Bill Maher Gets Worked by Hitchens

Bush's Messiah versus Iran's Messiah

Obama is in Some Trauma!

Washington Post – Media Notes

At first, I thought this New York Times piece on Barack Obama was pretty intriguing.

NEW QUESTIONS raised about his FINANCES. Boy, I figured, the investigative reporters are really on his trail now.

Consider the lead: "Less than two months after ascending to the United States Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors."

Hmmm . . .

"One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease."

Hey, that doesn't sound good.

"The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees."

I'm thinking, is this the next Hillary-and-the-cattle-futures?

But then I read that Obama's spokesman says the senator didn't know about the investments until the fall of 2005, and then sold them for a $13,000 loss.

And then, the coup de grace: "The spokesman, Bill Burton, said Mr. Obama's broker bought the stocks without consulting the senator, under the terms of a blind trust that was being set up for the senator at that time but was not finalized until several months after the investments were made."

A blind trust?

Got Em'

Number 1 Al Qaeda Caught

Hell, Send in more troops

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/03/09/D8NOSOP80.html

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq has been captured in a raid west of Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman said Friday.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was captured Friday in a raid in Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman of the Baghdad security operation. U.S. officials had no confirmation of the capture.

"One of the terrorists who was arrested with him confessed that the one in our hands is al-Baghdadi," al-Moussawi said.

Al-Baghdadi has been identified in statements posted on Islamic extremist Web sites as the head of the Islamic State, which was proclaimed last year after the death of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Baghdadi was said to have headed the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an alliance of al-Qaida and other jihadist organizations, which was set up last year to downplay the role of foreigners in the Iraqi insurgency. The name first surfaced after al-Zarqawi's death, when the Mujahedeen Shura Council posted a condolence message on a militant Web site.

Average Wages and Job Growth – PLUS – Falling Trade Deficit

Just in time for my Birthday

(Drudge Report Hat-Tip)

Hourly Wages Increase on Average

WASHINGTON (AP) - The unemployment rate dipped to 4.5 percent and workers got fatter paychecks in February, even as bad winter weather sent a bit of a chill through U.S. job growth.

The latest employment picture, released by the Labor Department on Friday, suggested employers are holding up well and opportunities continue for jobseekers as the economy deals with a sluggish spell, a housing slump and troubles in the automotive industry.

Employers - both private companies and the government - added a total of 97,000 new jobs to their payrolls in February, the fewest in two years. Lousy winter weather was blamed for much of the slower job growth.

Construction companies - already feeling the strain of the ailing housing market - slashed 62,000 jobs in February, the most in 16 years, as nasty weather hit many parts of the country.

Meanwhile, factories, coping with slowing economic conditions at home and intense competition from abroad, continued to cut jobs. They eliminated 14,000 positions last month.

Those job losses, however, were eclipsed by employment gains elsewhere including at health care facilities, financial companies, computer-design firms, bars and restaurants, retailers and the government.

"The job market remains relatively healthy. The weather certainly delivered a lashing to the job market in February, particularly in the construction business as snow, ice, and sleet hammered parts of the country," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group. "Still, companies cautiously have the hiring mats out and workers are making more money."

The drop in the unemployment rate from 4.6 percent in January came as people left the work force in February. Economists said bad weather made it difficult for people to get out and look for jobs. Taking those factors into account, February's jobless rate, the lowest since December, still should ease any fears that the economy could be headed for a worse-than-anticipated slowdown in growth, analysts said.

On another encouraging note, the economy ended up adding 55,000 more jobs in December and January combined than the government estimated a month ago.

Workers' wages grew briskly, another sign that the job market is in fundamentally good shape, analysts said.

Average hourly earnings jumped to $17.16 in February, from $16.49 a year earlier. That represented a solid 4.1 percent increase over the last 12 months.

US Trade Deficit Shrinks

The US trade deficit narrowed 3.8 percent in January to 59.1 billion dollars thanks to record-breaking export growth, the Commerce Department said Friday.

It was a bigger drop than expected on Wall Street, where analysts saw a deficit of 60.0 billion dollars, and marked the steepest change in the trade figure since October.

An improving trade picture could be good for first-quarter US economic growth, as a higher deficit subtracts from gross domestic product.

Total imports fell 0.5 percent to 185.8 billion dollars last month while exports jumped 1.1 percent to a new record of 126.7 billion.

US exports of capital goods grew by 1.0 billion dollars from December to January, consumer goods increased 500 million and foods, feeds and beverages went up 300 million.

But America's politically sensitive deficit with China surged 12 percent to 21.3 billion dollars, with US consumers as hungry as ever for cheap Chinese products.

The US deficit with the European Union slumped 28 percent to 6.5 billion dollars, while the shortfall with Canada grew 23 percent to 6.9 billion.

