PunditGuy

Headlines and Commentary for 10.30.05

AP via CNN – Chavez: Halloween part of U.S. culture of terror

President Hugo Chavez urged Venezuelan parents not to dress their children in costumes for Halloween, calling it a U.S. custom that has no place in the South American country’s cultural traditions. Speaking during his weekly radio and television show Sunday, Chavez called Halloween a “gringa,” or North American, custom.

Why haven’t we adjusted this crackpot dictator yet? For most of us, it’s about the candy, Hugo. And a simple search will reveal that Halloween isn’t an American custom.

AP – Geraldo’s Back!

Geraldo Rivera is returning to daily syndicated television, but not to the world of flying chairs, broken noses and transvestite makeovers. His news program “Geraldo at Large” debuts Monday, and the star attraction describes it as an action-oriented half-hour similar to the weekend program he was doing at Fox News Channel.

It’s a good thing my DISH Network has the ability to block programming.

WaPo – Reid Calls for Rove to Resign

The leader of the Senate Democrats today called for White House chief political strategist Karl Rove to resign, saying it’s time for President Bush to ”come clean” with the American people about the administration’s role in the disclosure of a CIA operative’s name. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), speaking on ABC’s ”This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” said both Bush and Vice President Cheney owe an apology to the American public.

Nice try Harry. Now shudupa your face.

Telegraph – Prince Charles schleppin for Islam

The Prince of Wales will try to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam this week because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11.

Oh, look who’s trying to be Mr. Politics. Stick with polo Chuck.

AP – Oliver Stone shoots September 11 movie in New York

The towers won’t fall again. Downtown Manhattan streets won’t be coated with ash and debris. Producers of the first Hollywood film about Sept. 11 since the 2001 attacks have begun shooting scenes in the city, but have promised to tread carefully on sensitive ground. The film’s director, Oliver Stone, won’t film thousands of New Yorkers running terrified through debris-filled streets.

Reefer madness.

Toronto Sun – Canada: Home of the beer belly

The Guinness people came to town last week to launch a new can design for their famous beer. While they were here, Guinness brewmaster Fergal Murray said he thought Canada had a “great beer culture.” … Murray wasn’t trying to insult us. But to some, those could be fighting words. Suppose a gun manufacturer … announced the city had a “great gun culture” The fact that it has doesn’t make the remark any less hurtful.

What a wuss.

WLBT – Squirrel Starts Grass Fire

Firefighters in Hinds County spent the afternoon putting out a grass fire just north of Byram. Because of recent dry weather, conditions are ideal for fires to quickly spread.

A statewide burn ban is in effect, but some of Mother Nature’s creatures are not obeying the order. The blaze broke out behind a home at the corner of Terry Road and Brookleigh Drive. The homeowners are lucky a passing motorist noticed the fire.

An Entergy lineman arrived just as the flames were being snuffed out. Within minutes he was able to find what sparked the fire.

“A little squirrel cause all that,” said Russell.

Democratic Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) commented, “It’s Bush’s fault.”

Busy with family stuff, household stuff, mini-projects, etc. So, that being the case, this blog will be on the silent side today. All the news hit yesterday, so things are slow anyway. More later this evening.

UPDATE: OK, it’s 8:34 PM, and I’m whipped. So, that’s it for me today. More tomorrow. Oh, and don’t forget to set your clock back an hour. So that really means it’s 7:34 PM right now…unless you’re in the Mountain Time Zone, then it is 8:34 PM…still…like it is here…until I turn the clock back.

Glad we cleared that up.

Gah-nite.

If I see this word on one more Lefty blog I swear I’ll go postal.

It really would have been great if Denny Hastert had blogged about the indictment of Scooter Libby today, but then I guess he’d have to be a real blogger for that to happen right? As I suspected in this post from yesterday, Denny’s blog has already stopped being a blog. Today’s post is by his communication director Ron Bonjean, and it’s not really even a post, it’s a cut and paste job.

What a let down.

Apparently he’s been so useful that the agency has extended his contract for another 30 days. In another 30 days, they could do it again. Supposedly, he resigned from FEMA on September 12th. What a resourceful guy!

Mississippi Congressman Gene Taylor puts it this way:

“I’ve got tens of thousands of people living in two-man igloo tents tonight, and less than a quarter of the people who have asked for FEMA travel trailers have gotten them,” Taylor said. “And at the same time they can find $140,000 a year to pay this incompetent son of a gun; that’s ridiculous.”

Indeed.

This is creative.

The Blue Gene/L supercomputer broke its own calculation record, reaching 280.6 teraflops (280.6 trillion calculations a second). Each person in the world with a handheld calculator would still take decades to do the same calculations Blue Gene is now able to do every second.

Problem is, the massive box does nothing but run tests on itself, and from where I sit, that’s one worthless computer.

Oh, and while we’re being geeky – Happy Birthday to Bill Gates, who turned 50 years old today.

It’s all coming down today, and nothing has changed from last night. Libby gets it, Rove doesn’t (for now). Website information will be posted at 12 NOON EDT, news conference at 2 PM EDT.

UPDATE: It’s 9:05 AM PDT, 12:05 PM EDT and indictment documents have not yet been posted on the website of the Office of Special Counsel. Michelle Malkin is watching each and every move closely. Same for Tom Maguire and The Corner.

