Month: October 2005

Recently, I diaried about the unhappy fate of nearly 100,000 American horses every year.  Our Congress has now acted to protect American horses from slaughter by an amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations Bill.  The bill has moved into a Conference Committee where it can be altered before being sent on to the President.  Ten members of that committee have supported the amendment, but seven have opposed it.  

If you are a resident of MS, MO, MT, ID, KS, ND, or SD, your Senator opposed the amendment.  These men have the power to remove the amendment from this bill and saddle our beautiful horses with a terrible fate.  It could happen this week.

Please visit this action page to contact your Senators on the Conference Committee, and help protect America’s wild horses.

“Leak case about civil rights, says ex-envoy Joseph Wilson.”

Today’s headline and story in The Seattle Times, and its civil rights emphasis, is echoed in Richard Sale’s report on this site and in the report of a possible civil suit to be initiated by the Wilsons.

Wilson, interviewed before his talk at a Seattle Town Hall tonight, emphasized his own rights as a citizen. “[T]he experience,” writes the Seattle Times, “has pitted him and his wife against the most powerful people in the United States.”

Sale, a longtime intelligence reporter, reports here today:

Most press accounts emphasized that Fitzgerald was likely to concentrate on attempts by Libby, Rove and others to cover up wrongdoing by means of perjury before the grand jury, lying to federal officials, conspiring to obstruct justice, etc.

But federal law enforcement officials told this reporter that Fitzgerald was likely to charge the people indicted with violating Joe Wilson’s civil rights, smearing his name in an attempt to destroy his ability to earn a living in Washington as a consultant.

Do you think it is a coincidence that Joe Wilson, in Seattle, is echoing what intelligence reporter Richard Sale was told by federal law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C.? I think not.

On Oct. 18, Christopher Wolf — the Wilsons’ attorney and their next-door neighbor — told Salon that a civil lawsuit would be about Valerie Plame Wilson, “against the Bush administration officials who disclosed her identity and scuttled her career.”

Perhaps Fitzgerald is looking into violations of the civil rights of both of the Wilsons. And perhaps Fitzgerald has satisfied the requirements for charges of violations of Joseph Wilson’s civil rights, and the interviews by FBI agents yesterday of the Wilsons’ neighbors were to nail down charges of civil rights violations against Valerie Plame Wilson. We shall see.

Despite his media presence, Wilson insisted he had little impact on events. “I had nothing to do with the Justice Department decision to open the investigation,” he said.

As more of an observer than an actor in the Beltway drama, Wilson said, he has no sense of the case’s lingering effect on the Bush presidency or its historical significance. But, he said, the people he has met around the country understand why it’s important — that it’s not right for the White House to go after individuals who disagree with the government.

“In America, they get it,” he said.

( The Seattle Times, Oct. 26, 2005)

Cross Posted on Media In Trouble

Last night on The Majority Report Paul Hackett (the hero of Ohio) was on the horn along with Kos.  Hackett talked about what needs to happen about Iraq. It made total and absolute sense.  He said it isn’t the military loosing this battle its the civilian leadership.  OK no surprise there, but what he said afterwards made the real sense.  He said the President as Commander in chief has failed to listen to the real experts, the Generals, the whole time.  Hackett went on to say that the only option left is for the President to own up to this mistake, bring together a round table of Generals, and order them to come up with a withdrawal plan.

just in…

This news does not necessarily mean that there will not be indictments. The grand jury expires on Friday.