Overall, the United States imported fewer vehicles, parts and engines (down 1.5 billion dollars) and consumer goods (down by 1.4 billion) in January from December.

Exports of vehicles and parts also fell, by 700 million dollars, reflecting a deep restructuring underway in the biggest US automakers -- General Motors and Ford.

Another Libby Scathe… by one of my favorite columnists

Time to End Fitzgerald's Folly

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- There are lies and there are memory lapses. Bill Clinton denied under oath having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Unless you're Wilt Chamberlain, sex is not the kind of thing that you forget easily. Sandy Berger denied stuffing classified documents in his pants, an act not quite as elaborate as sex, but still involving a lot of muscle memory, and unlikely to have been honestly forgotten.

Scooter Libby has just been convicted for four felonies that could theoretically give him 25 years in jail for ... what? Misstating when he first heard a certain piece of information, namely the identity of Joe Wilson's wife.

Think about that. Can you remember when was the first time you heard the name Joe Wilson or Valerie Plame? OK, so it is not a preoccupation of yours. But it was a preoccupation of many Washington journalists and government officials called to testify at the Libby trial, and their memories were all over the lot. Former presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer testified under oath that he had not told Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus about Mrs. Wilson. Pincus testified under oath that Fleischer definitely had.

Obviously, one is not telling the truth. But there is no reason to believe that either one is deliberately lying. Pincus and Fleischer are as fallible as any of us. They spend their days receiving and giving information. They can't possibly be expected to remember not only every piece, but precisely when they received every piece.

Should Scooter Libby? He was famously multitasking a large number of national security and domestic issues, receiving hundreds of pieces of information every day from dozens of sources. Yet special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald chose to make Libby's misstatements about the timing of the receipt of one piece of information -- Mrs. Wilson's identity -- the great white whale of his multimillion-dollar prosecutorial juggernaut.

Why? Because on his essential charge as special prosecutor -- find and punish who had leaked Valerie Plame's name -- he had nothing. No conspiracy, no felony, no crime, not even the claim that she was a covert agent covered by the nondisclosure law. Fitzgerald knew the leaker from the very beginning. It was not Libby, but Richard Armitage. He also knew that the "leak'' by the State Department's No. 2 official -- a fierce bureaucratic opponent of the White House and especially the vice president's office -- was an innocent offhand disclosure made to explain how the CIA had improbably chosen Wilson for a WMD mission. (He was recommended by his CIA wife.)

Everyone agrees that Fitzgerald's perjury case against Libby hung on the testimony of NBC's Tim Russert. Libby said that he heard about Plame from Russert. Russert said he had never discussed it. The jury members who have spoken said they believed Russert.

And why should they not? Russert is a perfectly honest man who would not lie. He was undoubtedly giving his best recollection.

But he is not the pope. Given that so many journalists and administration figures were shown to have extremely fallible memories, is it possible that Russert's memory could have been faulty?

I have no idea. But we do know that Russert once denied calling up a Buffalo News reporter to complain about a story. Russert later apologized for the error when he was shown the evidence of a call he had genuinely and completely forgotten.

There is a second instance of Russert innocently misremembering. He stated under oath that he did not know that one may not be accompanied by a lawyer to a grand jury hearing. This fact, in and of itself, is irrelevant to the case, except that, as former prosecutor Victoria Toensing points out, the defense had tapes showing Russert saying on television three times that lawyers are barred from grand jury proceedings.

This demonstration of Russert's fallibility was never shown to the jury. The judge did not allow it. He was upset with the defense because it would not put Libby on the stand -- his perfect Fifth Amendment right -- after hinting in the opening statement that it might. He therefore denied the defense a straightforward demonstration of the fallibility of the witness whose testimony was most decisive.

Toensing thinks this might be the basis for overturning the verdict upon appeal. I hope so. This is a case that never should have been brought, originating in the scandal that never was, in search of a crime -- violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- that even the prosecutor never alleged. That's the basis for a presidential pardon. It should have been granted long before this egregious case came to trial. It should be granted now without any further delay.

The Articles heat Up

ELECTION 08’

The Spirit Of '76

And Why Obama Could Win In '08

New York Post

John Podhoretz article

Hillary is a Candidate of the Past

The Nation

William Greider article

Hillary's Shill At CBS

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Editorial

Religion of Peace

LGF Hat-Tip

To protest against a Christian preacher who suggested that Muslims might have violent tendencies, Muslims in the Philippines called for him to be beheaded.

Newt May Not be NEO After All

This “Rightwing Nuthouse” blog is the first to throw a monkey wrench into the hopeful run for Newt. His divorce, admittedly, was worse than Giuliani’s. Which means the conservative women vote would decline, especially if Hillary or Obama are the opposing candidate. The Republicans need that vote, and it may be that Newt filing divorce papers while his wife was in the hospital with cancer mwill be the losing factor. Something for me to chew on.

UPDATE:

Newt has 'sought God's forgiveness'
Potential presidential candidate says he's been on his knees in repentance
March 8, 2007
By Art Moore

I suggest reading the whole article over at World Net Daily, well worth the extra few minutes

The transcript provided to WND reads:

DOBSON: Let me ask you about your family life. This is very, very personal and delicate and I appreciate your willingness to address it again. But you've been married three times under some circumstances that disappointed some of your supporters. And there are some questions associated with that era that remain unanswered with regard to an affair or maybe more than one. Would you take a run at that for our listeners?

GINGRICH: Yeah. And it's a very painful topic and I confess that directly to you. And it has some elements of it that I'm not in any way proud of.

In fact, some elements that, in the past, you know, I wouldn't … I'm now a grandfather. I have two grandchildren: Maggie who's 7 and Robert who's 5. And I think you get to a point – I'm 63 years old now – and you get to a point in life where you look back and there's some elements you want to caution your children and grandchildren not to follow you on. And things you need to learn. And I was married very young and had my first daughter when I was very young. In fact, at the end of my freshman year in college. I have two wonderful children and we're very, very close. And after a period of time, about 18 years, things just didn't work out and it's difficult. Although we do share both our two daughters and we share the two grandchildren. I then remarried and went through a very difficult time, some of which was covered even in news media coverage, and we had a big difference about public life. And that was, frankly again, very painful.

I think what I found difficult in going through all this is that I don't believe in situation ethics and I don't believe in saying, "Well, this was right and that was wrong" and then changing the rules according to my behavior, according to what … you know, to justify what I've done. And I'd have to say in all honesty, as I said to you the other week, there were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them. And I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I'm not only not proud of, but that I would deeply urge my children and grandchildren not to follow in my footsteps.

DOBSON: On that occasion I asked you a pretty bold question. And I appreciate the fact that you didn't seem offended by it. But I asked you if the rumors were true that you were in an affair with a woman obviously who wasn't your wife at the same time that Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were having their escapade.

GINGRICH: Well, the fact is that the honest answer is yes. But it was not related to what happened. And this is one of the things the Left tries to do and one of the places, where frankly, I think the way this report of the special counsel was written weakened the case.

The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge. He was involved in a sexual-harassment lawsuit in which his behavior was a direct question of whether or not the woman who had accused him was telling the truth. The president of the United States, who was a Yale-graduated lawyer, had been attorney general of his state, knew better, deliberately committed perjury. Perjury is at the very heart of our legal system. And is very often punished very intently by the courts. I was very aware of this because of the very painful thing you've raised, which is I had been through a divorce. I had been through depositions.

I had once had a lawyer tell me, "Well, you can just fudge on this," and I said, "No! You can't fudge on this!" You're at the very heart of our legal system. If you don't tell the truth under oath the whole system breaks down. And the challenge I was faced with wasn't about judging Bill Clinton as a person. I'm not going to cast the first stone, and I clearly know that I can't cast the first stone.

Because I have, in fact, as I think every member of every jury in America, has had weaknesses and if that was the standard our whole system would collapse. That's not the standard. The standard is in a court of law, should somebody who's popular get away with committing a felony? And if this week it's perjury, and next week it's theft, and the week after that it's having somebody beaten up, then what morning do we end up as a corrupt country like Nigeria where the corruption is so deep that it eats at the very fabric of our society?

And I drew a line in my mind and again, our listeners may not agree with me. But I drew a line in my mind that said, "Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept felonies and you cannot accept perjury in your highest officials."

DOBSON: Well, you answered that question with regard to Bill Clinton instead of referring to yourself. May I ask you to address it personally? You know, I believe you to be a professing Christian and you and I have prayed together, but when I heard you talk about this dark side of your life and when we were in Washington, you spoke of it with a great deal of pain and anguish, but you didn't mention repentance. Do you understand that word, repentance?

GINGRICH: Absolutely. And I answered … maybe it was the way the question was posed in terms of how the cross-parallels of the two things. In terms of my own life, let me say that I was raised initially as a Lutheran and I ended up converting and becoming a Southern Baptist when I was in graduate school at Saint Charles Avenue Baptist Church with Dr. Avery Lee, who was just a great, great preacher and moral leader. And so that's my background.

I believe deeply that people fall short and that people have to recognize that they have to turn to God for forgiveness and to seek mercy. Somebody once said that when you're young you want justice and that when you get older you want mercy. I also believe that there are things in my own life that I have turned to God and have gotten on my knees and prayed about and sought God's forgiveness. I don't know how you could live with yourself and not end up breaking down if you didn't find, try to find, some way to deal with your own weaknesses and to go to God about them.

