Author: Limelite

Early reports are that a secular Sunni alliance and a religious Shiite bloc are in the lead.

The Shiite religious coalition is leading in the polls in Iraq’s five southern provinces, the Kurdish Alliance looks set to win the north and a Sunni coalition leads in a central province, unofficial results showed. . .Arab News

In a speech, while thanking insurgents for remaining peaceful during the voting, Adnan Al-Dulaimi, the leader of the main Sunni election coalition National Concord Front (NCF)called for a coalition government to protect national unity in Iraq.
Science Daily, quoting The Washington Times, reports

The Iran-backed Shiite group the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) in Iraq is said to have a strong lead in southern cities of Najaf, Basra and Karbala, the Times said.

The SCIRI is one of several Islamic religious parties that are collected under the umbrella of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) that is largely a Shiite compilation.  Coming second to them is former premier Iyad Allawi’s Shiite secular party.  Al-Dulami’s Sunni NCF is enjoying better results in Baghdad with reportedly 40% of the vote there.

In the north, as expected, the Kurdish Alliance (a coalition of he Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) is dominating.

Clearly, Iraq has divided itself in this election along religio-ethnic lines.  Iran has successfully exported the Islamic state idea when the thousands of Shiites who fled Saddam for refuge in Iran returned once their nemesis was deposed by the US-led invasion.

In spite of the divisions, joining Al-Dulami’s call for cooperation is outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari who said Saturday that Shiites and Sunni Arabs should work hand in hand in the new parliament.  Jaafari, of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), is guaranteed to Parliament as the UIA is expected to garner the highest number of seats.  

“To our brothers in Mosul, Ramadi and Tikrit, I say your brothers in Najaf, Karbala and Hilla have waited a long time to work hand in hand with you under the dome of the next parliament to build the new Iraq,” he told reporters.

Jaafari urged Sunni scholars to “use their position to spread principles of unity and freedom”.

He also called on Baathists to work with “their brothers” to rebuild Iraq.  Islam Online

Cautious optimism for the prospects of a functioning elected government may be in order since the Sunnis participated in these elections in strong numbers, contrary to their boycott last February, because there was little violence associated with the actual voting day, and because there are no major complaints of election fraud, factors that may signal a readiness for stability and self-rule by the Iraqi people.

It is my view that the withdrawl of American troops as rapidly as possible will augment the possibility of success as the insurgency is largely a secular Sunni phenomenon, including many former Ba’athists.  And the other solid opposition to our presence is the Islamic leadership in the five southern provinces.  Both these groups will likely finish one-two.  

Chalk up another victory for the voters of Florida.  Despite acting Florida Secretary of State David Mann’s refusal to investigate Diebold electronic voting machines state-wide, Volusia County Council members decided in a

4-3 vote [that] allows the county to trade in the paperless touch screens for an ES&S-supported ballot-marking device with an accessible touch-screen called AutoMark, if it gets approved for use in Florida.  Brad Blog

Mann’s office oversees (right!) the state elections department, and Mann claimed Thursday (12/15/05) that he has such “confidence” in his agency’s certification process that he has no intention of doing any double checking now.  This despite

Top computer scientists and voting experts said Thursday that Florida must re-examine the way it tests voting machines and needs to verify claims by a Tallahassee elections official who said hackers could alter some computerized election results.  Black Box Voting.org

Remember the Diebold smoking gun story of November 11, 2000?  

“DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 – Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000–all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.”  Scoop Independent News

So who do Florida voters have to thank for this lates move in the right direction of preventing voter fraud?  The Electronic Frontier Foundation who filed an amicus brief on behalf or Handicapped Adults of Volusia County (HAVOC).

On July 5, 2005, the National Federation of the Blind, the National Federation of the Blind in Florida, and five blind Volusia County voters filed a lawsuit in federal court against Voluisa County Council’s decision to reject “paperless” Diebold touch-screen machines in favor of waiting for state certification of the AutoMark ballot marker. The County Council, after four long, emotional council meetings over as many months, voted 4-3 against Diebold.  Verified Voting Foundation

You can read more about the National Federation for the Blind case at Electronic Frontier Boundation.  Details included are:

   * Appellants’ Reply Brief September 16, 2005
    * EFF Amicus Brief September 14, 2005
    * Appellees’ Brief September 2, 2005
    * Amicus Brief of American Association of People with Disabilites August 24, 2005
    * Appellants’ Brief August 15, 2005
    * Opinion Denying Preliminary Injunction July 21, 2005
    * HAVOC Amicus Brief July 14, 2005
    * Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion For a Preliminary Injunction July 13, 2005
    * Defendant Ann McFall’s Response to Plaintiff’s Motion For a Preliminary Injunction July 13, 2005
    * Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction July 5, 2005
    * Complaint July 5, 2005

Bush finally admits responsibility for going to war (in part) in Iraq on the basis of false intelligence regarding WMD.  He had this to say, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan forum for the study of world affairs.

