Dems prepare for veto fight over war
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Democrats are moving unflinchingly toward a high-stakes veto fight with President Bush over the Iraq war as the Senate wraps up work on legislation ordering combat troops home from Iraq.This Congress is taking the responsible course and responding to needs that have been ignored by your administration and the prior Congress," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote in a letter to Bush.The Senate was expected on Thursday to pass a $122 billion bill that would require Bush to start bringing home an unspecified number of troops within four months, with a nonbinding goal of ceasing combat operations as of March 31, 2008.
The final vote on the bill comes after the Senate agreed 50-48 to uphold the withdrawal language, and the House passed similar legislation. The House last week approved a more sweeping measure, including a mandatory withdrawal deadline for all combat troops before September 2008.
The two sides still need to settle their differences and approve a final conference bill. But Democrats said the recent votes guaranteed the president would be handed a measure imposing some sort of timetable on Iraq.
"This war without end has gone on far too long and we're here to end it," Pelosi said.
Reid said the ball was now in the president's court.
"The Senate and the House have held together and done what we've done," he told reporters. "It's now in his corner to do what he wants to do."
The legislation is the Senate's first, bold challenge of Bush's war policies since Democrats took control of Congress in January. With Senate rules allowing the minority party to insist on 60 votes to pass any bill and Democrats holding only a narrow majority, Reid had been unable to push through resolutions critical of the war.
This latest proposal was able to get through because Republicans said they didn't want to block an appropriations bill needed for the war.
"I think the sooner we can get this bill ... down to the president for veto, we can get serious about passing a bill that will get money to the troops," said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Bush used a speech at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association meeting Wednesday to deliver his latest in a series of veto threats on the measure. Confident Democrats did not have the two-thirds majority votes to override his veto, Bush said Democrats would be the ones to blame if troops go without funding.
"If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible," he said.
But Pelosi and Reid didn't flinch.
"On this very important matter, I would extend a hand of friendship to the president, just to say to him, 'Calm down with the threats,'" she said. "There's a new Congress in town. We accept your constitutional role. We want you to accept ours."
Democrats acknowledge they do not have enough support in Congress to override Bush's veto, but say they will continue to ratchet up the pressure until he changes course.
The looming showdown was reminiscent of the GOP-led fight with President Clinton over the 1996 budget, which caused a partial government shutdown that lasted 27 days. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., the House speaker at the time, eventually relented but claimed victory because the bill represented a substantial savings over the previous year's spending. Bush said the money is needed by mid-April or else the troops will begin to run out of money, but some Democrats say the real deadline is probably closer to June.
CREDIT:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070329/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq;_ylt=ArB6Bi3607KHOElPPxrf04Vq24cA
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
LIBBY IS GUILTY! NOW WHAT?
Libby found guilty in CIA leak trial
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON - Once the closest adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that shook the top levels of the Bush administration.
He is the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since National Security Adviser John Poindexter in the Iran-CONTRA affair two decades ago.
In the end, jurors said they did not believe Libby's main defense: that he hadn't lied but merely had a bad memory.
The CIA leak case focused new attention on the Bush administration's much-criticized handling of intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war. The case cost Cheney his most trusted adviser, and the trial revealed Cheney's personal obsession with criticism of the war's justification.
Trial testimony made clear that President Bush secretly declassified a portion of the prewar intelligence estimate that Cheney quietly sent Libby to leak to Judith Miller of The New York Times in 2003 to rebut criticism by ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson. Bush, Cheney and Libby were the only three people in the government aware of the effort.
More top reporters were ordered into court — including Miller after 85 days of resistance in jail — to testify about their confidential sources among the nation's highest-ranking officials than in any other trial in recent memory.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the verdict closed the nearly four-year investigation into how the name of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, and her classified job at the CIA were leaked to reporters in 2003 — just days after Wilson publicly accused the administration of doctoring prewar intelligence. No one will be charged with the leak itself, which the trial confirmed came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
"The results are actually sad," Fitzgerald told reporters after the verdict. "It's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official person who worked in the office of the vice president obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that it had not happened, but it did."
