Stick a fork in Cheney: NYT bombshell

[exstatic]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.

...

[SA210]

Ol' Cheney, evil ol man

[exstatic]

This puts to lie status a LOT of what's come out of Cheney's office. It also explains why Tenet was able to keep his job so long: he had the "Plame" goods on Cheney.

[JoeChalupa]

Do I smell toast?

[boutons]

I hope this allows opening up Cheney's secret collusion with energy company execs when setting "national" energy policy, which was most certainly "energy industry enrichment policy".

[scott]

Cheney disclosing Plame's identity to his Chief of Staff isn't a crime. Libby and Rover, however, appear poised to be indicted.

[JoeChalupa]

Cheney disclosing Plame's identity to his Chief of Staff isn't a crime. Libby and Rover, however, appear poised to be indicted.

True...Cheney knows to how CYA....but it'll still look like egg on Bush's face.

[Nbadan]

The NY times article tells us how the VP's office found out about Plame. But this may tell us how the info then went to reporters:


"Within a week, Wurmser, on orders from "executives in the office of the vice president," was told to leak her name to a specific group of reporters in an effort to muzzle her husband, Wilson, who had become a thorn in the side of the administration, those close to the inquiry say. It is unclear who Wurmser had spoken with in the media, the sources said, but they confirmed he did speak with reporters at national media outlets about Plame."

Rawstory (http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheney_aide_passed_Plames_name_to_1024.html)

[exstatic]

I think this places Cheney on the list of "people who could have outed Valerie Plame".

[MannyIsGod]

Well, if Libby had clearence to have the info, Cheney did nothing wrong. But either way, this is coming down fast. Dark days for the Bush White House and I love it.

[Nbadan]

I think this places Cheney on the list of "people who could have outed Valerie Plame".

Worst for Republicans is that it further confirms rumors that have been circulating for weeks about a bloody feud going on between Karl Rove and the WH, and Lewis Libby and the VP's office over the Plame situation.

[ChumpDumper]

Well, you wonder if conspiracy charges could apply.

Of course, rumors are just that. I'll wait til the indictments -- if any -- are actually announced.

[exstatic]

At a bare minimum, Libby's goin' down for perjury. He said, under oath, that he heard about Plame from a reporter, when his own notes, released to the grand jury, state that Cheney told him.

[mouse]

Dark days for the Bush White House and I love it.

Post of the month

[Vashner]

. Dark days for the Bush White House and I love it. Sick fucker....

[JohnnyMarzetti]

This is some classic stuff.
Can't wait to see Yoniwhore spin this.

[Ocotillo]

http://webpages.charter.net/micah/cheney2.png

[boutons]

dickhead continues his secret cabal in the executive office. The dude really is evil.

This "shield the CIA" tactic, especially this week, is very probably a dickhead "quid" to the CIA whom expects will return a "quo" in support, complicity, and silence dickhead needs in the Fitzgerald investigation.

===================

washingtonpost.com

Cheney Plan Exempts CIA From Bill Barring Abuse of Detainees

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; A01

The Bush administration has proposed exempting employees of the Central Intelligence Agency from a legislative measure endorsed earlier this month by 90 members of the Senate that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in U.S. custody.

The proposal, which two sources said Vice President Cheney handed last Thursday to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the company of CIA Director Porter J. Goss, states that the measure barring inhumane treatment shall not apply to counterterrorism operations conducted abroad or to operations conducted by "an element of the United States government" other than the Defense Department.

Although most detainees in U.S. custody in the war on terrorism are held by the U.S. military, the CIA is said by former intelligence officials and others to be holding several dozen detainees of particular intelligence interest at locations overseas -- including senior al Qaeda figures Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaida.

Cheney's proposal is drafted in such a way that the exemption from the rule barring ill treatment could require a presidential finding that "such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack." But the precise applicability of this section is not clear, and none of those involved in last week's discussions would discuss it openly yesterday.

