Rove admits administration didn't do everything it could to prevent 9/11?

[Crankie Avalon]

Warrantless wiretaps and 9/11: A tacit admission from Karl Rove

Karl Rove headlined a fundraiser for Ken Blackwell in Toledo, Ohio, this week -- let's just call it a big favor returned -- and he used the opportunity to scare up the terror vote by railing against a U.S. District Court's injunction against the president's warrantless wiretapping program.

As the Associated Press reports, "Rove said the government should be free to listen if al-Qaida is calling someone within the U.S. 'Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome.'"

Just one problem here. Under at least one of the Bush administration's legal theories, George W. Bush "could have" ordered warrantless wiretapping before 9/11 if he'd had any interest in doing so.

SNIP

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/

[helderheid]

1. ermm... they WERE spying before 9/11/01. Why DIDN'T they stop it?

Edited to add links

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa25.pdf

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/48/16920

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006539.php

http://mediamatters.org/items/200601250010

[Hugin]

2. Good point... Wasn't there also a PDB telling who to listen to?

Summarily ignored.

[helderheid]

3. I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the Unite

United States."

[Hugin]

4. Pretty loud and clear... I'd say!

Do they need someone to draw a frigging PICTURE!

[helderheid]

5. Inept at the very least - criminal at worst

[mod mom]

6. Ah Rove back in Lucas county, although without his stooges Tom Noe &

his Chair of the Lucas County BOE wife. Here's a little recap for any newbies who might have missed how the Noes helped bu$h/cheney '04 (besides the money laundering-of course) From Blackwell's own office-an investigation:

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/lucas.htm


This report includes the fact that REPUBLICAN VOLUNTEERS were allowed UNSUPERVISED ACCESS to UNSECURED BALLOTS prior to the election, as well as this list:

*failure to maintain ballot security
*Inability to implement and maintain a trackable system for voter ballot reconciliation .
*failure to prepare and develop a plan for the processing of the voluminous amount of voter registration forms received.
*issuance and acceptance of incorrect absentee ballot forms.
*manipulation of the process involving the 3% recount.
*disjointed implementation of the Directive regarding the removal of Nader and Camejo from the ballot .
*failure to properly issue hospital ballots in accordance with statutory requirements.
*failure to maintain the security of poll books during the official canvass
*failure to examine campaign finance reports in a timely manner.
*failure to guard and protect public documents.
*failure to guard and protect public documents ....etc.


-One-half of the ballots printed and used in the 2004 general election in Lucas county were stored in an open space on the third floor of the county warehouse with no security measures in place.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation on Lucas County BOE page 4



-Live ballots were delivered to polling locations a week in advance of the election. Although the ballots were retrieved, one board employee who was assigned to the warehouse informed the SOS staff that he did not believe all the ballots were successfully retrieved.
SOURCE; SOS Investigation, page 5



-Lucas County BOE failed to record or retrieve ballot stub numbers of absentee voters’ ballots as required by statute OH Revised Code 3505.23. It was reported by an elector that her mother had received not one, but three absentee voter ballots. There was no way to determine if similar incidents occurred and if so how many.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation, page 7




-October 4, 2004 was filing deadline for new voter registrations. At that point there were approximately 20,000 unprocessed voter registration applications with less than a month before the election. One mail tray containing 4,500-7,000 (estimates vary) unprocessed “Project Voter” registrations were discovered on or about October 18,2004.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation pg 10

***Of interest here is information obtained from the SOS website entitled ElectionsVoter/results 2003 and 2004 which show the # of registered voters number change from ‘03-’04 was 11,947 in Lucas County: reg voters 2003 in Lucas=288,190 ; registered voter in 2004=300,137.



-In late September or early October an employee of the Ohio Republican Party contacted Sam Thurber (*involved with politician wife Maggie Thurber in Noe scandal.) wanting to inspect and have copies made of all recently returned voter registrations, Ohio Republican Party offered to furnish volunteers to assist with copying postcards. No one at the Lucas County BOE can confirm that anyone was assigned to supervise Republican volunteers. On their second day of copying, a BOE employee, Jennifer Bernath, Democratic Booth Official) saw republican party volunteers peeling off the yellow return stickers applied by the post office. (Violation of RC 149.43 (B) (I) , and agruably a violation of 149.351.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation, pgs 18-19

(*Among those whose donations have caught the attention of investigators are:

City Councilman Betty Shultz; former state representative Sally Perz, her husband, Joe, and her daughter, Allison; former county elections director Joe Kidd; county Auditor Larry Kaczala and his wife, Gina; County Commissioner Maggie Thurber and her husband, Sam; and two of Mr. Noe’s co-workers at Vintage Coins and Collectibles, partner Tim Lapointe and executive assistant Susan Metzger. Mr. Lapointe’s wife, Linda, also donated.

All of the above gave the campaign $2,000 except the Thurbers; each of them gave $1,950 to the campaign. The $23,900 in donations were made between Oct. 30 and Nov. 5, 2003.

Path of donations At issue is whether Mr. Noe gave people money in order for them to give to the Bush campaign, allowing Mr. Noe to exceed federal spending limits, law-enforcement sources said.
Source:
Toledo Blade - FBI Raids GOP Donor Noe's Condo
Friday, April 29, 2005 )




-The Swanton 3 poll book turned up missing and has never been recovered.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation pg 16

[Hugin]

12. So, to sum it all up in one word... Failure.

Pretty much sums up the past 6 or 7 years as well.

[rock]

7. Did they do anything to prevent it?

Apparently not. Did they try? If so, how?

[Ezlivin]

8. Hell, they had a couple of the hijackers training at Pensacola N.A.S.

And what's also interesting is the ORIGINAL sources for the link I provide have been SCRUBBED from the web.

Hmmmm. Here's one source and the other source.

Also see: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/WhitewashingProtection_of__0818.html

[helderheid]

9. excellent find!!

:yourock:

[AndyA]

10. Rove is just making excuses for the ineptness of this administration.

Perhaps they could have stopped 9/11 IF they'd been able to wiretap.
And we know they were prior to 9/11.

Perhaps they could have stopped 9/11 IF they'd paid attention to the PDB that put them on notice about a threat to America.
But they didn't, Bush was on a(nother) vacation.

Perhaps if we'd had a responsible President and administration in place, for instance, Al Gore, the warnings would not have been ignored and the lives of thousands of Americans lost on 9/11 and in the war in Iraq since then would have been spared.
But we'll never know because the election was stolen.

If the Congress in our country were doing their job, we'd likely have several investigations going on as we speak. No doubt impeachment hearings would also be underway. A decent and responsible Congress would realize that party loyalty or no, they have an obligation to protect the Constitution, and if that means investigating and/or impeaching one of their own, so be it.

You'd almost think they didn't know how to go about an investigation and impeachment, but of course we know that they do because of Bill Clinton. The greatest hypocrisy of all is the fact that the Congress went after Bill Clinton so aggressively over a personal issue, and they are doing nothing about Bush, who has violated our laws, our rights, and the Constitution.

EVERY LAST ONE OF OUR CONGRESS MEMBERS WHO HAVE NOT DISCUSSED INVESTIGATIONS AND IMPEACHMENT SHOULD BE KICKED OUT OF OFFICE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. THEY ARE NOT DOING THEIR JOBS, AND THEY ARE COMPLICIT IN STANDING BY AND ALLOWING THESE ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES TO TAKE PLACE.

[helderheid]

11. WOOT!

:applause: