Thursday, March 22, 2007

Edwards Out--Not


Blogging and right-now-for-the-web journalism have their perils. While the political world was waiting to see what John and Elizabeth Edwards would say at their noon press conference on Thursday, The Politico, an hour before the event, went live with a scoop:

Edwards to Suspend Campaign

John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico.

"At a minimum he's going to suspend" the campaign, the source said. "Nobody knows precisely how serious her recurrence is. It'll be another couple of days before there's complete clarity."

"For him right now he has one priority which is her health and the security of the two young children," said the friend.

As for the campaign, "You don't shut this machine off completely, but everything will go on hold."

UPDATE: Edwards staffers are pushing back very hard.

"Anything you are getting from someone claiming to know right now is not true - anyone claiming to know something right now is making it up. There is no information from this campaign until John and Elizabeth speak at noon," says spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield.


At the press conference, Edwards did not announce the suspension of his campaign. He and his wife, after providing details about the new outbreak of cancer within her rib, insisted that the campaign would go on. The Politico mis-scoop is no big deal. But it's a reminder of the truism that since most journalists are now able to post what they know (or think they know) immediately, there are more opportunities to get things wrong.

Posted by David Corn at March 22, 2007 12:53 PM

29 comments:

capt said...

Mr. David Corn,

There is more to the "scoop" scoop.

Bottom line getting it first has never allowed getting it wrong. Although some people don't seem to care if a particular source is in error. Others make a living being completely wrong about darn near everything.

Being right, correct or even honorable has become a technicality to some and passé to the rest. This is the world in which we live.

How dare anybody "pre-announce" such a thing especially concerning a health issue that we all know is real because of previous disclosure. Imagine they were wrong about the health issue too and her cancer was not reoccurring? Would that make it worse? I think it was a bigger mistake than you give credit.

Thanks for all of your work!


Kirk

capt said...

Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: 'We'll Go Through Iran'
(satire)



WASHINGTON, DC—Almost a year after the cessation of major combat and a month after the nation's first free democratic elections, President Bush unveiled the coalition forces' strategy for exiting Iraq.

"I'm pleased to announce that the Department of Defense and I have formulated a plan for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq," Bush announced Monday morning. "We'll just go through Iran."

Bush said the U.S. Army, which deposed Iran's longtime enemy Saddam Hussein, should be welcomed with open arms by the Islamic-fundamentalist state.

"And Iran's so nearby," Bush said. "It's only a hop, skip, and a jump to the east."

According to White House officials, coalition air units will leave forward air bases in Iraq and transport munitions to undisclosed locations in Iran. After 72 to 96 hours of aerial-bomb retreats, armored-cavalry units will retreat across the Zagros mountains in tanks, armored personnel carriers, and strike helicopters. The balance of the 120,000 troops will exit into the oil-rich borderlands around the Shatt-al-Arab region within 30 days.

Pentagon sources said U.S. Central Command has been formulating the exit plan under guidelines set by Bush.

"The fact is, we've accomplished our goals in Iraq," said General George Casey, the commander of coalition forces in the Iraqi theater. "Now, it's time to bring our men and women home—via Iran."

Questions have been raised about the unprecedented size of the withdrawal budget.

"I'm asking Congress to approve a $187-billion budget to enable us to exit as smoothly as possible," said Casey, whose budget request includes several hundred additional M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, 72 new C-130 cargo planes, and two brigades of artillery. "We're concerned about the safety of our troops, so we need to have the capacity to deal with insurgent forces all the way from the Iraqi border through to Tehran."

Casey has requested a budget increase for the Pentagon, so that the government can reward recruits who serve in the U.S. mission to exit Iraq.


More HERE

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"Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life's absurdities by thinking absurdly about them."
~ Lewis Mumford (1895 - 1990)



capt

capt said...

