Breaking News...Libby Indicted

By JOHN SOLOMON and PETE YOST, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case.

Karl Rove, President Bush's closest adviser, escaped indictment Friday but remained under investigation, his legal status a looming political problem for the White House.

The indictments stem from a two-year investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into whether Rove, Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame or lied about their involvement to investigators.more

This looks to be the first salvo. Any trial, if it ever gets to that may or may not shake out more details as the inner workings of the CIA leak.

Stay tuned.

Rove NOT To Be Charged On Friday?

That's what it sounds like, but that doesn't mean that he's safe yet...:

New York Times - Lawyers in the C.I.A. leak case said Thursday that they expected I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, to be indicted on Friday, charged with making false statements to the grand jury.

Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

Via Drudge.

Exxon Mobil Posts New Record for Profit

By STEVE QUINN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 25 minutes ago

IRVING, Texas - Exxon Mobil Corp. had a quarter for the record books. The world's largest publicly traded oil company said Thursday high oil and natural-gas prices helped its third-quarter profit surge almost 75 percent to $9.92 billion, the largest quarterly profit for a U.S. company ever, and it was the first to ring up more than $100 billion in quarterly sales.more

$9.92 to billion in one quarter! Tell me again why gas, natural gas, diesel and fuel oil are so expensive. I keep hearing complaints about not enough refineries and too strict regulations that make gas etc. expensive to refine. It doesn't seem to be hurting Exxon or BP all that much.

The reason I post this hear is because the oil industry keeps asking for tax breaks for exploration and new refineries. I think we need to make sure our politicians know that we have already given enough money at the pump to fund this and don't need to put our country further in debt with tax cuts.

Miers Withdraws Under Mounting Criticism

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON - Under withering attack from conservatives, President Bush ended his push to put loyalist Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court Thursday and promised a quick replacement. Democrats accused him of bowing to the "radical right wing of the Republican Party."

The White House said Miers had withdrawn her name because of a bipartisan effort in Congress to gain access to internal documents related to her role as counsel to the president. But politics played a larger role: Bush's conservative backers had doubts about her ideological purity, and Democrats had little incentive to help the nominee or the embattled GOP president.

This will be the story dejour until the indictments get handed out for the CIA leak probe which is likely today or tommorrow. In the meantime, wow.

Any bets, he nominates Alberto Gonzalez now?

Senator Gregg Wins $853,492 in Powerball Lottery

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican who's already a millionaire, won $853,492 playing the lottery this week. (Click post title for full story)

What?

I hope he is going to donate that money to the Red Cross or better yet - give it to the federal pension fund buy out. You know the one where when companies like Delphi declare bankruptcy so they don't have to honor contracts they signed with unions for pensions they can ask the federal government to bail them out for pennies on the dollar to the pension recipients?

What go around come around!

My apologies to Cypress Hill but this is exactly what is going on right now.

Grounded by hubris, greed Story on Yahoo/USA Today
...But long before DeLay, hubris has been a bird-flu-like epidemic toppling congressional powerhouses sucked into ethics scandals. The House Hall of Shame is turning into a crowded docket.

You could start with Jim Wright, D-Texas, the first House speaker to lose that job over ethics charges. When Wright resigned in 1989, in part for taking $145,000 in illegal gifts from a Texas developer, his downfall was engineered in a hubristic coup by then-Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. Nearly eight years later, Speaker Gingrich was fined $300,000 for ethical misdeeds, and was essentially chased out because his image as hotshot Republican visionary turned sour...

I find it interesting that this word, "hubris," was pounding through my brain the other day. It was in relation to the "other" Washington scandal involving some White House insider(s) and CIA Agent Valerie Plame. I was wondering when does one get so drunk with power and pride that one thinks you can out a CIA agent and get away with it?

Perhaps, we need to ask Misters DeLay, Gingrich, Wright and Rostenkowski.

Arrest Warrant Issued For DeLay

Somehow I don't think they're going to make him do a "perp. walk."