DOBSON: Well, I appreciate your allowing us to delve into that. Obviously the reason that I ask is that you are a national leader, despite the fact that you're not in public office at this time. And many of the concepts and ideas that you've expressed, last time and today, are things that I agree with, and I think it's really important and will be for many of our listeners to know your responses to that point of disappointment back there someplace. And I really appreciate your willingness to do so.

GINGRICH: Well, if I could just for a second, let me just say that I think that the most important form of leadership is to be a servant. And there are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards and my neighbor's standards.

But I think my job is to try to do for my country and on a very personal level for my children and for my grandchildren and for their future, try to do everything I can to be a servant in helping this country deal both with, with the domestic challenges to our very identity and that's what "Rediscovering God in America" is all about and to foreign challenges to our very survival. And I hope, you know, within that framework, as you know, you and I have worked together for many, many years.

DOBSON: Yes

GINGRICH: I hope that people will see me in that context. I'm not trying to be a leader in the sense of rising above my fellow Americans, but I am trying to serve, particularly as a teacher and as a developer of solutions, and as somebody who is trying to find how we get through the next 10 or 15 years in a way that makes us safe and free and prosperous, and gives our children and grandchildren the kind of extraordinary freedom that you and I have had.

DOBSON: Well, it's a pleasure talking to you. I enjoy every time we have a chance to be together and I think our listeners have really learned a lot today and I hope we can continue the dialogue.

GINGRICH: I look forward to it. And I'm always available for you because of the extraordinary work you've done across this entire country.

DOBSON: God's blessings to you, my friend.

GINGRICH: Thank you.

It Ain’t The 60’s Anymore Toto

This is a Michelle Malkin Hat-Tip that not only led to this video but a really good article as well. I will post them here for the serious reader, like myself…. Enjoy.

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Antiwar liberals endanger the Pelosi Democrats.

BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Friday, March 9, 2007

The meltdown among House Democrats over Iraq is rightly being described as the first big test of Nancy Pelosi's leadership. It's also an early example of just how much political damage the antiwar left is capable of inflicting on their new speaker.

Ms. Pelosi has been backed into a tight corner over President Bush's $100 billion request for war funding. Hoping to quell a revolt from a liberal bloc that wants out of Iraq, pronto, the speaker unveiled a new, new plan yesterday that includes a timetable for withdrawal--to begin as early as July. Ms. Pelosi needs to win this vote, the first real showdown over Iraq. But it's becoming increasingly clear she can do that only by sacrificing her moderate wing, which opposes her plan and could pay heavily for it in next year's election.

Talk about a downward spiral from just a few weeks ago, when Ms. Pelosi stepped in to save Senate Democrats from their own Iraq irresolution. Ms. Pelosi's own approach was politically clever, if nothing else. The House resolution criticized the troop buildup, making Congress look as if it were taking a stand against President Bush--even if it had no binding force. Yet it also contained a sop about the "bravery" of those troops and vows of "support," words designed to coax war-weary Republicans into joining with Democrats. Republican leaders were privately admitting they were beat, and even the White House was bracing for as many as 70 GOP defections.

Had Ms. Pelosi served up that vote quick, she may have presided over a stinging bipartisan rebuke to the administration's troop buildup and gained some breathing room. Instead, Madame Speaker gave into the lure of a Bush-bashing event, stretching the resolution "debate" over a week. That delay was more than enough time for her liberal base to get beyond her control.

Or rather it was enough time for Pennsylvania antiwar vet John Murtha to wrest the debate away from Ms. Pelosi and let the faithful know what they could expect under his sway. As the House debate got rolling, Mr. Murtha crowed to a liberal blog that the non-binding resolution was just the "first step" in cutting off funding for the troops. He also laid out his strategy for avoiding accusations that Democrats were abandoning soldiers in the field. Instead of just cutting off the money, his party would create new backdoor "readiness" standards that the administration would be unable to meet. In one fell interview, Mr. Murtha put Ms. Pelosi in a box.

Republicans who might have been tempted to vote for the resolution thought better of signing up for Mr. Murtha's "slow bleed." Only 17 jumped ship on the resolution vote, far fewer than even the giddiest White House official might have hoped. What might have been seen as a Congress-wide rebuke of Mr. Bush fizzled into a party-line vote by the opposition. Poof went a key Pelosi victory.

Mr. Murtha managed to do much more than just unite Republicans--he blew apart his own party just as it turned to the war supplemental. The sizable Blue Dog and moderate wing might have been willing to stick with their leadership on a non-binding resolution, but made clear they couldn't vote for anything the public might perceive as cutting off troop funding. Some, such as Blue Dog leader Allen Boyd went further, voicing wariness of any bill that micromanaged the war.

