Links of Interest

It's Monday, it's been a long weekend, and my week is just beginning, so VERY fast update here...

Ex-CIA Chiefs balk at Bush's attempts to make them the scapegoat for everything.

Two former CIA chiefs on Friday disputed claims cited by a presidential commission that agency officials warned them that the government's leading source on Iraq's biological weapons had a reputation for making things up.

In a scathing report released Thursday, President Bush's intelligence commission found that the CIA "failed to convey to policy-makers new information casting serious doubt on the reliability of a human intelligence source known as 'Curveball.'" The commission found that several agency officers said they had doubts about the source and raised those doubts with senior leadership, including then-CIA Director George Tenet.

Remember that "Curveball" has been thoroughly discussed as the most ridiculous source to hang a war onto by both Rude Pundit and Maureen Dowd (and more, I'm sure).

Fox News, et al, trying desperately to beat each other to the punch rather than actually report accurate news, literally drove viewers to tears when reporting the Pope had died and they were waiting for confirmation. But he hadn't yet. Dumbasses.

I love this headline: U.S. Forces May Have Beaten Iraqi General - You know why I love it? BECAUSE IT'S SO FUCKING RETARDED. Read on...

Previously secret court testimony indicates an Iraqi general imprisoned by U.S. forces was badly bruised and may have been severely beaten two days before he died of suffocation during interrogation... During the interrogation, Army prosecutors claim Mowhoush was put headfirst into a sleeping bag, wrapped with electrical cord and knocked down before the soldiers sat and stood on him, prosecutors said. The cause of death was determined to be suffocation... According to the transcript, witnesses said others had also beaten Mowhoush days before the Army interrogation. Their names and agencies were blacked out... According to the transcript, Army special investigator Curtis Ryan testified that he found extensive bruising when he examined Mowhoush shortly after he died. "So, at some point prior to the 26th, he had been beaten," Ryan said... An autopsy revealed that Mowhoush had also suffered broken ribs, testimony showed.

So he MAY HAVE been beaten by US troops? Oh I'm sure he flung himself around his cell, broke his own ribs and then sufficated himself inside a sleeping bag.

Fourth man indicted in Republican phone-jamming scheme

Shaun Hansen, of Spokane, Wash., headed a former telemarketing company that placed hundreds of hang-up calls to five phone lines run by Democrats and one run by the Manchester firefighters union.

Prosecutors say Hansen's Mylo Enterprises of Sandpoint, Idaho, was hired by Republican operatives to place the calls.

Hansen is accused of violating a federal law that forbids placing anonymous telephone calls to annoy or harass someone. He has not entered a plea, but is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Concord on May 9.

That's all for now. Later!