More Inconsistencies in Rove's Story

Time Magazine reports more inconsistencies in Rove’s story, now suggesting he found out about Valierie Plame’s identity from within the Bush Administration rather than from reporters as he has claimed. It would be interesting to know if this also contradicts Rove’s testimony and increases the chances of an obstruction of justice prosecution. From Time:

As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.

Not Such Hard Work for George Bush

Who says being president is hard work? Apparently it isn't very hard for George Bush, who is going to his Texas ranch for several weeks. According to USA Today, this will be "the president's 50th trip to the ranch since he was elected nearly five years ago."

Carter Criticizes Guantanamo as Disgrace to the US

Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful
Jimmy Carter Says Detention of Terror Suspects at Guantanamo Bay ‘Is a Disgrace to the U.S.’
By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD
The Associated Press

Jul. 30, 2005 - Former President Carter said Saturday the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.

Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq as “unnecessary and unjust.”

“I think what’s going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.,” he told a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance’s centenary conference in Birmingham, England. “I wouldn’t say it’s the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.”

Carter said, however, that terrorist acts could not be justified, and that while Guantanamo “may be an aggravating factor … it’s not the basis of terrorism.”

MORE

Independent Film on Winter Soldier Investigation

From IndieWIRE:

Milestone Film co-founders Dennis Doros and Amy Heller have formed Milliarium Zero, a new film distribution company that will handle films with strong social and political content. First up for the new outfit is "Winter Soldier," a look at the 1971 Winter Solider Investigation conducted by activist group, Vietnam Veterans Against The War. The film was made by a collective of filmmakers who worked together to create the rarely seen documentary.

The name for Doros and Heller's new outlet translates as "zero milepost," named for the official landmark opposite the White House in Washington D.C. "Winter Soldier" will open for a week run at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater on August 12th, followed that night by a panel featuring 10 filmmakers and at least five of the soldiers.

In creating "Winter Soldier," a group of filmmakers, calling themselves 'Winterfilm,' worked to document the testimonies of many veterans. Included in the collective are Fred Aronow, Nancy Baker, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, Barbara Jarvis, Barbara Kopple, Michael Lesser, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger Phenix, Benay Rubenstein and Michael Weil. The filmmakers worked over four days and nights, with donated equipment and film stock, to shoot footage of more than 125 veterans, among them a young John Kerry. The footage was edited over eight months to create the 95-minute movie. Screened in Cannes and Berlin, including a brief run at Cinema 2 in Manhattan, the film failed to get a TV broadcast and has been rarely seen since.

"We thought that 'Winter Soldier' gave us the perfect opportunity to start a brand-new venture that had its own identity -- a company that could take risks on powerful and possibly controversial films," explained Milliarium co-founder Dennis Doros in an email conversation with indieWIRE. "We are disturbed by the lack of discourse in the United States -- caused, perhaps, by a general lack of commitment and passion, anxiety about being in a minority, fear of our own government, and feelings of apathy and paranoia." Continuing he added, "There are brave filmmakers and distributors out there who are trying to make a difference and we want Milliarium to be part of this effort."

After the run in New York, Doros and Heller have booked the movie at a number of other venues, including Minnesota Film Arts in Minneapolis and the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago for a week in mid-September, a night each at the Avalon in Stamford, CT and the Detroit Film Theater at the Detroit Film Institute (in August and November respectively), and a week at Reel Artways in Hartford, CT in late September.

Stem Cells in Spinal Cord Injury

Yet another benefit of stem cells discovered:

Genetically engineered stem cells can help rats’ severed spinal cords grow back together, according to a study published Tuesday.

Rats given the treatment, using stem cells taken from rat embryos, could move their legs again after their spines were severed in the lab, said the researchers’ report in the Journal of Neuroscience.

This may have important benefits for humans:

“These findings suggest the possibility that transplantation therapy using a subset of neural stem cells and neurotrophic factors might improve functional recovery in human spinal cord injury,” said Dr. Michael Selzer, a professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia.

As Bill Clinton has pointed out, in this case supporting stem cell research is the pro-life position.

Republican Lies Exposed On the "Death Tax"

One of the most discussed victories for the Republicans using Orwellian (or in this case Frank Luntz’s) use of language has been over the inheritance tax. By calling this the “death Tax” they spread scare stories of small mom and pop farms and other businesses being victims, obfuscating the fact that the tax primarily affects the ultra-wealthy. USA Today has an editorial exposing many of the right wing claims regarding the inheritance tax.

Not Enough Sleaze

The New York Times Book Review of The Truth About Hillary hits the book in an area where other reviewers haven’t gone. Not only is the book devoid of any value as an information source, it doesn’t even rank very high in its “genre” according to Joe Queenan.

As an expert on sordid nonfiction, I would not put ‘’The Truth About Hillary'’ anywhere near the top of my list; it pales by comparison with Geraldo Rivera’s sublimely vile autobiography, ‘’Exposing Myself,'’ and seems demure, nuanced and levelheaded by comparison with masterpieces of partisan venom like the 60’s cold-war classic ‘’None Dare Call It Treason.'’

No, I am not suggesting that Edward Klein is a fair, balanced, persuasive, scrupulously honest reporter or a gifted writer. Resorting to chilling Rip Van Winklisms like ‘’Bill and Hillary often grooved the night away at Cozy Beach, spinning the latest Jefferson Airplane platters,'’ Klein sometimes sounds like a cryogenically preserved Maynard G. Krebs. Like, dig: the cat is far out.

What I am saying is that if Klein purposely set out to write the sleaziest, most derivative, most despicable political biography ever, he has failed both himself and his readers miserably. ‘’The Truth About Hillary'’ is only about the 16th sleaziest book I have ever read. Though, in fairness to the author, reading creepy, cut-and-paste books is my hobby.

I wonder where the books from the Swift Boat Liars would fall in this ranking.

A Taste of their Own Medicine

Sometimes people are forced to take a taste of their own medicine:

Doctor Frist’s flip flop on stem cell research hasn’t been received well by the far right. Tom Delay offered the opinion that “a candidate that, that-umm-believes in the destruction of life would have a very hard time appealing to the vast majority of the republicans in this party.” Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, warned that “Senator Frist cannot have it both ways. He cannot be pro-life and pro-embryonic stem cell funding. Nor can he turn around and expect widespread endorsement from the pro-life community if he should decide to run for president in 2008.”

I miss the days when Republicans at least pretended to support individual liberty and keeping the government off our backs.

Justices Breyer is also getting a taste of his own medicine. AP reports, “Libertarians upset about a Supreme Court ruling on land taking have proposed seizing a justice’s vacation home and turning it into a park, echoing efforts aimed at another justice who lives in the state. Organizers are trying to collect enough signatures to go before the town next spring to ask to use Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s 167-acre Plainfield property for a ‘Constitution Park’ with stone monuments to commemorate the U.S. and New Hampshire constitutions.”

Personally I avoid tasting all those medications I prescribe as much as possible. This week, rather than tasting medicine, I’m working on Appletini recipes in anticipation of guests next weekend. My experimentation so far suggests either equal portions of Grey Goose to Apple Pucker Schnapps, or perhaps the using the vodka in a 2:1 ratio. I’ve tried adding a splash of either Rose’s Lime Juice or Sour Mix. The Sour Mix tasted a bit better but makes the drink slightly cloudy. I’m thinking of trying regular lime juice as opposed to the more concentrated Rose’s next time.

Anyone happen to know the perfect Appletini recipe? This is even more fun that Friday Cat Blogging.

California Rejects Diebold Machines

California has rejected the Diebold voting machines, finding a failure rate of ten percent. Problems included printer jams and screen freezes, in other words what is experienced by the typical home computer user. The report did not comment on whether the results were biased towards either party.

Replacing Congress In Case of Emergency

We can all rest easier knowing that Congress has passed a Doomsday plan to replace themselves should 100 or more be killed in a terrorist attack. The law would call for special elections within 49 days.

Now if we only had a provision for a special election should it be proven that the President is an absolute idiot who has undermined our national security and created long term damage to our economy and was twice elected with questionable tactics. Or how about special elections should Congress fall under the control of people beholden to religious fanatics and are acting contrary to the interests of the American people and the principles the country was founded upon?

Kerry Raising Money for Other Democrats

The Wall Street Journal makes note today of Kerry’s fund raising and contributions to other Democratic candidates. They report that, “Democrat Kerry, who may also run again, has donated more than $3 million to Democratic groups since his November defeat, while raising $700,000 for a new Leadership PAC that has given to more than 50 party candidates.”

Kerry, Snowe Move to Save Women’s Business Centers from the Chopping Block

Yesterday, Senators John Kerry and Olympia Snowe introduced and passed legislation that authorizes the S.B.A. to continue funding eleven women’s business centers that are scheduled to be closed at the end of the year.

The eleven centers, known as sustainability centers, were the first to receive grants under the Women’s Business Center Sustainability pilot program authored by Kerry in 1999 (PL 106-165). However, due to a technical provision in the law, these centers would be ineligible for additional funding after the end of this fiscal year. The Snowe-Kerry legislation (S.1517) would allow these eleven centers to continue assisting women-owned businesses with their access to capital, contracting, and business management needs by extending their sustainability grants for one year.

The eleven centers (scheduled to be closed) are in: Oakland, Calif.; Ukiah, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Boston, Mass.; Augusta, Maine; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Fosston, Minnesota; Las Cruces, N.M.; Medford, Oregon; Philadelphia, Penn.; and Milwaukee, Wisc. As a whole, the women’s business center network reached over 122,000 clients last year, up from 8,000 in 1999.

The Women's Business Centers are vital to helping women in business across the country. They provide access to advice on small business including business and marketing plans, and access to loans through the S.B.A.

“This bill will ensure that our most effective women’s business centers continue to receive federal matching funds,” said Kerry, top Democrat on the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. “Instead of eliminating resources and opportunities for women in business, we should be increasing them. This funding is not only important to the centers themselves, but also to their local community and the thousands of women-owned businesses who depend on them.”

"This is only a temporary fix, but I will continue to fight to ensure this proven and effective program is made permanent, putting the Women's Business Center program on sound footing for the future." Kerry added.

In order for the bill to become law, the legislation must now be taken up and passed in the House of Representatives and signed by the President.

As a small business owner, I understand fully the hurdles that women in business face daily. Now entering my 10th year in business, I am grateful for assistance received last year through my local Women's Business Center. John Kerry has consistantly fought to provide assistance to women in business and recognizes that women in business are amongst the fatest growing sector of small business.

Senate Intelligence Committee Probe on Pre-War Intelligence Stalls

For eight months, The Boston Globe is reporting, "the Senate Intelligence Committee has made little effort to pursue its long-promised probe into whether the Bush administration intentionally misconstrued intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war -- an investigation that would have delved into whether White House aides tried to put pressure on CIA analysts."

Last year, Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee vowed "that soon after the presidential election was over, his panel would examine whether Bush or his top aides misled the public about prewar intelligence, or pressured CIA agents to make a stronger case for invading Iraq."

But since then, the Intelligence Committee has made no measurable progress on the investigation. Instead, Roberts has offered vague public promises of picking up the key pieces of the probe at some point but has warned that other more pressing matters must be dealt with first.

Senator John D. Rockefeller, Ranking Member of the committee, suspects political motivation from congressional Republicans who want to shield the administration.

''The chairman has declared firmly that it will be done," said Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia. ''I always think there's a reluctance to do anything which might embarrass the administration. I think that's been true since the beginning of all of this."

The criminal investigation of an administration leak that revealed the identity of Valerie Plame has has highlighted the failure of the Senate Intel Committee to act on their investigation. The criminal investigation into PlameGate has implicated both Karl Rove and Lewis (Scooter) Libby, propelling Senate Democrats to call for a congressional hearing into the leak, including Rove's and Libby's involvement.

Though an investigation of the uses of prewar intelligence would not cover the leaking of Plame Wilson's name -- that occurred after the invasion of Iraq -- it could shed light on whether members of the administration took other actions to suppress or discredit opposing views.

Roberts' latest excuse in not moving forward with the investigation is "that committee members remain at odds over how to judge public prewar statements made by members of the Bush administration and Congress."

Senator Rockefeller and other Democrats do not feel that "differing opinions on how to handle public statements" is a valid reason to hold up the investigation any further.

Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the fact that there has been no investigation of the misuse of intelligence means US policy may still be based on mistaken conclusions.

''A year and a half later, there's still no report, no conclusions, no accountability for the mistakes, and no way to be sure they won't be repeated," said Kerry. ''This is just further evidence of a pattern by this White House and the Republicans in Congress to stop at nothing to discredit their critics and silence the tough questions before they get asked."

Bush Administration Shortchanges Small Business: Contracts Go Unchallenged

Legislation from John Kerry would prevent practice that favors big businesses over small businesses.

WASHINGTON -- A recent report by the Small Business Administration’s Inspector General sheds light on the Bush administration’s failure to prevent federal agencies from putting contracts out of the reach of small businesses through a tactic known as contract bundling.

“This is just the latest example of the Bush administration shortchanging small businesses,” Kerry said. “The administration is quick to make claims about supporting small contractors, but time and again their big business policies leave small businesses behind. Bottom line, the Administration would rather do business with large companies than keep faith with America’s small businesses.”

According to the report: “SBA was not reviewing the majority of procurements reported by agencies as bundled. Eighty-seven percent of the reported potential bundlings (with a value of at least $384 million) we identified during the survey were not reviewed by SBA. SBA also did not fully comply with bundling regulations, an agreed upon OMB recommendation, and its own requirements.”

The Inspector General’s report also concluded that one of the significant reasons for the Administration’s ineffectiveness is its lack of adequate resources. In particular, the report pointed to the limited number of procurement center representatives, also known as PCRs, who monitor the federal procurement process. With only 43 PCRs to monitor contracting at over 2,000 procurement centers government-wide, the Administration only monitors 11.6 percent of centers and 60 percent of federal contracting dollars. This means that some $90 billion each year is not examined for contract bundling.

The report goes on to state that SBA’s Office of Government Contracting “was not in compliance with various requirements concerning contract bundling,” including, the requirement for a bundling database; the requirement of a best practices guide for agencies; and the requirement for a formal operating plan for its PCRs.

In response to the report, Kerry sent a letter to the SBA to further investigate the Administration’s deficiencies and to urge the agency to “provide the small business advocates, particularly PCRs, the resources they need to perform their oversight duties.”

In January, Kerry introduced the Small Business Federal Contractor Safeguard Act, S.137, to expand protections for small business contractors, curb contract bundling, and assist the SBA in its oversight duties. To read Kerry’s letter to Administrator Barreto, click here.

A copy of the SBA Inspector General’s report is available at http://www.sba.gov/ig/audits.html

John Kerry's Speech at The New Republic’s Conference on Telecommunications Policy

John Kerry Says Revolution in Telecommunications Must be Addressed in Legislation

John Kerry spoke today at The New Republic’s conference on telecommunications policy. The forum focused on the reauthorization of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Senator Kerry’s remarks follow as prepared:

“Ten years ago, ‘broadband’ wasn’t part of our vocabulary. Today, 35 million households enjoy broadband service - a lot more, but nothing compared to what they’re doing in South Korea and elsewhere. Ten years ago only 25 million people used any wireless device. Today, 192 million Americans use cell phones, PDAs or laptops with WiFi access - again, a huge improvement, although not to the level of some of our competitors. There’s no doubt much has changed since Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and we all tend to focus on the technological changes. But the important changes have not been limited to technological innovation.

