May 1, 2005
French May Yet Approve EU Constitution
The Guardian (UK) reports that Jacques Chirac has made some progress in turning around what would have been a devastating loss in the upcoming plebescite to approve the new EU constitution. Polling now indicates that the French favor the constitution by a slim but unstable margin, with many who now support it saying they may change their minds: Opinion polls out this weekend show for the first time that a majority of French people intend to vote in favour of the European draft constitution next month. The two surveys, carried out for Le Monde and the Journal du Dimanche, found that 52 per cent supported the draft constitution and 48 per cent opposed it. But a large proportion said they might still change their minds ahead of the 29 May referendum - 24 per cent in the Le Monde poll and 30 per cent in the other survey. However, with...
Jack Kelly: GOP Needs A Spine
Jack Kelly of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette makes the argument that the GOP has lost political momentum through the lackadaisical effort of its legislative caucuses, especially in the Senate, since the elections last year. Kelly writes that a lack of effort and basic competence in the Republican leadership has allowed the Democrats to bounce back from their stunning defeats, assisted by an ever-willing Exempt Media: Democrats may have been waxed at the polls last November, but they're running rings around Republicans in the public relations battles so far this year. Consider: * Polls indicate a majority of Americans agree with President Bush that reform of Social Security is needed, and about half of Americans favor his plan to permit workers to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts. But in the most recent poll (taken for CBS April 13-16), only 25 percent of respondents indicated they...
Liberian Women And Children Victims Of UN Peacekeeping
The degradation of the United Nations continues apace under the moral authority of the Kofi Annan administration. The AP reports that UN peacekeepers sexually exploited Liberian women and children in the same pattern as they did in Congo and several of the other UN assignments: UN peacekeepers sexually abused and exploited local women and girls in Liberia and more accusations are expected, a UN spokesman said Friday. ... "The allegations range from the exchange of goods, money or services for sex to the sexual exploitation of minors. The peacekeeping department here in New York as well as the mission on the ground are taking appropriate follow-up action," he said. A UN official speaking on condition of anonymity said the number of allegations could eventually total 20. The head of the mission in Liberia, Jacques Paul Klein, is to step down when his contract expires at the end of the month,...
Organizing The 'Theocracy' Witch Hunt In New York
As further evidence of the Left's efforts to chase the religious from all public debate, a conclave of secular humanists and Leftists have gathered in New York to strategize on the further marginalization of religious belief, issuing dire warnings of the impending secular Apocalypse by theistic Anti-Christs. The Washington Post reports that Democratic politicians, People for the American Way, and assorted anti-religious groups have assembled to hiss at pictures of Bill Frist, among other activities: Secular humanists and leftist activists convened here over the weekend to strategize how to counter what they contend is a growing political threat from Christian conservatives. Understanding and answering the "religious far right" that propelled President Bush's re-election is key to preventing a "theocracy" from governing the nation, speakers argued at a weekend conference. "The religious right now has an unprecedented influence on American politics and policy," said Ralph White, co-founder of the Open Center,...
The Despicable Leak
Michelle Malkin is rightly outraged over a leak that has exposed the names of American servicemen in Iraq involved in the Giuliana Sgrena incident, and much more. The PDF file has been published by the Italian media, and lists not just the names of the men cleared in the accidental death of Nicola Calipari, but also the following strategic information: * An itemization of IEDs and VBIEDs deployment techniques which have been most effective, * An analysis of the tactical strengths and weaknesses of specific checkpoints along "Route Irish", * Combat readiness assesment of the units and soldiers involved, * A detailed description of how the checkpoint is laid out, * Exact grid locations of various assets. * Details of how checkpoint searches are set up and executed * Details of how checkpoints are expected to deal with approaching vehicles, including threat assesment methods. * A statistical analysis of "normal"...
The Smear Continues On Brown
Earlier today, alert CQ readers noted an exchange on Fox News Sunday between Juan Williams and Bill Kristol on the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown. A complete transcript is not yet available, but this partial Google Video transcript will demonstrate the ludicrous lengths to which the Left will go towards smearing respected jurists with false charges in order to convince people that they are "extremists": JW: The second point to be made here is, Bill, If they had a real debate about people like Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers brown, the American people would say these folks are too extreme. Even republicans have said that in the case of Priscilla Owen and her rulings in Texas -- BK: Which Republican was that? JW: In fact, a majority of -- BK: Wrong, wrong, dead wrong. His testimony, his recent testimony on the hill -- JW: He said he didn't mean what...
May 2, 2005
DBD Coming Back To CQ
For those who have noticed that the daily Day by Day cartoon has stopped displaying on the site, this hiatus is only temporary. I am rearranging some elements of the site in order to improve load times and add a new sponsorship slot. DBD will likely appear at the top of the left column later tonight. In the meantime, please be sure to visit Chris Muir's site to catch up to Damon, Jan, Sam, and Zed and their latest hilarious and timely commentary on current events....
Tories Losing Their Nerve?
After new polling emerged showing that Liberals have rebounded significantly from the initial Adscam revelations, a Tory MP from the Liberal stronghold of Ontario has announced his preference to delay new elections, throwing the upcoming no-confidence vote into doubt: Cracks appeared yesterday in the Conservative Party's plan to topple the Liberal government at the earliest opportunity as several leading Tory parliamentarians insisted the decision isn't final and one central Ontario MP said a vote should be delayed. "I've said for a while that I don't think we should be going to an election right now," said Larry Miller, the Tory MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, in a radio interview Saturday. "Ultimately the choice will be out of our hands, but that's what the majority have said here and that's what I'll take back [to caucus]." The interview, aired by CKNX-FM in Wingham, Ont., was immediately seized upon by the Liberals as...
Italians To Present Rebuttal Today
Italian investigators working with Americans on the shooting that left commando Nicola Calipari dead and Giuliana Sgrena wounded will present a rebuttal to the American report that they released yesterday without proper redaction, which the BBC reports will challenge American conclusions about the nature of the incident. The Italians plan on disputing earlier contentions that Italy kept Calipari's mission a secret and a key issue of the timing of the warnings: Correspondents say the Italian report will reply point by point to the Pentagon inquiry, which recommended that no disciplinary action be taken against the soldiers involved in Calipari's death. ... Italy says at least three troops opened fire on the car taking freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad airport with Calipari and a second Italian intelligent agent. Italian newspapers say an Italian reconstruction of events show the US authorities were informed of the operation to release Sgrena several hours...
Gee, Thanks, Pat (Updated)
Proving that not all hyperbolic idiots occupy the left side of the political spectrum, Pat Robertson returned political stupidity to a fair and balanced position by proclaiming American federal justices as a greater danger to the US than the murderous terrorists who killed over 3,000 people on 9/11: "Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." ... Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down. "Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together." I don't care what side Robertson supports --...
An End To The Publication Ban?
Requests for delays on trials for Jean Brault and Chuck Guité may result in the lifting of the publication ban currently in place for Guité's testimony. Lawyers for the two key Adscam figures requested continuances until September to prepare their defenses, with Justice Gomery due to rule on releasing embargoed testimony tomorrow or Wednesday: Lawyers for Jean Brault and Chuck Guité have requested that their clients' joint trial on fraud and conspiracy charges be delayed until September. Jury selection is currently scheduled for June 6 but lawyers for the two men say the sponsorship inquiry will still be sitting at that time. A judge will decide Wednesday whether to grant the request. Just as before, the proximity of the criminal trial provided one of the key rationales for Gomery's publication ban. He based the blackout for Canadian citizens on the notion that with a trial so close to the inquiry...
Exempt Media Attacks Bloggers ... Again
The Exempt Media has decided to take another whack at bloggers and the exercise of free speech, this time in the Washington Post. Brian Faler writes in tomorrow's edition about the upcoming Congressional action exempting bloggers from the FEC's upcoming Internet regulations, and his article heavily emphasizes the notion that bloggers can serve as Trojan horses for political campaigns: The FEC requires candidates to disclose their expenditures, including any payments to bloggers, in periodic reports to the government. Some bloggers also disclose their financial relationships with candidates, but they are not obliged to reveal those payments, and the agency recently said it is not proposing requiring them to do so. Some election law experts want the FEC to reverse that policy, saying it gives campaigns the opportunity to use ostensibly independent blogs as fronts to create the illusion of grass-roots support, mount attacks on their opponents and disseminate information to...
Harper: Tory No-Confidence Effort "Unanimous"
Stephen Harper came out of a Conservative caucus meeting tonight vowing to table a no-confidence motion as soon as possible, adding that the Tory caucus had unanimously backed his strategy: Conservative Leader Stephen Harper emerged from a caucus meeting late Monday night, saying his party cannot support the government and that a vote of confidence should take place as soon as possible. Harper called the decision "unanimous," declaring that his party remains committed to defeating a Liberal government "mired" in corruption scandals. "It is also apparent that the Liberal party does not today have the support of the majority of members of the House of Commons," he said. "It should face the House of Commons in a vote at the earliest possible opportunity." Harper had a number of difficulties in getting to the point where a no-confidence vote could be introduced, and he's not there yet. Earlier, of course, the...
May 3, 2005
House Ethics Violations: Not Just For GOP Any More
The attempt to ensnare House Majority Whip Tom DeLay in ethics violations may be backfiring on House Democrats, whose own ethical closets have a skeleton or two making an appearance. Two Democratic Congressmen have accepted travel money from the same lobbyist that involved one of DeLay's aides, and now Democratic outrage has given way to a series of rationalizations: At least two aides to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and two Democratic congressmen received travel expenses initially paid by lobbyist Jack Abramoff on his credit card or by his firm, internal records of the lobbying firm show. Longtime House ethics rules that applied to the 1996 and 1997 trips to the Northern Mariana Islands have strictly prohibited lawmakers and their staffs from accepting any congressional trips from lobbyists or their firms. DeLay's office and one of the lawmakers, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said they had no knowledge that Abramoff or...
Farewell To A Collaborator
The Washington Post publishes an odd obituary today on the suicide death of Edward von Kloberg III, a lobbyist who relished working for some of the twentieth century's worst leaders and most bloodthirsty tyrants. Kloberg jumped to his death two days ago in Rome, leaving behind a lengthy suicide note and apparently a town fascinated by his appalling line of work: As part of Washington's image machinery for more than two decades, Edward von Kloberg III did his best to sanitize some of the late 20th century's most notorious dictators as they sought favors and approval from U.S. officials. A legend of sorts in public relations circles, he counted as clients Saddam Hussein of Iraq; Samuel K. Doe of Liberia; Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania; the military regime in Burma; Guatemalan businessmen who supported the country's murderous, military-backed government; Mobutu Sese Seko of the former Zaire; and, in a figurative coup...
A Note On The Canadian Publication Ban
I have received a number of e-mails questioning why I am not posting testimony that is subject to the publication ban. I have explained this in previous posts, but the number of these e-mailed queries appears to be increasing, which demonstrates pretty clearly that Canadians have reached a high level of frustration with Justice Gomery's blackouts. I am not in Canada, and I am not attending the hearings. I do not have firsthand access to the testimony. I did have a source for that kind of access during the Jean Brault testimony, but that source has since stopped sending that material. I do not know whether he/she feels as though the Canadian government had tracked them down and need to be much more discreet, or whether they just don't have access to the testimony any more. I have yet to find another source -- but if I can find one...
Are The Liberals Buying Their Survival?
A Conservative MP with the memorable name Inky Mark claims that the new Liberal survival strategy will rely on buying Tory MPs in order to undermine Stephen Harper. Mark told the Canadian media in several interviews that the Grits attempted to induce him to switch parties in exchange for an appointment to the foreign service or to the Senate: Conservative MP Inky Mark says the Liberal party is trying to woo him by offering him an ambassadorship or Senate position. Mr. Mark said in several interviews Tuesday that he was approached by an unnamed cabinet minister who offered him a position in a phone call last Friday. "The suggestion was that well, maybe, well, there must be something that I want, right?" Mr. Mark said in an interview with CBC Newsworld Tuesday in Ottawa. "The minister said this?" the reporter asked him. "The minister said that. Perhaps I would like...
And The Jihadis Would Like A Better Vision Plan, Too
The American military has seized a letter intended for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi which chastises the terrorist leader of the Iraqi "insurgency" for huge failures and plummeting morale of the jihadis. The letter, written by another al-Qaeda figure, starts by greeting Zarqawi respectfully but quickly dresses him down for poor performance: The letter -- which never refers to al-Zarqawi by name -- is written to Sheik Abu Ahmad, a name not known to be used by the militant leader or his followers. But supporters often call al-Zarqawi the Sheik or Sheik Abu Musab in letters and on Web sites. "What has happened to myself and my brothers is an unforgivable crime, but God will punish the oppressor," the letter reads. "I swear by God that you will be asked about what happened to us because you have not asked about the situation of the migrants. Morale is down and there is...
25 Years Ago: Operation Nimrod And The First Saddam Test
Twenty-five years ago this week, Saddam Hussein first tested the mettle and will of the West by covertly launching a terrorist attack against an Iranian embassy in London, ostensibly by Iranian rebels against the Ayatollah Khomeini. Six terrorists took over the embassy at Princes Gate on April 30, 1980, touching off a six-day standoff that ended after the crack British commando squad SAS saved all but two of the hostages and killed all but one of the terrorists. The Scotsman publishes a retrospective today of Operation Nimrod, the rescue plan which the SAS implemented almost flawlessly and which still remains one of the most successful counterterrorist operations ever. Michael Howie spoke with operation designed Clive Fairweather to review the politics involved, both before and after, and the effect that Saddam's attack and the SAS response had on global politics. A number of aspects of the Princes Gate attack continue to...
Why Would Medarex Say No?
Hugh Hewitt noted the case of Amanda Twellman-Dieppa, a young woman facing a terminal cancer diagnosis after suffering since her teen years through extensive chemotherapy and radiation. She has tried everything to beat the cancer but has not been lucky enough to be successful. Her family has discovered that a New Jersey pharmaceutical company, Medarex, is developing a new drug (MDX-060) that targets lymphoma receptor CD30, which might help Amanda survive her cancer and take up her active lifestyle once again. Medarex, however, initially refused to provide MDX-060 to Amanda, as it still is going through trials and is considered experimental. The company has made it through Phase II FDA trials, however, and the FDA would allow emergency use for the drug as long as Medarex agreed to its use. The drug was between trials, and told Amanda to wait for the next trial, which was supposedly a few weeks...
May 4, 2005
Guardian: The Neocons May Have Been Right After All
It isn't often that one reads an endorsement of George Bush's foreign policy in the pages of the British left-wing newspaper The Guardian, even with a string of caveats and wait-and-see admonitions. Today, however, the Guardian runs an opinion piece by Max Hastings warning the British Left that dismissing the efforts of Bush and the so-called neocons on transforming the Middle East risks ignoring the real progress that has been made: The greatest danger for those of us who dislike George Bush is that our instincts may tip over into a desire to see his foreign policy objectives fail. No reasonable person can oppose the president's commitment to Islamic democracy. Most western Bushophobes are motivated not by dissent about objectives, but by a belief that the Washington neocons' methods are crass, and more likely to escalate a confrontation between the west and Islam than to defuse it. Such scepticism, however,...
