I looked but I did not see a diary up yet on this hearing. If there is one please let me know and I will delete. This one is important. Let's focus on what we hear today. What pose will Lieberman take? Will Lindsey Graham try to cover for them? Will Hillary be back?

   First, I am a solid John Edwards supporter. Obama has remained a distant second on my list while Hillary Clinton has been an even more distant third.
   Today, Obama will address topics that include his minister and his race. While browsing the newspapers online as I normally do every morning, I came across this article,  Dreaming about Hoops, not Education by Derrick Jackson from the Boston Globe.
   Join me below for just a few thoughts on the article and how Obama can use it.

   Yesterday there was an 6 minute interview (video) with Mike McConnell and Chris Wallace from Fox News. All of those who have followed this saga story know that the Bush/Cheney administration has used illegal wiretapping since before 9/11. I don't intend to go into the details of the deception of the FISA Law before January, 2007 when an agreement was reached with the administration where at least one aspect of the program was brought back under direct authority of the FISA Court. Before this date, much of our nation's surveillance was done secretly by the telecom companies for our government. They obviously were given assurances by this administration that what they were doing was legal but because of national security, title 2 interpretations, and possibly even October 2002 authorization for war provided by Congress. The latter is more doubtful simply because they were not following the prescribed "exclusive" means for foreign surveillance prior to October, 2002.
   Join me below to see one small aspect of our cooperation with the telcoms and how it is now directing the debate in Congress.

    Yesterday, we had a diary by lukery that gave us updated information on the Sibel Edmonds case and her efforts to disclose criminal activities by our government that includes treason by many highly placed officials. I'll be the first to admit that much of what I have heard doesn't have enough details yet for me to hang my hat on it. It was in the comments section that ryder92111 gave this link to one of two articles by McClatchy. The second article by Jay Root and Kevin Hall gives a few more glimpses of where I started looking. Then Caneel responded to my quick post and provided this link to a great radio interview of Hall, Root and others who have investigated this one crash. Now for all of you who don't click on links, I'll try my best to lay some meat on what I have found.

     

"Presidents throughout American History have used the threat of war or emergency to expand presidential powers in ways that later seemed unrelated or unnecessary to the crisis."

    Jack Goldsmith's newest book hit the stores yesterday. The Terror Presidency has been much awaited since Jack's name really hit the news in May after more details of the March 10th bedside visit to John Ashcroft by Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales were exposed. The details from his new book on this event mirror almost exactly those of James Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The major difference is that Goldsmith does use the name "terrorist surveillance program" which the other two do not give directly.  
    Join me below to learn a few more details from the book and see it is worth your $$.

    On Tuesday, August 28th, I reported on DKos    on the  NY Times article by James Glanz and Eric Schmitt related to thousands of missing weapons that in late 2004 and 2005 went through the supply chain at Taji base near Baghdad. Many of these weapons have now been produced in Turkey and were used by the PKK in their efforts to support independence for Kurds in southern Turkey.
   Now, today James Glanz and Eric Schmitt report more details on this expanding investigation. This   NY Times article involves bribes for military contracts from two Kuwait based companies Lee Dynamics International and American Logistics. Both of these companies are partially owned by father and son George Lee and Justin Lee.

   Today's NY Times by James Glanz and Eric Schmitt report on the widening investigation into the thousands of AK-47's and other Army materials that are unaccounted for. I have conjectured about why this story has not gained more traction over the last 2 months since it was reported. In 2004 and 2005, David Petraeus was responsible for logistics for guns, ammunitions, helmets body armor and loads of other goodies that went to the Iraqi police and security forces. Almost 50% of it can now not be traced as to where it went. Below are more details

    Last week's diaries on President Bush and the photos of him drinking a beer while in Germany at the G8 Summit, created a few comments about beer, non-alcoholic beer and some of the technical points related to how beer was made. During one of the diaries, I had a few questions directed to me and thus I saw that there might be some interest in one of my favorite hobbies. Hopefully, after reading the diary you will either have your interest heightened, some questions answered, and probably more reasons to look into the hobby if you enjoy beer with friends. So grab a beer from the fridge and pull up a chair. It is time to start class-Beer 101.

    Now, I'm a long time reader but I have never submitted a post to DKos. We have all closely monitored the fact that Libby asserts that through Cheney, Bush authorized the leaking of the NIE document so that Libby could share information in the NIE with Judith Miller on July 8,2003.