CIA leak lawsuit dismissed

They dismissed this case because they said that private citizens can't sue public officials for doing their job?

Committing Treason is part of their job?

This administration is hands down the closest thing this country has ever had to a Nazi regime.

Jan 09 can't get here soon enough!

The smug arrogance of the plaintiffs ("I don't remember sending my husband to Niger") had a lot to do with this.

Jan 09 can't get here soon enough!

Posted by: John E

You don't really think they're going to let a Dem in the WH, do you?

Where's our democracy? Where's the justice? How can the Bush administration consistently violate everything which is free and democratic while everyone sits in their homes complacent as ever?

No surprise here. Judge Bates is a through and through Bushie. Appointed by W in 2001. Served as one of the Whitewater witchhunters.

This was a civil lawsuit. The criminal charges against Scooter have already been determined. He's a traitor.

We will be lucky if this regime does not declare martial law and we have elections in 2008.

You don't really think they're going to let a Dem in the WH, do you?

Posted by: Cheryl

Why wouldn't they let a Dem in the White House? More likely than a woman, eh, Cheryl?

The smug arrogance of the plaintiffs ("I don't remember sending my husband to Niger") had a lot to do with this.

Posted by: Hillaryis44 | July 19, 2007 3:32 PM

Justice in the United States is now determined by how likeable a person you are?

What else can you expect from the administration of der Fuhrer, Herr Bush.

This just out: New name changes

The Department of Justice is now designated the Department of Injustice.

The Department of Defense is not the Department of Offense.

The Environmental Protection Agency is now the Environmental Degradation Agency

And lastly the White House has been renamed the Exxon and Halliburton Center for Profiteering.

Suleman-

Thats an easy answer!
Because we are Americans and dang it we can be complacent if we want, we're the greatest nation on earth!
We want so much and are willing to give so little for it.
-We hate the gas prices but wont change our driving patterns or trade in our macho SUVs.
-We hate Iran and nutty Hugo Chavez but we buy their oil for said SUV.
-We hate illegal immigrants but want our produce to be cheap.
-We are in the "mother of all wars" against "terror" but we dont want/need a draft because you may actually have to back up your empty "support the troops" rhetoric.
-We want to be healthy but we eat incessantly at McDonalds.
-We moan about lost jobs but shop at Walmart where 75% of the items on the shelves are made in China, where they pay abysmal wages and produce super cheap goods.
-We are appalled by abortion but have no problem with capital punishment and hundreds of thousands of civilian Iraqi dead, including *gasp* pregnant mothers!
-We want a robust economy and tax cuts but ignore the deficit and looming soc security crises.
-And of course, my agnostic favorite, we sin sin sin, we bag on our brothers, we cheat on our wives, we steal and lie and let our bodies waste away in a trans-fat orgy of fast food, but its all good because Jesus loves us and forgives us! Cheat on your wife? No prob, just remember to say your sorry to Jesus afterwards and its all good! Sweet.

You get my point? We are all talk and no walk. We are a 'want it now' society and just throw it on the credit card, wether its the national debt or that new plasma TV you just *had* to have.
We have no savings.
We sold our souls to refi our house to buy said plasma tvs.

I would think previous generations would look at our selfish, material, macho-strutting "my way or the highway", "you're with us or against us" attitude and just shake their heads. They sacrificed to create this mess? Embarrassing.

In the words of Bono, "The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor."

This administration is hands down the closest thing this country has ever had to a Nazi regime.

*****
Posted by: John E | July 19, 2007 3:26 PM

That's a little over the top, don't you think? Duh'bya never put 120,000 innocent American citizens behind barbed wire fences, did he? Well, then, maybe he doesn't qualify as "hands down the closest thing this country has ever had to a Nazi regime."

Too bad. Valerie just "plamed" out.

Hard to sue for damages from a "crime" that two years of federal investigation can't find. Oh well. Now the Wilson's can focus their full attention on the Clinton campaign.

Wow are there some whack-jobs around here. Nazi regime. Worst in history. Lets take a little history tour (compliments of the History Channel and History.com).

