New York Times' Scott Shane wrote a serious article covering yesterday's Downing Street Hearings and the facts it examined concerning a President of the United States who may have committed Impeachable High Crimes by fixing intelligence and misleading the country into an unnecessary war leading to the death of thousands.

On the other hand, Washington Post's embarrasing Dana Milbank wrote an obnoxious and condescending little screed which begins, "In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe."

And, oh yeah, speaking of "the land of make-believe", Milbank gets one fact wrong after another as he plays "journalist" in the pages of one of the countries once-greatest newspapers.

The Washington Post, to their own shame, presumably gives a paycheck each week to Mr. Milbank for his coverage of Washington D.C.

Moments ago, Congressman John Conyers sent a letter in reply to Milbank's column. BRAD BLOG has the letter. Since someone's gotta be the media while WaPo continues its seemingly hell-bent attempt to continue its spiral towards irrelevance...and since we don't particularly expect WaPo to publish it themselves...we guess we'll do it...

More...

LATE-NIGHT UPDATE: From ConyersBlog in re: The Delivery...He was met with expected respect one might afford the longest sitting member of the United States House of Representatives, and nine other Congressmen...At least what one might expect from this particular White House...

He has several other thoughts from today as well (including a link to yours truly - thank you...Mr. Chairman.)

UPDATE 6/17/05: A full list of the 123 congressional signees is now available here.

UPDATE 6/22/05: The tale of the tape...

Guests currently scheduled (with more to be announced soon)...

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Updating White House press spokesman, Scott McClellan's complete dismissal of a Downing Street question yesterday (reported previously here), he continued his "Watergate Act" at today's press briefing. Only more so. Editor & Publisher has it...

UPDATE: And on a lighter note...Scottie faces the "last throes" of his ability to hold off the barbarians at the gate. Also from the good folks at E&P...

UPDATE 6/17/05: By way of helping Scottie, who seems to feel that there is just one member of congress who would like an answer to the questions sent weeks ago to Bush --- which are still unanswered --- here are the 123 duly elected members of the United States House of Represenatives who would like answers to those questions, along with at least 600,000 American citizens, so far:

List courtesy of RAW STORY.

As there are many who were unable to follow the hearings live and given the historic importance of them, I am making my raw notes --- essentially live blogged, but not posted during the hearings --- available here right away...Please note that these are raw notes, not necessarily quotes even if some of them are in quotes. I did try and type as closely as I could to what was being said however.

Hopefully this will give those of you unable to listen live, an idea of these EXTRAORDINARY hearings which were chaired by Congressman John Conyers' and just adjourned in the 15' by 30' room in the basement of the Capitol Building!...Simply extraordinary hearings...

(The hearing will re-air on C-SPAN 2 tonight, Thursday, at 8pm ET, and late-night at 1:56am on C-SPAN 1 at 1:56am Friday "morning", And again on Friday at 8pm ET)...

Complete Audio now posted, courtesy of BRAD BLOG secret weapon, David Edwards!
- Streaming RealAudio
- Mirrored Streaming RealAudio

We will try to get the prepared testimony from the witnesses as soon as we can...

Though the hearings were remarkable, we don't believe they were the cause for 4.9 earthquake we experienced here in Los Angeles during the hearings (we're fine, but the ground did shake)...

A total of 122 members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have now signed on to Rep. John Conyers' (D-MI) letter to George W. Bush requesting a response to several questions in relation to the Downing Street Minutes.

The original letter, sent several weeks ago by the Ranking Minority Member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee along with 88 congressional Democrats, was recently recirculated after several more members requested signing on. The original letter has so far gone unresponded to.

As well, The BRAD BLOG has learned that a total of 553,996 signatures by citizens have been collected for the letter by Conyers' and MoveOn.org over the past two weeks, and those will be delivered today to the White House shortly after today's scheduled hearings on the Downing Street matter.

That hearing is scheduled for 2:30pm ET today, to be followed by a rally in front of the White House and the delivery of the letter by Conyers and several others at 5pm ET.

As reported yesterday, the hearings will be carried live on C-SPAN 3 as well as Pacifica Radio and Radio Left.

Conyers' statement this morning via RAW STORY...

UPDATE: At least 14 20 25 Congressional Members present at hearings in basement room turned into hearings room, appx. 15 by 30 feet. Hearings now ongoing, being LiveBlogged at PDA...

POST HEARING UPDATE: BRAD BLOG raw notes posted...

UPDATE 6/17/05: A full list of the congressional signees is now available here.

PARDON THIS CRASS COMMERCIAL REMINDER...But as so many are now linking up to today's coverage here on the Downing Street hearings, and the audio recording, etc., now might be a good time to mention that The BRAD BLOG is run almost entirely on DONATIONS...Please feel free to help me continue!. Thanks.

