Happy 4th of July!

hehehehehehe

Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence Before He Squeals

And so the cover up of a conspiracy of treason in the White House begins, as bush takes away Fitzgerald's lever to get at the truth:

President George W. Bush commuted Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence in the CIA leak case, sparing him from punishment the president called ``excessive.''

Bush acted after a U.S. appellate court today refused to let Libby, 56, stay out of prison during his appeal. Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of lying to investigators probing the 2003 leak of CIA official Valerie Plame's identity. Libby's backers had argued for a pardon.

``My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby,'' Bush said in a statement. ``The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long- lasting.''

The only thing worse than the traitors that gave up Valerie Plame Wilson, Brewster Jennings and all of the CIA assets associated with their cover for the anti-nuclear proliferation duties they were in charge of in order to protect the USA?

Finding out that your President is willing to aid and abet the cover up these guilty traitors.

What was bush so afraid of that he yanked this lever to get Libby to testify truthfully out of Fitzgerald's hands?

bush is afraid of the TRUTH. Because the truth would have exposed a conspiracy to illegally out CIA agents. One that bush is now confirming he was part of.

Traitors. This ain't about a blow job. This is about treason against the USA at a time of war.

EVERY FUCKING SINGLE ONE OF THEM IN THE WHITE HOUSE ARE TRAITORS.

Via HuffPo:

The Libby Pardon: Dancing Around the Central Issue

The Huffington Post - The ONLY reason to send Libby to jail during his appeal is to pressure him to sing, and the ONLY incentive to pardon him if he is forced to go to jail is to buy his silence. For all those who say Libby's misstatements were the product of pressure and faulty memory, note this and note it well: Libby's lies were not random, as they would have been if he had just "misremembered". They were all carefully designed to obstruct the investigation from reaching the vice president.

(H/T to Oui at BooTrib)

I think bushies action speak to his own treasonous involvement as well.

[update]
I said the pardon clock was ticking... It only took a couple of hours for bush to admit his guilt.

Via TPM Muckraker... Joe Wilson on bush commuting the traitor's sentence:

"From my viewpoint, the president has stepped in to short circuit the rule of law and the system of justice in our country. In so doing, he has acknowledged Mr. Libby's guilt for, among other things, obstruction of justice, which by definition is covering up for somebody in a crime. By commuting his sentence, he has brought himself and his office into reasonable suspicion of participation in an obstruction of justice. The commutation of (Libby's) sentence in and of itself is participation in obstruction of justice."

Asked if he expected Bush to pardon or commute Libby's sentence, Wilson replied, "I have never known what to expect. The administration is now trying call this compromise. At end of day, it's allowing a neoconservative cult to engage in special pleading. …

No Delays For Traitor Libby

Via Bloomberg: (and a h/t to Daily Muck)

Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, must go to prison while appealing his conviction for obstructing a CIA leak probe, a U.S. appeals court said.

Libby may be behind bars within weeks after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today denied his request for release. The decision will increase pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby, 56, as the former White House official's supporters have urged.

Libby ``has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question'' under federal law that would merit letting him remain free, the court said.

Earlier:

Scooter Libby has a new name: inmate number 28301-016. That's according to the Bureau of Prisons, which is ready and waiting for Libby's arrival.

Via Reuters, the appeal wasn't even a close call:

The three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected Libby's request in a one-paragraph order, ruling he has not shown that his appeal "raises a substantial question."

The ruling was issued by all three members of the appeals court panel. Judges David Sentelle and Karen LeCraft Henderson were appointed by Republican presidents while Judge David Tatel was appointed by a Democratic president.

Is the pardon clock ticking? Bush has always been by the book on pardons in the past.

NY Times on the Libby beat:

Judge Reggie B. Walton said today that he found no reason to postpone Mr. Libby’s sentence of two and a half years in prison for four felony counts. Defense lawyers had asked that he be allowed to remain free while pursuing appeals.

Judge Walton’s decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby’s supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby?

