Jason Zengerle of The New Republic is really starting to piss me off. He is on the warpath to embarass anyone associated with Jerome Armstrong, including Markos and Chris Bowers. First Roddy Boyd of the Rupert Murdoch's New York Post revealed that Armstrong had made some kind of deal with the SEC over allegations that he had acted "as a shill for a worthless dot-com stock." None of us in the blogosphere had any way to assess the truth of his allegations, nor could we know why Jerome allegedly took a deal rather than fight the charges. All we knew was that Jerome was quoted in the article:

Armstrong denied to The Post that he did anything wrong and said the SEC made a mistake in charging him. "This was a long time ago and I settled the case without admitting or denying guilt, and I paid no fine," said Armstrong, who refused to comment further.

Armstrong signed off on a settlement of the charges on Dec. 16, 2003, barring him from touting securities. In addition, Armstrong agreed never to deny any of the SEC charges. It was not immediately known if his statement to The Post denying guilt would violate the settlement agreement.

Provided that Jerome was quoted accurately and that Boyd had his facts right, it was immediately apparent that Jerome was contrained by the deal from defending himself. While it was obvious that the charges were unseemly, it was also obvious that Jerome was being attacked by a Murdoch outlet and he couldn't say much in his defense. It was also obvious that the reason for raising these allegations now was to use them to attack Markos after his wildly successful convention in Las Vegas and his appearance on Meet the Press.

None of the major liberal bloggers wanted to assist Murdoch in this attack...especially considering the circumstances. But that basic respect for Jerome's awkward position and that basic awareness of what was going on apparently meant nothing to Jason Zengerle. He came across a private email that Markos sent out that addressed the issue and he published the contents. Now he has published more private emails. The essential charge against Markos is that he made a request (in his private email) that appeared to have been respected.

I know we all know this but it bears repeating. Here's a little segment from the September 29, 2003 NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

JIM LEHRER: ...White House officials denied today that political chief Karl Rove approved leaking an intelligence agent's name. The agent's husband is former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Last summer, he criticized the president's claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa. Days later, it came out his wife worked for the CIA. Yesterday, the "Washington Post" reported top White House aides leaked the name, possibly violating the law. Wilson said it was retaliation, and he said Rove at least condoned it. Today a White House spokesman denied it, but reporters peppered him with questions.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: I've said that it's not true. I have spoken with Karl Rove. I'm not going to get into conversations that the president has with advisors or staff or anything of that nature. That's not my practice.

REPORTER: The president has a factual basis for knowing...

SCOTT McCLELLAN: I said it publicly. I said that...

REPORTER: I'm not asking what you said. The president has a factual basis.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: He's aware of what I've said that there is simply no truth to that suggestion.

JIM LEHRER: The spokesman said anyone who did leak classified information would be fired, and he said the justice department should pursue the matter.

Then let's not forget this from a October 8, 2003 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article:

Dick Cheney is on CNN giving an exclusive interview to John King. He really is an obstinate jackass. At least he doesn't flash happy grins like I saw Rumsfeld doing during his press conference this afternoon. Rumsfeld should go over to Walter Reed. Then we'll see what the fuck he has to smile about.

One of the perqs of blogging is that I get free copies of books from publishers that hope I will review them. This morning I tripped over Jason Leopold's book News Junkie when I left the house for supplies. I've read the first few chapters of it, and it makes me a little sad to see what's happened to Jason over the whole Rove indictment story. I'm not sad because I believe Jason's version of events. I'm guessing Jason would think me a fool to trust him. I'm sad because I can tell from reading his book that this whole affair is something he is singularly poorly equipped to deal with emotionally. I hope he has friends and family, and a sponsor, that will help him get through this. It would help a lot if Patrick Fitzgerald would make some kind of announcment. We do deserve to know what it going on.

Mark Ash, the editor at Truthout has an interesting explanation for what is going on, and I sure would like to believe he is right. I have excerpted it at length below the fold (I hope Truthout doesn't mind).

Ken Blackwell is at it again. This time he has attempted to shut down voter registration drives by promulgating new rules that make it extremely burdensome to register new voters in thre State of Ohio:

[T]he new rules and guidelines require all compensated voter registration workers to return voter registration forms directly to the Secretary of State or a Board of Elections office, prohibiting them "under penalty of law" from returning the applications to any other person, group, organization, office or entity, including voter registration groups.