One juror, former Washington Post reporter Denis Collins, said the jury did not believe Libby's main defense: that he never lied but just had a faulty memory. Juror Jeff Comer agreed.
Collins said the jurors spent a week charting the testimony and evidence on 34 poster-size pages. "There were good managerial type people on this jury who took everything apart and put it in the right place," Collins said. "After that, it wasn't a matter of opinion. It was just there."
Libby, not only Cheney's chief of staff but also an assistant to Bush, was expressionless as the verdict was announced on the 10th day of deliberations. In the front row, his wife, Harriet Grant, choked out a sob and her head sank.
Libby could face up to 25 years in prison when sentenced June 5, but federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less, perhaps one to three years. Defense attorneys said they would ask for a retrial and if that fails, appeal the conviction.
"We have every confidence Mr. Libby ultimately will be vindicated," defense attorney Theodore Wells told reporters. He said that Libby was "totally innocent and that he did not do anything wrong."
Libby did not speak to reporters.
The president watched news of the verdict on television at the White House. Deputy press secretary Dana Perino said Bush respected the jury's verdict but "was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family."
In a written statement, Cheney called the verdict disappointing and said he was saddened for Libby and his family, too. "As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service."
Wilson, whose wife left the CIA after she was exposed, said, "Convicting him of perjury was like convicting Al Capone of tax evasion or Alger Hiss of perjury. It doesn't mean they were not guilty of other crimes."
Libby was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury to the grand jury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame's identity and whom he told.
Libby learned about Plame from Cheney in June 2003 about a month after Wilson's allegations were first published, without his name, by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Prosecutors said Libby relayed the Plame information to other government officials and told reporters, Miller of the Times and Matt Cooper of Time magazine, that she worked at the CIA.
On July 6, 2003, Wilson publicly wrote that he had gone to Niger in 2002 and debunked a report that Iraq was seeking uranium there for nuclear weapons and that Cheney, who had asked about the report, should have known his findings long before Bush cited the report in 2003 as a justification for the war. On July 14, columnist Robert Novak reported that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and she, not Cheney, had suggested he go on the trip.
When an investigation of the leak began, prosecutors said, Libby feared prosecution for disclosing classified information so he lied to investigators to make his discussions appear innocent.
Libby swore that he was so busy he forgot Cheney had told him about Plame, and was surprised to learn it a month later from NBC reporter Tim Russert. He swore he told reporters only that he learned it from other reporters and could not confirm it.
Russert, however, testified he and Libby never even discussed Plame.
Libby blamed any misstatements in his account on flaws in his memory.
He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI about his conversation with Cooper.
Collins said jurors agreed that on nine occasions during a short period of 2003, Libby was either told about Plame or told others about her.
"If I'm told something once, I'm likely to forget it," Collins recalled one juror saying. "If I'm told it many times, I'm less likely to forget it. If I myself tell it to someone else, I'm even less likely to forget it."
Libby is free pending sentencing. His lawyers will ask that he remain so through any appeal.
CREDIT:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_trial
Commenty by ZM
Now that Mr.Libby has been found guilty,I have a few Questions:
1. Does the blame go any higher?
2. What will the punishment be for his actions?
3. Does America care anymore about this?
4. Where those this put the Democatric hopefuls who want to win the whitehouse?
PEACE!
ZM
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON - Once the closest adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that shook the top levels of the Bush administration.
He is the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since National Security Adviser John Poindexter in the Iran-CONTRA affair two decades ago.
In the end, jurors said they did not believe Libby's main defense: that he hadn't lied but merely had a bad memory.
The CIA leak case focused new attention on the Bush administration's much-criticized handling of intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war. The case cost Cheney his most trusted adviser, and the trial revealed Cheney's personal obsession with criticism of the war's justification.
Trial testimony made clear that President Bush secretly declassified a portion of the prewar intelligence estimate that Cheney quietly sent Libby to leak to Judith Miller of The New York Times in 2003 to rebut criticism by ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson. Bush, Cheney and Libby were the only three people in the government aware of the effort.
