Free Republic

Major General Doug Stone is trying to turn jailed Iraqi militants into citizens. Call him a do-gooder, but guess what? It's working. Turning Shame Into Pride After Major General Douglas Michael Stone arrived in Baghdad in April 2007 to take command of security prisoners in Iraq, he promptly assembled his officers for some blunt talk. The abuses of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were a "moral failure" that had shamed a nation long admired for respecting international law and human rights, he told them. They were also a betrayal of the U.S. military's and America's "core values." "Abu Ghraib was...

1. Norman Hsu Gave to Kennedy, Kerry, Obama, Others Already posted separately on the forum. 2. Hillary Fundraiser Curses Out GOP When Florida’s Republican Party attacked Hillary Clinton for enlisting a fundraiser once accused of racketeering, the fundraiser responded with a profanity-laced tirade — and later apologized. Former Hialeah, Fla., Mayor Raul Martinez was brought up on federal corruption charges nearly two decades ago. He was convicted but successfully appealed, and two more trials ended in hung juries, the Miami Herald reported. After the Democrat hosted a Clinton fundraiser at his home on Monday, Sept. 10, Republican Party of Florida...

Why has al-Qa'eda not repeated the attacks it staged in New York and Washington six years ago to the day? Because it can't. That is the only partly reassuring consensus of some of the experts who tried hardest to warn Washington about the danger posed by al-Qa'eda and militant Islam prior to its devastating strikes on September 11. Richard Clarke, the anti-terrorism adviser to two American presidents, Michael Sheehan, New York's former deputy police commissioner who headed the State Department's anti-terrorism effort, and others who sensed the danger long before it became obvious, assert that offensive and defensive measures taken...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court said Friday it would release some of the documents it reviewed when deciding to force journalists to testify in the CIA leak investigation. The ruling followed a request by The Associated Press and Dow Jones, which asked for the release of the sworn statements Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald gave to justify subpoenas for New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2005. Fitzgerald wanted the reporters' help in his investigation of the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak. The news organizations argued...

Fitzgerald's Cover-Up It's time to hold the special prosecutor accountable. Wednesday, April 4, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT For a prosecutor who claims to be a truth-seeker, Patrick Fitzgerald sure can be secretive. Even now that the Scooter Libby trial is over and his "leak" investigation is all but closed, the unaccountable special counsel wants to keep his arguments for creating a Constitutional showdown over reporters and their sources under lock and key. Mr. Fitzgerald is fighting release of the affidavits he filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to justify compelling two reporters to testify about their conversations with...

Kelly death not suicide, says MP Sunday 25 February 9pm on BBC Two Programme preview An MP investigating the death of Dr David Kelly says he is convinced the weapons scientist did not kill himself. Norman Baker tells BBC Two's The Conspiracy Files he has reached the conclusion Dr Kelly's life was "deliberately taken by others". Mr Baker has also obtained letters suggesting the coroner had doubts about the 2003 Hutton inquiry's ability to establish the cause of death. Hutton reached a verdict of suicide but a public inquest was never completed. Dr Kelly, whose body was found in July...

A pattern is emerging at the Lewis Libby trial, now in the middle of its third week in the federal courthouse in Washington. The pattern is this: A witness called by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald delivers testimony that seems clearly damaging to Libby, strongly suggesting that Libby lied when he testified before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in the CIA-leak affair. And then Libby’s lawyers take over, suggesting that the witness’s memory is so selective, or so flawed, or so sketchy as to render his or her testimony useless. Each day, most news reports from the trial focus on the damage...

Miller Time Posted 2/1/2007 Plamegate: Judith Miller's bout with amnesia apparently is over. In the Libby trial, she can recall exactly what he told her when, something she couldn't when she had 85 days in jail to think about it. Journalists are supposed to be scrupulous note-takers and fact-checkers. What they put in print is supposed to be cross-checked, double-checked and checked again. Nowhere is the accuracy of their stories more important than in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Scooter Libby, at which 25 of the 80 names listed as possible witnesses are journalists. The former New...

