Tactics Ammunition Drudge This! Articles Archive Policy Archive Weblog Archive Cons With Cons Search This Site
An Evolution has begun. Politicalstrategy.org has officially closed down. Look for DailyNewsOnline.com to rise from the ashes, a powerful new site you won't want to miss. Click here to find out more! Click here to join the mailing list and be notified when the DailyNewsOnline is launched!
[However, Kennedy adjusted the numbers to account for undecided black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, and said the runoff election currently stands in Blanco's favor. With that adjustment, Blanco would get 53 percent of the vote, compared to Jindal's 47 percent]
Republican Primary Trial Heat (among Republican voters): Cecil Underwood 30% Robin Capehart 8% Sarah Minear 8% Dan Moore 3% Monty Warner 3% Doug McKinney 2% Other 3% Undecided 43%
Democratic Primary Trial Heat (among Democratic voters): Joe Manchin 46% Darrell McGraw 11% John Perdue 5% Jim Humphreys 4% Lloyd Jackson 3% Jim Lees 3% Spike Maynard 2% Robin Davis 2% Other 1% Undecided 25%
"We'll have time to look at it and determine whether or not our grid needs to be modernized. I happen to think it does, and have said so all along." - George Bush, 8/14/03 [LINK]
SAN DIEGO - President Bush said he will order a review of why so many states were hit by a massive power blackout Thursday and said he suspects the nation's electrical grid will have to be modernized. [LINK]
FACT
In June of 2001, Bush opposed and the congressional GOP voted down legislation to provide $350 million worth of loans to modernize the nation's power grid because of known weaknesses in reliability and capacity. Supporters of the amendment pointed to studies by the Energy Department showing that the grid was in desperate need of upgrades as proof that their legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) should pass.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration lobbied against it and the Republicans voted it down three separate times: First, on a straight party line in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, then on a straight party line the U.S. House Rules Committee, and finally on a party line on the floor of the full House [Roll Call Vote #169, 6/20/01].
As AP reported at the time, the amendment would have amendments that would have doubled the bill's money for energy assistance for the poor to $600 "provided $350 million to support loans to improve the capacity of transmission grids. 'It's pure demagoguery,' House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said in a brief interview regarding the Democratic amendments. 'If Democrats had an energy policy, they'd have had one in the last eight years. They have no credibility on this issue whatsoever. They are responsible for the energy crunch more than anybody I know.' Spotlighting the high political stakes, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., took the unusual step of issuing a written statement about the committee's energy votes. He said President Bush and Republicans are 'committed to helping the Big Energy special interests' and accused them of obstruction." [AP, 6/14/01].
FY02 energy and water bill – 6/25/2001
FARR AMENDMENT: Electric Power Grid Improvement Loans
AMENDMENT DESCRIPTION: Total cost: $350 million Authorize the Secretary of Energy to make loans and loan-guarantees for the purpose of improving existing electric power transmission systems, reliability or capacity. These loans must be repaid in full within 25 years, such that the long-term cost to the government is zero.
BACKGROUND:
- GROWING DEMAND NOT MATCHED BY GROWING TRANSMISSION CAPACITY: Over the next 10 years, the Department of Energy predicts that demand for electric power will increase by 25%, requiring more than 200,000 megawatts of new capacity. However, under current plans electric transmission capacity will not be nearly enough to keep pace.
- CALIFORNIA’S PATH 15 ALREADY PROVES THAT BOTTLENECKS ARE A PROBLEM: Path 15 in California consists of two 84 mile 500 kilovolt transmission lines between the northern and southern parts of the State. There is complete agreement that Path 15 is a major bottleneck that contributes to blackouts in the State, costing the consumers $222 million in 2000 alone. The one-time cost to fix the Path 15 problem is $250 million, which would increase transfer capacity over Path 15 by approximately 1500 megawatts. The Secretary of Energy himself testified, that constructing the 3rd Path 15 line within the existing pathway would increase system reliability, reduce the likelihood of blackouts, and lead to greater competition and lower prices.
- EXISTING BILL UNDERFUNDS EFFORTS TO ADDRESS BOTTLENECKS: The supplemental bill before you today includes $1.6 million, not requested by the Administration, for the Department of Energy to study the power grid problem. While that’s a positive first step, the fact is that the project has been studied for years and there is consensus among all parties that upgrades are desperately needed – and needed now.
- AMENDMENT WOULD DEAL WITH ENTIRE GRID: This amendment is designed to deal with all of the major power grid vulnerabilities.
Here's a snippet of the AP story that ran at the time...notice the DeLay quote:
In other largely party-line votes, the panel defeated Democratic amendments that would have doubled the bill's money for energy assistance for the poor to $600 million; added $125 million for hydroelectricity improvements; and provided $350 million to support loans to improve the capacity of transmission grids.
