Big news! Some of you may recall my lamenting last week the expatriate purse strings proving unyieldingly taut for me to participate in the Libby trial as a credentialed blogger. Well, Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association, in his infinite benevolence, has just agreed to allow me to contribute from Dublin via a daily round-up of left-leaning bloggers discussing the trial. This is not only a colossal opportunity to increase the level of professionalism around the blogosphere, it is also an enormous opportunity for THF which, for the several few weeks, will be acting as a one-stop summary of the Libby trial buzz.

Alongside this newfound exposure, I ask my readers to remember the immortal words of Stan Lee – “With great power comes great responsibility.” The inclusion of blogs in a major federal judicial process is the result of a massive undertaking by the MBA and, as you’ve probably seen by now, there are very powerful eyes upon us. Quite literally, there is nothing less at stake here than the future of the blogosphere as a respected participatory media body. As such, I would ask anyone submitting a comment to maintain a degree maturity and keep ad hominem and profanity to a minimum.

In addition to daily round-ups, I will also be aggregating the MBA trial feed on the THF front page until the end of the trial’s news cycle so visitors can have direct access to all the official trial feeds. For anyone wanting to catch up on the MBA coverage, I have copied the following links from their home page:

Federal Court Credentials Bloggers
Washington Post “breaks” our Libby Trial News
Media Jumps on Libby Trial/Blogger Story
National Public Radio on Bloggers at Libby Trial
MBA on CNN’s Situation Room
The Bloggers Have Arrived

Finally, armed with the knowledge that we tend to suffer from an acute from of collective political amnesia, anyone wishing to review the timeline of the Libby trial should visit DKos which has a fairly exhaustive compilation. For the knitty-gritty seekers, I have collected a few links for “quickly” catching up on the period just prior to the outing of Valerie Plame in the first half of 2003:

Wiki entries:

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Jr. – “Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney”
Valerie Plame
Joseph Charles Wilson IV
CIA Leak Grand Jury Investigation
Robert Novak’s Involvement

News Cycle (selected timeline links via DKos):

January 2003
State Dept. INR expresses concern that Niger documents are a hoax, the National Intelligence Council later confirms. The following week the infamous “16 words” appear in the President’s State of the Union Address. The next day, Joseph Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame) questions why intel he had debunked one year prior had been used on State of the Union.

March 2003
The IAEA confirm Niger-Iraq claims were based on forgeries, the DIA responds with memo of Wilson’s trip claiming it supported claims. Wilson appears on CNN claiming "I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday." The following day a decision is made through Cheney’s office to discredit Wilson. The meeting was purportedly chaired by Dick Cheney, and includes Scooter Libby, Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, and John Hannah. Iraq invasion begins on March 19^th.

May 2003
Several days after “Mission Accomplished,” Nicholas Kristoff in “Missing in Action: Truth” mentions Wilson’s trip to Niger. Later that month, Libby requests information from Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman on Wilson’s trip.

June 2003
According to anonymous sources, Cheney met with President, Andrew Card, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, and Karl Rove and tells them that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson is the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger. Scooter Libby meets with Richard Armitage for 15 minutes to talk about Pakistan. Again according to anonymous sources, Cheney met with the President regarding rumors of Wilson going public and exposing the flawed Niger intelligence. Cheney advises leaking classified NIE which purports to show the Iraq-Niger connection as a way to counter anything Wilson might seek to publish.

Throughout the second half of June, Andrew Card, Karl Rove, and senior officials from Cheney's office keep Bush updated about the progress of the campaign to discredit Wilson via numerous emails and internal White House memos. The CIA faxes documents to the attention of Scooter Libby and one other person in the Office of the Vice President. The faxed documents do not give Wilson's name: Libby and others add "Wilson" and "Joe Wilson" by hand and Libby will testify that he frequently referred back to these documents when talking to reporters about the Wilson trip.

The Washington Post writes "CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data", about Wilson's trip without naming the retired Ambassador and cites an administration official saying neither Cheney nor his staff learned of its role in spurring the mission until it was disclosed by Kristof (Scooter Libby is a source for the article (Isikoff and Corn, Hubris, pp. 238-239)). Cheney tells Libby that Wilson's wife works for the CIA's counter-proliferation division. Libby understands the information to have come from the CIA. Richard Armitage tells Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that Wilson's wife works for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst. Judith Miller meets with Libby who tells her that Wilson’s wife might work at a bureau of the CIA.

July 2003
Libby meets with Miller over a two-hour breakfast to discuss Plame. Libby will later testify that the purpose of the meeting was to disclose information from the NIE to Miller, and that the disclosure was authorized by his superiors. Libby's notes seem to have some reference to "tell Judith Miller." Later, Novak calls Rove about an unrelated story and turns to the subject of Ms. Wilson, identifying her by the name “Valerie Wilson.” Novak claims to Mr. Rove that he knows that Joseph Wilson had been sent on the trip to Niger at the urging of Ms. Wilson. Rove responds by saying either "Oh, you know about it" (according to Novak) or, in Rove's recollection, “I heard that, too.”

The trial will be taking place Monday through Thursday from 9:30 - 5:00 EST during which selected MBA affiliates will be live-blogging (aggregated hourly on THF's right sidebar). So as not to interfere with that feed, I will be posting blog round-ups no earlier than 5:30 EST. Today being Friday, check back later in the day for the first installment. And don't forget to tell your friends!

