Countdown Newsletter -- 12/06/05: Cheney Speak

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Tonight on Countdown
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Dick Cheney Speaks At A Rally For 42nd Infantry Division & 10th Mountain Division At Fort Drum.

Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha on Today show: "... let me point out my difference between the White House, the administration and myself -- first of all, the way they lump terrorism with insurgency. Terrorism started in Afghanistan. We had every legitimate right to go into Afghanistan. Bin Laden says he attacked Saudi Arabia because we had troops still in Saudi Arabia. That's terrorism -- London, terror in Spain. But insurgency is what we're facing in Iraq, and that's the thing that worries me. They don't discriminate between the two. "

Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.

A woman witness testified Tuesday from behind a screen and her voice disguised to protect her identity, weeping as she told of beatings and electric shocks at the hands of Saddam Hussein's agents in the trial of the former president and seven lieutenants. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10318347/

Valerie Plame Wilson, the diplomat's wife whose secret resume was exposed in a newspaper column that eventually led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is leaving the CIA on Friday, people familiar with her plans said. Plame Wilson, 43, worked undercover for the CIA tracking weapons proliferation but saw her clandestine career imperiled after she was identified as an agency operative in the summer of 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert Novak. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/12/06/plame_wilson_said_to_leave_cia_this_week/

Virginia Voiers thought she was taking part in a rambunctious holiday custom, but a carriage driver thought differently and called police when he saw the 70-year-old grandmother stealing the baby Jesus from the city's nativity scene. Voiers was ticketed for misdemeanor theft by an officer who quickly caught up with her van after she foisted the statue. "It was a lark, it wasn't any serious stealing," Voiers told the Lovely County Citizen newspaper of Eureka Springs. "My granddaughter commented that no one had taken the baby Jesus this year and said, 'Grandma?' I said, 'Oh, what the heck.'" http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13315425.htm
Mo Rocca joins us.

The Howard Stern interview...

That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.

Finally,
A black bear camped out under the porch of a home where four children live - and near where 20 kids wait for the school bus - will be removed by state wildlife officers, officials said Monday. Residents of Chestnuthill Township had suspected for several days that a bear was in their midst after they saw their trash cans tampered with. But it wasn't until two children happened upon the bear on Sunday that its exact whereabouts became clear. Pedro Sainvil owns the home where the 600- to 700-pound male bear seems to have settled in for hibernation. Wildlife conservation officer Pete Sussenbach needs two more people to help him tranquilize the bear, safely remove it from underneath the porch and take it to a den in one of the state's game lands. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BEAR_UNDER_PORCH?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME

-- Carey Fox

Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

More:
The Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to uphold a law that says colleges cannot turn away military recruiters in protest of the Pentagon's policy on gays if the universities also want to receive federal money. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10349062/

The stepfather of an 11-year-old girl went to Massachusetts' highest court on Tuesday hoping to block the state from taking her off life support. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10349294/

An Iraqi militant group kidnapped a U.S. security consultant and is threatening to kill him in 48 hours unless Washington frees all Iraqi prisoners, according to a video aired by Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10347214/

Two suicide bombers struck at Baghdad's police academy on Tuesday, killing at least 43 officers and cadets and wounding more than 70, officials said. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10346478/from/RS.1/

A German man filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming he was held captive and tortured by U.S. government agents after being mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10348907/

Ford Motor Co. said on Tuesday that its luxury Jaguar and Land Rover brands will no longer advertise in gay publications, but denied that the nation's second largest automaker made the decision under pressure from conservative Christian groups. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10347477/

Not surprisingly, considering New York's long-held fascination with the big gorilla, the city went ape for King Kong Monday. With the arrival Monday of the new $150 million cinematic version of the ape-meets-girl story, King Kong was once again the toast of the town. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10341075/

does that give her permission to open up to Fitz?

Don't think she could tell him any more now than she could while she was still there. Whether she's in or out, she may still have colleagues in the field to protect. I doubt that his case has been stymied by her (genuine) need to maintain a close hold on some information.