"It's pure demagoguery," House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said in a brief interview regarding the Democratic amendments. "If Democrats had an energy policy, they'd have had one in the last eight years. They have no credibility on this issue whatsoever. They are responsible for the energy crunch more than anybody I know." Spotlighting the high political stakes, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., took the unusual step of issuing a written statement about the committee's energy votes. He said President Bush and Republicans are "committed to helping the Big Energy special interests" and accused them of obstruction. - AP, 6/14/01
Here's part of a news release (from June 21, 2001) by a Democratic Congressman who saw the Republicans fight against and defeat his effort to have the government provide loans to upgrade the nation's electrical grid [LINK] :
REPUBLICANS DENY REP. FARR'S AMENDMENT FOR ELECTRIC POWER GRID LOANS
'I'm disheartened that some Republicans continue to play politics while the energy crisis wreaks havoc on our lives,' Rep. Farr says
(Washington, DC) - Rep. Sam Farr tried to offer an amendment to an appropriations bill today that would provide funding for electric power grid improvements. The Republican-dominated Rules Committee refused to allow the amendment on the bill.
"One thing that's aggravated the energy crisis in California is the antiquated power grid infrastructure," Rep. Farr said. "Power gets generated in Southern California and squeezed up an 85-mile stretch of high-voltage wires in the Central Valley called Path 15. The demand for energy in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco far outstrips the capacity of Path 15, which is a dangerous bottleneck and needs to be overhauled."
Rep. Farr vowed to continue offering the amendment to other legislation this year. The amendment authorizes $350 million to fund direct loans and loan guarantees to improve electric power transmission systems in the United States. Under the amendment, the loans and loan guarantees can only be made after the Secretary of Energy approves them; determines that other commercial financing is unavailable and that an emergency exists, and finds that the projects they fund would maintain or improve electricity transmission.
Borrowers would have up to 25 years to repay the loans.
"This loan program would benefit people of all political stripes," Rep. Farr said. "And the loans could be used by public or private-sector groups to improve an electrical grid that is clearly outdated and overburdened in California and elsewhere. That's why I'm disheartened that some Republicans continue to play politics while the energy crisis wreaks havoc on our lives."
Rep. Farr said that while many Republicans are gradually coming to see the wisdom of intervening in what is obviously a dysfunctional energy market in the West, the Republicans on the Rules Committee that rejected his amendment is out of touch with the damage caused by the California energy crisis. Families are facing soaring energy costs, businesses are fighting for survival and political leaders who continue to ignore their plight do so at their own peril, he added.
And how does this illuminate Cheney's refusal to help California when it suffered rolling blackouts from the predatory behavior of the power companies and Gray Davis asked for help? Well, the Bush administration's and Tom DeLay's refusal to upgrade the electrical grid had a similar -- but even more dramatic -- impact on August 14, 2003
And what about Arnold Schwarzenegger? Read on:
"In order to counter the virtual public consensus that deregulation ought to be dumped, Ken Lay, during the spring of 2001, began a series of high-powered meetings to salvage the deteriorating argument for his energy scheme.... He met privately with Vice President Cheney in the days leading up to the administration's publication of what became an extremely Enron-friendly National Energy Plan. Successful on the national front as a result of his longstanding relationship with key Republicans, Lay hoped to regain his footing in California by forging ties with prominent Republicans in the state. In May of 2001, Lay convened a private meeting with junk bond king Michael Milken, Los Angeles' then-Mayor Richard Riordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, at which Lay reportedly presented his vision of solving the state's energy deregulation crisis by, absurd as it sounds, expanding deregulation. The meeting, about which the public still knows very little, may become a major issue now that Schwarzenegger is no longer just a Republican movie star..." [LINK]
Now Bush wants to "review" the electrical grid problems. Well, he only need look in the mirror and call Tom DeLay and Dick Cheney to get to the bottom of the issue. With those three people in hand, he won't have to look any farther for the primary culprits in our government.
And when he's finished, he might have John "KGB" prosecute the real villains behind all of this -- including the past problems in California -- starting with Ken Lay. - Source
I can tell you all about the ne're-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters -- the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, "NiMo" built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity ratepayers.
To pull off this grand theft by kilowatt, the NiMo-led consortium fabricated cost and schedule reports, then performed a Harry Potter job on the account books. In 1988, I showed a jury a memo from an executive from one partner, Long Island Lighting, giving a lesson to a NiMo honcho on how to lie to government regulators. The jury ordered LILCO to pay $4.3 billion and, ultimately, put them out of business.