“The industry has undergone a massive restructuring. Businesses that never competed with each other-whether due to differences in technology, geography or regulation-are now in direct competition. As a result, telecomm is a fundamentally different industry today than it was in 1996.

“The same goes for our economy. The rapid globalization of the past ten years has transformed the rules by which nearly every American business must operate. If we handle it right, this new arena can be a mutually beneficial opportunity for the telecom industry and the economy. Innovation is the great currency today, and this industry has plenty to spare. A new wave of change powered by a mass market in broadband and high-capacity Internet service can bring interactivity, full-motion video and a host of other functions rich in data and experience.

Read the full speech here.

Roberts To Right of Many Reaganites

The New York Times reviewed memos from the Reagan administration showing that John Roberts was frequently to the right of even many Reaganites:

On almost every issue he dealt with where there were basically two sides, one more conservative than the other, the documents from the National Archives and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library show that Judge Roberts, now of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, advocated the more conservative course. Sometimes, he took positions even more conservative than his prominent superiors.

He favored less government enforcement of civil rights laws rather than more. He criticized court decisions that required a thick wall between church and state. He took the side of prosecutors over criminal defendants. He maintained that the role of the courts should be limited and the powers of the president enhanced.

The article reviews Roberts' position on several other issues. In looking at church vs. state issues they found that "Judge Roberts was sharply critical of the Supreme Court decision outlawing prayer in public schools, and he said the court had exceeded its authority when it allowed any citizens to challenge the transfer of public property to a parochial school."

Americans Facing Reality

It’s a day in which we see signs of victory for reality over the Orwellian deceptions of Bush World.

It comes as no surprise to read that an new investigation shows that Bush failed to make adequate postwar plans. AP Reports that “An independent panel headed by two former U.S. national security advisers said Wednesday that chaos in Iraq was due in part to inadequate postwar planning.”

More people are looking at Iraq in a more realistic manner and seeing through the Bush lies according to this Gallup Poll:

For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the reason Bush emphasized in making the case for invading. The administration’s credibility on the issue has been steadily eroding since 2003.

A Quinnipiac Poll shows further deterioration in Bush’s support, as well as that of Congress. Those so-called activist judges do much better:

American voters disapprove of the job President George W. Bush is doing 53 - 41 percent, his lowest approval rating since becoming President. This compares to a 50 - 44 percent disapproval in a May 25 Quinnipiac University poll.

Voters disapprove 60 - 30 percent of the way Congress is doing its job and approve 50 - 39 percent of the way the Supreme Court is doing its job.

“The judges outscore the President and Congress on job performance,” Carroll said.

Lance Armstrong Slams Cost of Iraq War

USA Today reports that "Fighting cancer is new mission" for Lance Armstrong. Armstrong a member of Bush's Cancer Panel since 2002, publicly criticized the cost of the war in Iraq, in comparison to budget for cancer research.

"Funding is tough to come by these days," he says. "The biggest downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a war in Iraq cost a week? A billion? Maybe a billion a day? The budget for the National Cancer Institute is four billion. That has to change. It needs to become a priority again.

"Polls say people are much more afraid of cancer than of a plane flying into their house or a bomb or any other form of terrorism. It is a priority for the American public."

MORE

Senate Finance Committee Passes Kerry Plan to Protect Pensions, Hold CEOs Accountable

Today, in a win to protect worker's pension plans, the Senate Finance Committee has agreed to an amendment sponsored by John Kerry "to hold CEOs and corporate executives accountable for ensuring pension plans are solvent."

The Kerry amendment strengthens the link between the funding of deferred executive compensation - benefits for executives that are often valued at millions of dollars a year after their retirements - to the funding of workers' pension plans.

"It's time Washington understood that a worker's pension is just as important as a CEO's golden parachute. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is there to protect workers when companies go bust, not so companies can break commitments to workers for extra cash-flow in the short term. We've seen what can happen when corporations cook the books, and we need to hold CEOs accountable for actually paying the pensions they've promised their employees," said John Kerry.

Under the Kerry amendment, executives' deferred compensation is restricted if workers' pension plans do not have at least 80 percent of the money to pay out promised benefits.

Several companies' pension programs have been unable to pay promised benefits, in which case the federal government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has had to step in to pay the promised benefits. In June, the PBGC reported that the average underfunded plan is only 69 percent funded. To complicate matters, the PBGC is currently running a record deficit that tops $20 billion.

Politics

Bush Administration Sounding More Like Kerry on Terrorism

From this report in the New York Times, it looks like the Bush administration is trying to reframe the war on terrorism. They are trying to downplay the military aspect and raise the ideological battle. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even said that he “objected to the use of the term ‘war on terrorism’ before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.”

This sounds like the type of talk which Dick Cheney and other Republicans regularly attacked John Kerry for during last year’s campaign. It’s good that they are beginning to realize the importance of the battle for hearts and minds. Now if they would only learn that, when the United States is attacked, we should respond by going to war against those who actually attacked us.

Democratic Divisions

The Democratic Leadership Council’s meeting in Columbus has highlighted some divisions within the Democratic Party which I suspect exist primarily in the blogosphere and are of little concern to the saner members of the party (such as those who overwhelmingly voted to nominate John Kerry last year). If progressive bloggers want to criticize the DLC on principles, that would be one thing. I certainly don’t agree with their members on all issues, although an analysis by Chris Bowers has shown that their members do not actually vote very differently from other Democrats in Congress. What I find particularly absurd is a claim seen in multiple anti-DLC blog posts blaming them for Democratic defeats.

If the ability to win elections has become the question, it is hard to argue with the DLC’s success. The DLC had a President in the White House for eight years. We all know what happened to the favorite candidate of the bloggers in last year’s Democratic primaries, and would expect an even worse showing in a general election campaign. I’ve previously discussed polling showing the advantages of moderation over moving to the left in terms of winning Presidential elections.

The Bull Moose has his own response to the frequent attacks on party moderates from the progressive blogosphere:

Leave it to others to talk about internal divisions within the party or nasty polarizing polemics. While someone from the daily kosy (misspelling intended) confines of Beserkely might utter ominous McCarthyite warnings about the “enemy within”, here in Columbus constructive committed crusaders for progressivism are discussing ways to win back the hearts of the heartland. This is a time for Democrats to be ecumenical rather than suggesting a pious inquisition.

Personally I prefer the big tent, finding that I don’t agree with either the DLC or the progressive wing on all issues. Such diversity of opinion is also necessary to win elections. Some progressive bloggers have complained that the dominance of the DLC has led to a lack of progressive candidates for 2008. If they would get past the biases developed during the 2004 primary battles, they might realize there is one candidate who is sticking to progressive principles, even if he (thankfully) does not accept the far left line on all issues–John Kerry.

Natalie Portman Creating Controversy, Again

Natalie Portman created some controversy during the 2004 election, such as when Good Morning America tried to hide her Kerry shirt behind flowers during an interview. Her next movie, V for Vendetta, scheduled for release in November, may also be controversial for its portrayal of terrorist bombings in the London subways. According to ITN:

The film is set in a futuristic London where Tube lines are destroyed after a devastating war.

Executive producer Joel Silver said: “It’s a great time for this movie. It’s a controversial film and it’s a controversial time. It’s going to make people think.”

Producer David Lloyd added: “In terms of what happened in London it’s important to try and understand what leads people to terrorism. There should be lots of movies made about terrorists.”

Kerry, Senators Urge Congressional Investigation Into Leak of CIA Agent Valerie Plame’s Name

Advance copy to The Democratic Daily...

For Immediate Release:

Today, Senator John Kerry; Senator Carl Levin, Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; and 24 other Senators formally requested that Congress investigate the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity -- a leak a senior administration official described at the time as "meant purely and simply for revenge."

"Americans deserve a Congress that holds Washington accountable for the truth about our national security. Can anyone argue with a straight face that Congress has time to look at steroid use in baseball but doesn't have the will to provide congressional oversight of the leak of a CIA agent's name? It's long past time to stop putting politics ahead of the public good, get to the bottom of a national security breach and restore credibility to Washington," said John Kerry, who authored the letter.

Below is the text of the letter sent today:

Dear Mr. Speaker and Mr. Majority Leader:

The press has reported on information strongly suggesting that senior Administration officials, including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and the Vice President's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, exposed the identity of American intelligence operative Valerie Plame, despite the repeated denial of the White House at the time.

The public revelation of Ms. Plame's identity, whether it amounts to a crime or an irresponsible breach of security protocol that doesn't meet the standard of criminal conduct, almost certainly compromised her intelligence networks and may have compromised the safety and welfare of anyone who had worked with her overseas. As a group of respected former intelligence officials wrote in 2004: "Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources."

The United States Congress has a constitutional responsibility to provide oversight of the executive branch, whether a law has been broken or not. It is time for Congress to fulfill that constitutional responsibility in this matter by initiating a thorough investigation.

We recognize that a criminal investigation is underway and that a special prosecutor continues to present testimony before a grand jury. These actions in no way preclude Congress' responsibility to provide oversight. We urge you to exercise your authority as Congressional leaders by requesting the appropriate committees to begin oversight hearings and an investigation immediately.

Sincerely,

Senators Kerry, Levin, Stabenow, Schumer, Lautenberg, Rockefeller, Reed, Feinstein, Dorgan, Harkin, Kohl, Durbin, Carper, Salazar, Boxer, Inouye, Corzine, Wyden, Mikulski, Obama, Murray, Bayh, Johnson, Clinton, Sarbanes, and Landrieu.

Politics

Bob Graham to be Visiting Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics this Fall

From AP NEWS via the Boston Herald:

Former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham will be among the visiting fellows at Harvard University's Institute of Politics this fall, the school said Tuesday.

Graham, a Florida Democrat and former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, retired last year after pursuing his party's presidential nomination, which was won by Sen. John Kerry. Graham served 17 years in the Senate.

He joins Benjamin Ginsberg, a campaign lawyer for President Bush in 2000 and 2004; Cheryl Jacques, former executive director of the Human Rights Campaign and a longtime Massachusetts state senator; Adam Nagourney, chief political correspondent for The New York Times; former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas; Lisa Davis, top communications counsel for the Clinton-Gore 1996 re-election campaign; and veteran Republican strategist Joe Gaylord.

Fellows lead weekly, not-for-credit study groups on a variety of political topics. The institute is located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Politics

Roberts Exposed as Federalist Society Member

Last week Ed Gillespie was "correcting" news reports that John Roberts had been a member of the conservative Federalist Society as the White House attempted to sanitize Roberts' history to make him appear to be almost a moderate. The Washington Post has found that Roberts has been listed as a member:

Over the weekend, The Post obtained a copy of the Federalist Society Lawyers' Division Leadership Directory, 1997-1998. It lists Roberts, then a partner at the law firm Hogan & Hartson, as a member of the steering committee of the organization's Washington chapter and includes his firm's address and telephone number.

Yesterday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Roberts "has no recollection of being a member of the Federalist Society, or its steering committee." Roberts has acknowledged taking part in some Federalist Society activities, Perino said.

There remains a lot of questions as to what type of justice Roberts would make on the Supreme Court, but one thing's for sure. The Orwellian deception we have seen from the Bush White House for the last five years is extending to his first Supreme Court nomination.

Mickey Mouse is Not Big Brother

We are engaged in a battle for hearts in minds not only in the middle east, but here at home. Liberals are faced with the task of convincing those who do not follow the liberal blogs that we truly are in danger of losses of liberty due to the policies of our current one-party government. That task is only hampered when liberal bloggers mix paranoid delusions along with real complaints, making it easier for the right to argue we should be ignored.

The report in the Tallahassee Democrat last week on the expansion of the use of finger scanning at Walt Disney World resulted in a number of posts at Democratic Underground and in the blogosphere about perceived threats to civil liberties. I see from the Daou Report that these posts continue. It's time to bring this discussion back to reality.

As an annual pass holder, I've had my fingers scanned at Walt Disney World numerous times over the years with no signs of any limitations on my civil liberties, but with considerable cost savings on park admissions (as well as resort rates). Disney has scanned fingers for the simple purpose of making sure that my annual pass is really being used by me, and not by someone else who is attempting to avoid purchasing their own park admission. The biometric scanner measures the geometry of the fingers to ensure it is really me using the pass, but does not record finger prints as some have feared. Without such security measures, the benefits I receive from the annual passes would not be possible.

Disney is now expanding this policy, and has good reason to do so. Unlike the conventional amusement park, visitors at Walt Disney World typically go back and forth between four different theme parks, resorts, and other attractions such as Downtown Disney, the Boardwalk, and water parks. A pass which allows you to come and go as you please is preferable to paying for a single park admission, and paying again should you desire to enter the same or a different theme park the same day. Disney also sells multi-day passes for a considerable discount over a single day admission. In order to offer these types of passes, it is necessary for Disney to be certain that the same person is using the pass each time. The biometric scanners are a sensible solution to this problem. The Disney will also accept alternative identification, so it is possible for those who really oppose such measures to avoid the biometric scanners. This can also be avoided by purchasing single admission passes which eliminate the need for scanning.

Rather than attacking Disney for a practice which is nonintrusive and which is justified by their business needs, it would make far more sense to monitor for any potential abuses. If Disney were to use this information for any other purpose, or if it were to share it with others, there might be cause for alarm. So far there is no evidence that these scans are used for any nefarious purpose.

Some have also complained of the high level of security present in Disney parks. As a parent, I find their level of security reassuring, and that is one of the reasons I have taken so many vacations there. Nobody has suggested that the security of Disney theme parks should be a model for the rest of the country as a whole, although it is hard to argue that the Disney influence on Time Square also hasn't been for the better.

Some liberal bloggers fear that Americans are being conditioned by these scanners so that they will be more willing to provide finger prints to government agencies in the future. I hate to extrapolate from Walt Disney World to the rest of the country, but for those who wish to I have a more palatable vision. Use of the biometric scanner requires quests to extend their second and third digits. In other words, guests entering Disney parks are encouraged to make a peace sign before entering. I wonder if some conservative bloggers will realize this and fear that Americans are being conditioned to be opposed to war.

Librarians Protest Patriot Act Provision

The ability to investigate the library books people are reading has been one of the more controversial aspects of the Patriot Act, and not surprisingly librarians are upset about this. Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association has called this Kafkaesque and protests that, “”It’s very reminiscent of the ’50s and the ‘red scare’ where people showed up at libraries trying to find which political books professors had read, because they were going to be put on a communist list or something.”

Gorman has also questioned whether this provision will actually help fight terrorism, and worries that, since library users are forbidden to be informed that an investigation is underway, it will erode the trust between librarians and readers. In the past, libraries would typically cooperate with subpoenas for library records. Such subpoenas issued by the courts would be public record, as opposed to investigations authorized by the Patriot Act, which makes it a felony for a librarian to inform those being investigated of the release of information.

