Redstate

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

and also, that AG still has more house-cleaning to do!

whose house got searched. They are likely his lawyers or their paralegals, or employees of friends of his that are lawyers.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

the execution of a search warrant isn't a start. It's the culmination of an investigation to get evidence of probable cause to get the warrant.

Bush is doing all kinds of things we favor but aren't privy to, but probably regularly moan about.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

Since you're from South Carolina you need to be careful with reliable sources. Just kiddin ya. smile.

"We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway."
Fred Thompson

Long overdue, but good on'em. What floors me, is if you forgot to check the vault and left it unlocked, your career was over. The vault's in a locked squadron building, inside the, fenced, gated, flightline, which is guarded by serious guys with M-16's (and real bullets). Not to mention it's on a gated, fenced, guarded, etc., Air Force Base.

But out in the real word you can walk out with documents stuffed in your pants, call a buddy at the NYT and reveal stuff classified above Top Secret over an open phone line, and not only do you not get jail time, the yo-yo's at the FBI can't even figure out who did it.

I was Top-3 one night in Aviano, Italy, everyone had landed and we were ready to get some pasta. But the intel chief comes out of the vault and tells me we're missing a combat flimsy. The flimsy consisted of about 20 pages with, waypoints, call signs, routing and threat data for sorties going in-country. All of it was classified because it came out of the FRAG and ATO, but we'd been using the same data for 2 yrs., so everyone in Bosnia (insluding the Serbs knew all the info), how do you think they knew where to put the SA-6 TELAR to shoot-down O'Grady. So we go nuts, wake people up, search all the jets that flew that day, tear the squadron apart. After two hours with most of us busting crew rest we get a thought. One of the pilots who flew in the morning had rotated back home to Germany in the afternoon. By this time it's midnight, so we call him up, get him out of bed, and make him drive to the squadron to check his saddlebags for the missing flimsy. Luckily, it was there and we had him lock it in the squadron vault until the next day when it could be brought back by a classified courier (another pilot rotating in).

Silly, Huh. What wasn't silly was that at one point we were 30 secs from calling the CAOC and reporting a security violation. The entire FRAG and ATO would have had to be rewritten, the flying schedule for the entire theater would have been canceled due to the possibility that the information was compromised, the Squadron Commander and Operations Officer would have been fired within 24 hours, and I would have been looking at an article-15 or possible court marshal. Oh yea, and everyone in theater would have been disparaging my unit, because of me, unbearable. But it was the rule, and you obey the rules in combat situations, or people die.

Maybe that statements too melodramatic, but the difference in mindset is what gets me here in the real world. Then and there, we would have taken the beating to ensure that we weren't responsible for the death of a single soldier or airman. Instead of covering-up we busted our balls to find and secure the documents, if we failed we would have bitten the bullet. What's even worse, we were getting ready to eat-sh*t over information that we knew was already compromised. Different world.

We've had a long discussion here recently about what qualifies someone to be a traitor. In my book, those who KNOWINGLY reveal classified information are near the top of the contenders list.

P.S. We localized our security breach in two hours, identified the person responsible and corrected the situation. Maybe the difference between us and the Government is that we thought it was a serious issue that needed to be solved yesterday.

"The only way to negotiate with your enemy, is with your knee on his chest and your knife at his throat." - Anon.

KNOWINGLY revealing classified info? That adds Leahy to my list.

You were def not being melodramatic. You are right on the money. We just had our intel security briefings today. We are finding markets in Afghanistan and Iraq with Military Intel for sale on thumbdrives. Over 2000 Afghans work amongst American forces. Something that may be trivial to one person could cost another person thier lives.

These people working in our government to limit the voice of the people and to basically elimnate the Right are far more dangerous and deserving of far more sevre punishments than they receive. Unfortunately, I think we got neutered after the whole McCarthy thing. These antiAmericans are more intelligent than what we give them credit for. They are patient, think many steps ahead, and always make sure that we look the fool for making a stink about something.

Wake up Now America, Im not gonna be able to protect all of you.

Semper Fi.

We so often make assumptions abour Bush that turn out not to be true. The fact that this warrant is issued now means that Bush has been pursuing this all along, even while he was vilified here at RS for doing nothing.

As we speak now, Bush is very busy doing all kinds of things we don't know of to protect the USA.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course

I'll believe a prosecution when I see it. I do not trust AGAG or DoJ on this stuff. And I don't trust GWB either.

We can get a special prosecutor for the Plame crap in a matter of days. Judith Miller goes to jail for not revealing her sources. Do we have even a grand jury in this case? Don't think so. Has anybody put the hammer down on the reporters, editors and publisher who had this information and were told not to publish it but did anyway? Ahhh, nope.

