Attorney General guilty of Perjury

Americablog shows the pic


Everyone who committed perjury, raise your hand
by John in DC - 1/31/2006 12:17:00 PM



AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

Gonzales LIED TO Congress under Oath

Gonzales LIED TO Congress under Oath

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he avoided answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.


Media Finally Reports That Gonzales Misled Congress

This morning, prompted by a letter from Sen. Russ Feingold, the Washington Post reports that Alberto Gonzales misled the Senate Judiciary Committee during his January 2005 confirmation hearing:

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

Think Progress reported this story on December 18. Gonzales said “it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.” In fact, he personally approved Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program, in contravention of a criminal statute.

We have the full transcript of the Feingold/Gonzales exchange posted.

In addition to Gonzales, former NSA director Michael Hayden and President Bush also made false statements relating to warrantless domestic surveillance.

UPDATE: An important aspect to this story is that Gonzales’ testimony was under oath. From the transcript:

SEN. SPECTER: Judge Gonzales, would you now stand for the administration of the oath? Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before the Senate Judiciary Committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

MR. GONZALES: I do.

UPDATE II: Americablog has the photo.


Think Progress » Media Finally Reports That Gonzales Misled Congress

Tomato!!!

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Media not dead yet: Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary. - Jan 20, 2006

I love you Molly! -- law

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If you can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can... What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority, 55 % think the war in Iraq is a mistake That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?

Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008."

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad new from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.

Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.
CNN.com - Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary. - Jan 20, 2006

The Gun is Smoking - 2004 Ohio Precinct-Level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount

The Gun is Smoking - 2004 Ohio Precinct-Level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount

European Tribune - New "Thug" Nickle Issued

Washington, DC (APE) - In a break with tradition, the new nickel has an image of a seated president, Bush, displayed, facing forwards. The Mint plans to begin shipping 80 million of the new five cent coins, lovingly referred to as "thug" nickels, beginning today.

The word "Liburty" is displayed in Bush's hand writing as well as the phrase, "I'm God We Trust". On the opposite side, the Nickel still features Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, which Bush has recently purchased and will be renamed Crawford.

The new nickel with a smiling Bush is the perfect way to complete the illegal Republican takeover of power, said acting US mint Director David Lebryk, a controversial recess appointment by President Bush.

European Tribune - New "Thug" Nickle Issued

The Stakeholder:: Death of a Hit Piece

Yesterday the Moonie Times claimed that Reid and Dorgan were in the DoJ Abramoff crosshairs:

Now we have this:

ABRAMOFF INVESTIGATION: Sources conflict on Reid status
[Las Vegas Review-Journal]

Published report claiming senator on list denied

The Justice Department is not focusing on Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada as part of an investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a source close to the probe said Wednesday in challenging a published report

Speaking in Salt Lake City, Reid angrily denied the report.

He criticized the newspaper, which was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church.

"You have to really stretch things to call it a newspaper," Reid said.

That's true. It wasn't so long ago they tried to carry water for DeLay by accusing Earle of breaking the law that DeLay is being prosecuted for. It was a lie.

And now it's your turn to explain, Moonie Times. The piece was written by Jerry Seper and Audrey Hudson. One wonders if Hudson should have been on the Abramoff beat given her history. You see, back when Jack and Tom were focusing on keeping sweatshops in tact in the Marianas Islands, they had a little trouble with the Clinton Administration Department of the Interior, who looked much less favorably on sweatshops than the modern Republican seems to. So Abramoff and House Republicans set out to destroy Allen Stayman, the director of the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs (OIA), who was advocating cleaning the place up. A 1998 memo from Abramoff stated the strategy explicitly. Republican-led Congressional investigations of Stayman were held that amounted to nothing, even as DeLay was helping to kill an investigation into the sweatshops themselves. Abramoff tried to drum up as much public attention as possible, but was struggling for traction. Enter payola pundits, who whaddaya know, start writing op-eds in the Washington Times in favor of the Marianas sweatshop regime amongst other things. But that wasn't the only appearance of the Marianas Islands in the so-called newspaper.

How many conservative columnists did Jack Abramoff rent for his clients?
[Media Matters]

Conservative news outlets promote otherwise-ignored Stayman story

On August 3, 1999, a Washington Times article by Audrey Hudson raised questions about whether Stayman and a subordinate, OIA policy director David North, improperly used government resources for political purposes...

[...]

Hudson -- who went on to write six more articles for The Washington Times about Stayman and North from August 1999 to July 2000 -- joined the Times in 1999 after serving as spokeswoman for Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) and Rep. Scott McInnis (R-CO).

But that still wasn't all. Abramoff had not yet "closed the loop" as they say:

The day after the first Washington Times article, the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) called for an investigation into the allegations against Stayman and North, based on the Washington Times article.

Yes, yes, that National Center for Public Policy Research. But what of it? Plenty of reporters were on this beat, right?

Wrong:

Though investigations of Clinton administration officials rarely lacked for media coverage, the Allen Stayman-Northern Mariana Islands matter received scant attention. Other than Hudson's seven articles, only nine news reports available on Nexis mention the Northern Mariana Islands and the Stayman investigation....

#

one is an editorial in The Washington Times; three are columns, written by Bandow, Ferrara, and Michael Catanzaro. Two of the three columns ran in The Washington Times.

Very, very interesting indeed. It appears that the connections of Hudson and the Moonie Times to Casino Jack are considerably more substantial than those of the men they smeared. Hudson's outraged response to that Media Matters item is here, by all means read her side of the story. But to be even more fair, Hudson did not write the Reid hit piece on her own. Jerry Seper was there as well, and to question his reporting is surely beyond the pale.

Via the DNC, this was Editor & Publisher on June 13, 1995:

A FEDERAL JURY has awarded $500,000 each to two former heads of a federal anti-crime unit after finding that the Arizona Republic in Phoenix libeled them in a 1984 article. Richard Crane and James Henderson alleged that their reputations were damaged after they were quoted in an August 1984 story on corruption.

The jury found in April that reporter Jerry Seper juxtaposed their comments to make the two seem to contradict each other when they were asked if there had been a congressional investigation into their affairs.

Daniel Barr, who represented the paper and Seper, said he would consider a motion for a new trial. Seper now reports for the Washington Times.

The article wrongly gave the impression "that these men are liars when confronted with the allegations, (and that) there is likely something to the allegations," said their attorney, Brian O'Neill.

The reporter actually spoke to Henderson several weeks before he talked with Crane, O'Neill said.

The Justice Department Organized Crime and Racketeering Section in Los Angeles coordinates federal, state and local efforts against organized crime. Crane headed the strike force from 1973 to 1975. Henderson was chief from 1975 to 1985.

Both were officially cleared in 1985 of any wrongdoing.

Seper also penned a classic claiming that Enron was a bipartisan scandal, how very consistent of him..


The Stakeholder:: Death of a Hit Piece

Summary of Findings: Americans Taking Abramoff, Alito and Domestic Spying in Stride

From Make them Accountable:

Democrats Hold Huge Issue Advantage

Released: January 11, 2006

… The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 4-8 among 1,503 adults, finds that the public paid scant attention to the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court in the days leading up to Senate confirmation hearings on Alito…

The poll shows that, as with views of congressional leaders, Washington's controversies have not had an impact on opinions of the president. Bush's approval rating has not changed since December (38% approve/54% disapprove). However, the Democratic Party holds a sizable advantage over the GOP as the party better able to handle the country's most important problem. Fully 41% believe the Democratic Party can do a better job of handling the nation's top problem, compared with 27% who say the Republican Party. This represents a major shift from a year ago, when the public split about evenly on which party could better address the most important national problem…

The war in Iraq is viewed as the single most important national problem, though somewhat fewer point to the war than did so a year ago (23% vs. 32% in January 2005). More broadly, about four-in-ten (37%) cite a foreign policy or security concern as the nation's most important problem ­ either the war, terrorism, or another foreign policy issue. That compares with 26% who mention an economic problem, including unemployment and energy prices.

The Democratic Party leads on every specific problem mentioned, with the lone exception of security and terrorism, and in most cases its advantage has grown significantly compared with a year ago. Half of those who cite the war in Iraq say the Democratic Party is better able to handle that problem while 31% cite the GOP; a year ago, the Democratic Party held a slight five-point edge on the war in Iraq…



Summary of Findings: Americans Taking Abramoff, Alito and Domestic Spying in Stride

Book alleges CIA inadvertently gave Iran formula for nuclear bomb

NEW YORK - The CIA may have handed Iran the formula for building a nuclear bomb in a clumsy covert operation involving a double-crossing Russian agent, a new book charges.

The blueprint that was funneled to Tehran contained an error that was meant to derail the Islamic state's efforts at building a nuclear arsenal.

But the built-in flaw was so transparent the Russian engineer doing the CIA's dirty work spotted it immediately - and even offered to help Iran fix it.

The stunning account is one of the revelations in the new book "State of War," which details how the CIA repeatedly bungled its dealings with Iran.

The nuclear snafu happened in February 2000 when the CIA enlisted the Russian defector to supply misinformation to Iran as part of a program code-named Merlin.

He was given plans for a "firing set" for a Russian-designed bomb - the trigger for a chain reaction that Iran needed to build its own nukes.

As ordered, he got the documents to a high-ranking Iranian official visiting Tehran's mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

But in a renegade act, he included a letter red-flagging the flaw in the instructions and offering to help Iran overcome it - for a price, the book says.

Author James Risen called the escapade "one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W. Bush called `the axis of evil.'"

Risen, who exposed the Bush administration's controversial domestic eavesdropping program, also chronicles how a simple mistake destroyed the agency's network in Iran.

In 2004, an officer accidentally sent a computerized message to an Iranian agent that revealed the identities of virtually every spy inside the country.

The Iranian who got the message was a double agent and turned over the information to security officials in Tehran, and many of the CIA operatives were arrested and jailed.

The previous year, the book says, the United States missed an opportunity to seize top al-Qaida henchmen, including Osama bin Laden's son, from Iran.

In exchange, Tehran wanted the United States to hand over members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a terrorist organization based in Baghdad. Some of the group's members were detained after the American invasion of Iraq.

The White House was bullish on the swap, but hard-liners at the Pentagon put the kibosh on any deal, the book claims.

KRT Wire | 01/04/2006 | Book alleges CIA inadvertently gave Iran formula for nuclear bomb

Falls Church News-Press

Falls Church News-Press