Bush's News Conference Tuesday March 21, 2006

I heard the president's news conference live yesterday on my way to work. It was a good session, with the president giving good, thoughtful answers that I figured would be helpful to him. Then I read the headlines later in the day from the MSM, and wondered hw I could have not heard what I heard. They way the MSM made things out to be was completely different than what a listener would have heard had they heard it themselves, as did I. This is just another example of the left-leaning MSM's Bush-bashing.

John Hinderaker at Powerline has a great piece on just this subject.

Tags
Bush
Iraq
News Conference

Global Warming

The debate about human-induced global warming, better known as "anthropogenic global warming", or AGW, continues to be an extremely political and bitter one. Many scientists consider the science settled, and accept as fact that human activity, specifically the release of so-called "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere are the cause of the apparent rise in temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. However, there are also many scientists who dispute the theory of AGW. Two such scientists recently published studies suggesting that either radiation from space or as a result of a meteor or comet that exploded over remote Russia in 1908.

In the first case, renowned geochemistry professor Jan Veizer of the university of Ottawa overcame years of reluctance (out of fear of reprisals) to report his theory in Geoscience Canada. An excerpt:

The standard explanation for vagaries of our climate, championed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), is that greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, are its principal driver. Recently, an alternative model that the sun is the principal driver was revived by a host of empirical observations. Neither atmospheric carbon dioxide nor solar variability can alone explain the magnitude of the observed temperature increase over the last century of about 0.6[degrees]C. Therefore, an amplifier is required. In the general climate models (GCM), the bulk of the calculated temperature increase is attributed to "positive water vapour feedback". In the sun-driven alternative, it may be the cosmic ray flux (CRF), energetic particles that hit the atmosphere, potentially generating cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Clouds then cool, act as a mirror and reflect the solar energy back into space. The intensity of CRF reaching the earth depends on the intensity of the solar (and terrestrial) magnetic field that acts as a shield against cosmic rays, and it is this shield that is, in mm, modulated by solar activity.

The second example came out just recently by Vladimir Shaidurov of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He says that instead of human activity, the likely source of global warming is the result of something called the Tunguska Meteorite Event, which occured in 1908 in remote Russia.

Quoted from Mosnews.com:

The Tunguska Event, sometimes known as the Tungus Meteorite is thought to have resulted from an asteroid or comet entering the earth’s atmosphere and exploding. The event released as much energy as fifteen one-megaton atomic bombs. As well as blasting an enormous amount of dust into the atmosphere, felling 60 million trees over an area of more than 2000 square kilometres. Shaidurov suggests that this explosion would have caused “considerable stirring of the high layers of atmosphere and change its structure.” Such meteoric disruption was the trigger for the subsequent rise in global temperatures.

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Global Warming
Anthropogenic Global Warming

Free Market Capitalism versus Socialist Collectivism

Seen recently (don't know the author):

"A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus, college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and many times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. that way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played, while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican Party""

Tags
Free Market Capitalism
Socialism

Katrina Video and the AP "Clarification"

The Associated Press issued a "clarification" of its story earlier this month that erroneously stated that President Bush had been warned prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans that the levees could be "breached" by the force of the storm. The story cited video evidence shown widely on television news showing the president being briefed on the potential damage from the hurricane. The only problem with the story, is that, as reported here BEFORE the AP issued its "clarification", never during the briefings did anyone use the word "breech". They discussed 'overtopping' the levees, which is considerably different than 'breeching'.

What is important here, besides the embarrassingly elementary mistake by those responsible at the AP, is the fact that they thought they had an "A-HA!" moment. They thought they had video evidence of Bush lying about the levees, since after the hurricane he stated (paraphrasing) that "nobody anticipated the breeching of the levees". It shows yet again how outrageously biased and uncareful the AP is in general, and how so much of the mainstream press obviously must also be to unquestioningly run this so easily debunked story. This is almost as good as the Rathergate scandal.