And that's why, if you're in the Northeast, you're reading this by candlelight tonight. Here's what happened. After LILCO was hammered by the law, after government regulators slammed Niagara Mohawk and dozens of other book-cooking, document-doctoring utility companies all over America with fines and penalties totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, the industry leaders got together to swear never to break the regulations again. Their plan was not to follow the rules, but to ELIMINATE the rules. They called it "deregulation."
It was like a committee of bank robbers figuring out how to make safecracking legal.
But they dare not launch the scheme in the USA. Rather, in 1990, one devious little bunch of operators out of Texas, Houston Natural Gas, operating under the alias "Enron," talked an over-the-edge free-market fanatic, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, into licensing the first completely deregulated power plant in the hemisphere.
And so began an economic disease called "regulatory reform" that spread faster than SARS. Notably, Enron rewarded Thatcher's Energy Minister, one Lord Wakeham, with a bushel of dollar bills for 'consulting' services and a seat on Enron's board of directors. The English experiment proved the viability of Enron's new industrial formula: that the enthusiasm of politicians for deregulation was in direct proportion to the payola provided by power companies.
The power elite first moved on England because they knew Americans wouldn't swallow the deregulation snake oil easily. The USA had gotten used to cheap power available at the flick of switch. This was the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1933, caged the man he thought to be the last of the power pirates, Samuel Insull. Wall Street wheeler-dealer Insull creator of the Power Trust, and six decades before Ken Lay, faked account books and ripped off consumers. To frustrate Insull and his ilk, FDR gave us the Federal Power Commission and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act which told electricity companies where to stand and salute. Detailed regulations limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set profit. The laws banned "power markets" and required companies to keep the lights on under threat of arrest -- no blackout blackmail to hike rates.
Of particular significance as I write here in the dark, regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit? Damn right we did.
Most important, FDR banned political contributions from utility companies -- no 'soft' money, no 'hard' money, no money PERIOD.
But then came George the First. In 1992, just prior to his departure from the White House, President Bush Senior gave the power industry one long deep-through-the-teeth kiss good-bye: federal deregulation of electricity. It was a legacy he wanted to leave for his son, the gratitude of power companies which ponied up $16 million for the Republican campaign of 2000, seven times the sum they gave Democrats.
But Poppy Bush's gift of deregulating of wholesale prices set by the feds only got the power pirates halfway to the plunder of Joe Ratepayer. For the big payday they needed deregulation at the state level. There were only two states, California and Texas, big enough and Republican enough to put the electricity market con into operation.
California fell first. The power companies spent $39 million to defeat a 1998 referendum pushed by Ralph Nadar which would have blocked the de-reg scam. Another $37 million was spent on lobbying and lubricating the campaign coffers of legislators to write a lie into law: in the deregulation act's preamble, the Legislature promised that deregulation would reduce electricity bills by 20%. In fact, when San Diegans in the first California city to go "lawless" looked at their bills, the 20% savings became a 300% jump in surcharges.
Enron circled California and licked its lips. As the number one life-time contributor to the George W. Bush campaign, it was confident about the future. With just a half dozen other companies it controlled at times 100% of the available power capacity needed to keep the Golden State lit. Their motto, "your money or your lights." Enron and its comrades played the system like a broken ATM machine, yanking out the bills. For example, in the shamelessly fixed "auctions" for electricity held by the state, Enron bid, in one instance, to supply 500 megawatts of electricity over a 15 megawatt line. That's like pouring a gallon of gasoline into a thimble -- the lines would burn up if they attempted it. Faced with blackout because of Enron's destructive bid, the state was willing to pay anything to keep the lights on.
And the state did. According to Dr. Anjali Sheffrin, economist with the California state Independent System Operator which directed power movements, between May and November 2000, three power giants physically or "economically" withheld power from the state and concocted enough false bids to cost the California customers over $6.2 billion in excess charges.
It took until December 20, 2000, with the lights going out on the Golden Gate, for President Bill Clinton, once a deregulation booster, to find his lost Democratic soul and impose price caps in California and ban Enron from the market.
But the light-bulb buccaneers didn't have to wait long to put their hooks back into the treasure chest. Within seventy-two hours of moving into the White House, while he was still sweeping out the inaugural champagne bottles, George Bush the Second reversed Clinton's executive order and put the power pirates back in business in California. Enron, Reliant (aka Houston Industries), TXU (aka Texas Utilities) and the others who had economically snipped California's wires knew they could count on Dubya, who as governor of the Lone Star state cut them the richest deregulation deal in America.
Meanwhile, the deregulation bug made it to New York where Republican Governor George Pataki and his industry-picked utility commissioners ripped the lid off electric bills and relieved my old friends at Niagara Mohawk of the expensive obligation to properly fund the maintenance of the grid system.
