A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Hammond.

Labels: idiocy, Not the Onion

IAVA analyzed 155 Senate votes that have taken place since September 11, 2001 and, to calculate their ratings, looked at "…each piece of legislation that affected troops, veterans or military families." IAVA then matched each Senator's votes with the organization's own view of what constitutes true support for active troops, Veterans and their families.

IAVA assigned an 'A' through 'F' grade using the scale at left showing the percentage of time each Senator has indeed supported troops and Veterans. As someone who has watched Senate Republicans vote time and time again against legislation that would benefit military families, the results did not shock me in the slightest.

No Senator in either party was given an A grade by IAVA. Thirteen Senators received a rating of A- and all of those were Democrats. A total of 23 Senators were given a B+ rating and 22 of those were Democrats as well. The other was Independent James Jeffords of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats.

Cutting to the chase -- and, perhaps more than anything I've seen in recent years, truly defining the difference between the two parties -- is that the worst grade received by a Senate Democrat was higher than the best grade granted a Republican. GOP-lite Ben Nelson (D-NE) received the lowest grade of any Democrat with a B- while Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) managed a C grade from IAVA.

And, when I averaged the scores of both the Democratic and Republican caucuses by assigning the numeric midpoint of the letter grade received by each Senator, which party truly supports the troops was made remarkably clear: The 44 Democrats and Jeffords had an average military-support grade of B+, while the 55 Republicans, who beat their chests with disgusting regularity about how strong they are on military issues, averaged a pathetic D.

Labels: greed, Republic Party

Labels: racism, tabloid journalism

Labels: pop culture, The Sopranos

Somebody whacked some of our crew, and we were scared, so we whacked Iraq. Just like Tony ordered the hit on Adriana. Steps were taken, as Sil would say. Except it turned out there were some unexpected consequences. We basically killed an entire country, and a whole lot of Americans, and people are dying all the time. And what are we doing? Nothing. We're going to the Bada Bing. We're having dinner at Artie's. Same old same old. Everything's fine. It's just fine

Labels: pop culture

Certain health supplements and raisins imported from the United States failed to meet Chinese safety standards and have been returned or destroyed, the country's food safety agency said Friday, turning the tables on the U.S. amid growing worries over dangerous Chinese products.

Inspectors in the ports of Ningbo and Shenzhen found bacteria and sulfur dioxide in products shipped by three American companies, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.

"The products failed to meet the sanitary standards of China," the agency said in a brief notice posted on its Web site. No details were given on when or how the inspections were conducted.

Telephones at the administration's office were not answered on Friday.

The companies were identified as K-Max Health Products Co., CMO Distribution Center of America, Inc., and Supervalu International Division.

The administration said K-Max and CMO exported health capsules, including bee pollen and bacteria-fighting supplements. Supervalu exported Sun-Maid Golden Raisins, it said.

The shipments from K-Max and Supervalu have been destroyed and CMO's capsules were returned, the notice said.

The notice did not say which contaminants were found in which products, although sulfur dioxide is sometimes used as a preservative in dried fruit. It said they were found in amounts that surpassed acceptable levels, but did not give any details.

"Local quality officials should step up the inspection and quarantine on imported food products from the U.S.," the notice said. "Chinese importers should also clarify food safety demands in contracts when importing U.S. food products, so as to lower the trade risk."

Labels: chutzpah, hypocrisy

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City.  Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg.  He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law.  In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy--the official journal of the Federalist Society--Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing:

State tort law today is different in kind from the state tort law known to the generation of the Framers. The present tort system poses dangers to interstate commerce not unlike those faced under the Articles of Confederation. Even if Congress would not, in 1789, have had the power to displace state tort law, the nature of the problem has changed so dramatically as to bring the problem within the scope of the power granted to Congress. Accordingly, proposals, such as placing limits or caps on punitive damages, or eliminating joint or strict liability, which may once have been clearly understood as beyond Congress's power, may now be constitutionally appropriate.

Ted Frank, another leading proponent of tort reform, questions the merits of Judge Bork's claims:

Labels: hypocrisy, Not the Onion

British investigators were ordered by the attorney-general Lord Goldsmith to conceal from international anti-bribery watchdogs the existence of payments totalling more than £1bn to a Saudi prince, the Guardian can disclose.
The money was paid into bank accounts controlled by Prince Bandar for his role in setting up BAE Systems with Britain's biggest ever arms deal. Details of the transfers to accounts in the US were discovered by officers from the Serious Fraud Office during its long-running investigation into BAE. But its inquiry was halted suddenly last December.

