White House Party Crashers May Face Criminal Charges (PHOTOS)

White House Party Crashers Met President, May Face Criminal Charges (PHOTOS)

Huffington Post |  Alex Leo & Alexander Belenky
First Posted: 11-27-09 11:51 AM   |   Updated: 11-28-09 11:15 AM

The White House released a picture today of Michaele Salahi shaking hands with the president despite earlier reports that the couple who allegedly crashed the state dinner never came in contact with Obama.

This revelation comes just hours after the Secret Service took responsibility for the breech. Director Mark Sullivan told the AP that his agency failed to verify whether the couple was invited to the party and expressed his deep concern and embarrassment. He went on to say that measures have been taken to ensure this will not happen again.

Despite that, the Secret Service has not ruled out bringing charges against Tareq and Michaele Salahi. The agency maintains they were not on the guest list despite protestations from the couple, who are auditioning for the Bravo reality show “The Real Housewives of DC”, that they did not crash the party.

“As this moves closer to a criminal investigation there’s less that we can say,” spokesman Jim Mackin said. “I don’t want to jeopardize what could be a criminal investigation. We’re not leaving any option off the table at this point.”

No specific charges were mentioned but the Salahis lawyer, Paul Gardner, claims the couple were indeed invited and that there is no risk of punishment. He posted a comment on Facebook saying, “My clients were cleared by the White House, to be there.”

PHOTOS HERE

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Afternoon Jukebox- All I Want For Christmas Is You

LeAnn Rimes- All I Want For Christmas Is You

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The Iraq War ‘Inquiry’: ‘Revelations’? What revelations?

by William Bowles
Global Research, November 27, 2009

“We spent a long time at dinner on IRAQ. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we need pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option.” – David Manning (Blair’s policy advisor).[1]

I read with amazement the ‘revelations’ concerning war criminal Tony Blair’s visit to Camp Crawford in March 2002 where Bush/Blair decided that ‘regime change’ was the order of the day. But there’s nothing new about these ‘revelations’, indeed I and many others reported this meeting literally years ago.

“The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March [2003]. This was when the bombing would begin.” — George Bush

For example, see the following reports:

1. ‘British Foreign Secretary Straw Says Case For Iraq Is Weak’, Alleged Source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office 25, March 2002

2. ‘The Iraq Factor: Secret Memo to Tony Blair. Condi committed to regime change in early 2002’

3. ‘Iraq Options Paper’: Full text, Raw Story, dated March 8, 2002.

4. ‘British Advisers Foresaw Variety of Risks, Problems’ By Glenn Frankel

5. ‘LMSM, the Lying Mainstream Media’ By Robert Parry, June 17, 2005

These are just a few of the stories on Bush/Blair’s ‘regime change’ meeting at Camp Crawford in early 2002. So how come the mainstream media are reporting it as ‘news’? In fact all the ‘revelations’ emerging from the Iraq War ‘Inquiry’ are not news, independent media has been carrying investigations since at least 2002.

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Chilcot’s Iraq war inquiry off to promising start

There were protests outside the inquiry yesterday featuring a 'Tony Blair' and fake blood

By Peter Biles
BBC world affairs correspondent

The sceptics might say the Iraq inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, is another pointless investigation, a colossal waste of time, and likely to be a whitewash.

But in the first week, some fascinating evidence has already emerged from these public hearings into the background to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It is perhaps too early to say if it will be a definitive account of the war. But for those predicting some sort of cover-up, the initial signs suggest otherwise.

Given the controversy over the Iraq war in 2003, and the confusion at the time, it is good to be able to join up a few dots in what is still an otherwise incomplete picture.

Relatives of Britons killed in Iraq have long made it known they are seeking “truth and honesty”.

Six years on, some are still filled with the pain of loss and the anger fuelled by what they regard as “an illegal war”.

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Q&A: Iraq inquiry
A guide to the long awaited probe into events before and after the 2003 invasion

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JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

Review of James Douglass’ Book

by Edward Curtin

Global Research, November 25, 2009

Despite a treasure-trove of new information having emerged over the last forty-six years, there are many people who still think who killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and why are unanswerable questions. There are others who cling to the Lee Harvey Oswald “lone-nut” explanation proffered by the Warren Commission. Both groups agree, however, that whatever the truth, it has no contemporary relevance but is old-hat, history, stuff for conspiracy-obsessed people with nothing better to do. The general thinking is that the assassination occurred almost a half-century ago, so let’s move on.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as James Douglass shows in his extraordinary book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Orbis Books, 2008). It is clearly one of the best books ever written on the Kennedy assassination and deserves a vast readership. It is bound to roil the waters of complacency that have submerged the truth of this key event in modern American history.

It’s not often that the intersection of history and contemporary events pose such a startling and chilling lesson as does the contemplation of the murder of JFK on November 22, 1963 juxtaposed with the situations faced by President Obama today. So far, at least, Obama’s behavior has mirrored Johnson’s, not Kennedy’s, as he has escalated the war in Afghanistan by 34,000. One can’t but help think that the thought of JFK’s fate might not be far from his mind as he contemplates his next move in Afghanistan.

[Read more...]

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