The F List

Who all has been called to testify before the Plame Affair grand jury?

Hotline calls it "The F List." That's for "Fitzgerald," not what your were thinking. They've compiled a list of everyone they've identified. (Hotline)

Washington Waiting Game -- Grand Jury Clues, Cancelled Fundraisers

The special prosecutor in the White House CIA leak is telling his collegues he will not issue a final report in his investigation.

That suggests that he'll be handing down indictments instead.

A spokesman for prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (left) also says he will not likely take any action this week. That leaves only next week to wrap up the investigation since his grand jury expires on Friday, October 28.

Meanwhile, White House advisor Karl Rove (right) has canceled at least two fundraising appearances for Republican candidates in Connecticut and Virginia. The cancellations come as the White House awaits possible indictments in the leak case. (The Day & Boston Herald)

Radio Ruling

Maynard High School in Massachusetts has had it's own radio station for 35 years (right). But they didn't have a prayer when a Christian broadcasting network decided it wanted the school's frequency. The network got the FCC to turn the frequency over to them -- by declaring it was a better use of the public airwaves.

WAVM has 30 days to appeal the decision.

That decision could open the floodgates -- allowing powerful networks to close down smaller competitors by declaring they don't have enough listeners or other factors. (Boston Herald)

Campaign Commercial for the Court Case

Television ads are running in Texas and Washington, DC attacking the prosecutor who brought indictments against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) (right).

The ads by the Free Enterprise Fund compare prosecutor Ronnie Earle to an attack dog and call him a "liberal Democrat." They look like political ads -- not what you'd expect in a legal proceeding.

Click the TV screen to watch the ads:

Rep DeLay is to be taken into custody Friday. (Fort Worth Telegraph)

New Feature -- Coming Soon to Watching Washington

Cheney Prepares for the Worst -- Resignation in the Air?

US News & World Report says the biggest rumor in Washington today is that Vice President Dick Cheney is considering resignation if indicted in the Plame Affair.

Reports in the last two days have suggested that the Office of the Vice President is the focus of the grand jury probing leaks of a CIA agent's identity.

With indictments possible as early as this week, US News reports that rumors are flying fast and furious that the White House is preparing for the worst. That includes the possibity that Vice President Cheney would resign if indicted. The favorite scenario appears to be that President Bush would then nominate Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice as Vice President. (US News)

Senators Give Up Their Raise

Senators have voted to give up an automatic $3,100 a year raise. The extra money would have raised their salaries to $165,200 a year. The House passed a similar plan recently.

Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) (right) sponsored the plan.

He says it would save the treasury close to $2 million. An important symbolic gesture as Congress struggles to come up with $50 billion to cover costs resulting from hurricanes in the Gulf Coast.

The bill passed the Senate 92-6. So who were the holdouts wanting to keep the raise:

• Sen Kit Bond (R-MO)
• Sen Richard Lugar (R-IN)
• Sen Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
• Sen Paul Sarbanes (D-MD)
• Sen Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
• Sen James Jeffords (I-VT)

Sen Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Jon Corzine (D-NJ) did not vote.

While Sen Kyl sponsored the plan this year, Sen Russ Feingold (D-WI) has led an annual charge for years attempting to block the automatic pay raises. (USAToday)

Spiro-ing Out of Control

The Washington Post reports that Vice President Dick Cheney's long running feud with the CIA may have put his office at the focus of the Plame grand jury investigation.

Bloomberg.com reported yesterday that the Vice President may be the actual target of the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

The Post reports that special prosector Patrick Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses before the grand jury on Mr Cheney's role and involvement. He's also appeared to target Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The feud reportedly stems from the Vice President's office attempting to pressure the CIA into producing evidence to convince the American people that it was necessary to invade Iraq. The pressure started right after 9/11. The CIA appears have to pushed back with "slective leaking" to cover itself in the event WMDs were never discovered in Iraq. (WashPost)

Iraq Elections Investigated

Iraqi election results are being audited due to "unusually high" YES votes on the new Constitution over the weekend. The vote count mimicked the elections of Saddam Hussien in some provinces where YES votes totaled 99% of the votes cast.

ABC News has videotape of an Iraqi voter voting YES on seven seperate ballots. (ABC)

Karl Rove's Lawyer and the Gold Bar Payment

White House Advisor Karl Rove (right) has a lawyer with a slightly checkered past leading him through his grand jury testimony.