Frank Rich on Why Gonzales Wasn't Nominated

Frank Rich has an interesting idea as to why Bush didn’t nominate Gonzales to the Supreme Court in a portion of this week’s column:

When the president decided not to replace Sandra Day O’Connor with a woman, why did he pick a white guy and not nominate the first Hispanic justice, his friend Alberto Gonzales? Mr. Bush was surely not scared off by Gonzales critics on the right (who find him soft on abortion) or left (who find him soft on the Geneva Conventions). It’s Mr. Gonzales’s proximity to this scandal that inspires real fear.

As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson’s wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must “preserve all materials” relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. “Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence,” said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months.

Thus is Mr. Gonzales’s Supreme Court aspiration the first White House casualty of this affair. It won’t be the last.

John Kerry Talks With Lance Armstrong

John Kerry thinks Lance Armstrong would make a terrific politician -- but fears he'd be running for the other party.

Watching Armstrong during his warmup for Saturday's time trial, the Democrat from Massachusetts listed the Texan's winning qualities.

"What's made him so special at the Tour de France, and as an athlete, is the level of focus, discipline, intelligence, strategic ability, and obviously, his endurance -- his ability to just take it on and go," Kerry said.

Those qualities would serve Armstrong well in politics, Kerry said. But Armstrong is also friendly with fellow Texan George W. Bush.

"I think he'd be awesome, he'd be a force. I just hope it's for the right party," said Kerry, an avid cyclist and longtime fan of the Tour de France.

Kerry said he had tapes of last year's Tour delivered during his presidential campaign last year.

Full Story

More Pictures

Kerry Calls for Release of Roberts' Documents

Kerry Seeks Release of Roberts' Documents
- By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 22, 2005

(07-22) 16:53 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Democratic Sen. John Kerry urged the White House on Friday to release "in their entirety" all documents and memos from Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' tenure in two Republican administrations.

"We cannot do our duty if either Judge Roberts or the Bush administration hides elements of his professional record," said the Massachusetts senator who was his party's presidential candidate last year.

Opening what is expected to be a broader attempt by Democrats to pry loose documents, Kerry issued his statement as Roberts made the latest in a series of courtesy calls on senators in advance of confirmation hearings.

Democratic officials also said Friday they want access to all material regarding Roberts at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. Roberts served in the White House counsel's office from 1982-1986. He was principal deputy solicitor general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

The Reagan Library, in Simi Valley, Calif., holds an unknown number of documents relating to Roberts, arranged by subject matter. While material in some subjects are designated on the library's Web site as available to the public, most is not.

Among the publicly unavailable material is an entry marked "Specter, Senator." Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Roberts' nomination, beginning either in late August or early September.

The Democratic officials said Democrats also are eager to learn details of Roberts' activities in Florida in 2000, at the time of the state's contested presidential recount. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to provide details.

An attorney in private practice at the time, Roberts flew to the state at his own expense to offer advice to Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, as the governor's older brother tried to clinch the election over then-Vice President Al Gore.

The Democratic officials described the search for information as routine in the case of any nominee to the Supreme Court.

Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, declined to confirm the disclosure. She said that in general, Democrats intend to seek material relating to Roberts' career.

Kerry is not a member of the committee. But he nonetheless injected himself into the debate at the end of a week in which Bush appeared to catch Democrats off guard by picking a court candidate with conservative credentials, yet one with little judicial experience, and thus, little public paper trail. Roberts would replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who often provided the decisive vote in split decisions, sometimes siding with conservative justices and sometimes with the liberals.

"The American people should know whether John Roberts will protect their constitutional rights if confirmed as a justice to the court," Kerry said in a statement.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asked on ABC earlier this week about providing documents to the Senate, said, "I'm not going to prejudge ... at this juncture what the Senate may request and what information that the executive branch is ultimately going to provide to the Senate."

Roberts sat down with senators in their offices for a third day Friday, making the rounds of those who will sit in judgment of his nomination. He has additional visits scheduled for next week.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, said he voted against Roberts in committee for his appeals court seat two years ago partly because he didn't feel the nominee fully answered senators' questions.

"I urged Judge Roberts, as far as he can legally within the canons of ethics, to be forthcoming and honest with his answers," Durbin said after their meeting. "If he is open and honest, I think it will go a long way."

There was upbeat Republican talk after Roberts' meetings with Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and GOP Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Sessions, whose own nomination to the federal bench was scuttled by Democrats before his election to the Senate, said Roberts "has the very natural qualities to make a superior judge."

Roberts Expected to Be Friendly to Business

I’ve often discussed the differences between the pro-business and social conservatives and have noted that O’Connor appeared more moderate than current Republicans as she was a gift from Ronald Reagan to the business community as opposed to the religious right.

The Kiplinger Letter also considers John Roberts to be friendly to business:

John Roberts won’t be a justice who always sides with business. But he will most of the time, reliably backing companies in labor relations disputes and limiting the reach of regulators. He’s also likely to try to rein in many class-action lawsuits and to favor uniform national standards over individual state rules.

Roberts understands business’s problems…the daily travails plus what it’s like to compete in the local or global marketplace. A former corporate lawyer, Roberts is as comfortable in the boardroom as he is in the courtroom. He has represented scores of companies, from automakers to HMOs to high-technology pioneers in Silicon Valley.

That’s enough to win the endorsement of key business groups. They will support him but be careful not to show too much enthusiasm, lest it arouse suspicion that he’ll be a tool of business interests.

Roberts will be easily confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, despite the opposition of some Democrats and any number of groups championing one social issue or another. Hearings will be exhaustive, and there’ll be complaints when Roberts refuses to get very specific about where he’d come down on individual cases or hot-button issues such as abortion. But there’s no real doubt about the outcome.

Their description sounds quite a bit like the description of O’Connor I discussed previously with regards to business interests. Until the hearings, when hopefully we will receive some answers as to Roberts’ beliefs, we will not know if he is really similar to O’Connor. That would be far preferable to a social conservative who would act to reduce our liberties. Roberts has represented socially conservative positions as an attorney, but it is unclear to what degree he would support overturning existing law on the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, even if Roberts holds positions similar to those of O’Connor on economic issues, there is no guarantee that Bush didn’t come up with a stealth candidate who will also push the goals of social conservatives.

Kerry Renews Fight to Assist Small Businesses Hurt by Drought

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), lead Democrat on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, yesterday re-introduced the Small Business Drought Relief Act to provide emergency aid to non-farm-related small businesses suffering economically from the severe drought conditions throughout the nation. The small businesses assisted by this legislation are struggling businesses that have been denied access to disaster loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA).

“Farmers and ranchers are not the only small business owners whose livelihoods are at risk when a drought hits their communities,” Kerry said. “The impact can be just as devastating to rafting businesses, marinas, and bait and tackle shops. Sadly, these small-businesses owners cannot get help through the SBA’s disaster loan program because of something taxpayers hate about government -- bureaucracy.”

The SBA does not treat all drought victims the same. The Agency only helps those small businesses whose income is tied to farming and agriculture. The Small Business Drought Relief Act will close this loophole, giving all small businesses hurt by drought access to low-interest loans through the SBA. The loans will be for business-related purposes, including for paying bills and making payroll until business returns to normal.

Currently there are 19 states suffering from severe to extreme drought. Because many small businesses across the country continue to face financial hardships caused by factors beyond their control, Kerry has again called for immediate consideration of the Small Business Drought Relief Act to prevent further economic strain.

The legislation has previously received widespread bipartisan support in Congress and among Governors and small businesses. During the 108th Congress, the Small Business Drought Relief Act (S.318) had 19 Republican and Democratic cosponsors and passed the Senate unanimously. In the 107th Congress, Kerry’s legislation (S.2734) had 25 Republican and Democratic cosponsors and passed the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

If Only Nov 2004 Had Been Different

Tom Curry of MSNBC points out "The true dimensions of Kerry’s loss last November are about to become clearer."

At a press conference Thursday to urge the Senate to grill Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts on his views, Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., stood with the senior senator from Massachusetts, Sen. Edward Kennedy. “I wonder what it would be like if the junior senator from Massachusetts had been making this appointment,” Watt mused ruefully.

Watt said he was joining forces with Kennedy at the press conference “to emphasize how valuable one vote can be on the United States Supreme Court.”

TedKennedy.com has a couple of photos from Kennedy's meeting with Roberts here. And there is more on the press conference with Mel Watts and Kennedy's statement here.

CAFTA Would Cost Taxpayers

The Congressional Budget Office is reporting that CAFTA would "cost taxpayers $50 million a year in loan forfeitures by sugar farmers."

An administration official said Thursday that the analysis was unrealistic and that there would be virtually no cost under sugar provisions in the deal.

The CBO released its estimate as House leaders planned for a vote next week on the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Overall, CAFTA would cost the U.S. about $4.4 billion over the next 10 years, primarily in lost tariffs, the CBO said.

Under CAFTA, those countries could ship more sugar to the United States. The CBO said the influx would push prices down and force farmers to forfeit government loans on their crops, costing taxpayers on average about $50 million annually through 2015.

CAFTA is a raw deal for America and Central America. For more information about CAFTA or to contact your Representatives to ask them to oppose CAFTA, visit AmericansForFairTrade.org.

Related CAFTA Posts:
John Kerry: CAFTA is a Giant Step Backward

AP News Reveals Labor Department Cover Up on CAFTA Study; Senate Finance Committee Sends CAFTA Vote to Senate Floor

Rathergate Related Complaint Against Kerry, CBS Dismissed

The claim by the Center for Individual Freedom that the Kerry Campaign was involved in Rathergate has been thrown out by the FEC.

Election officials have thrown out a complaint against John Kerry's presidential campaign and CBS over a now-discredited story that questioned President Bush's National Guard service.

The Federal Election Commission, in a 6-0 ruling, said there was no reason to believe the allegations raised by the Center for Individual Freedom over the story that aired on CBS' "60 Minutes Wednesday" in September.

The decision disclosed this week was apparently reached unanimously due to press exemption protection.

The FEC vote, taken last month, was disclosed this week in a statement by the commission's three Republican members explaining why they joined the FEC's three Democrats in rejecting the complaint.

The GOP commissioners - Michael Toner, Bradley Smith and David Mason - wrote that they believe the CBS story is protected by the media's exemption from campaign finance laws.

"It is not for this agency to determine what is a 'legitimate news story' or who is a 'responsible journalist,'" the three wrote.

"Allegations of coordination are of no import when applying the press exemption," they said. "What a press entity says in broadcasts, news stories and editorials is absolutely protected under the press exemption."

Perhaps CBS will re-think the firing of those involved...

Kerry and Members of Congress Urge EPA to Improve Environmental Justice Plan

Bush Plan fails to address real environmental justice problems facing our nation’s communities

Several members of Congress — led by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and U.S. Representatives Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.) and Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.) — today are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to drastically improve the shortcomings in the agency’s environmental justice plan. In a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, nearly 80 legislators asked the EPA to reverse its failed course on environmental justice and start putting forth a real plan to improve the dangerous effects of pollution in our most vulnerable communities.

Read the entire statement and the letter here.

Mama Bush Pitches Social Security

Bush's Social Security reform plans have fallen by the wayside. Bush has had very little success in promoting his plans. His approval ratings have plummeted and there is a wealth of mounting detractors for the Bush agenda. But, of course that doesn't stop Bush from seeking to control his agenda and he's on the road again, with Mama Bush at his side, promoting Social Security reform to invitation only audiences.

Calling his mother, Barbara Bush, "my favorite senior citizen," Bush said that the new prescription drug program under Medicare — which takes effect in January — would benefit nearly every one who signed up.

Bush's trip came the same week in which House and Senate leaders threw in the towel on trying to get committee action on the legislation before the August congressional recess.

They cited the press of other business, including energy legislation and a Central American free trade pact. But Bush's plan faced solid Democratic opposition and a substantial amount of GOP skepticism.

Can Mommy Dearest save the day for Bush's Social Security plan, let alone rescue him from his sliding approval ratings? Personally, I think the ship is sinking...

Former Intelligence Officers Criticize GOP on Plame Coverup

Not surprisingly, the CIA is not happy about the White House's act of leaking the identity of one of them for political gain. They aren't called Central Intelligence for nothing--they can see through all the spin. Eleven former intelligence officers are speaking up and stating that leaking Plame's identity may have damaged national security and threatens the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering per AP reports:

In a statement to congressional leaders, the former officers said the Republican National Committee has circulated talking points focusing on the idea that Plame was not working undercover and deserved no protection.

There are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who work at a desk in the Washington, D.C., area every day who are undercover as Plame was when her identity was leaked, the 11 former officers said in a three-page statement.

The former officers' statement comes amid revelations that top presidential aide Karl Rove was involved in leaking Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, and that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, also was a source for Cooper on the Plame story.

The leaking of Plame's identity followed public criticism leveled against the Bush White House by Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson. He suggested the administration had manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq. A criminal investigation into the leaks is ongoing.

"Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs," the 11 said. "In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor.

Helen Thomas Interviewed on the White House and the Press

NPR’s Fresh Air has an interesting interview with Helen Thomas today. I missed the first part, but did hear some interesting comments from her near the end. Thomas discussed how Bush avoids answering tough questions by restricting who can ask and not allowing follow up questions. If that doesn’t work, reporters see evidence of his temper. Thomas has not been allowed to ask Bush questions since she asked him a series of questions as to why he does not respect the separation of church and state which he was not prepared to answer.

The audio will be available later today, and I hope to get a transcript in the next few days for the Kerry Reference Library.

Waxman Call for Hearings on Exposure of Plame's Identity

House And Senate Democratic Panels To Hold Oversight Hearing on Friday On National Security Consequences Of Disclosing The Identity Of A Covert Intelligence Officer

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Democratic Special Investigations Division of the Government Reform Committee and the Senate Democratic Policy Committee will conduct a joint hearing at 10 a.m., Friday, July 22, to examine the national security implications of disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence officer. The hearing will be co-chaired by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Government Reform Committee, and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Senate DPC Chairman.

The panel of witnesses will include former intelligence officers who discuss the impact of such disclosures, based on decades of experience and service to our country on intelligence and national security matters.

Details on Friday’s hearing follow:

WHO: Members of Congress: Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), and other members of the House and Senate.

Witnesses will include:

Larry Johnson - former CIA analyst

Jim Marcinkowski - former CIA case officer

David McMichael - former CIA case officer

Mel Goodman - former senior CIA analyst

WHAT: Oversight hearing on the impact of disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence officer

WHEN: 10:00 a.m., Friday, July 22, 2005

WHERE: Room 138 Dirksen Senate Office Building

WHY: To examine the national security consequences of disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence officer.

Report from Congressman Waxman’s office, via The Stakeholder

Despite Rove Claims, Plame’s Identity Marked As Secret

There is no longer any question that Karl Rove was one of the members of the Bush Administration who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity. There has been some question as to whether Rove’s action are sufficient for conviction. For example, there have been claims that Rove did not realize that Plame’s CIA connection was secret. Another Rove defense has fallen apart.