At today's White House Press Briefing...The press corps managed to ask a single question about the Downing Street documents...near the very end of the briefing...

No, Scottie. I think it hasn't.

UPDATE 5/16/05: McClellan asked again today about DSM, mocks questioner!

IN OTHER LATE RELATED DSM MATTERS...

Six weeks after its release by Rupert Murdoch's Times of London, CNN seems to have realized that the "Downing Street Minutes" just might indicate that the "President" of the United States may have lied the country into an unnecessary War on Iraq.

We're happy to see that CNN, along with many other MSM organizations, are finally covering (somewhat) what some of us "Conspiracy Theorists" have been covering for at least six weeks.

The report by Bill Schneider, available via Crooks & Liars, is not bad --- even featuring some guy named John Conyers --- though Schneider does manage to drop in some completely misleading and mangled analysis when he suggests that the reason this business is making news now is because support for the war has dropped to 42% or so, when it was over 60% in June of 2002.

NOTE TO BILL: One of the reasons support was so high back then, was because the "President" and his lackeys were actively running around the country, lying about Saddam's WMD, and you guys were covering such claims without batting even the slightest critical eye. Now that more and more information has come out to demonstrate the entire affair was bullshit, support for the war has plummeted.

In other words, support has dropped because we now know the truth. As opposed to your suggestion that this material is gaining traction because support for the war is bottoming out.

That said, we do realize that you may now be willing to cover it because support is bottoming out. God forbid you should give critical coverage to anything that America is currently in favor of.

Of course, if Schneider has any information to suggest that his analysis is correct and our analysis is wrong, he didn't bother to present it.

Perhaps CNN should stick to Michael Jackson, and leave the news to the bloggers.

C-SPAN has committed to carrying the U.S. House Judiciary Democrats hearings tomorrow on C-SPAN 3. They will be carried LIVE.

For those who don't receive C-SPAN 3 on their local cable system, the video and/or audio from the hearings should be carried via the Internets right here.

The hearings will also be carried live on Pacifica Radio and via Radio Left.

Yesterday, TrueMajority.org, another very large citizens activist organization, joined in sending Petitions to its members to collect signatures for John Conyers Letter to Bush, to be delivered bu Conyers himself after tomorrow's hearing. TrueMajority.org joins MoveOn.org who last week collected some 500,000 signatures in 48 hours or so.

As well, the hearings have now been rescheduled to 2:30pm, and have been moved from the DNC offices --- where they had previously been scheduled, when Republicans would not allow a hearing room for the Democrats --- back to a room in the Capitol Building.

According to a Press Release from AfterDowningStreet.org, the citizens coalition which has been very instrumental in bringing attention to this matter as previously ignored by the Mainstream Corporate Media...

More info, printable flyers, and details of local groups organizing around the country in support on the same day, are available via the same link at AfterDowningStreet.org.

UPDATE: Conyers is scheduled to appear on CSPAN's Washington Journal at 9am ET Thursday morning.

Not sure how we missed this. Okay, yes we are. Things have been a bit crazy lately.

Anyway...a former member of the Bush Administration (yes, the Bush Administration) is now voicing doubt about what brought down the Twin Towers and Building No. 7.

We haven't dealt much here with this particular matter, as we haven't had much to add to the various emerging skeptical voices out it. We'll keep our thoughts to ourselves for the moment, but the opinions of someone from within the Bush team speaking out about the matter seems notable enough to mention it here.

From UPI on Monday, as it ran in the Washington Times (yes, the Washington Times):

A more detailed article on Reynolds comments, and a nice summary of the alleged flaws in the official report are available in this Arctic Beacon article from over the weekend.

As mentioned, we don't have much of an opinion on this matter at this time, other than to note that once credibility is lost (see the Downing Street Minutes) it's difficult to get it back.

(Hat-tip to Katrina W. for the heads up!)

From a note we just received from our friend, the Freeway Blogger...

He went on to add...

We won't.

Freeway (or Mr. Blogger, if you're nasty) was our guest in the final hour of last weekend's BRAD SHOW. If you missed the interview, it was a hoot! Go to the BRAD SHOW Archives and scroll on down to HOUR 4 of the 6/11/05 show to give it a listen!

Penn & Teller give some airtime to the Bullshit that is the Patriot Act, including some telling thoughts from ex-Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA), once an advocate, now a strong detractor. At least someone's paying attention while Sensenbrenner and the GOP Gone Wild are attempting to bury their dangerous abuses of power.

