I received an email from Allie Carter, who, in addition to being a former member of the Peace Corps and a current Master's student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, is the founder and editor-in-chief of a new website called FaithandJustice.org. Focused on the intersection of religion and politics, from a progressive/liberal perspective, the site is dedicated to giving voice to the religious left—certainly an ambitious and much-needed project. Regular Shakers know I’m not a religious person myself, but I whole-heartedly support the efforts of religious liberals to make themselves heard over the din of the Dominionists. For those of you who are religious (and this is not a specifically Christian site, I want to point out), I encourage you to check it out.
I also received an email from Melody Berger, who is a senior majoring in Women's Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia and has created a feminist magazine for teens/young women called The F-Word Ezine. (That damn women’s studies set is at it again!) The first issue is now online. It’s also got a lot of good online resources pulled into one place.
Enjoy!
Cool Stuff from the Mailbag
Strength in Numbers
We are making a difference.
That Colored Fella emailed me to let me know the Big Brass Alliance had been mentioned on MSNBC, and Matt of Tattered Coat pointed me in the direction of One Woman Wrecking Crew's report on the mention:
[Ron Reagan's] smile of satisfaction was unmistakable as Ron Reagan Jr. covered the “Downing Street Minutes” and the Conyers hearing on the popular MSNBC show Connected. The Big Brass Alliance blogs were also credited for bringing the DSM to the attention of the mainstream media by Tony’s Tab, the noted blog analyst. The DSM blog swarm was represented with an impressive chart, that went, well, off the charts! The Big Brass Alliance website was also displayed.From Tony’s Tabs:
On May 30, a blogswarm was formed. For those of you who might be less techie hip that means that many blogs got together on an issue and formed a new blog called "Big Brass Alliance." Their icon is a big set of brass balls. Funny. This blog is a conglomerate of almost 500 other blogs and collectively they support the After Downing Street Alliance in their efforts to get MSM attention for the Memo, as well as a congressional inquiry. Their ultimate goal is impeachment proceedings for President Bush. It has since gotten an increasing amount of play in the press, and as of yesterday Rep. John Conyers has a forum underway on the Hill, a begin to the process of discovery on the issue. Again, this is my cobbled together history, but I think it is relatively accurate. More than the nuts and bolts of dates and specific blogs, it illustrates the powerful potential of the Internet to expose the stories MSM has missed, ignored, or simply gotten wrong. And I want to stress my feeling that, coupled with the Rathergate scandal, this shows interesting potential for a checks and balances system that calls crap what it is, whether it's blue or red.Huzzah!
(I'd like to note that our ultimate goal is really the truth and accountability, part of which might be impeachment proceedings, but it's a small quibble.)
Media Justification- Read: Lots 'O Stammering
Just a quick post: here is the full text of an article on the DSM from FAIR. Take a look!
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Justifying the Silence on Downing Street Memos
June 17, 2005
One of the features of the newfound media interest in the Downing Street Memo is a profound defensiveness, as reporters scramble to explain why it received so little attention in the U.S. press. But the most familiar line--the memo wasn't news because it contained no "new" information--only raises troubling questions about what journalists were doing when they should have been reporting on the gulf between official White House pronouncements and actual White House intentions.
There are two important points in the Downing Street Memo, and media apologists have marshaled slightly different--though equally unconvincing--arguments as to why each did not deserve coverage. The first point is that the White House was intent on going to war long before it announced the decision to invade Iraq; "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action," the memo states, citing British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
The Washington Post editorialized (6/15/05): "The memos add not a single fact to what was previously known about the administration's prewar deliberations. Not only that: They add nothing to what was publicly known in July 2002." The New York Times reported (6/14/05) that "the documents are not quite so shocking. Three years ago, the near-unanimous conventional wisdom in Washington held that Mr. Bush was determined to topple Saddam Hussein by any means necessary." NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell similarly remarked on June 14 (Media Matters, 6/15/05) that you had to be "brain dead not to know" what the White House was doing.
But if everyone knew it was a lie when Bush and the White House repeatedly denied that they had decided to go to war (as with Bush's March 6, 2003 statement, "I have not made up our mind about military action"), why were reporters not exposing this bad faith at every turn? On March 16, 2003, for example, Andrea Mitchell referred to negotiations at the United Nations as part of "the diplomatic campaign to avoid war." If war was a foregone conclusion, why were such talks reported as if they mattered?