McCain, the principal sponsor of the legislation, rejected the proposed exemption at the meeting with Cheney, according to a government source who spoke without authorization and on the condition of anonymity. McCain spokeswoman Eileen McMenamin declined to comment. But the exemption has been assailed by human rights experts critical of the administration's handling of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is the first time they've said explicitly that the intelligence community should be allowed to treat prisoners inhumanely," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "In the past, they've only said that the law does not forbid inhumane treatment." Now, he said, the administration is saying more concretely that it cannot be forbidden.

The provision in question -- which the Senate on Oct. 5 voted 90 to 9 to attach to its version of the pending defense appropriations bill over the administration's opposition -- essentially proscribes harsh treatment of any detainees in U.S. custody or control anywhere in the world. It was specifically drafted to close what its backers say is a loophole in the administration's policy of generally barring torture, namely its legal contention that these constraints do not apply to treatment of foreigners on foreign soil.

The House version of the appropriations bill contains no similar provision on detainee treatment, and lawmakers are to meet later this week to begin reconciling the conflict.

Cheney's meeting with McCain last week was his third attempt to persuade the lawmaker, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, to accept a less broad legislative bar against inhumane treatment. Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride declined to comment, saying, "the vice president does not discuss private conversations that he has with members [of Congress] . . . or information that may be exchanged with members."

She added that the intent of such meetings is usually "to build consensus on legislative issues, still in the policymaking process." CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a former Cheney aide, said the agency does not comment on the director's meetings.

Other sources said the vice president is also still fighting a second provision of the Senate-passed legislation, which requires that detainees in Defense Department custody anywhere in the world may be subjected only to interrogation techniques approved and listed in the Army's Field Manual.

The manual is undergoing revision, and McCain has contended that this process will give the military sufficient flexibility to respond to terrorist countermeasures. But Cheney's office has argued in talking points being circulated on Capitol Hill that the manual "will be inapplicable in certain instances" because of such countermeasures.

The CIA has been implicated in a number of alleged abuses in Iraq and has been linked to at least a few cases in which detainees have died during interrogations at separate military bases throughout the country. So far, no CIA operatives have been charged in connection with the abuse, although a single CIA contract employee is on trial for involvement in the death of an Afghanistan detainee, and sources have indicated that a grand jury may be looking at other allegations involving the CIA.

A report by the CIA inspector general's office on the agency's role in the handling of detainees is classified. It has been shown to the Justice Department and briefed only to a few lawmakers. Several military investigations have already blamed the CIA for leading a program in Iraq that essentially made detainees disappear within the military's detention system with no record of their captivity -- a practice that human rights groups have said violated international laws of war.

In a particularly infamous case, a detainee at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq named Manadel Jamadi was photographed after his death, packed in ice, by military police soldiers at the facility. He allegedly died in a shower room during interrogation by CIA officers after being brought there by Navy Seal team members. A high-level CIA operative allegedly helped conceal Jamadi's death after Army officers found his body.

But the extent of the CIA's direct involvement in torture is unclear, partly because the agency has been reluctant to help the Defense Department's many investigations into abuse and has refused to provide Army officers with documents deemed relevant to the probes.

Staff writer Dana Priest contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

===============================

Not that CIA and military murderers needed any additional protection :

========================

October 23, 2005

C.I.A. to Avoid Charges in Most Prisoner Deaths

By DOUGLAS JEHL and TIM GOLDEN
NY Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 - Despite indications of C.I.A. involvement in the deaths of at least four prisoners in Iraq and Aghanistan, C.I.A. employees now appear likely to escape criminal charges in all but one of those incidents, according to current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Federal prosecutors reviewing cases of possible misconduct by C.I.A. employees have recently notified lawyers that they do not intend to bring criminal charges in several cases involving the handling of terrorism suspects and Iraqi insurgents, the officials said.

Some of the cases are still technically under review by the Justice Department, but the intelligence and law enforcement officials said they had been told that the department was not preparing to bring charges against C.I.A. employees in those cases.

The Justice Department has charged only one person linked to the C.I.A. with wrongdoing in any of the cases: David A. Passaro, who was a contract worker, not a C.I.A. officer. The details of the C.I.A. cases remain classified, as do the Justice Department reviews.