Tags
Katrina
"Bush Lied"
Levees breached

Katrina: The Democrats and Bush-Haters Still Don't Know the Difference Between "Breaching" and "Overtopping"

John Hinderaker at Powerline shows us once again how the Left, and more disturbingly major components of the MSM, continue to get their facts wrong regarding hurricane Katrina and the levees in New Orleans. As discussed in this forum in September of 2005,

"Breaching refers to a hole or break in the integrity of the levee, while overtopping describes the water level rising above the top of the levee, but not the failure of the levee itself. The distinction between the two is crucial to the crux of this article."

You can read all the related transcripts and watch all the videos in question, but it is clear from them that the president was correct when he said, on September 1, 2005, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." The only pre-Katrina warnings ever discussed warned of "overtopping" not "breaching" the levees.

Here's an excerpt from Mr. Hinderaker's article:

"Is it possible that all of these reporters have somehow missed all of the post-Katrina discussions about the important differences between levee overtopping (widely predicted before Katrina hit, including by CNN), and breaching of the levees, which apparently resulted from design or construction defects? It seems almost inconceivable that all of those involved in misreporting the video can claim ignorance."

Tags
Katrina
FEMA
Levees
New Orleans levee breaks

An Intelligent View on the Muslim Cartoons

The prevailing view among westerners on the controversy surrounding the publishing of cartoons that show images of the Profit Muhammad seems to be 'why are Muslims so offended over some cartoons?' That's not, apparently, how the Muslim community sees it.

Nadia Maiwandi, a staff writer for the North County Times (San Diego), wrote an intelligent and thought-provoking piece about this issue. Nothing justifies the deaths and rioting that the reaction to these cartoons has brought about, but this controversy shows once again that making fun of somone else's deeply held beliefs is disrespectful at best, and most likely deeply offensive.

An excerpt from Ms. Maiwandi's article:

"Since the publication of the cartoons and the subsequent protests, I've heard non-Muslims ask why it's OK to ridicule Christianity and Judaism but not Islam. Simply put, it's not. Mocking monotheism isn't an Eastern value, period, whether it's Islam, Christianity or Judaism on the receiving end. People who ridicule those two religions in the West are far more likely to be adherents of those religions than Muslims."

Global Warming and the "Hockey Stick" Debate

Will it never end? Lou Hissink shows so very clearly how the global warming argument is based on a false analysis of global temperature data.

Tags
Global Warming
The Hockey Stick Debate

A French Leftist Laments the Idea-less American Left

The Nation published recently a translated article by Bernard-Henri Lévy wherein he takes the American Left to task for its lack of ideas. A common criticizm has been that the Left of today simply offer opposition and obstructionism to the Conservatives. Apparently, the French elitists agree.

Here is how it begins:

Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left.

I know, of course, that the term "left" does not have the same meaning and ramifications here that it does in France.

And I cannot count how many times I was told there has never been an authentic "left" in the United States, in the European sense.

But at the end of the day, my progressive friends, you may coin ideas in whichever way you like. The fact is: You do have a right [right wing]. This right, in large part thanks to its neoconservative battalion, has brought about an ideological transformation that is both substantial and striking.


And the fact is that nothing remotely like it has taken shape on the other side--to the contrary, through the looking glass of the American "left" lies a desert of sorts, a deafening silence, a cosmic ideological void that, for a reader of Whitman or Thoreau, is thoroughly enigmatic. The 60-year-old "young" Democrats who have desperately clung to the old formulas of the Kennedy era; the folks of MoveOn.org who have been so great at enlisting people in the electoral lists, at protesting against the war in Iraq and, finally, at helping to revitalize politics but whom I heard in Berkeley, like Puritans of a new sort, treating the lapses of a libertine President as quasi-equivalent to the neo-McCarthyism of his fiercest political rivals; the anti-Republican strategists confessing they had never set foot in one of those neo-evangelical mega-churches that are the ultimate (and most Machiavellian) laboratories of the "enemy," staring in disbelief when I say I've spent quite some time exploring them; ex-candidate Kerry, whom I met in Washington a few weeks after his defeat, haggard, ghostly, faintly whispering in my ear: "If you hear anything about those 50,000 votes in Ohio, let me know"; the supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton who, when I questioned them on how exactly they planned to wage the battle of ideas, casually replied they had to win the battle of money first, and who, when I persisted in asking what the money was meant for, what projects it would fuel, responded like fundraising automatons gone mad: "to raise more money"; and then, perhaps more than anything else, when it comes to the lifeblood of the left, the writers and artists, the men and women who fashion public opinion, the intellectuals--I found a curious lifelessness, a peculiar streak of timidity or irritability, when confronted with so many seething issues that in principle ought to keep them as firmly mobilized as the Iraq War or the so-called "American Empire" (the denunciation of which is, sadly, all that remains when they have nothing left to say).