The Kennedy's (Democrats)

- Stole the 1960 election with all the "dead" people who voted in Illinois (compiments of King Richard I)

- Got us into Vietnam (Nixon/GOP inherited a failed war)

- Illegally invaded another country (Cuba) and tried to have the leader of the country assassinated

- Bobby Kennedy having non-US citizens deported, namely females who slept with JFK and threatened to talk (or did not take Kennedy bribe money)

- Joe Kennedy, who would make people "disappear". Who, had he not been incapacitated by stroke during Ted's little drive into Chapaquitic (sp), could have, and more importantly would have, made the car, the woman, and the whole event disappear.

- Bobby Kennedy ok-ing the illegal survellance of private citizens.

- JFK, busted on tape, during Ted's wedding, telling Ted that "infidelity" was expected.

- Ted Kennedy, expelled from Harvard because of cheating on a test (having another person take his test, so he could get a passing grade and stay on the football team), getting readmitted because of his family wealth and power.

Need we go into the Clintons? NAFTA, FMLA. How many givebacks were those to big business? Ford workers and UAW can thank NAFTA for all the Mexican plants. And all women can celebrate FMLA, which since its inception, companies paying full time materity leave have gone from 78% to 18% (because they don't have to, they just have to keep the job open, not pay for it).

Nazi, evil Bush regime?!?! No, don't think so. On par with others.

Pity that the courts, which once at least gave the appearance of being above it, have now succumbed to the political fray.

The only solice is knowing that his butler still refers to him as Master Bates.

erick:

You are a lot of talk, blowhard.

How freakin' dare you judge everyone in the country like that? Just stick to keeping your own sorry butt on the straight and narrow, and leave everyone else alone - you smarmy little sycophant.

This case being dismissed on jurisdictional grounds is no victory for the Bush administration. Every American with common sense knows what the Bush White House has been up to & the list of misdeeds is shockingly long.
It's sad that Americans seem complacent about it, though.

Good god, Mark, lighten up! The true treasonists and traitors are Valerie Plume and Joe Wilson. His report was discredited by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and every international intelligence agency.
And when will they get indicted for perjury and thrown in jail? Both have given different stories in front of federal investigators and Congress. Plume once said she had nothing to do with her husband going to Niger, but that is lie too.
There was no case, never was a case, that's why no one was indicted for "outing" her.

Kenny Bunkport:

The court didn’t succumb to the “political fray,” as you suggest. The judge simply applied the applicable law. The President is absolutely immune from civil liability for damages predicated on his official acts. (See Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 749-757 (1982).) And so, arguably, is the Vice President – for the same reasons. (See Cheney v. U.S. District Court, 542 U.S. 367 (2004), which applied the Fitzgerald rationale to the V.P.) The application of immunity to the Vice President based on the Fitzgerald and Cheney cased might be a short stretch, but I wouldn’t call unreasonable or even the result of the judge having entered the political fray.

John W,
I'm not going to parse words with you on this one, you can sit back and watch Bush and Cheney use the constitution as toilet paper all you want, that's your right, but I choose to call it like I see it and fight it all the way.

Bush Administration = Nazi Regime

Bush Administration = Nazi Regime

Bush Administration = Nazi Regime

Bush Administration = Nazi Regime

Bush Administration = Nazi Regime

WORST PRESIDENT EVER!

John W,

Thanks for the jurisprudence, but my comment was about the "courts" and with that sweep I included the Supremes, with or without Diana Ross or even Mary Wilson.

John E:

I'm not gonna' parse words with you either. In plain ol' practical terms, you would have been whisked away in the middle of the night, never to be seen from again - just for what you have been writing on this blog - if we had anything approaching a Nazi regime. That's what happened in the one and only Nazi regime in the world thus far.

Nor are they even as bad as F.D.R.'s administration, which did imprison 120,000 innocent citizens without as much as a bare suspicion of proof of disloyalty, much less crime or treason.