Bush Uses Russian Visit To Drop In On Some Nearby Friends
There are times when one has to feel a bit of sympathy for Vladimir Putin. The beleagured Russian president scored a diplomatic triumph when he successfully arranged to have George Bush and other world leaders visit Moscow for the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the European phase of World War II this week. However, Bush has changed the itinerary for his travel to include visits to former Soviet republics Georgia and Latvia to celebrate the democracy movements flourishing on Russia's border, and Bush can claim that Putin practically forced him to do so: President Bush's attendance, by the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin, at next week's Red Square parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe is meant to recall the great wartime alliance that defeated Nazi Germany. It's a coup for Putin. But Bush is making stops on the way to...
Senior AQ Leader Arrested In Pakistan
The Pakistanis arrested a senior al-Qaeda leader who not only ran the terrorist network in Pakistan but also allegedly masterminded two assassination attempts on Pervez Musharraf. Abu Farraj al-Libbi has been held for several days by security forces, who held off on announcing his arrest until this morning: Pakistani security forces have arrested the al Qaeda mastermind who planned assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Wednesday. ... Al-Libbi, a native of Libya who authorities say is a close associate of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden and acted as al Qaeda's operational chief in Pakistan, was arrested earlier this week, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press. ... Al-Libbi is accused of masterminding two bombings against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. The military leader escaped injury but 17 others were killed in one of the attacks. He is accused of...
It's A Family Affair
Iraqi security forces captured Saddam's nephew over the last few days near Tikrit, where he had been financing and directing the ex-Ba'athist insurgency. Ayman Sabawi is the son of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, the captured half-brother of Saddam who wound up in Iraqi hands after Syria turned him over to Baghdad. Sabawi himself has been a naughty boy. He and a contingent of his fellow dead-enders got caught red-handed with a cache of arms, apparently trying to carry on the work of his father and uncle. No word on whether he holed up in an unusued latrine hole like Uncle Saddam before surrendering to the countrymen he tried so desperately to kill in increasingly cowardly ways....
GOP: Pelosi Silence On Democratic Ethics Issues 'Hypocritical'
After spending weeks screeching about the alleged ethical abuses of Republican Whip Tom DeLay, Congressional Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi suddenly came down with a case of laryngitis when several Democrats were found to have the same problems as DeLay in their travel arrangements. The GOP now wants Pelosi to back the same investigations for these Democrats as she demanded for DeLay, and calls her silence "hypocritical": House Republicans called Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi a hypocrite yesterday for not demanding investigations into new ethics questions that have arisen about the travel of her fellow Democrats. "She demanded an investigation into [Majority Leader] Tom DeLay, but hasn't said a word about these Democrats who have done the same thing," said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, North Carolina Republican. "If she doesn't call for investigations into her fellow Democrats, then it's clear she's being a hypocrite." Republicans are wondering why the California representative won't...
Guité Testimony Upcoming On CQ
Thanks to a new source, I have received an extensive amount of the testimony given by Chuck Guité last Thursday and Friday under the publication ban. This testimony will take me hours to review for content, so please bear with me. I will start posting excerpts and analyses of what I've read tonight, when I have some time to properly review the material. Keep checking back here for updates....
Guité: Gagliano Assured Gov't Revenue For Ad Agency
Here's a taste of what one can expect to read now that the publication ban has been lifted on Chuck Guité's testimony, just minutes after I received a good deal of it from a covert source. (UPDATE: The ban is back in place now.) Guité testified about the purchase of Vickers & Benson by American interests and how the buyers had concerns about maintaining the government revenue streams that existed at the time. Guité acknowledged that the contracts meant millions of dollars to V&B and that without some sort of guarantee, the sale might fall through. Guité knew who to call-- Alfonse Gagliano, who possibly reached out to Paul Martin: CG: And then, not to take too much time, the same applies as we talked about this morning; there has to be a Canadian entity within V&B to maintain that. So I met with the V&B people. I discussed it...
Guité Testimony Redacted On Personal Loan (Banned Testimony)
With the publication ban mostly lifted on Chuck Guité's testimony at the Gomery Inquiry after a dizzying series of judicial rulings this afternoon, the only question that remains is what has been withheld from the public. After spending a few hours working through the first two days of testimony, it appears that the only part of Guité's testimony still subject to the ban involves a personal loan given to the lobbyist by Groupaction and Jean Brault. In fact, although the repayment came due in April 2002, Guité never paid it back -- and he continued to invoice Groupaction for his work. This strange arrangement caught the attention of the inquiry: MR. ROY: Okay. On April 19, 2001, you borrowed a sum of $25,000 from a company owned by Groupaction, or a part of the Groupaction Group of Companies called Alexsim Inc. Société Immobilière, and I am referring now to pages...
Confessions Of A Frustrated Blogger
I'd love to post more tonight, but my Toshiba Satellite laptop has decided to start shutting itself down every hour or so, making detailed research into the Gomery testimony almost impossible. I have an extended warranty on it, but that would require me to send it in for repairs, and it would likely take three or four weeks to get it back. I haven't been terribly enamored of this machine since I bought it, and I'm liking it less and less as I go along. I'll have to get back to working on it tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll be watching The Last Of The Mohicans, the terrific 1992 Daniel Day-Lewis version with one of the best film scores ever. I may have more access to the redacted Guité testimony by then. If not, I'll continue to work on some of the more interesting, unreported aspects of his testimony instead....
May 5, 2005
Palestinians Refuse To Disarm Terrorists
For those who keep thinking that the Mahmoud Abbas era of Palestinian politics has anything new to offer, the news keeps offering one rebuttal after another. Reuters reports today that key Palestinian Authority security figures have no intention of disarming terrorists within Gaza or the West Bank, despite the roadmap initiatives for peace and any pledges made by Abbas to the Israelis: The Palestinian Authority reiterated Wednesday it had no intention of disarming militants despite constant Israeli calls for such a move and a recent pledge to crack down on unlicensed weapons. The announcement came amid growing friction between armed factions and security forces following the arrest of two Hamas men after a gunfight Monday night. The militants were accused of planning to attack Israel in defiance of a cease-fire. "We have no intention of withdrawing arms of resistance," Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of the internal Preventive Security Service,...
Jerry Lewis: Sinatra Was Mob Bagman
An upcoming biography of Frank Sinatra includes recollections from Jerry Lewis that appears to confirm the rumors of Sinatra's involvement in Mafia business. The Guardian (UK) reports that Lewis offers an anecdote revealing that Sinatra nearly got caught while muling $3.5 million through New York customs in the 1940s: In an interview for a new biography of Sinatra, Lewis is quoted as saying of the Rat Pack member: "He volunteered to be a messenger for them. And he almost got caught once ... in New York." As he passed through customs, Lewis says, Sinatra was stopped by officials who started to open the suitcase he was carrying. Inside, says Lewis, were notes to the value of "three and a half million in 50s". But the customs officers were distracted by the crowds of people trying to catch a glimpse of the singer and aborted their search. Had they not, claims...
Palestinians To The Polls, To Embrace Hamas
To emphasize a point I made earlier today, the AP reports that Palestinians have begun voting in municipal elections across most of the territories today -- and are expected to deal the so-called moderates of Fatah a blow. Election observers expect a big mandate for Hamas, and even PA president Mahmoud Abbas tried to cut a deal with the terror organization to delay mid-summer parliamentary elections in the face of withering public support for Fatah: Palestinians voted for local governments in dozens of towns and villages across the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Thursday in a contest that is expected to boost the Islamic militant group Hamas and could foreshadow results of parliamentary elections in July. The ruling Fatah party of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, plagued by allegations of corruption after 10 years in power, is increasingly concerned Hamas will rout it in local voting and in the...
Liberals In Quebec: Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler
The Globe and Mail reports today that Liberal Party activists channeled over $300,000 in illegal cash drawn from Adscam sources into electoral efforts in Quebec. An upcoming Gomery witness has indicated that the money came from Chrétien crony Jacques Corriveau, a familiar power broker in the Sponsorship Program scandal: Senior Liberal organizers allegedly showered about $300,000 in cash on Quebec ridings held by the opposition during the 1997 federal election campaign, The Globe and Mail has learned. Michel Béliveau, a close supporter of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, made the allegation in preliminary interviews with members of the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship program. Mr. Béliveau is scheduled to testify today about allegedly receiving the cash from Jacques Corriveau, another Liberal supporter and close friend of Mr. Chrétien, who got millions through the sponsorship program in the 1990s. The testimony would be the first by a Liberal official describing illicit...
May 6, 2005
Will Liberals Refuse To Leave?
The Liberals may not leave office willingly if a no-confidence vote tied to a budget amendment succeeds, according to Liberal House leader Tony Valeri. The Globe and Mail reports that the Liberals intend on arguing that a failure on a budgetary procedural motion cannot equate to a no-confidence motion, making it more difficult for the Conservatives to bring down Paul Martin's government: The House of Commons will vote within two weeks on a motion calling on the government to resign after the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled against Liberal attempts to scuttle the vote. But government House Leader Tony Valeri announced the Liberals would not call an election should they lose that vote, because they don't consider it one of confidence. That move was greeted with anger by the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois. Conservative House Leader Jay Hill raised the spectre of involving Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, saying...
Congratulations, Mr. Blair
It didn't exactly equate to smooth sailing, but Tony Blair can enjoy a glass of champagne in celebration of his third consecutive term as Prime Minister today after securing a majority win for his Labour Party. While the Conservatives ate into that majority by creating a swing of almost a hundred seats, Blair still has a significant margin of 66 seats despite worries that the Iraq War might force Labour to govern from a minority. Blair focused on the positive as he announced his intention to form the new government: Tony Blair has said that he has "listened" to the British public and has a clear idea of what they want for Labour's historic third term in power. Mr Blair spoke outside Number 10 after visiting Buckingham Palace, where the Queen asked him to form a new Government, following the election victory. ... "The Queen has asked me to form...
AIPAC Got Top Secret/Codeword Information
Michelle Malkin has been following the case of Larry Franklin, who had been accused of stealing classified information on Iran from his post at the Office of Special Plans and passing it to AIPAC, a pro-Israeli group. This case has received little fanfare from the media and the blogosphere, probably in part because of the Sandy Berger case and the strange unwillingness on the part of the government to aggressively pursue Berger's violations, especially before the election. However, Michelle points out a Newsday report from yesterday which shows why the Franklin case should be making more of a splash. It turns out that not only was the material classified, it actually had one of the highest possible classifications -- Top Secret/Compartmentalized, also known as Codeword classification, meaning that the information directly impacts the national security of the United States: An analyst in a controversial Pentagon intelligence office was charged yesterday...
The Laptop Follies Continue
Sometimes I have all the luck ... After getting a good amount of feedback on my laptop problems, as well as reading through some similar issues over at Dean Esmay's, I was able to determine a couple of things about my Toshiba Satellite laptop: 1. An earlier model of the Satellite (the 5005) had almost exactly the same problems as my A65 -- overheating, shutdowns, and slow response from the processor which gets increasingly worse over time. In that case, Toshiba settled a class-action suit from Satellite 5005 owners by giving them $500 each, or a $1500 credit from Toshiba Direct if they returned their computers to Toshiba. Unfortunately, that does not apply to the A65. 2. Toshiba didn't learn much from that costly debacle, if their design of the A65 is any indication, considering my current laptop is a replacement of the defective model I first bought. 3. Like...
Does The Buck Stop At Béliveau?
Michel Béliveau continues his testimony at the Gomery Inquiry today, and it looks like Béliveau may be taking one for the team. Despite testifying that two prominent Adscam operatives had been suspected of running illegal fundraisers by Liberal Party leadership, Béliveau claims that the $300,000 spent from illicit Sponsorship Program money is his responsibility alone: On Thursday, Mr. Béliveau told the Gomery inquiry how he dealt with the party's financial emergencies by asking for more than $300,000 in cash from people connected to the sponsorship program. Mr. Béliveau is the first party official to back up in testimony claims that illicit cash payments were used to cover party expenses while Mr. Chrétien was prime minister. A jittery Mr. Béliveau acted repentant and insisted he acted alone and never informed other Liberal officials. "It was me and no one else. I'm taking the responsibility." In every political scandal, one person usually...
It's An Extremely Claustrophobic World
If you missed Hugh Hewitt's show last night, you missed one of the funniest and strangely compelling endings to a radio broadcast ever. Hugh broadcast his show from Disneyland yesterday as the granddaddy of theme parks celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. Despite being the best political talk show on radio, Hugh likes to spice it up occasionally by switching to fun locales and covering cultural topics -- and when he does, you can expect him to come up with a way to torture his producer, Generalissimo Duane, in some novel and hilarious way ... hilarious to us, of course. This time, Hugh came up with the fabulous idea of sending Duane through the slow-boat ride, It's A Small World. Those of us who have been to Disneyland on multiple occasions -- I grew up in nearby Cerritos and literally lived next door to it for two periods of my...
Reid Wavering On Filibuster?
Has Harry Reid gotten nervous about the upcoming confrontation on judicial confirmations? The AP's David Espo reports that Reid has privately told Republican Senators that he does not plan on endorsing filibusters on Supreme Court nominees except under "extreme" circumstances: Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has privately told individual Republicans he doesn't intend to block votes on any Supreme Court nominees except in extreme cases, according to officials familiar with the conversations. At the same time, Reid has declined in private — as well as in public — to offer the type of firm no-filibuster assurance that might help him prevail over Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. in a struggle over President Bush's conservative court appointments and rules covering future confirmations. ... "I can never say there will never be a filibuster because I cannot say that," he said recently on the Senate floor. "But I don't think this Senate...
Open Mouth, Insert Foot, Repeat As Desired
As if the Democrats couldn't look more foolish than they already have this session, now Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has taken to calling George Bush names while the President represents the US at World War II memorials around Europe. Reid called Bush a "loser", in what has to be the oddest case of projection so far this year: In the course of a discussion on filibusters and Senate rules, Washington's top Democrat gave the 60 juniors a lesson in partisan politics, particularly about the commander in chief. "The man's father is a wonderful human being," Reid said in response to a question about President Bush's policies. "I think this guy is a loser. "I think President Bush is doing a bad job," he added to a handful of chuckles. He's a loser, eh? Let's take stock: A. He beat an incumbent VP for a popular President after two terms...