Tax Cuts Hurting the Deficit??

It seem that tax receipts for January exceeded spending by almost $21 billion dollars, on "strong receipts". How can anyone still argue that lower taxes mean lower revenue? The tax cuts have proven once again to be revenue enhancing by stimulating financial activity. The US Treasury takes in a smaller piece of a bigger pie.

(From Reuters via The Drudge Report)

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Tax cuts
Deficit

"Obscene Profits" by Major Oil Companies

From the Washington Post (Subscription required) in October regarding the gigantic profits reported by the oil companies (this from their 3Q results) comes this article discussing the reasons behind these profits, and what the real profit story is about. As Exxon-Mobile reports another record year and quarter—at least in dollars—try to keep in mind their modest profit margins on huge revenue.

An excerpt:

“…in 2004 Exxon Mobil earned more money -- $25.33 billion -- than any other company on the Fortune 500 list of largest corporations. But by another measure of profitability, gross profit margin, it ranked No. 127.”

A $9.9 billion quarterly profit is mostly a function of Exxon Mobil's size. It had sales of $100 billion this quarter, more than any other U.S. company. At its current rate of growth, Exxon Mobil will be the biggest U.S. corporation this year by revenue, bigger than Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which had $288.19 billion in revenue last year. Generally, the bigger the company, the bigger the bottom line.

Even so, many companies smaller than Exxon Mobil "earn" more, depending on what measure is used.

Most financial institutions, such as commercial banks, are routinely more profitable than Exxon Mobil was in its third quarter. For example, Exxon Mobil's gross margin of 9.8 cents of profit for every dollar of revenue pales in comparison to Citigroup Inc.'s 15.7 cents in 2004. By percentage of total revenue, banking is consistently the most profitable industry in America, followed closely by the drug industry.

Altria Group, the maker of Marlboro and other cigarettes, made 22 cents for every dollar of revenue in 2004, and pharmaceutical company Merck made 25.3 cents for every dollar of revenue in 2004.”

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Exxon-Mobile
Obscene Profits
Oil Company Profits

Pre-Invasion Iraqi Documents

Steven Hayes at the Weekly Standard writes today of the apparently imminent release of 39 translated Iraqi documents from the Saddam Hussien government to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra. These could prove to be important in understanding the relationship—if any—between the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Iraq, although Mr. Hayes admits that these 39 documents represent a very small sample of the roughly 2 million captured in the weeks following the toppling of the former dictator's government. Writes Mr. Hayes:

It is important to remember that this set of documents is a tiny percentage of the Iraqi documents that have been translated (.078 percent of the 50,000) and a mere sliver of the overall document take of approximately 2 million. Whatever emerges from this group may not be a representative sample of the overall document takes.

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Secret Iraqi Documents

Final Report of David M. Barrett, Independent Council in the Cisneros Affair

Is there a government cover-up going on regarding the release of the Clinton-era Independent Council's final report on the Henry Cisneros investigation? According to a recent Fox News article, there may be. Here's an excerpt:

"WASHINGTON — Potentially explosive allegations from a 10-year independent counsel investigation may never see the light of day due to an appropriations bill negotiation that has some conservatives crying foul.

The final report of David M. Barrett, an independent counsel appointed in 1995 to investigate potential felonies committed by one-time Clinton administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, is tentatively scheduled for release on Jan. 19, Barrett told FOXNews.com.

However, Barrett and others say, thanks to an amendment to the November judiciary appropriations bill, key elements in the final report, which was completed in August 2004 and has been sitting with a three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. ever since, may be heavily redacted before its release.

"As it currently stands, the report will not be released in its entirety," said Barrett, who didn't want to speculate why or which portions of the report may not be made public. One decade and some millions of taxpayers' dollars later, he said he is disappointed that the report may not reflect his careful and diligent efforts.