I'm not challenging you for disliking Bush and Cheney. There is an awful lot to dislike there. I just think your comments are slightly disproportionate. I mean, what are you going to say when we get a real Nazi in the White House?

I don't normally spend any time reading this stuff, but I could not help it today. Here's a suggestion for all of you constitutional law experts.

Why not actually attend law school and take a first year course on con law or civil procedure. That will help acclimate you to the basics of standing and political question doctrine, and the all- important concept of governmental immunity.

That, of course, assumes you attended (and graduated) from high school and college in the first instance. If not, take a GED course and then go to your local community college and take a course on American History and a course on European History.

Then you might (and I'd place emphasis on might) be qualified to discuss the comparisons of the Bush Administration to Nazi Germany, and the supposed depravations of your civil rights while you sit in your mother's basement and bang out ill-informed and incendiary comments like those I have seen above.

If you hate Bush, that's fine. That's your right and no one is going to take it away from you (in spite of your paranoid fears to the contrary, this is still a constitutional republic).

Beyond that, just shut up and don't offer your comments on subjects you quite obviously do not understand.

What!?!!?
The judge didn't buy into the leftwing folklore surrounding this case?!!?

What a shock.

Well, I've been gone a bit, but it seems not much has changed. Although John E. seems to be moving ever closer to the edge.

John W. ...remember those signs in the zoo that read "don't feed the animals?" Well... think of that when confronting John E.

Erick - YOU are SOOOO right in your assessment!!! Couldn't have said it better myself. As testimate, the brand new Acura MDX (SUV) I saw parked in the lot the last time I was at Walmart, with the bumper sticker - "Stop the illegal war".

It's scary how easily the Republics can find happiness in this case, when even little Shrub came clean and admitted the W.H.outed Plame.

This is what it's all come to.

More nonsense from John E. Bush administration equals Nazi regime?? You know, that is so offensive to Jews, Poles and others who suffered under the Nazis. The Nazis killed millions of them. The Nazis took over countries.
Sorry, but Bush has freed two countries from tyranny.
But then I must be a loon for debating know-nothing idiots such as yourself. You repeatedly show no understanding of history, current events, common sense and fact.
What a complete waste of whatever you are.

Kenny Bunkport:

I'm sorry, I guess I must have missed your point alltogether. The case that gives the Executive absolute immunity against civil liability for official acts is already twenty five years old. How does a twenty-five-year-old rule throw the courts into the political fray today?

Once again John D. reports in from Bizarro World where everything is the opposite of the truth. "The true treasonists (new word) and traitors are Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. His report
was discredited by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (not true) and every international intelligence agency" (how many of these agencies are there in Bizarro World?).

And when will they get indicted for perjury and thrown in jail? (In Bizarro World this happens to people who tell the truth not jerks like Scooter).

"Both have given different stories in front of federal investigators and Congress. Plume once said she had nothing to do with her husband going to Niger, but that is lie too" (Apparently paraphrasing other's statements so that they fit your odd points is an acceptable strategy in Bizarro World).

"There was no case, never was a case, that's why no one was indicted for "outing" her" (John apparently forgot that the federal law written to cover this situation was deliberately written in such a vague way [by a republican legal hack - Victoria Toensing - remember her?] that it is nearly impossible to convict someone of the crime - look it up!).

John W.
Look around you. Find examples for everything I mentioned. You shop at Wally World? Thought so. Changed *your* driving habits instead of supporting foreign oil? Didnt think so. Hows your credit cards mate? Bummer.

Look around you. I look around me. I see mortgaged to hilt, credit cards maxed to the hilt, society who wants cheap goods, crappy food and good cable tv. Ooo look, Paris Hilton!

Look around you man. I'm just spoutin reality. Walk down your block. What do you see? I'll tell you what you see: Lots of 'support out troops' ribbons, little enlisting. Deny it?

This is the greatest nation. Look at what we're doing to it. Calling me a sycophant? I applaud you on the big word, I'd ask you to look in a freakin mirror. Hold up your credit card balances next to you.
Truth hurts.