And the Pataki-Bush Axis of Weasels permitted something that must have former New York governor Roosevelt spinning in his wheelchair in Heaven: They allowed a foreign company, the notoriously incompetent National Grid of England, to buy up NiMo, get rid of 800 workers and pocket most of their wages - producing a bonus for NiMo stockholders approaching $90 million.
Is tonight's black-out a surprise? Heck, no, not to us in the field who've watched Bush's buddies flick the switches across the globe. In Brazil, Houston Industries seized ownership of Rio de Janeiro's electric company. The Texans (aided by their French partners) fired workers, raised prices, cut maintenance expenditures and, CLICK! the juice went out so often the locals now call it, "Rio Dark."
So too the free-market cowboys of Niagara Mohawk raised prices, slashed staff, cut maintenance and CLICK! -- New York joins Brazil in the Dark Ages.
Californians have found the solution to the deregulation disaster: re-call the only governor in the nation with the cojones to stand up to the electricity price fixers. And unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double. Davis called Reliant Corp of Houston a pack of "pirates" --and now he'll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders.
So where's the President? Just before he landed on the deck of the Abe Lincoln, the White House was so concerned about our brave troops facing the foe that they used the cover of war for a new push in Congress for yet more electricity deregulation. This has a certain logic: there's no sense defeating Iraq if a hostile regime remains in California.
Sitting in the dark, as my laptop battery runs low, I don't know if the truth about deregulation will ever see the light --until we change the dim bulb in the White House. - Source
The net is closing on the merchants of death in Downing Street as witness after witness gives damning testimony to the Hutton inquiry.
None was more damning yesterday than the voice of Dr David Kelly.
His taped conversation with Newsnight journalist Susan Watts establishes beyond doubt that Alastair Campbell is in the frame for exaggerating the Government's case for war against Iraq.
It was an eerie moment at the Royal Courts of Justice when the expert hounded to his death was heard again.
The tape must have made Campbell's blood run cold - and that of Tony Blair and his Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
They may be on holiday thousands of miles away, but their reputation is in the dock right here in the Strand.
On past form, they are getting minute by minute briefings on the progress of their trial. The No 10 communications machine is nothing if not efficient.
Too efficient, by half. Dr Kelly's testimony shows the original intelligence case for invading Iraq WAS given top spin by New Labour media managers.
Intelligence experts have given evidence of their doubts about the final dossier published by the PM as his pretext to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Yesterday, Dr Kelly's "unease" about the overstated claims was confirmed in his ghostly testimony.
People in Government saw what they wanted to see, he suggested. "They will see it from their own standpoint. They may not even appreciate quite what they were doing."
Even under fire, Dr Kelly was typically generous to his tormentors. As a scientist, wedded to facts, he was unwilling to believe politicians would be so reckless, self-serving and manipulative of intelligence for their own ends.
We know better, now. The September dossier drew heavily on intelligence material. It also drew on the unrivalled spin abilities of Alastair Campbell.
It had to. If the facts were not frightening enough, they had to be made so.
A FEW days of evidence have destroyed the myth of "clean hands in Downing Street." And the investigation is barely in its stride.
Tony Blair must be wondering what more there is to come. Of course, there is his testimony and that of Alastair Campbell. Geoff Hoon will also seek to justify his actions in allowing Dr Kelly's name to be disclosed to the media.
But this quasi-judicial process is already beyond their control. Lord Hutton's terms of reference may be as tight as a knot. But this inquiry is taking on its own life. Witnesses stray at will.
We are witnessing the slow motion death of this Government.
Who can now believe there was not something dodgy about the dossier that claimed Saddam could fire weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes' notice?
Dr Kelly insisted this just "popped up" during spooks' deliberations. But it was clearly music to No10. Music to which they could set a seductive theme.
Now the lyrics are exposed as phoney. It will take a miracle of spin to restore faith in Tony Blair's case for war.
What else did we learn yesterday from the Dr Kelly tape? "They would not pick on me I don't think," he hoped.
Oh yes they would. Oh yes they did. He was the perfect fall guy.
For the first time Blair knows what it is like for his actions and those of his cohorts to be examined independently, judiciously and without the covert help of media backers. It could prove fatal. - Source
The row over the circumstances surrounding David Kelly's death escalated today after it emerged that Tony Blair ordered the government weapons expert to undergo a second grilling about his contacts with the BBC. Dr Kelly had already been summoned to a lengthy interview with two Ministry of Defence officials about his meeting with BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan.
But Mr Blair decided he needed to be subjected to a second session, three days later, because of "discrepancies" between the scientist's account and what Gilligan had reported on the Today programme.
The revelation proves that Tony Blair was closely involved in the attempts to force Dr Kelly to admit the full extent of his role in the row over the Iraq intelligence dossier.