And how should reporters treat recent comments by George W. Bush that war was a last resort? "Both of us [Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair] didn't want to use our military," he said at a June 7 press conference. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option." If this is known to be a lie, why isn't it identified as such in news reports? If there's some doubt about whether he's lying, isn't the Downing Street Memo important evidence as to what the truth is?
The second issue raised by the Downing Street Memo regards the fixing of intelligence. On this question, media responses differ somewhat: The memo is inconclusive, some say, or investigations into intelligence tampering have shown that such claims are without merit. The June 15 Washington Post editorial claimed that "the memos provide no information that would alter the conclusions of multiple independent investigations on both sides of the Atlantic, which were that U.S. and British intelligence agencies genuinely believed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that they were not led to that judgment by the Bush administration."
The investigations the Post is alluding to are irrelevant, since they did not specifically address the question of how the White House handled intelligence reports on Iraq. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation was limited in scope; as the Washington Post reported (7/10/04), the panel "[made] no judgment on whether the administration distorted the intelligence it was given." A more recent review of intelligence practices was similarly limited--a fact also reported by the Washington Post (4/1/05): "The panel that Bush appointed under pressure in February 2004 said it was 'not authorized' to explore the question of how the commander in chief used the faulty information to make perhaps the most critical decision of his presidency."
More important, however, is the fact that the Downing Street Memo does suggest that the British government did not believe the evidence of Iraq's WMD programs was strong. As the memo states, "the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
The case for the politicization of intelligence is not difficult to make--it merely involves citing evidence the media ignored at the time. In its March 3, 2003 issue, Newsweek reported what should have been a bombshell: The star defector who supplied some of the most significant information about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction had told investigators that those weapons no longer existed.
Iraq defector Hussein Kamel--Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, who ran Iraq's unconventional weapons programs--was debriefed in 1995 about the status of those programs. Some of what Kamel said to the weapons inspectors would become very familiar: 30,000 liters of anthrax had been produced by the Iraqi regime, for example, and four tons of the VX nerve agent. These specific quantities were cited repeatedly by White House officials to make the case for war, and were staples of media coverage in the run-up to war.
But Kamel told the inspectors something else: that Iraq had destroyed these stockpiles soon after the Gulf War. "All weapons-- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear-- were destroyed," Kamel told the inspectors.
At the time, FAIR pointed out (2/27/03) that White House officials were misleading the public by selectively citing the Kamel interview: "Their repeated citations of his testimony--without revealing that he also said the weapons no longer exist--suggests that the administration might be withholding critical evidence."
Despite their obvious importance, the Kamel revelations were barely mentioned in the mainstream media. This fact is worth remembering when journalists claim that pre-war media coverage was remarkably prescient about the White House's intentions. The truth is that the Downing Street Memo is a reminder of how poorly the media served the public before the war--which might explain their reluctance to take it seriously.
Yes indeedy. Seems that everyone has trouble admitting mistakes these days... but what do you do when there's no one or nothing convenient to use as a scapegoat?
Bluster and Deny. Bluster and Deny. They'll forget, eventually.
(The Cross-Post is not enough...)
Downing Street-a-Go-Go!
Good lord in heaven! The Associated Press is suddenly all over the Downing Street Documents!
Memos: Postwar Iraq a Concern in Britain
U.S. War Plans Much-Discussed in Memos
2002 Memos Undercut British WMD Claims
Redford Says He Linked Deep Throat to FBI
(The last one includes Redford’s comments on the Downing Street Memo.)
Of course I’d prefer to see these stories on a WEEKDAY, but at least it’s a bloody start!
Back!
Okay, supposedly it's fixed. We'll see... I've heard that before.
That Colored Fella emailed me to say the Big Brass Alliance was mentioned on MSNBC. Did anyone see it? Know what show it was on?
Disconnected
I’m heading home, which means no internet, no email. With any luck, I’ll be up and running again tomorrow, but I wouldn’t bet on it. So please don’t be offended if I don’t return emails quickly (not that I’m spectacular at that to begin with), and if there’s important DSM news, please make sure to post it at the Big Brass Alliance forums.
In my absence, here’s your topic for discussion: Who is the greatest author of all time and why? (I don’t imagine I need to tell you who gets my vote, and it’s not because he’s my brother.)
Have a lovely weekend.
Friday Blogrollin’ (Pressed for Time Edition)
Sorry to these folks—usually I offer a better endorsement of each blogger, but I’m a little short on time. Just go visit them; you’ll see why I like them.