Global Ruling Class: Billionaires and How They ‘Made It’



While the number of the world’s billionaires grew from 793 in 2006 to 946 this year, major mass uprisings became commonplace occurrences in China and India. In India, which has the highest number of billionaires (36) in Asia with total wealth of $191 billion USD, Prime Minister Singh declared that the greatest single threat to ‘India’s security’ were the Maoist led guerrilla armies and mass movements in the poorest parts of the country. In China, with 20 billionaires with $29.4 billion USD net worth, the new rulers, confronting nearly a hundred thousand reported riots and protests, have increased the number of armed special anti-riot militia a hundred fold, and increased spending for the rural poor by $10 billion USD in the hopes of lessening the monstrous class inequalities and heading off a mass upheaval.
The total wealth of this global ruling class grew 35% year to year topping $3.5 trillion USD, while income levels for the lower 55% of the world’s 6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world’s population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over 3 billion people. Over half of the current billionaires (523) came from just 3 countries: the US (415), Germany (55) and Russia (53). The 35% increase in wealth mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments in job-creating industries or social services.

Among the newest, youngest and fastest-growing group of billionaires, the Russian oligarchy stands out for its most rapacious beginnings. Over two-thirds (67%) of the current Russian billionaire oligarchs began their concentration of wealth in their mid to early twenties. During the infamous decade of the 1990’s under the quasi-dictatorial rule of Boris Yeltsin and his US-directed economic advisers, Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar the entire Russian economy was put up for sale for a ‘political price’, which was far below its real value. Without exception, the transfers of property were achieved through gangster tactics – assassinations, massive theft, and seizure of state resources, illicit stock manipulation and buyouts. The future billionaires stripped the Russian state of over a trillion dollars worth of factories, transport, oil, gas, iron, coal and other formerly state-owned resources.

More HERE

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"If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around."
~ Christina Stead (1903 - 1983), House of All Nations (1938) "Credo"


capt

capt said...

Feinstein Resigns



Sen. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband's companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.

Perhaps she resigned from MILCON because she could not take the heat generated by the Bohemian's exposÈ of her ethics (which was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute). Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?

The MILCON subcommittee is not only in charge of supervising military construction; it also oversees "quality of life" issues for veterans, which includes building housing for military families and operating hospitals and clinics for wounded soldiers. Perhaps Feinstein is trying to disassociate herself from MILCON's incredible failure to provide decent medical care for wounded soldiers.

Two years ago, before the Washington Post became belatedly involved, the online magazine Salon.com exposed the horrors of deficient medical care for Iraq War veterans. While leading MILCON, Feinstein had ample warning of the medical-care meltdown. But she was not proactive on veteran's affairs.

Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that Blum also holds large investments in companies that were selling medical equipment and supplies and real estate leases--often without the benefit of competitive bidding--to the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as the system of medical care for veterans collapsed on his wife's watch.

More HERE

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Say it ain't so?


capt

O'Reilly said...

The Politico mis-scoop is no big deal. But it's a reminder of the truism that since most journalists are now able to post what they know (or think they know) immediately, there are more opportunities to get things wrong.


Good point Corn, I wonder if you're referring to Robert Novak's column published in yesterday WaPo "Was She Covert?"

David B. Benson said...

Micki --- I had no idea what ispe dixit meant, so I went searching. Turns out lots of people have made that transposition error. That how I found ipse dixit and the definition.

No, home schooling included memorizing the multiplication table up to 12 times 12 and a bunch of other easy assignments like that. I usually did the week's work in about 2 hours on Monday, took the test(s) with almost perfect scores, and then had the rest of the week for serious matters like exploring the woods, turning over rocks and all that good stuff.

capt said...

U.S. News Media's 'War on Gore'



When historians sort out what happened to the United States at the start of the 21st Century, one of the mysteries may be why the national press corps ganged up like school-yard bullies against a well-qualified Democratic presidential candidate while giving his dimwitted Republican opponent virtually a free pass.

How could major news organizations, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, have behaved so irresponsibly as to spread falsehoods and exaggerations to tear down then-Vice President Al Gore – ironically while the newspapers were berating him for supposedly lying and exaggerating?

In a modern information age, these historians might ask, how could an apocryphal quote like Gore claiming to have "invented the Internet" been allowed to define a leading political figure much as the made-up quote "let them eat cake" was exploited by French propagandists to undermine Marie Antoinette two centuries earlier?

Why did the U.S. news media continue ridiculing Gore in 2002 when he was one of the most prominent Americans to warn that George W. Bush’s radical policy of preemptive war was leading the nation into a disaster in Iraq?