The Washington Post reports that Plame’s identity “was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the ’secret’ level.” The Post also reports that:

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked “(S)” for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Democratic Leaders Warn of Bush Administration Failings on WMD

Democratic Leaders Address the Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction; Reid andPelosi Receive Report from National Security Advisory Group

WASHINGTON, July 20 /U.S. Newswire/ — The failure of action by the Bush Administration to fully protect Americans from the terrorist threat of weapons of mass destruction was addressed today by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who stood with members of the National Security Advisory Group, chaired by former Defense Secretary William J. Perry. Perry delivered a report to the leaders titled, “Worst Weapons in Worst Hands: U.S. Inaction on the Nuclear Terror Threat Since 9/11, And A Path Of Action,” which details the significant shortcomings by the Bush Administration to contain these weapons and materials and offers key recommendations that will help to protect Americans from this threat.

“The most important threat we face is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, yet this Administration’s missteps in Iraq have made tackling that threat so much harder,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. “This report shows we must keep our eye on the ball.”

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said: “The report concludes that the U.S. is fighting a global war on terrorism, but not a global war on weapons of mass destruction. The Administration has failed policies on weapons programs in North Korea and Iran, on securing loose nuclear material in Russia and elsewhere, and on strengthening the world’s nuclear nonproliferation system,” “The lack of leadership by the Bush Administration in these areas has made the American people less safe than they should be.”

The Democratic Leaders discussed their resolve to do everything possible to protect Americans from terrorism both here and abroad. As the report outlines, the Bush Administration’s failure to remain focused on the nuclear threat posed by both North Korea and Iran has significantly increased the risk that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the hands of terrorists and greatly increase instability in two already unstable regions. The Democratic Leaders embraced the key recommendations to reverse the setbacks suffered with both of these regimes; expedite the process to secure all loose nuclear material, and strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“I urge the President and his advisors to consider carefully the plan for action described by Secretary Perry, Secretary Albright, and the National Security Advisory Group in this excellent report,” Pelosi said. “Protecting the American people is a bipartisan responsibility, and Democrats stand ready to work with Republicans to protect Americans from terrorism.”

Reid said: “It’s time we did everything we can to protect Americans and focus in on the threats we face,” Reid said. “This report makes very serious recommendations, and Democrats intend to use them to put this country back on the right path. I hope my Republican colleagues will join us in taking up these recommendations and keeping Americans safe.”

The members of the National Security Advisory Group are William J. Perry, Madeleine K. Albright, Graham T. Allison, Samuel R. Berger, Ashton B. Carter, Wesley K. Clark, Thomas E. Donilon, Michele A. Flournoy, John D. Podesta, Susan E. Rice, John M. Shalikashvili, Wendy R. Sherman, Elizabeth D. Sherwood- Randall, and James B. Steinberg.

—

WORST WEAPONS IN WORST HANDS

Report by National Security Advisory Group

The gravest threat facing Americans today is a terrorist detonating a nuclear bomb in one of our cities. The National Security Advisory Group (NSAG) judges that the Bush Administration is taking insufficient actions to counter this threat. The Administration is fighting a global war on terror, but not yet a global war on WMD.

REPORT ON ACTIONS TO COUNTER WMD AFTER 9/11

Actions Taken:

The invasion of Iraq was the principal action taken to counter WMD after 9/11, but, in fact, no WMD were found.

The renunciation of WMD by Qadaffi’s Libya was a major success of U.S. and British cooperative diplomacy extending over two administrations.

The exposure of the A.Q. Khan network by member states of the Proliferation Security Initiative stopped some trafficking in WMD technology, but an unknown amount is unaccounted for and the black market may still be functioning.

Serious Setbacks:

North Korea quadrupled its nuclear arsenal with impunity, and may now be so emboldened by U.S. acquiescence that it cannot be turned back.

Iran has retained its nuclear program for four years since 9/11, with the U.S. response limited to rhetoric, finally giving belated and tepid support for a European-led initiative. Iranian nuclear ambitions have become more entrenched because of U.S. inaction.

Inaction:

Efforts to secure “loose nukes,” such as the Nunn-Lugar program, are little changed from their pre-9/11 levels.

Diplomatic efforts to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty were touted by President Bush but have not produced results.

—

ADVISORY GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS

Reverse the Setbacks U.S. Nuclear Security has Already Suffered from North Korea and Iran:

North Korea might still be stopped diplomatically through the Six-Party talks, but to have a chance, President Bush must put an end to the debate within his administration between those who favor diplomacy and those who favor pressure. Diplomacy or pressure is not a choice; it is a sequence. The U.S. should devise a Plan A for diplomatic success to employ first, and then a contingent Plan B for pressure to use if diplomacy fails. Plan B serves two purposes: to aid Plan A by showing North Korea the penalty for failing to end its nuclear program; and to create a realistic prospect of containing and ultimately eliminating the nuclear threat from North Korea.

On Iran, to achieve any deal the U.S. government must settle on a course of action. A five-year global moratorium on all new enrichment and reprocessing, as called for by Mohammed ElBaradei, is the key. Will require international cooperation in assembling both a bundle of carrots and an arsenal of sticks. U.S., the EU3, Russia, and the IAEA need to present Iran with a bargain, packaged as an offer Iran cannot refuse. It would offer cover for Iran to comply with an international obligation without explicitly yielding to American or EU3 demands.

Expedite the Securing of all “Loose Nukes”:

Move from assistance to partnership.

Accelerate and strengthen U.S.-Russian cooperation. Build Russian commitment to sustain high levels of security once international assistance ends. Agree on what levels of security are needed and what standards should be met. Decide on specific deadlines for when all loose Russian nuclear weapons and materials will be contained and secured. Resolve remaining access and liability issues. Consolidate nuclear stockpiles. Develop nuclear “security culture.” Exchange “best practices” for securing nukes. Work together on nuclear security in the rest of the world to ensure that every weapon and every kilogram of material worldwide is secured and accounted for.

Improve Nunn-Lugar. Streamline to remove bureaucratic obstacles. Establish who is in charge.

Strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty System:

The United States should adopt four goals as U.S. policy; develop specific proposals for the U.S. to achieve each goal; and seek international support for each proposal. The four goals should be: preventing nuclear terrorism, stopping the proliferation of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capability, strengthening verification and compliance of the NPT, and preventing “breakout” of the NPT.

Democratic Daily Blog Opens

The Democratic Daily Blog has opened today at http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com .

Writers for the blog include and Pamela Leavey and myself, with others from the old Kerry Blog also around.

As with Light Up The Darkness, which is closing at the end of this month, The Democratic Daily Blog will continue to present news on the important issues of the day, including news on John Kerry.

Of course we will continue to present information here on The Unofficial Kerry for President Blog. The Kerry Reference Library will continue to present the text of articles discussed in the blogs along with additional articles.

Dean Misquoted

I don’t usually bother to refute nonsense found on right wing blogs, but will make an exception here after seeing it included at Daou Report. Ankle Biting Pundits posts a claim that Dean “called Republicans bigots.”

I went to check their link, wading through several pages where Philly.com tried to get me to sign up for tons of unwanted email offers. Ultimately I got to the actual story. Guess what. No use of the word “bigot.”

Here’s what they really report about what Dean said. Can’t find anything incorrect there:

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean told the National Council of La Raza in Philadelphia today that he expected the Republicans to “scapegoat” immigrants in the 2006 election.

In a speech to the annual convention of hispanic leaders, Dean said the GOP tried to generate fears about blacks through the quota issue in the 2002 election and about gays through the marriage issue last year.

“In 2006, it’s going to be immigrants,” he said. “You wait and see.”

Republican chairman Kenneth Mehlman, in his own address to the group, did not respond to Dean’s comments directly. He later told reporters that the allegation was “laughable” and said that President Bush had put together what Mehlman called “the most diverse administration in history.”

James Doohan 1920-2005

I first heard of the death of James Doohan (who played Scotty on Star Trek) on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Sure there’s the Supreme Court nomination, White House scandals, and other news, but they still devoted time for a tribute to James Doohan. That is just one small measure of his importance to our culture.

This was certainly not the most significant tribute which Doohan received during his life. For example, Neil Armstrong has credited him for giving him the inspiration to go into space. Scotty died on July 20, the anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.

As Scotty, Doohan provided an example that there is no problem which could not be fixed (even if we didn’t understand all the technobabble). Star Trek provides a welcome contrast to the problems we face today. In the Star Trek world, as opposed to Bush World, reason and science always triumphs over religious fanaticism. We see a philosophy of non-intervention in the affairs of others rather than senseless wars, and support for freedom over tyranny and injustice.

Roberts' Role in 2000 Election

While this might not be a direct payback for a favor, it does look like John Roberts was of great help to George Bush in the legal maneuvers to steal the 2000 election. The Dallas News Reports that, "Although his name did not appear on the briefs, three sources who were personally aware of Judge Roberts' role said he gave Republican Gov. Jeb Bush critical advice on how the Florida Legislature could constitutionally name George W. Bush the winner at a time when Republicans feared that if the recount were to continue the courts might force a different choice."

More Reports on John Roberts' Record

There's more information on Roberts in this report from Alliance for Justice prepared in 2003. (Report in pdf format).

Statement from the Alliance for Justice:

ROBERTS NOMINATION RAISES CONCERNS--NEEDS FULL REVIEW BY SENATE

07.19.2005, Washington, DC — Washington, DC-- "At this time, Alliance for Justice cannot support Judge Roberts' elevation to the Supreme Court. While we will be conducting a complete analysis of his record on and off the bench, an initial review has led to serious concerns about whether he will be fair, independent and will protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans.

"As expressed in one case where he would have invalidated a provision of the Endangered Species Act, his exceedingly restrictive view of federal law-making authority more restrictive than the current Supreme Court's could threaten a wide swath of workplace, civil rights, public safety and environmental protections. In his years of service as a political appointee in the administrations of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Judge Roberts also helped craft legal policies that sought to weaken school desegregation efforts, the reproductive rights of women, environmental protections, church-state separation and the voting rights of African Americans.

"One wonders why, unlike some reported to have been on the president's short list, Judge Roberts has the support of not only mainstream conservatives, but the radical right as well. Let?s be clear: Judge Roberts is not a stealth nominee, because the president's inner circle knows his views well, even if Americans do not. And given the administration's track record of selecting ideologically-driven, divisive candidates for the bench, it would be unsurprising if Judge Roberts embraces a judicial philosophy that is insensitive to the rights and protections that, over the past century, have brought us closer to realizing the twin ideals of freedom and equality. We hope he doesn't.

"We are eager to find out more about Judge Roberts. We expect the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty to fully vet Judge Roberts' qualifications, background, and constitutional philosophy to see if he meets the high standards for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. As much as anything, the Senate needs to get a firmer grasp on Judge Roberts' judicial philosophy. His limited judicial experience, coupled with his work at the Justice Department in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, send some distressing signals. Furthermore, there remain many unanswered questions about his views on critical issues.

"The American people must know the whole truth before the Senate decides whether Judge Roberts should sit on our nation?s highest court for life. To that end, the Senate must vigorously exercise its advice and consent duties, and John Roberts must be fully forthcoming. Our rights and freedoms call for nothing less."

More information in this press release from People for the American Way. (Text at link or in comments)

NARAL on the Nomination of John Roberts

NARAL Pro-Choice America: Judge John Roberts an Unsuitable Choice for Supreme Court Justice

Washington, DC – NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation’s leading advocate for personal privacy and a woman’s right to choose, has announced that it will oppose Judge John Roberts, President Bush’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice, John Roberts, is a divisive nominee with a record of seeking to impose a political agenda on the courts, rather than a unifier Americans could trust to preserve our personal freedoms like the right to privacy and a woman's right to choose.

“Americans deserve a nominee who respects this country’s culture of freedom and personal responsibility, and who understands the profound effect his decisions have on our everyday lives,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We are extremely disappointed that President Bush has chosen such a divisive nominee for the highest court in the nation, rather than a consensus nominee who would protect individual liberty and uphold Roe v. Wade. President Bush has consciously chosen the path of confrontation, and he should know that we, and the 65% of Americans who support Roe, are ready for the battle ahead.”

Some of the lowlights of Judge Robert’s background include:

• As Deputy Solicitor General, Roberts argued in a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court (in a case that did not implicate Roe v. Wade) that “[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled…. [T]he Court’s conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion… finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.”
• In Rust v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court considered whether Department of Health and Human Services regulations limiting the ability of Title X recipients to engage in abortion-related activities violated various constitutional provisions. Roberts, appearing on behalf of HHS as Deputy Solicitor General, argued that this domestic gag rule did not violate constitutional protections.
• Roberts, again as Deputy Solicitor General, filed a “friend of the court” brief for the United States supporting Operation Rescue and six other individuals who routinely blocked access to reproductive health care clinics, arguing that the protesters’ behavior did not amount to discrimination against women even though only women could exercise the right to seek an abortion.
• The Court was so accustomed to the Solicitor General and the Deputy Solicitor General arguing for the overturn of Roe that during John Roberts’s oral argument before the Supreme Court in Bray, a Justice Asked, “Mr. Roberts, in this case are you asking that Roe v. Wade be overruled?” He responded, “No, your honor, the issue doesn’t even come up.” To this the justice said, “Well, that hasn’t prevented the Solicitor General from taking that position in prior cases.”

Contact:

Ted Miller, 202.973.3032

Bush v. Choice Blog on the Nomination of John Roberts

Bush will nominate Roberts

We've just gotten word that President Bush will nominate conservative John Roberts to fill swing vote O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. We'll keep you posted as things develop, but here are a few lowlights to get started:

1. As Deputy Solicitor General, Roberts argued in a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court (in a case that did not implicate Roe v. Wade) that “[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled…. [T]he Court’s conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion… finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.”

2. In Rust v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court considered whether Department of Health and Human Services regulations limiting the ability of Title X recipients to engage in abortion-related activities violated various constitutional provisions. Roberts, appearing on behalf of HHS as Deputy Solicitor General, argued that this domestic gag rule did not violate constitutional protections.

3. Roberts, again as Deputy Solicitor General, filed a “friend of the court” brief for the United States supporting Operation Rescue and six other individuals who routinely blocked access to reproductive health care clinics, arguing that the protesters’ behavior did not amount to discrimination against women even though only women could exercise the right to seek an abortion.

More Statements on the Nomination of John Roberts

"The president has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry. The Senate must review Judge Roberts' record to determine if he has a demonstrated commitment to the core American values of freedom, equality and fairness." - Senate minority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"Judge Roberts is the kind of outstanding nominee that will make America proud. He embodies the qualities America expects in a justice on its highest court: someone who is fair, intelligent, impartial and committed to faithfully interpreting the Constitution and the law." - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

"We are extremely disappointed that President Bush has chosen such a divisive nominee for the highest court in the nation, rather than a consensus nominee who would protect individual liberty and uphold Roe v. Wade." - NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Roberts "rules based on the application of existing laws and specific facts of the cases before him, rather than making new laws or creating new policies based on personal opinion." - Sean Rushton, director of the conservative Committee for Justice.

"I look forward to the Committee's findings so that I can make an informed decision about whether Judge Roberts is truly a guardian of the rule of law who puts fairness and justice before ideology." - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

"Senate Democrats, especially those seeking re-election next year, should know that we will be watching them carefully. If they again attempt to attack a nominee's faith or pro-life convictions, their constituents will know about it and they will be held accountable." - Father Frank Pavone, national director, Priests for Life.