Attorney Robert Luskin had his own run in with the law back in 1997. Mr Luskin was representing a client convicted of laundering money for Columbian drug cartels.

The client paid Mr Luskin's $505,000 fee with gold bars.

Surprised the guy was convicted.

Mr Luskin says he should have known better than to take the gold bars. The feds moved in and took them from him. He negotiated to keep some of the proceeds. (Newsweek)

Check that Mailing List

Jeanine Pirro, the Republican running against Sen Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for the Senate, must be hard up for campaign cash.

One of Ms Pirro's latest fundraising letters asked Sen Clinton for money -- up to a $1,000 contributon.

The letter was addressed to Sen Clinton at her former residence -- the White House.

Ms Pirro reported raising $438,555 for the last quarter. Sen Clinton reported raising $5.3 million. (Newsday)

New Feature -- Coming Soon to Watching Washington

Watch for it!

Big Companies Landing Sweet Deals at Your Expense

The Bush administration -- in an effort to put some money into the national treasury -- has sold mining rights to 155 acres of taxpayer owned land. The land is rich in molybdenum -- used to make steel and lubricants.

And what did taxpayers get for these hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of molybdenum? A mere $900.

Big corporations can buy up taxpayer owned, mineral rich land for just $5.00 an acre. It's because of an 1872 law that's still on the books.

Taxpayers have lost a ton of money over it over the years. Sometimes, companies never mine the land. They develop it and sell it at huge profits -- at taxpayer expense:

• Phoenix, Arizona: 61 acres sold for $153 in 1970 -- sold for $400,000 as the site of a luxury hotel
• Keystone Ski Resort: 160 acres sold for $5 an acre or less, sold for $11,000 an acre in 1989

But the Bush administration is trying to rush through 200 more applications that aim to sell taxpayer owned land for pennies on the dollar:

• Roosevelt Lake, Arizona: 3,000 acres valued at $85 million for just $8,500
• Inyo National Forrest, Callifornia: 995 acres valued at $7.5 million for just $3,100
• Mojave National Preserve, California (pictured above): 67 acres worth $1 million for $2,300
• Mount Baker National Forest, Washington: 100 acres worth $937,000 for $470

The Bush administration is rushing to push through applications to sell 71 square miles of land for just $130,000 total. The actual value of the land is closer to $178 million. (AP)

Sen Kennedy Attempts a Water Rescue -- 36 Years Too Late

From our Political Irony Department: Sen Ted Kennedy (D-MA), long haunted by Chappaquiddick and the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne, tried to save a half dozen fishermen trapped on a breakwater.

The Senator noticed the men trapped on the water by a rising tide. He called the Hyannis Fire Department and raced to the stranded fishermen in his whaler.

His brother John once said, "A rising tide lifts all boats," but in the Senator's case -- it threatened to smash his boat into the rocks and stranded fishermen. The Senator fought five foot waves and 35 mile per hour wind gusts But couldn't get close enough to the fishermen to save them. He told them the fire department was on the way.

Firefighters had to make three trips to the breakwater, rescuing the fishermen two at a time. (Boston Herald)

Cheney Targeted?

Bloomberg.com reports that Vice President Dick Cheney may be a target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the CIA leak at the White House.

People close to the investigation report that Mr Fitzgerald's questions have focused on the Vice President's role in an effort to discredit former US diplomat Joseph Wilson -- and into leaking her name to the press. Mr Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent at the time. Leaking her name may have exposed her contacts in foreign countries and may have been a violation of the US Espionage Act.

A legal expert tells Bloomberg, Mr Fitzgerald would have to show the Vice President was an active participant in the effort to smear Mr Wilson. (Bloomberg.com)

It's Pat!

Noted conservative Pat Buchanan features a cover picture of a drag queen on the last issue of his American Conservative magazine (right).

The cover story is about hurricane recovery and the photo features children and a pair of adult "women" wading through the New Orleans flood.

One of the "women" turns out to be a local celebrity -- drag queen and bartender Jack "Lady Charles" Nicholson. (Page Six -- NYPost)

Presidential Legacy

"We will write not footnotes but chapters in the American story." -- Governor George W Bush, RNC nomination acceptance speech, August 3, 2000

A new Pew Research Center Poll says differently. A plurality of Americans now say President Bush's tenure will be judged as "unsuccessful:"

Unsuccessful: 41%
Successful: 26%

That's a big shift since January when 36% said he'd be judged successful by history, and only 27% said unsuccessful.