"I believe after 10 years and the expense of $22 million, the public has the right to see the entire report and make their own judgments," he said.

As the contents of the report have been sealed, Barrett is unable to offer details, but sources say the most serious of the allegations concerns, in part, the use of the Internal Revenue Service under the Clinton administration to intimidate political foes. The charges in the report could embarrass former members and associates of the Clinton White House, including former first lady and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., say the sources.

"Some people have said it contains some serious allegations, and when people see the report, they can decide for themselves," Barrett said."

According to the article, the portions in question deal with persons who "had not been publicly indicted or named." Privacy, especially for those not charged and who never will be charged should be protected, and I, for one, strongly support such concerns. However, there is disagreement on the level of "redaction" of the report, and legislation dealing with the matter is still a concern. The article goes on to state:

"Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa and Dorgan introduced an amendment to the judiciary appropriations bill that would have released all portions of the report, with deletions only for "clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy."

But the language worked out in the subsequent House-Senate conference and in the final bill gave much more discretion to the court to redact individuals' names, which critics contend, ensures that much of Section Five and the most serious charges would be left out of the final report."

I get very nervous whenever the Clinton's are involved in a criminal case, and the potential for political "shenanigans". Until the report is released, hopefully with only minimal redaction, we will never know if there is any fire beneath the smoke.





Tags
Special Prosecutor
Clinton Independent Council
Clinton
Henry Cisneros
David M. Barrett

The Best Quote I've Seen in a Long Time

Kate O'Beirne of the National Review Online has a new book out called "Women Who Make the World Worse : and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports".

She was interviewed by Katheryn Jean Lopez, also of NRO about her book. I was stuck by this statement Ms O'Beirne made:

"I have long thought that if high-school boys had invited homely girls to the prom we might have been spared the feminist movement."

What an interesting idea.

The Housing Bubble Myth: A Construct of the Left?

Everywhere you look today, it seems like people are talking about a "housing bubble". The MSM has been hyping this story for several years now, and while the market is definitely slowing down, there is no real evidence that the "bubble" is about to burst. Carl Steidtmann, chief economist at Deloitte Research wrote an interesting piece in July of this year that goes into great detail on why there is no housing bubble to burst. The following month Neil Barsky, managing partner of Alson Capital Partners, LLC., wrote another myth-busting piece in the Wall Street Journal (here via Nations Building News Online) that illustrates why past and current housing markets differ, and why the "bubble" won't burst anytime soon. In fact, he warns of a shortage of housing.

Despite these strong and convincing arguments, there are many who are convinced that the housing market is way over inflated, and is due for a major 'correction' soon. Their reasons for such a belief are many, but I can't help but notice that many seem to also hold generally liberal political views. I have no doubt that there are many conservatives who agree that a housing bubble is real and about to burst, but my suspicions are that that group is quite a small subset of the housing bubble crowd. I would go further and argue that these conservative 'bubblers' are probably the analytical type who's view is that the easy access to mortgage loans seemingly without regard for credit worthiness has 'artificially' brought too many buyers into the market, pushing up home prices to unsustainable levels. No doubt there is some truth to that viewpoint, but I believe that segment of the housing market is a significant minority.

The bigger question, and the real focus of this post is the apparent political component to this important debate.

Their position goes essentially like this: First, the GOP, led by GWB and Alan Greenspan made access to credit very easy by lowering short term interest rates, and more importantly, by pumping lots of liquidity into the economy, which made borrowing and buying more available to people who would not have had access to mortgages in the past due to credit and/or income issues. Second, after these people bought into the market with low or no-interest loans, assuming that the market would continue to appreciate, the GOP-controlled Congress changed bankruptcy laws to make personal bankruptcy more difficult, and consequently foreclosure easier. Couple this with the false perception of a poor economy and rising unemployment rates, and you have the beginnings of a "bubble".

Then, as rates began to rise (note the evil Alan Greenspan again) from their historical lows, many of the people with adjustable loans found that they could not make the payments, and also, now that credit began to tighten, could not refinance their loans, could not declare bankruptcy, and were foreclosed. This allowed evil, rich Republicans to buy these foreclosed properties at a giant discount, then sell them later for quick profit. Our friends at the Daily Kos illustrate this point clearly.