"John Roberts' record raises serious concerns as well as questions about where he stands on crucial legal and constitutional issues. Replacing O'Connor with someone who is not committed to upholding Americans' rights, liberties and legal protections would be a constitutional catastrophe." - Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way.

"He's the kind of judge that all of us want - someone committed to applying the law impartially rather than legislating from the bench." - Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

"The burden is on a nominee to the Supreme Court to prove that he is worthy, not on the Senate to prove he is unworthy." - Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

"Liberal pressure groups will insist that Senate Democrats filibuster against Judge Roberts, unless he pledges in advance to vote against allowing elected legislators to place meaningful limits on abortion." - Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.

"Without prejudging the nominee, I do believe Judge Roberts' record raises questions about his commitment to the right to privacy, protection of the environment and other important issues." - Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

"I'm hopeful that in the coming weeks we can avoid vicious character assassinations and attacks in this confirmation process." - Sen. George Allen, R-Va.

"The president had an opportunity to unite the country with his Supreme Court nomination, to nominate an individual in the image of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, by putting forward John Roberts' name, President Bush has chosen a more controversial nominee and guaranteed a more controversial confirmation process." - Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

"I can't help but think that he will continue to impress as a person of fairness, thoughtfulness and just the kind of judge who will bring a nonpolitical approach to judging. ... I think he's going to be well received." - Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

"This is a very, very activist court. I want to know whether he's going to be like that, somebody who would eagerly and willingly overturn settled law." - Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

"This is a task so important that partisan politics must be set aside." - Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

"I urge the Senate to move swiftly to hold hearings and give Judge Roberts an up or down vote. Quick action will ensure that both branches - the Congress and the Supreme Court - can return to their normal process without long, distracting partisan disruption." - House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

"There were a lot of unknowns about Justice Souter. He really was almost a blank slate. It's not the same with Judge Roberts. He has clearly enunciated his view of his judicial philosophy." - Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council.

Salon on the Nomination of John Roberts

John Roberts: The early read

What do we know about John Roberts, the 50-year-old D.C. Circuit judge George W. Bush has chosen as his nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor?

We start with the basics. He's a Harvard Law School graduate with solid Republican credentials. He clerked for Henry Friendly and for William Rehnquist, and he worked as associate counsel to Ronald Reagan and as deputy solicitor general for George H.W. Bush around stints in private practice Hogan & Hartson. The former president nominated Roberts to a spot on the D.C. Circuit in 1992, but his nomination died when Bill Clinton was elected president. George W. Bush tried again in 2001. Roberts was eventually confirmed by the Senate on a voice vote in 2003.

Roberts' record as an advocate for Republican judges offers plenty of low-hanging fruit for partisans on both sides of the aisle. While the right is already praising Roberts as a solid conservative pick, progressive groups like the Alliance for Justice have argued in the past that Roberts has shown a "record of hostility to the rights of women and minorities." Arguing on behalf of the government for a roll back of abortion rights, Roberts has stated that there is "no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution" for Roe v. Wade. Roberts wrote the government's brief in Rust v. Sullivan, the 1991 case in which the Supreme Court held that government could prohibit doctors and clinics who receive federal funds from discussing abortion with their patients. In his brief, Roberts said: "We continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

In other cases -- sometimes as an advocate for the government, sometimes as a lawyer in private practice -- Roberts argued that the Supreme Court should invalidate a federal affirmative action program; that the Constitution permits religious ceremonies at public high school graduations; and that environmental groups lacked the right to sue under the Endangered Species Act.

In his confirmation hearings, Roberts will surely draw a distinction between his work as an advocate on behalf of clients and his work as a judge; Alberto Gonzales made the same argument when he tried to distance himself from some of the less savory aspects of his tenure as White House counsel when Bush nominated him to serve as attorney general.

But there are at least some signs that Roberts the judge isn't all that different from Roberts the lawyer. Although Roberts has sat on the D.C. Circuit for only two years, he has, in that short period of time, joined in a series of pro-prosecution criminal decisions; rejected a civil rights lawsuit by a young girl who was arrested, handcuffed and hauled off to jail "all for," as he put it, "eating a single French fry in a Metrorail station"; and concurred in a decision that prohibited veterans of the first Gulf War from suing Iraq during the country's reconstruction.

Progressive groups will line up quickly against Roberts' nomination, and the process has already begun. In a statement just emailed to reporters, NARAL-Pro Choice America President Nancy Keenan said that her group will oppose the nomination. "We are extremely disappointed that President Bush has chosen such a divisive nominee for the highest court in the nation, rather than a consensus nominee who would protect individual liberty and uphold Roe v. Wade," Keenan said. "President Bush has consciously chosen the path of confrontation."

Statement From Howard Dean on the Nomination of John Roberts

Statement by DNC Chairman on the Nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, July 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Faced with a growing scandal surrounding the involvement of Deputy White House chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby in the leaking the identity of a covert CIA operative, President Bush announced his nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court late this evening. Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean today issued the following statement on the nomination:

"It is disappointing that when President Bush had the chance to bring the country together, he instead turned to a nominee who may have impressive legal credentials, but also has sharp partisan credentials that cannot be ignored.

"Democrats take very seriously the responsibility to protect the individual rights of all Americans and are committed to ensuring that ideological judicial activists are not appointed to the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee will now have the opportunity to see if Judge Roberts can put his partisanship aside, and live up to a Supreme Court Justice's duty to uphold the rights and freedoms of every American and the promise of equal justice for all."

Statement From Edward Kennedy on the Nomination of John Roberts

STATEMENT BY SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY ON NOMINATION OF JOHN ROBERTS TO U.S. SUPREME COURT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Laura Capps/Melissa Wagoner (202) 224-2633

This is a critical moment for this country?s future. If John Roberts is confirmed, he will have a vital role in setting the direction of the country for generations to come.

The Supreme Court is often the last line of defense for the freedoms and liberties for hundreds of millions of Americans. Few responsibilities of the Senate are more important than reviewing the qualifications of nominees for the Supreme Court. Every Senator, Republican or Democrats, has a responsibility to determine whether Mr. Roberts deserves to join the currently closely divided court when so much is at stake. It?s wrong for any Senator to be a rubberstamp.

All of us in the Senate who have been through this process know the importance of this process. Every American ought to be asking some tough questions right now about whether Mr. Roberts is fit to serve on the highest court in the land.

Will he protect average Americans when their rights are abused by powerful corporations?

Will he ensure that private companies aren?t allowed to pollute our rivers and lakes and our air?

Will he protect and preserve the progress we?ve made on equal opportunity and fairness for all Americans?

Will he separate his personal ideology from the rule of law and protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans, not just the powerful or the wealthy.

Justice O?Connor set a high standard. She tried to bring the nation together, and she respected the Constitution. She was a mainstream conservative who used her ability and respect for the rule of law to find solutions that would strengthen us as a nation, as the Constitution intended.

Mr. Roberts must demonstrate that he meets that standard before the American people, and he will have an opportunity to do so before the Senate Judiciary Committee before the coming weeks.

No nominee, especially a nominee who is well known to have argued ideological positions on issues important to the American people, should be confirmed without full and candid disclosure and discussion of those positions and their importance to him.

I welcome the opportunity to question Mr. Roberts, and believe that the American people will know at the end of this process whether he should advance to the Supreme Court.

We have a responsibility to the Constitution and to the American people and their children and grandchildren to get this right.

Statement From John Kerry on the Nomination of John Roberts

"Americans deserve a Supreme Court that is fair, independent, ethical and served by justices committed to our constitutional freedoms rather than an ideological agenda. Justice O'Connor refused to use her position as a means to advance a political agenda. In replacing her, we must be confident Judge Roberts will do the same.

"We know Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O’Connor, and the White House has sent a clear signal. There are serious questions that must be answered involving Judge Roberts’ judicial philosophy as demonstrated over his short time on the appellate court. The Senate must learn whether he has clear consistent principles upholding Constitutional standards like civil rights, the right to privacy and Roe v. Wade.

"The American people expect the Senate to fulfill its duty to conduct a thorough, independent review of any nominee, and I intend to do exactly that. I hope Judge Roberts and the White House are forthcoming about his qualifications, background and constitutional philosophy so the Senate can act with all the facts. There’s too much at stake to do anything less."

Boston Globe: Kerry Raising Millions

Kerry raising millions for Democrats

By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer | July 19, 2005

WASHINGTON --Sen. John Kerry, who last November lost his bid for the White House, has spent the last seven months raising millions of dollars for Democrats across the country.

According to staff and campaign reports, Kerry has either contributed or raised more than $4.3 million for candidates and congressional committees since the beginning of the year. That total includes nearly $3 million in direct contributions, and $1.4 million in fund-raising that he directed through his Web site and his campaign for candidates and for troops overseas through the USO.

Shifting his organization from a nationwide presidential campaign to a fund-raising effort, Kerry raised $2.1 million in the last quarter through his Senate re-election committee and his political action committee, Keeping America's Promise, according to spokeswoman Katherine Lister.

Kerry, who is considered a possible candidate for the White House in 2008, has been using his e-mail list of more than 3 million supporters to direct fund-raising to Senate incumbents and Democratic challengers, as well as other state and local candidates.

One fund-raising e-mail for troops overseas raised $650,000, which went directly to the USO, Lister said.

"The 2005 and 2006 races are top priorities right now," said Lister. "John Kerry is working to support state and local efforts to strengthen the Democratic party's grassroots organizations."

So far this year, his Senate re-election committee gave $2.5 million to the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

His political action committee, which was launched in February, will report raising $600,000 in the last quarter, Lister said. The report will be filed at the end of the month.

It also will show that he gave about $135,000 in PAC money directly to Democratic candidates.

Kerry Calls for Congressional Investigation of Rove

John Kerry sent an email to supporters today, which has been picked up in many wire service reports, calling for Congressional investigations. Following is from the text of the email (emphasis mine):

How many more times will Karl Rove make President Bush eat his words and shred his credibility before Karl Rove does the honorable thing and leaves the White House?

Yesterday the President furiously backpedaled from his promise to fire anyone involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent to the press. Now that it's known that Rove and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby were involved, the President has lowered the bar and now says he'll only fire someone who is convicted of a crime.

President Bush is setting a terrible standard of leadership in the White House by protecting insubordinate aides who refused to come forward when the President demanded to know who in his administration leaked Valerie Plame's identity -- and he's sending a disturbing message about our national security.

The President should not wait to find out whether Rove is convicted in the end for his leak. Either Rove lied to the President about this matter of national security, which means he should be fired immediately, or the President is not being straight with the American people about his own involvement in this case.

With all the dissembling coming out of the White House, it's clear that the only way the American people can get to the bottom of this is through full Congressional hearings. I will call for hearings this week -- and you can strengthen this call by adding your name to our petition today:

http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove

With both the House and Senate in Republican hands it will be difficult to force Congressional hearings on the Bush White House. Having as many statements as possible from people in every state will help my colleagues and me show that this is what America wants. According to a poll released yesterday by ABC News, 75% of Americans believe that Karl Rove should be fired if he leaked classified information.

More than 300,000 people have signed on so far -- help us double our numbers by forwarding this email to your friends asking them to sign:

http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove

Thank you,

John Kerry

Those Who Fought The Terrorists on 9/11

On September 11, following the terrorist attacks, George Bush was busy reading My Pet Goat, and then took 48 hours to show any semblance of being in control . Who ever was making decisions quickly decided to use the attacks for partisan gain, as well as to push through preexisting neoconservative foreign policy goals and conservative views on restricting civil liberties.

While the White House cared more about politics than national security, there was one group on September 11 which responded immediately by fighting the terrorists. This was the passengers on Flight 93. Discovery Channel will be showing a recreation of the hijacking on the fourth anniversary of September 11. AP reports that, "The program will be called 'The Flight That Fought Back' and will include about 45 minutes of re-created scenes depicting what happened before the plane crashed in a Southwestern Pennsylvania field. Forty passengers and crew members were killed."

John Kerry Calls for Immediate Action on Veterans' Health Care

Senator John Kerry today called for the Senate Republican Leadership to adopt Democratic proposals to increase veterans funding by $1.5 billion this year. The Department of Veterans Affairs has publicly stated that they are more than $1 billion short in meeting veterans' health care needs this year.

Below is a statement from Senator Kerry:

"For what we're spending in Iraq in one week, we can honor America's promise to our veterans for a year. Now is the time for Republicans in Congress to practice what they preach, and that means honoring our country's long-standing commitment to our vets and getting them the health care they've earned."

"This administration's own Department of Veterans Affairs has said they are a billion dollars short of being able to meet veterans' health care needs this year. Washington's response has been downright pathetic. Last week a top White House official, Joshua Bolten, said too much is being spent on veterans' health care, and once again Republicans in Congress are stalling a measure to get the needed money to the VA.

"This administration has failed to request enough money for veterans' health care year after year. Instead of doing what's right, they have closed hospitals and shortened hours. They excluded an entire class of veterans from care. And they have repeatedly tried to shift the burden for funding care onto the backs of veterans themselves through higher co-pays and enrollment fees.

"We've got veterans being turned away at the VA and veterans who can't get prescriptions filled. We are creating new veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan every day, many of whom will need a lifetime of care as a result of their wounds. Now is the worst possible time for the president's cuts and Congress' apathy."

Bush Flip Flops on Firing Aides Who Disclosed Plame Identity

Bush Says He'll Fire Any Aide Who 'Committed a Crime'
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, July 18 - President Bush appeared to change his stance today on his close adviser Karl Rove, stopping well short of promising that anyone in his administration who helped to unmask a C.I.A. officer would be fired.

"If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," Mr. Bush said in response to a question, after declaring, "I don't know all the facts; I want to know all the facts."

For months, Mr. Bush and his spokesmen have said that anyone involved in the disclosure of the C.I.A. officer's identity would be dismissed. The president's apparent raising of the bar for dismissal today, to specific criminal conduct, comes amid mounting evidence that, at the very least, Mr. Rove provided backhanded confirmation of the C.I.A. officer's identity.

In the months after the name of the officer, Valerie Plame Wilson, was made public in July 2003, White House officials have said they believe that no one working for the administration was part of the disclosure, and that anyone found to have been involved in the disclosure would be dismissed.

MORE

Bush Creating More Terrorists

Study cites seeds of terror in Iraq

War radicalized most, probes find

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | July 17, 2005

WASHINGTON -- New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank -- both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States -- have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself.

The studies, which together constitute the most detailed picture available of foreign fighters, cast serious doubt on President Bush's claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the ''central front" in a battle against the United States.

''The terrorists know that the outcome [in Iraq] will leave them emboldened or defeated," Bush said in his nationally televised address on the war at Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month. ''So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction." The US military is fighting the terrorists in Iraq, he repeated this month, ''so we do not have to face them here at home."

However, interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.

A separate Israeli analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, ''the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."

''Only a few were involved in past Islamic insurgencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya," the Israeli study says. Out of the 154 fighters analyzed, only a handful had past associations with terrorism, including six who had fathers who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, said the report, compiled by the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel.