More top reporters were ordered into court — including Miller after 85 days of resistance in jail — to testify about their confidential sources among the nation's highest-ranking officials than in any other trial in recent memory.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the verdict closed the nearly four-year investigation into how the name of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, and her classified job at the CIA were leaked to reporters in 2003 — just days after Wilson publicly accused the administration of doctoring prewar intelligence. No one will be charged with the leak itself, which the trial confirmed came first from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
"The results are actually sad," Fitzgerald told reporters after the verdict. "It's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official person who worked in the office of the vice president obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that it had not happened, but it did."
One juror, former Washington Post reporter Denis Collins, said the jury did not believe Libby's main defense: that he never lied but just had a faulty memory. Juror Jeff Comer agreed.
Collins said the jurors spent a week charting the testimony and evidence on 34 poster-size pages. "There were good managerial type people on this jury who took everything apart and put it in the right place," Collins said. "After that, it wasn't a matter of opinion. It was just there."
Libby, not only Cheney's chief of staff but also an assistant to Bush, was expressionless as the verdict was announced on the 10th day of deliberations. In the front row, his wife, Harriet Grant, choked out a sob and her head sank.
Libby could face up to 25 years in prison when sentenced June 5, but federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less, perhaps one to three years. Defense attorneys said they would ask for a retrial and if that fails, appeal the conviction.
"We have every confidence Mr. Libby ultimately will be vindicated," defense attorney Theodore Wells told reporters. He said that Libby was "totally innocent and that he did not do anything wrong."
Libby did not speak to reporters.
The president watched news of the verdict on television at the White House. Deputy press secretary Dana Perino said Bush respected the jury's verdict but "was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family."
In a written statement, Cheney called the verdict disappointing and said he was saddened for Libby and his family, too. "As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service."
Wilson, whose wife left the CIA after she was exposed, said, "Convicting him of perjury was like convicting Al Capone of tax evasion or Alger Hiss of perjury. It doesn't mean they were not guilty of other crimes."
Libby was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury to the grand jury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame's identity and whom he told.
Libby learned about Plame from Cheney in June 2003 about a month after Wilson's allegations were first published, without his name, by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Prosecutors said Libby relayed the Plame information to other government officials and told reporters, Miller of the Times and Matt Cooper of Time magazine, that she worked at the CIA.
On July 6, 2003, Wilson publicly wrote that he had gone to Niger in 2002 and debunked a report that Iraq was seeking uranium there for nuclear weapons and that Cheney, who had asked about the report, should have known his findings long before Bush cited the report in 2003 as a justification for the war. On July 14, columnist Robert Novak reported that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and she, not Cheney, had suggested he go on the trip.
When an investigation of the leak began, prosecutors said, Libby feared prosecution for disclosing classified information so he lied to investigators to make his discussions appear innocent.
Libby swore that he was so busy he forgot Cheney had told him about Plame, and was surprised to learn it a month later from NBC reporter Tim Russert. He swore he told reporters only that he learned it from other reporters and could not confirm it.
Russert, however, testified he and Libby never even discussed Plame.
Libby blamed any misstatements in his account on flaws in his memory.
He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI about his conversation with Cooper.
Collins said jurors agreed that on nine occasions during a short period of 2003, Libby was either told about Plame or told others about her.
"If I'm told something once, I'm likely to forget it," Collins recalled one juror saying. "If I'm told it many times, I'm less likely to forget it. If I myself tell it to someone else, I'm even less likely to forget it."
Libby is free pending sentencing. His lawyers will ask that he remain so through any appeal.
CREDIT:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070306/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_trial
Commenty by ZM
Now that Mr.Libby has been found guilty,I have a few Questions:
1. Does the blame go any higher?
2. What will the punishment be for his actions?
3. Does America care anymore about this?
4. Where those this put the Democatric hopefuls who want to win the whitehouse?
PEACE!
ZM
Sunday, March 04, 2007
THE SHE MALE IS AT IT AGAIN!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Outspoken U.S. conservative columnist Ann Coulter is drawing fire from Republicans and Democrats alike after publicly using a derogatory gay slur in reference to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.
