It has now been over a week since the video tape and transcript from the remarkable 8/8/09 deposition of former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was publicly released. Previously, the Bush Administration invoked the so-called "state secrets privilege" in order to gag Edmonds, in attempting to keep such information from becoming public.

The under-oath, detailed allegations include bribery, blackmail, espionage and infiltration of the U.S. government of, and by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and agents of the government of Turkey. The broad criminal conspiracy is said to have resulted in, among other things, the sale of nuclear weapons technology to black market interests including Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Libya and others.

Even as many of these allegations had been previously corroborated to varying extents, by a number of official government reports, documents and independent media outlets (largely overseas), not a single major mainstream media outlet in the U.S. has picked up on Edmonds' startling claims since her deposition has been made fully available.

Granted, last week was a busy news week, with the death of Ted Kennedy, the release of the CIA Inspector General's report on torture, and the announcement that Michael Jackson's death was ruled a homicide. And, it's true, a 4-hour deposition and/or 241-page transcript [PDF] is a lot of material to review, particularly given the wide scope of the charges being made here. Still, given the serious national security issues at stake, said to have the been among the most important matters of the past 8 years, one would think someone in the corporate MSM might have taken the time to go through the material, and report on it. Particularly as Edmonds' claims have previously been found "credible" "serious" and "warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review," by the DoJ Inspector General, and confirmed as such, on several occasions, by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and many many others.

So for the benefit of the U.S. media, and other readers, who may find it helpful for this large body of newly-available information to be culled down into more digestible pieces, I will attempt to break down the deposition, a bit, into some of its subject matter-based component parts. I will try to go through the major disclosures from the deposition, one-by-one, in a series of pieces which might help others to further report and/or investigate these breathtaking disclosures from a former FBI official who, following 9/11, listened to and translated wiretap recordings made from 1996 through 2002, in the FBI's counterintelligence and counterterrorism departments, under top-secret clearance.

In this first break-down article, we'll look at the answers given by Edmonds during her deposition in regard to bribery and blackmail of current and former members of the U.S. Congress, including Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased) and an unnamed, currently-serving, married Democratic Congresswoman said to have been video-taped in a Lesbian affair by Turkish agents for blackmail purposes.

In further breakdown articles, we'll look at her disclosures concerning top State and Defense Department officials including Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and, perhaps most notably, the former Deputy Undersecretary of State, Marc Grossman, the third-highest ranking official in the State Department. Also, details on the theft of nuclear weapons technology; disclosures on Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA front company Brewster-Jennings; items related to U.S. knowledge of 9/11 and al-Qaeda prior to September 11, 2001; infiltration of the FBI translation department and more...

On our Green News Report earlier today, we spoke about the fires raging all around us here in Los Angeles County, and beyond. Here's a very interesting, 24 second, time lapse look at one of the closest, courtesy of Eric Spiegelman, which really helps to illustrate how massive these things are right now. [hat-tip Patty Sharaf]...

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IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Fires rage across California as Hurricane Jimena bears down on Baja; Lights out for incandescent lightbulbs; The Summer of Astroturf! ... PLUS: Paving the Long Road to Solar... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (links below): Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash; Is the United States Ready for a Higher Gas Tax?; Obama Administration sues Chicago-area coal-fired power plants; the Risks of climate geo-engineering; WHO Predicts That Within 2 Years, 1/3 Of World Will Have Caught Sickness... PLUS: Four crucial resources that may run out in your lifetime ...

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Guest Blogged by Peter Weiss, Vice President, Center for Constitutional Rights

David Swanson, a tireless analyst and organizer, has taken a leaf from Emile Zola's playbook and written an American "J'accuse". And what an indictment it is. In over 300 pages crammed full of facts, figures, incriminating and self-incriminating quotes, Swanson's Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union makes the following case: Bush-Cheney and their cohorts are guilty of a power grab which has inflicted near mortal wounds on the Constitution; Obama has not done nearly enough to repair the damage; Congress has collapsed, and even the Supreme Court could use some fixing up.

The saving grace of this mauling is that, unlike most other critics who are satisfied to accuse and condemn, Swanson devotes a good part of his book to suggestions for how to set things right...

Because they don't get nearly enough airtime. What we've allowed the world to become. Good luck to us all...

UPDATE: Thanks to BRAD BLOG commenter Rady for this perfect response to the above. Big props to these kids...

And for good (and also very funny) measure, there's this [hat-tip dday over at Hullaballoo]...

A couple of quick updates, and a few notable developments in the status of the Ohio Election Commission (OEC) case between the Republican 2nd-District U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt and her independent '08 (and now, Democratic '10 ) challenger David Krikorian.

This is the case which resulted in the recent stunning deposition of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, as Schmidt has alleged "false statements" by Krikorian when he claimed that she accepted "blood money" from the Turkish Lobby in exchange for opposing a Congressional vote on the "Armenian Genocide" resolution. He says her campaign received more money from that lobby than any other member last year, after which she became the co-chair of the Congressional Turkish Coalition. That, despite the paucity of any actual ethnic Turks in her district.

Krikorian offered a few interesting status updates on the case to The BRAD BLOG, late last week during a phone conversation...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Lanny Davis is an exceptionally talented lawyer, so much so that his close friend, the infamous Watergate mastermind, G. Gordon Liddy, reportedly said that Davis "can defend the indefensible."

After watching Davis's skillful, yet deceptive, Aug. 7, 2009, performance on Democracy Now (video below), I had to admit that this is one of the few Liddy assessments with which I can concur.

