GreenLady, we love and miss you!

Another controversy where the Obama administration is walking in the footsteps of BushCo!

I will say here that I'm no more optimistic that Hillary Clinton's response would have been any different. The nature of power is such that one can always find a strong enough argument for retaining it “just in case” once it's been exercised. But then again, Clinton wasn't the one who sold herself to us on the basis of a new transparent era, either:

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

The administration's discussion of Wilson's link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial.

A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department. In the filing, the officials argue that the substance of what Cheney told special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in 2004 must remain secret.

No such agreement was reached between Fitzgerald and Cheney at the time of their chat, according to a 2008 Fitzgerald letter to lawmakers. But the Bush administration rejected requests by Congress and a nonprofit group for access to two FBI accounts of the conversation, saying the material was exempt from disclosure under subpoena or the Freedom of Information Act.

The Obama administration has since agreed that the material should not be disclosed. A Justice Department lawyer at one point last month argued that vice presidents and other White House officials will decline to be interviewed in the future if they know their remarks might “get on 'The Daily Show' ” or be used as fodder for political enemies.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed doubt about that argument. To counter Sullivan's skepticism, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said in a supporting affidavit to the new court filing that the department needs the ability to interview White House officials informally in future law enforcement investigations, and that if the Cheney interview summaries are made public, “there is an increased likelihood that such officials could feel reluctant to participate.” Breuer served as special counsel to President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater probe.

The nonprofit group pushing for disclosure, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, responded yesterday with a statement that the Justice Department has subpoenaed such officials without difficulty in the past. “It is astonishing that a top Department of Justice political appointee is suggesting other high-level appointees are unlikely to cooperate with legitimate law enforcement investigations. What is wrong with this picture?” said Melanie Sloan, head of the group.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/new-docu...

Palin steps down as Alaskan Gov.????

Story unfolding on CNN.

Maybe she's going tback o school and lean how to become POTUS?

I'm keeping my eyes on Mudflats….

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

“Why We Should Get Rid of West Point

By Thomas E. Ricks
Sunday, April 19, 2009

Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.

After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades, I've concluded that graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers. Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student). On top of the economic advantage, I've been told by some commanders that they prefer officers who come out of ROTC programs, because they tend to be better educated and less cynical about the military.

This is no knock on the academies' graduates. They are crackerjack smart and dedicated to national service. They remind me of the best of the Ivy League, but too often they're getting community-college educations. Although West Point's history and social science departments provided much intellectual firepower in rethinking the U.S. approach to Iraq, most of West Point's faculty lacks doctorates. Why not send young people to more rigorous institutions on full scholarships, and then, upon graduation, give them a military education at a short-term military school? Not only do ROTC graduates make fine officers — three of the last six chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reached the military that way — they also would be educated alongside future doctors, judges, teachers, executives, mayors and members of Congress. That would be good for both the military and the society it protects.”

We should also consider closing the services' war colleges, where colonels supposedly learn strategic thinking. These institutions strike me as second-rate. If we want to open the minds of rising officers and prepare them for top command, we should send them to civilian schools where their assumptions will be challenged, and where they will interact with diplomats and executives, not to a service institution where they can reinforce their biases while getting in afternoon golf games. Just ask David Petraeus, a Princeton PhD.

Thomas E. Ricks is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and author of “The Gamble,” about the Iraq war from 2006 to 2008. He will discuss this article at 1 p.m. on Monday at http://www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA

July 3: Sarah Palin is reportedly stepping down as Alaska's governor. MSNBC's Alex Witt reports.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/3172684...

The best thing that can happen is for her TO actually hear from us.

Rip her a new one.

Does anyone at JJP have Jennifer Loven's email? Did she actually say she gets a lot of email from the black community or did she mean she was receiving lots of email on the topic of MJ's death?

Who is this BROAD.

I want her email address, we all need to write her so she DOES hear from the black community….I can not believe the temerity of this woman to actually question Obama like she did on the 'black community'

where is GLH or Justice….cause Loven needs a Slaaaaaap!