Sir David Omand, the government's security co-ordinator, wrote to the MoD permanent secretary Sir Kevin Tebbitt after Dr Kelly was first interviewed by his bosses on July 4, saying "it would be sensible" to find out more about his meeting with Gilligan before taking further action.
Martin Howard, the deputy chief of intelligence, said one letter from Sir David to Sir Kevin, "recorded the prime minister's view that, before we decided on what next step should be taken, it would be sensible to try and go into a bit more detail into the differences between what Dr Kelly said and what Mr Gilligan had claimed".
The Hutton inquiry's counsel, James Dingemans, also asked Mr Howard how the second interview with Dr Kelly came about.
"I don't know directly. I know there was Sir Kevin's letter to Sir David Omand. I understand there was a lot of high level discussion on the telephone between Sir Kevin and Sir David, and possibly others," said Mr Howard.
The MoD official was then quizzed about the decision to issue a press release on July 8 announcing one of its staff had come forward and admitted meeting Gilligan. The move came at a time when the BBC was steadfastly refusing to reveal the source or sources of its Today story.
At the time, the heat seemed to have been taken out of the row between the government and the BBC - earlier that day the corporation's director general Greg Dyke had publicly called for a truce.
The press release was released just minutes before the teatime bulletins, guaranteeing it top slot on both the BBC and ITV.
"I think the feeling was that this was a matter of very considerable public interest. The foreign affairs select committee had themselves recommended that the government should investigate links with Andrew Gilligan," he said.
"There was also very grave concern that [Dr Kelly's name] would come out by other means. We felt that it was appropriate to get this quite significant development onto public record," Mr Howard said.
Mr Dingemans pressed Mr Howard on this point, saying: "But did that necessarily entail identifying someone who was, to the public, someone who was identifiable as a source of Andrew Gilligan?"
Mr Howard responded: "We had, very unusually, an individual who had written and said he had spoken to a journalist in this area in an unauthorised way and touched on areas which have been the subject of very great public and media attention."
Mr Dingemans continued to question Mr Howard, adding: "Did you release all the drafts of the dossier?" Mr Howard replied: "No."
"What's the distinction between Dr Kelly and the drafts of the dossier? Both impacted on the same stories," Mr Dingemans said.
Mr Howard replied: "It was more that this was information that was germane to an issue which had been of very great public concern and great public debate."
Foreign office press secretary John Williams said he believed the naming of Dr Kelly was uneccessary, and that people would have formed their own opinion as to why the 45-minute claim was inserted into the dossier.
"There was a very, very simple explanation as to why this came up at the end of the process - it did not exist before," he told the inquiry.
"If it was, as we know, assessed as credible by the joint intelligence committee on September 9, that is all that happened. That's the simple explanation as to why it got into the dossier," he added.
People would conclude for themselves that Andrew Gilligan's claims were wrong, he believed, so saw no need to name Dr Kelly as the source. However, Dr Kelly was eventually named on July 9, after the Ministry of Defence press office said they would confirm the name if it was put to them by journalists.
The court also saw a document written on July 3 outlining the various "lines" the Foreign Office press department should take when questioned by journalists. If challenged about the 45-minute claim, the "line" to take was that that intelligence came from a "reliable source, not a defector".
If asked if the 45-minute claim had been inserted in the knowledge that it was incorrect, the response to be given was that the claim was untrue.
Mr Williams said these "lines" were given to him by the political director of the Foreign Office. - Source
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore yesterday defied a court order to remove a large granite monument emblazoned with the Ten Commandments from a state judicial building on the grounds that God's law supercedes state and even federal law.
"I have no intention of removing the monument," he said at a press conference in Montgomery. "This I cannot and will not do."
He will ask the U.S. Supreme Court today to strike down the order that would remove his 5,280-pound, 4-foot-high granite monument from its roped-off corner of the rotunda of the state judiciary building.
"The issue in this case is the state of Alabama can acknowledge God," Chief Justice Moore told Fox News. The state constitution "invokes the favoring guidance of Almighty God and no federal court has declared [Alabama´s] constitution unconstitutional."
"It's very important that, as the chief administrative officer of the justice system, that I uphold my oath to the Alabama Constitution as well as the U.S. Constitution. Neither the First Amendment nor the Alabama Constitution forbid an acknowledgment of God."
The Supreme Court will see things his way, he predicted, "because we are following U.S. Supreme Court law as to its definition of religion, which recognizes a Creator in higher law. So we have every right as a state to acknowledge God."
Called "Roy's rock" by some and likened in size to a washing machine by others, the monument has raised hackles ever since it was secretly installed late on the night of July 31, 2001.