Arguably, those violations of journalistic principles at leading U.S. news organizations, in applying double standards to Gore and Bush, altered the course of American history and put the nation on a very dangerous road.

Now, Gore has reemerged in Washington appealing to his former colleagues in the House and Senate to act urgently on the threat from global warming.

In the initial press coverage of Gore’s return to Capitol Hill, there remains a touch of the old mocking tone, such as The New York Times’ front-page article describing Gore as "a heartbreak loser turned Oscar boasting Nobel hopeful globe-trotting multimillionaire pop culture eminence," but not nearly the level of open disdain shown in Campaign 2000.

More HERE

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I think it shameful the way people are attacking Gore. Complete balderdash from the wingnuttiest Reich-wingnuts. Are these people against conservation? Are they pro-pollution? I just don't get it.



capt

capt said...

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.": George Washington (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, 'Father of the Country' -Source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, Ref: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (521)

=
"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.": George Washington - (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, 'Father of the Country' - Source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, Ref: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (521)


===

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

kathleen said...

Diane Rehms interview with Elizabeth Edwards several months ago is well worth taking the time to go listen to. She is a remarkable and wise woman.

kathleen said...

Capt finally Feinstein resigns. When she did not resign years ago due to the conflict of interest issue she demonstrated arrogance and a lack of integrity and wisdom!

kathleen said...

David what's up with the completion of PHASE II OF THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE.

Guess I will go call the Senate aides that I have checked in with many times about this issue. Since no one in the MSM seems to writing much about this investigation.

capt said...

Can Dems muster a majority for vote on Iraq withdrawal?



Democratic aides expressed growing confidence of success when the vote is called, and four of the bill's most consistent critics said they had told Speaker Nancy Pelosi they would help pass it, even though they intend to personally vote against it.

"While I cannot betray my conscience, I cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war," said one of the four, Rep. Barbara Lee of California.

An aide to Pelosi confirmed the speaker had met with Lee and California Reps. Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters and Diane Watson. But with the leadership lobbying intensively on its own, it was not clear which lawmakers, if any, had swung behind the bill as a result of the offer the four had made.

Throughout the day, a string of liberal opponents of the war swung behind a measure they deemed insufficient.


More HERE

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Just what one would expect from a pathetic bunch of finger in the wind - say one thing do another dumbocrats. Triangulation worked for Bubba because he made it work and was the top dog. The D's are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They will lose the support that gave them the razor thin majority and the country will be back at 2000 come 2008.

I could not be more disappointed as I did have a little hope. OFW, eh?



capt

Anonymous said...

Dr. B -- Oh, so you had a good liberal education, in the true sense of the word. That's what makes a good teacher, IMO.

capt said...

Proof of US orchestration of death squads’ killings in Iraq Can anybody spell "N-E-G-R-O-P-O-N-T-E?"

According to Novak, then, there's a difference between being undercover and covert, and it's okay to out a CIA operative who is doing secret administrative work at headquarters which apparently isn't covert because it doesn't involve making trips overseas. - Anybody else notice that the traitors are the ones belittling a lifelong career of service? Con's used to support and defend "service" now the word is opprobrious?

The Decider is Delusional but it is too much trouble and politically unexpedient to impeach his sorry ass so we will fund his $124 billion dollar hobby and see what we can do next year?

Why has the left gone soft on human rights? not to mention domestic civil rights? If we are not busy impeaching the worst president ever why not spend some time helping each other? What are we doing here?

A sad state of affairs . . . no matter what side of which argument anybody takes.


capt

capt said...

Oil-Rich Kirkuk at the Melting Point



Seven bombs detonating in the space of 35 minutes sent up clouds of black smoke over the centre of Kirkuk earlier this week. The explosions in Arab and Turkoman districts killed 12 people and injured 39 but exactly who was behind them is unclear.

Kirkuk is a place where trust is in short supply. "I firmly predict there will be a rumor the Kurds were behind these bombings," sighs Rafat Hamarash, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish political party that largely controls the city. He said somebody wanted to stir up ethnic divisions between Kurd, Arab and Turkoman before they vote on the future of Kirkuk in nine months' time. Mr Hamarash is probably right about the motives for the latest attacks. The city is approaching a critical moment in its long history. In December, there is a referendum, its timing agreed under the Iraqi constitution, when 1.8 million people of Kirkuk province will vote on whether or not to join the highly autonomous Kurdish region that is already almost a separate state. Kurds will vote in favor and probably win; Arabs and Turkomans will vote against and lose.