Let's see if somebody is charged, and exactly what they are charged with. And come hell or high water, the NYT and WaPo will both skate. I'm reserving judgment on this, but my confidence level is way lower than everybody else's here. I hope I'm wrong.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

when they found out about the warrant or when the atty told them.

I trust Bush. You don't.

Charging someone requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. They have been trying to get it for 2 years. We just find out due to a leak.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

And the grand jury was empaneled when? The reporters, etal were called to testify about their sources when?

My big rub here is that Fitzmas empaneled a GJ and called reporters over something he KNEW was not a breech of any law. Heck, he even knew who told Novak about Plame BEFORE he called Judith Miller to testify and tossed her in jail. All over absolutely nothing.

DoJ has been plodding along for over two years. So far they sacked one CIA employee - WHO WAS NEVER CRIMINALLY CHARGED. We have a major breach in national security during wartime and in two years we've got one fired CIA employee and one search warrant with no arrests. I'm seriously unimpressed.

My big problem here is with DoJ. I think AGAG is an incompetent fool who couldn't find his a$$ with both hands in a well lit room. GWB loves the guy. Makes no sense to me. I just don't see any interest on the part of the Administration to make any kind of public statement that treason is a big deal. The borders are wide open. The FBI looks more and more like the keystone kops. I'm seriously unimpressed. But I said that before.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

stamp their findings

that a gj is empannelled or not is irrelevant in this matter

most cases go to the regular gj in the county of the crime when they are ready to idict

cool it

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

.. they will be jumping up and down about the "chilling effect" on American democracy; complaining about the "re-education camps"; etc. You know they will not take this lying down.

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course

... a kinder, gentler America where nothing, absolutely nothing is worth fighting for.

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course

nt

and sometimes they are. The real problem is how politicized upper level government positions have become, and not just in the ranks of true political appointees. This is particularly problematic for a Republican administration at the federal level or in a state that has been long under Democrat control; Republicans cannot or do not replace enough appointees and leave scads of Democrat or Democrat-leaning appointees in place then wonder why they are constantly leaked, thwarted, and sabotaged. GWB should have fired every political appointee in the federal government within milliseconds of taking his hand off the Bible.

The problem with appointees is compounded by the fact that erosions in Hatch Act prohibitions have allowed putatively non-political career or merit system employees to become explicitly politically active, mostly as Democrats - a very bad thing. This is aggravated by the fact the employees know that, unlike Republicans, Democrats are very effective, ruthlessly so, at purging anyone who might be a political liability to them, even well down into the career service.

And then there is the fact that sometimes there really does need to be a leak. The "classified material" protection has lost much of its credibility due to abuses of classification and national security priviledges in the past. I don't believe that leaking classified material is EVER justified, but I can certainly see the situation in which I might whisper in a reporter's ear about how to precisely word his FOIA request to challenge the classification of some or another memo or other record. I'll admit to having all but dictated the info request to a reporter a few times so that he could get past denials or spin.

And then, there is the fact that political management sometimes does really bad things and a conscientious employee either has to put his head down and ignore it, go along with political management, or try to get word of the bad thing out. Theoretically, Whistle Blower laws will protect an employee who goes public, but that protection is illusory at best; you might get money damages, but you career is over if you do it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to justify what was done; I'm long on record here in criticizing the Administration for not doing something. That said, I would have done it administratively and very loudly and publicly fired the offenders before involving law enforcement. The burden is much, much higher for a criminal prosecution, especially a prosecution that must take place before a DC, Maryland, or Northern Virginia jury. Also, the trail is very old now so evidence and recollection is going to be sketchy at best, so don't get real optimistic about ever seeing a conviction.

Anyway, it is good that the Administration is doing something. I just wanted to point out that the issue is not as simple as it is made out to be by some, and I fear that a prosecution at this late date has little liklihood of success.

In Vino Veritas

...Leaking never is. It is the coward's way out of proper disclosure (think "Scott Beacuchamp" and "Chain of Command"). It serves for axe-grinding and score-settling, and d*mn the cost in lives or treasure.

Go to your own Dept'l IG, or else to the respective Congressional Oversight Committee. That way what get's "leaked" is done so under oath and with, at least, nominal info-protection safeguards in place. Do so with eyes wide open that, rightly or wrongly, coming forward is a career decision.

Go anywhwere else -- and go to prison. At least in a better world.

--furious

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

and the government will seek the death penalty.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

In Vino Veritas

they'll charge him with ANYTHING. William Jefferson is still walking around free. Did I mention Sandy Berger? And, oh yeah, there's the CIA woman who got canned and we've heard zip since.

Honestly, I will be shocked if they actually arrest anybody.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.