Bush has repeatedly noted that the decision to go to war was his responsibility. And he has acknowledged for more than a year that most of the intelligence behind the claims of Saddam’s weapons programs turned out to be faulty. But he has never linked the two so clearly and so personally.  The News & Observer

(emphasis mine)

But he still remains defensive about his decision, citing the threat that Saddam supposedly represented to the US.  Not the imminent threat, mind you, just the garden variety.  By being there and being Saddam.

Still he whines.  Still he behaves like a grade-schooler, pointing the finger, trying to shift the focus from his own admission. . .”Well, they did it too!” he snarls.

He said foreign intelligence agencies – including several for governments who didn’t back his decision to invade – also believed before the war that Saddam Hussein possessed them.

He just doesn’t get it!  Those other countries didn’t go to war over their suspicions.  And, duh!, surely WMD would be just as great a threat to them (probably Europe) as us.  If not bigger.

And like the late lamented Tookie Williams, he expressed neither regret nor remorse for his “crime,” hauling out tired and much beaten dead horse reasons for going to war.  Such as:  Iraqi violations of a no-fly zone in its airspace, Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait a decade earlier, and Iraq’s defiance of United Nations resolutions.

Gee, doesn’t that list just shout out IMMINENT! THREAT! to the USA!

In fact, it’s not by any stretch of the imagination justifiable war that this country has sacrificed more than 2000 men and women in the military for.  No, it’s only to remove Saddam as head of state.  And it may be because Bush believed that Saddam intended to start up WMD activities again.  The proverbial road to the present hell in Iraq is paved with Saddam’s intentions.

Since November’s speech at the Naval Academy, in which he signaled the beginning of his culpability to the listening audience, the pattern of speeches

has included descriptions of fixes for early mistakes and sober assessments of remaining challenges.

The biggest mistake he alluded to at the Naval Academy was going to war with the military Rumsfeld wanted, not the military this Nation has.  

If our military leaders tell me we need more troops, I will send them. For example, we’ve increased our force levels in Iraq to 160,000, up from 137,000, in preparation for the December elections.

Those increases in troop strength do not sound like a plan for winding down our involvement in Iraq to me.  They don’t indicate to me that the mission has been accomplished, rather it sounds more like the mission is bogged down.  Bush intractably clings to the mission, the course, the pursuit of freedom for Iraqis — whatever he calls it.  He dismisses making plans for an end game, characterizing timetables for troop withdrawl as artifical.

Guess that means the US remains at war until he or some other president declares victory.  If it’s Bush, one wants to know how does he define “victory”?  It appears he defines it by objectives, which he prefers over timetables.  Fair enough.

Last November it was like this:

Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation.  Naval Academy speech

and just yesterday it was like this:

“Victory will be achieved by meeting certain objectives: when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can protect their own people and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against our country,” he said. “These objectives, not timetables set by politicians in Washington, will drive our force levels in Iraq.” THe News & Observer

Bingo!  At least that’s clear and unchanging.  But, on examination, the three objectives are a formula for eternal involvement in Iraq.  And that’s anyone’s definition of quagmire.  On further examination those objectives are unrelated to the tired reasons that Bush now clings to for going to war in the first place.  Remember Iraqi violations of a no-fly zone in its airspace, Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait a decade earlier, and Iraq’s defiance of United Nations resolutions?

If victory were tied to those reasons as objectives and goals to achieve in order to declare mission accomplished, then the war would be over as I type!  Heck, one of them had been accomplished prior to the current Bush war.

Sadly, knowing this president, one can only conclude that if and when Bush’s three current objectives come close to being achieved, why he’ll continue to stay the course.  In yet another different direction.