"Ann Coulter not only once again went out of her way to use a nasty epithet, she pushed her offensiveness up a notch," Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said on Sunday.
Coulter made the comments on Friday during a speech at the influential American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference, calling Edwards a "faggot."
"We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot," Ridenour, whose group helped sponsor the conference, said in a statement on the center's Web site.
Coulter said the comment was a joke and on her Web site she carried the speech with the comment, "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing." She then said Edwards' campaign chairman's main job was "fronting for Arab terrorists."
Edwards, a 2008 presidential contender and the party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, said Coulter's comments were "un-American and indefensible."
"The kind of hateful language she used has no place in political debate or our society at large," he wrote in comments posted to his Web site on Saturday.
"I believe it is our moral responsibility to speak out against that kind of bigotry and prejudice every time we encounter it," Edwards added.
The candidate also posted a video of Coulter's comments, asking supporters to raise $100,000 in so-called "Coulter Cash" for his campaign to "fight back against the politics of bigotry."
Coulter's Friday speech raised objections from Republican presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as well as Democrats.
In a statement on Sunday, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said, "It was an offensive remark. Political discourse ought to be more substantive and thoughtful." McCain, the only contender who did not attend the event, and Giuliani called Coulter's words inappropriate, according to the New York Times.
"Ann Coulter's words of hate have no place in the public sphere much less our political discourse," Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said in a statement released on Saturday.
Several conservatives were also quick to denounce Coulter's comments in a variety of online columns.
Coulter is no stranger to controversy.
At the same conference last year, she used the word "raghead" -- a slur against Muslims -- in referring to U.S. homeland security policies. In a column published in the National Review after the September 11 attacks she urged an invasion of Muslim countries and forced conversion to Christianity.
Credit: Yahoo News. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070304/pl_nm/people_coulter_dc
"Ann Coulter not only once again went out of her way to use a nasty epithet, she pushed her offensiveness up a notch," Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said on Sunday.
Coulter made the comments on Friday during a speech at the influential American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference, calling Edwards a "faggot."
"We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot," Ridenour, whose group helped sponsor the conference, said in a statement on the center's Web site.
Coulter said the comment was a joke and on her Web site she carried the speech with the comment, "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing." She then said Edwards' campaign chairman's main job was "fronting for Arab terrorists."
Edwards, a 2008 presidential contender and the party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, said Coulter's comments were "un-American and indefensible."
"The kind of hateful language she used has no place in political debate or our society at large," he wrote in comments posted to his Web site on Saturday.
"I believe it is our moral responsibility to speak out against that kind of bigotry and prejudice every time we encounter it," Edwards added.
The candidate also posted a video of Coulter's comments, asking supporters to raise $100,000 in so-called "Coulter Cash" for his campaign to "fight back against the politics of bigotry."
Coulter's Friday speech raised objections from Republican presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as well as Democrats.
In a statement on Sunday, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said, "It was an offensive remark. Political discourse ought to be more substantive and thoughtful." McCain, the only contender who did not attend the event, and Giuliani called Coulter's words inappropriate, according to the New York Times.
"Ann Coulter's words of hate have no place in the public sphere much less our political discourse," Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said in a statement released on Saturday.
Several conservatives were also quick to denounce Coulter's comments in a variety of online columns.
Coulter is no stranger to controversy.
At the same conference last year, she used the word "raghead" -- a slur against Muslims -- in referring to U.S. homeland security policies. In a column published in the National Review after the September 11 attacks she urged an invasion of Muslim countries and forced conversion to Christianity.
Credit: Yahoo News. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070304/pl_nm/people_coulter_dc
Friday, March 02, 2007
I'M WAITING...
With all the news about the DOW lately I just couldn't help but think that back in Oct, 2006 I wrote a thread about the DOW. What did I get for my efforts to give ya'll a heads-up? Let's see, jay_156 said and I qoute "Can you quit rooting for the downfall of America"
Next was an anonyMouse (of course) again I quote "Bunch of dumb ass sons of bitches."