St. Paul Mourns The Loss Of A Hero
The city of St. Paul lost one of its heroes early this morning when Sgt. Gerald Vick, a two-time Medal of Valor recipient, died in a hail of gunfire while protecting the citizens of our state's capitol. Police have two suspects in custody: Police said Antonio Alexander Kelly, 27, and Harry Jerome Evans, 32, were being held on probable cause in the shooting of Sgt. Jerry Vick, which happened across the street from Erick's bar about 2:20 a.m. St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington announced the arrests at 12:10 p.m., saying Kelly was arrested at 3:30 a.m. and Evans was arrested at 10:15 a.m. Evans was covered with mud and appeared to have been hiding. Vick, a member of the department's vice squad, was pronounced dead at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Harrington said. Vick had been shot in an alley near 7th and Forest Streets after exchanging shots with...
Has Northern Ireland Chosen A Return To The Troubles?
The fallout from the retreat of Britain's Labour Party from its previously unassailable majority has implications for Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement that has kept the Troubles at bay. Tony Blair's political dominance had kept Northern Irish politics firmly fixed on the center, where moderate Unionists governed with some cooperation from moderate Republicans and kept the extremists relegated to the fringes. However, the British election resulted in a reversal, with the moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) losing all but one of its seats. The anti-agreement Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) led by radical Ian Paisley picked up three of the seats, while the moderate republican SDLP took over the South Belfast UUP seat, the first time a republican has represented that district: The Ulster Unionist party was in meltdown last night after its leader, David Trimble, lost his seat to Ian Paisley's hardline Democratic Unionist party and what was...
May 7, 2005
Chimeras And Strawmen
I normally avoid reading Maureen Dowd with the same enthusiasm I avoid reading junk mail; typically, one learns nothing and the entire exercise only annoys the reader. Once in a while, in a fit of masochism, I check out her latest rant just to see whether she's improved at all. If today's column gives any indication, Dowd may actually be getting worse with time. Today's screed manages to be racist, condescending, and just flat-out foolish all at once, with a dash of self-congratulatory classical references thrown in for good measure. Dowd starts off by writing about chimeras -- cross-bred animals that bioengineers have created in labs as part of cloning research -- and manages to transform the subject into a hysterical rant about the coming theocracy. First, though, Dowd has to show off a little about her grasp of Greek mythology: I've seen just about every werewolf, Dracula and mermaid...
The Ghost Of Elections Past
Someone should tell John Kerry that the election is over. Today's New York Times has a profile of the erstwhile candidate, turning around a moribund and singularly unaccomplished 20-year Senate career by pushing a new government program of health insurance for kids in our St. Paul back yard. The reason for this sudden interest in legislation -- Kerry notoriously only has six pieces of legislation to his name after two decades in Congress -- is rather obvious to everyone, even Sheryl Stolberg: More than an ordinary senator, less than a presidential nominee, Mr. Kerry is a politician betwixt and between. He has more than $8 million in the bank and an e-mail list of three million supporters, yet must still prove himself to fellow Democrats, keeping his presidential prospects alive even as he insists it is too soon to talk about 2008. Mr. Kerry has made children's health care his...
This Is A Cease Fire?
While Mahmoud Abbas talks about Israeli provocations and his Gaza security chief refuses to disarm the terrorists, the Palestinians themselves have taken their cues and acted accordingly. This morning, Palestinians shot an anti-tank missile at a school bus full of children in a Gaza settlement: Palestinians on Friday morning fired an anti-tank rocket on Friday morning at school bus carrying children outside the southern Gaza Strip settlement of Kfar Darom, shaking the fragile lull in violence. The rocket failed to hit the bus. A mortar shell also hit a Gush Katif settlement. No damage or casualties were reported in either case. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired four Qassam rockets at the southern Israeli town of Sderot predawn Friday. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said that several people had been treated for shock. Soon we will hear the usual excuses from the Palestinians. The attackers were from Islamic...
Corriveau Spread The Wealth (Off The Books, Natch)
In the excitement of the banned Guité testimony coming to light, I missed another significant piece of testimony in the Gomery Inquiry. Serge Gosselin, a Liberal Party pollster, testified that Chrétien crony Jacques Corriveau paid him directly for his work on behalf of the party and had no idea that Corriveau kept the payments off the books: A federal Liberal pollster and researcher was paid more than $60,000 by a friend of Jean Chretien for partisan activities, including work during the 2000 election campaign, the sponsorship inquiry was told Thursday. Serge Gosselin, one-time aide to unity minister Stephane Dion, said he vetted campaign billboards and other material on behalf of Jacques Corriveau. Gosselin was told by inquiry counsel Guy Cournoyer there's no evidence Pluri Design, Corriveau's company, ever passed the bill on to the Liberals for the work. "Are you surprised to find that for services of an essentially political...
The Return Of Michel Aoun
The Cedar Revolution either gained a large amount of credibility or a giant headache this morning as exiled resistance leader Michel Aoun returned to Lebanon for the first time since Syria forced him to flee in 1990. Aoun wants to run for office in the newly-freed country, describing himself as the "grandfather, father and son" of the democracy movement: Exiled Lebanese opposition leader Michel Aoun has arrived in his homeland for the first time in 14 years. The anti-Syrian former prime minister's chartered flight from France touched down in Beirut at 1400 GMT. He is due to address crowds at a mass rally celebrating his homecoming in the capital's Martyrs Square. Mr Aoun, 70, a Christian hardliner, was expelled from Lebanon in 1991 after failing in his attempt to end Syria's military presence. Aoun didn't exactly represent unfettered democracy during his tenure as Prime Minister. He tried to retain Christian...
NARN At White Bear Lake Super-Store!
The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be broadcasting live from White Bear Lake Superstore this afternoon from noon to 3 pm, in another of our series of live remotes at this terrific sponsor. If you're in the area, come on down to visit us, and maybe find a great deal on a new set of wheels while you're there. If you're outside of the Twin Cities, you can find our Internet stream at AM 1280 The Patriot's site. Call us at 651-289-4488 if you want to join the conversation. Today's second-hour guest will be Brian Anderson, author of South Park Conservatives. It's a provocative book making a big splash in the punditry this month, and Brian has plenty to tell us about the future of politics based on his research. Stay tuned!...
May 8, 2005
More Projection From The Democrats
Yesterday, Charles Schumer called on President Bush to dial down the rhetoric of the people opposing the Democrats' use of the filibuster, claiming that "harsh language" undermines the political process: In his radio appeal, Schumer sought to draw Bush more directly into the fray by urging the president to denounce some conservatives who have used harsh language to criticize the Democrats. "I am making a heartfelt plea to you, Mr. President. When you came to Washington, you said you wanted to change the climate in D.C.," Schumer said. "Those stating these abhorrent views count themselves as your political allies. One word from you will bring a halt to these un-American statements. That would be a way to strengthen democracy here at home." The senator referred generally to some activists comparing judges to the Ku Klux Klan and terrorists. The same AP report by Devlin Barrett notes that the Democrats started...
Come Home To Oppression, What's Old Is What's New
Vladimir Putin made an offer to the former Soviet republics to return to the Commonwealth of Independent States, the confederation that took the place of the USSR when the Communists lost control of Russia and its republics gained their independence. Putin used the celebration of its victory over Nazi Germany to argue for greater collaboration between Russia and its neighbors, but the lessons of the sixty years since V-E Day shows these nascent democracies the wisdom of keeping Moscow at arm's length: Russian President Vladimir Putin told leaders of the troubled Commonwealth of Independent States on Sunday that their grouping of ex-Soviet republics remained relevant today and urged them to defend its existence. At a summit held the day before commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, Putin said the grouping of 12 out of the 15 former Soviet republics had a key role in combatting...
Has Martin Bought Ontario?
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has desperately looked for ways to fend off a call for elections, trying to delay all efforts to remove the Liberal government for its massive embezzlement and electoral-fraud scheme in Adscam. Last week he cut a deal with NDP leader Jack Layton to take $4.6 billion more in taxes from Canadians and redirect them to NDP's legislative priorities. Now the price tag for Martin's continuing political career has gone past the $10 billion mark, as Martin cut a deal with Ontario to send $5.7 billion over the next five years to the Liberal power base he so desperately needs: Ontario will be getting an extra $5.75 billion in federal financial support over the next five years -- money that will mainly go into immigration, skills training and post-secondary education. ... McGuinty inherited a huge deficit from the former Progressive Conservative government. He started a campaign...
Liberal Editor Supports Janice Rogers Brown
Perhaps Harry Reid should get out more often before pronouncing personal judgments on people he doesn't know. Two days after calling Janice Rogers Brown a "bad person" and accusing her of a hidden agenda to return the US to Civil War status, the editor of the Sacramento Bee writes a long and passionate defense of Brown that should give the entire Democratic Senate caucus pause before signing onto Reid's disastrous filibuster project: I know Janice Rogers Brown, and she knows me, but we're not friends. The associate justice of the California Supreme Court has never been to my house, and I've never been to hers. Ours is a wary relationship, one that befits a journalist of generally liberal leanings and a public official with a hard-right reputation fiercely targeted by the left. ... I find myself rooting for Brown. I hope she survives the storm and eventually becomes the first...
Happy Mother's Day!
I want to wish all CQ readers a happy Mother's Day, and hope you all have a chance to either be with your mothers or your children on a beautiful Sunday in May. I'll be taking the First Mate out with our son and daughter-in-law to brunch at Khoury's, a local favorite with a delicious brunch every Sunday. The local staff has started to recognize us, in fact. We'll get our Little Admiral fix as well as a big midday meal. Since my mother will celebrate Mother's Day with my sister in Southern California -- I sent flowers on Friday -- I figured I'd post a Mother's Day greeting today. She occasionally comments here as Vayapaso, and here she is with a somewhat disreputable local radio-show host whose name escapes me at the moment: Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Stay away from those book-signings, though....
CQ Gets Mention At BlogNashville
The finest of Tennessee's blogs got together for a major blogging conference this weekend, BlogNashville. Instapundit has been covering it extensively throughout, providing video and photo links and even tips for those looking for proper WiFi access. Longtime CQ friend and Rocky Mountain News columnist Linda Seebach was kind enough to mention my work on the Adscam scandal during one of the panels, and Ian from The Political Teen has the video here. They picked a great weekend for the conference, too. The weather looks beautiful in Nashville and this has been a rather slow news period, as Glenn himself mentions tonight....
Beryl Wajsmann, In His Own Words
Upcoming Gomery Inquiry witness Beryl Wajsmann left a lengthy statement in the comments section of this post on CQ. Mr. Wajsmann serves as President of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal and his pending testimony before the Inquiry promises to shed much light on Adscam. In order to ensure that everyone gets a chance to read his statement, I'm pulling it out of the comments and posting it separately. (Note: I'm awaiting confirmation from Mr. Wasjmann that sent the message, but the IP address and the e-mail from IAPM matches. UPDATE 5/9: I've confirmed this as coming fro mMr. Wajsmann.) ------------- INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS OF MONTREAL 8 May 2005 Montreal WAJSMAN AND GOMERY Harry Truman said, “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” I just wanted to drop you a note to tell you that I can not only stand the heat, but we’re...
May 9, 2005
Singapore Shuts Down A Critical Blogger
No one will ever mistake the autocratic rule of Singapore as an open society, but even by Singapore standards, the silencing of this blogger seems rather heavy-handed: A Singapore student said on Monday he has shut down his blog and apologized unreservedly after a government agency threatened to sue for defamation. Chen Jiahao, a 23-year-old graduate student in the United States, told Reuters he closed down his personal Web site after A*STAR, a Singapore government agency focusing on science and research, threatened legal action for what the agency said were untrue and serious accusations. ... On Sunday he posted the new apology on his "Caustic Soda" blog, saying "I unreservedly apologize to A*STAR, its Chairman Mr. Philip Yeo, and its executive officers for the distress and embarrassment caused to them." "They sent me an e-mail with these words," Chen told Reuters on Monday by telephone from the United States, where...
Inside Out, The (New) John Kerry Story
The Boston Globe reports that John Kerry has transformed himself into that most hackneyed of political clichés, the "outsider" candidate, despite having spent the last twenty years in Washington DC. Using the hilarious notion of turning a twenty-year career in the Senate into outsider street cred, Kerry insists on firing up crowds by talking about how Washington ignores the little people: Gone was his stump speech railing against President Bush's Iraq war policy, the sluggish economy, and the Republican agenda; even mentions of Kerry's Senate career and Vietnam War service had disappeared. Instead, Kerry -- a veteran politician who has held office for 21 years -- took off his suit jacket and roamed a small stage in Louisiana's Old State Capitol to push a new message: Get angry at Washington. ''Washington seems more and more out of touch with the difficulties the average family is facing," Kerry told the crowd...
NoKos Try Orwell As They Return To Bargaining Table
The North Koreans have sent a "conciliatory" message asking for a resumption of the multilateral negotiations the US insists on using as a framework for non-proliferation talks with the Kim regime. In fact, the message was so conciliatory that the North Koreans now claim that they never wanted any other kind of framework than the six-nation approach: Capping a week of rising tension with a conciliatory note, a foreign ministry statement issued late Sunday said Pyongyang was ready to sit down and resolve the standoff through six-party talks. "Our will to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and seek a negotiated solution to (the nuclear standoff) still remains unchanged," the statement said Monday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. It also dropped a precondition to a resumption of the six-way talks by denying it had ever asked for separate, one-on-one talks with Washington, a demand the United States has rejected....
BQ Will Demand Action If Liberals Ignore No-Confidence Motion
Bloc Quebecois made its intentions clear today in response to an assertion by Liberal Party leader Tony Valeri last week that the Grits can ignore a no-confidence rider on a budget amendment. BQ party leader Gilles Duceppe warned that such a blatant disregard for protocol will result in a demand to Canada's governor-general to dissolve the Liberal government by decree: The opposition will ask Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson to intervene if the Liberals lose a coming vote and won't resign, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe says. "That would be the duty of the Governor General to call Paul Martin and to tell him a few things about democracy,'' Duceppe said Monday as the country's federal political leaders attended VE-Day ceremonies in Holland. Nor is BQ alone in its ire. Stephen Harper, the Tory leader in Parliament who will likely force the issue on the amendment, warns of severe and immediate...
Corbeil: Liberal Activists Tied To Martin Took Illegal Cash
Benoit Corbeil testified at the Gomery Inquiry today that several Liberal Party activists and bureaucrats received illicit campaign contributions, including some currently serving on Prime Minister Paul Martin's staff. Included on the list was Daniel Dezainde, named in Beryl Wajsmann's statement to Captain's Quarters last night as well: Eight Liberal officials, including high-ranking Quebec wing executives and political staff in the current government of prime minister Paul Martin, are among people who received cash payments for the 2000 election, the Gomery inquiry has heard. The revelation came from Benoît Corbeil, the executive director of the party's Quebec wing from 1998 to 2001. Among those whom he said got cash in envelopes for election work are Irène Marcheterre, director of communications of Transport Minister Jean Lapierre, and Richard Mimeau, a Martin loyalist who is Mr. Lapierre's special assistant for Quebec. Another current political staffer whom Mr. Corbeil said received cash was...