The man, Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, who reportedly resides in Central Florida, claimed to have a bomb inside his carry-on. He was shot and killed when he refused orders to get on the ground, instead reaching inside his bag.

His wife claims he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication.

Federal Air Marshal spokesman David Adams recounted reports that the passenger argued with his wife during the Medellin-Miami leg of the flight, Herald news partner WFOR-CBS4 broadcast.Miami Herald

Authorities have exploded three pieces of luggage on the tarmac next to Gate D nearby the evacuated American Airlines flight 924 from Medellin, Colombia to Orlando.
Homeland Security spokesman, Brian Doyle said,

It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone.Raw Story

Luggage was spread across the tarmac to allow bomb-sniffing dogs to investigate.

I’m watching out of the corner of my eye various local TV news broadcasts.  Some are showing live video of a man in heavy gear crouching next to a bag.  Previously I watched as a bag was blown to smithereens on the rain-wet tarmac.  It and this

one appear to be carry-on type luggage.

The last time I watched luggage get “offed” was in the international terminal awaiting my flight from Paris after a month of uneventful pleasure.  At that time, while the gendarmes were dead serious about exploding unattended luggage, the other officials who were keeping us safely back from the action were making jokes about ladies underwear flying through the air.

It’s not the wise thing to speculate about at this time, but I have a sinking feeling that this is probably a tragic mistake.

First official word from news conference @ 6:00PM EST summarized:
Jame E Bauer, Spe. Agent in Charge did most of the talking. (I paraphrase as close to direct quoting as possible.)

Incident occurred at 2:10 PM. The victim was confronted by A.M, remained non-compliant, shots fired. He is deceased.

FBI has jurisdiction to determine if terrorist nexus exists.

Deceased’s effects were examined and no explosives were found.

No reason to believe terrist-linked; an isolated event.

Bobby Parker, Dir. M/Dade Police:

Airline and baggage are secure.

Back to SA Bauer:

Man flew out from Quito, Ecuador this morning. Cleared custome here in Miami. He was holding a backpack when he uttered threat that he had a bomb. Believed to be traveling with his wife.

Andy Apolleny, FBI:

I don’t see nexus to terrorism. Incident began inside the aircraft. No comments to question how many shots fired.

Back to SA Bauer:

When asked what is the protocol for AMs to shoot, said, “Not going to crawl into the law books right now.”

Two AMs assigned to flight.

When asked if man made threat in English or Spanish, no answer.

(X-posted Daily Kos)

Lots of questions hurled at officials went unanswered as investigation not complete, facts not known. That’s all.

Speaking today in front of an audience of several hundred at the Miami Book Fair International, in Miami, Florida, Richard A. Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism in the Clinton and Bush II administrations disclosed details of the inner operations and attitudes regarding national security in both.

Clarke is the author of the current not-too-distant futuristic novel The Scorpion’s Gate and is also the author of Against All Enemies:Inside America’s War on Terror.

Here’s a summary of some of his more interesting remarks as I remember them from attending his presentation this afternoon.  [Cross-posted at DailyKos.]
In the Clinton administration, Clarke established the practice of holding role-playing game sessions for Cabinet and security officials, proposing possible scenarios such as how to respond to the threat of a nuclear device set to explode somewhere in DC.  By way of illustration, he described himself taking the role of the “what if” moderator and testing Attorney General Janet Reno with hypotheical questions about liasing with the FBI in such an eventuality.  The idea, of course, was to prepare administration officials’ minds so that they could respond rapidly in the actuality of such a threat.

While discussing his novel, he projected that within the next five years, the US should anticipate and plan for the consequences of the following possible events:

    * Oil at $70 a barrel;
    * The overthrow of the House of Saud;
    * China securing “unfriendly” exclusive petro contracts with mid-east suppliers.

Clarke spoke frankly during a short Q&A session saying, among other things, that America calculates peak oil estimates based on information given to us by Saudi Arabian officials, but that the Saudi government forbids us to verify their reported data independently.  That is to say, for all we know, they could be lying and be well past the half-way point in their oil reserves.

In response to a question about the policy of Republican character assassination of those who question administration actions and policies, Clarke’s response was mixed.  He was angered that the Bush-Cheney-Rove (Elliot Abrams probably being the mastermind) machine came after him for about two weeks before giving up once they realized their efforts were doing more to boost sales of his book, Against All Enemies, than vanquishing an enemy.  Clarke wished they’d kept it up for another week for added sales benefits.

