For the first time, the Signs Team's most popular and discerning essays have been compiled into book form and thematically organized.

These books contain hard hitting exposés into human nature, propaganda, psyop activities and insights into the world events that shape our future and our understanding of the world.

The six new books, available now at our bookstore, are entitled:

• 911 Conspiracy
• The Human Condition
• The Media
• Religion
• The Work
• U.S. Freedom

Read them today - before the book burning starts!

That Hissing Sound

By Paul Krugman

This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss.

Housing prices move much more slowly than stock prices. There are no Black Mondays, when prices fall 23 percent in a day. In fact, prices often keep rising for a while even after a housing boom goes bust.

So the news that the U.S. housing bubble is over won't come in the form of plunging prices; it will come in the form of falling sales and rising inventory, as sellers try to get prices that buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the process may already have started.

Of course, some people still deny that there's a housing bubble. Let me explain how we know that they're wrong.

One piece of evidence is the sense of frenzy about real estate, which irresistibly brings to mind the stock frenzy of 1999. Even some of the players are the same. The authors of the 1999 best seller "Dow 36,000" are now among the most vocal proponents of the view that there is no housing bubble.

Then there are the numbers. Many bubble deniers point to average prices for the country as a whole, which look worrisome but not totally crazy. When it comes to housing, however, the United States is really two countries, Flatland and the Zoned Zone.

In Flatland, which occupies the middle of the country, it's easy to build houses. When the demand for houses rises, Flatland metropolitan areas, which don't really have traditional downtowns, just sprawl some more. As a result, housing prices are basically determined by the cost of construction. In Flatland, a housing bubble can't even get started.

But in the Zoned Zone, which lies along the coasts, a combination of high population density and land-use restrictions - hence "zoned" - makes it hard to build new houses. So when people become willing to spend more on houses, say because of a fall in mortgage rates, some houses get built, but the prices of existing houses also go up. And if people think that prices will continue to rise, they become willing to spend even more, driving prices still higher, and so on. In other words, the Zoned Zone is prone to housing bubbles.  

And Zoned Zone housing prices, which have risen much faster than the national average, clearly point to a bubble.

In the nation as a whole, housing prices rose about 50 percent between the first quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2005. But that average blends results from Flatland metropolitan areas like Houston and Atlanta, where prices rose 26 and 29 percent respectively, with results from Zoned Zone areas like New York, Miami and San Diego, where prices rose 77, 96 and 118 percent.

Nobody would pay San Diego prices without believing that prices will continue to rise. Rents rose much more slowly than prices: the Bureau of Labor Statistics index of "owners' equivalent rent" rose only 27 percent from late 1999 to late 2004. Business Week reports that by 2004 the cost of renting a house in San Diego was only 40 percent of the cost of owning a similar house - even taking into account low interest rates on mortgages. So it makes sense to buy in San Diego only if you believe that prices will keep rising rapidly, generating big capital gains. That's pretty much the definition of a bubble.

Bubbles end when people stop believing that big capital gains are a sure thing. That's what happened in San Diego at the end of its last housing bubble: after a rapid rise, house prices peaked in 1990. Soon there was a glut of houses on the market, and prices began falling. By 1996, they had declined about 25 percent after adjusting for inflation.

And that's what's happening in San Diego right now, after a rise in house prices that dwarfs the boom of the 1980's. The number of single-family houses and condos on the market has doubled over the past year. "Homes that a year or two ago sold virtually overnight - in many cases triggering bidding wars - are on the market for weeks," reports The Los Angeles Times. The same thing is happening in other formerly hot markets.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has become deeply dependent on the housing bubble. The economic recovery since 2001 has been disappointing in many ways, but it wouldn't have happened at all without soaring spending on residential construction, plus a surge in consumer spending largely based on mortgage refinancing. Did I mention that the personal savings rate has fallen to zero? Now we're starting to hear a hissing sound, as the air begins to leak out of the bubble. And everyone - not just those who own Zoned Zone real estate - should be worried.

Safe as Houses

By Paul Krugman

I used to live next door to a Russian émigré. One day he asked me to explain something that puzzled him about his new country. "This place seems very rich," he said, "but I never see anyone making anything. How does the country earn its money?"

The answer, these days, is that we make a living by selling each other houses. Since December 2000 employment in U.S. manufacturing has fallen 17 percent, but membership in the National Association of Realtors has risen 58 percent.

The housing boom has created jobs in two ways. Many jobs have been created, directly and indirectly, by a surge in housing construction. And rising home values have fueled a simultaneous surge in consumer spending.

