Really, Really Dead

* clemons:

"BIG NEWS: John Bolton Confirmation Battle Really, Really Dead"

yay steve, and everyone else.

* via tpm: "

"With less than a week before Congress begins its fall recess, Sen. Arlen Specter said he doesn't expect much action on the terrorism interrogation bill that's attracted so much attention.

"Or on the bill regarding President Bush's secret surveillance program.

"Or on comprehensive immigration reform."

* laura:

"They're Back
An Iran contra-era fabricator and his associate appear to have opened a new channel to Washington.
[]
Since 9-11, Ghorbanifar and his business associate, both based in France, have tried through various channels and schemes to get back on the U.S. government payroll as intelligence sources on Iran and the Middle East. Their efforts to do so have been thwarted -- until now. The associate told me that he now has channels to the U.S. government, and a response to my inquiry about this from the office of Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte did not include a denial.
[]
U.S. intelligence sources surmise that the agency taking Ghorbanifar’s associate’s information is not the CIA, but the Pentagon, most likely the Defense Intelligence Agency.
[]
(CIA Paris station chief Bill) Murray says Ghorbanifar and his associate cobble together “intelligence” using translations from regional newspapers and the newsletters put out by the cultish, formerly Saddam Hussein-backed Iranian terrorist group, the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), which has a large outpost outside Paris; and “then they create stuff.”
[]
Amazingly, however, like Chalabi and his INC defectors before them, Ghorbanifar and his associate seem to have found new channels open to the Bush administration. And there’s precious little evidence that anybody is trying to stop them. There may be a Senate Select Intelligence Committee Inquiry on pre-Iran war intelligence in our future"