Clarke insisted that it is not un-American to question the Bush-Rove WH over Iraq, debating its policies and demanding acknowledgment of its mistakes, as well as its plans to prosecute the war.  In fact, it is un-American not to, saying in effect:  

“That’s the way we’ve done it for 200 or so years in this country and it has worked very well.  There’s no reason to change now.”

Clarke made the point that the present insurgency creating chaos in Iraq was anticipated in studies by the Army War College (among other branches of militray and civilian think tanks, and intelligence agencies) who notified the WH of their findings in a voluminous written report.  The administration chose not to “hear” that advice nor the similar advice of career intelligence and Sate Dept. personnel regarding its own decisions for the Iraq War.

Regarding the debate about the withdrawl of American troops from Iraq and a timetable of same, he had this to say (paraphrasing):

“The Republican position that discussion of when to withdraw troops will encourage al-Qaeda terrorist attacks simply isn’t true.  Al-Qaeda is encouraged already.  Do you think they sit there and say, ‘Oh look, America is debating troop withdrawls on Capitol Hill.  What can we bomb now to show them we’re encouraged by what they say?'”

Nor does Clarke accept that a discussion of troop witdrawl reveals information that could be construed as being helpful to the enemy.

“First of all, the enemy already knows all it needs to know to be effective.  What information people need to have in order to talk about a withdrawl timetable from Iraq doesn’t require detailed secret information that al-Qaeda hasn’t got.”

Lastly, the argument that withdrawing our troops from Iraq will destabilize the country is specious reasoning for the following reasons:  Iraq is already in chaos; Iraq is and will continue to be destabilized whether we withdraw next year, or 5 years from now; the various factions in Iraq will have to reach an accommodation through whatever means they choose regardless of the date America ends its occupation.

Finally, Clarke pointed out that Iran state-backed terrorists (responsible for the bombings of Jewish centers in Argentina in the mid-90s) and Saudi nationals, who make up most of the foreign insurgents in Iraq (particularly the suicide bombers), are the leading terrorist threats to America now.  Both groups are sending operatives into Iraq and using it as a training field, gaining battle experience and bomb-making expertise. Then, after several months “training” these neo-terrorists are being withdrawn to create and develop terrorist cells abroad, in the case of Iranians, and within their own country, in the case of Saudi Arabians.  Iran’s state-sponsored terrorists intend to wield influence in Iraq favorable to establishing a regime similar to their own.  Saudi terrorists intend to overthrow the House of Saud.

Clarke was forthright and didn’t shirk making frank responses to direct questions.  He finished his presentation by saying it will take quite some time for Americans to regain their trust of their own government after being misled, manipulated, and lied to by the present administration. Then he left to catch his flight taking him to Berlin, Germany.

Today’s Miami Herald reports that Gov. Jeb handcuffs state agencies’ requests for money from lawmakers.  Despite a state law to the contrary.

An open secret in Tallahassee is now hanging like dirty laundry in the public domain.  And just like the typical cases in peoples’ homes, it all tumbled out of the laundry bag during an angry meeting in Miami between state legislators and juvenile justice officials.
Herald reporter, Carol Marbin Miller writes,

The legislators have questioned over the past three years why [Department of Juvenile Justice] DJJ guards are poorly trained, don’t have enough radios, and why surveillance equipment designed to protect both guards and children often doesn’t work.

Lawmakers wanted to know, “Why haven’t you DJJ officials asked for sufficient funding for your department?”

Randy Ball, an aide in the governor’s office opened the lid on the hamper when he said, in effect, “DJJ Secretary Anthony Schembri’s hands are tied.”

Then he dropped the bombshell,

“We told him he could not request additional training dollars yet,” Ball added. “He tried, and it’s not his fault he failed.”

Guess that makes it Jeb’s fault.  And it’s no wonder lawmakers were angry.

Rep. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat and frequent agency critic, called the revelation that Bush was censoring his agency heads’ budget requests “a dirty little secret.”

“What’s the line from Casablanca? ‘I’m shocked to hear that gambling is going on here!’ That’s almost how I felt,” Gelber said. “The legislative branch is supposed to be doing this” oversight, he said, adding that lawmakers in recent years had been “a little more subservient than they ought to be.”

