Adam Kidan, former business partner of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal fraud and conspiracy charges. Kidan's plea will require that he cooperate and possibly testify in the case against Abramoff in order to get a reduced prison sentence.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605N.shtml

President Bush and top administration officials have access to a much broader range of intelligence reports than members of Congress do, a nonpartisan, congressional research agency said in a report Thursday, raising questions about recent assertions by the president.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605J.shtml

Joe Conason asks: Should Fitzgerald accept the Rove version and forgo indictment? There are reasons to think he won't, aside from the fact that he has activated a new grand jury, to which he has reportedly been presenting both old and new evidence. To believe Rove means to ignore certain glaring facts.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605I.shtml

CounterPunch
by Vijay Prashad

12/15/05

Bayan Jabr, a senior official of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, followed Bush in the defense of his ministry (and his Wolf Brigade militia). The Iraqi state, he said, does not torture. The logic is impeccable. 'Democracy,' as a concept, is antithetical to torture. If anything that resembles torture exists in a democracy, then it cannot be torture. It must be something else, such as the work of one or two 'bad apples.' Tyrannical regimes torture as part of their inner logic, whereas torture can only occur within a democratic system by deranged individual action. It is perhaps this amnesia sanctioned by our belief in the power of democracy that makes us forget 'incidents' like the US complicity at Con Son Island in Vietnam, and in the 'dirty wars' of Central America in the 1980s...

http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad12152005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

National Review
by US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)

12/15/05

[W]ith 14 percent of the world's population online, the Internet has become a powerful weapon for democracy, one that helps create that most dangerous and subversive of all threats to totalitarian regimes -- a well-informed citizenry. Censoring the Internet, compromising its technical underpinnings, submitting it to bureaucratic control, or subjecting its administration to brutal dictatorships would mean turning our backs on one of today's greatest instruments of freedom. The success of our policies in support of freedom and democracy requires new initiatives to combat totalitarian and authoritarian controls on news and information online. We must guard against the jamming and jailing of Internet users, and we must be watchful of the power plays of supranational organizations such as the United Nations...

http://www.nationalreview.com/voices/roslehtinen200512150829.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Salon
by Gary Kamiya

12/16/05

In the face of America's righteous rage, [Robert] Fisk was one of the few commentators who dared to posit that America's policies had something to do with the attacks. And he did so with with brutal honesty. 'There will be those swift to condemn any suggestion that we should look for real historical reasons for an act of violence on this world-war scale,' Fisk wrote -- and he didn't know the half of it. He was immediately savaged. Critics called him an appeaser, a traitor, an American-hater, an ally of Saddam. ... Right-wing bloggers have spent so much time attacking Fisk that they actually named a verb after him: to 'fisk' something is to tear it apart... [subscription or ad view required]

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/12/16/fisk


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Reason
by Matt Welch

A controversial reporter for one of the nation's leading newspapers stumbles onto what at first looks like a routine Washington story but eventually, after two years of mounting federal inquiry, becomes a wide-reaching scandal that rocks the very foundations of the White House, kneecapping the second presidential term of a big-government Republican hell-bent on expanding executive power. The reporter at the center of it all -- captivated by power, obsessed with high-level access, addicted to anonymous sources -- acts as a pawn in an intragovernmental turf war, becoming in the process a lightning rod for critics of journalistic comportment. I'm talking about New York Times scribe Judith Miller, of course. But the description also applies to The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, the most revered reporter of journalism's most self-adoring generation... (for publication 01/06)

http://www.reason.com/0601/co.mw.from.shtml


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

What Really Happened
by staff

12/15/05

But to get to the point, the Constitution is not the parchment itself, but the ideas written upon it; ideas which form the foundations of our nation, ideas which would carry equal weight if written on stone, glass, metal, or even paper. These ideas are the soul of the nation. ... The Constitution isn't just a piece of paper or parchment. It's a contract; the original contract with America. It's the contract you yourself swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend against all enemies both foreign and domestic. ... Go over to Arlington National Cemetery. It's not that far from where you live. Look at those tombstones. By your statement, you have written across and every one the words, 'Died for a goddamned piece of paper'...

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/pieceofpaper.php


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Miami Herald

12/15/05

A top election official and computer experts say computer hackers could easily change election results, after they found numerous flaws with a state-approved voting-machine in Tallahassee.A political operative with hacking skills could alter the results of any election on Diebold-made voting machines -- and possibly other new voting systems in Florida -- according to the state capital's election supervisor, who said Diebold software has failed repeated tests. Ion Sancho, Leon County's election chief, said tests by two computer experts, completed this week, showed that an insider could surreptitiously change vote results and the number of ballots cast on Diebold's optical-scan machines. After receiving county commission approval Tuesday, Sancho scrapped Diebold's system for one made by Elections Systems and Software, the same provider used by Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The difference between the systems: Sancho's machines use a fill-in-the-blank paper ballot that allows for after-the-fact manual recounts, while Broward and Miami-Dade use ATM-like touchscreens that leave no paper trail...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/13410061.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

WHO TV

12/15/05

The Patriot Act has come under harsh criticism from people who believe it gives the government too much power to invade peoples right to privacy. Here in Iowa, members of an anti-war group believe their actions are under surveillance regardless of the Patriot Act. This week, NBC News uncovered a Pentagon database that shows the U.S. government is collecting information on American peace activists and monitoring their protests against the war. On that list, singled out as a credible threat, is an incident where an Iowa man was arrested for misdemeanor trespassing at an Air Force base in Omaha and sentenced to 90 days in a federal prison. 'The other inmates couldn't believe I was in for a federal misdemeanor, that I'd actually been sentenced to time for a misdemeanor, that is normally like a traffic ticket.' Elton Davis says he was at Offutt Air Force base protesting nuclear weapons on August 9th of last year. He wanted to present the base commander with a peace necklace, but was met by Air Force security before reaching the front gate. He admits to trespassing and spent three months in prison...

http://www.whotv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4247304&nav=2HAB


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp