Phil Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism officer, is one of the few in the U.S. "mainstream" media (of a sort), who has bothered to cover --- and cover responsibly --- Sibel Edmonds' story in the past.

Today over at The American Conservative --- that's right, The American Conservative --- Giraldi notes this week's release of Edmonds' remarkable deposition video and transcript, appropriately under the headline "Sibel Edmonds Speaks, But No One is Listening"...

The other interview Giraldi refers to there is the one I did with Edmonds a month or so back while guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show. That one made mainstream news headlines around the world...except for in the U.S., of course, where it doesn't matter in the slightest...after Edmonds expert Luke Ryland covered what he described as the "bombshell" within it. (Links to the audio and the transcript of that interview at that last link.)

Giraldi, at The American Conservative --- did I mention his quick article was at The American Conservative? --- goes on to note that "Edmonds is a credible witness who is ignored by the mainstream media and congress because her tales, if true, would be devastating to both political parties and to the Israel and Turkish lobbies," and then asks: "Now that she has testified under oath and in considerable detail making very specific accusations isn't it time for someone in the administration to review the FBI files and stand up to say whether her accounts are true or not?"

Well, one would think that, no? Silly, one.

Scott Horton of AntiWar.com however, who has covered the Edmonds deposition earlier this week), interviews Giraldi about the Edmonds deposition today. That 26 minute interview can be heard online here. (They also speak a bit about Holder's recently announced torture investigation, and Giraldi, an actual conservative, as opposed to a fake one, as well as a former CIA analyst, believes the announced investigation does not go far enough.)

I hope to help encourage more coverage/investigation of the Edmonds story in the coming days, with some pieces in which I'll try to help the poor poor resource-less mainstream media out by putting the matter, and the deposition, into a few more accessible bite-size chunks for them. The way you might cut up a piece of steak for a child, I guess. Also, I've doing my best on the radio over the last couple of days to further help get the word out. (You can too, by Digging and Redditting and emailing etc. please!)

Here are a couple of those recent appearances. One on the Malloy Show on Tuesday, and another one yesterday, in studio on KPFK, our local Pacifica station here in Los Angeles, on Roseanne Barr's program (though she was off this week). Both radio interviews follow below, and the latter includes a bit of new news at the end which I haven't yet had time cover here on the blog, but hope to soon...

Collect and trade 'em all!

[Hat-tip Jeremy Scahill]

Americans finally stand up against the phony, democracy-hating town hall disrupting bullies. VelvetRevolution.us (of whom The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder) was there to document it last night...

Will this event receive as much coverage in the corporate media as those where the wingnuts weren't outnumbered and shouted down?

And...as we've asked before...how long will this keep escalating before someone ends up dead? (And I'm not referring to those thousands of Americans already dead because a bureaucrat from the corporate healthcare industry was allowed to come between them and a doctor to help deny them healthcare.)

In an update to his story detailing some of the most disturbing revelations about illegal and unconstitutional methods of torture used by our own government, in our own name, as revealed in the less-redacted 2004 CIA Inspector General's report [PDF] released on Monday, Glenn Greenwald replies to those who'd written in support of such illegal behavior as follows [emphasis his]...

Moreover, yesterday Greenwald took on Rep. Peter King (R-NY)'s outrageous and ignorant defense of torture and of breaking the law and disregarding the U.S. Constitution, along with the other pretend Thomas Paines out there (such as Glenn Beck), who appear to have absolutely no understanding or interest in the either the Rule of Law, the Constitution, or just how far afield they are from the actual words of Paine himself.

It's a must-read, though mostly for folks like Beck and King who likely won't be bothered by information that specifically undermines their own warped, twisted, sick, anti-American worldview.

Just over two weeks ago, FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was finally allowed to speak about much of what the Bush Administration spent years trying to keep her from discussing publicly on the record. Twice gagged by the Bush Dept. of Justice's invocation of the so-called "State Secrets Privilege," Edmonds has been attempting to tell her story, about the crimes she became aware of while working for the FBI, for years.

Thanks to a subpoena issued by the campaign of Ohio's 2nd District Democratic U.S. Congressional candidate David Krikorian, her remarkable allegations of blackmail, bribery, espionage, infiltration, and criminal conspiracy by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials, and agents of the government of Turkey are seen and heard here, in full, for the first time, in her under-oath deposition. Both the complete video tape and transcript of the deposition follow below.

Though there was much concern, prior to her testimony, that the Obama Dept. of Justice might re-invoke the "State Secrets Privilege" to keep her from speaking, they did not do so. Nor did they choose to be present at the Washington D.C. deposition.

The BRAD BLOG covered details of some of Edmonds' startling disclosures made during the deposition, as it happened, in our live blog coverage from August 8th. The deposition included criminal allegations against specifically named members of Congress. Among those named by Edmonds as part of a broad criminal conspiracy: Reps. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA), as well as an unnamed, still-serving Congresswoman (D) said to have been secretly videotaped, for blackmail purposes, during a lesbian affair.

High-ranking officials from the Bush Administration named in her testimony, as part of the criminal conspiracy on behalf of agents of the Government of Turkey, include Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Marc Grossman, and others.

During the deposition --- which we are still going through ourselves --- Edmonds discusses covert "activities" by Turkish entities "that would involve trying to obtain very sensitive, classified, highly classified U.S. intelligence information, weapons technology information, classified Congressional records...recruiting key U.S. individuals with access to highly sensitive information, blackmailing, bribery."

Speaking about current members of Congress during a break in the testimony, Krikorian told The BRAD BLOG that "for people in power situations in the United States, who know about this information, if they don't take action against it, in my opinion, it's negligence." (More video statements from Krikorian, Edmonds and attorneys from all parties, taped before, during, and after the 8/8/09 testimony, are available here.)

Edmonds' on-the-record disclosures also include bombshell details concerning outed covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's front company, Brewster Jennings. Edmonds alleges the front company had actually been shut down in August of 2001 --- three years prior to Bob Novak's public disclosure of the covert operative's identity --- following a tip-off to a wire-tap target about the true nature of the CIA front company. The cover was blown, Edmonds alleges, by Marc Grossman, who was, at the time, the third highest-ranking official in the U.S. State Department. Prior to that, Grossman served as ambassador to Turkey. He now works "for a Turkish company called Ihals Holding," according to Edmonds' testimony.

An unclassified FBI Inspector General's report, released on her case in 2005, declared Edmonds' classified allegations to be "credible," "serious," and "warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI." In 2002, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), then the senior members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, co-wrote letters on Edmonds' behalf to Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and DoJ Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, calling on all of them to take action in respect to her allegations. And in a 2002 60 Minutes report on Edmonds' case, Grassley noted: "Absolutely, she's credible...And the reason I feel she's very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story."

The 8/8/09 deposition was brought by Krikorian as part of his defense in a case filed against him before the Ohio Election Commission (OEC) by Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH). The 2nd district Congresswoman has accused Krikorian, an Armenian-American who ran against her as an independent in 2008, of "false statements" during the campaign last year alleging that she had accepted "blood money" from Turkish interests. Krikorian says that Schmidt, co-chair of the Congressional Turkish Committee, accepted more money from Turkish interests during last year's campaign than any other member of Congress, despite few, if any, ethnic Turks among her local constituency. He has suggested she may have been instrumental in helping to hold off a Congressional vote on a long-proposed, much-disputed resolution declaring the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during WWI as a "genocide" by the Turks.

Edmonds herself happens to be a Turkish-American, though she was recently attacked by the Turkish Lobby, following her long-sought, long-blocked testimony.

The complete transcript of Sibel Edmonds' under-oath testimony, may now be downloaded here [PDF]. The complete video-taped testimony follows, in five parts, below...

[8/26/09: Updated at bottom of article.]

After many weeks of speculation, and embarrasingly bad media coverage, Attorney General Eric Holder has finally named a Special Prosecutor to probe the use of torture by the Bush/Cheney Administration. The announcement comes on the same day that a redacted version of a 2004 Inspector General's report [PDF] on the CIA's use of torture was also released. RAW STORY has a good backgrounder on the announcement.

The prosecutor, John Durham, a career DoJ attorney from Connecticut, has already been investigating the CIA's destruction of torture video tapes, and has been described by AP as "one of the nation's most relentless prosecutors."

The IG's 122-page report details the beating and death of detainees, threats of violence, death and sexual assault to their family members, and other techniques used by U.S. government interrogators that were "inconsistent with the public policy positions that the U.S. has taken regarding human rights."

Shortly after the announcement today, U.S. House Judiciary chair John Conyers (D-MI) and subcommittee chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) released a statement applauding the appointment of the Special Prosecutor and calling for a 'broad mandate' to prosecute not just 'frontline personnel,' but also the 'policymakers and lawyers' who created the "conditions where such absues were all but inevitable to occur."

"Seeking out only the low-level actors in a conspiracy to torture detainees will bring neither justice nor restored standing to our nation," says Nadler in the statement (posted in full below)...

Or, maybe, mind-blogging...

Though having been accused once or twice of a God Complex, I'm now prepared to reveal this startling photo admission...