For more on Blackwell's "new rules" and what you can do to fight back, follow me below the fold . . .

Four US soldiers are reported dead in Afghanistan today after al-Zawahiri posted a video calling for insurrection against US forces there. What's more our "ally", President Karzai is no longer issued a statement that we need a new approach on the "War on Terror" because the old one ain't working no more:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader urged Afghans in a new videotape today to rise up against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, prompting President Hamid Karzai to denounce the terror fugitive as "the enemy of the Afghan people." Four U.S. soldiers were killed in combat in eastern Afghanistan.

Karzai also called on the international community to reassess its approach to the war on terror, saying the deaths of hundreds of Afghans, including Taliban militants, in fighting with U.S.-led forces was "not acceptable." [...]

A clearly frustrated Karzai also said the coalition approach of hunting down militants does not focus on the roots of terrorism itself.

"I strongly believe ... that we must engage strategically in disarming terrorism by stopping their sources of supply of money, training, equipment and motivation," Karzai said.

War not acceptable? That's the only thing President Bush knows how to decide upon, Mr. Karzai. Tanks, planes, bombs, lots of collateral damage -- that's what the Bush administration supports. I thought you knew that by now.

Too bad all that strutting by our Commander-in-Chief after Zarqawi was blown up last week was so short-lived. You kill one terrorist leader in Iraq, but up pops a litter more in Afghanistan. It's no longer the central front on the war on terror, so I guess they got jealous. Al Queda and the Taliban wanted to send a message that they're still there, some 3 and 1/2 years after we officially liberated the Afghan people.

Message delivered.

(cont.)

Raw Story reports on a Boston Globe article that will cover Arlen Specter's intention to hold hearings about George W. Bush's habit of using signing statements to skirt the law and the will of Congress. I never put too much hope in Arlen Specter. He's my Senator, but he's never there at the end of the day when I need him to stand for something. He talks a good game, but he ususally backs down. Nonetheless, he seems to be genuinely concerned about the Bush administration's theory of the unitary executive, and he wants someone to come down from the Justice Department to defend the administration's interpretation of that theory.

"Specter said he was particularly troubled by Bush's contention in December 2005 that he had the authority, as commander in chief, to bypass a law known as the McCain Amendment, which outlawed torture," writes Charlie Savage. "The torture ban had passed both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly."

"When the signing statements reach a point as they did with the McCain Amendment, which passed 89-9 in the Senate, and the president cherry picks [what laws he must obey or can ignore], it's pretty flagrant," Specter told the Globe in a phone interview...

..."I think that the president is trying to expand his executive authority at the expense of Congress's constitutional prerogatives, and it's very problemsome," Specter said in a phone interview. "I want to get into the details with the administration on what they think their legal authority is."

I also find the President's use of torture problemsome, and I'm glad one of my Senators agrees with me. I'll be gladder if Specter actually does something about it.

So, what's news with you?

Promoted by Steven D

Just because Ron Suskind writes the kinds of things we like to read doesn't mean that his information is any better that the information we received from CIA-apologist and anti-Oliver Stone activist Gerald Posner. But, we can be sure that their information about much touted terrorist Abu Zubaydah is in sharp contrast. Zubaydah was mentioned in the famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing entitled, Bin-Laden Determined to Strike in the United States.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin’s first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

If I were you, I wouldn't believe a word of anything I am about to tell you. But, here is some information from Abu Zubaydah's wikipedia profile:

Abu Zubaydah Ron Suskind Gerald Posner

Oh, good. We've finally found some WMD in Iraq. At least, that is if you believe the Senator better known as "The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." He and Rep. Peter Hoekstra have just announced:

...that 500 chemical weapons shells allegedly containing degraded sarin or mustard gas have been recovered by coalition forces since 2003, and that other filled and unfilled munitions have been found.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming. Including, but not limited to:

US troops charged with murdering Iraq civilian
Japan to pull out of Iraq
Saddam Lawyer Killed; Iraq Workers Seized
Iraq speaker demands US probe in new deaths

I am sure our troops are happy to hear that we have discovered 500 shells of badly degraded WMD. How stupid do they think we are? Don't answer that question.