[snip]

Sources close to the US justice department, whose members help to police the international anti-corruption treaty to which Britain is a signatory, confirmed that UK officials had not disclosed to the group that huge payments had gone to the prince in connection with the al-Yamamah arms deal.

In those confidential briefings at the OECD headquarters in Paris earlier this year, the UK said "national security" reasons were behind the decision to halt the SFO investigation into the case.

They claimed the SFO probe focused largely on old allegations of a slush fund operated by the BAE to provide treats for junior Saudi officials. Last night, a spokesman for Lord Goldsmith said full evidence had not been given to international panel members of the OECD anti-bribery working party at their meetings in order to protect "national security". He said: "The risk of causing such damage to national security had a bearing on the information voluntarily provided to the OECD".

He added: "We have not revealed information which could itself jeopardise our national security. For these purposes the OECD was effectively a public forum, as is illustrated by the fact that you claim to know what [the government] told them."

The Guardian's disclosure of British government complicity in the alleged payment of £1bn to Prince Bandar caused international concern yesterday, with Tony Blair taking a bullish position when questioned at the G8.

Standing beside George Bush, a close family friend of former US ambassador Prince Bandar, Mr Blair said it would have "wrecked" the relationship with Saudi Arabia if he had allowed investigations to go on. "This investigation, if it had gone ahead, would have involved the most serious allegations and investigation being made of the Saudi royal family," he said.

"My job is to give advice as to whether that is a sensible thing in circumstances where I don't believe the investigation would have led to anywhere except to the complete wreckage of a vital interest to our country."

Labels: corruption

"If Mayor Giuliani believes that what President Bush has done is good, and wants to embrace it and run a campaign for the Presidency saying, 'I will give you four more years of what this president has given you,' then he’s allowed to do that. He’ll never be elected President of the United States, but he’s allowed to do that."

Labels: 2008 election, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani

The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.

After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.

"We are currently investigating the veracity of these serious claims of his participation in projects that don't align with the biblical standards and moral code upon which the ministry was founded," Answers for Genesis spokesman Mark Looy said in a written statement.

The actor, Eric Linden, owns a graphic Web site called Bedroom Acrobat, where he has been pictured, smiling alongside a drag queen, in a T-shirt brandishing the site's sexually suggestive logo. The Web site, which has a network of members, allows users to post explicit stories and photos.

He also sells clothing for SFX International, whose initials appear on clothing to spell "SEX" from afar. It promotes "free love,""pleasure" and "thrillz."

Linden, a graphic designer, model and actor who grew up in Columbus, said he is no longer affiliated with the Bedroom Acrobat site, and had handed the domain name off to somebody. Ownership records available through the NetworkSolutions database show Linden registered the site 18 months ago.

Labels: Christofascist Zombie Brigade

In Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney completely misrepresented how we ended up in Iraq. Later, Mike Huckabee mistakenly claimed that it was Ronald Reagan’s birthday.

Guess which remark The Washington Post identified as the “gaffe of the night”?

Folks, this is serious. If early campaign reporting is any guide, the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven’t changed a bit.

You may not remember the presidential debate of Oct. 3, 2000, or how it was covered, but you should. It was one of the worst moments in an election marked by news media failure as serious, in its way, as the later failure to question Bush administration claims about Iraq.

Throughout that debate, George W. Bush made blatantly misleading statements, including some outright lies — for example, when he declared of his tax cut that “the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.” That should have told us, right then and there, that he was not a man to be trusted.

But few news reports pointed out the lie. Instead, many news analysts chose to critique the candidates’ acting skills. Al Gore was declared the loser because he sighed and rolled his eyes — failing to conceal his justified disgust at Mr. Bush’s dishonesty. And that’s how Mr. Bush got within chad-and-butterfly range of the presidency.

Now fast forward to last Tuesday. Asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, Mr. Romney said that war could only have been avoided if Saddam “had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction.” He dismissed this as an “unreasonable hypothetical.”

Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? When those inspectors failed to find nonexistent W.M.D., Mr. Bush ordered them out so that he could invade. Mr. Romney’s remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday’s debate. But it wasn’t.

There wasn’t anything comparable to Mr. Romney’s rewritten history in the Democratic debate two days earlier, which was altogether on a higher plane. Still, someone should have called Hillary Clinton on her declaration that on health care, “we’re all talking pretty much about the same things.” While the other two leading candidates have come out with plans for universal (John Edwards) or near-universal (Barack Obama) health coverage, Mrs. Clinton has so far evaded the issue. But again, this went unmentioned in most reports.