Blue Girl in a Red State
Idyllopus Press
Linkmeister
RatBoy
And, as always, if there’s a blog you think I should be reading, leave it in comments. (Especially if it’s your own blog—don’t wait for someone else to promote you or me to find you…whore away!)
WaPo Drops the Ball (Again)
First, read this piece of shit trying to pass as reporting.
Then, read Congressman Conyers’ letter to the Washington Post in regard to that article.
Then, if you’d like to politely suggest that Mr. Milbank might want to try drafting a Washington Sketch which resembles reality instead of a gross caricature thereof, you can “Suggest a Sketch” by emailing here.
(Thank you to Shaker Doug B. for the heads-up.)
Question of the Day: End of the Imperial Presidency Edition
We’ve discussed previously on this blog the importance of the LGBT community having straight supporters, and of women being supported by men who are feminists, too—neither of which is a denigration of gays or women; it’s a fact of social movements. When members of the majority pick up a minority cause, it serves to give the cause legitimacy among other members of the majority, and often ends up shaming them into acceptance. Such social trends are of particular interest to me, and so it was with interest I read the following at PSoTD, which mirrors I thought I myself had just this morning:
Right about now, I suspect the folks at the White House are pretty nervous about the Downing Street Memo.So there’s our question of the day. Which Republican is going to give the movement in pursuit of a formal inquiry its legitimacy…and shame all but the most shameless members of the GOP into turning their back on King George, remembering, finally, that they are not his subjects, but protectors of our state, entrusted by a public who needs them to now be more loyal to America than to its faltering president.
Yes, it's a culmination of things, partially. It's the Conyers' hearing. It's the steady drumbeat of press coverage. It's the possibility (probability?) of more documents being released in Britain.
But you have to think that Rove, Bush, McClellan have a growing, gnawing fear that somebody in Washington, somebody in Congress, somebody Republican, is going to say in public what the White House fears most in their game to run the clock out on DSM:
"There should be a Congressional Investigation into the Downing Street documents and the runup to the Iraq War."
Because once that happens, the political game clock will be turned off, and the national history clock will begin.
It's not a matter of when. It's a matter of who. What Republican in today's Congress will be guaranteed a prominent spot in history? The Bush Administration has to wonder.
Who’s it going to be?
(I’m thinking Chris Shays seems the likely candidate. Which is ironic, considering Liebertwat—also from CT—is less likely to say it than Shays.)
Nobody Home
Via Alternate Brain, a picture of John Conyers delivering his petition to the White House…where he was refused entry:
The Fixer notes:
They wouldn't let him in. Think about this. They refused to allow a Member of Congress into the White House to deliver a letter. It's time to explain to Bush and his henchmen that he does not hold the deed to the White House. We do.Yeah, well just because they wouldn’t let Conyers in doesn’t mean Bush might not be coming out a lot sooner than he thinks.
McClellan Under Fire
Forget Iraq. It looks like Scottie’s got an insurgency to deal with right in the White House Press Room:
After McClellan outlined the president's plans, leading up to a key June 28th speech, ABC correspondent Terry Moran asked a pointed question, which referred back to an assessment recently made by Vice President Dick Cheney.Nice to see the press finally make an effort at doing its job again.
Q Scott, is the insurgency in Iraq in its 'last throes'?
McCLELLAN: Terry, you have a desperate group of terrorists in Iraq that are doing everything they can to try to derail the transition to democracy. The Iraqi people have made it clear that they want a free and democratic and peaceful future. And that's why we're doing everything we can, along with other countries, to support the Iraqi people as they move forward….
Q But the insurgency is in its last throes?
McCLELLAN: The Vice President talked about that the other day -- you have a desperate group of terrorists who recognize how high the stakes are in Iraq. A free Iraq will be a significant blow to their ambitions.
Q But they're killing more Americans, they're killing more Iraqis. That's the last throes?
McCLELLAN: Innocent -- I say innocent civilians. And it doesn't take a lot of people to cause mass damage when you're willing to strap a bomb onto yourself, get in a car and go and attack innocent civilians. That's the kind of people that we're dealing with. That's what I say when we're talking about a determined enemy.
Q Right. What is the evidence that the insurgency is in its last throes?
McCLELLAN: I think I just explained to you the desperation of terrorists and their tactics.
Q What's the evidence on the ground that it's being extinguished?