Let's start with home building. Between 1980 and 2000, which was before the housing boom, spending on the construction of new homes averaged 4.25 percent of G.D.P. In the most recent quarter, however, the figure was 5.98 percent. That difference is equivalent to about $200 billion a year in additional spending, generating roughly two million extra jobs.

Then there's the jump in house prices. Over the past five years housing prices have grown much faster than the overall cost of living, adding about $5 trillion to the public's wealth. Typical estimates say that each additional dollar of housing wealth adds about 3 cents to annual consumer spending, as families reduce their savings and borrow against their newly valuable homes. So we're talking about an additional $150 billion in spending, and roughly 1.5 million more jobs.

Does anything else in the U.S. economy rival housing as a source of job creation? Well, there's also the military buildup. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that increased military spending over the past four years has created 1.3 million private-sector jobs.

And, yes, there are the Bush tax cuts, which the administration insists are the source of everything good in the economy. And it's true that some portion of the tax cuts, which amounted to $225 billion this year, must have been spent in ways that created jobs. Given reasonable estimates of the effect of tax cuts on spending, however, they were probably a smaller force for job creation than the military buildup, and dwarfed by the housing boom.

So it's an economy driven by real estate. What's wrong with that?

One answer is that it has been a pretty disappointing recovery. Two new reports, one from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and one from the Congressional Budget Office, compare the current economic expansion with other postwar recoveries. By any measure except corporate profits, which have done very well, this one comes up short.

Even the good months would have been considered subpar in the past: the administration hailed last month's job growth as something wondrous to behold, yet there were 68 months during the Clinton years when employment grew faster. Still, the economy is expanding.

But because that expansion depends so much on real estate - without the housing boom, the economic picture would look dismal indeed - you have to wonder how much to trust it.

I've written before about the reasons to believe that current house prices in much of the country represent a bubble. When that bubble begins to deflate, so will housing-related employment.

Beyond that, there's the disturbing point that we're paying for the housing boom (and the military buildup and tax cuts) with money borrowed from foreigners.

Now, any economics textbook will tell you that it's fine to borrow from abroad if the money is used to expand the economy's productive capacity. When 19th-century America borrowed from Europe to build railroads, it was also enhancing its ability to repay its debts later. But we aren't borrowing to build productive capacity. As a share of G.D.P., investment other than housing construction is below its average between 1980 and 2000, and way below its level at the end of the 1990's.

In other words, a fuller answer to my former neighbor would be that these days, Americans make a living selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from the Chinese. Somehow, that doesn't seem like a sustainable lifestyle.  

How solid, then, is America's economic recovery? The British have a phrase that applies: "safe as houses." Our economy is as safe as houses. Unfortunately, given current prices and our dependence on foreign lenders, houses aren't safe at all.

Pop Goes the Weasel

Greenspan and the Housing Bubble

By Mike Whitney

It's strange that Alan Greenspan hasn't been blamed for the housing bubble. After all, he set the "easy money" policies that put the whole thing in motion and he's the one who should be held responsible when it goes up in smoke.

Let me explain.

Most people expect the Federal Reserve to lower rates when business is flagging to stimulate the economy by making loans more available for commerce, home buying, recreational spending etc. But, just as higher rates can stop the economy in its tracks by making money too expensive to borrow, so too, lower rates can have equally adverse consequences.

For example, when Greenspan lowered rates to 1% in 2002 he knew that money would surge into the economy and create the appearance that everything was hunky-dory. Predictably, the economy sputtered along from the economic activity generated by the housing boom and from the 30% increase in government spending.

But, what else did Greenspan's lower rates achieve?

Well, they achieved the results for which they were designed; they kept the economy humming along while Bush dragged the country to war, they kept the American people asleep while $400 billion per year in Bush tax cuts were siphoned from the US Treasury, and they generated what the "The Economist" calls this "the biggest bubble in history"; the housing bubble.

All of these were purely political choices made at the Federal Reserve under the auspices of Fed-chairman Greenspan.

Thanks, Alan.

Now, of course, Greenspan has signaled that the Happy Days are over and that the Fed will continue to ratchet up rates to strengthen the dollar. So far, the Fed has raised rates 10 times in the last 14 months. This eventually will strain the resources of all the poor slobs who took out ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) trusting is the soundness of the system. They will inevitably see their monthly payments go through the roof.

…The Fed seduces the public with cheap money, so that credit spending increases and, then, "presto", millions of Americans slip inexorably into indentured servitude.

Isn't this what's happening right now?

The American public is presently mortgaged up to the hilt with most of their personal wealth invested in their homes and with the highest level of personal debt in any period since the Great Depression.

Not good.