Posted by: erick | July 19, 2007 4:32 PM

erick,
That post made me laugh my head off. You're a very talented writer. I'm being genuine. It was funny. Write some more.

John W,

Now you've now missed the point twice. My initial reference to politics in the justice system referred to courts (plural) - Supreme on down. Politics, if it reared its ugly head at all, used to be an undercurrent, and is now more overt (read the minority opinions of recent Supreme Court rulings). As for Gonzo, that's the Executive branch where the political fray emanates.

erick:

You asked, "You shop at Wally World?"

If you mean Wall-mart, the answer is "NO." The one nearest to me is about an 18 minute drive, so I don’t bother.

You then ask, "Changed *your* driving habits instead of supporting foreign oil?"

I usually drive my car only once or twice a week for a few minutes each time. That's because I mostly work at home, and most other places of interest are fairly close by. So, yes, I do my part to support American independence from foreign oil. Thanks for asking.

Then you ask, "How’s your credit cards mate?"

What credit cards? I don't have any, and never have. And I don’t want any either. I was raised on, and have lived by, the notion that if you can’t afford to pay for something in cash, don't buy it. Having inexpensive hobbies helps.

I'm now looking at myself in a mirror like you asked. I can do that without being ashamed. Credit card balances? They don't exist, and never have.

As for the rest: It’s not much, but I own the house I live in and it’s not mortgaged; I don’t use credit cards (still); I cook for myself and don’t eat junk food if I can help it; I have cable internet service; I don’t give a rat’s ass about Paris Hilton or any of the other plastic icons of the post-modern era; I see no “support our troops” ribbons on the block (not that I’ve been looking very hard); and I honestly don’t know whether those who sport those ribbons are enlisting or not – because I don’t live near enough to a recruiting station to be able to tell.

This is why I have a problem with the way you judge people, Eric. You don’t use true judgment. You see some people’s foolishness, and you immediately assume everyone else is just as foolish. But it’s simply not true. Just look at how you completely misjudged me. I know a lot of other people in my situation, so I’m nothing special in this regard. Please learn that you cannot fairly judge everyone based on your experience. You simply don’t have the experience to do so, and you probably never will. That’s why I suggested that you take care of yourself and not pass judgment on others.

No, Eric, the truth doesn’t hurt me the way you suggest. By now, however, if you have any shame at all, you should be feeling some mental dissonance from having shot off you mouth.

Big Gene, perhaps this item from the Washington Post may enlighten you and bring you into Reality World, which happens to be where I live. Notice how this article notes Senate Select Committee notes Wilson errors, how this article notes contradictions by Wilson and Plame. OK, Big Gene?

Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission
Report Disputes Wilson's Claims on Trip, Wife's Role
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page A09

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

Yesterday's report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, "there's this crazy report" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson's reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.

Still, it was the CIA that bore the brunt of the criticism of the Niger intelligence. The panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

JD:

Despite all of your dire predictions to the contrary, John E. has shown me enough respect that I feel compelled to return the courtesy. I'll continue to treat him the way he treats me. Fair enough?

Little Johnny D%*&$#t,

Valrie Plame was a COVERT OPERATIVE and the appointed REPUBLICAN PROSECUTER (Patrick Fitzgerald) confirmed this for EVERYONE but the goofball Wingnuts like you who continue to perpetuate a lie saying otherwise,

Once again you have proven the point that I made earlier about living in Bizarro World John D. by printing an excerpt from a Washington Post Article that appeared on Saturday, July 10, 2004, page A9 penned by their staff writer Susan Schmidt. That same article was corrected on Tuesday, July 13, 2004 and further addressed by the Post's Ombudsman on Sunday, July 18, 2004, page B6 It appears that Ms. Schmidt used less than the exact words contained in the Senate Select Committee's Report causing a flood of criticism. Maybe Susan lives down the street from you in Bizarro World and finds it acceptable to paraphrase for effect. Keep up the good work J.D. there will be a place for you in Neo-Con Heaven.