Many of these moderates were the key to Ms. Pelosi's electoral victory last year, as she well knows. More than a few eked out wins in conservative districts because of their promises to approach Iraq as adults. And most have spent recent weeks reminding their leadership that if they are forced to walk the plank on an out-of-Iraq vote, they are in fact being forced to walk the plank in next year's election. In other words, poof might go Ms. Pelosi's majority.

By last week, Ms. Pelosi showed signs of bowing to intelligent thought and cleansing the supplemental of Iraq poison pills. But her antiwar wing once again wasn't in a bowing mood. Mr. Murtha had, after all, promised them red meat, and a clean supplemental was merely tofu. The cofounders of the 70-strong Out of Iraq Caucus, including the never-sensible Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee, declared their whole contingent would bolt unless the bill brought the war to an end. Without them, Ms. Pelosi would only be able to pass a war-funding bill by teaming up with Republicans and Blue Dogs to defeat her own base. Which would hardly count in Ms. Pelosi's mind as a victory.

Her withdrawal plan of yesterday was therefore a capitulation to her liberal bloc. And the only folks truly delighted were Republicans. Minority leader John Boehner has had good reason to worry about the political consequences of his party voting down its own president's request for war funding. By yesterday afternoon, the GOP had declared the new Pelosi plan a troop funding cutoff that equaled "retreat" and felt confident they could lay a supplemental defeat at the door of the Democrats. Mr. Bush jumped in with cover for the shakier elements of his party by promising a veto.

The message to Ms. Pelosi is that she'll have to cobble together a victory from within her own party. Toward that end, she and appropriations chief David Obey have already turned to good-old-fashioned bribery. There is talk that the $100 billion "war" supplemental will include an extra $20 billion in goodies. At least $4 billion would be emergency agriculture spending aimed at Blue Dog southerners for their struggling farmers back home. A huge dollop would go to children's heath care, Katrina and homeland security. And to provide further coverage against accusations that Democrats don't support the troops, there's billions more for veterans and troop health care. So much for Ms. Pelosi's promise of fiscal discipline.

The joke is that even if Ms. Pelosi can buy the moderate wing to her side, her proposal still might go . . . poof. And why? Her liberal wing, of course. After all the speaker's concessions, antiwar critics were still griping yesterday that the withdrawal proposal left Mr. Bush too much flexibility over the timing. Reps. Lynn Woolsey and Ms. Lee introduced their own amendment to the legislation that would demand a complete withdrawal by year-end. Ms. Pelosi is loath to give them a vote, since the amendment would surely fail and allow Mr. Bush to note that even Congress is against withdrawal. The question is if her liberals will give her any choice. They certainly haven't up to now.

Ms. Strassel is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, based in Washington. Her column appears Fridays.

Roger Ailes Gives the Press a Smack-Down!

Right On!

(Hat-Tip: Hot-Air)

Heckler & Koch -- 416

HK-416 & HK-417

Just in case you missed it… The U.S. Military better get some ordered! Spec-Ops is already using them.

Tiananmen Square – History

Posted here for my Kids. The video gets choppy at times, but the audio is great.

Raging Rivers Engulfing Cities!!

This is one of my favorite videos, and is an apt description of the fraud going on with Glbal Warming:

I have emboldened and underlined important parts that as a person reads this article they should be paying attention to:

The Lost Scandal
By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, March 8, 2007

Robert Novak Article – Townhall.com

WASHINGTON -- Denis Collins, a Washington journalist on the Scooter Libby jury, described sentiments in the jury room reflecting those in the Senate Democratic cloakroom: "It was said a number of times. . . . Where's Rove? Where are these other guys?" Besides presidential adviser Karl Rove, he surely meant Vice President Dick Cheney and maybe President Bush. Oddly, the jurors appeared uninterested in hearing from Richard Armitage, the source of the CIA leak.

"It's about time," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, rejoicing in guilty verdicts against Scooter Libby, "someone in the Bush administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics." But Libby was found guilty only of lying about how he learned Valerie Plame's identity. Reid and Democratic colleagues were after much bigger game than Cheney's chief of staff.

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff Lewis 'Scooter' Libby (R) climbs into a car as he leaves the U.S. Federal Court in Washingtonx February 23, 2007, after the third day of jury deliberation in his federal perjury trial. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

Democrats had been slow reacting to my column of July 14, 2003, that reported former diplomat Joseph Wilson's mission to Niger was suggested by his CIA employee wife, Valerie Plame. By September, when the Justice Department began investigating the CIA leak, Democrats smelled another Iran-Contra or Watergate. They were wrong.

The Libby trial uncovered no plot hatched in the White House. The worst news Tuesday for firebrand Democrats was that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was going back to his "day job" (as U.S. attorney in Chicago). With no underlying crime even claimed, the only question was whether Libby had consciously and purposefully lied to FBI agents and the grand jury about how he learned of Mrs. Wilson's identity.