As for bushies' past record on pardons, well? I have already covered that a couple of times:

The only thing we have on record concerning pardons from Bush is something I caught in March from Newsweek:

Scooter's Pardon Problem - Bush By the Book

No (scape)goats in this book. But according to Isikoff and Hosenball at Newsweek this is what the (supposed) fall guy can expect:

Scooter Libby’s Pardon Problem :

"Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.

snip

“You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And there’s a procedure in place,” he said at first. When Bush added that he has been telling members of Congress who have contacted him about the matter to “look at the facts in the case,” Cavuto followed up: “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying … there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decisions. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process,” the president answered."

Get ready for prison now, Scooter...
You have plenty of time before sentencing to get your affairs in order NOW, so there should be no reasons to delay your entering the system as soon as the sentence is pronounced.

As a side note on this:
How strained must the relationship between bush and cheney be, when cheney has to make his plea for a pardon on the national news? Since when do Republicans take their "inner business dirty dealings" public like that? They usually do that stuff behind closed doors.

I would say that things do look particularly bad for Libby, and certainly for his band of merry traitors that don't want to chance Scooter flipping them to avoid prison. I have to start thinking about the possibility that MAYBE bush had nothing to do with the leaking, and as long as there is no pardon that line of reasoning might make sense. The reality is that as soon as bush does give a pardon to Scooter (if he does?), or anyone else that Scooter may flip, it is pretty much an admission of bushies' own guilt.

No matter how you look at it, there is no way to justify pardoning Scooter Libby without it being an admission of guilt by the President.

Any innocent President would be furious with Libby and wouldn't pardon him in a million years.

But Bush is not innocent. Libby lied for the President. And if Bush pardons Libby then we will know for certain that the President himself is the one that should be doing jail time for the crime that Libby covered up.

We shall see.

Yes, we shall. Unfortunately, we may have to wait for the dying days of this presidency to get the answer, as to the extent of bush's involvement in the leak.

The decision to send Libby to jail before an appeal doesn't change the possibility of a last minute out the door pardon from bush in the dying days of his present lame duck presidency, but it does put the screws to all those involved in the leak sooner rather than later.

And make no mistake about this: Any pardon from bush, now or later, is enough proof of bushies' involvement in this treasonous act against our nations' security.

Tick Tick Tick...

[update]
It didn't take long for clock to run out. bush is guilty.

I. Lewis "28301-016" Libby

Via the Daily Muck:

Scooter Libby has a new name: inmate number 28301-016. That's according to the Bureau of Prisons, which is ready and waiting for Libby's arrival.

While Libby is still waiting to actually go to jail they are getting number "28301-016" a room with a barred view ready.

Via BooMan at the Booman Tribune:

"We Won't Rest Until They're Frog-Marched Out"

What’s with the Frog?

"It's of keen interest to me, to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.'' - Joseph C. Wilson IV.

To learn the etymology of the term frog-march you can read this column by Bill Safire. He may have spent his career shilling for the Republicans and our intelligence services, but he is a reliable source on language.

In any case, Booman Tribune encourages its users to band together to do the investigative journalism that the mainstream media has forgotten how to do.

The frog is a reminder that politicians do occasionally get drummed out of office for corruption or unethical behavior. And we would like to speed that process along.

In fact, our motto is "We Won't Rest Until They're Frog-Marched Out" So, even if the amphibian is a criminal, you must learn to love the frog.

Well? No rest for the weary, IMHO, as Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, and Dick Cheney are still traitors on the loose... Not to mention all of the other criminal bush administration wankers that have yet to see justice brought down on them for their own very special little crimes.

Bush by the book on past pardons

NY Times on the Libby beat:

Judge Reggie B. Walton said today that he found no reason to postpone Mr. Libby’s sentence of two and a half years in prison for four felony counts. Defense lawyers had asked that he be allowed to remain free while pursuing appeals.

Judge Walton’s decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby’s supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby?

As for bushies' past record on pardons, well? I have already covered that a couple of times:

The only thing we have on record concerning pardons from Bush is something I caught in March from Newsweek:

Scooter's Pardon Problem - Bush By the Book

No (scape)goats in this book. But according to Isikoff and Hosenball at Newsweek this is what the (supposed) fall guy can expect:

Scooter Libby’s Pardon Problem :

"Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.

snip

“You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And there’s a procedure in place,” he said at first. When Bush added that he has been telling members of Congress who have contacted him about the matter to “look at the facts in the case,” Cavuto followed up: “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying … there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decisions. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process,” the president answered."