McCLELLAN: Terry, we're making great progress to defeat the terrorist and regime elements. You're seeing Iraqis now playing more of a role in addressing the security threats that they face. They're working side by side with our coalition forces. They're working on their own. There are a lot of special forces in Iraq that are taking the battle to the enemy in Iraq. And so this is a period when they are in a desperate mode.
Q Well, I'm just wondering what the metric is for measuring the defeat of the insurgency.
McCLELLAN: Well, you can go back and look at the Vice President's remarks. I think he talked about it.
Q Yes. Is there any idea how long a 'last throe' lasts for?
McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve....
It’s about time that this administration stop being granted the right to have “we’re making progress” taken as fact, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I’m Pesky, They're Pesky, He’s Pesky, She’s Pesky…
…wouldn’t you like to be pesky, too?
“Let me conclude with a comment about those pesky ‘blogs’ that so bother the New York Times. We should stand and offer a moment of quiet gratitude to the electronic swarm of gadfly commentators who make it so much harder for the US media to ignore news not officially blessed. Yes, Judith Miller’s breathless reports for The Times that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction may have maintained ‘access’ for the mainstream press to its diet of White House propaganda, but the blogs insure that, whatever nonsense the US press is biting on, the public need not swallow.”
— Greg Palast
If you haven’t already, join the Big Brass Alliance.
ARGH: DSM Follow-Up
My internet at home is down again. So, my apologies for not getting out a follow-up last night. I wrote a massive piece for distribution, but I had no way of getting it out - and still have no way, because I couldn't get it off my hard drive at home, since my CDR drive is fucked.
So they're supposed to come fix the internet Saturday (even though the guy supposed fixed it Wednesday night), and hopefully I'll get something out then with follow-up actions for a big push on Monday.
Thoughts on the Hearings
The whole time I was listening to those hearings, I was struck by the fact that none of it was news to me; in fact, if I’m to be totally accurate, the thought that was going through my mind was, This sounds like a night out on the beers with Mr. Shakes, Mr. Furious, and Mr. Curious. The rehashing of all the information that has led me to completely drive myself mental trying to organize some kind of information dissemination coalition was boring as hell, to be frank. And yet it was exciting to think that this wasn’t a night out on the beers with a couple of frustrated and politically impotent folks, lamenting how few people would have known anything about that which we were discussion; this was a congressional hearing, and it may well be just the beginning of something big.
I thought about my name on Conyers’ petition, and about the 487 bloggers who have come together in support of driving this issue into the public consciousness, and I thought about how important it was that there are people in our Congress who will still fight for what’s right. And that was really cool.
John Bonifaz was outstanding; as I mentioned in my notes during the hearing, he was outstanding at staying on message—always bringing it back to the memos and what they illustrate. His constant reiteration of the fact that this is a Constitutional crisis was great.
In general, I was thrilled with how it all played out. Now we just need to help push it to the next level.
I have a few ideas for follow-up actions, which I will be emailing this evening as soon as they make their way out of my head and onto a page. Stay tuned…
DSM Hearings: Open Thread
For anyone who’s able to watch or listen to the hearings and wants to discuss, this is the place.
------------
Okay, I'm at work, so this might be kind of sketchy, but I'll try to liveblog this.
2:40est - Joe Wilson is speaking. He's his usual stern and no-nonsense self. Talking about going to Niger and how he spoke about his findings with the admin, the media, and some Dems. He said that he eventually realized if the truth were ever going to come out about the yellowcake b.s., he'd have to out it himself.
2:45 - Joe Wilson: "We're having this discussion today because we failed to have it three years ago..."
2:48 - Conyers notes he is joined by Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Jim Moran, Tierney (? - didn't hear clearly), Sheila Jackson Lee, and Jim McDermott.
2:49 - Cindy Sheehan from Gold Star Families for Peace begins her testimony speaking about her son Casey's death in Iraq.
2:53 - Cindy is reading a letter from a father whose son killed himself after returning home from Iraq. (This is horrible to listen to; I can't imagine the thought of losing your child because of this administration's lies.) "I believe Casey and his buddies died to line the pockets of people who are already wealthy and feed a war machine... I believe an investigation of the Downing Street Memo is warranted and the first step toward...accountabilty... How many more people are going to receive a visit from the grim reaper in a military uniform while we petition Congress to do their job?" (not exact)
3:01 - Ray somebody - couldn't catch the last name - is showing a video.