Yeah, well that’s a US Congressional fault, too.  The Tide needs to sweep through and clean the poxes out of both houses.

While a spokesman for the governor tried to put the soiled underwear back in the hamper

by saying that all agency heads follow the law, which says state agencies’ budget requests are to be “based on the agency’s independent judgment of its needs.”

Folks in Florida will tell you that:

It has long been suspected in the Capitol that Bush’s agency heads have submitted budget requests that won’t conflict with the governor’s own budget recommendations given to legislators just before the start ot the annual legislative session.

Cleaning up dirty laundry in political circles usually requires that bucks get passed from one entity to another.  Think of it as running around the laundromat trying to decide which machine to put your coins in.  And Florida’s Capitol Hill types are no exception.

The question of which government branch was setting policy came up again when lawmakers complained that Bush had vetoed a $2.7 million request to pay for electronic monitoring devices and probation officers so that some delinquent children can await trial on home detention, rather than in often-crowded detention centers.

Then the poor laundry lackey really put his foot in the suds when trying to soak the folks in Miami.

Ball told the committees, however, that the governor believes it is the responsibility of local governments to pay for juvenile detention initiatives — not the state.

No one asked him whether or not it is true that the Department of Juvenile Justice is a State agency.  Guess they figured the poor guy had already been put through the wringer.

I hope you and the ones you love are eagerly anticipating a joyful and warm celebration of love and bounty this Thanksgiving.  I hope you will all sit down to a table groaning with homemade food and see nothing but faces aglow with health and well-being.  I hope that your feast is enlivened with exchanges of good news — increasing success in business, rising income, soon to be earned college degrees, and all the stories signifying upward mobility.

And I hope this all takes place under an intact roof, enclosed by four sturdy wall, in a comfortable air-conditioned environment where everything and everyone is clean, and in a place that is easily affordable to you.  I hope that place is your residence.

For millions of Americans there will be no feast.  There won’t even be a home for them to eat it in.  Much less their own home.  They are the thousands and thousands and thousands more without hope for the holidays. They are the homeless of America, our Nation’s shame.
Homelessness in America is nothing short of a disgrace and it should be the major domestic political issue in the 2006 legislative and gubernatorial races as well as the Presidential Election in 2008.

One candidate for Congress(OH16) is Jeff Seemann, who posted his diary on Daily Kos (where this diary is also cross-posted), “Trying to Understand” today, announcing that he intends to spend 100 hours living the homeless experience in order to better know and serve his constituency.  I admire and applaud him.  It is his diary that inspired this one.  [Please read and respond to his diary after you finish this one.  Thanks.]

WARNING! Readers, gird yourselves because nothing but bleak facts follow.

        * There is no jurisdiction in the United States in which a full-time job at the prevailing minimum wage (either federal or state) provides enough income to allow a household to afford a two-bedroom home at the region’s fair market rent.

        * Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003. This figure was an increase from the 34.5 million people who lived below the poverty line in 2002.

        * The annual homeless population of the United States is 2.3-3.5 million people.

        * 40% of the homeless population were made up of families (2003); 63% of the homeless population have at least one child; 84% of the homeless population in families are women.

        * 44% of the homeless population are employed.

        * 33% of male homeless adults are veterans.

        * 55% of homeless individuals are reported as not having medical insurance.

Let’s all take a breath and consider just a little of what those statistics mean.

The minimum wage is not a living wage for American workers.  “Minimum wage” is a despicable euphemism for “slave wage.”  Such a policy of setting the minimum wage at a level so low is nothing short of the very unchristian message that the laborer is not worthy of his hire.  The 44% of the employed homeless in this country can’t afford to buy a turkey and all the trimmings, much less sit down to the table and enjoy it in their merry domicile, surrounded by loving family even once a year.

Single families headed by mothers are the largest and fastest growing demographic of homeless victims in our Nation.  I say “victims” because many of these homeless women are driven from the family household by domestic violence.  They live in fear and shame, unable to provide a place for their children to grow and thrive.  They can’t earn enough to feed themselves and their dependents, let alone treat them to a candle-lit Thanksgiving feast once a year.

