Oh, and it's a hollow feelin'
When it comes down to dealin' friends
It never ends

The Eagles, Tequila Sunrise

Raw Story Exclusive:

Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told him that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle because she was a CIA agent, the sources said.

Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson and his CIA to Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, they added.

by TChris

Tim Kaine has promised Virginia voters that he'll allow executions to proceed if they elect him as their governor, despite his personal opposition to the death penalty. His opponent, Jerry Kilgore, also supports the death penalty.

And if you accept that both men are willing to support the death penalty, then what's at issue here is, which one will do it with enthusiasm? For supporters of capital punishment, you see, mere acquiescence is insufficient. Anything less than hard moral clarity opens the door on issues they'd rather not face.

One such issue: how can we be certain that an innocent accused isn't executed? Leonard Pitts Jr. argues that the question isn't academic: Virginia may already have executed an innocent man, Roger Coleman.

by Last Night in Little Rock

President Bush today named his top economic advisor, Ben Bernanke, to replace Allen Greenspan when Greenspan's retirement becomes effective at the end of January.

One of the architects of the "No Millionaire Left Behind" economic strategy that has left the middle class in ruins (see here on why it matters to the middle class), we are sure that the Republican controlled Congress will approve, unless, of course, the Republicans in Congress have revolted against the administration after Rovegate hits the fan.

With a $7T deficit, and the Administration spending money like the Rapture will avoid responsibility for the debt and China buying T-Bills like they intend to own us, no Bush economic advisor is worthy of anything.

by TChris

One might think that the president who represents "the party of personal responsibility" would accept responsibility for his failures. Not so, according to this article. Instead, the president is peevish about the failures of others within his administration.

Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical."

Logic was never the president's strongest asset. Divine inspiration has served in its stead, but reality has produced bad news, so the president's staff is feeling his wrath.

by TChris

Are judges more likely than they once were to send women to prison?

Women made up 7 percent of inmates in state and federal prisons last year and accounted for nearly one in four arrests, the government reported Sunday. ... In 1995, women made up 6.1 percent of inmates in those facilities.

Overall, the population of our prison nation grew 1.9 percent in 2004, with 2,267,787 individuals behind bars.

by TChris

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in 2003 (during a CNBC interview):

"I think really for our viewers it should be understood that I put this into a blind trust," Frist replied. "So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock." He added that the trust was "totally blind. I have no control."

The truth:

Two weeks before that interview, M. Kirk Scobey Jr., a Frist trustee, informed the senator in writing that one of his trusts had received HCA stock valued at between $15,000 and $50,000.

by TChris

Who polices the police? At the FBI, the answer is: nobody.

The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today.

The FBI has violated "laws and directives governing clandestine surveillance" at least 287 times in the past three years. As domestic spying increases, the lack of effective oversight magnifies the threat to civil liberties.

by TChris

Boston College's Center for Human Rights and International Justice opens next week. It hopes to use an interdisciplinary approach to tackle issues of human rights and social injustice around the world.

by TChris

How to spin an indictment:

With a decision expected this week on possible indictments in the C.I.A. leak case, allies of the White House suggested Sunday that they intended to pursue a strategy of attacking any criminal charges as a disagreement over legal technicalities or the product of an overzealous prosecutor.

Funniest spin: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison claiming that she hopes "that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars." Republicans who were so exercised about Bill Clinton's testimony regarding oral pleasure now believe that perjury is just a "technicality"?

I have court this morning. Choose your topic, I'm counting on readers to fill in till noon.

Just to recap, while we're waiting:

• Obstruction of Justice
• Perjury (before grand jury)
• Subornation of Perjury
• False Statement to A Federal Official

The Washington Post reports Monday that Robert Novak cooperated with Fitzgerald's probe in the Valerie Plame leaks case.

A critical early success for Fitzgerald was winning the cooperation of Robert D. Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist who named Plame in a July 2003 story and attributed key information to "two senior administration officials." Legal sources said Novak avoided a fight and quietly helped the special counsel's inquiry, although neither the columnist nor his attorney have said so publicly.

While it's been pretty obvious Novak cooperated, this is the first MSM confirmation of it