MORE

Wall Street on Health Policy

I often find useful medical news in sources such as the Wall Street Journal even before it makes the medical journals, as investors need accurate information as early as possible. Investors also appreciate opinion on health care policy free of partisan spin, and this led to some interesting statements at an investors health care forum last week, as reported by The Commonwealth Fund. Here's some items from the forum:

• Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, declared the Medicare Advantage program created by the Medicare overhaul law a short-term "gold mine" for managed care plans. Laszewski also likened the health insurance industry's prospects overall to a "long walk off a short pier."
  
  
• Other Wall Street predictions of up to 30 million people getting Medicare drug benefits are "incredibly aggressive," said Ted Shannon, a stock analyst with Janus Capital Management. The risks of entering the market are not well understood by insurers, and finding people to enroll could be difficult, he said.

• Health savings accounts are making a big splash in the individual market and are attractive to small employers, Goodman said, but their benefits are overstated. Laszewski agreed emphatically, mocking the excited chatter of health savings account advocates about the benefits of having "skin in the game—yada yada." In "about another year or two, we're going to get this out of our systems," he said. I previously discussed problems with Health Savings Accounts here.

Blogcritics: Kerry in 2008

With all the Kerry-bashing in the blogosphere the last few months, it's good to link to something positive (even if it took me a few weeks to discover this post). Chris Franklin of Blogcritics.org looks at the potential 2008 candidates and likes Kerry:

In that pool of candidates, I give it to Kerry. Kerry has already been through the presidential campaign ringer once and he did extremely well versus a sitting president who was in charge of a fearful country that had been attacked by a foreign entity. Kerry has lost other political races before, such as a congressional race in the 1970s; but, he came back from this defeat and won a Senate seat. So, Kerry has shown that he can rebound in to a stronger position. Kerry has already been vetted by the press, both inside and out; he's not perfect: a "summer" (three months) in Vietnam does not a tour make. But, nevertheless, everything appears to be legit. People say Kerry quit in 2004; I disagree. Kerry knew that he would lose, despite months of recounts and investigations of technicalities, etc. and he wisely chose to surrender and fight another day rather than politically bleed out in some kind of last stand that would have surely alienated him even from members of his own party (Remember, this is an institutionalized political contest in a civilized Democratic Republic we are talking about, not Battle Royale).

Kerry Continues Fight For Change in America

Raasch: Kerry taking path unbeaten by other losers

CHUCK RAASCH
Gannett News Service

When Republicans circled the wagons around embattled White House guru Karl Rove last week, it was no coincidence their counterattack centered on three Democrats.

The first was New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential presidential nominee in 2008. The second was Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. And the third, somewhat surprisingly, was Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, whom the Republicans not long ago battered into defeat in the 2004 presidential campaign.

In a rough week for the White House, President Bush and White House advisers tried to remain mum on the allegation that Rove had confirmed the identify of a CIA agent to Time reporter Matt Cooper two years ago. There is a raging public relations battle over whether Rove's actions violated federal law, and a federal grand jury is investigating.

In a classic diversion, Republican political operatives tried to paint the three Democrats as leaders of the "angry left" out to smear Rove, regardless of the truth. For their part, Democrats portrayed Rovegate as part of a broader White House campaign to manipulate intelligence to justify the Iraqi invasion.

Clinton is an obvious Republican target. Like it or not, the 2008 campaign is under way, and no one will pass up a chance to nick the hide of the foe's presumptive front-runner.

Dean will always be an obvious target because of his cannonades against Republicans in general. He is to Republicans what Newt Gingrich was to Democrats in the early 1990s.

Kerry's inclusion in the gang of three is the most interesting. He remains a target because he's acted so unlike most vanquished presidential candidates. Not since George McGovern in 1973 has a defeated presidential candidate of a major party returned to public office. The losers - from Gerald Ford to Al Gore - took more obscure paths into history. Now it looks like 2004 was the midpoint of an eight-year Kerry campaign.

He's made no declarations of whether he will run again. Yet since the election, he's given or helped raise about $5 million for Democrats, including $2.5 million transferred from his presidential campaign to the national party, struggling to keep up.

Kerry has called for Rove to resign and urged his e-mail network of 3 million supporters from 2004 to write Bush to ask the president to fire Rove.

Kerry has held fund-raisers for Clinton and other Democratic candidates. He's contributed to 10 state parties around the country, and he's traveled to about as many on behalf of candidates.

Some cynics might call that the most obvious sign that he's running again - a political design to rebuild bridges with military veterans after the battering that Kerry took from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in '04. Others might point out that Kerry is the most vivid example that modern campaigns never end - even for the losers.

But Kerry aides spin his postelection vigor as a cause, not a campaign. "It is a continuation of the fight for change in America," said John Giesser, director of Keeping America's Promise, a political action committee that Kerry began in March.

Too early for '08 speculation? Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack are testing the waters. Kerry is only staying in the game that never ends.

Contact Chuck Raasch, political editor for Gannett News Service at craasch@gns.gannett.com.

John Edwards on Supreme Court Nomination

Finding a justice with bipartisan support

By JOHN EDWARDS

RALEIGH -- President Bush now faces one of the most important decisions of his presidency: the nomination of a Supreme Court justice. Many say we are destined for an angry, partisan fight over a nominee. It does not have to be that way.

As I've seen firsthand, if Democrats stand strong for our principles, we can force the administration to do the right thing: nominate a person who will uphold the Constitution and win broad, bipartisan approval.

As a lawyer in North Carolina, I had plenty of experiences with good and bad judges. I've seen up close how crucial it can be to families that judges be fair and impartial. The families that I represented were often devastated by the wrongdoing of corporations and insurance companies, and without a fair and impartial judge they had no chance.

Fairness is even more important for Supreme Court justices -- their decisions can affect an entire nation. We must fight to ensure that the next justice is fair and independent, doesn't have an ideological agenda and will uphold the fundamental rights and liberties in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Bush's history of judicial nominations so far gives us reason to worry. Too many of his nominees have been unqualified, ideological partisans who should not serve on the bench. Yet my own experiences show that if we stand strong we can reach an acceptable end result.

• • •

When the president took office, North Carolina hadn't had a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit since 1994. That was a tremendous injustice for the biggest state in the circuit. President Clinton had nominated four individuals from North Carolina, including two trial judges who would have been the first African-American on the court. But these nominees had been blocked by Sen. Jesse Helms.

Bush first told me he planned to nominate federal District Judge Terrence Boyle, a former aide to Helms. Judge Boyle has a long record of hostility to civil rights; his rulings in a single voting rights case have twice been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, once by a 9-0 margin. And Boyle had been reversed more than 100 times by the Court of Appeals. So I said no. Boyle was a poor choice whom I couldn't support.

Bush insisted on nominating Boyle anyway. I did everything in my power to stop him from getting a seat, and used every tool available. I don't regret it for a second; he does not deserve a promotion.

The Constitution calls on the president to obtain the advice and consent of the Senate for any judicial nomination. In our history, "advice" has meant listening carefully to the suggestions of senators from both political parties.

So instead of remaining in a deadlock, I went to the administration and worked to find other, acceptable names. After numerous meetings, we found a highly qualified woman named Allyson Duncan.

Judge Duncan wasn't someone I would have chosen as judge. She was a Republican who had worked for Clarence Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But she had a long and distinguished mainstream record -- as a law professor at N.C. Central University, as a member of our state's Public Utilities Commission and as a state Court of Appeals judge whose dissenting opinions had repeatedly been adopted by the state Supreme Court. She had won the respect of Democrats, Republicans and civil rights leaders.

By standing up to an unqualified judge, and working with the administration to find somebody else, I had the honor of introducing Duncan to my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee as a nominee. And after her hearing, not a single senator voted against her confirmation.

Duncan became the first African-American appeals court judge from North Carolina. Even more important, she became a mainstream voice on the 4th Circuit. She doesn't always agree with her colleagues, and I don't always agree with her decisions. But based on everything I've seen, she is a thoughtful judge who decides cases on the law and the facts, not her personal ideology.

This is the path to follow in the Supreme Court nominating process. If Bush nominates someone unacceptable, we must fight it with all our strength. If he follows the Duncan model, not the Boyle model -- offering his own choices but listening to Democrats, not ignoring them -- he can find a nominee with broad and bipartisan support.

(John Edwards, a Raleigh Democrat and former U.S. senator, was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004.)

Spying On Bush Critics

Large Volume of F.B.I. Files Alarms U.S. Activist Groups

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, July 17 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups charge is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration.

The F.B.I. has in its files 1,173 pages of internal documents on the American Civil Liberties Union, the leading critic of the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies, and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace, an environmental group that has led acts of civil disobedience in protest over the administration's policies, the Justice Department disclosed in a court filing this month in a federal court in Washington.

The filing came as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act brought by the A.C.L.U. and other groups that maintain that the F.B.I. has engaged in a pattern of political surveillance against critics of the Bush administration. A smaller batch of documents already turned over by the government sheds light on the interest of F.B.I. counterterrorism officials in protests surrounding the Iraq war and last year's Republican National Convention.

F.B.I. and Justice Department officials declined to say what was in the A.C.L.U. and Greenpeace files, citing the pending lawsuit. But they stressed that as a matter of both policy and practice, they have not sought to monitor the political activities of any activist groups and that any intelligence-gathering activities related to political protests are intended to prevent disruptive and criminal activity at demonstrations, not to quell free speech. They said there might be an innocuous explanation for the large volume of files on the A.C.L.U. and Greenpeace, like preserving requests from or complaints about the groups in agency files.

But officials at the two groups said they were troubled by the disclosure.

"I'm still somewhat shocked by the size of the file on us," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U. "Why would the F.B.I. collect almost 1,200 pages on a civil rights organization engaged in lawful activity? What justification could there be, other than political surveillance of lawful First Amendment activities?"

Protest groups charge that F.B.I. counterterrorism officials have used their expanded powers since the Sept. 11 attacks to blur the line between legitimate civil disobedience and violent or terrorist activity in what they liken to F.B.I. political surveillance of the 1960's. The debate became particularly heated during protests over the war in Iraq and the run-up to the Republican National Convention in New York City last year, with the disclosures that the F.B.I. had collected extensive information on plans for protests.

MORE

Inconsistencies in Rove's Story

Cooper Says He First Learned Of Plame's Identity From Rove

WASHINGTON – Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper said he first learned about the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency officer through presidential adviser Karl Rove.

In a first-person account of his grand jury testimony last week in the latest issue of Time, Mr. Cooper said Mr. Rove ended a telephone conversation with the words, "I've already said too much." Mr. Cooper speculated that Mr. Rove could have been worried about being indiscreet or "it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else."

As for Valerie Plame's identity, he said "I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the 'agency' -- by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency."

Mr. Cooper added, "So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'WMD'? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I'm as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald [the special counsel] has."

Full Article

Comment:

This clearly contradicts the White House claims from late last week that Rove might have confirmed information from reporters but was not the source. Just like Matt Cooper, I really don't know if this is sufficient for a conviction, or whether Fitzgerald is planning any action against Rove. This does raise the question of whether the probably untrue White House statements from last week are similar to what Rove told Fitzgerald under oath, or if Rove gave any other dishonest testimony. Even if Rove technically did not violate the law in the manner in which he revealed information on Plame, lying about this to a grand jury would be perjury.

Regardless of the criminal aspects, this case clearly shows how political foreign policy has become under the Bush Administration, and the lack of ethics of the Bush Administration. The underlying problem goes far beyond Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame to the White House's misuse of intelligence and the degree they are willing to go to retaliate against those who criticize their policies.

A copy of Mat Cooper's article in Time has been added to the Kerry Reference Library.

Detroit Free Press on Santorum's Book

ROCHELLE RILEY: Wild ideas from senator

July 8, 2005

BY ROCHELLE RILEY
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Sometimes, in our pursuit of winning and of being right, we say some stupid things.

That's what happened to Sen. Rick Santorum, who either is gearing up his 2008 presidential campaign and needs to rally his conservative base -- or is on drugs.

How else to explain his recent comments offending women, black people and compassionate conservatives?

The Pennsylvania Republican has written a book, or contributed to a book with his name on it, that offers views diametrically opposed to those espoused by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in her 1996 book, "It Takes a Village."

I'm not buying "It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good," but his most dangerous views made the news. The worst? "The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong."

He has not disputed that this statement is in the book. He has not held press conferences to refute it. He has neither tearfully claimed to have been under the influence nor wondered aloud whether he'd been kidnapped by aliens.

Bad ideas

But I can't imagine that President George W. Bush, who touts his No Child Left Behind policy like it works, would embrace the idea that America should leave low-skilled, unmarried mothers behind, as if they don't deserve a college education.

I can't imagine the party of Lincoln (and if you haven't heard, Republicans are claiming Abraham Lincoln like never before, even revising a historical video at the Lincoln Memorial to better reflect their views) embracing the outspoken leader when it is trying harder than ever to convince Americans that it is the party that understands moral values, individual accomplishment and education.

But the senator didn't stop there. In the book, he likened abortion to slavery:

"This was tried once before in America. ... But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave."

Tried? Did not have the right to kill? What history books did he read?

Targeting moms

And he painted us moms who work outside the home -- most because we have to -- as victims of a grave conspiracy:

"Respect for stay-at-home mothers has been poisoned by a toxic combination of the village elders' war on the traditional family and radical feminism's misogynistic crusade to make working outside the home the only marker of social value and self-respect."

My daughter would prefer that I stay at home. She even wants to be home-schooled. I told her that if we tried that, we'd be homeless, since I'm the only one working.

If a Pennsylvania senator wants to make light of slavery and malign feminists and turn his back on young women, it's a good thing he lives in America. It's allowed

But if he thinks it's going to make him a better candidate, he's wrong. In fact, he may have already used up his 15 minutes of fame. Think about it: I mentioned his name only once. Do you remember it?

Light Up The Darkness

The Light Up The Darkness Blog is currently down.

Watch this site for information on a replacement site which we hope to have up in the next few days.

Statement of Senator John Kerry: White House Claim that Too Much is Being Spent On Veterans’ Health Care is “Outrageous”

I am appalled that this White House thinks too much is being spent on veterans' health care. We’ve got veterans being turned away at the VA, veterans who can't get prescriptions filled, and we had a one billion dollar shortfall in the VA budget. What planet are these Administration officials living on if they think we're spending too much on veterans? What veterans are they talking to? Not the ones I’ve met, that’s for sure. Year after year, this administration has failed to request enough money for VA health care. They have closed hospitals and shortened hours. They excluded an entire class of veterans from care. And they have repeatedly tried to shift the burden for funding care onto the backs of veterans themselves through higher co-pays and enrollment fees. To suggest now that Congress has spent too much on veterans' health care is an insult. We are creating new veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan every day, many of whom will need a lifetime of care as a result of their wounds. The last thing our veterans need is more cuts. We should honor their service in word and deed. Comments like those by Josh Bolten do neither. # # # Below is the transcript from today's House Budget Committee hearing in which OMB Director Joshua Bolten said that more was spent on VA healthcare than was actually needed -- despite the current VA budget shortfall for 2005 and 2006. Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa): One note of concern that I would forward is that obviously a lot of attention has been given to the underprojection this year. But as I understand it, this is on the heels of I believe at least two, maybe three years, where we had more than enough resources available in VA health. . . we ought to hit this a little bit tighter if we're going to be able to make plans for the future in our V.A. health and V.A. budget. Chairman Joshua Bolten: . . . There have been there consecutive years preceding this one in which there was more money requested by the administration and more money appropriated by the Congress for the medical care portion of veterans' services than was actually needed in that year. I think the appropriations have exceeded the V.A. medical care needs preceding three years by over half a billion dollars in each of the preceding three years.