By the way, one reason I want health care specifics from Mrs. Clinton is that she’s received large contributions from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Will that deter her from taking those industries on?

Back to the debate coverage: as far as I can tell, no major news organization did any fact-checking of either debate. And post-debate analyses tended to be horse-race stuff mingled with theater criticism: assessments not of what the candidates said, but of how they “came across.”

Thus most analysts declared Mrs. Clinton the winner in her debate, because she did the best job of delivering sound bites — including her Bush-talking-point declaration that we’re safer now than we were on 9/11, a claim her advisers later tried to explain away as not meaning what it seemed to mean.

Similarly, many analysts gave the G.O.P. debate to Rudy Giuliani not because he made sense — he didn’t — but because he sounded tough saying things like, “It’s unthinkable that you would leave Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq and be able to fight the war on terror.” (Why?)

Look, debates involving 10 people are, inevitably, short on extended discussion. But news organizations should fight the shallowness of the format by providing the facts — not embrace it by reporting on a presidential race as if it were a high-school popularity contest.

Labels: 2008 election, idiocy

Labels: Barack Obama

Labels: Marc Maron

Which makes the report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee before the Memorial Day holiday even more interesting because Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq (PDF) shows not only that Shinseki was right about troop levels, but also -- as if more evidence is needed -- that the Bush administration ignored critical pre-war intelligence in their rush to invade Iraq.

The report, which the previous Republican Congress successfully kept from being produced for two years, shows that months before the Iraq invasion, the White House knew from U.S. intelligence agencies that a civil war would likely erupt after Saddam's ouster, that al-Qaeda would quickly move to exploit the American occupation and that Osama bin Laden's organization would actually gain strength globally due to Bush's action.

"Prior to sending troops to Iraq, the Bush Administration promoted the terrorist nexus between Iraq and al-Qa'ida (and the attacks of 9/11) as a central part of its case to the American people that Iraq posed an imminent threat that only military action could extinguish, despite the Intelligence Community's view that Iraq and al-Qa'ida viewed each other with suspicion and were not operationally linked," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) in the report.

"What the Administration also kept from the American people were the sobering intelligence assessments it received at the time warning that the post-war transition could allow al-Qa'ida to establish the presence in Iraq and opportunity to strike at American it did not have prior to the invasion."

The report reinforced Shinseki's original contention -- which further bolsters the image of a Bush White House that wanted to do the war their way regardless of expert opinion -- that up to 400,000 troops might be required to "keep the peace" after the initial invasion due to a severely damaged national infrastructure and the virtual certainty of sectarian violence.

"Sunni Arabs would face possible loss of their longstanding privileged position while Shia would seek power commensurate with their majority status," says the report. "Kurds could try to take advantage of Saddam's departure by seizing some of the large northern oilfields, a move that would elicit forceful responses from Sunni Arabs. Score-settling would occur throughout Iraq between those associated with Saddam's regime and those who have suffered most under it."

The report also pointed out that with such an overwhelming U.S. focus on maintaining the Iraq occupation, Osama bin Laden and Company would be allowed to flourish and operate with greater ease in other countries, saying that the White House should expect "…many countries -- including some US allies -- to slacken efforts to hunt down al-Qa'ida and its associates within their borders."

And now that the Congress is in Democratic hands and once again back to the business of actually performing their Constitutional oversight role, the Intelligence Committee's report makes very clear that George W. Bush got ample warning that an Iraq invasion would require far greater military might than they had planned and that the action itself would embolden the terrorists -- as the GOP has so often accused those now against the war of doing.

Labels: Bush Administration, domestic terrorism

A coalition of human rights groups has drawn up a list of 39 terror suspects it believes are being secretly imprisoned by U.S. authorities and published their names in a report released Thursday.

Information about the so-called "ghost detainees" was gleaned from interviews with former prisoners and officials in the U.S., Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and four other groups.

"What we're asking is where are these 39 people now, and what's happened to them since they 'disappeared'?" Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said "there's a lot of myth outside government when it comes to the CIA and the fight against terror."

"The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law, and that our counterterror initiatives — which are subject to careful review and oversight — have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving lives," Gimigliano said. "The United States does not conduct or condone torture."

Labels: fascism, terrorism

Earth to Hillary: the Christian right is never, ever going to vote for you.

Labels: Christofascist Zombie Brigade, Hillary Clinton, utter horseshit

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life....You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist."