But the prosecutors' decisions appear to reflect judgments that the C.I.A. was far less culpable in the mistreatment of prisoners than was the military, where dozens of soldiers have been convicted or accepted administrative punishment for their actions in cases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cases became public in April 2004, with reports about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and have led to the convictions of Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr., Pfc. Lynndie R. England and other soldiers implicated in those episodes. The decisions are based on reviews of eight dossiers referred to the Justice Department by the C.I.A.'s inspector general, describing possible misconduct by a half dozen to a dozen C.I.A. employees in the deaths and other cases.

A case still technically under review by the Justice Department, the officials said, involves a high-profile episode in which a C.I.A. officer has been linked to mistreatment of prisoners, in a case involving an Iraqi who died under C.I.A. interrogation in a shower room at Abu Ghraib. But in another case, involving the hypothermia death of an Afghan at a C.I.A.-run detention center called the Salt Pit in Afghanistan in November 2002, the Justice Department has signaled that it does not intend to bring charges.

A third episode studied within the C.I.A. involves a former Iraqi general who died of asphyxiation after being stuffed head-first into a sleeping bag at the base at an American base in Al Asad, in western Iraq, on Nov. 26, 2003, after several days of interrogation. The questioning involved beatings by a group that included at least one C.I.A. contract worker. One official said that case was never referred to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Mr. Passaro is awaiting trial in North Carolina in connection with his role in a fourth case, involving the death of a prisoner in Afghanistan in June 2003.

It was not previously known that the C.I.A. had sent eight dossiers to the Justice Department. An article by The New York Times in February said only that the C.I.A. inspector general had made at least two such referrals, asking that the Justice Department review the cases for possible prosecution.

All of the cases have been reviewed by the C.I.A. inspector general, and in at least two of the cases - the deaths at the Salt Pit and Abu Ghraib - the individuals could still face punishment by internal accountability review boards, which could be convened at the discretion of Porter J. Goss, director of the agency.

C.I.A. officials have expressed deep unease over the possibility that career officers could be prosecuted or punished administratively for their conduct during interrogations and detentions of terrorism suspects.

Most of the Justice Department reviews have been handled by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, law enforcement officials said. But they said officials at Justice Department headquarters in Washington had taken part in the decisions not to prosecute some of the cases.

The details remain classified, and the current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials who described the status of the cases declined to discuss them in detail. The officials came from several intelligence, law enforcement and military agencies.

They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about matters still under investigation. They would not say exactly how many C.I.A. employees were named in the reports or how many cases of possible abuse were described in the eight dossiers.

In a classified report this summer, the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed concern about what it called shortcomings in the C.I.A.'s handling of prisoners, government officials briefed on the document said. An unclassified section said Mr. Goss had carried out only 5 of 10 recommendations made last year in a classified report by the C.I.A. inspector general.

The Justice Department has also been reviewing cases involving possible misconduct by Defense Department contractors in the handling of prisoners. A Justice Department official said the department had assigned a team of lawyers to conduct criminal investigations of abuse cases involving the deaths of detainees.

The team has traveled to the Middle East and elsewhere to investigate, the official said, while declining to discuss how many people were subjects of the inquiries, the precise nature of the accusations against them and how many inquiries had been closed.

"There is a team that is dedicated to actively investigating these types of cases," the Justice Department official said. "We expect that these cases will move forward. In some cases, it appears there is insufficient evidence to move forward."

The cases cited in the eight dossiers include the hypothermia death of the prisoner in Afghanistan in November 2002 at a site nominally under Afghan control, in a case first reported by The Washington Post; the death of Manadel al-Jamadi on Nov. 24, 2003, at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where he had been taken after his capture by members of the Navy Seals, but was imprisoned in C.I.A. custody; and the asphyxiation of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush. He died in the sleeping bag at a base in western Iraq on Nov. 26, 2003, after several days of interrogation that included at least one C.I.A. officer.

