By Norwood
Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill: Does a Felon Rove the White House?
Allegations are swirling that Karl Rove, senior political adviser to President George W. Bush, may have committed a felony by blowing the cover of a CIA operative. CIA Director George Tenet has called on the Justice Department to investigate but the White House said Monday that “President George W. Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role.” And what makes this story even more remarkable is how seriously the Bush family has viewed outing intelligence operatives in the past.
Here’s a chronology from The Washington Post
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WMNF 88.5 FM, Tampa
streaming at wmnf.org
4am to 6am
Governor Bush vs President Bush clip from The Daily Show
Planned playlist, hour 1
Planned playlist, hour 2
Live playlist
How Marathon Works:
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During Marathon, each individual show is given goals for both monetary pledges and phone calls. Results, based on these goals, are big factors when it comes time to make programming decisions.
Please consider making your pledge to WMNF during MorningWood next week, October 7, from 4 to 6 AM. If you can’t make it to your radio at that time, email norwood@wmnf.org to arrange to make a pledge to support WMNF and MorningWood.
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Pressed for time this morning. Here are some quick headlines.
This could turn out to be the scandal that finally brings down the house of Bush: administration officials leaking the identity of a CIA agent, breaking the law that Poppy Bush pushed to be eneacted!Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry
At CIA Director George J. Tenet’s request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.
The operative’s identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy “yellowcake” uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.
The intentional disclosure of a covert operative’s identity is a violation of federal law.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is stealing for a rainy day, even as schools and healthcare are cut to the bone as politicians whine about a general lack of funds!Tampabay: Military stashes covert millions
The U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base inflated budget proposals at the Pentagon’s request last year to hide $20-million from Congress, according to documents obtained by the St. Petersburg Times.
Special Operations officials divided the money among six projects so the money would not attract attention. They also instructed their own budget analysts not to mention it during briefings with congressional aides, the documents show.
Not to be outdone, State Legislators have started their own secret funds:
State: Lawmakers secretly raise big bucks
If state Sen. Ken Pruitt was running for re-election, he could raise no more than $500 per check.
But in late June, a check for $50,000 was deposited into a fund Pruitt uses to hire consultants and curry favor with political allies as he maneuvers to become Senate president.
The Port St. Lucie Republican, one of the Senate’s most powerful leaders, kept the identity of the donor secret. The money was listed merely as membership “dues” to his fund, Floridians for a Brighter Future.
Finally, in a little noticed move, the Florida has bought out a slimy for-profit education outfit:Business: State fund buys school operator
Florida’s state pension fund is investing $174-million in a controversial for-profit school management company.
Through one of its money managers, Liberty Partners, the pension fund has agreed to buy out the shareholders of Edison Schools Inc., taking the New York company private.
In effect, the fund that provides for the retirement pensions of Florida teachers and other public employees will own a company that has played a leading role in privatizing school management.
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Dixie Chicks’ controversial bi-musicality: Natalie wears Jimi
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Jack Sparks takes a report that The Dixie Chicks might be changing teams and runs with it:
From LAUNCH Radio Networks:
The Dixie Chicks want out of the country music scene, according to comments group member Martie Maguire made to German magazine, Spiegel. She said, “We don’t feel part of the country scene any longer, it can’t be our home any more.”
Like nobody saw this coming…
Mainstream Nashville is a whore. If it were suddenly cool to be a cross-dressing, gay, Republican, Toby Keith would fly to the White House wearing eye-shadow and lipstick to fellate the President at a press conference in the Rose Garden with a Ford pickup in the background.
Natalie Maines responds rather well to the “controversy”: (click “Letter From Natalie”)
G. Gordon Liddy, Rush Limbaugh, and Don Imus all called again to ask about the plane crash. Listen guys this is really getting old. I’m sorry, but no we did not die in a plane crash. But look on the bright side…we fly all the time.
Or maybe that’s something else she’s responding to. Anyway, it’s worth following the links to read both pieces in full.
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Too bad Walter no longer comes to us nightly…
In his 2 1/2 years in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law. Tomas de Torquemada was the 15th century Dominican friar who became the grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. He was largely responsible for its methods, including torture and the burning of heretics - Muslims in particular.
Now, of course, I am not accusing the attorney general of pulling out anyone’s fingernails or burning people at the stake (at least I don’t know of any such cases). But one does get the sense these days that the old Spaniard’s spirit is comfortably at home in Ashcroft’s Department of Justice.
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Here’s the deal: in Florida, voters can amend the constitution and mandate that the State enact their wishes. Republicans hate this, as it forces them to actually listen to the voters needs and wants and cuts into the Legislature’s ability to control discretionary spending.
Jeb Bush has been leading the fight against two high profile amendments, and has basically said that he and his administration will not follow the law and the will of the people.
Official: Class size law futile
Education Commissioner Jim Horne said Wednesday that the state can’t meet the voter-approved mandate to reduce class sizes in Florida.
“The class-size amendment will never be implemented,” Horne said at a meeting of the Board of Governors, which oversees higher education in Florida.
……
The amendment requires the state to give schools enough money to lower class sizes from kindergarten through high school. By 2010, they can be no larger than 18 in grades pre-K through 3, 22 in grades 4 through 8, and 25 in high school.