Especially when we consider that the current bubble is "larger than the global stock market bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stock market bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP)." Or, when we consider that "over the past four years, consumer spending and residential construction have together accounted for 90% of the total growth in GDP." (The Economist")

Or, when we consider that 2 out of every 5 jobs in America are now related to construction. One blip in the housing market and we'll all be hawking pencils on the street corner.

Regrettably, this Greenspan-generated pyramid scheme is headed for the dumpster. The fundamentals for securing a loan have all been abandoned; putting traditionally unqualified applicants in a position to buy a home. 42% of all new home buyers cannot even come up with a few thousand dollars for a down payment. Equally disturbing is the fact that "nearly one third of all new mortgages this year call for interest-only payments (in California, it's almost half)" (NY Times)"

The Fed's "cheap money" policy has spawned a "creative financing" monster and the speculation in the housing market has grown accordingly. A full 36% of homes are bought either for investment or as second homes; "the very definition of a financial bubble." (Economist)

"Speculation"? Not according to Colonel Greenspan. According to him, it's just a bit of "froth" in the market.

"Froth"? The biggest bubble in history!?!

Of course, none of this even vaguely resembles the activities of a "free market". The market is not free when a privately owned banking system like the Federal Reserve sets the prime rate according to its own political-economic agenda.

Most people have no idea to what extent Greenspan has abandoned his principles to carry out his task as the country's foremost class-warrior. Earlier in his career, Greenspan proclaimed, "Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth".

Hmmmmm?

That, of course, was when deficits were used to pay for exorbitant social programs, like Welfare or Medicaid that benefited the broader American public. Greenspan has revised his thinking now that the deficits are a means for lining the pockets of his rich constituents.

Greenspan fully grasps the danger of his current strategy of flooding the market with, what he once called, "easy money". As he noted in an article he wrote in 1967 "Gold and Economic Freedom":

"After a mild business contraction in 1927 the fed decided the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market -- triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in breaking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed."

Let's see if we got that right?

"The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economytriggered a fantastic speculative boom.which collapsed the American economy".

Sound familiar?

…Greenspan has worked exclusively to serve the interests of American elites. He has helped shape the policies on taxation, minimum wage and Social Security that have enriched the wealthy and battered the middle class. His lowered interest rates have perilously expanded credit and produced the "largest speculative market of all time". Whatever economic calamity befalls the American people certainly bears his imprimatur.  

The nation now faces the end of the Greenspan epoch and the very real prospect of an economic tidal wave greater than 1929. The bubble was manufactured by Greenspan and his colleagues at the Fed to swindle millions of working-class Americans out of their life-savings and to facilitate the greatest transferal of wealth in American history.

The lesson of the housing bubble is simple: whenever monetary policy is put into the hands of privately owned institutions like the Federal Reserve, those policies will invariably reflect the narrow interests of the men who own them and the members of their class.

That's why Thomas Jefferson warned, "Banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies."

He undoubtedly had the Federal Reserve in mind.

Actions speak. Words lie. Action follows motive. Motivation is a microscope. You must think like a spook in order to understand the totality of these crimes. This report will challenge you to focus like a genius intelligence operative, to look a few moves ahead...and behind.

We've been caught in a web of deceit, so intricate, so devious, so arrogant and dark that there may actually be no escape. If "we the people" don't make those responsible for Treasongate pay for their sins against this country, we deserve everything they've got planned for us down the road to perdition.

ANATOMY OF THE ALLEGED "SMEAR CAMPAIGN"

For the last two years, we've all heard about "the smear campaign" hurled upon Joe Wilson by the Bush administration to punish him for writing the New York Times oped concerning the fake Niger documents. Revenge and political payback is the motivation universally attributed to the Bush syndicate.

It's bullshit. Joe Wilson was not smeared. He went from relative obscurity to national fame, book deals, talk show circuit, hero status accepting, freedom fighting, whistleblowing, saintly coronation. None of it is deserved.

Joe Wilson is in cahoots with the Bush Administration along with David Corn, Bob Novak and Valerie Plame Wilson, a cast of spooks who have only just been outed with the writing of this article. They've carefully scripted this entire affair to sield themselves from prosecution for monolithic treasons against US citizens and our military. Treasongate, Rovegate, Leakgate, whatever you want to call it, is, in reality, an intricate version of hide and seek where the "perpetraitors" have been controlling both sides of the game.

Regardless of the crimes committed by this and past administrations, as long as their spin can divide the people on political lines, justice, true justice, will never be served. If the crime can be given a political spin, the perps can literally get away with any crime, even Treason. They've carefully crafted both sides of this national debate to give both liberal and conservative pundits enough ammunition to keep a heated firefight going in the media. The smokescreen generated by this firefight has diverted our attention from examining:

1. The controlling laws applicable to these facts.

2. The motivations of the Bush administration, Joe Wilson and his wife, and the two news villains responsible for initiating this ruse; Bob Novak, and David Corn.

