Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall … Crooks & Liars Spots Himself in the Wa Monthly story about Kos …
Markos makes an interesting statement about “yours truly” in the piece and I’d like to share a quick thought:
“Crooks and Liars is like the second biggest liberal blog now, and it’s all video clips. And Friendster—I have a Friendster account, I understand in the abstract that people would like the web to connect it in a certain way, but I don’t get it, I don’t understand how it works.”
Since we live in such a visually stimulated culture, I understood how powerful it would be to bring that medium into your homes … Writing a paragraph about Tom Tancredo making a weird reference about blowing up Mecca isn’t as powerful as actually hearing him say the words. …. Read all
John Amato (C&L’s founder), you do have the video thing down great. But, you deserve more credit. Your blog is not just about video clips. You also provide commentary, and it’s often quite astute.
What’s In A Number? …
In Media Girl‘s new piece — “On readers, page views and Daily Kos: What’s in a number, anyway?” — she notes that the new article about Kos incorrectly says he has 3.7 million readers per week, when the figure 3.7 million actually refers to page views. … Read all
Froggy Ruminates, “Waiting for the ‘Civil Libertarians’ to shift fire onto Clinton” …
Froggy Ruminations and I are on opposite sides of the political fence but, last May, he wrote me a beautiful e-mail thanking me for my diary in which I stood up for the Navy SEALs who were wrongly prosecuted for the death of an Iraqi detainee actually killed by CIA “operatives.” Froggy was once a Navy SEAL, hence his nickname. (My May 2005 piece was “Bush Chortles While Navy SEAL Is Hung Out to Dry.”)
Froggy is mostly a fire-breathing ‘winger. I’m not sure what he’s writing about here, so I present it in the hopes you’ll comment:
With all the whining and bitching going on about President Bush’s use of NSA intercepts of communications between foreign terrorists and US persons, it is worth noting a very important parallel from the Clinton Administration. In the conduct of the FBI investigation into the espionage conducted by Aldrich Ames of the CIA, Clinton and AG Reno authorized a completely warrantless search of Ames’ Arlington, VA home. I have no idea why Clinton and Reno refused to seek court approval for the search of the home of a US Citizen and government employee located within the Continental US. … What is most amazing to me is that a search of this nature did not initiate the “fruit of a poison tree”argument by his legal team.
As a former federal agent, even one with border search authority, I would have been sued for a Constitutional tort if I entered the home a drug dealer without a search warrant. Not to mention the exclusion of any contraband seized from the raid….Read all
Note: Froggy writes more about his experiences as a customs officer.
Eating Words: Blackwater Threatens Defamation Suit Against A Journalist …
Writes Another Day in the Empire:
… Blackwater expects [journalist Mike] Whitney to contact all websites, blogs, and forums on the internet that reposted his article–or even made reference or linked to it—and ask them to remove the offending remark, a completely unreasonable request. Mike’s retraction runs as follows:
A few months ago I wrote an article “The Second American Revolution” that was published on a number of web sites. The article contained the following paragraph: “Blackwater’s record in Iraq is a grim testimonial of criminal excess. They have been directly connected to the abusive treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the random killings and brutalizing of Iraqi civilians, and the extortion of information from resistance suspects.”
These claims cannot be substantiated and although other security firms have been accused of serious criminal conduct, Blackwater has not. Blackwater was not involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal at all and I seem to have completely muddled my facts. … Read all
Did he lick Blackwater’s boots too? Isn’t that a fine kettle of fish? I wonder what’s really up with that.
Quandaries …
- Why, for goodness sakes, why would we let a rummy Donald Rumsfeld try to talk deals with foreign ministers? (Moon of Alabama blog)
- Who stole Alistaire Cooke’s bones, and why?
- Why is an Olympia, Wash. home that was bought by Courtney Love (for the family of her deceased husband, Kurt Cobain) scheduled for a foreclosure auction?
- What will happen to the four children — ages 17, 14, 6, and 19 months old — of Sudanese refugee parents who died in a murder-suicide?
- Why in Berlin do Gummi Bear candies set Turkish children apart from their German classmates?