3:03 - Ray is asking why the opinions of Rice, Powell, and whoever else was on that video saying Saddam was contained and had no WMDs, suddenly changed so dramatically 3 months after 9/11. He says the Downing Street Memo explains why - and focuses on the line about fixing the facts and intelligence around the policy.
3:07 - Ray McGovern. "So that's how you fix intelligence, folks - chutzpah, a willingness to lie, slumbering watchdog intelligence committees in Congress, and a supine press willing to accept explanations no matter how ludicrous." (not exact)
3:10 - John Bonifaz, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org (and a constitutional attorney) is on, and asserts that the administration has been engaged in a conspiracy to deceive the American people.
3:14 - JB's explaining the breach of the Constitution and the bases for impeachment; he notes the framers wanted to ensure the American people could hold the president accountable for an abuse of power and/or the violation of the public trust. "The question must now be asked, with the release of the Downing Street Memo, did the president commit impeachable offenses?"
3:18 - "A resolution of inquiry is the appropriate first step..." He's making a stellar case for why a formal inquiry is necessary. All the stuff he laid out at AfterDowningStreet. "If the president committed high crimes, he must be held accountable. The Constitution demands no less."
3:20 - That's all for the testimony. Conyers has opened it up for questions.
3:21 - Conyers is saying that many members of Congress may have acted differently if they had known this information.
3:24 - Someone (Ray McGovern?) is saying the memos show that there were a collective of British lawyers trying to find a legal justification for the war.
3:25 - He points out that, unlike us, Britain is a member of the International Court, so they had more to be concerned about re: the legality of the war.
3:27 - JB says that the Oct. 02 resolution was not proper (then missed a bit) ... he points out Congress ought to investigate whether they were deceived ... he notes the president hasn't disputed the authenticity of the memo ... a resolution of inquiry will allow Congress to find out who's telling the truth
3:29 - Waters (I think) is talking about Cheney visiting the CIA and defending Gitmo; "Many of us believe there has been a manipulation of information, that they had to make the intelligence fit."
3:32 - McGovern (I think) says it's not unusual for a VP to visit CIA headquarters - it's unprecedented!
3:33 - Tenet didn't protect his people from inappropriate outside pressure; "The management of the CIA has been so corrupted, so politicized, it's unlikely they could come up with anything objective, since the administration made it clear what they wanted to hear." (not exact)
3:35 - Cheney's ties to Halliburton influenced him to put pressure on CIA analysts - "The only people left there are the kind of people who will cooperate with this kind of thing, quite frankly."
3:38 - Barney Frank (I think) points out that defenders of the administration use either one of two opposing arguments against the content of the memo--either it isn't true, or "we knew it all along" so it's nothing new, not important. BF wants to know which is it, and if it's the latter, why didn't they do something about it?
3:39 - Joe Wilson talks about shifting justifications for the war
3:40 - JW: Wolfowitz said that weapons of mass destruction was the justification everyone would buy; they later added on the ties to terrorists
3:42 - Bonifaz reads from the war resolution and reminds everyone it was to protect the US from Iraq; if the pres knew that wasn't true, he may have committed high crimes
3:44 - Conyers says Wexler, Green, Scott, and Diane Watson have joined them
3:45 - McDermott is asking about the bombing raids before the war, referenced in the memos
3:47 - McGovern says thousands of pounds of bombs were dropped before the war; we ought to find out if the admin was authorized to commit such "war-like" acts
3:48 - Conyers recognized Rush Holt for joining them
3:49 - Sheila Jackson Lee says this war has generated the highest percentage of suicides of returning veterans and the highest need for mental health services at veterans' hospitals
3:51 - Lee: the nation owes an apology to those whose family members lost their lives in service of this war; she hopes people will hold her to that, in addition to follow-up action on this hearing
3:52 - Lee asks Wilson if he feels he had convinced the admin of the veracity of his findings in Niger; Wilson says he performed one of three simultaneous but independent investigations into the alleged sale of the yellowcake; all three came up with the same result
3:56 - Wilson: We all reported with confidence that such a sale had not taken place.
3:59 - Conyers introduces a bunch more people coming in - Woosley, Ensley, someone from Ohio, Shakowski, Marks (?) - couldn't catch all of it...