Beryl Wajsman Interview At CQ
This evening, I had the pleasure of speaking at length with Beryl Wajsman, the president of Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal and an upcoming witness for the Gomery Inquiry looking into Adscam. Our first contact came when Beryl posted an unsolicited statement in CQ's comments section, which I reposted separately to ensure that everyone had a chance to read it. Beryl, it turns out, is a man who does not remain silent gladly. As his statement suggests, he is a man of strong opinions and convictions, a man who speaks bluntly, and someone who needs little prompting to discuss difficult subjects. Despite the differences in our political viewpoints, I found Beryl very convincing and his enthusiasm contagious. Over the next couple of days, I plan on transcribing the interview and posting it in serial form. I don't want to try quoting Beryl without having a transcript in front of...
Doing The GOP's Work On Brown
It's nice to see that judicial nominees are finally getting a defense from the personal attacks and political smears of the Senate Democrats. Too bad that the GOP isn't the group providing them. After the endorsement by self-described liberal Ginger Rutland of the Sacramento Bee yesterday for Janice Rogers Brown, Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice joined the fight on the pages of the Washington Times today: The judicial confirmation process has become so savage in recent years that it would take a brave nominee to offer himself or herself for consideration. California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, for example, has been charged in a recent NAACP "Action Alert" with being "hostile to civil rights" and "having extreme right-wing views." I do not agree with all of Justice Brown's opinions, but I write this to show how prejudicially selective the prosecution of her is by the Democrats, the NAACP,...
May 10, 2005
Schumer Eats His Words
If Charles Schumer wanted to turn public opinion against George Bush in the rhetorical battle over judicial nominations, his efforts have backfired on him, if the AP gives any indication. After Schumer's radio address decried Republican rhetoric for being "harsh", the wire ssrvice (through MS-NBC) reports today on Minority Leader Harry Reid instead as unprecedented in his personal attacks: In an institution that prides itself as a last bastion of civility, the Senate’s new Democratic leader has on occasion turned to playground taunts and name-calling in his four-month tenure. After accusing President Bush of lying about his role in a fight over judicial filibusters, Sen. Harry Reid last week called the president a “loser.” And Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan? He’s a “political hack,” according to the formerly soft-spoken Nevada Democrat. ... Late last month, Reid complained that Vice President Dick Cheney’s pledge to break a tie if necessary and...
Owen Will Bust The Filibuster (Or Will She?)
The Washington Times reports today that Frist has decided to pull the trigger on the Byrd option using Priscilla Owen's nomination as the catalyst. Owen gives Frist the widest possible support at the moment, as well as being one of the two nominees who have waited the longest for confirmation: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans for Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to be the judicial nomination on which he uses the "nuclear option" against Democratic filibusters later this month, according to Republicans familiar with his plans. Justice Owen, first nominated to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals four years ago yesterday, has often been seen as the most likely nominee to be pushed though. And when Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican, made his final offer to Democrats last month to avoid a showdown, he mentioned only one nominee: Justice Owen. ... She has impeccable academic credentials, received the...
Did Gagliano Intimidate Corbeil?
Benoit Corbeil made an interesting reference to a phone call from Alfonse Gagliano during his Gomery Inquiry testimony yesterday. According to Corbeil, Gagliano called to dissuade his former associate from testifying, warning him that his reputation was at stake: The lawyer for a sponsorship inquiry witness said Monday his client felt intimidated after Alfonso Gagliano called him and warned him about his reputation ahead of his potentially damaging testimony. Former party official Benoit Corbeil told the inquiry Gagliano called his home last month, warning him his reputation would be destroyed if he implicated top Liberals in an alleged illicit financing scheme. "He said 'listen, Benoit, people will come out against you, unanimously,''' said Corbeil, one-time boss of the party's Quebec wing. "(He said) 'you'll lose your reputation and you'll lose friends.''' Corbeil received the call from Gagliano last month after telling reporters that Gagliano knew of illicit money transfers to...
Parliament Votes For Gov't To Resign; Grits Defiant
Stephen Harper tabled his no-confidence amendment this afternoon after much debate as to whether it constituted a legal demand for dissolution, and won a narrow 153-150 vote as the NDP could not rescue Paul Martin and the Liberals. However, the Liberals still refuse to recognize the amendment's mandate for new elections: In what was a Parliamentary squeaker, the Conservatives teamed up with the Bloc Quebecois, to defeat the Liberals who were backed by the NDP and two Independents by a vote of 153 to 150. Opposition members rose to their feet and broke into applause after House Speaker Peter Milliken announced the results. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper rose and accused the Prime Minister of clinging to power "at all costs." ... But the Liberals insist the vote holds no such power. Seeking to clarify confusion over the consequences of the Conservative motion, the Liberals convened an emergency press conference earlier...
WaPo Smells The Cheese ... Finally
The Washington Post has finally sniffed out the Silence of the Cheese, the voter-fraud scandal in Milwaukee that helped turn Wisconsin blue in the 2004 Presidential election. Michelle Malkin points readers to a new development that the Post reported late this afternoon: About 4,500 more ballots than registered voters were cast in the election last November in Milwaukee, investigators said Tuesday. Also, more than 200 felons voted improperly in Milwaukee, and more than 100 instances of suspected double-voting were found. No charges have been filed. Investigators found no widespread conspiracy, just isolated incidents, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic said. "I don't think there's an election in this municipality or this state that would have been decided differently even with those numbers," said Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat. Barrett wants this entire embarassment to go away, and the spin is designed for the national media to go back into silence mode. Having...
Corbeil: Money Funded Covert Campaign Office
Former Liberal activist Benoit Corbeil continued his testimony at the Gomery Inquiry today, revealing the covert campaign that Adscam money funded for the Grits. Corbeil also started talking about other scandals that so far have not found much resonation with Canadians: The federal Liberals ran their 2000 election campaign in Quebec with two parallel staff — only one of which was on the payroll at their Montreal headquarters, the sponsorship inquiry was told Tuesday. Former Quebec wing boss Benoit Corbeil said then-public works minister Alfonso Gagliano ran a team of 30 “fake volunteers” who included ministerial aides as well as lawyers and engineers. ... “There were two sections at the headquarters — there was the registered section, where I worked, and there was the unregistered section,” Mr. Corbeil told the inquiry. “Anyone who says they weren't aware of it ... either they've lost their memory or they aren't telling the...
Leahy's Sympathy Only Extends To Leftists
He may be one of the loudest voices supporting the filibuster now, but less than five years ago, Senator Pat Leahy sang a different song on the floor of the Senate. According to the Congressional Record and an intrepid CQ reader, Leahy showed far more sympathy for the plight of judicial nominees back when Clinton did the nominating. Incredibly, he relied on then-Governor Bush's argument during the 2000 campaign that all nominees should receive an up-or-down vote to make this statement during the Senate debate on James Teilborg: Both parties have nominated those we consider to be our best choices. Obviously, I strongly support my friend of over 20 years, AL GORE. But I also know that the Republican Party has nominated a very distinguished Governor, George W. Bush. I mention this because Governor Bush and I, while we disagree on some issues, have one very significant issue on which...
May 11, 2005
Will Racism Destroy Al-Qaeda?
Osama bin Laden built al-Qaeda from many component groups across Southwest and Central Asia, North Africa, and even Europe, all focused on the Islamist ideal. Holding these disparate groups together must have had its difficulties even while AQ had momentum. Now that it has had almost four years of unrelenting pressure, the AP reports that the fissures have started larger cracks in AQ, which may lead to its total collapse: American and Pakistani intelligence agents are exploiting a growing rift between Arab members of al-Qaida and their Central Asian allies, a fissure that's tearing at the network of Islamic extremists as militants compete for scarce hideouts, weapons and financial resources, counterterrorism officials say. The rivalry may have contributed to the arrest last week of one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants, a Libyan described as al-Qaida's No. 3 and known to have had differences with Uzbeks. Captured Uzbek, Chechen and...
Will Iraq Be Al-Qaeda's Last Stand?
Today's Washington Times analyzes the fighting in Operation Marador and asserts that Iraq has transformed itself into al-Qaeda's last stand -- which was one of the objectives of the Bush administration: The war in Iraq is increasingly looking more like a showdown with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda followers than a battle primarily against Saddam Hussein loyalists. The shift is making the fight a focal point of the U.S. global war against Islamic terrorists and one that might dictate whether the U.S. wins or loses, said a senior official and an outside expert. "If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a military author and analyst. The changing dynamic was highlighted this week when the U.S. military launched a major offensive in western Iraq, primarily against foreign jihadists who crossed the border with Syria to join the al...
The Liberal Catch-22
Now that the Liberals have defied a no-confidence motion passed by Parliament, their next step may well be tabling their own motion of confidence soon to try to assure the public that the Liberals still have a right to govern. John Ward of the Canadian Press explains that without some sort of explicit act that shows yesterday's no-confidence vote as a fluke or a trick, the nation will reject the Liberal explanation for why they have not yet left office: xOpposition procedural manoeuvres may not topple the minority Liberals, but experts are predicting the government will likely have to bring forward its own confidence motion soon. Without a demonstration that it actually does have the confidence of the Commons, the government could find itself unable to govern. The problem that leads to all of this uncertainty is a lack of explicit rules dictating parliamentary procedure. A minority government which loses...
Is Zarqawi A Matador Casualty?
An Italian news site reports that Iraqi forces have claimed to have either killed or seriously wounded terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi during Operation Matador. While this is not the first time such a rumor has been floated, it would come as no surprise that Coalition forces hope to capture or kill the al-Qaeda leader (via Hugh Hewitt): The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is "serious injured, possibly dead" according to Colonel Fouad Hani Hassan, commander of the fifth division of the Iraqi armed forces, cited by 'Elaph', a popular website in the Arab world. Al-Zarqawi, considered al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, is believed to have been injured in the major offensive US-led forces have been carrying out in the western Anbar province over the last few days. Operation Matador is centred around the town of Qaim, just a few kilometres from the Syrian border, and is aimed at destroying the...
Martin Offers Eight-Day Wait, BQ Says 'Non!'
In response to the damaging loss on the contentious no-confidence motion last night, which the Liberals have refused to acknowledge, Paul Martin has now offered to table the budget motion for a vote on May 19th, eight days away. However, the Tories and Bloc Québécois have refused this offer, demanding that the Liberals table the motion today if they continue their refusal to recognize yesterday's vote to dissolve the government: Prime Minister Paul Martin has called for a vote on the budget for next Thursday, a move that could topple his fragile minority government. However, the opposition Bloc Québécois and Conservatives refused to co-operate, saying they're not prepared to wait, and want a vote today. "I am proposing that there will be a vote that day on the budget bill and that vote will be a vote of confidence," Mr. Martin told reporters in Ottawa Wednesday after an emergency cabinet...
UN Dispatch Attacks Roger L Simon
Pity the poor United Nations. Not only is the management at Turtle Bay hopelessly corrupt and inept, its new blogosphere apologists don't appear very bright, either. Not only did they run a lame attack post about Roger L. Simon's recent focus on history's largest embezzlement scam, they sent out e-mails to bloggers asking us to promote it: 20% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during the month of April make reference to the Oil-for-Food controversy. 0% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during April make reference to the following UN-related issues[...] Is Simon's hyper-focus on a single UN-related issue based on deep convictions? Unbending principles? Moral outrage? Maybe. Then again, there's his explanation: "Thanks to the Secretary General of the United Nations for providing this blog with its first 50,000+ visitor day." - Roger L. Simon UND then lists a number of UN initiatives that supposedly have been or are...
Ottawa Gone Wild!
Better put on your seat belts -- Ottawa's in for a bumpy ride tonight. After the Liberals ignored a no-confidence motion that passed by three votes, the Tories have upped the ante by refusing to allow for an adjournment, and immediately moved a new no-confidence motion: Conservative Leader Stephen Harper moved what he deemed a no-confidence motion in the government, the second such move made by the Tories in two days. ... Mr. Harper said the government has "lost the moral authority and democratic legitimacy to govern this country. Madame Speaker, today is one of those more difficult days where it falls to the Leader of the Oppostion to tell the... government that they cannot carry on," Mr. Harper said in a speech to the House Wednesday afternoon. It appears to be part of an opposition tactic to continue to push for a confidence motion to be recognized in the...
Adscam: Kickback Scheme Intentional
It may be somewhat of an anticlimax after the fireworks at Parliament this evening, but the Gomery Inquiry heard testimony today that the money-laundering schemes at the heart of Adscam did not arise accidentally. Daniel Dezainde testified today that Jacques Corriveau bragged to him about how Corriveau himself had created the kickback structure himself to allow the Liberals to avoid campaign-finance regulation: Jacques Corriveau, a close friend of Jean Chrétien who made $8-million in sponsorship subcontracts, candidly told an official at the Quebec Liberal party wing that he had set up a kickback system, the Gomery inquiry heard Wednesday. Daniel Dezainde, who was the director-general of the Liberal Quebec wing in 2001, said that the admission came during a lunch he had with Mr. Corriveau. He said Mr. Corriveau told him: “In the past, I set up a system of kickbacks with communication agencies and I kept a part of...
May 12, 2005
Vikings Still Lead The League In Stupidity
Just when I think I've seen everything that the Minnesota Vikings can do to look stupid -- from taking a knee in a championship game and thereby neutralizing the league's most potent offense, to a star athlete walking off the field before a game had been decided, to a coach that ran his own Super Bowl ticket-scalping syndicate that exploited Vikings players for his own profit -- this morning's news reminds me that true stupidity plumbs its own new depths every day. The Vikings' leading rusher ran afoul of airport security three weeks ago with a kit to beat NFL drug tests featuring some interesting prosthetics: The NFL was considering whether to penalize Minnesota Vikings running back Onterrio Smith after it was revealed he was caught at the Twin Cities airport with an elaborate contraption designed to beat drug tests. A search of a bag Smith was carrying April 21...
So Much For The Rule Of Law
The Palestinians have a parliamentary election scheduled for July 17th that appears to be headed for a significant victory for Hamas. The Fatah faction supporting President Mahmoud Abbas has agitated for a postponement to avoid this political debacle, which would surely reveal his status as an unmandated leader elected on the basis of a fraudulent vote. Today, one of Abbas' senior aides upped the ante, saying that the current Parliament had not yet passed a new election law, making elections in July almost impossible: The Palestinian parliamentary election set for July should be postponed, a senior Palestinian official said in an interview published Thursday, another sign that the ruling Fatah Party is deeply worried about the electoral prospects of militant Islamic groups. The election, only the second in the 11 years since the Palestinian Authority was founded, is scheduled for July 17, but Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior aide to...
Did Ken Starr Bash The Byrd Option?