From Reuters: 

President Bush has decided not to renew a program of domestic spying on terrorism suspects, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Wednesday, ending an law-enforcement tactic criticized for infringing on civil liberties. 

"The president has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires," Gonzales wrote in a letter to congressional leaders. 

But wait, not only did the administration repeatedly say this was legal, but they also said as recently as the last few months that it was working.  Why would the administration want to abandon a tactic that is supposedly successful in curbing terrorism?

Great.  The Raw Story reports on a hearing last Thursday in which a David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, warned that repairing the damage from the Bush economy could require drastic actions over the coming decades: 

While he acknowledged the single-year fiscal improvement touted by the Bush administration for 2006, he said that "it did not fundamentally change our long-term fiscal outlook." He also noted that since 2000, America's net social insurance commitments and other fiscal obligations have increased to $50 trillion from $20 trillion, representing four times the nation's total economic output. Rising national health care costs are the greatest culprit according to data collected by Walker's agency. 

The head of the GAO also warned that if no action is taken now to control government spending, severe tax hikes could be necessary. He stated that, "balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as cutting total federal spending by 60 percent or raising federal taxes to 2 times today’s level." 

Remember, this is not some partisan alarmist, but rather the Comptroller General.  You know, the guy who would actually know something about the trajectory of our economy.  If he is warning that we might have to double taxes or half spending, you’d better take him seriously. 

I’ve never been quite clear on why the GOP has declared war on taxation.  The only perceivable benefit is in absorbing a quickie popularity boost when people are duped into believing that keeping more of their paycheck is synonymous with having more money.  Yet the inevitable recessions of tax less / spend more policies consistently has the opposite effect and the GOP reaps the electoral mess. 

Myself, I’m a big fan of taxation.  True, I have significant concerns about the way they are disseminated (not such a fan of our bloated private defense infrastructure).  But I like driving on nice roads, having a well-trained fire department, availing of free public education, and knowing that the lowest economic rung will still enjoy at least minimal security and not be forced to rob me for crack money.  I have neither the expertise nor the desire to accomplish these things on my own and am all too happy to outsource them to a centralized administration under meaningful citizen oversight.  How the GOP has managed to convince ordinarily intelligent voters that taxation and personal fulfillment are mutually exclusive is one of the great mysteries in modern US politics.

Looks like Maliki is taking cues directly from Team Bush’s playbook:

Maliki disputed President Bush's remarks broadcast Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing" and took exception to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Senate testimony last week that Maliki's administration was on "borrowed time."

The prime minister said statements such as Rice's "give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort and making them believe they have defeated the American administration," Maliki said. "But I can tell you that they have not defeated the Iraqi government."...

Oh Condi, why do you hate America Iraq?

Check out this gorgeous photo of the Tokyo skyline (courtesy of Flickr user /\ltus)

Senate Republicans killed ethics reform: 

Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists' influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power. 

The bill could be brought back up later this year. Indeed, Democrats will try one last time today to break the impasse. But its unexpected collapse last night infuriated Democrats and the government watchdog groups that had been pushing it since the lobbying scandals that rocked the last Congress. Proponents charged that Republicans had used the spending-control measure as a ruse to thwart ethics rules they dared not defeat in a straight vote. 

"It's as obvious as the sun coming up somewhere in this world that they tried to kill this bill," a furious Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last night in an interview. "And all 21 Republican senators up for reelection are going to have to explain how they brought down the most significant reform ever to come before this Congress. They brought this baby down." 

One would imagine that a party seriously rebuked over ethics violations would have gotten the message and rallied behind reform.  One would be, as the kids say nowadays - wrong.  But rather than standing up and voting directly against the bill, they employ underhanded tactics to avoid having to attach their name to a nay vote.  Perhaps even more concerning: 

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said insistence on a line-item-veto vote was proof that the GOP is serious about passing the toughest possible overhaul of the way Congress conducts its business. Efforts to give Bush power to strike individual items from spending bills have been struck down by the Supreme Court, but Senate Republicans insist that the latest version will pass constitutional muster. 

Line-item veto has been a GOP pursuit for years.  Never mind that the ability of a sitting president to effectively override the will of congress, but this power would be especially dangerous in the hands of a president already overreaching on his pet signing statements.

“Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.”

Welcome to the apocalypse, baby! 

The usual Sunday evening rush hour at one of the world's busiest international airports was disrupted tonight by a plane that rarely appears in public  — a white Boeing 747 with the words 'United States of America' emblazoned on its side and with odd bumps and antenna protruding from its fuselage, maneuvered around the dozens of commercial airliners, trying, unsuccessfully, to blend in. 

The modified 747 is the so-called 'National Airborne Operations Center' (NAOC) — informally known as the 'Doomsday Plane' because it is designed to serve as the Pentagon's backup headquarters in case of a catastrophic attack on the United States. 

I’ve long been intending to write a sci-fi book (one among the vast and growing slushpile) about this very facet of modern power.  After they have destroyed humanity with their reckless hubris, it is these very same people who will have the underground bunkers, flying doomsday fortresses, and even space-based habitats who will survive virtually any foreseeable disaster.  Which means it is these same people who will be responsible for repopulating the Earth when the dust finally settles.  Can you imagine a human race wholly comprised of genetic material from fanatical survivalists and zealot Washington elites?  Blech! 

Speaking of doomsday.