Oh, yes there are more another anonyMouse "The point is that you all try to portray the economy than it is. I dont know who you are trying to impress with your idiotic statements."
Always anonyMouses with no brains, here's yet another comment from one of them "Her argument is bullshit. She has made references to things that she has no idea how to interpret."
Wow even anonymousposter commented "http://conservthink.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_conservthink" (you got to look at the link they posted to see how much they were wrong.)
You guessed it, yet another anonyMouse "The facts dont lie eff. They are easy to read. Look at the numbers. Things arent as bad as the left wants you to believe."
AnonyMouse again "Get real factual information."
AnonyMouse "YOU, who said the DOW was "going south"
Wow, I guess all of you anonyMouses and jay-156 were just so right (yes I'm being facetious). Seems that liberals (in this case as is usually the fact) were more educated and informed about the stock market than all of those scared little mice (don't worry jay & anonymousposter I include you two also).
With little margin for error, there is plenty of cause to fret. The housing market, for one, is looking increasingly shaky. Defaults of subprime mortgages are already rising, and Wednesday's announcement of a 16.6% fall in new home sales in January represents the largest monthly drop in 13 years.
These trends are worrisome for two reasons. Housing has been a key driver of economic activity in the economy the past few years. In addition, banks, brokerages and big investors are holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of real estate-linked debt and derivatives. The knock-off effects of a meltdown are unknown but sure to be massive.
With investors so skittish, one big danger is that a prolonged market drop will quickly set off a credit crunch, as Tuesday's flight to treasuries presaged. A credit tightening, in turn, could cause a jump in junk bond and other defaults, a plunge in M&A activity and a surge in corporate and personal bankruptcies.
Overseas, things look just as precarious. Emerging market stocks and bonds in particular have been on a tear that has left them vulnerable to the sorts of collapses they have suffered in the past. Signs of weakness could also prompt hedge funds and other big investors to unwind their "carry trade" positions, selling Chinese and other emerging market assets and converting them back into yen, which they'd borrowed at low interest rates. Demand for the Japanese currency would in turn put selling pressure on the dollar and U.S. assets.
With yields on junk bonds now little higher than those for U.S. treasuries, $1.5 trillion in hedge fund money sloshing unregulated around the globe and derivatives markets linking it all together in ways nobody fully understands, one thing is for certain: A serious bout of bear market pain could spread far and fast--leaving very few investors unscathed, but of course I must be wrong about this, you know like I was back in Oct.
AnonyMouses, please don't go hiding into some dark, dank and putrid hole. Show yourselves,climb out of those recesses and tell me again how uneducated and wrong I was about the DOW.
I'm waiting.....
~~~~~~Smile, it confuses people~~~~~~
WHAT'S THE NEXT FAD IN THE NEWS?
I am so sick of the news as of late. I am tired of Anna Nicole's slut ass being a center point of the news. The bitch was a gold digging fame seeker and a whore. Her ass belongs buried in a gutter and all of the families who were wrecked by her should line up and take a piss on the spot where she laid. I hope she is choking on a satanic 12 foot dick as we speak.
Do people still care that we have a war going on in Iraq? Do people still care we have an election coming up in 2008 and we must take careful consideration on who we elect next? Or have we become a nation who is sold on hallow sugary fluff leaking out of our TV sets at 6 pm each night.
Sometimes I thank God for talk radio to keep me grounded in what really needs to be addressed in this country of ours.
This half assed ranted brough to you by the markers of BADNEWSBEGONE , the newest head ache product on the market. Buy some today.
Do people still care that we have a war going on in Iraq? Do people still care we have an election coming up in 2008 and we must take careful consideration on who we elect next? Or have we become a nation who is sold on hallow sugary fluff leaking out of our TV sets at 6 pm each night.
Sometimes I thank God for talk radio to keep me grounded in what really needs to be addressed in this country of ours.
This half assed ranted brough to you by the markers of BADNEWSBEGONE , the newest head ache product on the market. Buy some today.
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