From The Hill

Sen. Kerry is wielding a double-edged sword
By Alexander Bolton

Sen. John Kerry is facing a dilemma.

With an eye towards running for president again in 2008, the Massachusetts Democrat has positioned himself as one of the most pugnacious critics of the Bush administration, often aligning himself with liberal activists. But at times, his aggressive anti-Bush rhetoric risks alienating other parts of his own party.

Kerry’s predicament was apparent this week as he took the lead among Democrats by calling for President Bush to fire his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, for Rove’s alleged role in revealing the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

At a press conference Tuesday on homeland security, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) nodded in agreement, Kerry said: “Karl Rove ought to be fired.” Kerry also circulated a “fire Rove” petition yesterday through his leadership political action committee to nearly 3 million Democratic activists.

“We need you to recruit your friends and neighbors to sign our Fire Rove petition today to show that Americans will not tolerate White House dirty tricks that compromise our national security,” Kerry wrote in an e-mail.

“What we have seen from Kerry since the election is that he’s more aggressive and more pugnacious,” said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown University, said “Kerry has been among the most vociferous critics of the Bush administration since the election.

West noted that Kerry grilled Condoleezza Rice during her Senate confirmation and “voted against several Bush administration initiatives.”

But while Kerry has had the support of Clinton and many other Democrats on the Rove issue, his colleagues have left him out on a limb as he has championed other causes of the liberal wing of the party.

Shortly before the recess, Kerry wrote to Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, urging the committee to complete its investigation related to the infamous Downing Street memo, which liberal critics claim as proof that Bush had predetermined his decision to invade Iraq.

But Kerry could only garner signatures from nine colleagues, despite circulating the letter to the entire Democratic caucus.

Kerry urged Roberts and Rockefeller to complete “phase two” of the committee’s probe on prewar intelligence. Roberts and Rockefeller had agreed to break the investigation into two parts: phase one, which focused on the intelligence community’s information gathering, and phase two, which is to target the Bush administration’s use of intelligence and the pressure the administration may have exerted on analysts.

As a concession to Republicans, Rockefeller agreed to conduct the more politically sensitive second phase after last year’s election.

Citing the Downing Street memo, Kerry exhorted his colleagues not to let the second half of the probe languish.

“The committee’s efforts have taken on renewed urgency, given recent revelations in the United Kingdom regarding the apparent minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security advisors,” Kerry wrote. “These minutes — known as the ‘Downing Street Memo’ — raise troubling questions about the use of intelligence by American policy makers.”

Only one member of the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jon Corzine (D), who is running for governor in blue-state New Jersey, signed on to the letter. It received no mainstream-media attention, but several liberal blogs, such as Talking Points Memo and Rawstory.com, wrote about Kerry’s effort.

Senate observers such as West said that Kerry is catering to liberal activists who view the Downing Street memo as a “smoking gun” showing that Bush was so determined to invade Iraq that he and his advisers believed faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities.

“I think Kerry is playing to the base,” West said. “He understands that liberals are just absolutely furious with Bush over the war. And they see the Downing Street memo as prima facie evidence of deceit within the administration and he hasn’t ruled out running for president in 2008.”
By criticizing Bush and championing issues popular with members of liberal organizations such as MoveOn.org, Kerry seems to be taking a path similar to one trod by former Vice President Al Gore after he lost the 2000 election to Bush.

But while liberal activists have been energized over the Downing Street memo, other Democratic senators and major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have not.

For example, last month, MoveOn.org gathered more than 500,000 signatures on a petition “demanding that President Bush provide a detailed response to the smoking-gun evidence in the Downing Street memos of deceptions about the war in Iraq,” according to a MoveOn.org press release.

The Downing Street issue has drawn more support from House Democrats. House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) delivered the petition to the White House and held a mock hearing on the memo.

But Senate Democrats have kept their distance, despite Kerry’s work.

“I suspect it is a strategic decision on the part of Democrats that there are a certain core set of issues they want to put their capital into and this is not one of them,” Ornstein said. “Part of it is it’s rehashing history.”

A Democratic Senate aide said, “Either they sold it very poorly, or the caucus isn’t interested. My guess they just sold it poorly.”

Mehlman's Apology

Ken Mehlman has apologized for the Republican's use of race as a wedge issue:

It was called "the southern strategy," started under Richard M. Nixon in 1968, and described Republican efforts to use race as a wedge issue -- on matters such as desegregation and busing -- to appeal to white southern voters.

Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, this morning will tell the NAACP national convention in Milwaukee that it was "wrong."

I'm happy to see that the GOP realizes that this tactic was wrong. Now if they would also apologize for other similar tactics:

Using terrorism for political gain (despite the long history of Republicans blocking Democratic proposals to fight al Qaeda)

Using homophobia as a wedge issue

Pandering to extremism

Basing campaigns upon distortion of their opponents issues rather than engaging in an honest discussion of the issues

Use of voter suppression as an election tactic

Bad News for Bush in Latest Poll

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (here and here) has bad news for President Bush, with mixed opinions on the next Supreme Court pick which reflect the current division in the country.

Respondents by a 49 percent-to-46 percent margin disapprove of Bush’s job performance. That’s a drop from May when 47 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved. Only 41 percent give Bush good marks for being "honest and straightforward" which is his lowest ranking on this question since he became president. This is a drop of nine percentage points since January, when a majority (50 percent to 36 percent) believed that he was honest and straightforward.

52% say the nation is "off on the wrong track," while just 34% say it is "headed in the right direction." Americans disapprove of how Congress is doing its job, by 55% to 28%. By 45% to 38%, Americans say they would prefer that the 2006 elections produce a Democratic-controlled Congress rather than a Republican-controlled Congress.

By 57% to 33%, Americans believe that allowing workers to invest Social Security contributions in the stock market is a "bad idea," and opponents are much more likely to say their minds are made up. A plurality in every age group opposes the idea, and senior citizens are opposed by 71% to 19%.

When asked about the next Supreme Court justice, 41 percent (vs. 30 percent) want Bush to appoint a strong conservative to the court, while a nearly equal proportion (40 percent to 25 percent) would like for him to take into consideration the views of secular and liberal groups. 65% say the court shouldn't overturn Roe v. Wade, with many people who are anti-abortion also opposing a change in the law. 63% support a justice who would allow references to God in public life, 60% favor a woman, and 55% favor a justice who would uphold affirmative action laws.

Investigation Shows Mistreatment as Widespread Bush Administration Policy

Abu Ghraib Tactics Were First Used at Guantanamo

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 14, 2005; A01

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee.

Military investigators who briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday on the three-month probe, called the tactics "creative" and "aggressive" but said they did not cross the line into torture.

The report's findings are the strongest indication yet that the abusive practices seen in photographs at Abu Ghraib were not the invention of a small group of thrill-seeking military police officers. The report shows that they were used on Qahtani several months before the United States invaded Iraq.

The investigation also supports the idea that soldiers believed that placing hoods on detainees, forcing them to appear nude in front of women and sexually humiliating them were approved interrogation techniques for use on detainees.

MORE

Fox News Outed as Administration Surrogate

We knew it all along, but is Fox New's real role starting to become common knowledge? Think Progress reports on an interesting exchange between Terry Moran of ABC News and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. While they were using this as an example of White House stonewalling on the Plame case, I find another aspect far more interesting (and changed the portion which is bolded):

MORAN: … Fox News and other surrogates are essentially saying that the conversation lasted for two minutes and that the subject was ostensibly welfare reform. They’re getting that information from here, from Karl Rove.

MCCLELLAN: And, again, you’re asking questions that are related to news reports about an ongoing, continuing investigation. And you’ve had my response on that…

Related Stories:
Suppression of Knowledge By the Right
Fox Anchor Slips, Showing Identification With Republican Party
Fox Slips Again in Admitting Bias
Dean: Fox News is a propaganda outlet of the Republican Party
Republican Go-To Guys in the Media
Personally I've Been Comparing Them to Pravda

John Kerry Whacks Santorum on Boston “Liberalism” Comments

Rick Santorum recently took some swipes at Boston “liberalism” that have Massachusetts residents seeing RED.

Here is a whack from John Kerry to Rick Santorum, demanding an apology for Massachusetts residents:

"The families of Massachusetts soldiers who have given their lives for their country in Iraq know more about the mainstream American values of Massachusetts than Rick Santorum ever will.

As a prosecutor in Massachusetts putting criminals behind bars, I saw some of the worst criminals who had abused children and not once did I hear them hide behind Sen. Santorum's bizarre claim that the state was responsible for their acts.

Rick Santorum owes an apology to the families of abuse victims and an apology to the faithful who fill the pews of Massachusetts churches every Sunday." -- Senator John Kerry

You can find a couple more whacks to Santorum here and here (Ted Kennedy).

Updated: The truth about Massachusetts "liberals"

Related Post: Kennedy Calls on Santorum to Apologize

No Liberal Bias Found at NPR or PBS

In order to protect us from the mythical liberal media bias, Ken Tomlinson appointed a pair of ombudsmen to watch over PBS and NPR. He appointed one moderate conservative (Ken Bode) and one ultra-conservative (William Schultz). It looks like he may have to find an even more conservative pair to make claims of liberal bias. The Washington Post reports on how they failed to back up Tomlinson's claims of bias:

Instead, Bode and Schulz have been positively glowing in their assessments of the journalism heard on NPR and seen on news shows distributed by PBS. So glowing, in fact, that Schulz and Bode's reports, which are posted on CPB's Web site could easily be excerpted in the shorthand style of a movie ad quoting favorable reviews. To wit:

"First-rate. . . . Insightful interviews. . . . In all, two excellent reports." -- Schulz on NPR's reporting from Mosul, Iraq, in late April.

"Excellent. . . . Informative. . . . These two reports gave a nuanced and balanced view of the situation. . . . Kudos to the producers, reporters and editors." -- Bode, on the same stories.

"An excellent curtain raiser!" -- Bode on an NPR report about an upcoming court-martial of a Marine accused of murdering two Iraqis.

"High praise to Mississippi Public Television for an important job well done, and for ably fulfilling its mission of public service to the state." -- Bode on coverage of the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, the former Ku Klux Klan member accused and convicted in the death of three civil rights workers.

"TV at its best." -- Schulz on the three-part PBS series "The Appalachians."

Neither ombudsman mentions a lack of "balance" -- a frequent Tomlinson criticism -- in the programs reviewed. Indeed, neither comments one way or the other about the political leanings of the few programs that were reviewed.

Kerry is Turning Up the Heat on Rove – Rove Has To Go

Hot from a press conference where John Kerry called for Karl Rove to be fired, he’s turning up the heat and putting the pressure on.

Yesterday Kerry sent out an email from JohnKerry.com asking his supporters to sign his petition – FIRE ROVE. Just a short time ago I posted a statement received from his Senate press office regarding the press conference statement. Now, Kerry is reiterating his call to supporters to sign his petition in another email from JohnKerry.com. Here’s the email:

Less than two weeks ago, members of the johnkerry.com community demanded that Karl Rove be fired for his deliberate attempt to, once again, use the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to divide America. Now Karl Rove is embroiled in another controversy concerning the leaked identity of a covert CIA agent, which was done to punish her husband, a man who had the courage to tell the truth about manipulated intelligence in Iraq.

Karl Rove is the President's top advisor in the White House and what he has admitted doing has deep and troubling consequences for our national security.

It's hard to understand how the President can tolerate his top advisor being involved in exposing a CIA agent in the name of politics by telling reporters about her work - making her already dangerous job that much more dangerous.

In order to do what the President called on us to do earlier this week - "continue to take the fight to the enemy" - the White House and Karl Rove must stop taking it to their so-called political enemies here at home.

It's perfectly clear that Rove - the person at the center of the slash and burn, smear and divide tactics that have come to characterize the Bush Administration - has to go.

The problem is that, instead of protecting the American people from real threats to our security, this Administration spends its time protecting Karl Rove. That's not leadership.

They're doing their best to brush off this new Rove controversy as just another political story, but this time they are having a harder time getting away with it. That's why, if we raise our voices now, we can really make a difference. Please ask all your friends to sign our "Fire Rove" petition today.

Despite carefully worded denials, it is now apparent that Karl Rove discussed the identity of an undercover CIA agent with a reporter. His clear aim was to discredit that agent's husband who had dared to challenge the Administration in the buildup to the war.

There appears to be no limit to the lengths to which Rove - and this Administration - will go. But, there is a limit to the patience of the American people - and we have reached it. President Bush has a choice to make: Spend the months ahead focused on protecting Karl Rove's job security or spend them focused on protecting America's national security.

We are asking the President and the White House to do what they promised. When the scandal first broke, here's what the President's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said:

"If anyone in this Administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this Administration." (9/29/03, White House press briefing). Now we will find out if the Administration honors its word. Call on President Bush to keep his word and fire Rove now: http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove

It's as simple as this: We need President Bush and his White House staff to focus on finally taking action necessary to avoid a quagmire in Iraq. The American people can't afford to wait while the White House spends its time and energy defending a top presidential aide's dangerous political maneuvers.

In the days ahead, the President will either make good on his promise to hold accountable those who shared the identity of a secret soldier in the war on terror - or he'll prove that promise hollow.

We now know that Karl Rove "was involved" in a breach of national security. Decency - and the interests of the American people - demand an end to Karl Rove's days in the White House. It's time for you to demand it as well.

I urge you to take action right now. http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove

Sincerely,
John Kerry

John Kerry: America's National Security - Not Karl Rove's Job Security - Should be Administration's Only Priority Reiterates Call for Rove to be Fired

Senator John Kerry said today, in the wake of last week's terror attacks in London and at a time when the Senate is focused on homeland security, that the White House "cares more about the job security of top aides than homeland security." Senator Kerry made the following statement at a press conference (see video in post below) on homeland security today after he was asked about senior White House aide Karl Rove's involvement in the outing of a CIA agent.

Below is a Statement by Senator Kerry:

"It is now evident, through email and through other sources, that Karl Rove released information to a reporter which made it patently clear who Valerie Plame was -- blowing her cover as a covert operative and endangering her, those she works with, and any foreign intelligence sources she may have had. It has been the stated policy of the White House for the past two years that they would fire anyone who released that information.

"Even if Karl Rove didn't say her name point-blank, by identifying Ambassador Wilson's wife as working for the CIA, he revealed classified information. All anyone has to do then is go his biography or his curriculum vitae, and boom -- you've got her name. So this administration deliberately released her identity. That is clear.

