Tom Delay indicted, to step down as Majority Leader...

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Judith Miller, the reporter who published Karl Rove's leaking of the CIA agent who's husband exposed Bush & Rove's lies about Iraq, has been released from jail. All through out her time in prison senior administration officials continually stopped in to meet with her, to make sure she doesn't admite that Karl Rove was the source for the felony leak.

Ms. Miller was freed after spending more than 12 weeks in jail, during which she refused to cooperate with the criminal inquiry. Her decision to testify came after she obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him. She said the source had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify.

That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case. Ms. Miller met with Mr. Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week. Discussions between government officials and journalists that week have been a central focus of the investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/politics/29cnd-court.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Nice detective work, hack...

[Dinner]

We will see who was ultimately behind the leak and not just who picked up the telephone and made the call.




As always Drake you underwell everyone with claims of other people being partisan when you have spent years being a tool and a right wing shrill.

[Drake Tungsten]

We will see who was ultimately behind the leak and not just who picked up the telephone and made the call.

OK, champ...

As always Drake you underwell everyone

I don't even know what that means...

[DRoseDARs]

Oerdin has been having a lot of trouble spelling lately. He meant,

As always Drake you underwhelm everyone with claims of other people being partisan when you have spent years being a tool and a right wing shrill.

[Drake Tungsten]

Oh, ok. Thanks.

[Ming]

Hmmm... DISCUSS the TOPIC...

NOT the POSTERS!

Now play nice or don't bother to post!

[Admiral]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
[q]Originally posted by Oerdin
Nice detective work, hack...

I wouldn't be excited that Miller's source was Libby, and not Rove. Libby is much closer to Cheney than Rove is to Bush, and is a less skilled political operative. He'll have a harder time keeping this away from Cheney.

And Ogie, your case against Schumer might carry slightly more weight if the article you posted even pretended to be unbiased. My first hint that the article was complete crap was that it began, "SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER had just finished his last sputtering of outrage..." My suspicions were confirmed in the key sentence of the article, "...it turns out that the DSCC had known about Barge and Weiner's pilfering for over two months." Notice how they don't print a source, or really anything that suggested that they didn't just make this up. This rhetorical style seemed familiar, so I clicked on the link, and imagine my surprise when I arrived at The Weekly Standard. Bear in mind that this is the publication that referred to the congressional black caucus as "a march of nuts."

[Ramo]

If you'd read more about this one, I think your high opinion of Earle and his fairness might change.

What about it? Kay Bailey *****ed enough about the publicity of the case to have it moved to a jurisdiction where the judge threw out a key piece of Earle's evidence on a technicality (the judge thought he should have issued a subpeona for the relevant documents rather than getting a warrant and searching for them).

I don't see how a man who went after such powerful Texas Democratic politicians as the Speaker of the House (the most important person in state politics), a SCOTX Justice, the AG, and the Treasurer can be honestly labelled as some sort of unfair partisan.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Admiral


I wouldn't be excited that Miller's source was Libby, and not Rove. Libby is much closer to Cheney than Rove is to Bush, and is a less skilled political operative. He'll have a harder time keeping this away from Cheney.

And Ogie, your case against Schumer might carry slightly more weight if the article you posted even pretended to be unbiased. My first hint that the article was complete crap was that it began, "SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER had just finished his last sputtering of outrage..." My suspicions were confirmed in the key sentence of the article, "...it turns out that the DSCC had known about Barge and Weiner's pilfering for over two months." Notice how they don't print a source, or really anything that suggested that they didn't just make this up. This rhetorical style seemed familiar, so I clicked on the link, and imagine my surprise when I arrived at The Weekly Standard. Bear in mind that this is the publication that referred to the congressional black caucus as "a march of nuts."

Rheotiric aside do you deny then also the NYpost piece Ramo posted namely:

Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Schumer-headed Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said two staffers were instantly suspended — with pay — in July after admitting they obtained the credit report of...

Seems to me that substantiates the DSCC knew full well of the issue back in July and whatcha know thats over 2 months ago if you do the math genius.

You'll also notice I judiciously chose not to add the crux of the article namely that Schumer has been sponsoring bills around digital security and his grilling of firms that have had failures along those lines. Hence he should have known better and either is a hypocrite or demanding things of captains of industry that he himself can't deliver due to lack of information. Perhaps I should have but since it clearly was to mymind a partisan argument i chose not to.

OTOH the fact that Schumer did indeed know extensively of the requirments of the law with respect to digital thievery and ID theft and the requirement to report post haste (at least according to what he is proposing) it does striek me that it would be apropo for him to bear some scrutiny as to when he was made aware of the feloniuous activity.

See unlike Watergate where the break in was indeed not covered so much initially it was followed at fever pitch once the degrees of separation to men in power became fewer and fewer. Since the degrees of separation in this case are 1 (most likely an office manager who put the 2 on paid suspension) that seems to me reason aplenty for the media to be all over this. And yet its all quiet from the media for well over a week and 1/2, long before the Delay or Scooter made the scene.

[Ramo]

Schumer suspended the employees until investigating the matter, and the data thieves have resigned. The DSCC took this to the DA, and they're looking into charges. What else should Schumer have done?

There is absolutely no evidence of a coverup. When you tell the authorities that members of your org committed a crime, that kinda excludes the possibility of having a coverup.

[Ramo]

See unlike Watergate where the break in was indeed not covered so much initially it was followed at fever pitch once the degrees of separation to men in power became fewer and fewer. Since the degrees of separation in this case are 1 (most likely an office manager who put the 2 on paid suspension) that seems to me reason aplenty for the media to be all over this. And yet its all quiet from the media for well over a week and 1/2, long before the Delay or Scooter made the scene.