3. The damage to our national security caused by the leaking of Plame's name and front company (Brewster Jennings & Associates) as well as the damage caused by other leaks which show a Bush Administration Modus Operandi (MO) of outing intelligence assets for nefarious purposes.

Their media ruse has, so far, been a complete success. Not one major publication has examined the controlling laws, Espionage statutes found in 18 USC 793 and 794. They've steered the country away from analyzing Plame's outing as espionage by repeating ad nauseam that the
motivation for the leak was "political payback." This has enabled them to divide and conquer "we the people" along party lines.

Political payback can be spun, espionage cannot. This is why Joe Wilson, David Corn and all of the liberal media have steered wide of calling this leak exactly what it is, Treason:

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, JOSEPH WILSON, ROBERT NOVAK, DAVID CORN,VALERIE PLAME ET ALS HAVE CONSPIRED TO EXPOSE NETWORKS OF GENUINE INTELLIGENCE AGENTS AND THEIR SOURCES WHO WERE CLOSING IN ON TREASONOUS ACTS PERPETRATED BY THE WHITE HOUSE TO FURTHER AN INSIDIOUS AGENDA OF EMPIRE EXPANSION THROUGH STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM DESIGNED TO CREATE A THIRST FOR REVENGE AND JUSTICE IN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

The meticulous outing of Plame and the media circus that ensued was designed as a smokescreen to cloud the truth and the law while they exposed CIA networks operating to stop WMD proliferation. Genuine agents and sources were left out in the cold while targets were warned and allowed to escape.

This is not easy to comprehend. So it's imperative to suspend judgment while you examine this. You must be an impartial juror. Listen objectively to the facts. Analyze the application of those facts to the law. Consider the motives of those involved and then look for MO to back it up.

WHAT LAWS ARE INVOLVED AND WHAT ARE THE PENALTIES?

The one law everybody has heard of regarding this matter is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (IIPA). In my two part series, TREASONGATE: The Controlling Law

From Kaminsky's blog :

"Meeting Joe Wilson (Part 1 of 2)

On Thursday night, the venerable and most definitely left-leaning Harvard Book Store held a lecture/question and answer session/book signing event with Ambassador Joseph Wilson...

First of all, Ambassador Wilson has every confidence in the dedication and prosecutorial skills of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

However, Wilson concedes a point many of the Administration's defenders make: it will be extremely hard to convict anyone of violating the most serious (and most often discussed) of the applicable laws, namely the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (United States Code, Title 50, Sections 421-426). Rather, Wilson thought that a prosecutor wanting a winnable case would have to settle for the weaker charge of disclosure of classified information (United States Code, Title 18, Section 798)...While technically disclosure of classified information can be a felony carrying the same maximum penalty of a fine and 10
years imprisonment as violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, it apparently can also be prosecuted as a misdemeanor charge, and this is what Wilson thought likely..."

Hey Joe, you're quick on your feet whipping out that 18 USC 798 softball law along with the IIPA, so why don't you flip a few sections back to 793 and 794?

Wilson might answer, "Well Spook, thing is, this was a smear, I tell ya. I was shmeered, Spook. They shmeered me, man. They wanted to hurt me and my CIA wife real bad because I'm an award winning courageous patriot who stood up to their forgeries and told the world from the beacon of the New York Times. It's not espionage. It's a smear campaign. I don’t think we really need to distract the population with the Espionage act Spook, do we?"

Well, Joe, I think we do need to distract the population. I mean, after all, you told David Corn that one of our "star" intelligence assets was outed thereby crippling many operations, scattering agents to the four winds and possibly the grim reaper's door, crushing national security.

"This is the stuff of Aldrich Ames".

Sorry Joe, but motive, while an excellent tool of analysis, is irrelevant to the determination of whether the Espionage laws were broken. The law doesn't give a rats ass what the Bush administration's motive was for breaking the law.

The law does not provide a motive defense. They can tell the judge and jury at trial, "Yeah, so we outed her network, but we did it to shmeer Joe Wilson, not to cause damage to national security." But the cold hard fact remains,18 USC 794 doesn't care. There's no "motive" requirement. Sorry Joe, this is treason. You said it yourself, "This is the stuff of Aldrich Ames". What an amazing quote.

The cold, made of steel, unbendable law, 18 USC 794, is the reason Wilson has been guiding American attention spans to the IIPA. As long as we were focused on the IIPA, convictions would be very hard to come by.