Labels: Steve Gilliard

MR. RUSSERT: He was asked last night what would he do as president. He said, “Well, I’d do lots of things.” And asked, what if—“Are you prepared to talk about those?” He said, “No.” Obviously wanting to give time to frame his issues. You remember the 1994 Senate campaign when he ran for the Senate in Tennessee. Here he is with the famous red pickup truck. Is this going to be a, a campaign of a lot of style, a Hollywood actor saying, “I’m a good ol’ boy”?

Labels: Fred Thompson, idiocy, Republic Party

21 minutes. California Rep. Duncan Hunter says he might "authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons" for a preemptive strike against Iran to destroy nuclear centrifuges. This would be more scary if Hunter had any real chance of becoming president.

[snip]

40 minutes. God does not appear to be happy with Giuliani. When the former mayor tries to answer a question about a Catholic bishop who compared him to a biblical betrayer of Christ, the lightning hits the sound system. Squiggly squelches. "That's the lightning," says Blitzer-bot. Giuliani smiles and points to the heavens. Romney and McCain edge away from him on the stage. He could be struck down at any minute.

42 minutes. Huckabee, who is a Baptist pastor, is asked to explain why he doesn't believe in evolution. His answer is moving, eloquent and inclusive. "Let me be very clear. I believe there is a God. I believe there's a God who was active in the creation process. Now, how did he do it and when did he do it and how long did it take, I don't honestly know," he says. "And I don't think knowing that would make me a better president." His pacing is perfect, yielding the loudest applause of the night. Huckabee may be one of the most talented Christian communicators to rise in America since Billy Graham. It's a wonder that he gets so little support from the religious right.

48 minutes. Giuliani gets a question about global warming and his microphone briefly goes out again. There is a lesson here: If it is raining, do not walk next to Giuliani in an open field.

55 minutes. Huckabee reveals the darker side of his faith. Answering a question about gays in the military, he calls homosexuality an "attitude." "It's about conduct," he says, endorsing the current policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving openly. "It's not about attitude."

[snip]

60 minutes.Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson is asked how he would employ President George W. Bush if he won the White House. "I certainly would not send him to the United Nations," Thompson says. "I would put him out on a lecture series, talking to the youth of America about honesty, integrity, perseverance, passion." He says this with a straight face. Former President Bush doing middle school talks about the Golden Rule.

100 minutes. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo explains why Spanish speakers may soon destroy America, and why he would never advertise in his campaign for president in Spanish, which Romney does. "English is the language of this country," he says. "We should not be ashamed of that." Blitzer intervenes, "Sen. McCain, I'd like you to respond."

101 minutes. "Muchas gracias," says McCain.

Labels: Republic Party

In a televised debate on Sunday night, Mrs. Clinton, who has tried to minimize her differences with her rivals on commander-in-chief issues, bluntly disagreed with a main rival, former Senator John Edwards, who had just said that the administration’s so-called war on terror was little more than a slogan.

“I believe we are safer than we were,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We are not yet safe enough, and I have proposed over the last year a number of policies that I think we should be following.”

[snip]

Advisers and supporters of Mrs. Clinton said yesterday that she was not endorsing the Bush administration’s strategy against terrorism, but highlighting the improved efforts of Americans on the front lines to detect and deter terrorist activity since 9/11. They said that Mrs. Clinton also thought the war in Iraq had been a distraction from the fight against terrorism, but that, day to day, people are safer than they were.

“I think the vast majority of Democratic primary voters, and Americans, would agree with Senator Clinton,” said a campaign spokesman, Howard Wolfson. “I think most Americans, for instance, would think that air travel is safer today than on Sept. 10.”

Labels: Hillary Clinton

Labels: utter horseshit

Labels: bloggers

Labels: Iraq, utter horseshit

The FBI came for me yesterday. Really.

Yesterday around lunchtime the boyfriend calls me at work. “Chica,” he says, “you should listen to this message.” He plays a message from an NYPD detective asking me to call him. I was confused, but assumed it was some sort of fundraising request. A couple of hours later I the detective and left a message. His voicemail said he was a part of the NYPD-FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

[As background, almost 10 years ago I worked as an investigator at the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the agency that investigates complaints against the police department. It was an interesting job and a lot of fun (all of the investigators were just out of school, which made it a little more party-like than you would think. Or perhaps a lot more). I eventually quit and went on to work on a couple of movies before going to grad school. About a month ago I got a myspace friend request from some group called ‘CCRB Underground’ and said yes. It was a collection of current or former CCRB investigators making fun of the place. I remember looking at it and trying to figure out if I knew any of them, but I didn’t. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how they knew who I was until I realized I had CCRB listed as one of the places I’d worked on my profile.]