RAW STORY's coverage of the news, and the release of the video demonstration of how to hack a Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine, began this way last week:

Hacks of our electronic voting systems used to be big news. Now though, it's been done so many times, and is apparently so simple to do, that the news hardly registers in the corporate mainstream media (if it ever did in the first place). Yet, almost nothing has been done about virtually any of it to date.

We reported on the Princeton professor, Andrew Appel, acquiring the five Sequoia AVC machines two and a half years ago, that he was able to pick the lock "in seven seconds", and change the chips inside to do anything he might want the machine to do, including change votes after the close of polls on Election Day. The five machines that Appel purchased for $82 on the Internet were purchased by New Jersey just a few years earlier for $10,000 a piece. The state still uses the same hackable, 100% unverifiable voting machines, despite numerous failures during actual elections.

At the time of Appel's purchase, Sequoia Voting System had been touting their "tamperproof products, including ... the AVC Advantage," which, they said, "are sought after from coast to coast for their accuracy and reliability."...

Some fine bloggery from RAW STORY today. First, Diane Sweet highlights Dana Gould's must-watch "WTF" moment on health care reform from last night's Real Times with Bill Maher on HBO:

Gould's package includes a visit to a recent health fair at Staples Center in L.A. where folks lined up around the block for free dental care, glasses, blood pressure checks, mammograms, vital immunizations for children, and other medical procedures not usually available to them, because they don't have health coverage.

Stephen C. Webster notes coverage of that event by another outlet which additionally notes some stark statistics comparing the UK's national health system to the system in the U.S. where health spending is twice that of the UK's (as a percentage of the GDP), more than twice-over per person, and yet, the U.S. life-expectancy is shorter, infant mortality higher, and there are more physicians per capita in the UK.

Finally, Webster also features a video of a town hall forum featuring Congressman Rick Larsen (D-WA) who is forced to inform a wingnut: "I've got facts on my side, you've got Glenn Beck on your side."

(Of course, Beck wasn't always an opponent of health care reform. In fact, he was in favor of it before he was against it --- after arriving at Fox "News" --- as Jon Stewart reminded us earlier this week.)

That, and one other excellent point is made about the "Constitutionality" of Congress providing for the general welfare. Just like it says in the, um, Constitution. Go watch it...

Claiming that Ohio's Republican U.S. House Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-2nd) is "conced[ing] that she does deny the Armenian Genocide," the campaign of her Democratic challenger David Krikorian has just issued a press release (posted in full below), stating that Schmidt has dropped four of her "false statements" complaints against him in her Ohio Election Commission (OEC) case, while petitioning the court to add a new claim in the bargain.

The news comes on the heels of last Saturday's deposition by the FBI's former Turkish-American translator Sibel Edmonds who had been subpoenaed last week to testify in the case. The whistleblower had been previous-gagged by two different assertions of the "state secrets" privilege during the Bush Administration. She was finally able to testify on Saturday, under oath, about alleged infiltration, bribery, and blackmail by Turkish agents, of current and former members of the U.S. Congress and other high ranking officials in the Departments of State and Defense. The BRAD BLOG covered the stunning deposition as it happened last Saturday.

Schmidt had challenged Krikorian's claim, during his 2008 independent campaign against her, that she accepted "blood money" from Turkish agents in exchange for helping to block a Congressional resolution recognizing the 1915 killing of some 1.5 million ethnic Armenians as a genocide....

In a rather extraordinary unbylined blog item posted on Wednesday, the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) has launched what appears to be an all-out assault on FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds and her remarkable, long-awaited under-oath deposition taken over the weekend in the Ohio Election Commission (OEC)'s Schmidt v. Krikorian case.

Called as a witness for David Krikorian (who is Armenian-American), Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH)'s opponent in 2008 and 2010, Edmonds (who is Turkish-American) testified to infiltration, bribery, corruption, and blackmail within the U.S. Government, by current and former members of the U.S. House and other high ranking officials, on behalf of Turkish interests. Schmidt, the co-chair of the Congressional Turkish Caucus has filed a complaint with the OEC alleging "false statements" by Krikorian during their 2008 contest when he had alleged she had taken "blood money" from those opposed to a Congressional declaration of Armenian Genocide by the Turks during WWI. Schmidt is also said to have taken more money from Turkish interests during the 2008 campaign than any other House candidate.

The TCA seems to have "declared war," according to Edmonds who touched base from out of the country via email on Wednesday. The scathing blog post alleges Edmonds' testimony was "a full-on assault against the national interests of the United States and the integrity of its justice system by the Armenian lobby"; says "Krikorian and his lobbyist backers are getting desperate"; and otherwise attempts to disparage Edmonds' character by describing her as "self-aggrandizing," and a "disgruntled and discredited former federal employee."