Wilson was running protection.

Back to Kaminsky's report on Wilson's book signing:

"Wilson offered two reasons for his pessimism:

1. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act explicitly says that it is a valid defense versus prosecution to claim an operative's identity has previously been revealed...

It is clear that the Administration's defenders intend to use this defense...

But anyways, when all is said and done, this isn't the main reason why Ambassador Wilson is pessimistic about the prospects of a successful prosecution under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Instead, his main reason is:

1. Right at its outset, the Act qualifies that disclosing a covert operative's identity is illegal only if it is done intentionally and in the knowledge that the government is still actively maintaining a cover for operative...

Wilson said he believed that anyone accused under the Act thus could successfully mount the defense that he or she knew only that Valerie Plame was employed by the CIA and not that the CIA actively maintained a cover (or covers) for her as a operative in the Clandestine Service who was active in the last 5 years."

Look at Wilson go. He's got that spin down pat. On the one hand, he's literally crying in public over the outing of his CIA wife, "If I could give you back your anonymity....", while on the other hand, he creates the Bush admin defense all in one gasp of legal puke. He exhibits a knowledge of various US Code as well as a perfect analysis of the IIPA, while steering the entire country away from the controlling law, 18 USC 794 and 793.

Have a look at Joe Wilson's book, "The Politics of Truth", and look for any mention of 18 USC 793 or 794. It's not there.

His books starts with a section called, "Anatomy Of A Smear":

"...a vindictive government has used the press in order to try to destroy an opponent." (pg. 2)

The Plame leak only made the Bush administration appear guilty as sin regarding the Niger documents and the fraudulent reasons for going to war, and I submit to you that this is exactly what the Bush administration and its operatives intended. The decision to go to war
was a political issue, and the country is divided along party lines, so it's safe for them to risk the appearance of guilt by "outing" Wilson's wife and looking guilty as long as Wilson, Corn and everybody else repeats the mantra that it was done for revenge, political payback, etc. But the true motivation was to stop the agents she was working with from gathering evidence of mass murder; past present and future.

To smear Wilson is ridiculous considering the possible penalty for Treason, and to smear him knowing it makes you look guilty of fixing the intelligence is even more insane unless that's exactly what you were trying to do...look insane.

To out Plame and smear Wilson as a smokescreen for a greater sin, a greater Treason, a Treason of past and future murder of innocent citizens...now that is a motivation that warranted risking their violation of 18 USC 794.

Their gambit was centered on Wilson controlling the media circus, steering everybody towards the IIPA, and away from 18 USC 794.

If Wilson, cast in the starring role as the husband filled with anger for the damage and danger put on his wife, was talking about the IIPA, well then, who could argue with him? Who had more motivation for wanting the leakers put away than Joe Wilson?

Nobody,...if you believe this crap.

And Joe Wilson not only took the baton from David Corn regarding the IIPA, but he further protected the Bush leakers even from prosecution under that irrelevant law by stating his opinion that convictions were unlikely due to the "wiggle room" written into the IIPA.

Mr. Wilson, you brought up the name Aldrich Ames, so why don't you bring up the law he was convicted under? In the two plus years this script (and that is exactly what he's reading from) has been played out, you haven't mentioned the controlling law, 18 USC 794 and 793. You haven't called for the people responsible for outing your wife and her entire CIA network to be thrown in jail with Aldrich Ames for life. No, instead you've conspired to fool the country into burying its head in your smokescreen.

Chris Matthews told Joe Wilson that Karl Rove said, "Wilson's wife is fair game."

From Wilson's book, page 1:

" ' Wilson's wife is fair game.' Those are fighting words for any man..."

And you fight back with the lame Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Wilson? Your actions don't back up your words. Your motivation must be lacking since you could have responded in kind with your own fighting words. Had you responded as follows, perhaps we could believe you, Joe Wilson. Here's what you should have said:

"The people who outed my wife are traitors, no different than Aldrich
Ames who was convicted under 18 USC 794. They deserve to be put away for life in the same cell block for Treason."

But you didn't say that Mr. Wilson. And if I'm wrong about you and your wife, let's see you start saying it. Get in your Jaguar and ride, bang the drums for Treason, Treason that exposed your wife endangering her life and the lives of her network. Your family was cast in the spotlight by the Bush administration who exposed your loved ones to dangerous covert agents the world over. Why aren't you demanding justice and prosecutions under 18 USC 794(b) for such a dastardly deed?