UPDATE II: According to Drudge, Scooter Libby has been indicted on obstruction of justice, false statement and perjury charges. Kathryn Jean Lopez: 1 count–Obstruction of justice/ 2–counts perjury/2 counts–making false statements

UPDATE III: AP now has the story on the Libby indictment. CNN too. Still no documentation on Fitzgerald’s website. Drudge has since taken down the notice of documents being available at 12 NOON EDT.

UPDATE IV: Indictment PDF is up. More at the Smoking Gun.

Now, we await the news conference, which is still scheduled for 2 PM EDT.

UPDATE V: Libby has resigned.

UPDATE VI: Interesting insight from Tim Graham via The Corner:

More media history for your Fitzmas. When Clinton cabinet officials Mike Espy and Henry Cisneros were indicted in 1997, the networks were completely bored. Not only did they not disturb “Days of Our Lives.” They could barely manage a few sentences in the evening. Butterflies got better coverage. Some morning shows skipped them altogether.

Glenn Reynolds adds a few comments.

Mark R. Levin – “What I resent about this press conference is the effort by Fitzgerald to paint Lewis Libby as outing a cover CIA operative, jeopardize national security, and harm CIA recruitment. As many times as I have now read this indictment, I see obstruction, perjury and false statements. I see no charges relating to any of this rhetoric. And so we now have some news reports claiming that Libby outed a CIA agent when, in fact, as a matter of law, he’s not even charged with that. As for the recitation of facts in the indictment, they will now be put to the test by defense counsel, who will have an opportunity to question the government’s witnesses (including Miller and Cooper), talk to their own witnesses, and conduct other discovery. People need to understand that this is just the first salvo.”

Levin on Plame – “It doesn’t matter what Plame’s neighbors did or did not know, which is why sending FBI agents out to interview neighbors had, in my view, little to do with the law, and everything to do with Fitzgerald wanting to announce, as he did today, that her neighbors didn’t know she worked at the CIA. Fitzgerald is trying to claim this is about defending a CIA officers identity and national security. But this is not the case. The issue, as a matter of law, is whether she was classified as covert by the CIA, and whether the CIA took steps to protect her identity.”

AP – Charges Don’t Directly Address CIA Leak

Blogcritics.org – The Question Not Asked

12:51 PM PDT – Statement by the President.

“Today I accepted the resignation of Scooter Libby. Scooter has worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people and sacrificed much in the service to this country. He served the Vice President and me through extraordinary times in our nation’s history.”

“Special Counsel Fitzgerald’s investigation and ongoing legal proceedings are serious, and now the proceedings — the process moves into a new phase. In our system, each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial.”

“While we’re all saddened by today’s news, we remain wholly focused on the many issues and opportunities facing this country. I got a job to do, and so do the people who work in the White House. We got a job to protect the American people, and that’s what we’ll continue working hard to do.”

“I look forward to working with Congress on policies to keep this economy moving. And pretty soon I’ll be naming somebody to the Supreme Court. Thank you all very much.”

A prediction from Bill Quick

According to the NYT, Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, expects to be indicted Friday on charges involving false statements to a grand jury in the CIA leak inquiry. But the big news is that Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff and a senior advisor will not be indicted, but will remain under investigation. This can only mean that prosecutors have not yet been able to link any criminal act to Rove, like they were able to do in the case of Mr. Libby. The fact that he will ‘remain under investigation’ strikes me as humorous. Why can’t they simply say that they haven’t yet found any wrong doing regarding his involvement in the matter? I suppose that one sounds like he’s off the hook while the other sounds like they could be minutes away from nailing him. Oh well, I suppose the Left has to have some hope to hold on to.

More tomorrow, as the ‘official’ word starts to spread.

Others: ABC News

h/t Dan Riehl

Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert is blogging, and when you have a blog, it’s cool to be informal and use the short version of your name. Such is the case with Speaker’s Journal, written by the newly hip ‘Denny’ Hastert. His first entry is up:

This is Denny Hastert and welcome to my blog. This is new to me. I can’t say I’m much of a techie. I guess you could say my office is teaching the old guy new tricks. But I’m excited. This is the future. And it is a new way for us to get our message out.

Most of you know me as a coach by nature so I hope this gives you some inside access to the Republican playbook.

The internet is changing the way we share information. My office has been talking a lot about some of the conversations going on in blogosphere. So I thought, hey, I should start one and give you unfiltered updates on Capitol Hill.

Hopefully, this is the real deal and not some staffer who’s ghost writing. On the surface, it looks legit, so I’ll assume Denny is really typing. And while I think having “inside access to the Republican playbook” would be a great thing, I seriously doubt we’ll receive that from ‘Coach’ Hastert. But I’ll give him points for dangling the carrot in his first post. Hey, he wants us to come back and be regular readers right? The real test will be to see if Denny blogs every day, or just once in a while. If it’s the latter, this won’t be a real blog, but a place to archive talking points, speeches and press statements. But far be it from me to prejudge the speaker. Oh, and I should note that he doesn’t provide a comments section. That’s a pity. He’d be way out front in my book if he received feedback from readers. That’d be the kind of access I’d come back for.

So, here’s your first link from me Denny. I hope I have reason to link a lot more often.