"Yesterday at Quantico the President said very clearly to CIA folks that they have a dangerous job and that they need assistance. Well, the President has to mean his words. If their policy is that outing and jeopardizing a covert CIA agent is unacceptable behavior, the president will fire Karl Rove.

"Then the question is what are the White House's fundamental values? Is it the value of day-to-day politics, the value of political advice? Is the value of Karl Rove's position greater than the value of the national security of our country? Is he more important than the protection of the identity of CIA agents or even George Bush's own word?

"The White House's credibility is at issue here, and I believe very clearly that Karl Rove ought to be fired."

Background on Leak Investigation:
In the past, Karl Rove has denied having any knowledge of the leak.
Karl Rove has testified to the grand jury three times in this case.
According to news reports, the grand jury has subpoenaed all of the White House Iraq Group's documents from July 6, 2003 to July 30, 2003. The group was formed in August of 2002 by White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to deal in part with the public relations campaign around Iraq. The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Condoleezza Rice, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.
Summary of the Case:
In 2002, Ambassador Joseph Wilson traveled to Niger on a CIA-authorized trip to investigate the connections between Niger and Iraq in the war on terror, and determined that Saddam Hussein had not attempted to buy "yellow cake" uranium from Niger. However, George W. Bush, in his State of the Union address in 2003, claimed that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," directly contradicting the information which had been found by Ambassador Wilson. In response, Wilson penned a New York Times op-ed piece stating his disagreement with the Administration's stance, and three days later, Robert Novak, relying on two sources within the administration, exposed Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, claiming that Wilson's views were suspect since he had been sent to Niger on the advice of his wife.

Kerry: The White House’s Credibility is at Issue Here, Karl Rove Ought to be Fired

After a press conference regarding Rail and Port Security, John Kerry referred to the controversy surrounding Karl Rove and suggested that Karl Rove ought to be fired: Watch the video here.

“Is the value of day to day politics, the value of political advice or the value of his position greater than the national security of our country…”

Hat tip to dzika on DU.

Sign John Kerry's Fire Karl Rove petition here.

Updated: Read the press release here. Kerry is Turning up the Heat on Rove - Rove Has To Go.

John Kerry Works to Secure America's Ports

Senator John Kerry will offer an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill today that aims at fixing gaping holes in the agency's work to secure America's ports.

"Almost four years after September 11th, our port security is in alarming shape, and the attacks on soft targets in London are a chilling reminder why there is no time to wait. The Administration has been asleep at the switch while shipload after shipload of cargo slips into our ports uninspected. We've spent more on the Capitol Visitors' Center than on the Port Security Grant Program. The Department of Homeland Security's own Inspector General said that only a fraction of the money awarded for port security grants has actually been spent, and much of what has been spent has been badly mismanaged. We have to fix this mess, fix it right away, and hold the administration accountable for getting this right," said Senator Kerry.

Kerry's amendment will require the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to report to Congress on the department's progress implementing 12 recommended changes to improve the department's port security grant program.

In January, the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General issued a report criticizing the department's management of the Port Security Grant Program, saying there is "no assurance that the program is protecting the nation's most critical and vulnerable infrastructure and assets."

The Inspector General found that many of the projects that received funding lacked merit, the program's bureaucracy prevented money from getting to the most vulnerable ports and that available assessments of ports' infrastructure and vulnerabilities were not used effectively.

Among the most serious revelations:
* Of the $564 million awarded for port security grants since 2002, only 21 percent, or $106 million, has actually been spent.
* 82 of 86 project applications submitted in 2003 were found by a review board to lack merit. All received funding.
* In 2003, only one staff member oversaw the grant program. 811 projects were funded that year.

Updated: At a Democratic press conference on Homeland Security, Kerry called for Rove to be fired. Read the press release here. Kerry is Turning up the Heat on Rove - Rove has To Go.

Faking Religion

Commenting on Howard Dean can be dangerous. While many blogs regularly bash Kerry, generally based upon distorted reports of his statements, questioning Dean's ability to walk on water can bring a flood of protests. Personally I don't see having a "pro-Dean" or "anti-Dean" position as very meaningful, especially considering we are not at a point where being a Presidential candidate is a current consideration. I've had posts favorable to Dean when I've liked what he has said, and unfavorable posts when I haven't. I've also distinguished between supporting Dean's positions while still being able to express concern for his propensity for gaffes.

One topic where I received a number of unfavorable responses from Deaniacs was in criticizing Dean on religion. I have no problem with Dean's beliefs on the subject. Personally I'm even closer to Dean than Kerry in secularism. I just felt that whenever Dean speaks about religion he sounds phoney, and this will do more harm than good.

While Deaniacs have attacked me for stating this in the past, I see that I have company in this view from someone who knows far more than I do about talking about religion, Jim Wallis. From Washington Whispers:

Preacher to Dean: You Can't Fake It
As if mouthy Howard Dean didn't have enough troubles, now comes a left-leaning evangelical, much in demand by the Democratic Party, telling the party boss to shut up about religion. "Dean doesn't understand religion very much," says Jim Wallis, who has advised many Democratic leaders. He meets with Dean this week as part of the chairman's effort to woo the churchgoing crowd. Now promoting his book God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, Wallis says he'll tell Dean not to fake it on religion. "The worst thing people could do is be inauthentic," he says.

John Kerry: Fire Rove

Less than two weeks ago, you signed a petition joining members of the johnkerry.com community in calling for Karl Rove to be fired for his deliberate attempt to, once again, use the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to divide America. Now Karl Rove is embroiled in another controversy concerning the leaked identity of a covert CIA agent, which Bush Administration senior officials said was done to punish her husband, a man who had the courage to tell the truth about manipulated intelligence in Iraq.

Karl Rove is the President's top advisor in the White House and what he has admitted doing has deep and troubling consequences for our national security.

Just today the President spoke at Quantico praising our soldiers and the employees of the FBI, CIA, and DEA for their work rooting out terrorism.

He told them, "Your work is difficult. It is dangerous. I want you to know how much your country appreciates you, and so do I."

But at the same time the President was saying these words, it was becoming clear that his top advisor was involved in exposing a CIA agent in the name of politics by telling reporters about her work - making her already dangerous job that much more dangerous.

In order to do what the President called on us to do today - "continue to take the fight to the enemy" - the White House and Karl Rove must stop taking it to their so-called political enemies here at home.

It's perfectly clear that Rove - the person at the center of the slash and burn, smear and divide tactics that have come to characterize the Bush Administration - has to go.

The problem is that, instead of protecting the American people from real threats to our security, this Administration spends its time protecting Karl Rove. That's not leadership.

They're doing their best to brush off this new Rove controversy as just another political story, but this time they are having a harder time getting away with it. That's why, if we raise our voices now, we can really make a difference. Please ask all your friends to sign our "Fire Rove" petition today:

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rove.php

Despite carefully worded denials, it is now apparent that Karl Rove discussed the identity of an undercover CIA agent with a reporter. His clear aim was to discredit that agent's husband who had dared to challenge the Administration in the buildup to the war.

There appears to be no limit to the lengths to which Rove - and this Administration - will go. But, there is a limit to the patience of the American people - and we have reached it. President Bush has a choice to make: Spend the months ahead focused on protecting Karl Rove's job security or spend them focused on protecting America's national security.

We are asking the President and the White House to do what they promised. When the scandal first broke, here's what the President's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said:

"If anyone in this Administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this Administration." (9/29/03, White House press briefing). Now we will find out if the Administration is good to its word. Call on President Bush to keep his word and fire Rove now:

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rove.php

It's as simple as this: We need President Bush and his White House staff to focus on finally taking action necessary to avoid a quagmire in Iraq. The American people can't afford to wait while the White House spends its time and energy defending a top presidential aide's dangerous political shenanigans.

What the President does in the days ahead will speak volumes. He'll either make good on his promise to hold accountable those who shared the identity of a secret soldier in the war on terror - or he'll prove that promise hollow.

We now know that Karl Rove "was involved" in a breach of national security. Decency - and the interests of the American people - demand an end to Karl Rove's days in the White House. It's time for you to demand it as well.

I urge you to take action right now.

Sincerely,

John Kerry

Rove's Friends Know Better Than To Believe Him

It looks like even Karl Rove's friends don't trust him anymore. The Wall Street Journal reports:

After a week of seemingly contradictory reports, one fact appears to have solidified: Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of President Bush's election victories, was a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper in his July 2003 article about a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

It looks like Rove's survival will come down to legal technicalities. A major part of Rove's defense is that he didn't out Valerie Plame by name, although he did speak of Joseph Wilson's wife. There remain questions as to what Rove knew at the time to determine whether he really violated the law. The content of Rove's previous grand jury testimony is also important in determining whether he might be guilty of perjury.

There are still questions as to whether Rove is really the main target in the investigation and whether there is sufficient evidence for a conviction. Whether or not Rove is charged with a crime, Rove's friends at the WSJ realize that these questions do not protect the White House from embarrassment:

That said, the disclosure that Mr. Bush's top political strategist discussed the CIA employment of Mr. Wilson's wife amounts to a political embarrassment for Mr. Rove and the White House. A presidential spokesman had previously given what appeared to be an unequivocal public assurance that Mr. Rove hadn't been involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame as a CIA operative. Discovery that earlier denials may have been carefully parsed would represent another blow to the administration's credibility, compounding damage from the underlying issue that initially brought Mr. Wilson into the spotlight.

In addition this could keep open the question of Bush's lying to justify his invasion of Iraq, and raise questions of whether George Bush was aware of Rove's role in the Plame case.

Statement from Senator John Kerry on the Terrorist Bombings in London

“Cold blooded killers will not for a moment stop the critical work of the G-8 nations in our commitment to end poverty around the globe.”

John Kerry is in Boston this week for the New England BRAC hearing.

LightUpTheDarkness has received the following advance copy of a statement issued today by Senator John Kerry in response to the terrorist bombing in London:

"Every American heart feels for the British people and the families of those killed and injured in today's horrific terrorist bombings in London. As a country which has also experienced tragedy at the hands of cowardly killers and which keeps faith with the special alliance Prime Minister Tony Blair reaffirmed on September 11th, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

"In addition to words of condolence and condemnation, America should offer every assistance to Great Britain in dealing with the aftermath of this tragedy and in hunting down and destroying those responsible. We must reaffirm that cold blooded killers will not for a moment stop the critical work of the G-8 nations in showing the world the strength of our shared values and our commitment to ending poverty around the globe. The terrorists should hear from all of us today: the future belongs not to fear, but to freedom. We must also be vigilant here at home to take every step needed to complete the unfinished work of homeland security, strengthening our port security, rail security, protecting chemical plants, and securing loose nuclear materials abroad. While these attacks remind us that the fight is far from over, they also strengthen our resolve to stand together for the right of free people to live in a peaceful world."

Battle of the Conservatives for the Supreme Court

While liberal commentators have generally looking at the Supreme Court vacancy as a case of Bush likely replacing a moderate with a conservative, to conservatives the issue is which faction of conservativism gets the seat. Sandra Day O'Connor wasn't as conservative on social issues as the religious right wanted, but she did preserve other views of the Reagan Administration which appointed her.

The Wall Street Journal looks at the different views of the religious right versus pro-business economic conservatives, such as "social conservatives might support a federal law saying 'any hospital that is connected to interstate commerce cannot remove a feeding tube.' Conservative intellectuals likely would view such a statute as exceeding Congress's power over interstate commerce."

The Wall Street Journal further describes this division between conservative factions:

Evangelical Christians are the most vocal. They considered Justice O'Connor -- a Reagan appointee who announced her retirement Friday -- to have been a disaster for their cause. She was the court's pivotal swing vote on issues such as upholding certain abortion rights and, just last week, limiting public displays of the Ten Commandments.

"On almost every issue, she has been against us," says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, one of the leading religious activist groups in the court fight. One of his primary goals: a new justice very different from Justice O'Connor.

For the business community, however, the departure of Justice O'Connor, 75 years old, is the loss of an ally who took a skeptical view of big jury awards, claims allowed under the Americans With Disabilities Act and employment and government-contract quotas. "We felt she was a very business-friendly person because of her very practical approach," says Stan Anderson, of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "We are clearly going to miss her, and we hope a candidate of the same kind of stature, philosophy and discipline is nominated to replace her."

Blogs and Half-Truths

The Washington Post discusses the role of blogs. They note that, "Many are run anonymously, allowing people to express their views freely -- and giving them an easy way to spread rumors and half-truths."

In other words, the more things change the more they stay the same. Spreading rumors and half-truths has been the Republican strategy for years, with or without blogs. For example, we went through a recent Presidential election in which John Kerry was demonized by Republicans without them responding to any of his actual positions or his real record.

States Rebelling Against Medicare Drug Plan

We've known all along that Bush's Medicare prescription drug plan was actually a massive act of corporate welfare to benefit the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The states are finding that it is also a new trick to get money out of them and into the federal treasury. While Republicans will not openly raise taxes, they will make virtually everyone pay more, even if hidden in state taxes.

The New York Times describes how states are rebelling. In theory the state governments might have saved money due to being relieved of some of the burden of paying for prescription drugs for Medicaid beneficiaries who are also on Medicare. The Medicare act does require that, in return for these benefits, the states make payments to the Medicare Trust Fund. State governments are now finding that these payments, along with administrative costs, are greater than the benefits they expect to receive.

Just as some states are rebelling against the unfunded mandates of No Child Left Behind, states are starting to rebel against the required Medicare payments. Texas is leading this rebellion as the Republican Governor has vetoed a $444 million appropriation covering their contribution for the next two years.

Senator Ted Kennedy Holds Conference Call with Bloggers on Sandra Day O'Connor's Resignation

Senator Ted Kennedy just held a conference call with a group of left-wing bloggers to discuss Sandra Day O’Connor’s resignation.

After thanking everyone for joining the call, Senator Kennedy said, “We could not have anticipated what we are facing.”

Kennedy has participated in over 20 Supreme Court nominations during his career. He thanked O’Connor for her service to our country, reiterating that she was a mainstream conservative Justice.

Kennedy said, “I hope the President will select someone who served as she did. I urge the president to consult with the Senate on the nominee choice.” He noted that the Senate’s advice role “must not be given the short shift.”

MORE

Senator John Kerry On The Retirement of Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

John Kerry issued the following statement today regarding the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and the upcoming judicial nomination process.

"24 years after President Reagan demonstrated great courage and judgment in choosing her as the first woman to serve on our nation's highest court, I congratulate Sandra Day O'Connor on her retirement from a lifetime of remarkable public service. Her legacy is an extraordinary record of thoughtfulness, balance, and reason in time and again casting the critical vote in 5-4 cases deciding the most difficult issues in our nation.

"President Bush faces a critical decision in nominating a Supreme Court Justice who on every issue that matters will impact the lives of Americans for generations to come. Constitutional protections including the right to privacy and Roe vs. Wade hang in the balance. This is no small test. The President has the power to unite the country with a nominee who puts the Constitution first, or divide the country and reshape the court with a nominee outside the ideological mainstream. This is a time to remember the responsible choice Ronald Reagan made in nominating Justice O'Connor -- it's important to put the country and the Constitution ahead of any political agenda."

Note: A spokesperson for John Kerry has indicated there will be more from Kerry on this later today.