Large video, about 17 minutes, and probably not safe for work! Unless you work at the Homeland Security Department or any other Government office. In which case, safe or not, those folks need to see and hear what they have wrought.

Video courtesy of our friends at Crooks & Liars with an assist from BRAD SHOW operative, David Edwards.

Updating our coverage of last Friday's shameful performance by the U.S. House Judiciary Chairman, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), when he cut witness testimony short in the additional day of hearings on the Patriot Act as requested, under House Rule 11, by the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) is introducing a resolution to rebuke the Chariman for his outrageous behavior.

Included in Nadler's resolution, is condemnation of Sensenbrenner's gaveling of the hearings to an early close without hearing unanimous consent, debate or even a second; his refusal to allow witnesses to respond to questions; cutting questioning by minority Congressmen short; unprecedented convening of the hearings when Congress was not in session and other actions less-than-honorable for a United States Congressman.

RAW STORY has the text of the full resolution. Here's the first few grafs of their story...

Sensenbrenner's performance was covered in detail by BRAD BLOG last Friday as it unfolded, with exclusive commentary from Democratic staffers who witnessed it.

DemBlogger has the video of the last few minutes of the hearings as Sensenbrenner gaveled it to a close.

In other news of Republican Majorities Gone Wild, a new policy of denying hearing rooms to Democrats has been instituted by the Judiciary Committee Majority.

According to today's The Hill, "majority staff recently announced a new policy to deny any request from a committee Democrat for the use of a committee hearing room."

That new edict, instituted in time to attempt to shut down the minority's planned Thursday hearing on the Downing Street Minutes/Memo has forced the Democrats to scramble to find a location for the event.

The Hill also confirms the text of the email we reported last Friday from Sensenbrenner's deputy chief of staff, Sean McClaughlin, to a minority staffer while viewing Ranking Minority Member, Rep. John Conyers' (D-MI) "Media Bias" forum held several weeks ago.

The BRAD BLOG has learned that the Dems will hold the hearings, despite the attempt by the majority to shut them down, at the DNC offices on 1:00 p.m. in the Wasserman Room at 430 S Capitol St. SE, Washington, D.C.

The hearings were announced after Conyers received more than 500,000 citizen signatures on a letter signed by at least 94 U.S. House of Representative members. Additionally, The BRAD BLOG has learned that still more House members are said to be signing on to that letter this week.

Later on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. ET in Lafayette Square Park, in front of the White House, a large rally has been called by supporters of Conyers who plans to deliver hist letter to George W. Bush, asking him to respond to the questions raised by the original Downing Street Minutes document.

Additionally, as reported by AfterDowningStreet.org, a coalition of grassroots citizen organizations (both BRAD BLOG and Velvet Revolution, an organization we helped to co-foun, are members of that coalition) local rallies are being planned around the country in support on that same day.

The facts of the Downing Street Minutes are clearly gaining traction and apparently have the hard-right apologists up against the ropes in seeking an exit strategy from their current pickle.

Today they trotted out Bobby Eberle of GOPUSA --- the phony "news" organization, that hired "Jeff Gannon", the phony "journalist" with the phony name --- in a failed attempt to throw cold water on the exploding Downing Street Minutes issues.

As with the debacle that was Election 2004, featuring hundreds (if not thousands) of "irregularities" that occurred in order to ensure a Bush win last November, the Neo-Cons have dusted off the old "Conspiracy Theory" defense again, this time in lieu of being able to slither out of the apparent "High Crimes" demonstrated by the DSM and the myriad of corroborating evidence that has appeared since the initial minutes were leaked (by a Rupert Murdoch paper, no less!)

Having (so far) gotten away with their Election 2004 chicanery with liberal uses of the "Conspiracy Theory" buzzphrase, the assumption is likely to be "Well, it worked so well to deflect from our gaming of the election, let's use it again to smokescreen our lying the country into war!"

Nonetheless, the transparency of the tactic to attempt to belittle those who would like an explanation and/or investigation to examine the behavior of the Bush Administration as described in the DSM --- the facts and intelligence having been "fixed" around the pre-determined policy of toppling Saddam through military means --- clearly signals that the Right is quickly becoming desperate as they find themselves bereft of a way out of this mess. As of now anyway.

And all of that even while their only other current defense ("But we went to the U.N. afterwards, so that must prove...something!") seems to be falling flat on its face.

From Eberle's sad little attempt at propaganda (emphasis added)...

RAW STORY has the raw docs, and now a "Path to War" timeline to go with them. AfterDowningStreet.org has the executive skinny, with the significance of some of the most troubling passages in each of the newly authenticated British documents.

These documents were leaked late last week, but hadn't yet been confirmed as authentic. RAW STORY is now confirming their authenticity.