Update: Crooks and Liars now has the video of Joe Wilson on the Today Show.

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Bloomberg News reports that Joseph Wilson's accusations against White House officials hold up against Republican accusations against him.

The main points of Wilson's article have largely been substantiated by a Senate committee as well as U.S. and United Nations weapons inspectors. A day after Wilson's piece was published, the White House acknowledged that a claim Bush made in his January 2003 state of the union address that Iraq tried to buy ``significant quantities of uranium from Africa'' could not be verified and shouldn't have been included in the speech.

While the administration was justified at the time in being concerned that Hussein was trying to build nuclear weapons, ``on the specifics of this I think Joe Wilson was right,'' said Michael O'Hanlon, a scholar of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Wilson appeared on the Today Show today and called for Karl Rove to be fired for abuse of power. And Raw Story has an exclusive new interview with Wilson.

Senators Reid, Levin, Rockefeller, Biden and Durbin have proposed an Amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill which is on the Senate Floor this morning. (received by e-mail.)It reads:

No federal employee who discloses or has disclosed classified information, including the identity of a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a person not authorized to receive such information shall be entitled to hold a security clearance for access to such information.

A vote is expected today.

Vermont jurors have returned the first death penalty verdict in 50 years in that state in a federal case.

In 2001 Fell had agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. But that deal was rejected by then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who insisted on the death penalty, in part because of the urgings of Fell's relatives.

The last execution in Vermont was in 1954. Another defendant was sentenced to death in 1957, but the sentence was later commuted. In their closing arguments Wednesday the prosecution said Fell's crimes were cold and calculated while the defense said his wrongdoing stemmed from a childhood of abuse.

After the verdict, the defense lawyer read a statement to the jury from the defendant:

"He respects your decision. He appreciates your hard work and wants to tell you and the family of his sincere remorse. He did not want to do it at any other time publicly as it would be construed to be less genuine," the lawyer said.

A new report released by the military shows that the tactics used in the abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners began at Guantanamo.

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee

The Republican talking points are belied by early news accounts of the Valerie Plame leak. Here's what Novak told Newsday reporters Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Roycea week or so after his article was published.

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

and on who sent Joseph Wilson to Niger:

Novak reported that his "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.

A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. (my emphasis)

But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be." (my emphasis)

Time to connect some more dots. This is a long one.

Atrios brings Ari Fleischer back into the mix in the Karl Rove scandal. Let's go back to July 7 to July 12, 2003, when President Bush took his trip to Africa. Bloomberg today reported:

People familiar with the inquiry say Fitzgerald also is reviewing testimony by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, though it is not clear whether the prosecutor is focusing on him or seeking information about higher-ups. Fleischer last night refused to comment.

We know that Fitzgerald subpoenaed the complete transcript of his July 12, 2003 press gaggle conducted at a hospital in Nigeria. We know that he subpoenaed telephone records for Air Force One during a portion of the trip. We also know that he subpoenaed the July 6 to July 30, 2003 records of the White House Iraq Group, a public relations kind of task force formed by Cheney's staff to promote the Administrations' view of the war.

We also know that the White House won't release the names of those who accompanied President Bush on the trip, although we know that Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and Andrew Card were with him.

Why would Fitzgerald want these documents? I don't think it's to get Ari Fleischer. I think it's to catch Lewis Libby and others on Vice President Cheney's staff, and/or Karl Rove, who attended almost all the White House Iraq Group meetings, in a lie. Ari Fleischer's statements may lead Fitzgerald to the lie - and establish a conspiracy to out a covert agent or obstruct justice - or perjury or false statements to federal investigators by these White House officials.

American University law professor Herman Schwartz, writing in the Nation, opines that conservatives may rue the day the Supreme Court ruled that the feds can arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers in states that have legalized medical marijuana use:

The Supreme Court decision may actually encourage abuses. Those who need marijuana to ease their suffering will still manage to get it from illegal sources, and federal officials have indicated they are not likely to prosecute individual users. But California will no longer be able to justify continuing its current efforts to tighten dispensary regulation and to restrict access to the truly needy, for how can a state justify regulating and implicitly approving what the Supreme Court has found illegal? The decision will discourage more states from permitting medical use of the drug, no matter how carefully controlled.