Dude, the TRMPAC investigation has been going on for something like 2 years. DeLay's associates in TRMPAC had been getting indicted throughout this period. The thing that just changed is that DeLay himself was indicted.

If Schumer gets indicted for this, I'm sure you'll see lots of publicity as well. But right now, there's absolutely no reason to think that he was involved.

As for degrees of seperation, I don't know the structure of the DSCC so I can't say what it is. But I do know that money laundering vast amounts of money is hard to do without complicity from the top. The same certainly doesn't apply to the Steele matter. We also know that when the DSCC was alerted to the matter (by the employees), they suspended the employees and alerted the DA. Earle found out about TRMPAC's shenanigans, not by voluntary admission, but by looking at their tax returns.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Ramo
Schumer suspended the employees until investigating the matter, and the data thieves have resigned. The DSCC took this to the DA, and they're looking into charges. What else should Schumer have done?

There is absolutely no evidence of a coverup. When you tell the authorities that members of your org committed a crime, that kinda excludes the possibility of having a coverup.

Any idea when DSCC took it to the authorities b/c Steele didn't find out until a week ago?

Are you now implying that it was indeed Schumer and not some middle manager at DSCC who suspended the employees 2+ months ago. If so you imply he had immediate carnal knowledge of the issue. When did he take it to the authorities?

Why did it take 2 months to comply with something?

As for resignation, this is a new development, got some info for curiosity sake.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Ramo

See unlike Watergate where the break in was indeed not covered so much initially it was followed at fever pitch once the degrees of separation to men in power became fewer and fewer. Since the degrees of separation in this case are 1 (most likely an office manager who put the 2 on paid suspension) that seems to me reason aplenty for the media to be all over this. And yet its all quiet from the media for well over a week and 1/2, long before the Delay or Scooter made the scene.

Dude, the TRMPAC investigation has been going on for something like 2 years. DeLay's associates in TRMPAC had been getting indicted throughout this period. The thing that just changed is that DeLay himself was indicted.

If Schumer gets indicted for this, I'm sure you'll see lots of publicity as well. But right now, there's absolutely no reason to think that he was involved.

As for degrees of seperation, I don't know the structure of the DSCC so I can't say what it is. But I do know that money laundering vast amounts of money is hard to do without complicity from the top. The same certainly doesn't apply to the Steele matter. We also know that when the DSCC was alerted to the matter (by the employees), they suspended the employees and alerted the DA. Earle found out about TRMPAC's shenanigans, not by voluntary admission, but by looking at their tax returns.

Yes and there has been plenty of press on the Delay issue prior to this point. Schumergate, however is all quiet on the Demo-Main stream media front.

[Dinner]

Ahhh, yes. The old "They aren't supporting our policies 24/7 so the media must be against us" claim. Most people these days understand what a lame copout it is to claim the entire media is in the pockets of the democrats. Especially after it spent 4 of the last 5 years fawning over Bush and hardly ever asking the hard questions about why we went to Iraq, the massive pork & deficits coming out of Congress, lies about WMDs, and a whole host of other issues.

The truth is the American media are pretty much lap dogs to whom ever is in power because they want access and if they piss off the wrong people they lose access. No more insider scoupes, no more one on one interviews with the President, no more even getting a spot on the press core.

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That looks like a pretty mixed bag to me. Earle looks like the type of DA who goes after criminals and doesn't play partisan games. America could do well to have more men like him; to bad we have air bag wing nuts on the radio instead.

Have you seen THIS article?

Ronnie Earle, the Texas prosecutor who has indicted associates of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in an ongoing campaign-finance investigation, dropped felony charges against several corporations indicted in the probe in return for the corporations' agreement to make five- and six-figure contributions to one of Earle's pet causes.

....

Some legal observers called the arrangement an unusual resolution to a criminal case, at least in Texas, where the matter is being prosecuted. "I don't think you're going to find anybody who will say it's a common practice," says Jack Strickland, a Fort Worth lawyer who serves as vice-chairman of the criminal-justice section of the Texas State Bar. Earle himself told National Review Online that he has never settled a case in a similar fashion during his years as Travis County district attorney. And allies of DeLay, who has accused Earle of conducting a politically motivated investigation, called Earle's actions "dollars for dismissals."

....

According to the sources with knowledge of the Sears case, Earle told company representatives that he wanted Sears to contribute to the Deliberative Democracy group at Stanford, and that a program devoted to the dangers posed by corporate political money might cost as much as $1 million.

"They asked for an outrageous amount of money," says one Sears source, noting that the maximum penalty the company would have been forced to pay if it had gone to trial and lost would have been $20,000. "All the defendants would pay in similar amounts to a fund that would fund a symposium or seminar or event that would be produced in conjunction with PBS, and it would be televised, and the goal of it would be to explore the evils of corporate money in politics and why that is a bad thing."

.....

Sears was not dead set against paying some money into some sort of project, but company officials were determined that it not go to Stanford, which, Sears believed, would produce an anti-corporation project. When Sears raised its objections, Earle was adamant that Stanford get the money. In response, Sears suggested an alternative, saying it might be interested in contributing some amount of money to the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Even though the university was in his own back yard, Earle still wanted Stanford.

I don't like Delay, and I don't necessarily trust the National Review. But this article certainly seems to raise some questions about what Earle is doing. I would be most interested to hear Lefty's views on the situation.