Wilson's book references the IIPA on pages; xxxviii-xxxix, xl, 4, 346, 349, 350-351, 358-360, 384-385, 388, 395-396, and 445. Do you know how many times 18 USC 793 and 794 are mentioned? None, nada, zero. Why do you think that is? Because Wilson never heard of these laws? No. This CIA couple know the law inside out. And they know the carnage that outing her caused to the operations and operatives she was overseeing, people that trusted her whose lives were in her hands.

From page 446 of Wilson's book:

"We worry about our personal security, but there is little we can do."

But nobody dared publish a photo of Plame...until she posed with her husband for the January '94 issue of Vanity Fair. Wasn't it bad enough that her name got out, that her front company was exposed? Why would she follow through by mugging for the camera in Vanity Fair? Isn't that just putting her in more jeopardy? Isn't that making it even easier for enemy agents both here and in foreign lands to reconcile her likeness?

You'd think, out of respect for her fellow agents she'd lay low and stay out of the spotlight, but "Valerie was always a star in her profession". (page 446)

Now more than ever.

It's open season on the NOCS she supervised, the NOCS out there in the field gathering evidence on who?

Who do you think?

From page 447 of Wilson's book:

"We had assumed that on the day the Novak article appeared, every intelligence office in Washington, and probably all those around the world, were running Valerie's name through their databases. Foreign intelligence services would not attack us, but they might as well
threaten any contacts Valerie might have made in their countries, and they would certainly be eager to unearth operations she might have been involved in.

International terrorist organizations were a different story, however. There was a history of international terrorists attacking exposed officers."

So they go on the cover of Vanity Fair like this was a bad episode of Jane Bond.

And Wilson goes on the Daily Show for jokes with Jon Stewart. From page 358:

"Jon was so humorous that I found myself laughing heartily right along with the audience..."

From page 384:

"An officer had been exposed, an act that threatened many intelligence professionals."

It's hilarious, isn't it, Mr. Wilson?

In "The CIA at War", by Ronald Kessler, the Vanity Fair photo was discussed on pages 344-345:

"Their claims to have been victimized by the Bush white house were destroyed when they agreed to be photographed sitting in their Jaguar for the January issue of Vanity Fair. Wilson claimed that the fact that his forty-year old wife wore sunglasses and a scarf disguised her. But anyone she dealt with overseas could clearly recognize her..."

" 'They risked undermining any possible prosecution by their public statements and appearances,' said John L. Martin who, as Chief of the Justice Department's counterespionage section, was in charge of supervising leak investigations. 'The scarf and the sunglasses worn in the Vanity Fair picture was a sham.' "

"In fact, the CIA never would have given permission to appear in a photograph. No doubt because of that, she never asked. Agency officials were stunned."

"...Not only had Wilson and Plame subverted their own posturing as victims of the Bush White House, they had undermined the integrity of the CIA's clandestine program to collect intelligence using covert officers. If a CIA officer took her duty to remain in a clandestine
role so lightly it could make agents leery of risking their lives to provide intelligence to other CIA officers."

Wilson and Plame behaved as if they were trying to make the Bush administration's case for a defense to the IIPA. By showing up in public as they have done, they lend credence to the Bush talking points which argue that Plame's status at the CIA was not covert and that blowing her cover was no big deal. Their gambit was based on the arrogant self belief they could trick the nation into believing its laws against espionage don't exist.

Under 18 USC 794, it doesn't matter if she was covert, it only matters whether her name and position were "related to the public defense". Don't forget that State Department memo though. The paragraph her name appeared in was marked "(S)" for secret, and according to a Bush Executive order, that meant her name and job were classified info. The memo is prima facie proof of her status.

The Instpundit (December 3rd, 2003) has some interesting insights about the actions of Plame/Wilson:

"OKAY, I'M OFFICIALLY PRONOUNCING THE PLAME SCANDAL BOGUS:

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson has been quite protective of his wife, Valerie Plame, in the weeks since her cover as a CIA operative was blown.

'My wife has made it very clear that -- she has authorized me to say this -- she would rather chop off her right arm than say anything to the press and she will not allow herself to be photographed,' he declared in October on 'Meet the Press'.

But that was before Vanity Fair came calling.

The January issue features a two-page photo of Wilson and the woman the magazine calls 'the most famous female spy in America,' a 'slim 40-year-old with white-blond hair and a big, bright smile.' They are sitting in their Jaguar...

Sorry -- if you're really an undercover spy, and really worried about national security, you don't do this sort of thing...

Serious people don't do self-promoting spreads in Vanity Fair where important questions of national security are involved...Not knowing the underlying facts, I have to make my judgment by the behavior of the parties. And judging from that, the scandal is bogus, and Wilson is a self-promoter who can't be trusted. That's my judgment on this matter. Yours, of course, may vary. But if you see Wilson as anything other than a cheesy opportunist, well, then yours really varies...."