That's Siva Vaidhyanathan who writes at his blog, Sivacracy, and also pinch hits for Eric Alterman at Altercation. Today he poses two questions to our mutual Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton.

And good ones they are:

* What are you going to do to get our troops out of Iraq? You have come out against the Murtha proposals for redeployment of our troops to the edges of the theatre, thus forcing the Iraqi government to push harder for self-sufficiency and removing the chief targets of insurgent wrath. But what's your plan? Surely it falls between Murtha's informed and responsible plan and Bush's reckless lack of a plan. But what is it?

* What are you going to do to get Wal-Mart to stop blocking port security measures? You served on the company's board of directors. Don't you have enough juice there to convince Wal-Mart that the safety of millions of New Yorkers is kind of important? If something very bad happens because Wal-Mart blocked efforts to inspect cargo coming into New York Harbor, we will certainly hold the company accountable. And we will hold you accountable as well. Well, those of us left alive would hold you accountable.

Let's look at those questions in reverse order, shall we? (cont. below)

The Associated Press reports on the House Republicans...up to no good again. They can't agree to re-authorize the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it is deemed unfair to single out Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia for special Justice Department scrutiny. Rather than cutting the old confederacy some slack in the voting repression category, I'd like to nominate Ohio and Florida for inclusion on the list. (I would have sworn Florida was already on it, but maybe I'm wrong).

Meanwhile, the Senate can't agree to raise the minimum wage, but they can make reductions in the Estate Tax. Just doing the people's business.

And the press is really doing all they can to help Bush out of the political jam he is in on Iraq. Take a look at The Note's bizarre take on things. (I know, I said not to read The Note).

Democrats can deny it all they want (and not all do. . .), but they are on the precipice of self-immolating over the issue that has most crippled the Bush presidency and of making facts on the ground virtually meaningless. In other words, they are on the precipice of making Iraq a 2006 political winner for the Republican Party.

And, why, pray tell, are the Democrats on the verge of turning the clusterfuck of Iraq into a boon for Republicans? All you have to do is look at the headline from the New York Times: On Iraq, Kerry Again Leaves Democrats Fuming. And what is Kerry (and Feingold and Boxer) doing to make his fellow Democrats fume?

...the Democratic leadership wants its members to rally behind a proposal that calls for some troops to move out by the end of this year but does not set a fixed date for complete withdrawal. Mr. Kerry has insisted on setting a date, for American combat troops to pull out in 12 months, saying anything less is too cautious.

So, here is how it works in the mind of a Washington Insider reporter. Bush launches a war against the advice of most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, uses evidence to support that war that isn't backed up by the U.S. intelligence community, uses a force deployment that isn't supported by most of the career professionals at the Pentagon, does not use the occupation strategy prepared by the State Department, and everything goes quite predictably to hell. Then he yells 'cut-and-run' over and over again at anyone that asks for our troops to be removed from harm's way, and that magically turns Iraq from a liability into an asset.

Manufacturing common wisdom is easier than I thought. Kerry is right, but if he tries to make his point he is empowering the Republicans. The only extent to which this could be considered true is the extent to which Democrats will cower in fear of the cut-and-run mantra. Look at Murtha. Follow his lead. There is nothing to fear.

For those you that don't know, you can find SusanHu posting over at Larry Johnson's No Quarter. Here's her latest. Powerful stuff.

What's on your mind?

I was rubbing my eyes this morning as I read the Washington Post. Was I really reading honest, decent, fair reporting? It sure looked that way. William Arkin is the best reporter on military issues out there. Still, I was surprised to see him write this (emphasis added):

I don't know which would be worse for the United States: an American shoot-down of a North Korean missile test, or an unsuccessful attempt to do so. The latter might remind the American public of the vast sums wasted on "defense," and provoke a discussion of the flawed strategy and policy behind missile defenses. That strategy assumes diplomacy will fail, and only our shield will protect us from irrational states.

How refreshing it is to read someone questioning the vast sums we waste on "defense". The Washington Post is slipping. And further evidence of their slippage is provided by Harold Meyerson's editorial Lieberman Versus the Democrats. Meyerson takes down Holy Joe with blog-like snark and precision.