The Kirkuk issue is as notoriously divisive in Iraq as sovereignty over certain parts of Ireland used to be in British politics. Winston Churchill famously complained that, after all the political and military cataclysms of the First World War, the question of who should have "the dreary spires of Fermanagh and Tyrone", remained as ferociously contested as before the war.

The control of Kirkuk divided Kurds from Arabs in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and continues to do so. The city is commonly called "a powder keg" though it has yet to explode. But that does not mean it will not happen and the referendum might just be the detonator for that explosion.


More HERE

capt said...

Where Are The Democrats?



When it comes to Iraq, the opposition party is afraid to oppose.


It's hard to get out of a deal with the devil. That's the congressional Democrats' dilemma as they continue to treat the Iraq war as a speed bump on their pathway to the perks of restored power.

Take Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. Asked on one of the Sunday venues for pompous pontificators how he would respond to any attempt by President Bush to escalate the war in Iraq (to "surge," if you prefer it in Newspeak), the Democratic "leader" on foreign policy responded, "There's not much I can do about it."

This is a man who sees a future president during his morning look in the mirror. Sadly, the glass reflects an empty suit who embodies the congressional Democrats' decision to reduce action on Iraq to a political calculus appropriate for the highway appropriations bill, not a moral imperative to challenge a policy that has sent thousands of twenty-somethings to their deaths in the desert.

You certainly can do something about it, Senator. It's called leadership. You rise on the Senate floor. You say you were out of your mind to write a blank check for this hideous abuse of American military power. And then you propose immediate withdrawal, just slow enough to maximize the safety of the 135,000 young men and women you helped put in harm's way by your collusion with this elective war. You do what Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon had the guts to do last month, stopping just short of accurately labeling this public policy obscenity a criminal enterprise.


More HERE

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Seems like the Democratic party has been looking for an opposition party to co-opt or join since long before November 2006, they still have yet to produce more than the occasional oppositional statement from one or two party members at any one time.

America didn't give the majority to the Democratic party as a gift - they wanted OUT of Iraq. If America doesn't get that 2008 will not be worthy of a celebration for either "party"(any more than 2006)



capt

capt said...

Why does the right insist on spreading lies about Al Gore?



The nonstop barrage of attacks on Al Gore from the far-right tells me one thing: they're terrified of the former Vice President and the influence he continues to wield. Last night on Scarborough Country, Republican strategist Terry Holt advanced for the umpteenth time the right's favorite Al Gore smear — that he claimed to have invented the interent. This juvenile nonsense has been debunked time and time again, but since these hacks continue to employ it, here we go again.

Download (WMV)

Download (MOV)

It all started when the wingnuts seized on this statement Al Gore made to Wolf Blitzer in 1999. Since the right is so devoid of substance and couldn't challenge Gore on a policy basis, they took this phrase and attacked Al Gore (with the help of the media who dutifully recited the attack) as a pompous liar and serial exaggerator; something that continues to this day.

Why don't we ask Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf, two men who could really claim to have "invented the internet," what they think about Al Gore:

[T]here is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening.

While his phrasing was clumsy and somewhat self-serving, the fact is, as Senator, Al Gore did take the legislative initiative and help pave the way for the internet as we know it today. Instead of acknowledging this, the wingnuts twist his words and attack his character. By now you think they would have grown up a little bit. Unfortunately, they never cease to amaze.

More HERE

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The old moonbat trickery - make the issue Gore instead of the what issues are raised by Gore - the old "kill the messenger" because you don't like what he says?

I couldn't care less how he travels or how much his energy bill is - those things have NOTHING TO DO WITH GLOBAL WARMING and it is both petty and pathetic to attack him personally (yep that'd be Ad Hominem). Like if he lived in a one bedroom apartment that was off the grid THEN they would believe him? PUH-Huh-huh-lease?

When they attack Gore's personal habits you can assume they have nothing to attack him on the facts he presents.




capt

capt said...