Yesterday, CBS News reported that Ken Starr had come out against the filibuster rule change, and they quoted him as saying that the change represented a "radical departure" and that he opposed its implementation. This got a tremendous amount of exposure in the blogosphere, especially among those who normally vilify the former Whitewater special prosecutor at every other opportunity. Ramesh Ponnuru at the National Review Online contacted Starr to confirm his position on the Byrd/nuclear option -- and the response is quite different from what CBS first reported: "In the piece that I have now seen, and which I gather is being lavishly quoted, CBS employed two snippets. The 'radical departure' snippet was specifically addressed -- although this is not evidenced whatever from the clip -- to the practice of invoking judicial philosopy as a grounds for voting against a qualified nominee of integrity and experience. I said in sharp...
A Demonstration Of Liberal Powerlessness
Since Paul Martin and the Liberals refused to recognize the no-confidence motion of Tuesday and the adjournment yesterday as valid signs that the Liberals can no longer effectively govern, the Tories have decided to take a different tack in proving how little power they have left. Conservatives shut down the Commons today on an early adjournment after the Liberals refused to bring their budget motion immediately, and have now started boycotting committees: The Conservatives succeeded in a bid to adjourn the House of Commons for the day, in another move to paralyze the proceedings of government and force an immediate confidence vote in the government. The motion that the House be adjourned until Friday at 10 a.m. passed in the House of Commons before noon on Thursday, 152 to 144. It was supported by the Tories and the Bloc Québécois, part of a strategy to block or stall the activities...
The Forgotten War
Feeling a bit under the weather today and coming to the end of this major headache project at work this week and next, I decided to take an evening off from blogging and watch the History Channel's special on the War of 1812. Titled "First Invasion", the two-hour show reviews what for many Americans is a forgotten war, but one that clearly shaped our early notions of nationalism and ability to stand among other nations. The war started over an issue that had largely been resolved before the first shot was fired, and the greatest American victory of the war came two weeks after the treaty that ended it was signed. Our capitol was sacked, and only saved from burning to the ground by a hurricane and a tornado that inflicted more damage on the invaders than the American militia that the British swatted aside like flies. The Canadians beat...
May 13, 2005
Uzbekistan Crumbling; Islamists Poised To Take Over?
A mob of outraged and disaffected Uzbeks have freed 23 Muslim defendants from the prison where they awaited trial on terrorism charges, and created a riot in the streets of Andijan. Soldiers have been taken hostage and the government has forbidden news agencies from the area, while Uzbekistan's neighbors have sealed their borders: Outrage over the terror trial of 23 Muslims exploded into broader unrest in eastern Uzbekistan on Friday when armed protesters stormed a jail to free defendants, clashing with police in violence that brought thousands of protesters into the streets. At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded, witnesses and officials said. One protester, who put the death toll as high as 20, said 30 soldiers were being held hostage because they were shooting at demonstrators. Two of the dead were children, Sharif Shakirov, a brother of one of the defendants told The Associated Press. President Islam...
Dezainde Gets Fanciful At Gomery
Winding up some of the strangest testimony yet at the Gomery Inquiry, Daniel Dezainde continued to insist that he has remained in fear of his life after being told by Joe Morselli that he was "at war" with Dezainde, prompting two visits to the RCMP. Dezainde also managed to squeeze in more complaints about Beryl Wajsman, including alleged rudeness on the golf links, although what that has to do with Adscam has everyone scratching their heads: Four years after a nasty encounter with a threatening, finger-pointing Giuseppe (Joseph) Morselli, a Liberal official testified yesterday that even now he is still fearful of the friend of Alfonso Gagliano. Former senior party executive Daniel Dezainde told the Gomery inquiry that he saw the RCMP last month, ahead of his testimony, to talk to the police about his safety concerns because he was still apprehensive of Mr. Morselli, a onetime party fundraiser. "I...
Tail-Gunner Harry
Just when we thought the smears on judicial nominees from the Democrats could not get any worse, Harry Reid moved from mere bullying to full-blown McCarthyism last night during the Senate debate. In an impromptu remark made during a prepared speech on the floor, he flatly stated that Henry Saad represented a security risk to the United States according to Saad's confidential FBI files: Minority Leader Harry Reid strayed from his prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday and promised to continue opposing one of President Bush's judicial nominees based on "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI." Those highly confidential reports are filed on all judicial nominees, and severe sanctions apply to anyone who discloses their contents. Less clear is whether a senator could face sanctions for characterizing the content of such files. "Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway," Mr. Reid said...
My Blue Heaven
Tommy Lasorda has a blog. Yesterday he offered some "Fatherly Advice": My father had five sons, and one day he called a family meeting, sat us down, and told us he wanted to bring his brother’s son, Mario, to America. He told us to treat him as an equal because he was family. When Mario arrived, my father told Mario he could live with him so while he worked hard, he could save his money and eventually bring his own family to America too. Mario was lazy; he did not work hard, he did not save any money and his trip to America was a failure. When he returned to Italy, he blamed his failure on my father instead of taking responsibility for his own actions. I was so mad at Mario, I wanted to go to Italy, find him, and throw him into the Adriatic Sea for ruining my...
Reuters: Canadian Gov't Will Fall
Reuters analyzes the latest manueverings in the Canadian Commons and sees little chance of the Liberal government surviving, regardless of when a confidence vote is held: The main opposition Conservative Party wants the vote immediately but indications are that whenever it is held, the Liberals have a poor chance of surviving, even though the vote will be close. "This government is finished," a senior member of the cabinet confided. If the Liberals fall next Thursday it would open the way to a June 27 election. The Liberals and their left-leaning New Democrat allies have 151 seats in the 308-seat parliament, while the Conservatives and the separatist Bloc Quebecois have 153. The speaker of Parliament is a Liberal but he only votes in case of a tie. One seat is vacant. To have any chance of winning the Liberals need the support of two independent members of Parliament, at least one...
Frist: Let The Debate (And Vote) Begin
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced this afternoon that after the completion of debate and vote on the highway bill, the next order of business on the Senate agenda will be the confirmation debate for Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown to their appellate court seats. This means that a filibuster will likely be attempted in the coming week, certainly on Brown if not Owen, and Frist says that such obstructionism will be rejected: The Majority Leader will continue to discuss an appropriate resolution of the need for fair up or down votes with the Minority Leader. If they can not find a way for the Senate to decide on fair up or down votes on judicial nominations, the Majority Leader will seek a ruling from the Presiding Officer regarding the appropriate length of time for debate on such nominees. After the ruling, he will ensure that every Senator has...
May 14, 2005
Bullets End Uzbek Uprising
Uzbekistan has ended the uprising that began with the jailbreak of 23 supsected Muslim terrorists by having soldiers fire on a crowd of protestors, sending thousands running from the demonstrations that appeared to shake the Uzbek autocracy: Soldiers loyal to Uzbekistan's authoritarian leader, a U.S. ally, opened fire on thousands of demonstrators yesterday to put down an uprising that began when armed men freed 2,000 inmates from prison, including suspects on trial for suspected Islamic extremism. Bursts of automatic gunfire continued to rattle across the center of Uzbekistan's fourth-largest city today as troops loyal to hard-line President Islam Karimov sought to put down the insurrection, Agence France Presse reported. The death toll from yesterday's violence in Andijan was not known. The government said nine died before the shootings in the square but gave no overall figure. Witnesses said dozens may have been killed by the troops, who rode into the...
Reid's Smear Raises Eyebrows At DoJ
The comments made on the Senate floor by Harry Reid about the information in the FBI file of Henry Saad have provoked a reaction from the Justice Department, the AP reports this morning. One day after Reid referred to a vague "problem" in Saad's file, Justice sent a letter to both Reid and Majority Leader Bill Frist about the proper use of FBI files: The Justice Department is edging into the Senate controversy over judicial nominees, writing key lawmakers after Democratic Leader Harry Reid publicly referred to an FBI file on one of President Bush's controversial appointees. "The letter expressed concern about recent remarks on the floor of the Senate which alluded to an FBI background investigation file provided by the Department of Justice to the Senate Judiciary Committee on a confidential basis in connection with a judicial nomination," a department official said Friday night. The official, who spoke only...
Annan Initially Hid Cotecna Contacts
The AP reports this morning that the Volcker investigators that resigned over the last interim report may have done so because it hid key information about Kofi Annan and his lack of cooperation with the investigation. Robert Parton's files show that Annan failed to mention his contacts with Cotecna when first confronted about the conflict-of-interest issue with his son's employment at the OFF contractor: Secretary-General Kofi Annan neglected to mention two key meetings when he was first questioned last year about contacts with his son's company when it was soliciting business under the U.N. oil-for-food program. After investigators first interviewed Annan in November, the secretary general revised his account of those contacts, which occurred just months before the company won a U.N. contract. Though Annan acknowledged meeting with the officials in subsequent interviews, his revisions raised doubts for the probe's chief investigator, Robert Parton. In the months after the initial...
May 15, 2005
Will Wal-Mart Spoil Democratic Unity?
The Washington Post reports that one of the largest and most powerful unions in politics has attacked the Congressional Black Caucus for its engagement with Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer of African-Americans. The SEIU has long targeted the world's largest retailer for what it calls worker exploitation, but the CBC has cozied up to Wal-Mart instead: The Service Employees International Union has angered a number of African American House members by protesting Wal-Mart's involvement in a Congressional Black Caucus fundraiser. The conflict between two mainstays of the Democratic Party began after Anna Burger, SEIU secretary-treasurer, wrote caucus members "to express our disappointment that the Congressional Black Caucus has given Wal-Mart an opportunity to fashion a false image as a friend of African Americans and of working people generally." SEIU and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sponsored an April 27 caucus fundraiser. The union has criticized Wal-Mart's personnel practices as anti-labor. Caucus member...
Newsweek's Editorial Checks And Balances Cost Lives
Last week, Newsweek published allegations that Guantanamo Bay interrogators had flushed a Qu'ran down a toilet while questioning captured terrorists as a psychological ploy. While other news media based similar reports strictly on rumors floated by the terrorists themselves, Newsweek attributed its story by Michael Isikoff and John Barry to an unnamed source within the American intelligence service, lending the Newsweek report much more credence. That credence and the Newsweek report touched off riots across Afghanistan and Southwest Asia, costing at least nine lives and setting back American efforts to build diplomacy towards more moderate Muslim communities. Now we find out that after nine people lay dead and anti-American sentiment now runs as hot as ever, Newsweek says that it got the story wrong from the beginning: Two weeks ago, in our issue dated May 9, Michael Isikoff and John Barry reported in a brief item in our periscope section...
The Return Of Day By Day, And Other Blog Notes
As I promised earlier, I've returned the daily display of Day by Day to CQ. Instead of at the top of the content, I've set it to display in the left sidebar. I've been meaning to get that done for over a week, but work issues have impinged on blogging time for the past two or three weeks. However, I wanted to make sure that Day by Day got back to its daily rotation on CQ in time for the launch of Chris Muir's new DBD collection -- which should be coming within days now! If it's been a bit quiet here at CQ this weekend, it's due to a combination of babysitting the Little Admiral and some nasty cold and flu activity at the house, including me. I did manage to get in for an hour at the Northern Alliance Radio Network show yesterday, but most of my time...
One Roll Of The Dice
The Conservatives have decided to stop playing games with Parliamentary obstruction -- a game they have won for three straight days -- and focus their entire effort to topple the government on the upcoming budget motion Thursday: The federal Conservatives, after a week of bitter parliamentary gamesmanship, now appear willing to pin their hopes for a spring election on one high-stakes roll of the dice Thursday when the federal budget comes to a vote. “We will respect that vote,” Jay Hill, Tory House Leader in the Commons, said Sunday. Prime Minister Paul Martin has said that, if his minority Liberal government loses the budget showdown, it will mean an immediate election. It's been unclear until now what would happen if the government wins. Under parliamentary rules the Conservatives could still try to table another non-confidence motion to bring down the government later in the current session. Mr. Hill signalled, however,...
May 16, 2005
NARAL Raids On Private Financial Data
Robert Novak writes today that the pro-abortion lobby has financed a series of fishing expeditions into the financial records of judges deemed likely for federal appellate and Supreme Court nominations, and that one of the people with the pole is none other than a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Mike Rice and his partner Craig Varoga, who used to work for Reid, work for NARAL Pro-Choice America and have begun work to collect financial dossiers on judges and justices around the country: On May 5, the U.S. Judicial Conference in Washington received a request from a man named Mike Rice from Oakland, Calif., for the financial disclosure records of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Edith Jones (5th Circuit) of Houston. A 20-year veteran on the bench, Jones is a perennial possibility for the U.S. Supreme Court. The demand for her personal records is part of a major intelligence...
GOP Outreach To African-Americans Continues
The Washington Times notes that GOP chairman Ken Mehlman continues to perform quietly (in relation to Howard Dean) but effectively in his outreach towards the African-American community. In a sign of increasing success, Mehlman's efforts resulted in the conversion of a key Pennsylvanian politician, touching off concern at the national level for Democrats: City Councilman Otto Banks, the biggest vote-getter in Harrisburg, Pa., held a campaign fundraiser in the Pennsylvania state capital Friday with the help of Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman that sent new fears rippling through Democratic ranks. Mr. Banks, 33, a political newcomer, stunned Harrisburg's black community when he left the Democratic Party in March to become a Republican, starting what Mr. Mehlman and other Republican officials say they hope will become a realignment trend that will consign the Democrats to permanent minority status. Mr. Mehlman said Friday that he met with Mr. Banks before the party...
Newsweek's Excuse Du Jour: It's The Pentagon's Fault
Newsweek has not quite recovered its balance after being forced to admit that their report of US interrogators flushing a Qu'ran down a Gitmo toilet cannot be substantiated. In a series of media appearances characterized elsewhere, Newsweek editors maintain that they ran the item in good faith but that their source later backed off the claim. However, in today's Washington Post, it is becoming clear that Newsweek has adopted a new strategy for dealing with the deadly mistake which now has claimed 16 lives -- they're blaming the Pentagon for not denying the story: [Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker] said that a senior Pentagon official, for reasons that "are still a little mysterious to us," had declined to comment after Newsweek correspondent John Barry showed him a draft before the item was published and asked, "Is this accurate or not?" Whitaker added that the magazine would have held off had military...
Annan To US: Don't Forget Our Impotence
Sometimes the United Nations acts as if it wants to provide do-it-yourself satire for websites like Scrappleface and The Onion. Today's example comes from Kofi Annan himself, who warned the Bush administration that any attempt to hold Iran accountable for its violations of the non-proliferation treaty would run into UN Security Council impotence: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned the Bush administration that the Security Council might deadlock if asked to punish Iran for its nuclear program. The United States and Britain have called for Iran to be brought before the Security Council if it carries out threats to resume efforts to make nuclear fuel. The United States and Britain believe the fuel could be used for bombs, while Iran contends that it is to generate power. China and Russia, which have strong economic ties to Iran, might veto any push to sanction Iran, Annan suggested in interviews with USA TODAY....