Get ready for prison now, Scooter...
You have plenty of time before sentencing to get your affairs in order NOW, so there should be no reasons to delay your entering the system as soon as the sentence is pronounced.

As a side note on this:
How strained must the relationship between bush and cheney be, when cheney has to make his plea for a pardon on the national news? Since when do Republicans take their "inner business dirty dealings" public like that? They usually do that stuff behind closed doors.

I would say that things do look particularly bad for Libby, and certainly for his band of merry traitors that don't want to chance Scooter flipping them to avoid prison. I have to start thinking about the possibility that MAYBE bush had nothing to do with the leaking, and as long as there is no pardon that line of reasoning might make sense. The reality is that as soon as bush does give a pardon to Scooter (if he does?), or anyone else that Scooter may flip, it is pretty much an admission of bushies' own guilt.

No matter how you look at it, there is no way to justify pardoning Scooter Libby without it being an admission of guilt by the President.

Any innocent President would be furious with Libby and wouldn't pardon him in a million years.

But Bush is not innocent. Libby lied for the President. And if Bush pardons Libby then we will know for certain that the President himself is the one that should be doing jail time for the crime that Libby covered up.

We shall see.

Yes, we shall. Unfortunately, we may have to wait for the dying days of this presidency to get the answer, as to the extent of bush's involvement in the leak.

The decision to send Libby to jail before an appeal doesn't change the possibility of a last minute out the door pardon from bush in the dying days of his present lame duck presidency, but it does put the screws to all those involved in the leak sooner rather than later.

And make no mistake about this: Any pardon from bush, now or later, is enough proof of bushies' involvement in this treasonous act against our nations' security.

CT Bob has more up on this...

Walton On Libby's End

Via Firedoglake, Walton discusses the "Four Morrison Factors" considering his decision to deny Libby's motions:

"Edmonds says inferior officers are directed and supervised at some level, and the author here was Scalia who authored dissent in Morrison. Scalia says if Morrison were removable at will then she is inferior. Here there is no question that Fitzgerald was removable at will by AG or DAG despite authority he was given. So based on Scalia, if we have the situation we have here, removable, Scalia I assume would have concluded inferior official and therefore he would have been part of majority in Morrison case.

That being the case, I will apply the four Morrison factors to this case. Subject to removal? Yes, even more than was Morrison. Second: were his duties limited? Was there a imitation on jurisdiction? Defense suggests the use of the term “related” makes for unlimited. But government points out Morrison case was to specific individual. But Fitz could only investigate and eventually prosecute related to leak, so this is a limitation on jurisdiction. Re limitation on tenure, while there was no specific date, there is a limit because once the investigation is done then his tenure expires.

So, these four factors are met and any differences are not large enough to be of note. This case seems further from a violation of the appointments clause than Morrison was. This is not a close issue in my view. I’ve already indicated my view on the other issues, and it is my view those are not close issues.

He is not a flight risk or danger to the community, but I don’t see the issues raised as close, so I deny his request to be released pending appeal. I will allow him to self report, but unless I am overruled, he will have to report.

I will rule on the obstruction charge sentence to 30 months, to perjury 24 months, to false statements 6 months, all to run concurrently.

Robbins: Ask for a stay the surrender pending filing motion.

Walton: Denied. Mr. Libby, you have right to appeal [boilerplate notification of right to appeal]."

1:34 PM Court Dismissed

Okay, so now the process goes to Bureau of Prisons, which will likely take six to eight weeks to process the matter and require Libby to report so he can begin serving his sentence.

This is the end, beutiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
Of all elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that that stands, the end

Yeah, the Morrison that Walton did not discuss:





Updates:
Firedoglake has been updating and looking at the whys and whats of Walton's decisions:

At the risk of dampening the celebration, let me just say that Judge Walton’s decision to send Libby straight to jail is not, in any way, our victory. It is quite simply a victory for the rule of law.

If anything stood out from Pachacutec’s superb liveblogging, it was Judge Walton’s impatience with the suggestions the Defense kept making that Walton could be bullied into treating Libby differently. He was not going to be bullied by the Libby supporters (in addition to Michael Horowitz) who have sent threatening letters.