U.S. urged to abandon trials by military tribunals



MIAMI (Reuters) - Amnesty International urged the United States on Thursday to abandon plans to try Guantanamo prisoners before military tribunals and asked other nations not to contribute any evidence for use at the trials.

The London-based human rights group said the trials do not meet international standards of fairness and should be moved to the U.S. federal courts.

"These trials threaten to cut corners in pursuit of a few convictions and add to the injustice that the Guantanamo detention facility has come to symbolize," said Susan Lee, Amnesty's Americas Program Director.

The report comes as the United States prepares to restart the tribunals with Monday's scheduled arraignment of Australian prisoner David Hicks, charged with providing material support for terrorism by fighting for al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Hicks, 31, is the only person charged so far under a new system of war crimes trials authorized by the U.S. Congress last year and formally called military commissions.

But the United States declared its intention to try 60 to 80 of the 385 foreign captives held at Guantanamo, including 14 "high-value" prisoners sent there in September from secret CIA prisons.

More HERE

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Bunnypants did say no show trials?

Pushing nearly a million killed and all we have to show for it is 14 "high value" prisoners? What is a half a trillion divided by 14?



capt

capt said...

TV Evangelist John Hagee Wants War With Iran, and He Wants It Now!



If anyone still thinks that the radical end-times "prophecy" movement is not a threat to peace and stability, think again. At the popular level, in terms of the TV preachers and the hot-selling prophecy books, the dispensational pre-trib stuff still reigns supreme. Most conservative-leaning Evangelical churches in America today are heavily influenced by popular dispensational theology to some extent. Even churches and pastors that don’t teach pretribulationalism still are influenced by dispensationalism to varying degrees.

The most dangerous element of this prophetic paradigm, however, is its doom-and-gloom view of the world. And in most cases, those who have a fascination with the end of the world have a particular fascination with war and militarism as well. More problematic, it assumes that their wars of choice are not just their own foreign policy preferences or personal opinions. Rather they are ordained by God. In 2003, more than a few pastors and influential Christian figures basically said that opposing the Iraq war was opposing God’s end-time plan. According to Evangelical end-times enthusiasts, if you opposed the Iraq war, you didn’t just hate your country and the troops, now you were opposing God and the Bible as well.

An even bigger obsession for dispensationalists has always been Israel. For the average dispensationalist, modern-day secular Israel is going to be the focal point in the end-times. Therefore, if the Bible really does teach in Daniel 9:27 that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is going to be torn down for a rebuilt Jewish Temple, why should any of us seek to prevent it? Sure, it very well might ignite a regional war and even ignite tensions around the world, but it's all part of God’s prophetic plan. Not to worry though, things might not get really ugly until after the "rapture," so the Christians today who are cheering for events that would bring about World War III won’t have to worry about it anyway. Unless of course, they are wrong about the whole thing.

More HERE

capt said...





What I often find most astonishing about the scorched earth tactics the regressive right uses to sell its policies is how utterly lame they are. Utterly, and embarrassingly lame.

If you just stop to think for a moment about most of them, they are transparently foolish on their surface, and often laughably so. I realize that that’s a big if for a lot of folks, but still... C’mon, people!

The administration has invested the most energy of all in its efforts to justify its war in Iraq, a war gone so terribly wrong, even by their standards and intentions. That was true before the war when it was relatively easy, with a compliant press and a frightened so-called opposition party, to gear up a giant merchandising machine to get the public – also frightened at the time, though for very different reasons – to believe that Saddam was Satan incarnate, and that Iraq had to be invaded pronto. And it’s been true ever since, when much the same approach has been used to browbeat opponents to the war, which group is increasingly just about synonymous with the entire American electorate.


More HERE

capt said...

What Bush is hiding



In the U.S. attorney scandal, Alberto Gonzales gave orders, but he also took them -- from Karl Rove, who plotted to turn the federal criminal justice system into the Republican Holy Office of the Inquisition.


Leave aside the unintentional irony of President Bush asserting executive privilege to shield his aides from testifying before the Congress in the summary firings of eight U.S. attorneys because the precedent would prevent him from receiving "good advice." Leave aside also his denunciation of the Congress for the impertinence of requesting such testimony as "partisan" and "demanding show trials," despite calls from Republicans for the dismissal of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Ignore as well Bush's adamant defense of Gonzales.