Mine really does vary, I see him as a facilitator of Treason, the ringleader on an intricate plot to both expose Plame's WMD network and to also protect her and the Bush administration from serious legal scrutiny of their collective Treason.

The Vanity Fair publicity, the book deal, the Daily Show appearance, the awards he's accepted...all of it was designed by these spooks to provide cover under the IIPA to distract those honest, conservative leaning citizens and media personnel, who might have been sympathetic to Plame being exposed.

The actions of Wilson, despite his tough words, have been calculated to divide the left and the right. You have to give these spooks credit for bravado and hutzpa.

More from Instapundit:

"Tom Maguire says I told you so. He also notes that saying that Wilson is bogus isn't quite the same as saying that the scandal is bogus. I guess that's right, in theory. But the claim that Plame was endangered is what drove this scandal, and it came from Wilson, who seems to be, well, bogus... I suppose it's still theoretically possible that somebody in the White House deliberately and illegally outed Plame as a way of getting revenge on Wilson for his dumb -- and deeply unprofessional -- oped about his "mission" to Niger. But if you assume that nothing that Wilson says can be relied on because he's a self-promoter who'll stretch a fact to get attention, which seems extremely plausible, then you're not left with much evidence. And the Wilson/Plame couple certainly isn't acting like Plame's life is in danger. They're acting like opportunists milking their 15 minutes and hoping for a lucrative book contract. So pardon me if I conclude that their actions speak louder than Wilson's words..."

Wilson and Plame engaged in a course of action that was designed to discredit the investigation.

Are you starting to get the picture?

THE TREASON OF CORN

Corn was the first person to put the IIPA in the public eye. David Corn was now on my radar. I examined Wilson's book and found out, for the first time, that David Corn has been a big player in Treasongate. From The Politics of Truth, page 4:

"David Corn, from The Nation magazine, had alerted me and later written the first article pointing out that the disclosure by way of the Novak article might have violated the 1982 IIPA. But whether illegal or not, it was still an unwelcome intrusion into my wife's private life..."

So David Corn was the first pawn used to disseminate the spin that the IIPA was the controlling law. And look at Wilson sew the subtle innuendo "whether it was illegal or not." On page 349, Wilson explains Corn's purpose:

"Corn then published a detailed exploration of the law to ensure that other journalists, as well as regular readers of The Nation, understood all of the legalities involved."

That's some damning evidence right there. Because we know that statement is a bold faced lie carefully designed to continue the illusion that the IIPA was the controlling law.

ALL OF THE LEGALITIES INVOLVED? "ALL"???

There’s more to Corn and The Nation than meets the eye. "Nobody owns The Nation" says the commercial being aired on Air America Radio. Bullshit.

The Nation also held a special function to present Joe Wilson with the first Ron Ridenhour award for Truth-Telling. It's just so damn transparent.

Clifford May's article, "Who Exposed Secret Agent Plame?" published in National Review online, July 15th 2005, makes a strong case that, while Novak was the first person to expose "Wilson's wife", Corn is actually the journalist responsible for first publishing Plame's undercover/covert status:

"This just in: Bob Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA.

Read— or reread — his column from July 14, 2003. All Novak reports is that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson is 'an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction'...

So if Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was a secret agent, who did? The evidence strongly suggests it was none other than Joe Wilson himself. Let me walk you through the steps that lead to this conclusion.

The first reference to Plame being a secret agent appears in The Nation, in an article by David Corn published July 16, 2003, just two days after Novak’s column appeared. It carried this lead: 'Did Bush officials blow the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security — and break the law — in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?'

Since Novak did not report that Plame was 'working covertly' how did Corn know that’s what she had been doing?

Corn does not tell his readers and he has responded to a query from me only by pointing out that he was asking a question, not making a 'statement of fact.' But in the article, he asserts that Novak 'outed' Plame 'as an undercover CIA officer.' Again, Novak did not do that.
Rather, it is Corn who is, apparently for the first time, 'outing' Plame’s 'undercover' status.

Corn follows that assertion with a quote from Wilson saying, 'I will not answer questions about my wife.' Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn’s questions about his wife — after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background? Read the rest of Corn’s piece and it’s difficult to believe anything else. Corn names no other sources for the information he provides — and he provides much more information than Novak revealed...

On what basis could Corn 'assume' that Plame was not only working covertly but was actually a 'top-secret' operative? And where did Corn get the idea that Plame had been 'outed' in order to punish Wilson? That is not suggested by anything in the Novak column...

The likely answer: The allegation that someone in the administration leaked to Novak as a way to punish Wilson was made by Wilson — to Corn. But Corn, rather than quote Wilson, puts the idea forward as his own.