Kuwait Suffrage A Reality
One of the complaints about our choice of allies in the War on Terror reflected on Kuwait's restrictive political environment, especially towards women. This was especially true after American troops led the way for a UN coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam's invasion in 1991, but that criticism got revived recently with the current Bush administration's focus on democratization. Now that issue can be put to rest, as Kuwaiti women have finally been granted complete political rights in the conservative Arabic country: Kuwaiti lawmakers approved political rights for women Monday, clearing the way for females to participate in parliamentary elections for the first time in the Gulf nation's history. ... The nation's Cabinet asked for the vote Monday in a surprise move after a number of attempts had been stymied by fundamentalist lawmakers. The bill was approved 35-23 with one abstention and immediately became law. Scores of women activists in...
Comment Of The Day
Frequent CQ commenter Aileron has this to say about Newsweek's reporting standards, and that of the American media in general (boldface emphasis mine): ... there is absolutely no legitimate reason to run a story like this. Newsweek ran the story knowing that it would excite the passions of the world's muslim population. Contrast this with the media's refusal to show pictures of our fellow citizens jumping out the the world trade center. We were told that such pictures would unneccessarily anger the American people and lead to violence against Muslim Americans. The MSM will show us endless Abu Ghraib pictures, and Newsweek goes so far as to print false stories to inflame muslims against the U.S. This type of reporting does a disservice not only to the victims of the violence it caused, but also to our Country - one of the few Countries actually committed to religious tolerance and...
New Offer: Throw Less People Under The Bus
The Senate Democrats have reportedly made a new offer to the GOP to avert a showdown over the use of the filibuster to block nominees to the federal court. They sweetened the same offer made last week to confirm three nominees to five today, and specifically picked three that they will now demand be withdrawn from consideration, in return for a pledge to forego future filibusters except in "extreme circumstances": With a showdown looming, a small group of Senate Democrats floated a compromise Monday on President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, offering to clear five for confirmation while scuttling three others. Under the proposal, circulated in writing, Republicans would have to pledge no change through 2006 in the Senate's rules that allow filibusters against judicial nominees. For their part, Democrats would commit not to block votes on Bush's Supreme Court or appeals court nominees during the same period, except in extreme...
Newsweek Retracts Story
Give Newsweek a small modicum of credit -- they learned a lesson from the CBS debacle over the Killian memos that the Tiffany Network itself still hasn't bothered to figure out. A couple of hours ago, Newsweek retracted its false story about flushing Qu'rans down Gitmo toilets that started deadly riots in the Middle East, costing 16 lives: Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. Earlier Monday, Bush administration officials had brushed off an apology that Newsweek's editor Mark Whitaker had made in an editor's note and criticized the magazine's handling of the story. ... Whitaker released a statement through a spokesman later Monday saying the magazine was retracting the article. "Based on what we know now,...
May 17, 2005
Harper Goes To The Mattresses
The Conservatives have taken the gloves off and started their election campaign two days before a confidence vote on the Canadian budget is scheduled. Tories started their ad campaign by asking voters why Prime Minister Paul Martin wants them to wait for a new election, and at the same time tries to negate the budget as an election issue: The federal Conservatives unleashed a series of radio attack ads yesterday that declare Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals "desperate" and mired in corruption -- a tone that could carry through an election campaign anticipated to begin later this week. The Tories are also preparing to publish their campaign platform which, The Globe and Mail has learned, will include a number of Liberal-oriented social initiatives, including a commitment to increase foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product by 2015. The pledge, along with cash for daycare and infrastructure spending,...
More Liberal Bias In The Media
Alert CQ reader Retired Military noticed a headline at Yahoo! News this morning about the outbreak of the Sober.q virus that has dumped neo-Nazi German and English e-mail into inboxes around the world, including here at CQ. Yahoo! and/or the AP have called the Nazi material "right wing": Computer Virus Spews Right-Wing Spam A computer virus spewed neo-Nazi-tinged spam in English and German into inboxes over the weekend. ... Most of these messages contain links to news stories with content that "smells of right-wing political rhetoric," said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of McAfee Inc.'s antivirus emergency response team. But a small percentage contain links to a Web site that tries to infect visiting machines with the virus, he said. Among the many messages was one with the German subject line "60 Years of Freedom: Who's Celebrating?" referencing the end of World War II. Another read: "Honorable Action" and contained a...
Rather & Mapes, Together Again
The Peabody Awards luncheon yesterday provided a stage for the reunion of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, who were honored for their journalistic prowess in revealing the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that had already been addressed by the Pentagon before CBS ever found out about it -- and both of whom later disgraced themselves in one of the worst breaches of journalistic ethics ever revealed in broadcast history. In comments that reflected the cluelessness of the Peabody voters, Mary Mapes continued to insist that the story she presented on CBS' 60 Minutes II was factually true and that CBS covered it up for "corporate" reasons: After the ceremony, Mapes, who is writing a book, said she never believed that CBS News investigated whether the disputed facts behind the National Guard story, were in fact true. “They made a corporate decision, not a journalistic one,” she said. She also defended the...
Belinda Sells Out
Paul Martin has bought the support of Conservative MP Belinda Stronach with a ministerial position, changing the balance of power in Parliament and possibly saving the Liberal Party's grip on power. Martin induced Stronach to cross the aisle this morning by making her the Minister of Human Resources: Martin said he and Stronach share common beliefs on questions of policy and politics, including the Gomery commission investigating the sponsorship scandal. "Based on these shared beliefs, she and I have agreed that she fits more comfortably, can serve more appropriately and can contribute more substantially as a member of the government caucus," he said. "Accordingly, I am very pleased to announce that Ms. Stronach will cross the floor and has agreed to join the cabinet as Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development." The move could give the Liberals a better chance of passing a crucial confidence motion on the federal...
Enter The Son, More Powerful Than The Father
When the Syrians assassinated Rafik al-Hariri in February, they must have imagined a period of disorder in which to consolidate power in Lebanon through their military and intelligence apparatus. Bashar Assad had to have thought that the Hariri clan would trouble his western horizon no more. That gives the current rise to power of Hariri's second son Saad, who has led the Future opposition coalition to the top of the polls for Lebanon's upcoming election, a certain poetic tinge: The son and political heir of slain former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri said on Tuesday the anti-Syrian opposition would sweep Lebanon's general elections and indicated he could lead the government after the ballot. Saad al-Hariri, taking over the mantle of his father who was assassinated on Feb. 14, predicted the opposition would win 80 to 90 seats in the 128-member parliament. The 35-year-old Hariri is expected to repeat his father's landslide...
Newsweek Still Blames The Pentagon For Bad Journalism
Today's New York Times shows that Newsweek is sticking with its strategy of blaming the Pentagon for not censoring its false report of Qu'ran abuse at Gitmo. While Newsweek's editorial board finally issued a retraction claiming that the story could not be substantiated, which one would consider either an indictment of its single anonymous source or its reporters or editors, the magazine believes that the US military should have superceded Newsweek's editors and made the decision not to run the information: In the interview, Mr. Whitaker expressed frustration at the Pentagon for not informing the magazine of questions about the accuracy of the original account until about 10 days after it was published. He added that the magazine was continuing to report on the underlying accusations of Koran desecration. An article in the current Newsweek said the original report, written by a veteran investigative reporter, Michael Isikoff, and the magazine's...
Belinda's Betrayal Also Personal: Canadian Press
Belinda Stronach's defection to the Liberal Party came as a surprise to to Conservative leader Stephen Harper, who claims that Stronach never consulted him on her concerns or thoughts on crossing the aisle. However, Harper comes in a distant second in the betrayal stakes as the Canadian Press reports that Stronach never even bothered to consult her boyfriend on her abrupt about-face -- her boyfriend being Peter MacKay, Harper's second in command for the Tories: With news reverberating around Parliament Hill of Belinda Stronach's blockbuster bolt from the Tories to the Liberals, the indelicate question was unavoidable: "What about Peter MacKay?" Stronach's well-publicized romance with the Conservative deputy leader could hardly have come to a more stunning end. Sources confirmed the pair are taking a "break" from the photogenic relationship first made public in January. "Suffice it to say, I'm very happy and quite smitten," MacKay beamed at the time....
A Guest Of The Governor
Good news for CQ readers -- I just got at least a three-month lease on blogging from the First Mate, and I'll explain why. About ten days ago, I received an invitation from Governor Tim Pawlenty's office to meet the Governor. After calling to confirm that the invitation was on the level (you never know with some of my friends), I found out that a representative group of Minnesota bloggers had been invited to the Governor's mansion for a reception intended to honor new media in Minnesota. All of my Northern Alliance colleagues had been invited, as well as some of the MOB bloggers that we know so well -- Doug at Bogus Gold, Patriot Blog, First Ring, Kennedy vs The Machine, and others I know I'm forgetting. The Minnesota Governor's mansion is unusual in that it sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood -- a rather ritzy and...
Harper, Tories To Pass Budget, Oppose NDP Amendment
After the surprise defection of Belinda Stronach sent a shock wave through Canadian politics, the Conservative Party recast its electoral strategy for Thursday's vote. Instead of following the Liberal Party strategy that allows Martin to contest the confidence vote on the entire budget, Stephen Harper has instructed the Tories to pass the main budget and instead contest the amendment containing the agreement that brought Jack Layton and the NDP into alliance with Martin: The Conservatives will vote in support of the federal budget, but will still try to defeat the Liberal minority government on separate legislation that proposes $4.6 billion in spending on housing and the environment, Tory Leader Stephen Harper announced Tuesday night. "It's our intention to support Bill C-43, the original budget," Harper said, looking tired after a long day for the Conservative frontman that included the surprise defection of high-profile former leadership contender Belinda Stronach. "We'll oppose...
May 18, 2005
The Byrd Option Starts Today
With all sides acknowledging that a deal cannot be reached, the GOP will move Bush's judicial nominees for confirmation today, starting with Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. This sets the stage -- finally -- for resolution of the unprecedented obstructionism that has kept the Senate from voting on almost a third of Bush's nominations to the appellate courts, the worst Senate record on nominations in recent history: Republicans, led by Majority Leader Bill Frist, spent yesterday accusing Democrats of using "unprecedented" tactics to block nominees who have majority support in the Senate. They said the minority party is shirking its constitutional responsibility to provide "advice and consent" on judicial nominees by preventing final votes on them. Democrats, led by Minority Leader Harry Reid, argued that by filibustering the nominees -- whom they describe as conservative judicial activists far outside the mainstream -- the Senate is officially registering its refusal...
Galloway's Bluster Fails To Impress Back Home
George Galloway flew to the US to testify before the Senate investigative committee and to accuse them of being "Zionists" who conspired with George Bush to declare an illegal war against Saddam Hussein. Galloway later proclaimed himself greatly satisfied with his own performance, but his performance met with decidedly poorer marks back home. The Scotsman notes that Galloway appeared evasive and deceitful during direct testimony and never did provide any answer for the evidence and testimony that has exposed him as corrupted by UNSCAM bribes: GEORGE Galloway yesterday failed in his attempt to convince a sceptical US Senate investigative committee that he had not profited from oil dealings with Iraq under the UN’s controversial oil-for-food programme. Despite a typically barnstorming performance full of bluster and rhetorical flourishes, the former Glasgow Kelvin MP was pinned down by persistent questioning over his business relationship with Fawaz Zureikat, the chairman of the Mariam...
Strib Descends Into Madness
The Minneapolis Star Tribune has developed a national reputation for its lunatic-fringe editorial board, but today's editorial supporting Newsweek's reporting on flushed Qu'rans highlights their complete descent into moonbattery. The editors at the Strib today raise eyebrows by endorsing "fake but accurate" as a desirable journalistic standard not once but twice -- which calls into question the quality of every single article they publish: Newsweek used as a source a "senior government official," normally a Cabinet secretary or someone fairly close to that rank, who had previously been a reliable source. It then showed the report to two Pentagon officials before publication. One declined comment and one corrected another aspect of the story. Neither challenged the Qur'an-in-the-toilet statement. Only after the report had been printed did the original source back away from his assertion that he had seen the confirmation in a military report on abuse at Guantanamo. On reflection,...
More On GOP Outreach To Black Communities
Yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer also noticed that Ken Mehlman has been working quietly to develop new ties to the African-American community, as I noted Monday as a contrast to Howard Dean's stewardship of the DNC. The Inquirer remarks on Mehlman's success in developing candidates for strategic races in Pennsylvania, which just barely went into the Democratic column in 2004 and where Democrats can hardly afford to lose any further ground: Give us a chance, we'll give you a choice. That's the party mantra as Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, travels around the country speaking almost weekly to black and Hispanic audiences. The emphasis is on shared social values and economic opportunity. President Bush's backing of education reform, and recent increases in home ownership and small businesses among African Americans are touted. Outreach and advisory committees are being formed nationally, statewide and locally. Monday's news was the conversion of...
Dean: DeLay Worse Than Osama?
Howard Dean has a well-known problem of foot chewing, and he indulged himself again yesterday on his new favorite subject, Tom DeLay. Despite the lack of any criminal investigation into DeLay -- and the bogged-down ethics allegations that have now enveloped a host of Democrats along with the GOP House whip -- Dean just can't stop declaring DeLay guilty before even being indicted: "There's corruption at the highest level of the Republican Party, and they're going to have to face up to that one of these days, because the law is closing in on Tom DeLay," Dean said in a telephone interview before heading to an appearance today in Phoenix. "I think he's guilty . . . of taking trips paid for by lobbyists, and of campaign-finance violations during his manipulation of the Texas election process," Dean said. The DNC chairman sang a completely different tune in the winter of...
Not One Dime: Have You Made The Call Today?
I've held off mentioning the Not One Dime campaign, where Republicans have pledged to withhold all 2005 contributions to Senate campaigns and the national party until the GOP forces a vote on the Byrd option and eliminates filibusters on judicial confirmations. Now that Bill Frist has moved to do that, we need to make sure that we continue our pressure on the individual Republican Senators to ensure they support the motion when it comes up for a vote. Please call the Capitol switchboard at 202-225-3121, and ask to speak to at least one of the "wobblies" today. I called earlier and spoke to staffers in the offices of Susan Collins and John Warner; Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, and John McCain will be on my list later. Call while the offices are open and make sure you speak to someone live, and if you can do it, call as...
Dems Start Retribution Early
Harry Reid has already begun shutting down the Senate before the GOP even introduces a motion for cloture to confirm the nomination of Priscilla Owen, according to a statement by Bill Frist: “What a difference a day makes. Less than 24 hours after he complained the Senate is ignoring issues important to Americans, Democrat Leader Harry Reid today threatened progress on an energy bill, a jobs bill, disaster relief, and a closed intelligence meeting. “To close down the committees over the judges issue is not only counterproductive, it could hurt Americans looking for work or suffering at the gas pumps. “Despite any differences over the judges, the American people want their government to continue working on issues important to them. They want the Senate to do its job. “Despite his suggestions to the contrary, Senator Reid’s actions speak volumes. It would appear the Democrats’ threat to shut down the Senate...