Disclosing that he has received many angry letters in response to the sentencing, wishing bad things to him and his family. He had thrown away a few, but then decided he had better begin to save them, in the event someone were to act on these threats, a record would need to remain.

And he was not going to be bullied by a bunch of lawyers with fancy credentials, either.

What are you still doing over here? (Oh yeah, your still listening to The Doors... heh) Go on over to firedoglake and jump in to the disussion!

Delaying the inevitable

We'll have to wait until Thursday for Libby to be in the shackles he deserves:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald urged a federal judge Tuesday not to delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence in the CIA leak case.

snip

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who sentenced Libby to prison for lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, has said he sees no reason to grant Libby's request. He did not set a date for Libby to report to prison, however, and scheduled a hearing on the issue for Thursday.

The defense is falsely claiming that they they "were unfairly prohibited from discussing the classified issues that were weighing on Libby's mind at the time and from questioning NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell about why she said lots of journalists knew Plame's identity."

Fitzgerald provides the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" answers to that:

On the classified information issue, Fitzgerald noted that defense attorneys did not call Libby or Cheney to testify to bolster Libby's defense, despite saying they would.

For someone that stonewalled an investigation into a treasonous conspiracy Libby got off easy. He should quit his whining and crying and just start serving the time.

If he really wanted to avoid doing the the time he would have told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the very begining. As a lawyer, Libby knew that from the day he started lying to Patrick Fitzgerald.

I fully expect to see Libby crying and hear him calling out for his Mommy when he is dragged off to prison too. Sorry there Scotter, but your Momma cheney is too busy trying to lie us into another war to worry about you right now.

To Pardon OR Not To Pardon, That is the Answer

Steve Benen at Crooks and Liars had this up today:

On the issue of whether Bush will pardon Scooter Libby, the NYT reported:

A former senior administration official with his own ties to the case said Mr. Libby had failed to meet the general standard for a pardon by not showing contrition or serving any time. This official also noted that Mr. Libby had also been found guilty of lying to investigators, the same offense that led to the impeachment of Mr. Clinton.

The former official, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the president, said: “It would show a deep disregard for the rule of law if he was to do it right now, when there has been no remorse shown by a convicted felon and no time has been served. How’s this going to fit in his long-term legacy?”

As Steve M. responded, “Yeah — apart from this, his record on the rule of law is perfect! And his legacy is rock-solid! Why on earth would he want to spoil them by doing something so out of character?"

Generally I would agree with Steve M., but the only thing we have on record concerning pardons from Bush is something I caught in March from Newsweek:

Scooter's Pardon Problem - Bush By the Book

No (scape)goats in this book. But according to Isikoff and Hosenball at Newsweek this is what the fall guy can expect:

Scooter Libby’s Pardon Problem :

"Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.

snip

“You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And there’s a procedure in place,” he said at first. When Bush added that he has been telling members of Congress who have contacted him about the matter to “look at the facts in the case,” Cavuto followed up: “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying … there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decisions. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process,” the president answered."

Get ready for prison now, Scooter...
You have plenty of time before sentencing to get your affairs in order NOW, so there should be no reasons to delay your entering the system as soon as the sentence is pronounced.

As a side note on this:
How strained must the relationship between bush and cheney be, when cheney has to make his plea for a pardon on the national news? Since when do Republicans take their "inner business dirty dealings" public like that? They usually do that stuff behind closed doors.

I would say that things do look particularly bad for Libby, and certainly for his band of merry traitors that don't want to chance Scooter flipping them to avoid prison. I have to start thinking about the possibility that MAYBE bush had nothing to do with the leaking, and as long as there is no pardon that line of reasoning might make sense. The reality is that as soon as bush does give a pardon to Scooter (if he does?), or anyone else that Scooter may flip, it is pretty much an admission of bushies' own guilt.

No matter how you look at it, there is no way to justify pardoning Scooter Libby without it being an admission of guilt by the President.

Any innocent President would be furious with Libby and wouldn't pardon him in a million years.

But Bush is not innocent. Libby lied for the President. And if Bush pardons Libby then we will know for certain that the President himself is the one that should be doing jail time for the crime that Libby covered up.

We shall see.