Unfortunately, the facts just don't bear this scenario out. Yes, bankruptcy laws have changed, and yes, rates are rising slightly, but are still very low. More importantly, the economy is very solid. Add in the opinions of the experts (above and below) along with the fact that regional economic conditions are far more indicative of healthy or not-so-healthy housing market, and it becomes clear that the only thing bursting is the MYTH of a housing bubble.

Regarding regional situations, I live in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country: San Diego County California, and know it well from a buyer's perspective. I bought my first house here in 1996 at the bottom of the last housing bubble crash. In the years prior, the economy in San Diego was heavily influenced by military spending. There was (and still is) a large Navy and Marine presence, and the large industrial economy was mostly defense-related. In the very large scale-back of defense spending and base closings following the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, San Diego, as were many other markets, was hit very hard, and the recession of the early 1990's put the housing market here on its heels. Foreclosures were everywhere, as defense workers moved elsewhere to find jobs, they had bigger mortgages than their homes were worth, and many just walked away from them.

It was sad, and I couldn't bring myself to profit from their misfortune. I ended up buying a new, 2,400 square foot home for $169,000 that had stood unoccupied for more than a year. It was so bad then that the original builder of the tract had even gone bankrupt. There is no doubt that there was a housing bubble here then, and equally no doubt in my mind that no bubble exists now. I still own that house today, and it is worth about $680,000 based on a search today.

But to get back to the people who believe in the "bubble", it is that envy drives much of their enthusiasm for a housing 'bubble'. As Dr. John Ray writes, envy and and a strong need for "equality" is the driving force behind much of the leftist agenda. Many people are angry that so many have gotten rich (on paper anyway) from the recent strong appreciation in housing prices. They believe that it is unfair that many are left out of the housing market since prices have risen faster than incomes. They seem to actually relish the idea of a 'bubble', and are even hoping for a crash to 'show those rich people' that they are not so rich after all. It is really the classic liberal cause; If somebody is getting rich, then somebody is getting poor as a result. Too bad these people don't understand the concept of wealth creation.

Their anger toward anyone who disagrees with their view is becoming as vicious as the anger directed at those of us who remain unconvinced of anthropomorphic global warming. Consider this respected financial columnist from a San Diego area paper who recently wrote that a housing 'bubble' doesn't exist here in San Diego. Be sure to read the comments from readers and see if you don't agree that it is unwise to rile these people up. In fact, Mr. Chamberlin, who, by the way I have read and followed for years and highly respect, wrote a follow-up piece wherein he described the vitriol sent his way over the original column. Be sure not to miss the comments to that column as well.

Is there a housing bubble? No, the facts don't support it. Will housing prices rise or fall? They are softening somewhat here in San Diego, and time-to-market is lengthening, but I do not believe a crash in prices is coming since the data I have seen does not support such a conclusion. But there certainly seems to be many who are hoping for such a crash, and, not surprisingly, many of these people have a political agenda aligned with the Left.



Tags
Housing Bubble
Real Estate Bubble

More on the NSA Electronic Evesdropping Program

As the NY Times continues to facilitate the illegal leaking of classified information, thus degrading the ability of the United States government to protect Americans from foreign terrorisim, the blogosphere is repleat with legal experts who can speak elequently on the legality of the program, and are clearly a much better source for information than the hideously biased MSM.

Some excellent sources:

Powerline
Baseball Crank (practicing attorney)
Volokh Conspiracy (via Baseball Crank)
Cass Sunstein (via Baseball Crank)



Tags
NSA
Surveillance
FISA

The President's Secret Surveillance Program

The New York Times broke the story on December 16th, 2005. In the aftermath of 9-11, the president authorized a secret eavesdropping program on international phone calls and emails originating within the United States. The order did not require court-issued warrants, and that has the Left even more frothing for George Bush's head—if you can believe it—than ever before.

First of all, the leaking of the existence of the program in the first place is illegal, and second it certainly helps the terrorists that the program was intended to catch. Moreover, it may even mean that some future terrorist act, possibly worse than 9-11, cannot not be stopped as the terrorists will switch to new forms and paths of communication, now that they know they are being surveilled.