A Chicago jury Thursday acquitted two Arabs charged with conspiring to illegally finance the outlawed Hamas terrorist organization. Mohamed Salah and Abdelhaleem Ashqar were found guilty of lesser charges of obstructing justice and refusing to answer questions at grand juries. "We are good people, not terrorists, said Salah after the verdict. He was indicted in 2004 on charges of transferring money to Hamas and providing recruits for a Hamas leader who later fled the United States. Ashqar taught at Howard University in Washington and was accused of being a coordinator and archivist for Hamas.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller acknowledged Wednesday that she had conversations with other government officials and could not be ``absolutely, absolutely certain'' that she first heard about an outed CIA official from I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby. Libby's attorneys seized on the hesitation and tried to portray Miller as someone who selectively remembers some conversations and not others. Miller is a crucial witness against Libby in his perjury and obstruction trial. She says she had two conversations about CIA operative Valerie Plame in mid-2003 with Libby, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Those...

Scooter Libby's defense team is finally drawing blood, and it belongs to former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. It's hard to believe that Miller could look any worse than she did before walking into Judge Reggie Walton's courtroom this afternoon. Her prewar reporting on weapons of mass destruction has been the subject of intense debate and criticism, some of it emanating from inside the Times. She spent several months in jail to protect somebody who leaked the identity of a CIA agent for political gain. And once she got out of jail and started answering questions before Patrick Fitzgerald's...

WASHINGTON — Some journalists who made careers out of questioning government officials and bearing witness to history may soon find themselves answering questions from prosecutors as key witnesses in the CIA leak case. Ten or more reporters from some of the most prominent news organizations could be called to testify in the perjury and obstruction case of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. It's rare enough for reporters to become witnesses. But the Libby case is even more unusual because journalists will be dueling witnesses -- some called by the defense team, some by prosecutors. "It will be...

New York Times turns to Supreme Court 2 hours, 47 minutes ago The New York Times asked the Supreme Court on Friday to block the government from reviewing the phone records of two reporters in a leak investigation about a terrorism-funding probe. The case involved stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon that revealed the government's plans to freeze the assets of two Islamic charities, the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation. In a 2-1 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said federal prosecutors can see the phone records of Shenon...

The publication of Hubris is filled with irony for David Corn, Washington editor of the left-wing Nation magazine. He was present at the creation of the Valerie Plame "scandal," which the enemies of George W. Bush hoped could bring down a president. Nobody was more responsible for bloating this episode. Yet Corn is coauthor of a book that has had the effect of killing the story. Thanks to Corn's intrepid coauthor, Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, Hubris definitively revealed then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as my source that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked for the CIA and suggested her...

SlimeyJoe himself giving a talk at the Univ. of Baltimore.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller speaks during the 2005 SPJ Convention & National Journalism Conference in Las Vegas Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005. Miller, who was jailed 85 days for refusing to reveal a source, defended her decision to go to jail to protect the source and told a journalism conference Tuesday that reporters need a federal shield law so that others won't face the same sanctions. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) WASHINGTON -- In the latest fallout from the CIA leak investigation, reporter Judith Miller and The New York Times are engaging in a very public fight about her seeming...

With the major media already under fire for compromising the war on radical Islamic terrorism, a recent court decision suggests that the media may have something else to hide in connection with their conduct in national security and terrorism-related cases. The allegation being pursued in the courts is that reporters for the New York Times tipped off two controversial Muslim groups to the fact that federal authorities were going to raid their offices in an effort to find evidence implicating the organizations in alleged terrorist activity. There were a few articles on the decision, including in the New York Times...

The New York Times may not withhold reporters' phone records from a federal grand jury investigating an alleged leak of a pending government raid on two Islamic charities suspected of supporting terrorism, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. A three-judge panel of the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the Times has no First Amendment or other legal right to refuse a demand for the records from the grand jury in Chicago, which was empaneled by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald. The government's interest in rooting out a possible crime outweighs...

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that federal prosecutors investigating a leak about a terrorism funding probe can see the phone records of two New York Times reporters. A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in a 2-1 vote that prosecutors had a valid interest in seeing who had contacted the reporters. "We see no danger to a free press in so holding," Judge Ralph K. Winter wrote for the majority. The case involved stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon that revealed that the government...

Just heard on Fox News break something about Court ruling NYT has to give up phone records re: tipping off Islamic charity case. Nothing on web site yet