So it did occur to me that this might have something to do with the CCRB, but I couldn’t imagine what. After a little phone tag I finally spoke with the detective. He wanted to meet up with me and ask a few questions relating to CCRB but about a current case. He was willing to come to my work or home, but wanted to do it that day. I’m not too big on having the police in my house, so I suggested the Starbucks by work. The detective said they could drive me home if I was in a hurry, and that they didn’t want to inconvenience me.

None of this made any sense, but I wasn’t especially concerned. Maybe some old investigator had some issue with the cops? There was one guy who did a lot of street theatre stuff, and another girl who had been pretty heavily involved in protesting the RNC back in ’04, and I know that the Joint Task Force was involved in that. More worried were all of my coworkers, who were horrified at the idea that I might just get into a car with strangers.

I went and met the detective. He and his partner showed me their IDs. One was indeed an NYPD Detective and the other an FBI agent. They were very friendly and asked where I wanted to talk. I said on the way home was great. We got into their car (a big one with DC plates) and the detective sat in the back with me while the g-man drove. They already knew my address. Why? Because they’d been to my house three times already. In fact, they hadn’t ever called me, they had been ringing my buzzer (which runs through the phone line and which my machine eventually picks up).

Here’s where it gets crazy.

Labels: fascism, fearmongering, insanity

Saying it was out to combat widespread voter fraud, the Justice Department in recent years has stepped up enforcement of election laws to ease the purging of ineligible voters from state registration rolls.

Since 2005, department civil rights lawyers have sued election officials in seven states - Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey and New York - and sent threatening letters to others, in some cases demanding copies of voter registration data.

Former lawyers in the Civil Rights Division, however, said the voter fraud campaign is a partisan effort to disqualify legitimate voters, as occurred in Florida before the 2000 presidential election.

The former department officials note that researchers have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud and that no lawsuits have targeted states whose elections were managed solely by Republican officials.

At the same time, the department has done little to enforce the core provisions of a 1993 law that requires public assistance agencies to help register the mostly Democratic-leaning, poor and minority voters they serve despite complaints from a national group, Project Vote.

The partisan nature of the Justice Department's election activity will be a focus of a congressional inquiry Tuesday. Former acting Justice Department civil rights chief, Bradley Schlozman, is due to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to respond to allegations of partisanship in the division's hiring and enforcement policies.

Labels: corruption, Republic Party

Labels: Administration B.S., Keith Olbermann, terrorism

We have this idealized image of our fellow humans: that human nature is perfectible, that people go for what's best for them, that given the opportunity, people want to be happy and free. We're liberals. We believe that, given equal access to information and resources, people will work toward happiness. That they will act for the best for themselves, their family, their community, their country and eventually, the world.

We're wrong.

And Elsie? She's just a willfully ignorant asshole. Who votes. And there's millions just like her. They want to take what we give them and then go to the polls and vote so that those things are gone forever. For everyone. I say, "hey, dumbass, you don't see your Medicare, your social security, your safe food and medicine, your right to vote and own property, all these rights and safeties liberals fought and died for. You hate liberalism because Sean Hannity told you to? Fine--give it all up--lose all your rights, your safety and comfort. Great. But don't drag us down with you." Why should I lose my rights because all the Elsies in the world go vote their hatred and delusion at their pastor Karl Rove's bidding?

We can read Mark Ames' The Spite Vote , we can read Franks' What's the Matter With Kansas? We can think and discuss and argue and get angry with each other for various sins of political incorrectness all day long. And in the end, we're left facing the fact that more people than we thought possible are just plain assholes. They're mean. They're weak. They're cowardly.

They're hateful. And they're fucking stupid.

They just voted in their president. And they're marching us toward a fascist state .

(And it doesn't matter if the election was Diebolded and robocalled and thwarted at the polls, either: it should never have been close enough to steal.)

These people never vote for good government; they don't even believe in government. They're spoiled little toddlers who freak out when they're expected to share. They don't think they have to pay for anything that they take. And they're right--they don't.

Democratic leaders in the House moved quickly to distance themselves from Mr. Jefferson, with some lawmakers calling for his resignation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to convene a leadership meeting this week, aides said, to discuss taking away Mr. Jefferson’s seat on the Small Business Committee, his only remaining assignment.

“The charges in the indictment against Congressman Jefferson are extremely serious,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement. “While Mr. Jefferson, just as any other citizen, must be considered innocent until proven guilty, if these charges are proven true, they constitute an egregious and unacceptable abuse of public trust and power.”