Yes, we shall. Unfortunately, we may have to wait for the dying days of this presidency to get the answer, as to the extent of bush's involvement in the leak.

Traitor Libby Gets 2 and a Half Years

The verdict is in in the sentencing phase of the Scooter Libby trial:

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Tuesday for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, stood calmly before a packed courtroom as a federal judge said the evidence overwhelmingly proved his guilt.

"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said.

Walton did not set a date for Libby to report to prison. Though he saw no reason to let Libby remain free pending appeal, Walton said he would accept written arguments on the issue and rule later.

If Libby goes directly to jail we get to see if bush supports traitors with presidential pardons sooner rather than later. It also, likely, ups the anti on whether or not Libby will flip cheney...

This is the highest ranking White House official to be found guilty of crimes since the Iran-Contra scandals and judge Walton also imposed a $250,000 fine and a couple of years of probation.

As Patrick Fitzgerald said when asking for a 3 year sentence:

"We need to make the statement that the truth matters ever so much,"

We are one step closer to the truth as long as bush doesn't pardon his neocon buddy.

Firedoglake is all over this, as per usual:

Walton basically accepted the premise of Fitz' sentencing arguments, which put the range for the obstruction up to 30-37 months, but on the basis of the fact that Libby is a nice guy, took the lowest end of that range, 30 months. He gave him 15 on the other countrs, concurrent, but those other counts need to be recalculated, bc one should be lower and one should be higher. So the sentence is 30 months, but on stay until the Probation department does new calculations.

As to bond pending appeal, Walton basically said no, but Defense can submit a memo. That is due on Thrsday, and then the govt's is due on Tuesday, with Libby's response due on Wednesday. If Walton decides against bond pending appeal after reading those motions, then it all goes to the prison system and Libby goes to jail in normal schedule, which would be about 45-60 days.

snip

No pressers. Neither side had a comment, ostensibly because they've got to come back for next week's hearing (on Wednesday) on bail pending appeal.

Now it's either beer thirty or I'm going to try to sneak into the SJC hearing. Can anyone tell me if it's beer thirty in DC?

I think it is Champagne o'clock in most places... But in my budgetzone it makes it beer thirty too! heh

We have all waited a long time for this Fitzmas present that keeps on giving.

When Will Patrick Fitzgerald Start Sifting Through RNC Email?

It has become pretty darn obvious that the White House has been breaking laws out the ying-yang in order to hide their "hard work" at the taxpayers expense. Dan Froomkin lays out the basics:

But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes -- as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."

snip

Stanzel said that "some people" may have used their non-government accounts for official business due to "an abundance of caution" in order to avoid violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government e-mail for overtly political purposes, such as fundraising -- and due to "logistical convenience."

Let's be clear on what Stanzel is saying here. They were trying to hide the fact that they were illegally doing political fundraising, etc., on our dollar by using outside Email services.

Now my biggest question here, since they seem to be using it for official government work as well which is illegal according to the Hatch act:

When will Fitzgerald start demanding any Emails that very likely will be in the RNC Email systems, because guys like Rove used that system about 95% of the time, and would be useful in prosecuting the fuck out of these lying traitors?

According to one former White House official familiar with Rove’s work habits, the president’s top political adviser does ‘about 95 percent’ of his e-mailing using his RNC-based account. … The former White House official, speaking on background, said that although the RNC had a policy to purge e-mails after a short period of time, Rove’s e-mails on its system and those of a few other White House aides in sensitive positions were preserved by the RNC “to protect Karl.” Even with a policy of deleting e-mails from servers, information-technology experts say, organizations rarely erase data entirely.

There has got to be some great gems in there concerning these traitors and related to the outing of the entire spy network of Brewster and Jennings that Plame was involved in.

Why hasn't anyone else noted this obvious probability yet? Fitz needs to get ou his shovel and start digging all over again because if he only sifted through White House Email system it is obvious he only got about 5% of the picture.

Time to get some of that sand out of his eyes, no?


As a side note: The White House is claiming many relevent Emails are lost, but Leahy points out the obvious.