Men who volunteered their lives and sacred honor in service to their country now find themselves with no homes to defend even if they wanted to.  Some fought, and some were grievously wounded.  Many did so on empty stomachs, stomachs filled only with MREs, and some lucky ones on stomachs that growled in chow lines, waiting for a slice of white meat, a blob of mashed potatoes, and a dollop of gravy.  Now the only holiday celebration they can hope for will come from a compassionate charity kitchen and their trays of food will be taken in the company of downtrodden strangers.

WARNING!  Dear readers who are still with me, a quick and dirty distillation of America’s homeless population from The National Law Center of Homelessness & Poverty:

    * 41% are single men.
    * 14% are single women.
    * 5% are unaccompanied children.
    * 40% are families with children.
    * 67% are single parent families.
    * 23% are mentally disabled.
    * 10% are veterans.
    * 30% are drug or alcohol dependent.
    * 50% are African-American
    * 35% are White
    * 12% are Hispanic
    * 2% are Native American
    * 1% are Asian

Homelessness is an equal opportunity affliction.  It is a pathogenic social disease that threatens to become an epidemic.  It is also curable by:

    * instituting a minimum living wage;
    * by constructing affordable housing;
    * and by creating universal health care for children and universal health insurance for adults.

All we must do is overpower America’s shame by force of will and common legislative good sense. Will you support, campaign, and vote for candidates who demonstrate they have the will and the proposals to end homelessness in America?  If you do, perhaps we can all lift our heads and look each other in the eye knowing we stood for real American values.  That’s certainly something to be thankful for.

In his “I’m sorry,” to Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., Woodward says he wanted to protect his sources.  But he only went to his editor after Libby was indicted.  So, the sources he wants to protect can’t be the sources Libby revealed, or Judith Miller, either because in her case she had Libby’s waiver and in his case, he can only have heard what he heard from the Veep or someone in the CIA itself.

Now who in the CIA would want Libby to know that Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, was Wilson’s wife?  What possible value to the intelligence community would dispersing intelligence that could endanger its operations have in this case?  You’re right, the CIA has no motive to leak her identity.

That leaves us with a Senior Administration Official (SAO) who wanted information from the CIA for the specific purpose of causing harm to Joe Wilson and his family because Joe Wilson had upset the WMD rationale apple cart, leaving egg all over the Administration’s war-mongering face.  A political revenge motive.  Now this makes sense.  And Libby was the conduit who was fed by a more senior SAO.  His boss?
In his own words Woodward says,

“I didn’t want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed.”  WaPo

So, Woodward has protecting an SAO source that he needs to protect for whatever reason because of either future value, present threat, or past debt.

Yesterday Andy Card said he was a source Woodward talked to, but denies that Valerie Plame ever came into their conversations.  Yesterday Raw Story said that Stephen Hadley is Woodward’s “unknown” source of her name, according to its own unnamed

“attorneys close to the investigation and intelligence officials.”

So far, no denials from Hadley who is “a hardliner close to Vice President Dick Cheney and to the neoconservative camp.”  

Or Cheney.  Every other eligible SAO is falling all over himself to deny, deny, deny.

A senior administration official said that neither President Bush himself, nor his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., nor his counselor, Dan Bartlett, was Mr. Woodward’s source. So did spokesmen for former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; the former director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet; and his deputy, John E. McLaughlin.

    A lawyer for Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff who has acknowledged conversations with reporters about the case and remains under investigation, said Mr. Rove was not Mr. Woodward’s source.

    Mr. Cheney did not join the parade of denials. A spokeswoman said he would have no comment on a continuing investigation. Several other officials could not be reached for comment. NYT

  There’s your guy.

As the continuing saga of “Don’t Be My Neighbor” unfolds here at the edge of the Evergaldes, the broadcast news is all hurricanes all the time.

Even Game II of the WS is ad-free as we’re jerked from a 40-something degree night in Chicago to the sultry 81 degrees here where the solemn-faced weather people, led by Mr. Max at the Nat’l. Hurricane Center down the street (as it were) are telling us the BIG danger for those of us on the dirty side (yep! that’s me) of Wilma is going to be tornados.  

New with this storm, the weather people have trotted out a technological innovation so we can experience cranked up thrills as the now cat-3 storm bears down on the Naples/Ft. Myers area.
The new tecnology is a computer assisted Super Doppler radar that shows wind speeds at cloud level in precise sampling points.  The technology enables the TV viewer to see internal micro-circulations within the larger storm system that appear as little red circles.  When these micro-circulations touch down, a barrel attaches itself to the circle and the visual — voila! — becomes a tornado on your screen.