Tory MP: Liberals Tried To Bribe Me
Another Conservative MP has gone public with allegations that the Liberal Party has attempted to bribe Tories with ministerial positions or Senate seats to buy votes on the upcoming confidence motion in tomorrow's session. Following the public outing by Inky Marks and the scandalous betrayal by Belinda Stronach, Gurmant Grewal came forward this evening to reveal that the Grits had offered a Senate seat for his wife and a Liberal sinecure to keep him from voting No on the budget: The Surrey, B.C. MP, whose wife Nina is also a Tory MP, alleges he made an audio recording of the offer from Liberal cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh and Tim Murphy, Prime Minister Paul Martin's chief of staff. The allegation comes a day after Belinda Stronach shocked her Tory caucus colleagues by jumping to the Liberal cabinet. Mr. Martin insisted the move was Ms. Stronach's initiative and that the Liberals were...
May 19, 2005
US Reached Out To NoKo At UN
In an attempt to jump-start multilateral negotiations with North Korea, the US used low-level direct contacts with the Kim regime through the United Nations, according to an anonymous US embassy official. According to the Boston Globe and an AP report in USA Today, nothing substantial about nonproliferation was discussed, but assurances were given to the Kim regime on sovereignty and security: U.S. officials met with North Korean officials in New York last week to discuss American policy toward the Stalinist state, a U.S. Embassy official in Tokyo said Thursday. "We can confirm that we had working-level contact with North Korean officials on Friday, May 13, in New York," an embassy official said. "This channel is used to convey messages about U.S. policy, not to negotiate." ... A report in Japan's Asahi newspaper on Thursday said senior U.S. State Department officials told North Korean officials on Friday that Washington recognizes the...
Confidence Votes Come Down To The Wire
With the two budget motions tabled today with the potential for a no-confidence result that could collapse the government -- in the middle of a royal visit from Queen Elizabeth II -- the developments in attendance and last-minute maneuverings have been dizzying. Last night's allegations of vote-buying by Tory MP Gurmant Grewal appeared to mirror those made earlier by MP Inky Marks, only this time Grewal made a tape of the conversation and named Tim Murphy, Paul Martin's chief of staff, as the initiator of the offer. Politics Watch reviewed the tape (available here from CTV), and Romeo St. Martin reports that Murphy used extreme caution in approaching Grewal: At no time during the tape does Murphy make an explicit offer to Grewal, and he carefully chooses his words and speaks about hypothetical situations. The tape suggests that Murphy is more interested in Grewal abstaining than having the MP crossover...
Volcker Commission Burned Confidential Witness
Roger L. Simon has a letter from the counsel for a Oil-For-Food witness that had been promised anonymity, but found out that he had been exposed as a source of information for the Volcker Commission. The letter from Pierre Mouselli's attorney, Adrian Gonzales Maltes, includes a statement from whistleblower Robert Parton explicitly stating that the Volcker Commission leaked this information without his knowledge, an astounding development since Mouselli was Parton's witness and Parton negotiated Mouselli's cooperation personally: "As to the one individual with whom I worked who had such [identity] protection, and from whom I had obtained evidence concerning conversations with the Secretary General, the IIC violated his Confidentiality Agreement during the course of the investigation. Without my knowledge or that of the witness, and in violation of the Confidentiality Agreement, members of the Committee provided the name of the witness -- and the substance of his statements -- to...
Linda Foley Channeling Eason Jordan
Perhaps in an era where mainstream journalists appear to be embracing the "fake but accurate" standard for publication stories like this should not surprise us, but one would think that key figures in the communication industry would be more careful in how they express themselves. The latest outbreak of unsubstantiated allegations against the US military comes from Linda Foley, the president of the Newspaper Guild and the Communication Workers of America. According to WorldNet Daily and a video at Say Anything, Foley has dug up the hoary Eason Jordan urban legend of American assassinations of journalists in Iraq: According to a tape of her remarks, Foley said: "Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or … ah, or … ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um … in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more...
Howard Dean's Personal Prosecutor?
With Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean calling for Tom DeLay's immediate imprisonment despite a lack of a conviction or even indictment, one wonders how he can feel so confident about getting either one. Perhaps it helps when the Democrats have their own in-house district attorney with apparently no concern over any appearance of conflict of interest. The Houston Chronicle reports today that the supposedly non-partisan Travis County DA investigating charges of corruption among DeLay's staff spent last week fund-raising for the Democratic Party: Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who denies partisan motives for his investigation of a political group founded by Republican leader Tom DeLay, was the featured speaker last week at a Democratic fund-raiser where he spoke directly about the congressman. A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control...
Saddam Protected Zarqawi: Jordan
The UPI reports today that King Abdullah of Jordan told a Saudi newspaper that Jordan wanted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi extradited to Amman prior to Saddam Hussein's removal by US forces. Saddam refused to extradite the terrorist mastermind, providing him sanctuary instead (courtesy of Laurie Mylroie): Jordan's King Abdullah revealed Thursday that Iraq's former Baath regime had refused to deport Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, blamed for ongoing terrorism in Iraq. Speaking in an interview with Saudi daily al-Hayat, Abdullah said Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is well entrenched in Iraq and that "he and terrorists like him thrive in such places where security and stability are non-existent." ... "Since Zarqawi entered Iraq before the fall of the former regime we have been trying to have him deported back to Jordan for trial, but our efforts were in vain," Abdullah added. One of the arguments that anti-war protestors have made against George Bush was that...
Liberals Survive No-Confidence Effort
CTV reports that independent MP David Kilgour has announced his intention to vote with the Conservatives in opposing C-48, the budget amendment and the confidence motion that could collapse the Liberal government: The combined votes of all Liberal and NDP MPs, as well as Independent MP Carolyn Parrish, adds up to 152 -- the same number as the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois. That leaves Independent MPs David Kilgour and Chuck Cadman to swing the result. Just hours before the vote, Kilgour pledged publicly to vote for the budget, but against the additional spending package. Cadman, however, is still holding his cards very close to his chest. Watch for abstentions. Those wild cards will come out, if they exist, for the C-48 vote and may well determine who outfought whom in this political battle. If only Cadman abstains, Martin loses. UPDATE: C-48 vote just complete -- Cadman voted with the Liberals....
'Not One Dime' On MS-NBC
Ian at the Political Teen has video of MS-NBC's Connected Coast to Coast, where the Not One Dime post I wrote yesterday (not today, Tony!) got major airplay. The segment was, I think, very fair and deliberately balanced and worth the download time even if you're on dial-up. Ornery, one of the blogs featured on the segment, posed this scenario for its readers: President Hillary Clinton and a Democratic Senate majority in 2009. My answer to that will be the same as it would have been for 214 years -- if that's what the voters want, then they will get the judicial confirmations that match. It's really that simple, and it always has been. To answer one last question posed by an e-mailer after the segment aired, even if MS-NBC considers me a stalwart conservative, I consider myself center-right. I don't oppose gay marriage, although I don't exactly support it...
May 20, 2005
Blood Is Thicker Than Politics
After a round of criticism of Terry Moran of ABC News in the blogosphere for his part in White House briefing controversy, the veteran reporter engaged in an excellent if somewhat contentious on-air interview on Hugh Hewitt's radio program. In the course of the interview, Moran made two startling admissions. The first was that the media does have a reflexive anti-military bias: There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it's very dangerous. That's different from the media doing it's job of challenging the exercise of power without fear or favor. The second was that his brother runs the excellent blog Right Wing Nuthouse, who apparently got swamped...
Is Harper Finished?
In the aftermath of the failed Tory bid to unseat the Liberals and Paul Martin, the pundits will start analyzing the failure in light of the seemingly unbeatable revelations that have come out from the Gomery Inquiry. As party leader, Stephen Harper bears the ultimate responsibility for the strategy of this no-confidence effort and its execution, as the G&M's Brian Laghi reminds readers this morning: The man who prides himself on his skill as a political tactician lost the biggest gamble of his political career last night. And, at least according to some, it didn't need to be that way. After his defeat on a vote designed to force a spring election, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper finds himself today with a chunk of his political capital spent, a temperamental image with the Canadian public, and some members of his party sniping at him for what they believe was the frittering...
The Byrd Option Is About To Take Wing
Bill Frist will take another step towards invoking the Byrd Option of getting a ruling that filibusters are out of order on judicial nominees this morning, when he introduces a motion for cloture on the confirmation debate for Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen: This morning, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will take an official step to proceed toward a vote on Owen's nomination, starting the clock ticking toward a showdown over whether Democrats will retain their right to block judicial nominees with the filibuster. Shortly after the Senate convenes this morning, Frist, R-Tenn., will file a cloture petition, which requires the approval of 60 of 100 senators, to end debate on Owen's nomination. Last session, Democrats blocked Owen and nine other appellate court nominees. He has renominated seven of them this year. Under Senate rules that petition must "ripen" for two days while the Senate is in session --...
Blood And Politics, Part Two
After my post this morning on Terry Moran and his brother Rick at Right Wing Nuthouse, I received this e-mail from CQ reader Adam S: Absolutely. So is the blood of my loved ones in the armed forces being spilled in Iraq. Terry Moran and others like him in the media that do there best to destroy our military are a disgrace. So disgraceful that only a blood relative could stand up for them. So I guess by posting this you are saying that Terry and the MSM are all great Americans and all that nonsense in the blogsphere is bull? Where do you stand? Where do I stand? I think my posts on the subjects of the military, foreign policy, and the war in Iraq speak for themselves. I fully support this administration's strategy and implementation of the war on terror, and I think that the media has engaged...
Santorum Apologizes For Nazi Analogy
Senator Rick Santorum apologized for his remarks during the Senate debate yesterday that used Adolf Hitler as part of an analogy about Democratic insistence on using the filibuster for judicial confirmations. He said he "meant no offense" by bringing up the most notorious genocidal maniac in history: "Referencing Hitler was meant to dramatize the principle of an argument, not to characterize my Democratic colleagues," Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the GOP leadership in the Senate, said of his remarks Thursday. ... Santorum said that Democratic protests over Republican efforts to ensure confirmation votes would be like the Nazi dictator seizing Paris and then saying: "I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It's mine." Santorum later said in a release that his remark "was a mistake and I meant no offense." The Republican Jewish Coalition applauded the statement. "Sen. Santorum is sensitive to...
Democrats Dissatisfied With Dean
USA Today picks up on a building realization in political circles that Howard Dean may not have been the best choice to represent Democrats as the party tries to find some appeal to centrists. Jill Lawrence uses the same contrast as I did earlier this week between Dean and his GOP counterpart, Ken Mehlman, to plumb Democratic dissatisfaction with the Vermont governor's first 100 days on the job: Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, is courting black and Hispanic voters on a regular basis. Beyond the usual run of speeches, fundraisers and meetings with donors, he has visited Latino neighborhoods and historically black campuses. He has attended black-oriented receptions and ceremonies, spoken to minority chambers of commerce and raised money for Otto Banks of Harrisburg, Pa., a black city council candidate new to the GOP. Dean, who reaches Day 100 as Democratic National Committee chairman Monday, is for the...
CQ On The Air Tonight
I just completed a taped interview with Rob Breakenridge at Corus Radio Network about a wide range of political topics, American and Canadian. The program, The World Tonight, airs on Canadian radio at 9:30 PM EDT. For those who don't live in Alberta, you can catch the interview on the live stream at CHRQ's website at the above link. Rob had some great questions for me about the judicial filibusters, John Bolton, and the collapse of the no-confidence effort in Ottawa. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! ADDENDUM: Before you listen to my interview, don't forget to catch Michelle Malkin filling in for Bill O'Reilly on The Factor tonight on Fox News Channel....
May 21, 2005
Strib Has Its Eye On The News
Power Line posted late last night that the local broadsheet, the Star-Tribune, finally noticed that the Governor had invited several Metro-area bloggers to the mansion for a meet-and-greet last Tuesday. Scott and John do a good job of poking holes in the reporting of Mark Brunswick, so I don't necessarily want to cover the same ground, but some aspects of Mark's report are just too good to pass up. First off, I can confirm what Scott says about having received no contact from Brunswick about this report despite the four days it apparently took him to write it. I display my e-mail address right on my website, just below the Day by Day cartoon now, and I can assure readers that my e-mail service works just fine. (In fact, this morning I've already received three offers from former Nigerian heads of state who need to get millions of dollars out...
NDP, BQ Join In Call For RCMP Investigation
NDP leader Jack Layton has joined with Bloc Quebecois chief Giles Duceppe in calling for an RCMP investigation into potential vote-buying in the case of Gurmant Grewal. Grewal taped two conversations with key Liberal leaders, including PM Paul Martin's chief of staff Tim Murphy, during which Murphy alluded to a future appointment to the Senate for Grewal's wife in exchange for an abstention on Thursday's no-confidence motion: NDP Leader Jack Layton yesterday joined calls for the RCMP to investigate a taped conversation in which it is alleged that the Prime Minister's chief of staff suggested to an MP that the government would be more free to discuss a possible Senate appointment only after he and his wife, also an MP, abstained on Thursday night's confidence vote. Mr. Layton backed Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, who on Thursday wrote the RCMP asking them to investigate the matter. ... In the conversation,...
Russian Oppression Sets Fire To The Caucasus
The London Telegraph has a disturbing report on Russia's increasing police state spinning out of control in the Caucasus, which not only will complicate the war on terror but threatens to create an explosion of terror across the region. Vladimir Putin's security forces have reverted to Soviet-style corruption, brutality, and accountability, leaving little choice for the residents of the southern area of the Russian federation but to fight: To the West, President Vladimir Putin presents the face of a staunch partner in the war on radical Islam, waging a legitimate fight against extremists in the south of his country. As evidence of what he is up against he cites the brutal seizure of the school in Beslan last year, the downing of two Russian airliners by Chechen suicide bombers and numerous other attacks that the Kremlin regards as terrorism pure and simple. But even as he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with western...
Live Blog Of Brewster-Golota Fight
9:56 CT - Fight starts. Looks like both fighters are ready. 9:57 CT - Okay, it looks like only one of them were ready. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get their butt kicked in 53 seconds before, and I watched Mike Tyson when he still had skills. Andrew Golota never even had a chance to throw a low blow. In fact, HBO says Golota threw 11 punches at Lamon Brewster, but I think at least half of those were just his arms pinwheeling while he hit the canvas three times in less than a minute. I don't get into boxing the way I did ten or fifteen years ago, but not much else was on TV tonight ... and not much boxing went on tonight either, for that matter....
When Hamas Is Just Not Radical Enough
For those who have argued for a Palestinian state as a resolution to Middle East violence, this development should cause some hesitation about the idea of sovereignty on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Scotsman reports that al-Qaeda has gained a toehold in Gaza by recruiting disenchanted terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad: AL-QAEDA has established a foothold in Palestine with a new militant group based in Gaza formed by extremists who have become disillusioned with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Amid the biggest flare-up of violence in Gaza since a ceasefire was declared three months ago by Palestinians and Israelis, the Jerusalem Post has quoted unnamed Palestinian Authority security officials as saying that a new group called Jundallah or 'Allah's Brigade' had links to the terrorist organisation headed by Osama bin Laden. The new terror group consists mainly of former Hamas and Islamic Jihad members who believe these two...