4:00 - Barbara Lee thanks the people were testifying for their bravery; says she questions the entire foreign policy of this admin; asks whether Rice and Powell were instructive in forming this policy
4:02 - McGovern says Powell went along with it, even though he knew it was bullshit; Rice has a bad record generally; preemption has no place in a discussion of war
4:05 - More questions about the "doctrine of preemption"
4:06 - Bonifaz (I think) is saying that even a doctrine of preemption requires the existence of a real threat to our national security; he brings it back to the idea that if such a threat was wholly manufactured (as the DSM suggests), that is a high crime - he's awesome at staying on message; can we run this guy in 08?
4:08 - McGovern is a spitfire. He says we went to war for O.I.L. - Oil, Israel, and Logistical Military Base desired by the neo-cons to control, with Israel, that region of the world
4:11 - Conyers is thanked for holding the hearing and there is applause
4:12 - Not sure who, Wexler maybe? - is saying he's sat through two impeachments, and the evidence seems to be mounting that this president misled congress on the most important decision - whether to lead the country to war
4:14 - Bonifaz says all we want is the truth - did the president engage in a deliberate misinformation campaign? If it was an intelligence failure, so be it, but if the truth is as it says in the memo, that the facts were fixed around the policy, then we need to know - we deserve to know - we owe it to the Constitution.
4:16 - Someone else (I keep missing names) says the fact that they're in a tiny little room discussing the biggest issue before the American people shows how irresponsible this Congress is
4:22 - Missed a few minutes and will miss a few more, but McGovern is talking about the massive intelligence failure and how anyone any good has left the CIA. He's basically saying it's a tool of the White House now - sycophants get promoted. The situation is miserable. The Congressional intelligence committees have shown themselves incapable of doing their jobs.
4:26 - Conyers recognizes Nadler, and announces Baldwin, van Holland (?).
4:29 - Nadler says there are 5 crises going on in America - 1. a war going on in which people are dying; 2. the war is wrecking our military, and what will happen if there's a real emergency; 3. our intelligence community is being wrecked; 4. no checks and balances - crisis in American democracy; 5. constitutional crisis - president may have deliberately lied to congress to induce them to give him the authorization for war. The admin is either fools or liars.
4:35 - John Bonifaz (who I referred to as David earlier; it's it's been fixed - David Swanson is the other co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org) reminds everyone that neither the house nor the senate has investigated whether intelligence was misused by the administration; such a hearing was supposed to take place after the election
4:38 - Wilson notes this war will generate a new generation of terrorists; Conyers welcomes more congresspeople to the hearing
4:40 - Lee (I think) is noting that they are meeting in a basement, hoping the media will arouse the American people, who will implore Congress to do their job; this inquiry shouldn't be a partisan issue - asks McGovern about Mehlman's assertion on Meet the Press that the contents of the memo have been discredited.
4:42 - McGovern notes that Wilson noted years ago that the Plame affair begged the question about what else the administration was lying about, and the memo means now we know; that it has been discredited is a bald-faced lie - it's like reporting the earth is flat. (I love this dude.)
4:45 - Lee (I think) - the American people own the congress, and she hopes they will call them to stop stonewalling and do their job
4:46 - Diane Watson (I think) suggests congressmembers were held for 11 amendment votes to keep them from attending the hearing...
4:49 - Wilson talks about the truth/lies of Iraq's WMDs; Cindy Sheehan notes that everyone who's lost someone in the war doesn't know the truth, and the admin's refusal to tell the truth is an abomination
4:51 - Hayne (?) from NJ - reminds everyone that Blix & the inspectors were asked to leave so that we could wage war
[I'm going to have to miss a few minutes now.]
5:01 - Someone is suggesting that congress looks at how troops were deployed leading up to the war.
5:03 - Bonifaz reasserts AfterDowningStreet's intention to continue to pursue this issue and invites everyone to visit the website and join the effort.
5:04 - Conyers says Shakowski of IL and Ensley of WA will be the final two to speak
5:05 - Shakowski says Conyers' leadership could change the course of history, and that the people in the room are just doing their jobs, except Cindy Sheehan, who is there because of her grief - thanks the media for being there and notes the article in WaPo where journalists offer various explanations for not covering the story; she reads a bunch of lame-ass excuses and asks the people offering testimony if the memo is a smoking gun
5:08 - Sheehan (I think) says that the grassroots won't let this issue go (damn straight) - she asks if the media knew this all along, why weren't they reporting on it? The media abdicated their responsibility in the lead-up to the war.