Mr. Jamadi's death was among the most notorious of the incidents at Abu Ghraib that became public in the spring of 2004, in part because his body was photographed wrapped in plastic and packed in ice. He died after being beaten by commandos of the Navy Seals who struck him in the head with rifle butts and then turned him over to C.I.A. interrogators at Abu Ghraib.

A lieutenant in the Navy Seals was acquitted in May of striking Mr. Jamadi and failing to restrain his men from hitting Mr. Jamadi. The lieutenant, Andrew K. Ledford, remains the only person to have been prosecuted in that death.

Eight members of the Seals and a sailor who served under him, received administrative punishments for abusing Mr. Jamadi and other detainees.

Former intelligence officials have said that questions remain about the role of a C.I.A. officer and a contract interrogator who had taken custody of Mr. Jamadi and were questioning him in the shower room at Abu Ghraib when he died. Mr. Jamadi was found with his hands bound behind his back and shackled to a barred window. Mr. Jamadi had not been examined by a physician when he was brought to Abu Ghraib, because the C.I.A. officers had circumvented normal procedures of registering his presence as a prisoner.

An intelligence official briefed on the case said it was clear that the C.I.A. officers and members of the Navy Seals team bore some responsibility for the prisoner's death, but that the legal culpability of each was difficult to untangle. A government official who reviewed a coroner's report said evidence suggested that Mr. Jamadi's broken ribs - apparently sustained in beatings by the Navy Seals - contributed to his death.

"It may have been too hard a case to prove," said the intelligence official, referring to possible criminal charges against the C.I.A. employees. "He was in de facto agency custody, but he was in a military prison. They could see that he was injured, but they maybe didn't know he was so injured. If he had had a medical examination they would have known. But they didn't do one."

Four soldiers are awaiting trial in military court in Colorado in the case of General Mowhoush. Testimony presented in a pretrial hearing at Fort Carson, Colo., indicated that General Mowhoush had been beaten with a piece of insulating rubber, by a team that included a C.I.A. contract worker, and that his interrogators had, on at least one occasion, piled onto his chest, before he suffocated in the sleeping bag.

In the case from Afghanistan from 2002, a young C.I.A. officer who ran the detention center had ordered that the prisoner be left out in the cold, one intelligence official said, confirming the account in The Washington Post. The prisoner was stripped and dragged outside by Afghan guards at what was technically an Afghan-run detention center, they said.

The intelligence official described the death as a case of "negligent homicide," but said the legal culpability the of C.I.A. officer who ran the center was less clear-cut, because there was no way to prove that Afghan guards had not abused the prisoner during the night.

David Johnston contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

[Marcus Bryant]

So Cheney discussed classified info? Say it ain't so.

[Extra Stout]

Get ready for a fun White House game called "Pin the Blame on the Scooter."

Scooter did it. Cheney and Tenet were just having ordinary national security discussions. Scooter ran with it. Cheney never wanted him to say anything. Rove only got involved when reporters called him. It was Scooter. Scooter is obsessed with Wilson. He has a vendetta. We tried to make him stop. Bartlett told him to stop. But Scooter, O Scooter, Scooter did it.

Blame Scooter! Everybody else is clean!

And then after the 2006 elections, watch Bush play a new game: "Pin the Pardon on the Scooter."

Then again... of course... Fitzgerald could see where that yellowcake trail to Italy leads... who paid off those SISMI agents to fabricate the Niger documents?

Is J.J. Abrams on the White House staff? This seems like a show he would have produced.

[Yonivore]

So Cheney discussed classified info? Say it ain't so.
Okay, it ain't so.

[Extra Stout]

Okay, it ain't so.What this was a case of a small, little-known "cabal" of neocons, Cheney, Libby, Tenet, Rumsfeld, discussing classified info about Iraq outside of regular channels.

I mean, who could be more obscure and clandestine than the Vice President of the United States, his Chief of Staff, the Central Intelligence Director, and the Secretary of Defense? What are they doing making decisions about national security? That's supposed to be the responsibility of mid-level bureaucrats at the CIA and State Department who vote Democratic.

Now, this perjury thing is more serious. I have a question: which is more serious, lying to a grand jury about who did or did not give you a blowjob, or lying to a grand jury about who did or did not disseminate classified information to the media?