Chief Justice Moore defended the way in which the monument was brought into the building, saying it had been paid for with private funds and that the appropriate state officials knew of its installation.
But on Oct. 30, 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union, in conjunction with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, filed suit against Chief Justice Moore, saying his display of the Ten Commandments was an unconstitutional establishment of religion in a government building.
A U.S. district court under Judge Myron Thompson ruled against Chief Justice Moore on Nov. 18, 2002. On July 1, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled against Chief Justice Moore, saying displays on government property cannot promote or be affiliated with a religion.
Judge Thompson gave the state until Aug. 20 to remove the monument, threatening $5,000 a day in fines if Chief Justice Moore did not comply.
Opponents compared the chief justice to 1960s-era segregationists who also opposed federal court orders.
"Justice Moore is repeating the shameful legacy of Alabama Governor George Wallace, who stood in the schoolhouse door in opposition to a federal court order to desegregate all-white schools," said Olivia Turner, executive director of the Alabama ACLU.
"If Chief Justice Moore can decide which federal court opinions he wants to comply with, then nobody's rights are safe from any state officials who disagree with the law."
Bruce Fein, a specialist in constitutional law in the District, said the case "doesn't have a ghost of a chance" of going to the nation's highest court.
"Someone coming into that court seeking remedy must have clean hands," Mr. Fein said. "Where has he pledged that, if the U.S. Supreme Court affirms [the circuit court ruling], he will obey it?
"He is leaving open the prospect that even if the court rules against him 9-0, he will disobey it. What are we going to have to do, call out the National Guard?"
Chief Justice Moore's mentality, Mr. Fein added, "epitomizes the lawlessness of massive resistance in the South to desegregation decrees. It epitomizes a disrespect for the rule of law totally incompatible with the office of judging. He is inviting anarchy."
But the justice, a Baptist, is used to conflict over his insistence that God should be recognized in the public square.
He has been in the public eye since 1995, when the ACLU sued him for posting a plaque of the Ten Commandments on the walls of his courtroom in the Etowah County Courthouse, where he was a circuit judge. Although the case was eventually thrown out on a technicality, both sides agreed the merits of the case were never ruled on.
Chief Justice Moore became nationally famous over the 1995 case and huge crowds turned out in rallies supporting his cause. In 2000, he easily defeated a Democratic opponent to become the state's chief justice.
Yesterday, he hinted that demonstrators may seek to block any effort to move the monument.
"As long as it's peaceful," he told Fox News, "I don't have any opposition to civil disobedience." - Source
On July 14, in his syndicated column, Chicago Sun-Times journalist Robert Novak reported that Valerie Plame Wilson - the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and mother of three-year-old twins - was a covert CIA agent. (She had been known to her friends as an "energy analyst at a private firm.")
Why was Novak able to learn this highly secret information? It turns out that he didn't have to dig for it. Rather, he has said, the "two senior Administration officials" he had cited as sources sought him out, eager to let him know. And in journalism, that phrase is a term of art reserved for a vice president, cabinet officers, and top White House officials.
On July 17, Time magazine published the same story, attributing it to "government officials." And on July 22, Newsday's Washington Bureau confirmed "that Valerie Plame ... works at the agency [CIA] on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity." More specifically, according to a "senior intelligence official," Newsday reported, she worked in the "Directorate of Operations [as an] undercover officer."
In other words, Wilson is/was a spy involved in the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence, covert operations and espionage. She is/was part of a elite corps, the best and brightest, and among those willing to take great risk for their country. Now she has herself been placed at great - and needless - risk.
Why is the Administration so avidly leaking this information? The answer is clear. Former ambassador Wilson is famous, lately, for telling the truth about the Bush Administration's bogus claim that Niger uranium had gone to Saddam Hussein. And the Bush Administration is punishing Wilson by targeting his wife. It is also sending a message to others who might dare to defy it, and reveal the truth.
No doubt the CIA, and Mrs. Wilson, have many years, and much effort, invested in her career and skills. Her future, if not her safety, are now in jeopardy.
After reading Novak's column, The Nation's Washington Editor, David Corn, asked, "Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?"
The answer is plainly yes. Now the question is, will they get away with it?
Bits and pieces of information have emerged, but the story is far from complete. Nonetheless, what has surfaced is repulsive. If I thought I had seen dirty political tricks as nasty and vile as they could get at the Nixon White House, I was wrong. The American Prospect's observation that "we are very much into Nixon territory here" with this story is an understatement.
Indeed, this is arguably worse. Nixon never set up a hit on one of his enemies' wives.
Leaking the Name of a CIA Agent Is a Crime
On July 22, Ambassador Wilson appeared on the Today show. Katie Couric asked him about his wife: "How damaging would this be to your wife's work?"