Corn’s article then goes on to provide specific details about Plame’s undercover work, her 'dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material.' But how does Corn know about that? From what source could he have learned it?"

Don't misinterpret the meaning of Corn's involvement. Novak is not off the hook, he's responsible under 18 USC 794(b) for intentionally communicating information, related to the public defense, to the enemy, in a time of war, and he's also guilty of violating 18 USC 794(c) for "conspiracy" to violate 18 USC 794(b), so he's in big trouble.

Corn's July 16th report, wherein he outed Plame's status as an "undercover CIA officer", puts him on the hook for violation of 18 USC 794(b) and (c) as well, since Plame's "status", that of "undercover CIA officer", was first published by Corn, not Novak.

Corn was the media ringleader on the left. Novak held that title on the right. And together they pulled the wool over the eyes of the Nation.

Moreover, it's no defense under 18 USC 793 and 794 that the perp have knowledge that the information communicated was officially classified as being "Secret" as long as the information was "related to the public defense" and was intentionally communicated to the enemy, in a time of war.

Also, federal case law, particularly US v. Morison, holds that First Amendment "freedom of the press" arguments are not a defense for violators of the Espionage statutes, 793 and 794. Corn and Novak are both guilty of Treason, if not directly under 794(b), indirectly, under 794(c) for conspiracy.

Clifford May raised another interesting question:

"Corn concludes that Plame’s career 'has been destroyed by the Bush administration.' And here he does, finally, quote Wilson directly. Wilson says: 'Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.'

Corn has assured us several times that Wilson refused to answer
questions about his wife, refused to confirm or deny that she worked for the CIA, refused to acknowledge whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee. But he is willing to say on the record that 'naming her this way' was an act of treachery? That’s not talking about his wife? That’s not providing confirmation? There is only one way to interpret this: Wilson did indeed talk about his wife, her work as a secret agent, and other matters to Corn (and perhaps others?) on a confidential basis.

If Wilson did tell Corn that his wife was an undercover agent, did he commit a crime? I don’t claim to know. But the charge that someone committed a crime by naming Plame as a covert agent was also made by Corn, apparently for the first time, in this same article. No doubt, the independent prosecutor and the grand jury will sort it out."

It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. Who will turn (has turned?) State's evidence first, second, third?

Valerie Plame will be the toughest conviction in this treason conspiracy. I suppose a creative prosecutor, if he establishes that Plame's likeness was information related to the public defense, could successfully prosecute her for transmitting that information to the enemy by agreeing to be photographed for the cover of Vanity Fair. If Fitzgerald were to bring witnesses from the CIA to testify that they never would have given her permission to be photographed for the cover of a major magazine, and those witnesses could bring evidence that her likeness "might be used", or was used, by the enemy, she could be prosecuted under 18 USC 793 and 794(b) and (c).

THE MODUS OPERANDI OF PRIOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION LEAKS

Daithí Mac Lochlainn of Melbourne Indymedia; first alerted me to the Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan leak situation. Daithi is organizing a petition to gather support insisting that the Government investigate this incredible treason.

Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com; has written a very interesting report on that leak: Who 'Outed' Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan?:

"Khan, dubbed a 'computer geek' on account of his technical prowess, functioned as a one-man information hub for Al Qaeda, coordinating and forwarding messages between the top leadership and Bin Laden's foot-soldiers worldwide. Once captured, Khan 'flipped' and agreed to cooperate. CIA interrogators had him sending emails to his former confederates all day Sunday and Monday of last week, and getting back encrypted replies. On Monday morning, however, the Times came out with its story, naming Khan and reporting his disclosures as the real basis of the code orange security alerts issued by Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge. The Times cited both Pakistani and U.S. government officials.

It is hard to know what to make of this. Either these unidentified officials had certain knowledge that Bin Laden's New York Times subscription had run out, or else someone deliberately sabotaged a top secret anti-terrorist operation while it was in progress.

As is so often the case with this administration, one is faced with the question: is it incompetence, or is it treason?"

It's treason. Stop saying it's incompetence. Don't be naive. They hijacked the Executive Branch. They're cold, calculated, evil geniuses.

Antiwar.com:

" '[CNN's Wolf] Blitzer then revealed that he had discussed the Khan case with U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on background. He reported that she had admitted that the Bush administration had in fact revealed Khan's name to the press. She said she did not know if Khan was a double agent working for the Pakistani government.'

What a profoundly weird remark...

What I'd like to know, however, is who is working as a double agent inside our own government? Because someone has sure sabotaged the hunt for Bin Laden and his cohorts just as effectively as if they'd been working for the Islamists."