I say blowjob. Undermining the moral integrity of the country by getting a hummer in the Oval Office is a far more serious threat to national security than compromising intelligence about unconventional weapons is! A moral nation that gets nuked will still stick together. Permissive sexual mores as practiced by national leaders will undermine the family and reduce us all to hordes of fatherless savages who listen to rap, watch Will & Grace, and read German higher criticism.

[boutons]

The issue is not lying about Repug's interest in sex between consulting adults (the Paula Jones harassment case was dismissed) which caused the death of no one. The issue is about the WHIG/cabal lying to the country about "reasons" for the bogus, unnecesary war, which now has lead to the deaths of 2000 US military, and deaths of 10's of 1000's of innocent Iraqis, while de-stablizing Iraq with 1000's of jihadi terrorists.

As is starting to come out, the bureaucracies at CIA and State were EXCLUDED from the decision to go invade Iraq (except for WHIG cherry-picking BS intelligence), so when the Repubs started the war, the military, State, CIA were not really on board, and not prepared with a war plan (under-equipped, under-manned) and a post-war peace maintenance plan (the on-going, no-end-in-site disaster).

To equate the bogus Iraq war with Clinton's sex life is outright lying, but that's all the right wing has done these past 5 years, so it's obvious that's all the right wing has left to fight with now.

[Extra Stout]

The issue is not lying about Repug's interest in sex between consulting adults (the Paula Jones harassment case was dismissed) which caused the death of no one.I personally blame Bill Clinton for all abortions ever committed in this country, even retroactively to 1973, even back to the ones in the 1960's when abortion was a state issue. The suction pulled by Monica's lips in a place so sacred as the Oval Office distorted the moral fabric of the space-time continuum so much that it even affected the past and caused Americans to sin.

Some theologians now believe that Bill Clinton, and not Adam, is the agent that brought about original sin and the fall of mankind.

So if you believe that the Iraq war is wrong, then you have to blame Bill Clinton, the source of all wrongdoing worldwide. If you question me, I will start quoting Bible verses.


The issue is about the WHIG/cabal lying to the country about "reasons" for the bogus, unnecesary war, which now has lead to the deaths of 2000 US military, and deaths of 10's of 1000's of innocent Iraqis, while de-stablizing Iraq with 1000's of jihadi terrorists.But those dead innocent Iraqis died in a free democratic country and those jihadis thanks to George W. Bush have to right to express themselves freely by murdering people. Under Saddam Hussein, such political speech would have been repressed.

Why do you hate liberty?


To equate the bogus Iraq war with Clinton's sex life is outright lying, but that's all the right wing has done these past 5 years, so it's obvious that's all the right wing has left to fight with now.As I expressed above, I do not equate the two. Clinton's sex life is a far worse transgression than manipulating intelligence to bolster a case for war. Sexual sin is the worst kind of sin because it undermines families. Having a father, son, or brother killed in combat makes families strong.

Why do you want to destroy the fabric of society?

[Marcus Bryant]

croutons' chomping at the bit. Look out!

[boutons]

"Why do you hate liberty?"

Why do you keep lying?

Liberty had NOTHING to do with the Iraq war, and is not what the Repubs wanted for Iraq. The Repubs wanted that war so as to be re-elected in 2004 as either:
1) war-winnning president (failed that) or
2) war-in-progress president (failing that)

And starting a war in the ME was guaranteed to inflate the price of oil, so the war was also dickhead's "national energy company enrichment policy".

[Extra Stout]

"Why do you hate liberty?"

Why do you keep lying?

Liberty had NOTHING to do with the Iraq war, and is not what the Repubs wanted for Iraq. The Repubs wanted that war so as to be re-elected in 2004 as either:
1) war-winnning president (failed that) or
2) war-in-progress president (failing that)

And starting a war in the ME was guaranteed to inflate the price of oil, so the war was also dickhead's "national energy company enrichment policy".boutons, please take a tranquilizer and re-read my last two posts. You might notice the big ol' fishhook in your cheek. :lol

[Marcus Bryant]

This is shaping up to be a classic.

boutons, why do you hate your country?