5:09 - McGovern says the memo wasn't meant for public consumption and it is official documentary evidence of the policy; there has been scads of circumstantial evidence, but this is documentary evidence
5:11 - Bonifaz: Congress has a responsibility to investigate whether the president engaged in a conspiracy
5:12 - Ensley (I think): The irony and great sadness here is that after we threw off the oppression of a British King George, now some British person is helping us throw off the tyranny of another George; says to Sheehan that he hopes she knows even if they find the war unjust, it doesn't diminish her son's sacrifice; says this hearing benefits democracy and asks if whether what they're engaged in to try to get answers benefits families of soldiers.
5:15 - Sheehan says yes, the truth is always beneficial and it needs to come out; nothing could hurt them worse than they've already been hurt; the truth will make meaning of their children's deaths
5:17 - Wilson is asked if he thinks the yellowcake thing got into the state of the union as part of the conspiracy to fix the intelligence around the policy; to his credit, he did not say, "Duh."
5:18 - Aluminum tubes blah blah blah. Yellowcake goes into the centrifuges blah blah blah.
5:19 - Someone notes it was John Bolton who inserted the claim about the yellowcake into a "fact sheet" distributed by the admin
5:21 - Someone just went off on a tear on how the entire senior administration of the justice department, the state department, the CIA, etc. etc. etc. all need to be held criminally responsible, and there was laughter and clapping
5:24 - Someone is asking if there's any source backing up the president's position and whether Congress abdicated its responsibility in signing a resolution giving the president the final say on war.
5:25 - Bonifaz says he knows of nothing to support the opposite view except for the admin's claims; he says Congress unlawfully transferred its power to the president - some members of congress said they trusted the president and they were "duped, deceived, misled."
5:27 - Someone suggests the real loser of the day is the American people because there's so little coverage and says investigations should begin immediately in the house and senate
5:28 - Conyers acknowledges those present who have lost family members in the war
5:30 - Some British dude who lost his son says he hopes that Parliament does the same thing
5:31 - Conyers says everyone should meet across from the White House to deliver the signed petitions - 560,000 signatures + 102 members of congress (applause) - he says he's been humbled and honored by all of this - now begins the real work and asks that the meeting be adjourned (and makes a snide comment about Sensenbrenner, lol)
Question of the Day: Loose Cogs in the Propaganda Machine Edition
Okay, I’m not posting this because I believe it—I’ve not heard anything like this before, so I cannot remotely comment on whatever scientific debate is supposedly going on, and who the debaters involved are and whether they’re credible or not. In all honesty, I don’t know squat about Morgan Reynolds, either. The reason I’m posting it is because it’s in the Washington Times, in the “UPI hears…” section. How the hell did this make into the Moonie News?
A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."(If you want to read more about Reynolds’ thoughts on the subject, go here.)
The question of the day, however, is not “Is Morgan Reynolds a crackpot?” (although maybe it should be); the question of the day is: With the Moonie News slowly but surely turning against the administration, and former loyalists becoming increasingly bolder in their outspokenness against Bush & Co., do you think that Fox News will follow suit, or will they stay steadfast in their allegiance and go down in flames with the radicals?
The Scapegoat Awaits Her Fate
Billmon’s got a great post today on the inevitable scapegoating of the antiwar left when the architects of the Iraq War are eventually forced into admitting defeat.
I don’t link there nearly as much as I should. If the Whiskey Bar isn’t already on your rounds, it should be.
I Like Dick
I keep telling you that Dick Durbin is underrated.
If we were smart, we'd quit worrying about Barack Obama and make this guy the household name by '08.
Quack!
The House handed President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting yesterday to curtail the FBI's ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations.D’oh!
Bush has threatened to veto any measure that weakens those powers. The surprise 238 to 187 rebuke to the White House was produced when a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy.
[…]
The vote -- on an amendment to limit spending in a huge bill covering appropriations for science as well as the departments of Justice, State and Commerce -- came as Bush is traveling the country to build support for reauthorizing 15 provisions of the Patriot Act that are scheduled to expire at year's end.
Next on the House’s schedule: Xeroxing their asses and mailing them to the attention of “President Daffy.”
LIVE CHAT
Going on now, in the Big Brass Alliance chat room.
UPDATE: Okay, nevermind. If anyone's interested in helping me with some follow-up planning re: the hearings tomorrow, email me and I'll send you my MSN IM info and we can chat there.