Wilson - who, not surprisingly, has refused to confirm or deny that his wife was a CIA operative - answered Katie "hypothetically." He explained, "it would be damaging not just to her career, since she's been married to me, but since they mentioned her by her maiden name, to her entire career. So it would be her entire network that she may have established, any operations, any programs or projects she was working on. It's a--it's a breach of national security. My understanding is it may, in fact, be a violation of American law."
And, indeed, it is.
The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Intelligence Identities and Protection Act of 1982 may both apply. Given the scant facts, it is difficult to know which might be more applicable. But as Senator Schumer (D.NY) said, in calling for an FBI investigation, if the reported facts are true, there has been a crime. The only question is: Whodunit?
The Espionage Act of 1917
The Reagan Administration effectively used the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute a leak - to the horror of the news media. It was a case that was instituted to make a point, and establish the law, and it did just that in spades.
In July 1984, Samuel Morrison - the grandson of the eminent naval historian with the same name - leaked three classified photos to Jane's Defense Weekly. The photos were of the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which had been taken by a U.S. spy satellite.
Although the photos compromised no national security secrets, and were not given to enemy agents, the Reagan Administration prosecuted the leak. That raised the question: Must the leaker have an evil purpose to be prosecuted?
The Administration argued that the answer was no. As with Britain's Official Secrets Acts, the leak of classified material alone was enough to trigger imprisonment for up to ten years and fines. And the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed. It held that the such a leak might be prompted by "the most laudable motives, or any motive at all," and it would still be a crime. As a result, Morrison went to jail.
The Espionage Act, though thrice amended since then, continues to criminalize leaks of classified information, regardless of the reason for the leak. Accordingly, the "two senior administration officials" who leaked the classified information of Mrs. Wilson's work at the CIA to Robert Novak (and, it seems, others) have committed a federal crime.
The Intelligence Identities and Protection Act
Another applicable criminal statute is the Intelligence Identities Act, enacted in 1982. The law has been employed in the past. For instance, a low-level CIA clerk was convicted for sharing the identify of CIA employees with her boyfriend, when she was stationed in Ghana. She pled guilty and received a two-year jail sentence. (Other have also been charged with violations, but have pleaded to unrelated counts of the indictment.)
The Act reaches outsiders who engage in "a pattern of activities" intended to reveal the identities of covert operatives (assuming such identities are not public information, which is virtually always the case).
But so far, there is no evidence that any journalist has engaged in such a pattern. Accepting Administration leaks - even repeatedly - should not count as a violation, for First Amendment reasons.
The Act primarily reaches insiders with classified intelligence, those privy to the identity of covert agents. It addresses two kinds of insiders.
First, there are those with direct access to the classified information about the "covert agents." who leak it. These insiders - including persons in the CIA - may serve up to ten years in jail for leaking this information.
Second, there are those who are authorized to have classified information and learn it, and then leak it. These insiders - including persons in, say, the White House or Defense Department - can be sentenced to up to five years in jail for such leaks.
The statute also has additional requirements before the leak of the identity of a "covert agent" is deemed criminal. But it appears they are all satisfied here.
First, the leak must be to a person "not authorized to receive classified information." Any journalist - including Novak and Time - plainly fits.
Second, the insider must know that the information being disclosed identifies a "covert agent." In this case, that's obvious, since Novak was told this fact.
Third, the insider must know that the U.S. government is "taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." For persons with Top Secret security clearances, that's a no-brainer: They have been briefed, and have signed pledges of secrecy, and it is widely known by senior officials that the CIA goes to great effort to keep the names of its agents secret.
A final requirement relates to the "covert agent" herself. She must either be serving outside the United States, or have served outside the United States in the last five years. It seems very likely that Mrs. Wilson fulfills the latter condition - but the specific facts on this point have not yet been reported.
How the Law Protects Covert Agents' Identities
What is not in doubt, is that Mrs. Wilson's identity was classified, and no one in the government had the right to reveal it.
Virtually all the names of covert agents in the CIA are classified, and the CIA goes to some effort to keep them classified. They refuse all Freedom of Information Act requests, they refuse (and courts uphold) to provide such information in discovery connected to lawsuits.
Broadly speaking, covert agents (and their informants) fall under the State Secrets privilege. A federal statute requires that "the Director of Central Intelligence shall be responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure." It is not, in other words, an option for the CIA to decide to reveal an agent's activities.
And of course, there's are many good reasons for this - relating not only to the agent, but also to national security. As CIA Director Turner explained in a lawsuit in 1982, shortly after the Intelligence Identities Act became law, "In the case of persons acting in the employ of CIA, once their identity is discerned further damage will likely result from the exposure of other intelligence collection efforts for which they were used."
