by TChris

Andrew Gauthier, a police officer in Flint, Michigan, has been charged with assault after a video camera on a school bus showed Gauthier striking a 15 year old boy. According to Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, the video also "shows Gauthier grabbing the teen's head and pushing the youth's head against a window."

Gauthier (not to be confused with Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Denis Gauthier, recently suspended for two games for similarly violent behavior, albeit on-ice) was fired last week.

Jason Leopold has a new Valerie Plame article today with allegations that directly conflict with what an Administration official told the New York Times yesterday. Jason writes:

In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media.

Other White House officials who also attended the meeting with Cheney and President Bush included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her former deputy Stephen Hadley, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

by TChris

As TalkLeft noted here, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft was convicted of four misdemeanors for failing to report gifts (primarily golf outings) on his financial disclosure statements. The Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary counsel today filed a disciplinary complaint that could affect Taft's license to practice law.

In today's complaint, Disciplinary Counsel Jonathan E. Coughlan wrote, "Improper conduct on the part of an attorney in government service is more likely to harm the entire system of government in terms of public trust.'' Coughlan said Taft was aware of Ohio disclosure laws and their requirements

Update: Skilling is on the stand. He says he's "absolutely innocent."

**********
The Enron trial is going into its last phases. Monday, Jeff Skilling takes the stand, hoping to exonerate himself. Later, Ken Lay will do the same.

Skilling says he's ready, and it's time.

The former chief executive's testimony will probably cover familiar ground, namely statements he made during two congressional hearings in February 2002. But with his attorneys asking the questions, he will be allowed to tell uninterrupted his version of the Enron saga.

What will Skilling say?

by TChris

Vice President Cheney, who shot Harry Whittington after mistaking him for a quail, should have learned the consequences of careless hunting when he was "pelted" with a shotgun blast while hunting in the late 1990's.

Cheney wasn't hurt but he was miffed, [Bob] Forrest told the [Albuquerque] Journal.

''He said, 'You guys watch where you're shooting!' He was very offended,'' Forrest said.

A good safety tip from the "offended" Cheney: "Watch where you're shooting!"

An Administration official has been dispatched by Bush (or was it Karl Rove?) to distance Bush from Libby's leak to select reporters of portions of the NIE report about whether Saddam was in the process of acquiring uranium to build WMD's. The New York Times reports:

A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein. But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters

.....The official responded briefly via e-mail on Sunday to questions from The New York Times.....the [official's] disclosure seemed intended to suggest that Mr. Bush might have played only a peripheral role in the release of the classified material and was uninformed about the specifics -- like the effort to dispatch Mr. Libby to discuss the estimate with reporters.

The Sopranos starts now. It looks like tonight is going to feature Meadow and her fiancee, but the actual description says. "Johnny files a petition to attend his daughter's wedding and Tony hires a new bodyguard." It's called "Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request."

I think last week's was the best of the season so far -- so did several commenters. Let us all know what you think of tonight's show. And if you're not into the Sopranos, please just scroll on by.

Raw Story has a scoop on an article to appear in tomorrow's New York Times:

"Just months ago there was cause for optimism about the spread of democracy in the Arab world, with elections held in Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian areas," the New York Times plans to report in Monday editions, RAW STORY has learned. "But the momentum is fast ebbing, with delays in reform efforts, legal maneuvers and official changes of heart throughout the Middle East."

"The unexpected rise of Islamists, the newfound power of Shiites in Iraq with the implication of growing Iranian influence, and the sense among some rulers that they can wait out the end of the Bush administration -- which has begun facing domestic and Republican criticism for its focus on forcing democracy -- have all put the brakes on democratization, analysts and officials say."

The official British report on the July bombings in London is about to be released. The four suicide bombers were not acting for al Qaeda. They were home grown terrorists who hatched a cheap plan via the Internet.

In an interview with the Observer, Labor MP Ayn Clwyd, who is Tony Blair's personal envoy on human rights, levels some harsh criticism at the U.S. for its prison policies in Iraq, which she says has resulted in missing and abused Iraqi prisoners.

Iraqis arrested by coalition forces have disappeared into a 'black hole' with no records of where they are being held, Tony Blair's personal envoy on human rights has warned. Ann Clwyd said if the scandal of the missing prisoners had been taken more seriously from the start by the US, it could have helped prevent the abuse of detainees in their jails.

Clwyd rarely speaks publicly on the issue. She highlighted two cases in the interview, and told of her attempts to get responses from Stephen Hadley, Paul Bremer and Paul Wolfowitz:

Seymour Hersh, whose new article on Bush formulating a plan to attack Iran I wrote about yesterday, was on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer this morning.

Crooks and Liars has the video.

Check out these transcript highlights (received by e-mail from the show):

Why Hersh believes Bush feels compelled to attack Iran

HERSH: The word I hear is messianic. He thinks, as I wrote, that he's the only one now who will have the courage to do it. He's politically free. I don't think he's overwhelmingly concerned about the '06 elections, congressional elections. I think he really thinks he has a chance, and this is going to be his mission.

Is the U.S. capable of attacking Iran now?

by Last Night in Little Rock

In an astonding performance, Rep. J. D. Hayworth, R-AZ, declared on Meet the Press that "Immigration Reform" is the most significant issue facing America today. (Streaming video of "Meet the Press" is posted at Noon ET on MSNBC.com).

In a sound bite laden appearance, Rep. Hayworth, representing a border state, and a Republican up for re-election, apparently feels that the wasteful and distasteful War in Iraq, our fostering civil war in Iraq, and the President's treason by security leak, can all be swept under the rug until after the election.