“They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that!” Leahy shouted from the Senate floor. “You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers. Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

“Like the famous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears likely that key documentation has been erased or misplaced. This sounds like the Administration’s version of ‘the dog ate my homework.’”
(Think Progress has the video)

While I suspect that all they may have to do is check the hard drives of the users computers to come up with a lot of it, Leahy is on the right track here. You can never really completely delete anything unless you are a hardcore technology geek that knows where, and has access to everywhere, the info hides after deleting it.

You would have to work very hard to purposefully delete it completely from everywhere that information has passed.

I would also wonder if the federal government might have snifffed out many of the Emails in question with the systems thay have been illegally using to monitor the internet. That would be the would be the height of irony there, if the bush administration got caught by their own illegal wiretaspping schemes... heh

I am not saying that this is how Ken Krayeske ended up on "THE LIST" but it is definately a possibility.

FBI turns to broad new wiretap method:
"The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.

Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. It raises concerns similar to those stirred by widespread Internet monitoring that the National Security Agency is said to have done, according to documents that have surfaced in one federal lawsuit, and may stretch the bounds of what's legally permissible."

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Carnivore:

C'mon Fitzgerald! There is still work to be done. You haven't even seen 5% of possible evidence if all of this information is true.

Scooter & Cheney: "Pardon me? Am I loony or what?"

The local public has spoken in a resounding chorus of "HELL NO!"

Should President Bush pardon "Scooter" Libby?
	No	66.34 % (808)
	Yes	33.66 % (410)
Total votes: 1218

It is, very likely, only the minority of loony far-right-wingnuts that still support incompetent-extraordinaire bush that would want their neocon traitor given the IOKIYAR treatment.

As for the rest of the USA? They agree with most of us locals...

Americans 3-to-1 Against a Libby Pardon

As you may know, a jury found Libby guilty on four out of five criminal counts. Do you think George W. Bush should or should not issue a presidential pardon for Lewis "Scooter" Libby?

Yes, should 21%

No, should not 67%

No opinion 12%

There is just no wiggle-room left for right-wing-nuttyness on this issue. If you lie, mislead, obfuscate, etc., and all in an effort to throw sand in the eyes of the umpire, err, prosecutor, you go to jail.

About that cloud over cheney? You know? The one that Fitzgerald was talking about when he discussed why he nailed Scooter. I hear he has suddenly taken ill... I wonder if there will be a resignation in cheney's near future?

"What is wrong with Dick Cheney?" asks Michelle Cottle in the inaugural issue of the newly relaunched New Republic. She then spends the next 2,000 words marshaling evidence suggesting that his cardiac disease has left him demented and mentally disordered.

The charming part of this not-to-be-missed article (titled "Heart of Darkness," no less) is that it is framed as an exercise in compassion. Since she knows that the only way for her New Republic readers to understand Cheney is that he is evil--"next time you see Cheney behaving oddly, don't automatically assume that he's a bad man," she advises--surely the generous thing for a liberal to do is write him off as simply nuts. In the wonderland of liberalism, Cottle is trying to make the case for Cheney by offering him the insanity defense.

She doesn't seem to understand that showing how circulatory problems can affect the brain proves nothing unless you first show the existence of a psychiatric disorder. Yet Cottle offers nothing in Cheney's presenting symptoms or behavior to justify a psychiatric diagnosis of any kind, let alone dementia.

What behavior does she cite as evidence of Cheney's looniness?

Those loony republicans. They just can't seem to recognize the symptoms of GUILT... "I am too sick from scooterliedus fitzmas to finish out my term..."

Yup... Or what.

Scooter's Pardon Problem - Bush By the Book

No (scape)goats in this book. But according to Isikoff and Hosenball at Newsweek this is what the fallguy can expect:

Scooter Libby’s Pardon Problem :

"Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.

snip

“You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And there’s a procedure in place,” he said at first. When Bush added that he has been telling members of Congress who have contacted him about the matter to “look at the facts in the case,” Cavuto followed up: “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying … there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decisions. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process,” the president answered."

Get ready for prison now, Scooter...
You have plenty of time before sentencing to get your affairs in order NOW, so there should be no reasons to delay your entering the system as soon as the sentence is pronounced.

As a side note on this:
How strained must the relationship between bush and cheney be, when cheney has to make his plea for a pardon on the national news? Since when do Republicans take their "inner business dirty dealings" public like that? They usually do that stuff behind closed doors.