Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday March 17 2007 - (813)

Saturday March 17 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
White House Never Investigated Leak Of Plame As CIA Agent 2007-03-17 00:27:03 Dr. James Knodell, director of the Office of Security at the White House, told a congressional committee today that he was aware of no internal investigation or report into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. The White House had first opposed Knodell testifying but after a threat of a subpoena from the committee yesterday he was allowed to appear today. Knodell has testified that those who had participated in the leaking of classified information were required to attest to this and he was aware that no one, including Karl Rove, had done that. He said that he had started at the White House in August 2004, a year after the leak, but his records show no evidence of a probe or report there: "I have no knowledge of any investigation in my office," he said. Read The Full Story White House Retreats From Claim Meirs Initiated Prosecutors Firings 2007-03-16 14:18:28 The White House retreated today from its claim that former counsel Harriet E. Miers first came up with the idea of firing U.S. attorneys, another apparent shift in the Bush administration's evolving version of events behind the controversy. White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters that it was no longer clear who first initiated the idea of dismissing a large number of the 93 federal prosecutors following the 2004 elections. "It has been described as her idea but ... I don't want to try to vouch for origination," Snow said, referring to Miers. "At this juncture, people have hazy memories." Snow and other administration officials have said for the past four days that Miers first suggested firing all U.S. attorneys. They have cited e-mails from a Justice Department official on the topic and the recollection of presidential adviser Karl Rove. Read The Full Story Plame Tells Committee: My CIA Cover Was 'Carelessly, Recklessly' Abused 2007-03-16 14:18:06 Valerie Plame, the CIA operative at the heart of a political scandal, told Congress Friday that senior officials at the White House and State Department "carelessly and recklessly" blew her cover to discredit her diplomat-husband. Plame, whose 2003 outing triggered a federal investigation, said she always knew her identity could be discovered by foreign governments. "It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover," she told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "If our government cannot even protect my identity, future foreign agents who might consider working with the Central Intelligence Agency and providing needed intelligence would think twice," Plame said in response to a question. Read The Full Story History Of Hernia Patch Raises Questions On Implant Recalls 2007-03-16 14:15:12 How do makers of implanted medical devices react when one of their products starts breaking? One answer can be found in the case of a hernia repair device made by a subsidiary of C.R. Bard Inc. In late 2005, the company sent out a recall, urging doctors to stop using some versions of the product because a plastic component could break and cut through a patient’s internal organs and tissue. At the time, Bard executives said they knew about some serious injuries potentially caused by the device, which is known as the Kugel patch. Since then, the Food and Drug Administration has received reports of more than 80 injuries and other problems possibly related to it, including several fatalities. Read The Full Story U.S. Warns Of Long Delays For Passports 2007-03-16 14:14:20 Overwhelmed by unprecedented demand, the State Department is warning would-be travelers to brace for lengthy delays in getting U.S. passports, even when they pay a hefty fee to speed their applications. The department has hired hundreds of employees to process passport requests over the past two years as tougher immigration rules have taken effect. Even so, the department says a crush of new applicants - more than 1 million a month - has inundated its staff and caused delays of up to 1 1/2 months amid the peak January-to-April season when many people are preparing to travel over the spring and summer. In addition, a regulation that took effect this year requiring Americans to have passports when traveling by air anywhere outside the country, including Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, "has increased passport demand and production to record levels," the department said in a statement this week. Read The Full Story	Rove? Bush? Gonzales? Accounts Of Prosecutors' Dismissals Keep Shifting 2007-03-17 00:26:50 More than two weeks after a New Mexico U.S. attorney alleged he was fired for not prosecuting Democrats, the White House and the Justice Department are still struggling to explain the roles of President Bush, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other key officials in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors last year. Friday, the White House retreated from its four-day-old claim that former counsel Harriet E. Miers started the process two years ago by proposing the firing of all 93 U.S. attorneys. "It has been described as her idea ... but I don't want to vouch for origination," said press secretary Tony Snow. "At this juncture, people have hazy memories." In addition, D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned as Gonzales's chief of staff Monday, disputed the reasons given for his departure in a statement issued through his attorney Friday night. "The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing the subject for several years was well-known to a number of other senior officials at the department, including others who were involved in preparing the department's testimony to Congress," according to the statement by Sampson's lawyer, Bradford A. Berenson. Read The Full Story Home Foreclosures: California Town Right On Default Line 2007-03-16 14:18:20 Oscar De Leon was washing his car a few weeks ago when he noticed a piece of paper stuck to the front door of the house across the street. He strolled over to check it out. "You are in default," the paper proclaimed. "Unless you take action to protect your property, it may be sold at a public sale." De Leon, who lives in the Riverside County town of Perris, California, knew this official notice of foreclosure was bad news. Not just for the home's owners, who tried to sell for months, failed and quit town for parts unknown. It was bad for De Leon too, a 28-year-old employee of a food service distribution company. He and his wife, Sandra, pay their mortgage every month, happy they can raise their three children far from the urban problems of Los Angeles. Read The Full Story Storm Pounds U.S. Northeast,, Airlines To Cancel Hundreds Of Flights 2007-03-16 14:15:40 Airlines canceled hundreds of flights Friday as the Northeast was hammered by a late-winter storm. JetBlue Airlines, which is still recovering from the fallout of massive cancellations last month, nixed 235 flights, most in or out of its main hub at John F. Kennedy Jr. Airport in New York. Other airlines - including US Airways, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines - also canceled scores of flights for today. Delta canceled 250 flights, most of them in and out of New York-area airports. It also shut down its Shuttle service between New York and Washington, D.C. Read The Full Story Hospital Worker With TB May Have Exposed 500 Patients 2007-03-16 14:14:34 An employee at a Bronx hospital has tuberculosis and may have exposed hundreds of patients and co-workers, including more than 200 newborn babies, officials said Thursday. They appealed to people who could have been infected to arrange for testing and treatment. The employee, whom officials identified only as a woman, worked in the maternity ward, the nursery, the neonatal intensive care unit and the psychiatric ward at St. Barnabas Hospital, in the East Tremont section of the Bronx. Her TB was diagnosed on Jan. 29. Hospital and city officials did not disclose what kind of job the woman held, but expressed concern that those she had contact with, including infants, were especially vulnerable. Read The Full Story Briton's Death From U.S. Friendly Fire Called 'Criminal' 2007-03-16 14:13:42 A coroner conducting an inquest into a U.S. "friendly fire" attack that killed a British soldier during the Iraq war said Friday the death was entirely avoidable. Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker also criticized the U.S. military for failing to cooperate with his investigation into the incident. "I believe that the full facts have not yet come to light," Walker said as he began reading his verdict about whether the pilots of a U.S. A-10 "Tank-buster" plane unlawfully killed 25-year-old Lance Cpl. Matty Hull in an attack on his armored vehicle convoy in southern Iraq on March 28, 2003. Four other British soldiers were wounded. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php