SFGate.com - A Texas court issued a warrant Wednesday for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to appear for booking, where he is likely to face the fingerprinting and photo mug shot he had hoped to avoid.

Bail was initially set at $10,000 as a routine step before his first court appearance on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Travis County court officials said DeLay was ordered to appear at the Fort Bend County jail for booking.

The warrant was "a matter of routine and bond will be posted," DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin said.

Insert one Nelson "ha-ha" here.

Cheney To Blame For Plame? Pt. II

Things just keep getting messier and messier for the Republicans; this, of course, builds on what I posted earlier on this:

Bloomberg.com - A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice President Dick Cheney played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent's name, according to people familiar with the probe that already threatens top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby.

The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, has questioned current and former officials of President George W. Bush's administration about whether Cheney was involved in an effort to discredit the agent's husband, Iraq war critic and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, according to the people.

Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney's communications adviser Catherine Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and ex-White House aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president's knowledge of the anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief of staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources, who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political sensitivity of the investigation.

Is Christmas coming early for Michael?

SEC Issues Subpoena To Frist, Sources Say

Another Republican in trouble? (emphasis in quoted text is mine)

Washington Post (Bug Me Not) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records and documents as federal authorities step up a probe of his July sales of HCA Inc. stock, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued the subpoena within the past two weeks, after initial reports that Frist, the Senate's top Republican official, was under scrutiny by the agency and the Justice Department for possible violations of insider trading laws...

The formal request for documents usually presages an acceleration of a federal probe. In Frist's case, regulators had to proceed with caution due to his status in Congress and their mutual desire to avoid triggering constitutional objections to the release of documents. The disclosure of the subpoena comes as Democrats blasted Frist anew for his financial and personal ties to Hospital Corporation of America, a Nashville chain founded in 1968 by his father and his brother, Thomas Frist Jr. Critics yesterday seized on a report that Frist held a substantial amount of his family's hospital stock outside of blind trusts between 1998 and 2002 -- a time when he asserted he did not know how much of the stock he owned.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Frist earned tens of thousands of dollars from HCA stock in a partnership controlled by his brother, outside of the blind trusts he created to avoid a conflict of interest.

Keep in mind, also, that one of Frist's jobs in the Senate is the shaping of health care policy, so yeah, we're talking about a definite conflict of interest here.

Now, just because a few Republicans have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar as of late I don't want anything to think that we've lost our focus here. The point of this blog is to be the Political Middle. We're here to find the truth; such is our motto after all. Part of that has to do with highlighting politicians with integrity (like McCain), but the flipside means that we also slam those that are more ethically challenged, Republicans AND Democrats.

It just so happens that there's been a real spat of Republicans doing wrong and possibly getting caught it seems.

I just didn't want anyone to get the wrong impression. I think that our resident Republican acolyte, Adam, will be one of the first to admonish Frist if this leads to a conviction.

Via Sploid.

Cheney To Blame For Plame?

From The Huffington Post:

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.

This story is listed as still developing, but holy shit what a fiasco if this turns out to be true.

Wow.

I'll say "Argh!" for Adam right now. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

Allow me to fantasize about how if this does turn out to be true about how the Dem's could capitalize on this in 2008...but in reality they'd probably just fuck it all up.

---

Updated

And here it is, which really is more smoke without fire yet:

Wall Street Journal Online - The New York Times reporter who went to jail to avoid testifying in the CIA leak case was quizzed by the special prosecutor again yesterday and has agreed to return to the grand jury today.

Judith Miller's additional testimony comes as the endgame is intensifying in the legal chess match that threatens to damage the Bush administration.

There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts between administration officials and journalists that took place much earlier than previously thought. Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame.

I'm not usually one of those "where there's smoke there's fire"-type people, and that stands in this case. Would I like it if this administration were brought down? Honestly, the liberal lefty in me would love it, but I'm not going to start saying that they're guilty yet. This is still just an investigation and I'm content with waiting for more evidence yet.

Still, this is POTENTIALLY destructive, isn't it?

