Keep your eye on the ball:
Lawmakers cite senators such as Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) to illustrate the administration's success in cooling congressional zeal for an investigation. On Dec. 20, she was among two Republicans and two Democrats who signed a letter expressing "our profound concern about recent revelations that the United States Government may have engaged in domestic electronic surveillance without appropriate legal authority." The letter urged the Senate's intelligence and judiciary committees to "jointly undertake an inquiry into the facts and law surrounding these allegations."
In an interview yesterday, Snowe said, "I'm not sure it's going to be essential or necessary" to conduct an inquiry "if we can address the legislative standpoint" that would provide oversight of the surveillance program. "We're learning a lot and we're going to learn more," she said.
She cited last week's briefings before the full House and Senate intelligence committees by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and former NSA director Michael V. Hayden.
Olympia, I'm so disappointed. So much for my plan to move to Maine.
Glenn Greenwald is on it. (He also catches Glenn Reynolds at his own game and makes an argument about why so-called conservatives have no ideology and are rather motivated by abject fealty.
Born at the Crest of the Empire reminds us that the AG still has some emails up his sleeve on the Plame leaks, and they might point to Mr. Secrecy himself.
Meanwhile, Cheney says he has the power to declassify information, apparently including the identity of covert CIA agents.
The Iraqi interior ministry has been the home of death squads, 22 members of which were apprehended as they were on their way to kidnap a Sunni "to be shot dead."
Laura Rozen is sad about losing Turkey, and links to the new Abu Ghraib scandals that may lose even more.
For me, this is one of the saddest results of the past five years of the Bush administration's blunders at home and abroad. Losing Turkey and Turkish hearts and minds.
More Abu Ghraib abuses and torture documented in photographs released by Australian TV. More from the NYT.
A bipartisan group of Congressmen wants the White House to reconsider outsourcing port security to a private British firm with base operations in the UAE.
Those pussy, cheese-eating, surrender-monkey French (ahem) are coming out hard after the Iranian nuclear program, saying that there is no way it's a civilian operation: "No civilian nuclear program can explain the Iranian nuclear program. So it is a clandestine Iranian military nuclear program."
Which of course, might have been something Valeria Plame had been working to head off at the pass when she was outed. And go back to Cole's main page, he's got some great links the last couple of days, as well as a top ten Whttitington/Iraq comparo.
And if you don't like it, you'll love that you've been the target of more than a $1.6 billion in government PR designed to change your mind over the last couple of years.
Disaster (possibly) averted in Haiti as a deal is reached to let frontrunner Preval become the President.
If you can't resist the distraction of Cheney, Slate interviewed some of Whittington's colleagues and they are p.o.'ed about their boss being blamed for the accident. Fire Dog Lake has more coverage than I would have thought possible. It's getting a little OJ, but if that's your bag... In that vein Dershowitz speculates on the costs and benefits of a delay in talking with the local authorities if one has been involved in a hunting accident. Letterman has some fun with video edit, at Cheney's expense.
Speaking of Cheney's expense, how about another gripping edition of the Keyboard Kommando Komix?>
And last but not least a distant cousin of Charlie's (yes, I'm stretching it) escaped its crate on the tarmac and is lost in the marsh after competing in the NY dog show.
Posted by binky at February 16, 2006 01:07 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Blogoramaif you're interested in Cheney's claim that he has the power unilaterally to declassify any information he feels like declassifying, per TPM's cross-reference, Clemons' post on topic, and links embedded therein, is very very very very interesting, which is to say, tremendously disheartening in the sense that cheney's trying to hoodwink us one again. and that he would embed the claim in what ought to have been an unqualified mea culpa over the whittington debacle just shows that it's always and ever politics that matters in the bush white house (q.v. $1.6B in propaganda).
Posted by: Moon at February 16, 2006 02:48 PM | PERMALINKChuck Schumer:Racial profiling is immoral, unconstitutional, and it doesn't even work on its own terms."
Will the real Chuck Schumer please stand up?
"We're calling for the full six-week investigation. It's a serious investigation and the reason why this is critical is while maybe there's nothing wrong with this company, how do we know they're not infiltrated?" asked Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "The United Arab Emirates has had people involved in terrorism. In fact, some of its financial institutions laundered the money for the (Sept, 11) terrorists. And to just blithely go ahead and treat this as another economic transaction is all wrong."
Outsourcing in this case, is not a good idea, and I don't think they need to rely on the same fearmongering that plays so well over in LGF-land. The "has people involved with terrorism" argument is stupid, overly broad and borders on condeming a the UAE as chock full of evildoers. The money laundering is relevant. If there are systematic security issues, those are relevant. I think the first statement was stupid and overly broad. That being said, I don't know that handing over port security to anyone is a good idea. Well, maybe the Mossad.*
* I kid! I kid!
Posted by: binky at February 16, 2006 04:26 PM | PERMALINKdon't you know, binky!? the mossad already runs american ports. just ask any number of people in the UAE.
hey mo, maybe if the bush administration had turned away from the war in iraq to do one measly thing about the woeful state of our port security (almost certainly our biggest vulnerability with respect to NBC attacks) schumer could turn his attention elsewhere and you could keep smearing him as soft on terrorism.
Posted by: moon at February 16, 2006 07:59 PM | PERMALINKThere's a way to compel Congress to investigate, even if they refuse: [ Click ]
Posted by: Constant at February 17, 2006 04:59 PM | PERMALINKwow. interesting link, constant (hint to other comers, when you get to his page, just follow the Kos link, the other one doesn't work).
Posted by: moon at February 17, 2006 06:44 PM | PERMALINK