While my column on Wilson's mission triggered Libby's misery, I played but a minor role in his trial. Subpoenaed by his defense team, I testified that I had phoned him in reporting the Wilson column and that he had said nothing about Wilson's wife. Other journalists said the same thing under oath, but we apparently made no impression on the jury.

The trial provided no information whatever about Valerie Plame's status at the CIA at the time I revealed her role in her husband's mission. No hard evidence was produced that Libby ever was told she was undercover. Fitzgerald had argued that whether or not she was covert was not material to this trial, and Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton had so ruled. Yet, in his closing arguments, Fitzgerald referred to Mrs. Wilson's secret status, and in answer to a reporter's question after the verdict, he said she was "classified."

In fact, her being classified -- that is, that her work was a government secret -- did not in itself meet the standard required for prosecution of the leaker (former Deputy Secretary of State Armitage) under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. That statute limits prosecution to exposers of covert intelligence activities overseas, whose revelation would undermine U.S. intelligence. That is why Fitzgerald did not move against Armitage.

Some questions asked me in television and radio interviews after the verdict implied that I revealed Armitage's name to Fitzgerald. Actually, in my first interview with Fitzgerald after he had been named special prosecutor, he indicated he knew Armitage was my leaker. I assumed that was the product of detective work by the FBI. In fact, Armitage had turned himself in to the Justice Department three months before Fitzgerald entered the case, without notifying the White House or releasing me from my requirement of confidentiality.

On Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" Tuesday night, super-lawyer David Boies said Fitzgerald never should have prosecuted Libby because there was no underlying criminal violation. Boies scoffed at Fitzgerald's contention that Libby had obstructed him from exposing criminal activity. Boies, who represented Al Gore in the 2000 election dispute, is hardly a Bush sympathizer. But neither is he a Democratic partisan trying to milk this obscure scandal.

George W. Bush lost control of this issue when he permitted a special prosecutor to make decisions that, unlike going after a drug dealer or mafia kingpin, turned out to be inherently political. It would have taken courage for the president to have aborted this process. It would require even more courage for him to pardon Scooter Libby now, not while he is walking out of the White House in January 2009.

CABLE NEWS RACE
LIBBY VERDICT NITE

(DRUDGE REPORT)

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,297,000
FNC HANNITY/COLMES 1,701,000
FNC GRETA 1,451,000
FNC BRIT HUME 1,427,000
FNC SHEP SMITH 1,317,000
CNN KING 974,000
CNN COOPER 819,000
CNN DOBBS 797,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 722,000
CNNHN NANCY GRACE 588,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 563,000
CNN PAULA ZAHN 491,000

A Short List of PETA Facts

PetaSucks.com

1. PETA has stated repeatedly that their goal is "total animal liberation." This means no pets, no meat, no milk, no zoos, no circuses, no fishing, no leather, and no animal testing for lifesaving medicines.
2. PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals.
3. PETA funds the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine 3, an animal-rights organization that presents itself as an unbiased source for nutritional information and has links to a violent animal-rights group called SHAC.
4. PETA has used their contributors’ tax-exempt donations to fund the North American Earth Liberation front, an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for fire bombs and death threats.
5. PETA regularly targets kids as early as elementary school with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda.
6. PETA spends less than one percent of its $13 million budget actually caring for animals.
7. PETA has repeatedly attacked groups like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, for conducting animal testing to find cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases.

Brit Hume on Libby

First of all, I wish to apologize for the Crazy Liberal who posted this video. As you can see from his flashing a website across the screen that basically threatens Libby with death, this person who posted the video is a bit unstable. Just after the oil commentary is Brits commentary… enjoy (minus the death threats and whiny voice commentary at the beginning):

Scooter Convicted for “No Crime?”

I was shocked when this juror came out and said the following:

This is a great place to post an article on NRO about the same exact thing I thought when I watched the above juror discuss his thinking behind the conviction:

Byron York Article

On virtually every day of the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Lewis Libby, it was hard not to imagine that the jurors were asking themselves, “Why is this guy on trial?” Why wasn’t Richard Armitage, the former State Department official who first leaked the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, in the courtroom? Or Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary who told reporters about Mrs. Wilson? Or Karl Rove, the top White House aide who ever-so-briefly discussed her with journalists? …. As it turns out, that is exactly what jurors were thinking. “There was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury,” said juror Denis Collins, the only one of the 11 jurors who chose to speak to the press after the verdict. “It was said a number of times, ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’ I’m not saying we didn’t think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as [Libby attorney Ted] Wells put it, he was the fall guy.” …. Well, now he has fallen. The jury convicted Libby, who until October 2005 was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, on four of the five counts against him: one count of obstruction of justice, two of perjury, and one of making false statements. The only count on which Libby was acquitted was Count 3, a charge that he lied to the FBI about a 2003 conversation he had with Matthew Cooper, then of Time magazine.