The real tornado is thus precisely locatable and the weather person can tell you where it is within a couple of blocks of any indivdual address.  

Just a while ago, 6 micro-circulations were over Key West and Big Pine, one with a barrel.  Watch TV. . .count the dots, hear the announcement that the tornado is in the fourteen hundred block of SW 88th St.

Another feature is that the weather person can click the crosshair on any point of the screen and wind speed at that location displays.  We’ve been watching 70s – 100s for the past hour over the Keys.

And the last great feature is that wave heights can also be displayed at a similar click.  Readings are coming in at a maximum of 40′.  Almost all the waves are at 20’+.  This is typical of the North Atlantic, never the Gulf of Mexico.

Thinking about storm surge?  Then cut those heights in half in order to know the height of the wall of water that’s coming ashore as storm surge (plus factor the tidal data).  Currently, the SW coastline is looking forward to the possibility of a 15′-20′ wall of water.  Since a lot of Naples is virtually at sea level, as are the Keys, the potential is nasty.

That’s the technological story.  The human interest angle is — I’m bored by the constant barrage of info, and at the same time I’m aware of a heightened sense of danger that torandos present within the already awesome power of a hurricane.

Last report (updated hourly now) are winds of 115 and forward speed of 18 mph.  On the dirty side that means sustained winds of 133 mph; on the clean side, just under 100.  The cone of hurricane force winds is about 80 miles across and will cover the entire lower third of the state. Wilma is a Big Mother.

As for me, I’m typing what may be my temporary good-bye as the noise of the rising winds increases.  After Katrina we were a week without power.  After Wilma, who knows?  Know that we’re all shuttered and battened down and expect to be just fine.  Finally, and most importantly, we’re well inland.

The people on the coast?  Well their fate hinges on whether Wilma weakens  or not before making landfall.  

So, until next time at the Frog Pond Cafe. . .goodnight and good luck.

While rumors are the theme of the week, here’s a hefty slice from the Beltway Insider Pie that comes to us via an e-mail from a Democratic House member’s staffer to Jan Frel at AlterNet.

Four items, viz.:

• Fred Flights, an assistant to John Bolton, is a named name who could be indicted.
• Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been suggested as replacements for Dick Cheney.
• Colin Powell told John McCain he showed the infamous memo with Plame’s identity on it two just two people; Dick Cheney and George Bush.
• Fitzgerald is looking at the precedent set from the indictment of Tricky Dick’s veep Spiro Agnew to pursue against Cheney.

Note, the e-mailing staffer eschews CAPS, a quirk that I’ve preserved.
Further disclaimer as to sourcing:

. . .the sources include two senior members of senate and key staffers; counsel for individuals that have been called before the grand jury; and two journalists taking a lead position in investigating the case. . . represent[ing] a composite of the information from those sources.

Details bullet item 1

. . .we are told that eight indictments have already prepared, with the possibility of another ten. these indictments include senior white house staff, most notably vice president cheney’s chief of staff scooter libby, fred flights (special assistant to john bolton), and–very surprisingly–national security adviser steve hadley.

Details bullet item 3

powell recounted to the senator that he had traveled on air force one with bush and cheney, and brought to their attention a classified memorandum about the issue of whether there was indeed a transaction inolving niger and yellow cake uranium. the document included ambassador joe wilson’s involvement and identified his wife, valerie plame, as a covert agent. the memorandum further stated that this information was secret. powell told mccain that he showed that memo only to two people–president and vice president. according to powell, cheney fixated on the wilson/plame connection, and plame’s status.

further. . .

powell testified about this exchange in great length to the grand jury investigating the plame case. according to sources close to the case, powell appeared convinced that the vice president played a focal role in disclosing plame’s undercover status.

Concluding details:

one interesting point though–it is worth noting that a parade of senior republican senators have evidently been privately pushing mccain to lobby to be cheney’s replacement. senator lindsey graham (R-SC) has also been mentioned. meanwhile, the white house has already been developing countermeasures–notably including senior white house officials privately voicing president bush’s disappointment in karl rove’s involvement in the case, calling it “misconduct.” an urgent search for a rove replacement is already underway.

Gossip just doesn’t get any juicier.  Have at it.