The legality of the program is obviously under intense scrutiny, as the both the Blogosphere and the MSM investigate and analyze. There are legal experts in the Blogosphere who are far more qualified than I to write on this important subject, and I will reference below their excellent posts that you should read in detail and follow all the links. First, though, I want to quote from the president's recent statement prior to a press conference last week:

"And after September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against Al Qaida.

After September the 11th, one question my administration had to answer was, using the authorities I have, how do we effectively detect enemies hiding in our midst and prevent them from striking us again?

We know that a two-minute phone conversation between somebody linked to Al Qaida here and an operative overseas could lead directly to the loss of thousands of lives. To save American lives, we must be able to act fast and to detect these conversations so we can prevent new attacks.

So, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, I authorize the interception of international communications of people with known links to Al Qaida and related terrorist organizations.

This program is carefully reviewed approximately every 45 days to ensure it is being used properly. Leaders in the United States Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this program. [emphasis added.]

And it has been effective in disrupting the enemy while safeguarding our civil liberties. This program has targeted those with known links to Al Qaida.

I've reauthorized this program more than 30 times since September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill our American citizens."

Powerline is the best source on this subject:

Powerline, Powerline, Powerline, Powerline


Tags
NSA
Secret Surveillance
Bush Spying

A Silent American Revolution

Is there a revolution underway in America? Have parts of the bureacracy of the US government been in silent revolt against the duly elected executive?

Consider these events and decide for yourself:

1. Plamegate. Did elements within the CIA who disagreed with the administration's Iraq policies deliberately select Joe Wilson, the husband of CIA officer Valerie Plame, in an effort to discredit the administration with his highly critical post-Niger "yellowcake" uranium report? Wilson was not required by the CIA to sign a confidentiality agreement prior to making the trip to Niger, nor was he required to even give a written report upon his return. Was that omission, usually a requirement under such circumstances, a deliberate effort to allow Wilson to write his infamous op-ed piece? By appearances, it looks like his trip was simply an effort by at a minimum a rogue CIA operation, and possibly something even larger. Too bad most of what Wilson had to say in his report turned out to be lies and untruths. In fact, there WAS over 500 tons of yellow cake uranium found in Iraq, and it's likely source was Niger.
   
2. CIA. Plamegate was merely a battle in an on-going war between the CIA and the Whitehouse. Following the resignation of former director George Tenet, Porter Goss was named to head the agency, with clear marching orders to reform the organization post-9-11, and to attempt to purge the organization of politically partisan operatives who sought to undermine administration policy.
3. The State Department. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, in a speech in 2003 as well as in subsequent articles has written of a systemic, institutionalized resistance by certain parts of the State Department, specifically career officers, to the authority of the president. He suggests that this has been going on for at least several decades now. Here is an excerpt from a recent Gingrich article in ForeignPolicy.com (reproduced with permission by American Diplomacy):

"Some critics, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and former Republican Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, have taken me to task for my remarks at the American Enterprise Institute on April 22, 2003, where I argued that the State Department was engaging in a “deliberate and systematic effort” to undermine Bush’s foreign policy. Yet that charge has proved true historically, and additional examples have emerged even since the speech.

Only six days following my remarks, Bush made the following statement to a group of Iraqi Americans in Dearborn, Michigan: “I have confidence in the future of a free Iraq. The Iraqi people are fully capable of self-government.” He also told them that “You are living proof the Iraqi people love freedom and living proof the Iraqi people can flourish in democracy. People who live in Iraq deserve the same freedom that you and I enjoy here in America.”

Contrast that vision with a recent classified report by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research titled “Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes,” which was leaked in March 2003 to the Los Angeles Times. As reported by that newspaper, the document stated that “liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve [in Iraq] . . . Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements.” And according to an anonymous intelligence source interviewed by the newspaper, the thrust of the report argued that “this idea that you’re going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible.”