Clearly there was no partisanship coming from this juror about what the other jurors thought about the leak! Yeah right. We know who the original leaker was, and we know Scooter had no connection with it. Then, what was Scooter trying to lie about? Was he “COVERING UP” a non-crime? That doesn’t make sense. I will post a few editorial responses to this verdict:

Real Clear Politics

.…After the verdict, juror and former Washington Post reporter Denis Collins referred to Libby as "a very sympathetic guy." Still, jurors apparently believed that Libby concocted a story about learning that Wilson worked for the CIA from "Meet the Press" moderator Tim Russert, so the jury found him guilty of four out of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice…. …For the Bush administration, this verdict is bad news. It feeds into the Bush-lied mantra of antiwar critics and leading Democrats, who are unbothered by proof that Joseph Wilson has been no model in truth-telling….. When Joseph Wilson returned from Niger, officials who debriefed him thought that Wilson's information supported the belief that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. As The Washington Post editorialized, "Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth" in saying he debunked the Niger story. The United Kingdom's Butler Commission also found the Niger story to be "well-founded."

Washington Post

…The partisan furor over this allegation led to the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame's name. In fact, he learned early on that Mr. Novak's primary source was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, an unlikely tool of the White House. The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert….

Ann “Faggot” Coulter

Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence…. It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame's name because she was not a covert agent. If it had been a crime, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have wrapped up his investigation with an indictment of the State Department's Richard Armitage on the first day of his investigation since it was Armitage who revealed her name and Fitzgerald knew it.

It’s funny, if there had been any evidence of the Whitehouse leaking the name the special prosecutor would have charged someone with a crime for doing so. Valerie wasn’t classified as an undercover agent for many many years, which of course made it impossible for the prosecutor to even charge anyone with blowing her cover because she had no cover to blow. No crime was or could be committed.

I wanted to post this excerpt as well from the left leaning magazine the Nation. Please take note how the writer goes through what the trial wasn’t about, but then in the same paragraph reverts right to what it wasn’t about… like the juror said all of them were saying. Remember, as you read this, the special prosecutor could find nothing to support these claims that both the nation and the juror mentioned:

the Nation Article

Eleven Washingtonians had convicted a former senior Bush White House aide of lying. The case was narrow. It was not about who had leaked classified information outing Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer; it was not about whether the Bush administration had manipulated the prewar intelligence to whip up public support for the invasion of Iraq; it was not about the war. Still, Libby had been on trial for having deliberately misled government investigators to protect himself--and perhaps the vice president--from a criminal inquiry that had come about because the White House had not been straight with the public about the war. In the face of criticism that the administration had hyped the prewar intelligence, the White House in June and July 2003 went on the offensive and mounted a campaign that included passing information to the media about a high-profile critic, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Cheney's office conducted a push-back operation of its own. In this swirl of damage-control and finger-pointing, administration officials leaked Valerie Wilson's CIA identity. And that leak beget the criminal investigation that caused Libby to lie.

For the reason stated above in the Nation article, I will now post the entire article by Jed Babbin

Human Events Article

Clarence Thomas famously said the verbal mugging he received at his Senate confirmation hearing for his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court was a "high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves." It was the product of Senate Democrats and their media allies. But the abuse Justice Thomas suffered, though it caused him and his family enormous pain, never really endangered him. Yesterday a Washington, D.C. jury returned verdicts of conviction on four out of five counts lodged against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. If he loses his appeals, Libby will lose his freedom absent a presidential pardon. The Libby trial was a media lynching, worse by far than what Justice Thomas suffered at the hands of the Senate.

The Libby trial is the apparent end of a multi-act press circus that started inside the CIA, apparently intended to generate news coverage adverse to the President. Former Ambassador Joe Wilson -- with no qualifications or training as an intelligence agent -- went to Niger for the CIA to “investigate” the claims that Saddam Hussein’s regime had bought or tried to buy uranium yellowcake there. But in sending him there the CIA exempted Wilson from one of the most fundamental rules: he wasn’t required to sign a “secrecy” agreement that was -- up to then -- invariably required of intelligence analysts and agents as well as people who have access to top secret information. The fact that Wilson didn’t sign one means that whoever sent him on his Niger mission intended that he be able to blab whatever he liked to whichever newspapers and television networks he liked upon his return.

And blab he did. Almost immediately upon his return, Wilson wrote an op-ed in the New York Times describing his “investigation” as, “eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people," in which he often revealed he was on a mission for the U.S. government.

George Smiley he ain’t. Wilson wrote, "It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction [sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq] had ever taken place." Wilson then went on his own crusade to discredit the Administration’s case against Saddam’s nuclear program. The media circus was launched with all the fanfare that ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post could produce. Then came the revelation that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA employee.