The man Bush has nicknamed "Fredo," the weak and betraying brother of the Corleone family, is, unlike Fredo, a blind loyalist, and will not be dispatched with a shot to the back of the head in a rowboat on the lake while reciting his Ave Maria. (Is Bush aware that Colin Powell refers to him as "Sonny," after the hothead oldest son?) But saving "Fredo" doesn't explain why Bush is willing to risk a constitutional crisis. Why is Bush going to the mattresses against the Congress? What doesn't he want known?

In the U.S. attorneys scandal, Gonzales was an active though second-level perpetrator. While he gave orders, he also took orders. Just as his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, has resigned as a fall guy, so Gonzales would be yet another fall guy if he were to resign. He was assigned responsibility for the purge of U.S. attorneys but did not conceive it. The plot to transform the U.S. attorneys and ipso facto the federal criminal justice system into the Republican Holy Office of the Inquisition had its origin in Karl Rove's fertile mind.

More HERE

Anonymous said...

Capt sez: Like if he lived in a one bedroom apartment that was off the grid THEN they would believe him? PUH-Huh-huh-lease?

Right on! You've hit the nail on the head.

Saladin said...

"Like if he lived in a one bedroom apartment that was off the grid THEN they would believe him? PUH-Huh-huh-lease?"

Capt, that is not the point at all! It isn't whether he's believable or not or whether what he says is true or not, the question is, does HE really believe it? He asks us if WE are ready to change the way we live because of the coming climate crisis, fine, but is he ready to change the way HE lives? (that doesn't mean a one bedroom apt. off the grid. Seems he could find a happy medium between that and a monstrous 20 room house.) Or is the fact that he can afford to buy endless "carbon credits" let him off the change of lifestyle hook? We all rant and rave against the so-called "pro-life" platform of the neocons while watching them slaughter life at an ever increasing pace and gag on the hypocrisy. If gore is not ready to make the same sacrifices as he expects the rest of us to make, why should we pay any attention to him? If we are truly looking at a global climate holocaust it seems ALL these super rich global warming fanatics should be on the front lines with us to stop it since they are the biggest energy hogs on the fucking planet! They consume the most, they use the most resources and they are the least conservative of anyone, the ones who will actually suffer when the economic shit really hits the fan are the poor and middle class. Maybe they want to reduce us all to the living standard of Nairobi? While they, of course, maintain the same standard they always had. That is pure bullshit and I will call him on it every time. Just because I am skeptical of all this govt. fear mongering doesn't mean I am pro-pollution or against conservation. One thing I know for sure is I am WAY more conservation minded, and practice what I preach, than that hypocrite, and I always will be. Let gore put his money where his mouth is, or find another poster boy for the cause.

Saladin said...

"A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes — will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished."

- John Stuart Mill

capt said...

Limbaugh suggested Edwards camp "leak[ed]" false information to Politico reporter "to jump-start the campaign"



On the March 22 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh suggested that the presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) intentionally "leak[ed]" false information -- that Edwards would "suspend" his campaign because his wife's cancer had recurred -- to Politico reporter Ben Smith in order "to jump-start the campaign." At a press conference earlier the same day, Edwards announced that his wife, Elizabeth, had been told that she has Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, but that the Edwards campaign would continue. Smith incorrectly claimed that Edwards would announce the "suspen[sion]" of his campaign in a March 22 weblog post on Politico.com. Referring to that post, Limbaugh stated that "this business about" Edwards announcing that he will continue his presidential bid "makes me think that the leak that was planted today was purposely wrong to create surprise." Limbaugh reiterated that the inaccurate leak "[m]ay have been done on purpose."


More HERE

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I heard part of this on the radio yesterday. I am still nearly speechless. Limbaugh also ran some song (parody/comedy) that was the most racist, hateful, insulting thing I have heard in many years. The song was about/against Obama and how he is not a real Negro like Al Sharpton because he never lived in the "hood". I can't believe that kind of stuff is listened to let alone popular.




capt

Anonymous said...