The Los Angeles Times has also reported that U.S. diplomats (insisting upon anonymity) “said they are profoundly worried about what they describe as the [Bush] administration’s arrogance or indifference to world public opinion, which they fear has wiped out, in less than two years, decades of effort to build goodwill toward the United States.” Meanwhile, as reported recently by National Review Online contributor Joel Mowbray, a Bush administration official believes the outgoing director of policy planning at the State Department, Richard Haass, has “made it his mission to loosen sanctions on Iran,” despite Bush’s designation of Iran as part of the “axis of evil.”

None of the people involved in these activities or 'leakers' were elected to serve the people. All are either career officers, hired to execute certain tasks as directed by their superiors. Their surperiors were either hired (if career officers), or appointed by the President if a political appointee. All serve at the pleasure of the President. The President is the chief executive of the United States. His job is to execute the laws enacted by Congress. The various departments under his command are there to serve him and his policies. Whether those working in these departments agree with the policies of the President is irrelavent. If their personal views interfere with their duties as agents of the United States, and their abilities to carry out the policies as directed by the President, then they should at a minimum be fired, and possibly charged with treason.



More views on this subject:

Powerline
More Powerline


Tags
CIA
Joe Wilson
Yellowcake
State Department

Able Danger and its Inconvenient Facts (as Ignored by the 9-11 Commission) **UPDATED**

[Scroll down for updated analysis*]

Andrew McCarthy has an excellent article today in the National Review Online on Able Danger, and how the 9-11 Commission utterly failed in its investigation. In fact, this article outlines what certainly appears to be a cover-up of the findings of Able Danger by the 9-11 commission.

Here is an especially pointed excerpt:

Consider for a moment the dimensions of this omission by reference to another current controversy. The Bush administration is being accused by Democrats of lying about intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. One of the key allegations involves the purported suppression of State Department dissent from the conclusion that Iraq was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

But the objections lodged by State's intelligence shop were not suppressed. They are set forth in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, although relegated to the footnotes. Essentially, the administration is said by Democrats to have "lied" because, even though it did acknowledge the dissenting information, it purportedly minimized the dissent's significance.

The 9/11 Commission, by contrast, did not do even that with Able Danger. It didn't report the dissent at all. Not in the text, not in the footnotes, not anywhere. It tried, Pravda-like, to erase completely from historical memory any version of events but its own.

Think about that. The commission's mandate was to conduct a thorough investigation and tell us exactly what it found. Its job was not to produce a carefully marketed narrative so media-starved commissioners would have a best-selling launch-pad from which to score sugary interviews. This panel was not supposed to have a vested interest in a single, definitive, air-brushed version of events. It was supposed to give us the facts as it found them, including on disputed issues it could not resolve. Why on earth did it decide to kill Able Danger?

*Many questions remain remain unanswered in the Able Danger story, as Mr. McCarthy so elequently writes in his column. The main issue seems to be the potential coverup by the 9-11 Commission and its staff over the allegations made by the Able Danger operation. Many questioned the inclusion of Jamie Gorelick as a commissioner, given that she was the author of the infamous "wall" between domestic and international intelligence gathering and analysis operations.

A thorough investigation of the Able Danger project and its findings must be conducted commencing immediately, as well as a thorough investigation of the 9-11 commission and staff to determine if they acted properly, especially given the clear conflict of interest of at least one commissioner, and lat least part of the commission staff. The safety of our country and our children may be at stake.


Previous posts:

Able Danger and the 9-11 Commission
Able Danger: A Third Source Corroborates Initial Claims
Able Danger Getting Uglier by the Day
Able Danger: Were the 9/11 Hijackers Known to the US Government As Early As 1999? ***UPDATE***



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Able Danger

The "Fraud" of the 2004 Ohio Election

The Left has been agitated since the November 2004 elections with what they believe was a 'stolen' election in Ohio. They believe that GWB's cronies who make electronic voting machines rigged the election for Bush through fraudulantly compiled votes.

Silly, I know, and now a new analysis of the 2004 Ohio vote cited by The Mystery Pollster proves just how silly was the notion that the election was rigged.


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Stolen Ohio Election

Randy "Duke" Cunningham

Duke Cunningham has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to accept bribes and income tax evasion, and will resign from the US House of Representatives. The 63-year old former fighter pilot faces a possible 10-year prision sentence.

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Duke Cunningham