Texas Congressman Kevin Brady Arrested

Gotta love those Texas Republicans!

Reflector - U.S. Rep Kevin Brady was arrested and charged with driving under the influence while in South Dakota, according to a published report.

The Texas Republican was pulled over by a state trooper Friday night for a problem with the tail lights of his vehicle, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Authorities were waiting for results of a blood test to determine Brady's blood-alcohol level at the time of the arrest. The legal limit in South Dakota is 0.08.

OK, I admit that Dems are equally guilty of similar idiocy (Ted Kennedy, anyone?), but with all of the shit the Texas Republican party is getting right now (we're looking at you DeLay) you'd think that they'd be on their BESTEST behavior right about now.

This won't do them any favors as far as image goes.

Via Sploid.

Delay Spread The Wealth With His Illegal Fundraising

The Michigan Daily - Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations that benefited both men’s causes.

When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay’s private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay’s wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt’s son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

He's so giving with illicit funds. What a nice man.

90 - 9

Senate Approves Detainee Treatment Rules

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 23 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Senate faces a confrontation with the House over a $440 billion military spending bill that, despite White House opposition, would impose restrictions on the treatment of terrorism suspects.

Delivering a rare wartime slap at Pentagon authority and President Bush, the GOP-controlled Senate voted 90-9 on Wednesday to back an amendment that would prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against anyone in U.S. government custody, regardless of where they are held.

Sponsored by Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., the proposal also would require all service members to follow procedures in the Army Field Manual when they detain and interrogate terrorism suspects.More

Two things: Wow! 90 - 9. These guys could rarely agree about which way is up by that margin. Secondly, who abstained? I don't see that there is riding the fence on this one.

So now it goes to the House and the fun starts all over again. Though that is quite a mandate from the Senate.

Al Gore Speaks out on the decline of public discourse

The piece is rather long and what I am about to post really is self-serving to our interests here but it really does cut to the heart of his speech.

Gore on the Threat to American Democracy

...On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."

But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war and peace?... Full Text of his remarks

He also talks about our national obessesion with things like OJ while we ignore what is important to this country. I am not one to think you should eat, sleep and breathe this stuff but it should occupy as much of our time as putrid TV like "Survior", "American Idol" and "Whatever Paris Hilton is doing."

Based on the text of his speech I can definitely tell that Al Gore has read Dr. Cornel West's Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism" An extremely powerful book that takes a critical look at the place of debate, hope, religion, race and youth in our quest for democracy. Let's just hope he doesn't claim to have written it.

Hit Me Baby, One More Time

Yahoo! News - A Texas grand jury indicted Rep. Tom DeLay on a new charge of money laundering Monday, less than a week after another grand jury leveled a conspiracy charge that forced DeLay to temporarily step down as House majority leader.

Both indictments accuse DeLay and two political associates of conspiring to get around a state ban on corporate campaign contributions by funneling the money through a political action committee to the Republican National Committee in Washington.

I'm sure he'll be back in time to reclaim his position of power in Washington, no problem.

OK, maybe not.

Newsweek: "Troubled Waters"

This is what happens where the ruling party controls two thirds of the government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that:

Newsweek/MSNBC.com - ...The Republicans' power outage is real—and the historical irony is as vast as Texas. Beginning in the 1950s, the Democratic Party of Texans Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn built a congressional machine of unrivaled power. But starting in the '80s, led by a firebrand named Newt Gingrich, Republicans led a revolt from below in the name of smaller government and an ethically cleansed Congress. In 1989 Newt & Co. forced out Democratic Speaker Jim Wright—a Texan, too, who resigned over charges that he profited improperly from book sales—and five years later the GOP took control of the House after a Biblical 40 years in the wilderness. But it took the Republicans only 10 years to become yet another ruling party beset by charges of profligate spending, bloated government and corruption—a party led by two Texans, Bush and DeLay, who don't particularly care whether they are beloved outside their inner circle. To paraphrase David Mamet, the Republicans became what they beheld.