It was supposed to be a debate between Davis, who represents a group of Honduran business elites formally operating as the Latin American Business Council of Honduras (CEAL), and Greg Grandin, professor of Latin American history at New York University, pertaining to recent events in which, as reported by The New York Times, "Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military coup after betraying his own kind: a small clique of families that dominates the economy." Zelaya imposed "a 60 percent increase in the minimum wage" in a nation where, per a Business Week article, quoted by Grandin, "two-thirds of its 7.8 million citizens live below the poverty line...The country has one of Latin America's most unequal distributions of wealth."

A well-prepared Davis, seeking to defend the indefensible, had no intention of permitting real debate. His strategy was to dominate the discussion and denigrate any comments that did not square with his distortions as "ideological rants." His dissembling would later be exposed in a fact-check article authored by Grandin, who had trouble getting a word in edgewise during the "debate."

While Davis's slick performance, which began with an unwarranted assault on Amy Goodman's impartiality as a moderator, should be seen, the core issue to be addressed here pertains to the fact that Davis, who served as Special Council to President Bill Clinton, actively supported Sen. Joseph Lieberman's (I-CT) campaign against Ned Lamont and the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, describes himself as a "liberal."

Perhaps. But if so, that only makes ever clearer the difference between Davis's brand of "liberalism" and true progressive values...

From RAW's coverage of Cheney's upcoming "interview" on Fox in which the war criminal continues his public defense/deception on his use of illegal torture against detainees [emphasis ours]:

Just prior to that moment, according to the transcript, Cheney also says: "The fact of the matter is the lawyers in the Justice Department who gave us those opinions had every right to give us the opinions they did. Now you get a new administration and they say, well, we didn't like those opinions, we're going to go investigate those lawyers and perhaps have them disbarred."

I don't believe I've seen any noteworthy discussion about disbarring any torture lawyers in the public domain other other than from VelvetRevolution.us' DisbarTortureLawyers.com campaign [Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is co-founder of VR], and certainly not from the Obama Administration, with which we have no relation...not by a long shot.

So, unless I'm wrong, it seems we (VR) have succeeded in getting Cheney's attention, at least.

Good. Let's hope they're all disbarred for the shameful example they've proven to be to both their country and their profession.

But disbarring Cheney's torture attorney stooges is hardly enough, of course. And no doubt, that's why he's kicking back into full save-his-ass mode this weekend, in light of Holder's announced torture probe following the release of the CIA Inspector General's devasting torture report [PDF] and more CIA docs said coming on Monday. Yes, it's another full media blitz from the Cheneys, as both he and Mary Liz will be making appearances on the Sunday Shows this weekend where Republican Insiders are allowed full, unfettered access to our public airwaves, allowed to lie with impunity, with the assurance that nobody will counter or fact-check them, and where they will even be able to refer to stories they've previously planted in major papers via "anonymous sources" as proof of the case they will make. (See both Greenwald and Wheeler today on how WaPo has now completely discredited itself, Judith Miller-style, once and for all).

So with Cheney defending his stooge lawyers, and on full-throated Orwellian attack yet again against Team Obama's so-far pathetic baby step towards accountability, I'm reminded, for some reason, of the scene from Rambo in which he's been captured, detained, tortured, and shackled, before being allowed by his captors to radio back to his base to prove he's being held by the enemy, but is still alive. With everything absolutely stacked against him, he asks to speak to the man on his own team who, as it turns out, turned traitor to allow him to be captured in the first place, leading to one of the great twists in 80's action film history.

The quick scene follows. Replace "Murdock" with "Cheney," and Rambo with me, and that's a little bit of how I'm feeling this afternoon...

[Message to Secret Service: No, that is not a threat of violence. Thank you.]

I have come to see very little difference between CIA chief Leon Panetta's reported attempts to intercede in a Dept. of Justice investigation into Bush/Cheney Era war crimes and illegal torture by members of the CIA, and the reported attempts of folks like former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and former Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM) to similarly inject themselves into a DoJ investigation (in their case, to force one over phony "voter fraud" allegations and other politically-based investigations of Democrats) leading up to the U.S. Attorney Purge under George W. Bush.

Why should the Director of Intelligence have any say within the DoJ and/or White House administration, over what and who is investigated when crimes have allegedly been carried out?

The fact that he has been attempting to do so --- as reported recently, including as late as today by the New York Times --- seems clearly inappropriate, and should lead to his immediate dismissal or resignation as far as I'm concerned...

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...

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IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Happy Anniversaries --- sort of; The Politics of "Fracking"; How about some weed-killer in your drinking water?... PLUS: Another sad loss for the environment... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (links below): Yummy: Industrial pig farming, salmonella, and the National School Lunch Program; Dairy farmers brace for climate change; Groups target GOP on cap-and-trade; Toyota tops list of Cash for Clunkers winners; Africa wants $67 billion a year in global warming funds; The fallacy of climate activism... PLUS: The sticky problem of how to measure miles per gallon when it's all electric...

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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.

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IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Your "socialist" National Parks; Oceans warm, Taiwan floods, Greece burns; Coming soon: Cash for Refrigerator Clunkers! ... PLUS: McCain goes nuclear... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (links below): U.S. Senators fight fake grassroots "astroturf" campaigns and strengthen clean energy legislation; India's breadbasket faces water shortages; Hospitals May Face Severe Disruption From Swine Flu ... PLUS: French Winemakers Sound Alarm Over Climate Change...

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