This small victory for federal authority will do little to stem the right-wing campaign to shrink federal power and undermine the welfare and regulatory reforms initiated by the New Deal. Instead, the vital state experimentation on a common problem, which the federal system is supposed to encourage, will be choked off. More people will be forced into the illegal market, and victims of cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses will be made even more miserable.

The L.A. Times reports that Kobe Bryant's "star is rising" again. He has regained his Nike endorsements.

So last week's ad represented something more than just a sleek pitch for sneakers. With its striking approach -- as if Bryant were facing his detractors, at least in basketball terms -- marketing experts say it was a canny means of testing the waters of public opinion, if not a first step in rebuilding the player's image.

"I think enough time has passed," said Doug Shabelman, senior vice president of Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing in Evanston, Ill. "And the way they used him in the ad - it's a muted advertisement. It's quiet, calm."

The Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault objects. I think it's appropriate. Kobe was never convicted of a crime and the accuser's story had more holes than swiss cheese. He should not be penalized any more. The accuser got her money in the civil action, why shouldn't he get his? At least he works for it.

More on the Nike endorsement here.

Via Loretta at the U.S. Marijuana Party, the Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama has halted the practice of police using stun guns. The Birmingham News reports:

Birmingham Mayor Bernard Kincaid on Tuesday ordered Birmingham police officers to halt the use of Tasers, saying more studies are needed on the impact of the stun guns.

The mayor's order came days after a 41-year-old McCalla man died in the Birmingham City Jail, hours after he was hit by a Taser and sprayed with Mace. Rockey Bryson, a mechanic and father of two who was jailed on a DUI charge, was found dead in his cell about 3:30 a.m. Thursday, more than 12 hours after corrections officers used the electric stun gun to subdue him during a confrontation in his cell.

There are far too many of these taser deaths for the guns to be considered an acceptable law enforcement tool. The Mayor did the right thing.

This just in from Murray Waas - House Democrats to Introduce Resolution of Inquiry on Rove tomorrow morning....

House Democrats tomorrow morning will introduce a formal resolution of inquiry demanding that the Bush administration turn over information and documents relating to Karl Rove and the Valerie Plame affair, according to congressional sources.

Among the members who will be calling for the inquiry are such Democrat heavyweights as Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking minority member of the House Government Reform Committee; Rep. Tom Lantos, of California; and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland. The resolution effort was spareheaded by Rep. Rush Holt, of New Jersey, who is a senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Bumbling, home-grown, holy warriors is rapidly becoming the conclusion of investigators in the London bombings.

The emerging picture of London's mass transit bombers is of normal people leading normal lives, good people from good families - "Suicide Bombers From Suburbia" was the headline in London's Daily Mail.

... According to closed-circuit television evidence, the bombers arrived at King's Cross shortly before 8:30 a.m. They were dressed like campers, each with a backpack, and were talking easily as they gathered, before splitting off in four directions.

Here is the text of Karl Rove's waiver to Matt Cooper, dated July 6, 2005. Luskin is correct that all it does is affirm that the prior general waiver Rove is valid. Cooper's lawyer is correct that it specifically states the waiver applies to Cooper. But it is not a new waiver, it's the same old waiver.

July 6, 2005

Dear Mr. Luskin:

This is to confirm our telephone conversation of this afternoon at 12:30 p.m. You have consulted with your client, Karl Rove, who has authorized you to represent to me and to my client, Matthew Cooper, the following statement: Consistent with his written waiver of confidentiality he previously executed, Mr. Rove affirms his waiver of any claim of confidentiality he may have concerning any conversation he may have had with Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine during the month of July, 2003.

When you receive a copy of this letter, please initial and fax back to me at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Richard Sauber

It seems to me Matthew Cooper was being a bit hyperbolic when he talked about receiving,

"in somewhat dramatic fashion" a direct personal communication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep the source's identity secret.

It really just affirms he had been freed long before.