- Does the Drudge Report report? (Think Progress blog)
From Our Beautiful Friend Diane, Seasons Greetings On Her Blog, Village Blue …
… I have completely enjoyed this past year getting to know so many people from all over the world and now you have become part of my extended family. … Read all
And, as Maureen Dowd said sincerely to Andrea Mitchell today, “Merry Christmas!”
P.S. As former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega writes via TomDispatch, let’s all “Shoot the Moon and Forget about the Bell Curve.” Tom says, “It’s a way to think about 2006 with hope (of a sort) and even perhaps grace.” Good.
I like the I Spy series.
Everyone should use these threads to promote lesser known websites that we should check out.
TY.
That’s a truly great idea, Boo. Like the one Cedwyn (is that a Welsh name or what?!) told us about in the Open Thread below:
Once Upon a Time
Cedwyn says it’s great.
count of Fafblog to give me a chuckle when all I want to do is scream obscenities at the world.
I agree with BooMan; this is a great series, Susan.
Isn’t it funny how these defense industry businesses act like the taxpayers don’t have any business being involved in discussions. It’s a simple matter of perception management, productive disinformation and controlled psychological tasking and a bit remote from reality…same as their operations and the government in general. I don’t think anyone is required to be truthful at this point, are they?
Somehow I think Alastair Cooke would find it amusing that his bones were stolen. BTW — Nightline is doing snoopgate again if you want to tape it.
I didn’t follow the Aldrich Ames case as closely as I should have. But I do know that Media Matters has an article up that disputes the Clinton allegations. As I understand it, Clinton could not have violated FISA in ordering a warrantless search of Ames’ house because FISA didn’t cover physical searches at the time.
Now, why they wouldn’t have needed a warrant as they would in other criminal cases is something beyond my knowledge. In other words, even thought FISA did not require a warrant, I’m not clear why a warrant wasn’t covered by other criminal search laws. (I’m a corporate transactional lawyer not a criminal lawyer.) But maybe somebody else does.
A coworker had Rush L. on the radio in his cube yesterday, and the Ames story was being pushed hard.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the official response meme being sent out from the West Wing.
It doesn’t need to be an exact match as far as the particulars; it only has to be close enough to muddy the waters and confuse folks who are busy thinking about the holidays and really don’t want to be bothered with a constitutional crisis this week in particular. It provides an excuse to let it all slide down the black hole…
From an e-mail I just got:
I likehttp://www.xymphora.blogspot.com/ This person always seems very consistently on the mark.
Daily Kos is the equivalent to MSM on the internet. It’s like some kind of Phi Beta Kappa. A frat house.
Blackwater was not involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal at all and I seem to have completely muddled my facts.
IIRC, the contractor at Abu Graib was CACI. I don’t remember Blackwater being among the contractors mentioned in any of the investigative reports. This is not to argue that they don’t deserve the criticism that they have gotten. It is just to say that they apparently didn’t get that particular contract.
There are also conflicting reports on the initial testimony of Lyndie England. It had been reported that the PMC employed translator she worked with was from Blackwater and some sources have it as being from another PMC.
I like the I spy series. There is a lot of information in this diary, on a lot of different topics.
I wonder about the seal who is quoted here. Just saying he is probably being led by his party of choice and that is most obvious, due to his rheteric.
As far as rummy goes, he has always benn off his rocker for a very long time. Just look at his ways and means. He went a traveling with dickie boy for a reason and that was to try to make ppl of other countries do what they want them to do…doesnt seem to be working out like they thought. I think it is rather funny to see them push and shove their way to get their way with things. They are like busy little bees doing their duty to the queen. :o)
Things are not working out the way they wanted them to work out. It seems that they can not control others they way they thought they could.
Anyway. I like the I spy series. Good work, Kids.
What I’d be interested in knowing is, is impeachment the only remedy here? Is there a way to get the Supreme Court to rule on this?
Apart from these weak attempts to spin the story, there are questions of law at the heart of this. Assume for a moment that the White House believed it was acting legally, then isn’t it up to the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution here?