The peculiar anti-Gore constituency is doing a remarkable thing. They have guaranteed that some reasonable fence-sitters on climate change have hopped off the fence and joined the Gore Group. Thanks for all your mind-blowing rhetoric!

Mother Earth and her inhabitants, rich and poor, are grateful that the anti-Gore camp is running out of steam. Puff. Puff. Chug. Chug.

capt said...

Bullets



Ordinarily, few jobs in the legal world are as exalted and exhilarating as being a United States Attorney. But last week Tim Griffin, the recently installed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, was not enjoying his new assignment. "It’s no fun being me right now," he said over his cell phone from Arkansas. Griffin is one of eight U.S. Attorneys whose recent appointments by the President are at the center of a political controversy that has overtaken Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top Bush Administration officials. They stand accused of manipulating the prosecutorial arm of the federal government for political purposes, and then misleading Congress about it. Griffin complained that his Democratic opponents had unfairly accused him of political partisanship. "I worked in a campaign, like a lot of people," he said. "But now my job is not partisan, so I am not partisan."

Griffin, who is thirty-eight, was appointed U.S. Attorney in December. A former research director for the Republican National Committee and an aide to Karl Rove, the White House political adviser, Griffin had relatively little prosecutorial experience. Nonetheless, e-mails between Justice Department and White House officials show that Bush Administration officials pushed out Griffin’s well-respected predecessor, H. E. (Bud) Cummins, to make room for Griffin, in part because "it was important to . . . Karl [Rove], etc." Griffin did not undergo a confirmation process before the Senate Judiciary Committee, as is required by the Constitution. Instead, the President appointed him under a little-noticed provision of the 2006 renewal of the Patriot Act, which allows for the indefinite appointment of an interim U.S. Attorney without Senate approval. Ostensibly, the provision was intended to be used in situations where national security might be at stake, such as the death of a sitting U.S. Attorney resulting from a terrorist attack.

As early as last summer, Justice Department officials worried that Griffin’s past as an opposition researcher for the Republicans might make him unconfirmable. (A Justice Department staffer wrote in an e-mail, in reference to the plan to install Griffin, "We have a senator prob.") In congressional hearings last month, Mark Pryor, a Democratic senator from Arkansas, raised concerns about newspaper accounts of Griffin’s political work, which, he said, has "been characterized as ‘caging’ African-American votes. This arises from allegations that Mr. Griffin and others in the R.N.C. were targeting African-Americans in Florida for voter challenges during the 2004 Presidential campaign."


More HERE

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The neocons continue to consolidate power.

This abuse of power and clear cronyism is what the WH is trying to hide. I bet the WH just ignores the subpoenas. The press would have to mount the charge for an answer - they are no longer capable of doing so.




capt

capt said...

Britain Says 15 Sailors Captured By Iran



Aboard HMS Cornwall, Persian Gulf (CBS) - Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors and marines Friday in Iraqi waters, the UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) said.

Al Alam Television, an Iranian Arabic language station confirmed the capture of the Britons.

The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said the group were taken by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards navy, a radical force that operates independently from the regular Iranian Navy, but no shots were fired during incident and that the British sailors appeared unhurt.

Britain summoned Iran's ambassador in London to demand their release.

The British personnel from the frigate HMS Cornwall were making "routine" inspections of "merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," and had finished inspecting one ship when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, the ministry said in a statement.

"We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level," the ministry said, adding that "the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office."

"The British government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment," it said.

"I've got 15 sailors and marines who have been arrested by the Iranians and my immediate concern is their safety," the Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert said in an interview aboard his vessel .

"There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we were in Iraqi waters. Equally the Iranians will claim that they were in Iranian waters. The extent and the definition of territorial waters is very complicated," he added.

"Big Iranian boats came and took the two (British) boats with their crews to the Iranian waters," a local fisherman said.

The Royal Navy sailors were reportedly assigned to a naval task force whose mission is to protect the Iraqi oil terminals in the south of the nation along the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which also serves as a border between Iraq and Iran, and maintain security in Iraqi waters under the U.N. mandate of the Security Council resolutions on Iraq.

In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in the Shatt al-Arab.

They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally.

They were released unharmed after three days.

More HERE

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This sure sounds familiar.




capt

capt said...

New Thread!