Last year, Ms. Pelosi drew criticism from the Congressional Black Caucus for removing Mr. Jefferson from his seat on the powerful Ways and Means panel. After he won re-election last year, Democratic leaders sought to appoint him to the Homeland Security Committee, but Republican leaders threatened to block the appointment and debate it on the House floor in the early months of the Democratic majority. He was not named to the committee.

Democratic aides said the House would almost certainly not vote to expel or censure Mr. Jefferson until his case had played out in court. The last member of the House to be expelled, aides said, was Representative James A. Traficant Jr., an Ohio Democrat, after a criminal conviction on bribery and racketeering charges in 2002.

In the midterm elections last year, Democrats campaigned on a pledge to remove the “culture of corruption” that they said had been a practice of the Republican majority.

The indictment of Mr. Jefferson, which had been expected by Democratic leaders, threatened to sully the party’s promise to bring an ethics overhaul to the 110th Congress.

The indictment also accused Mr. Jefferson of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, making him the first sitting lawmaker to be charged under the law.

He is accused of offering to bribe an unidentified Nigerian official in exchange for assistance with business activities in which Mr. Jefferson and several other unidentified family members had a financial interest.

Labels: Democrats, Republic Party, sleaze

I think the question I enjoyed the most in the Democratic debate was the one where Wolf asked them all what they would do if they were tied to a bed naked with a ticking time bomb and a bunch of terrorists rushed into the room and started kibitzing among themselves about where to get the best Botox in Miami.

Labels: bloggers

The alleged plot, which authorities had been monitoring for about 18 months, involved men with connections in Guyana and Trinidad. Defreitas and the informant also made a number of trips to the two Caribbean countries, leaving law enforcement officials to claim that there is a new region of the world to be mindful of for terrorism threats.

"This latest plot was at once different and similar to what we have seen before," said New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. "Different in its distinct ties to the Caribbean, a region that is rarely thought of in terms of terrorism but of increasing concern ... ."

Yet despite the international scope, Kelly pointed out that New York City remained at the heart of terrorism threats.

"If we learned anything from this latest plot, it's that they keep coming back to New York," he said.

On the campaign trail, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said in Florida last night that the foiled airport plot points up the need for anti-terror tactics like the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance and "aggressive" interrogation techniques.

Labels: fascism, insanity

A car bomb attack outside a major U.S. military base in Iraq discharged a gaseous cloud that sickened dozens of people Sunday, punctuating a flurry of violence that left 14 American soldiers dead over the past three days.

The counterinsurgency strategy launched by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has moved soldiers off the sprawling, fortified American bases into smaller, more vulnerable outposts in violent neighborhoods to bring them into more sustained contact with the people they want to protect. But their presence creates more potential targets, as combat operations have expanded with the addition of five brigades of soldiers in Iraq, part of President Bush's troop buildup.

[snip]

Most of the U.S. casualties since Friday resulted from roadside bombings, the deadliest weapon Americans face in Iraq. A roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad killed four soldiers on patrol Sunday, and two more soldiers were killed Saturday by a roadside bomb in Nineveh province, north of Baghdad.

In a series of other attacks, two soldiers were killed in Diyala province and six in the Baghdad area. In one incident, a soldier on foot patrol southwest of Baghdad spotted two men near a mosque who appeared suspicious, the military said. As the soldier approached to question them, one of the men detonated explosives, killing himself and the soldier.

Labels: Iraq

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” Milligan said.

Labels: Republic Party, terrorism

The most patriotic moments at Yankee Stadium can also be the most confining.

Seconds before ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' and ''God Bless America'' are played, police officers, security guards and ushers turn their backs to the American flag in center field, stare at fans moving through the stands and ask them to stop. Across the stadium's lower section, ushers stand every 20 feet to block the main aisle with chains.

As the songs are played or sung, the crowd appears motionless.

The national anthem has long been a pregame staple at sporting events. But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Major League Baseball directed teams to play ''God Bless America'' before the bottom of the seventh inning at every game. Baseball scaled back the next season, telling teams they needed to play the song only on Sundays and holidays, which is still the case.

Only the Yankees continue to play ''God Bless America'' at every home game. They are also the only ones to use chains to prevent fans from moving during both songs, which concerns some civil liberties advocates.

Howard J. Rubenstein, the spokesman for the Yankees' principal owner, George Steinbrenner, said the policy was an expression of patriotism.

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