The report offers no evidence to support any of its allegations against Krikorian, Edmonds or "the Armenian Lobby." Many of the claims, particularly those concerning Edmonds, are directly contradicted by official reports from the FBI Inspector General's office, as well as senior, bi-partisan members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee...

"The nightmare that is our health care system." - Jan. '08 for CNN
"The best health care system in the world." - Aug. '09 for Fox "News"

Why The Daily Show must be the one to reveal this stuff on broadcast television remains far beyond our pay grade. We're just glad that someone does....

But what's becoming more and more clear is that Beck seems to be taking a page from the Ann Coulter playbook: Say something outrageous, no matter how factually deficient, whether you believe it or not, in order to help rile the easily riled Republicanist/Fox "News" base, piss off everyone else, garner media attention to yourself, make millions of dollars in the bargain, largely off the losers you're exploiting and lying to in the first place.

Worked well for Coulter, still is, seems to be working very well for Beck now too. (Also for Sarah Palin, though there's some question whether she's smart enough to realize that's what she's doing. Beck, however, knows damn well what he's doing, and knows damn well that he's an unapologetic liar and opportunist, playing the Fox "News" base for the gullible suckers and chumps that they are. Doesn't care.)

As we continue to wait for the release of the video/transcript of long-gagged FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds' deposition last Saturday, the campaign of David Krikorian, Ohio's Democratic candidate for the U.S. House seat in the 2nd Congressional district, has just issued a press release relating to it. (Complete release posted below.)

In the statement, they re-iterate some of the information which The BRAD BLOG covered during our live-blogging of the event over the weekend, including Edmonds' allegations under oath that "the Turkish Lobby in the United States was under the direction of the Turkish Government and engaged in operations including bribery, espionage and blackmail with certain members of the US House of Representatives to further its objectives in the United States including one of which is the denial of the Armenian Genocide."

Some of those current and former House reps, such as Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IL), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Dick Gephardt (D-MO), and Stephen Solarz (D-NY), were said to have been specifically named during the 5-hour-long deposition. One female Representative, said to be a Democrat and still serving in the House, was described, but not named, as having been "hooked" by Turkish agents into participating in a lesbian affair which is said to have been videotaped for potential blackmail use against the sitting Congresswoman....

From the sub-title used with the LATimes story over the weekend about AG Eric Holder's long-rumored, now reportedly "all but certain" plan to appoint a special prosecutor to examine torture during the Bush Adminstration:

So non-"excessive waterboarding" is now legal?

From the article itself...

Since several have been sending notes/comments asking, I'll answer all at once: No hard updates yet on the release of either the video or transcript of Saturday's explosive deposition of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

We've been in close touch with both the National Whistleblowers Center (Edmonds' attorneys), as well as the court reporter's office. The NWC is similarly trying to assist in getting a copy of the video, and has been told, as we have, that the text transcript would take more time to finish up and be made available.

So, the video of the depo would seem to be coming first, before the transcript which supposedly will come later. No actual idea about what the hold up for release of the video is at this moment. It seems to be a question of who needs to authorize the release or something. Either way, I have no reason at this time to believe there's anything nefarious going on here, just to preempt that suggestion for the moment, but wanted to give you an update, since folks have been asking.

Furthermore, complicating matters, I'm now on the road, towards a long-planned vacation, which we actually pushed back for several days to accommodate the weekend's unexpected turn of events. So trying to keep up with all while on the move. Nonetheless, will update here as/when warranted...

UPDATE 8/11/09: Spoke again with the folks at the National Whistleblower Center today who say they are now in close touch with the court reporter's office, and are optimistic they will be able to receive a copy of the video soon. As soon as they have it, I'm told, we'll also be able to get a copy. (Remember, even after we get one, it may take some time to render, upload, etc. as there are some five hours, or so, of testimony. In the meantime, if you're hungry to plow through important depo material, a few thousands pages on Rove and Mier's recent Congressional depositions have now finally been released here. My rolling schedule, at the moment, does not allow me to plow through them myself, as much as I wish I could!) Anyway, I'll continue to update here as I get any new news...

UPDATE 8/14/09: I'm told that "there is no conspiracy" as to the release of the video-taped deposition, and that it is still forthcoming. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'll be taking some down time, off the grid, in the mountains, camping all next week. So I hope I don't miss the release! Otherwise, I suspect it won't be long after I'm back in town the following week. So, I don't believe there's anything to worry about (as some have suggested). But we'll still have to "stay tuned" for a while longer. I certainly will, since I won't even be around, by and large, at all next week!

UPDATE 8/25/09:The complete video deposition, along with transcript, is now posted in full here. Thanks again for all of your patience on this!