Patrick Fitzgerald writes in a legal briefing, “It is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to ‘punish Wilson.’ ”
Also, Bush formally admits to declassifying the intelligence later leaked by Libby to reporters.
In dozens of cities across the country, from New York City to San Diego, from Atlanta to Phoenix, protesters took to the streets in support of legislation that would help some 11 million undocumented workers settle permanently in the United States.
Researchers from the UK have found that as women make more money themselves, they value a man’s physical attractiveness more highly than his financial status.
One hundred Vermont state officials agreed to petition the Republican-controlled Congress to introduce articles of impeachment against Bush for the WMD and wiretapping scandals. “You know in your own hearts and minds that something is terribly wrong in this country,” said one Vermont Democrat.
The Republican senator said of Bush’s authorization of the WMD intelligence leak: “We ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated, again, by the American people.”
Also: Information had been strongly disputed months before Cheney and Libby leaked it.
The New York Times reports that many Middle Eastern countries that made moves toward democracy are now pulling back, emboldened to ignore Bush’s demands in the wake of the Iraq debacle.
What happens when abortion is a felony offense in any circumstance? Jack Hitt provides chilling answers in his brilliant investigative piece on abortion in El Salvador.
Remember the uranium ore that Hussein supposedly purchased from Niger? A contract documenting the sale was used as evidence of the need to invade Iraq and was included in a 2002 U.S. State Department fact sheet on Iraq’s weapons program. Remember how the IAEA denounced the documents as fakes shortly before the invasion of Iraq? Well, according to the Times Online, the forgers have finally been named.
Contrary to the official “diplomatic solution” line, Seymour Hersh reports that Washington is stepping up plans for a possible airstrike on Iran. According to Reuters, Hersh’s story in the April 17 issue of The New Yorker reports that a former senior defense official said the planning was, in Hersh’s words, “based on the belief that a bombing campaign against Iran would humiliate the leadership and lead the Iranian public to overthrow it.” The ex-official reportedly added that he was shocked to hear the strategy.
AT&T gave the National Security Agency open access to its customers’ phone calls and Web-surfing activities, according to a former AT&T employee cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against the company.
Former intelligence officer and United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter cuts through a recent L.A. Times story which claimed that “Iran could manufacture enough highly enriched uranium to build a bomb within three years.” He provides a rather technical, but extremely convincing, argument for why it is unlikely that Iran could pose a nuclear threat anytime soon. (video: h/t Crooks and Liars)
The U.S. Embassy and military in Baghdad issued a revealing province by province report of Iraq’s political, economic and security situation. The “Provincial Stability Assessment” paints a gloomy picture of intensifying sectarian and ethnic frictions and growing instability in many of the provinces profiled. Funny, our leaders always say how well things are going…
Suicide bombers dressed in women’s clothes caused the single deadliest blast this year--at a religious bastion of a powerful Shiite party. This, combined with Thursday’s shrine bombing, could escalate the already horrific violence.... (more)
Only 36% of the public approves of Bush’s performance, according to an Ap-Ipsos poll released Friday. The GOP-led Congress fared even worse, with an approval rating of only 30%. Nixon’s numbers were in the high 20s during the Watergate scandal. What’s the magic number for regime change?
The immigration bill, which seemed to have majority support, failed in the Senate Friday amid efforts to amend the bill. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the amendments proposed by conservative Republicans “filibuster by amendment.” So much for the hyped bipartisan compromise on immigration reform.
Bush & Co. still don’t have a comprehensive plan to deal with bioterror threats--despite two years of planning and billions in appropriations. The alleged culprit: bureaucratic inertia.
“I can’t help but think we are not prepared if, God forbid, any of these catastrophes were to be visited upon the United States,” says a congresswoman.
Islamic hard-liners called the magazine a form of moral terrorism, despite the fact that there are no nude photos in it.
This is reminiscent of what happened in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain when titillating material quickly appeared and then spread like kudzu.
Liberties will always rush to fill a vacuum, just not necessarily in the way favored by religious fundamentalists.
The Senate Democratic leadership will push for expanded access to contraceptives and sex education--a nationally popular move, but a bitter pill for the prudish right-wingers who are desperately afraid that someone, somewhere, may be enjoying a sexual act.
OK, don’t pop out the champagne--or the pork rinds--yet, but scientists think the leveling off of obesity rates in women may signal a turning point in the nation’s epidemic.
Bush & Co. have apparently been muzzling climate scientists from speaking forthrightly to the public about global warming. Shocker, right?
Perhaps they thought last week’s head fake on giving more free rein to NASA scientists would throw reporters off the scent....
At a North Carolina open forum, a man named Harry Taylor rose and told the president: “I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself.” (video)
In 1977, Nixon said, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”?
Well, Bush’s lawyers allegedly said this about the leak of classified intelligence: “Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to declassification of the document.”
Got it? When the president leaks it, that means it is not illegal. UPDATE: the White House tries to quell the furor over the leak.
Bailout or Bust: How to Save the Big Three From Themselves
