes twice repeated the statement after being challenged by journalists. A State Department official later called The Associated Press to say she misspoke.”

…As we know, even the US Army War College admits there is no evidence Saddam gassed the Kurds. Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II and Leif R. Rosenberger, of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, wrote in 1990: “Having looked at all of the evidence that was available to us, we find it impossible to confirm the State Department’s claim that gas was used in this instance. To begin with there were never any victims produced. International relief organizations who examined the Kurds–in Turkey where they had gone for asylum–failed to discover any. Nor were there ever any found inside Iraq. The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

Saddam was a tyrant, no doubt. But claims like this, mouthed by a American, don’t help the situation we find ourselves in, i.e, everybody hates us.

Iraq: Restore public health system for malnourished children

BAGHDAD, 25 May 2003 - UNICEF recently conducted a rapid assessment survey to determine the current rate of malnutrition among children under the age of five, with the results being released 10 days ago.

The results showed that acute malnutrition among children had almost doubled since before the war, jumping from 4 per cent to 7.7 per cent. Children who are acutely malnourished are literally wasting away, and for severe cases their condition can be fatal. Acute malnutrition sets in very fast and is a strong indicator of the overall health of children.

Stealing a page from the BV handbook, time to play “Who are they talking about?”

“He’s a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he’s been tapped by God to do very important things,”

Take a guess, and then read here.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has launched a website. Doesn’t sound like a man getting ready to close up shop, does it? TTP has registered with a service that will email me if the site changes- as in, indictments getting posted online.

The term of the Grand Jury ends on Friday the 28th. Gonna be an interesting week.

This is how it happens. People stand by in disbelief, and in the blink of an eye, there’s a new reality. For the Bush gang, who genuinely believe themselves to be on the side of virtue, such an action would be mere self-defense, not fascism. All it would take is another terrorist event (and we know how well-secured the country is against that) or a really good disaster, such as a lethal bird flu pandemic or the most powerful hurricane on record, and who would complain? Bring our troops home! They’ve learned a few moves in Iraq that would work even better in Atlanta. So yes, it’s lovely to watch the Bush administration tanking. It’s the tanks I’m worried about.

Continue reading Tanks for the Memories by Ben Tripp