Originally reported by columnist Robert Novak, the Plame-CIA connection renewed ol’ Joe Wilson’s star credentials for another round on the TV talk shows. He took full advantage, demanding that Karl Rove be “frog marched” out of the White House in handcuffs. This drove the White House and Justice Department into a panic and resulted in then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft recusing himself, and his deputy, James Comey, appointing Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor with -- literally -- all the powers of the attorney general and none of the constraints.

Very soon after his appointment, Fitzgerald found out that though Plame’s CIA employ was “classified” (as was every other person at CIA who had access to the lunch room), she wasn’t a covert agent, so revealing her identity wasn’t a crime. And then (or perhaps even before that) Fitzgerald learned that the original leaker was Richard Armitage, then deputy secretary of state. The whole matter should have ended there. There was no crime, and -- at that point -- there was no perjury, obstruction of justice or anything else punishable under law. There were acts of politics, nothing more.

But the media horde was crashing sword upon shield, demanding that Fitzgerald look into the darkest corners of the White House to see if there was a dark Cheney-Vader conspiracy to revenge the Empire upon Wilson. It’s always the cover-up, ya know. And Fitzgerald, who should have known better, glowed in the spotlight.

So Fitzgerald cast the media circus into a wider ring, at the U.S. District Court, with some of the biggest press celebrities paraded in and out to testify before the grand jury. One media mentionable was even tossed in jail for a bit. For those of us who remember the happier times when the same concrete terrace in front of the same court was known to its denizens as “Monica Beach,” there was the foreboding knowledge that something would have to be done to someone to satisfy the appetite a-building on every tidbit that dropped from the grand jury’s maw. The press crowd demanded action. They wouldn’t be camped out so long and come away empty-handed. And they didn’t. The indictment of Scooter Libby being pronounced by a Fitzgerald who had apparently achieved what he sought: a Lawrence Walsh-like prominence in the media. His performance at the Libby indictment press conference made clear that he was enjoying himself, and feeding on the media as much as they were feeding on him.

And so it went, from month to month, with the last 10 days spent in jury deliberations. And at noon on Tuesday the jury came back with what the media wanted. Convictions on perjury and obstruction of justice. There will be appeals, but the press will grant no clemency.

Though Fitzgerald said he isn’t planning to bring more charges and that the investigation is essentially over, the media aren’t done with this. What’s coming? In a BBC interview last night, I got one hint. The news presenter asked me if the conviction of Libby wasn’t proof of the Bush Administration’s ruthlessness, that it would endanger peoples’ lives to cover its own wrongdoing. I explained, perhaps in less gentlemanly terms than I should have, that Valerie Plame was never covert, never endangered in any way. But my riposte fell on deaf ears.

The media wants Dick Cheney’s scalp. Or George Bush’s. Never mind the facts. Never mind the law. The press has lynched Scooter Libby. Now they’ve set their sights higher.

Crazy Canadians!!

Health Care… Hillary and Obama Style!

There are some good books out there on this… ask me if you are interested.

Another video can be watched here, it is called Dead Meat - (WMV)... I highly suggest taking an additional 25-minutes out of your life and watch this eye-opening video documentary.

PETA vs. AL GORE

(Hat-tip: Drudge)

Keep in mind I think both people/organization are hypocritical idiots pushing a socialist dogma more than wanting to “help” the earth. So I find it funny when these two go at eachother.

PETA TO AL GORE: YOU CAN’T BE A MEAT-EATING ENVIRONMENTALIST
Tue Mar 06 2007 17:08:05 ET

The Most ‘Inconvenient Truth’: According to U.N., Animals Raised for Food Generate More Greenhouse Gases Than All Cars and Trucks Combined

Norfolk, Va. — This morning, PETA sent a letter to former vice president Al Gore explaining to him that the best way to fight global warming is to go vegetarian and offering to cook him faux “fried chicken” as an introduction to meat-free meals. In its letter, PETA points out that Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth—which starkly outlines the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming and just won the Academy Award for “Best Documentary”—has failed to address the fact that the meat industry is the largest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions.

In the letter, PETA points out the following:

• The effect that our meat addiction is having on the climate is truly staggering. In fact, in its recent report “Livestock’s Long Shadow—Environmental Issues and Options,” the United Nations determined that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined
• Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

PETA also reminds Gore that his critics love to question whether he practices what he preaches and suggests that by going vegetarian, he could cut down on his contribution to global warming and silence his critics at the same time.

“The single best thing that any of us can do to for our health, for animals, and for the environment is to go vegetarian,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “The best and easiest way for Mr. Gore to show his critics that he’s truly committed to fighting global warming is to kick his meat habit immediately.”