[Extra Stout]

This is shaping up to be a classic.

boutons, why do you hate your country?

Yeah, don't you understand that if you're against people who screw up efforts to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists, then you're for the terrorists?

Besides, everybody knew Plame's identity. It was common knowledge in D.C. I knew it even. She used to do sideline reports at Redskins games.

[Extra Stout]

And starting a war in the ME was guaranteed to inflate the price of oil, so the war was also dickhead's "national energy company enrichment policy".

And by doing so, Bush has used market forces to encourage investment in alternative energy sources, and has steered American consumers away from large, bloated SUV's.

Why do you hate the environment?

[Marcus Bryant]

I think the left wing chatterbots are getting excited over nothing. Cheney isn't going down. Right now Fitzgerald is looking at perjury and obstruction of justice charges for Libby (again, it's going to be quite interesting how many lefties suddenly gain a newfound respect for the seriousness of the crime of perjury).

The Times' article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/politics/25leak.html?ei=5065&en=309202a87390a616&ex=1130817600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print) says it itself...


It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry.

If Wilson faces any sort of liability, it would appear to be due to his version of the events surrounding his Niger trip that he testifed to a congressional committee about.

I know some of you read "Cheney" in an article and presumed that means he's going to be indicted. You can resume posting your pics of Bush v Ape.

[MannyIsGod]

:lmao @ ES. Classic.

[SA210]

Face it, Bush and his friends screwed up big time, again....

[boutons]

"Bush has used market forces to encourage investment in alternative energy sources"

He has used the lives of Americans and Iraqis in war to push up the price of oil and the windfall profits of oilco's. The last thing dubya and dickhead want to do is to reduce oil consumption. The Saudis play that oil price game game very carefully, managing the price of oil high enough as to maximize their sales, while not so high as tip the industrialized countries into recession and the USA into serious conservation. The USA is the Middle East's little bitch they keep dancing on the end of the oil syringe.

dubya gave $15B is subsidies to the profit-gorged energy co's for energy research, no strings attached. The money nor any any research results will ever be seen again.

[Marcus Bryant]

croutons whiffed on that one.

[SWC Bonfire]

dubya gave $15B is subsidies to the profit-gorged energy co's for energy research, no strings attached. The money nor any any research results will ever be seen again.

OK, who do you give the money to for research that you won't bitch about? Universities? You mean the ones that get huge donations and endowed professorships in engineering from oil companies?

[boutons]

"who do you give the money to for research"

How about to companies that aren't banking $Bs in windfall oil profits every quarter?

How about companies that don't have 100% motivation to CONSERVE and extend the oil-gluttony status quo?

How about enlisting AAS, NSF, and other scientific/engineering associations to qualify recipients of research funds?

Government research grants directed to research, pure and applied, whose overriding objective is to REDUCE carbon-based energy consumption.

The oilco's are NEVER going to research themselves out of their main carbon-based business, no matter what BP's ads say.

[Marcus Bryant]

Again, croutons. Demand for crude and distillate products such as gasoline and heating oil is not perfectly inelastic. Higher prices will lead to changes in the quantity of demand and, as XStout was arguing, a greater incentive for consumers to seek out alternative sources of energy. Once you understand that then you will understand XStout's point.

[boutons]

I understand oil demand (and restricted supply, like busted gas refineries) drives price.

the POINT was the silliness that dubya started a war to drive up the oil price to force down demand. BS

[Marcus Bryant]

So then the demand is there for...drumroll....alternative sources of energy.

[JohnnyMarzetti]

I love the way White House parrot Scott McClellan speaks...

"White House Sidesteps Cheney Questions"

WASHINGTON - The White House on Tuesday sidestepped questions about whether Vice President Dick Cheney passed on to his top aide the identity of a CIA officer central to a federal grand jury probe.

"This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing," "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation and we're not having any further comment on the investigation while it's ongoing,"

[boutons]

That porker McClellan is a real slime-ball, not very convincing as an official liar.