A secret mission reportedly used eight fighter planes to destroy a nuclear cache:

"Israel has enforced a news blackout on what may be its air force's most audacious raid since its jets destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor in 1981."Source: Guardian

That secrecy unraveled in the last 24 hours and John Bolton was quoted in Haaretz as stating that:

"I think this is a clear message not only to Syria, I think it's a clear message to Iran as well, that its continued efforts to acquire nuclear weapons are not going to go unanswered."

Bolton would love to see more war in the Middle East. Most of the rest of us don't. More over the flip....

From this WaPo article:

Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

Is W fucking serious?!? I really don't have anything to add, but this needs to be brought to our attention.

This diary provides live-blogging of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing involving Alberto Gonzales.

This is #15 of the series.

Rest over the leap...

"I can't remember" count: 1069 or so...

This is Part XII of the Live Blog on the Senate hearing on the Dismissal of the US Attorneys.

This is liveblogging. No pictures out of respect for dial-up users, please!

 

Please unrec previous liveblog diaries and rec this one.  Enjoy!

UPDATE: Continue to phone and email the committee members as described in Scout Finch's diary. We have a week for written questions to be submitted, and want to make sure any other email accounts Sampson used are unearthed.

And it's always a good thing to let our congress-critters know we are watching them!

At Katie Couric's blog, of all places, I noted the following fact, which was not released in the latest document dump:

that Fitzgerald was ranked by Justice Department officials in March 2005 as having "not distinguished" himself at his post. The ranking, the Post reported: "placed Fitzgerald below ‘strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty’ to the administration but above ‘weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.,’ according to Justice [Department] documents."

Fitzgerald's ex-boss responds:

"[ranking Fitz] `as a middling prosecutor’ lacks total credibility across the board... It casts total doubt on the whole process. It's kind of the icing on the cake.’"

More on the flip...

UPDATE: Quote from fired USA Cummins email to other fired USA's re: DAG phone call with threats if they don't shut up.

UPDATE 2: As an example of this thuggish administration's idea of a good USA is Tim Griffin, who was behind voter "caging" efforts in Florida. More below...

In a development that has flown well under the radar in the US MSM, Bank of Israel Director Stanley Fischer is heading a delegation to the US that is lobbying Congress and BushCo to increase the $2.4B in military aid scheduled to cover costs from the Lebanon War.

In plainer terms, US taxpayers are being asked to cover the costs of destroying the infrastructure of an emerging democracy in an ill-advised war over a couple of siezed soldiers, whose negotiated release was requested by the kidnappers and refused by Israel before the bombing ever started.

Lebanon paid dearly, in lives and treasure, as it's infrastructure was intentionally destroyed to "...turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years." in the words of Dan Halutz, the IDF Chief of Staff at the time. More over the leap...

Anyone else been watching this train wreck? It's on CSPAN2 right now.
It's rich.

Kucinich: ...it also says "Composition--To Be Determined". Mr. Bowen, have any of your audits uncovered where this particular $500 million dollars actually went?

Bowen: No, we haven't.

Kucinich: And Ambassador Bremer, can you tell the committee where that half a billion dollars actually went?

Bremer: I don't have a copy of that actual document. (Gets copy)

...

Kucinich: Let me refresh your memory, let me read the minutes of the Program Review Board regarding this...

Bremer: I did not attend those meetings...

Kucinich: Did you ever read the minutes of those meetings?

Bremer: No.

...

Kucinich: So you don't have any idea where the $500 million dollars went?

Bremer: No.

Feel free to put more good parts in the comments :)

UPDATE: Link to first LIVE diary on this, for more good stuff: http://www.dailykos.com/...

I caught this on Democracy Now this morning, after the Molly Ivins interview. British journalist Patrick Cockburn was on, along with Dr. Amer Majeed. He is an Iraqi doctor at Al Sadr hospital in Najaf. Both laid some doubt on the story coming out of Najaf, where several hundred "militants" were recently killed.

Remember, first we heard it was a victory by the Iraqi's finally standing up, then it turned into the Iraqi's getting almost overrun and being saved by American firepower.

And now it may be turning into something worse. More on the flip...

I seem to remember a weekly diary titled thus, and haven't seen it for awhile. So, I'm bringing it back. After watching CSPAN this morning, I feel inspired.

My happy story is about a great athlete, Danelle Ballengee, falling off a cliff while on a training run, and her dog leading the rescue team to her. After two nights in sub-freezing temps, with a broken pelvis and many other injuries. That must have been a long two nights.