The White House's Unusual Stonewalling About an Obvious Leak
In the past, Bush and Cheney have gone ballistic when national security information leaked. But this leak - though it came from "two senior administration officials" - has been different. And that, in itself, speaks volumes.
On July 22, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked about the Novak column. Offering only a murky, non-answer, he claimed that neither "this President or this White House operates" in such a fashion. He added, "there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step."
So was McClellan saying that Novak was lying - and his sources were not, in fact, "two senior administration officials"? McClellan dodged, kept repeating his mantra, and refused to respond.
Later, McClellan was asked, "Would the President support an investigation into the blowing of the cover on an undercover CIA operative?" Again, he refused to acknowledge "that there might be some truth to the matter you're bringing up." When pressed further, he said he would have to look into "whether or not that characterization is accurate when you're talking about someone's cover."
McClellan's statement that he would have to look into the matter was disingenuous at best. This ten-day old column by Novak had not escaped the attention of the White House. Indeed, when the question was first raised, McClellan immediately responded, "Thank you for bringing that up."
As David Corn has pointed out, what McClellan did not say, is even more telling than what he said. He did not say he was trying to get to the bottom of the story and determine if it had any basis in fact. He did not say the president would not tolerate such activities, and was demanding to know what had happened.
Indeed, as Corn points out, McClellan's remarks "hardly covered a message from Bush to his underlings: don't you dare pull crap like this." Indeed, they could even be seen as sending a message that such crimes will be overlooked.
Frankly, I am astounded that the President of the United States - whose father was once Director of the CIA - did not see fit to have his Press Secretary address this story with hard facts. Nor has he apparently called for an investigation - or even given Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson a Secret Service detail, to let the world know they will be protected.
This is the most vicious leak I have seen in over 40 years of government-watching. Failure to act to address it will reek of a cover-up or, at minimum, approval of the leak's occurrence - and an invitation to similar revenge upon Administration critics.
Congressional Calls For Investigation Should Be Heeded
Senator Dick Durbin (D - IL) was the first to react. On July 22, he delivered a lengthy speech about how the Bush Administration was using friendly reporters to attack its enemies. He knew this well, because he was one of those being so attacked.
"Sadly, what we have here," Durbin told his colleagues, "is a continuing pattern by this White House. If any Member of this Senate - Democrat or Republican - takes to the floor, questions this White House policy, raises any questions about the gathering of intelligence information, or the use of it, be prepared for the worst. This White House is going to turn on you and attack you."
After Senator Durbin set forth the evidence that showed the charges of the White House against him were false, he turned to the attacks on Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson. He announced that he was asking the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate this "extremely serious matter."
"In [the Administration's] effort to seek political revenge against Ambassador Wilson," Durbin said, "they are now attacking him and his wife, and doing it in a fashion that is not only unacceptable, it may be criminal. And that, frankly, is as serious as it gets in this town."
The House Intelligence Committee is also going to investigate the Wilson leak. "What happened is very dangerous to a person who may be a CIA operative," Congressman Alcee Hastings (D - FL), a member of the Committee, said. And the committee's chairman, Porter Gross (R- FL), a former CIA agent himself, said an investigation "could be part of a wider" look that his committee is taking at WMD issues.
In a July 24 letter to FBI Director William Mueller, Senator Charles Schumer (D -NY) demanded a criminal investigation of the leak. Schumer's letter stated, "If the facts that have been reported publicly are true, it is clear that a crime was committed. The only questions remaining to be answered are who committed the crime and why?"
The FBI, too, has confirmed that they are undertaking an investigation.
But no one should hold their breath. So far, Congress has treated the Bush Administration with kid gloves. Absent an active investigation by a grand jury, under the direction of a U.S. Attorney or special prosecutor, an FBI investigation is not likely to accomplish anything. After all, the FBI does not have power to compel anyone to talk. And unless the President himself demands a full investigation, the Department of Justice is not going to do anything - unless the Congress uncovers information that embarrasses them into taking action.
While this case is a travesty, it won't be the first one that this administration has managed to get away with. Given the new the nadir of investigative journalism, this administration has been emboldened. And why not? Lately, the mainstream media has seemed more interested in stockholders than readers. If Congress won't meaningfully investigate these crimes - and, indeed, even if it will - it is the press's duty to do so. Let us hope it fulfills that duty. But I am not holding my breath about that, either. - Source
An Evolution has begun. Politicalstrategy.org has officially closed down. Look for DailyNewsOnline.com to rise from the ashes, a powerful new site you won't want to miss. Click here to find out more! Click here to join the mailing list and be notified when the DailyNewsOnline is launched!
Sun Tzu Files 
and 
indicate whether the poll numbers are up or down from the previous poll. Incumbents are in italics. (prior results in '()')