Horne, a Bush appointee who opposed the amendment before the November election, said Wednesday he can’t force superintendents to reduce class size.
Jeb has been pitting K-12 against state universities, claiming that there is not enough money for both:
Florida’s university presidents told Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday that the state’s national reputation for short-changing higher education is making it hard for them to recruit top faculty.
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“The word is out that Florida is not committed to higher education,” said Modesto Maidique, president of Florida International University in Miami.
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The governor is proposing cuts of $148.8-million from university operating expenses while providing no money for increased student enrollment. He also would cut up to $30-million out of Bright Futures scholarships.
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For the 260,000 students at Florida’s 11 universities, that would mean fewer teachers and degrees, larger classes and more competition to get into schools because of enrollment caps.
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Bush, who also met with student leaders Monday, has repeatedly blamed the cuts on the cost of a voter-approved constitutional amendment mandating a reduction of class sizes in public schools.
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Next year’s proposed cuts would come on top of a $167.5-million drop this year and could leave Florida last in the nation in per capita spending on higher education. When inflation is factored in, the amount of state money allocated for each university student has dropped 15 percent in the past four years.
A very similar attitude persists among high speed rail opponents:
High-Speed Train Opponents Rearm - from Tampa Bay Online
Signaling new legislative resolve to derail the high-speed train mandate, the first bill filed for the 2004 legislative session would send the costly constitutional amendment back to the ballot for voters to reconsider.
House Joint Resolution 0003 was introduced Tuesday by state Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island, a critic of the voter- mandated transportation project.
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Gov. Jeb Bush unsuccessfully lobbied lawmakers to send the measure back to the ballot this year.
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Proposals for the first line, from Tampa to Orlando, would cost the state $75 million a year for 30 years. Construction is supposed to begin no later than next year.
Now, whether or not you agree with these amendments, the fact is that the citizens of Florida put them into the constitution that state lawmakers vowed to uphold. Bush and his cronies are breaking the law as well as the will of the people of Florida.
This situation is illustrative of a national trend of Republican led initiatives to block and subvert the will of the people. In California, the GOP, angered after losing a fair, regularly scheduled election, has bought the right to recall a Democrat governor. In Texas, Republicans are attempting to ram through a redistricting plan that will guarantee a surge in Republican held seats in the next congressional elections. This despite the fact that they just redrew the maps a couple of years ago, based on the 2000 census.
If you’re a Republican and you lose at something, don’t worry. Change the rules. Ignore the rules. Abuse the rules. Cheat. Make your opponents, who won fair and square, play again and again until you mange to eke out a victory. Then change the rules once more so that your opponents will never again be able to play.
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The Feds are giving huge tax breaks to folks who can afford huge wasteful SUVs. This is the resulting attitude:
The national current events picture seems much less doom-and-gloomish when viewed from the elevated cockpit of a sunset orange Hummer.
“I just feel happy when I’m in here,” said Barbara Zaccaria as she pulled gingerly into traffic recently, like an adult navigating a nursery of crawling babies.
Zaccaria has heard there are people in California setting fire to Hummers like hers, spray-painting them with terrible slogans like “Fat Lazy Americans” and “Polluter.”
“Oh, I don’t know that they (Hummers) are so bad for the environment,” she says without a trace of defensiveness.
She has noticed, as well, the price of a gallon of gas has been climbing of late. But frankly, she has sold $25-million worth of real estate this year, so putting $30 or more of regular in her tank is a small price to pay.
“It’s worth it for the convenience and safety,” she said. “Look, you can make the mirrors on each side retract just by touching a button.”
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By Norwood
As noted in BlogWood several days ago, JetBlue Sucks.
JetBlue Airways acknowledged publicly today that it had provided a Pentagon contractor with information on more than one million of its passengers as part of a program to track down terrorists and other “high risk” passengers. That data, which was turned over in violation of the airline’s own privacy policies, was then used to identify the passengers’ Social Security numbers, financial histories and occupations.
JetBlue, a three-year-old discount airline, sent an e-mail message to passengers this week, conceding that it had made a mistake in providing the records last year to Torch Concepts, an Army contractor in Huntsville, Ala., for a research project on “airline passenger risk assessment.”
……
Privacy rights groups expressed astonishment that JetBlue had shared so much passenger information with a contractor, describing the privacy breach as among the most serious reported by any American company in recent years.
JetBlue’s announcement comes at a time when many civil liberties groups are warning that privacy rights are becoming victims of the government’s struggle against terrorism and the desire of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for quick access to customer information that has traditionally been closely held by corporations.
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I saw this piece in the SP Times or Tampa Tribune a few days ago and did my best to ignore it, but now it’s been picked up by Drudge, VIllage Voice, and Rolling Stone, so here goes:
RollingStone.com: News: Florida Band to Stage Suicide
Florida industrial rockers Hell on Earth are planning to host an on-stage suicide during their October 4th show at St. Petersburg’s State Theater. A terminally ill member of a euthanasia society, whose identity and condition have not been revealed, intends to raise awareness for the cause of dying with dignity by committing suicide during the concert, according to the band’s singer, Billy Tourtelot.
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