It's quite a story, and being an ex-avalanche search dog trainer and dog lover (yes, I love pooties, too!) it really connected with me. Let me tell you about it over the jump...

Friday night brings the most interesting things. The European Parliament had a hearing on their findings, and it's being broadcast right now.

This is the actual findings of the EU Committee looking into the rendition program. This concerns the rendition program, of which Italy has already put out arrest warrants for multiple CIA personnel. It's and extremley complex and secretive area.

Sorry for the shortness...

This started as a comment on John Edwards blog, but it is such a simple and short way of moving the Overton Window on healthcare that I thought I would share it here as well.

Basically, we never hear anything positive about any other countries healthcare systems, just about how ours is the best in the world. If you can afford it.

But if you look at the facts, that best-in-the-world argument quickly falls apart, and the cost we pay is significantly higher than for any other country in the world. So why don't we at least take a unbiased look at other countries systems? Why doesn't Congress start a year-long process of hearings, first identifying those 3-5 countries with the best outcomes at the lowest cost, and then investigating how those systems work? And using that information to reform our system from the bottom up?

UPDATED: Facts on wait times, over the flip.

Why not indeed! But it's going to take grassroots effort to move the Overton Window far enough over to make it happen. Your effort. Some simple facts on the flip...

A quickie, as I'm watching this happen. Republicans are insisting on adding a line item veto to the ethics bill. Byrd refuses to allow this, saying it is too big of issue to pass without much more debate. Basically, it seems some are determined prevent passage of the flagship ethics reform bill.

Some relatively harsh words are being spoken, and Reid is calling for a vote on several items.

Most interesting....let's use this as an open thread: tune in CSPAN2.

Amid all the calls to end this mess somehow, after watching W give a 20 minute speech looking like a cornered rabbit with a shotgun pointed at him, I thought "he needs some help!"

No, not that kind. They haven't perfected brain transplants yet.

He needs Congress to help him, just like they helped Clinton in 1993. After the Blackhawk Down incident in Somalia. They passed a bill prohibiting funding after a date certain. I've taken the initiative to rewrite this bill (the House version, anyway) and present it for your consideration. If you approve, please forward this diary to your congress critters. It's over the jump...

More results from the W method of how to get along with the world:

More than 100 Somali civilians have been killed this week in U.S. and Ethiopian air strikes in southern Somalia, according to clan elders and residents.
...
Mohamed Ibrahim Guled, an Afmadow resident, said "a lot" of civilians had been killed by the U.S. raid.

"We haven’t seen any al-Qaeda members killed but what we can confirm is that a lot of innocent civilians have been killed by the American warplanes," he told AFP. "They hit civilian sites and forests where nomads keep animals."

Meanwhile, the main targets of the raid got away:

The controversial US air strike in southern Somalia missed all three top al-Qaeda members Washington alleges are hiding out in the country, a senior US official said on Thursday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said eight to 10 "al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists" were killed in Monday’s attack, but gave no details.

Why am I not surprised?

Just a quickie diary here, as there is not much substance. But this video (CAUTION:GRAPHIC) purportedly shows the body of Saddam Hussein on a gurney after his lynching execution.

Near the end the sheet over his head is pulled back and there is a gaping wound on his neck. To anyone that speaks Arabic: please watch this and transcribe the voices.

If this is real, I think we are in for even more retaliation from the Sunni militias, both against the US and against the Shia. Not a good thing...

"Should House Democrats seek GOP input when crafting bills during the first 100 hours?"

Poll located middle right on http://www.capitalnews.org

Right now it's 55% in favor of listening to Repugs in the first 100 hours. To which I ask--when did they ever listen to us?

UPDATE: They change the pic to a not-so-closeup goofy but still nice smile shot. I like it. And yes, I agree, we need someone who can smile at the same time he can be serious.

I have a nice little I/P diary I've been working on almost ready to go, but this just pisses me off. So the I/P diary can wait. I started this as a comment in philgoblue's excellent diary but I think it needs much wider dissemination. If you agree, please recommend. My beef is with the choice of picture Yahoo/AP used with their first story on John's candidacy here: http://news.yahoo.com/...

I think it is purposefully chosen to make him look not serious. Or just a kid. And definitely not presidential material. And I want to change that. I can, with your help. My e-mail to Yahoo on the flip...

Joe had two people on tonight, and constitently slapped down the right wing guy. He stated how he went after left wingers consistently, but how David Gregory was tough but fair today.

God, I hope David puts Katie out to pasture at Entertainment Tonight.

I know this is really short, but I wanted to throw it up and hopefully get a few e-mails to Scarborough Country. The link is top middle right.