Taking The Plunge, Again
After much deliberation and consultation on finances, I finally decided that an upgrade for the Official Malfunctioning Laptop Of Captain's QuartersTM was overdue. Thanks to two generous gift certificates from my last birthday, Amazon wound up getting my business even if they didn't handle my last order very well. I took a trip out to Best Buy to see if they could beat the Amazon price on two models on which I had focused: the Sony Vaio FS640 and the HP 1040 US. Going to the store also gave me an opportunity to see both models to get an idea of their physical build, and also to see if anything else looked better for the money. Both models would have worked for me. I want to get back to an old hobby of DVD production for family films, and while my desktop does that reasonably well, I've gotten so used...
May 22, 2005
Live Blog: Howard Dean
9:01 - On filibusters: "We need more than one party in charge." Perhaps the Democrats could start winning majorities in order to ensure that. 9:04 - Confronted with Democrats' quotes opposing filibusters in the past, Dean changes the subjects. Now he's complaining about Bush's "town meetings" as an example -- WTF? 9:05 - First reference to Tom DeLay! 9:07 - He brought crib notes for his interview to cover his Tom DeLay. Cute. 9:08 - Russert plays the "jail sentence" clip, and Russert slams him with his earlier Osama quote. Response: "I don't think I'm prejudging [DeLay]." Then he says a jury will decide that, even though he hasn't even been indicted. Russert then reads Barney Frank's quote and Dean refuses to acknowledge the issue, saying that his "admonishments" by the House equals a criminal conviction in court. 9:10 - Howard thinks he's Harry Truman! 9:13 - Retraction on DeLay?...
Janice Rogers Brown vs Ted Kennedy On Free Speech
The Democrats in the Senate have complained that judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown is outside of the mainstream, an extremist that threatens American personal freedoms. Ted Kennedy charges her with "a deep hostility to civil rights," which Charles Hurt notes in a short article in today's Washington Times. For Ted's idea of how freedom and civil rights should be protected, Hurt notes this passage from Brown's testimony at the Judiciary Committee: Mr. Kennedy also expressed concern about a case Justice Brown handled involving racial slurs in the workplace and scolded her for not being more concerned about such behavior. Justice Brown wrote that the First Amendment guarantees free speech and prohibits the federal government from ordering a supervisor not to use racial slurs. "How does that possibly advance the cause of justice and fulfill what we were trying to do to deal with this kind of verbal harassment in the...
First Lady Takes Flack For Newsweek's Lie In Jerusalem
First Lady Laura Bush encountered vociferous protests in Jerusalem as she toured the city, trying to use her normally calming and diplomatic presence to encourage Palestinians and Israelis to push for a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the issues facing them. Instead, when she visited the mosque at the Dome of the Rock, militant-led protestors decried the visit in light of the false Newsweek reports of Qu'ran desecration: Protesters besieged Laura Bush during her visit Sunday to two of Jerusalem's most sacred sites, with Israeli police locking arms to restrain the crowd and Secret Service agents packed tightly around America's first lady. ... Anti-American sentiment is running high in the Mideast because of a variety of factors, including a now-retracted report in Newsweek that Pentagon investigators had found evidence interrogators at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in washrooms to...
Newsweek: We're Really Sorry Even Though We Did Nothing Wrong
Newsweek again issued a mea culpa for its false report of Qu'ran desecration, this time issued from Richard Smith, the magazine's editor-in-chief. As in previous statements from the magazine, the apology comes complete with an explanation of how they didn't do anything wrong and that the Pentagon bears responsibility for not stopping them from printing the story: As most of you know, we have unequivocally retracted our story. In the light of the Pentagon's denials and our source's changing position on the allegation, the only responsible course was to say that we no longer stand by our story. We have also offered a sincere apology to our readers and especially to anyone affected by violence that may have been related to what we published. To the extent that our story played a role in contributing to such violence, we are deeply sorry. ... One of the frustrating aspects of our...
Movie Review: Revenge Of The Sith (Spoilers!)
After spending the day cleaning out the office and the garage -- and really not finishing either after several hours, which should tell you all you need to know about the scale of the job -- I went out with my son and daughter-in-law to see Star Wars, Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. The First Mate begged off, since she felt tired out from the day and also since she's successfully avoided experiencing any of the six Star Wars movies up to now, and didn't want to lose her perfect record. ** SPOILERS ** Plenty of bloggers have already commented on this film, and I've read their reviews, which helped in keeping my expectations in check going in. Because of that, and the fact that the last two movies had so many problems, I wound up pleasantly surprised by RotS. The movie starts at a fast pace, with the...
May 23, 2005
Arab World Recognizes Democratization Policy's Power
I missed this yesterday in my busy day, but don't miss it if you haven't yet read it. For those who doubt whether George Bush's policy of democratization as a weapon against Islamist terror in the Middle East will prove successful, Fouad Ajami writes about his experiences on a tour of the region and the recognition and admiration that Bush has achieved from Arabs in giving them hope for modernization and liberty. His essay, adapted by Opinionjournal from a recent lecture, makes clear that pursuing Scowcroftian "stability" no longer remained a possibility: "George W. Bush has unleashed a tsunami on this region," a shrewd Kuwaiti merchant who knows the way of his world said to me. The man had no patience with the standard refrain that Arab reform had to come from within, that a foreign power cannot alter the age-old ways of the Arabs. "Everything here--the borders of these...
Maybe They Should Have Chosen A Better Spokesperson
The Liberal Party sent new Cabinet minister Belinda Stronach to campaign in a critical federal by-election in Labrador this weekend in order to ensure the retention of a Commons seat for the Grits. While the seat in Goose Bay has historically been safe for the Liberals, with only one Tory elected in the last 50 years, the appearance of Stronach might not make for the best reminder of Liberal politics at the moment: Belinda Stronach was among three Liberal cabinet ministers campaigning in Labrador yesterday, two days before an important federal by-election in the region. The newly minted Human Resources Minister gave her first major speech since defecting from the Conservative Party last week, supporting Todd Russell in tomorrow's by-election to succeed the late Liberal MP Lawrence O'Brien. If the Tories can pull off an upset, they can gain a seat in the Commons and once again have a thin...
George Allen Predicts Byrd Option Tomorrow
Despite the media grandstanding of John McCain in attempting to fashion a compromise that winds up tossing judicial nominees under the bus, fellow GOP Senator George Allen predicts that the Senate will be forced to adopt the Byrd option and rule filibusters out of order for judicial confirmations. Allen told ABC yesterday that the Republicans have the votes to do it on Tuesday: Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, said yesterday that he doesn't think a compromise can be reached with Senate Democrats and predicted his party has the 51 votes needed to employ the so-called "nuclear option" that will prevent the filibustering of judicial nominees. "I just think that it is not that big of a deal for senators to exercise their constitutional responsibility," Mr. Allen said on ABC's "This Week." "I think that we'll get the constitutional option done, and we'll vote on judges." Also yesterday, Senate Majority Whip...
Newsweek's Pandering To Anti-Americanism Abroad
As the blog Riding Sun noted yesterday, the Qu'ran-flushing urban legend Newsweek printed earlier this month wasn't their first excursion into anti-American pandering abroad. In February, while they printed innocuous covers of George Bush and Oscar nominees for their American editions, the weekly magazine used this cover in Japan: The translation of the headline is "The Day America Died," in an apparent reference to George Bush's re-election. Instead of informing us of our demise here in the States, however, Newsweek gave us a picture of George Bush with the headline, "America Leads ... But Is Anyone Following?" Apparently, Newsweek somehow believes that corpses lead and that some people follow them. Magazines with foreign editions routinely edit for their target populations. However, Newsweek's editorial choices for Japan, a staunch ally of the US, do not appear to reflect their market but an editorial desire to undermine American ties to the Japanese...
Why Democrats Are The Radicals On Filibustering
The Democrats have recently begun a scare campaign that claims Republicans want to eliminate the filibuster altogether, not just for judicial nominations but also for legislation. This new conspiracy theory states that the GOP will set a precedent on Tuesday that makes it easy for the majority to cast off this particular Senate tradition. Unsurprisingly, John McCain mouthed this canard to the press: "We're talking about changing the rules of the Senate with 51 votes, which has never happened in the history of the United States Senate," Mr. McCain said, adding that he was worried that eliminating the filibuster for judicial nominees would lead to the elimination of the 214-year-old parliamentary tactic altogether. "If you have 51 votes changing the rules of the Senate, nominations of the president is next, and then legislation follows that, and we will now become an institution exactly like the House of Representatives," Mr. McCain...
Not One Dime: Down To The Wire
In all probability, we are less than 24 hours from the Senate deciding whether to return to majority rule on confirmation of judicial nominees or an endorsement of the usurpation of nominating authority by the Senate minority. Various reports have moderates in both parties working towards compromises that might be acceptable to enough Senators in both parties to block the showdown on the Constitutionality of the filibuster as applied to judicial nominations, but time is quickly running out on such efforts. George Bush made his expectations clear this morning: "My job is to pick people who will interpret the Constitution, not use the bench from which to write laws," Bush said from the White House. "And I expect them to get an up or down vote, that's what I expect. And I think the American people expect that as well — people ought to have a fair hearing and they...
Rassmussen: 57% Support Byrd Option
I missed this Rassmussen survey last week when it first came out. Based on their polling between May 12-13, Rassmussen reports that 57% of all Americans support changing Senate rules to ensure up or down votes by the full Senate on judicial nominees: As the Judicial Nomination battle moves to its final days in the U.S. Senate, two weeks of partisan posturing have failed to change public opinion in a significant manner. Today, 57% of Americans say that "Senate rules should be changed so that a vote must be taken on every person the President nominates to become a judge." That's unchanged from two weeks ago. The only change of more than a point or two in the data came when we asked about the threat of some Democrats to procedurally shut down the Senate if the filibuster rules are changed. Two weeks ago, 51% of Americans were opposed to...
Deal Reached? (Live Blog)
News services are reporting that a centrist group of 12 Senators has reached a compromise on judicial confirmations: Centrists from both parties reached a compromise Monday night to avoid a showdown on President Bush's stalled judicial nominees and the Senate's own filibuster rules, officials from both parties said. These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement would clear the way for yes-or-no votes on some of Bush's nominees, but make no guarantee. Under the agreement, Democrats would pledge not to filibuster any of Bush's future appeals court or Supreme Court nominees except in "extraordinary circumstances." For their part, Republicans agreed not to support an attempt to strip Democrats of their right to block votes. Under the agreement, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, nominated to a seat on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, would advance to a final confirmation vote. If the Republicans...
Deconstructing The Deal
Based on reaction around the Internet, it appears that everyone except for the Senate and the media are unhappy about this compromise on judicial filibusters. Why? Let's take a look at the text of the deal and see if we can comprehend what each side won and lost. Part I: Commitments on Pending Judicial Nominations A. Votes for Certain Nominees. We will vote to invoke cloture on the following judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit). B. Status of Other Nominees. Signatories make no commitment to vote for or against cloture on the following judicial nominees: William Myers (9th Circuit) and Henry Saad (6th Circuit). Obviously, this gives the White House three of the most contested and vilified judicial nominees in the process, although quite frankly, the Democrats never put together any good argument against any of these three. The Left...
May 24, 2005
Two Editorials, Two Directions, And A Significant Abstention
The fourteen Senators who banded together last night to reach a compromise on judicial confirmations expect, I'm sure, to bask in the glow of an approving Exempt Media blitz, and they will certainly receive that, to a certain extent. However, this morning's editorial pages from the three most influential newspapers demonstrates more diffidence than love. The Washington Post treats the centrist minority as conquering heroes: It is a demonstration, in an era of increasingly bitter partisanship, of what can still be accomplished through negotiation and the proffer of a modicum of trust across the aisle. Interest groups on both sides railed against compromise and threatened its architects; Senate leaders of both parties and the president did more to obstruct a deal than to facilitate it. The 14 senators nonetheless managed to put principle above self-protection. Put principle above self-protection? What principle was that? Even the Washington Post can't identify it:...
Welcome To Versailles, Circa 1921
While the venerable hands of John Warner and Robert Byrd applaud themselves and their twelve comrades for devising a compromise that supposedly ends the battle over judicial confirmations, the rest of the country on both sides of the political divide have woken to the fact that nothing has really been resolved. Even the one major daily whose editorial board lavished praise on the centrists reports in its front-page analysis that this peace treaty amounts to little more than a temporary cease-fire: It means that at least three of the nominees who have been blocked for years will make it to the appellate courts, while at least two will not. Beyond that, without a total ban on judicial filibusters, as the nuclear option would have guaranteed, the president will not have such a free hand in selecting a Supreme Court nominee. He also will be under pressure from the moderates to...
Isikoff: Deadly Mistake Will Be A "Blip"
Michael Isikoff appeared on the Charlie Rose show last night to discuss his now-discredited story about flushed Qu'rans at Guantanamo Bay. According to the AP, he acknowledged that his report had some role in the rioting that killed almost twenty people in the Middle East, but then predicted that the incident would just be a historical footnote: Michael Isikoff, addressing the furor in an interview broadcast Monday night on "The Charlie Rose Show," said he regretted the possibility that his article, which has been blamed for violent protests in Muslim countries, may have spurred riots. "It was terrible what happened," he told Rose. "Even if it was just a little bit that we contributed to the violence that went on over there, that was awful, terrible." ... Isikoff said that he thought the error had harmed the magazine. "I think it has clearly done some temporary damage," he said. "It's...
Kerry Signed The 180?
Joan Vennochi reports in her Boston Globe column today that John Kerry has signed the SF-180 form that will release his entire military record. However, as even the liberal Vennochi acknowledges, with Kerry that means less than one might think (via Michelle Malkin): During an interview yesterday with Globe editorial writers and columnists, the former Democratic presidential nominee was asked if had signed Form SF 180, authorizing the Department of Defense to grant access to all his military records. ''I have signed it," Kerry said. Then, he added that his staff was ''still going through it" and ''very, very shortly, you will have a chance to see it." The devil is usually in the details. With Kerry, it's also in the dodges and digressions. After the interview, Kerry's communications director, David Wade, was asked to clarify when Kerry signed SF 180 and when public access would be granted. Kerry drifted...
Zell Miller Interview At Red State Rant
Lance at Red State Rant had a unique opportunity to interview one of the most fascinating people in politics over the past few years, firebrand Zell Miller, who defied his party and endorsed George Bush in 2004. Lance asked several bloggers, including myself, to submit questions for the interview and graciously asked them on our behalf. The first half of the interview has been posted today, and the second half goes up tomorrow. Lance included one of my questions in today's post: CQ: For such a consumer nation, America seems to do poorly “selling” ourselves overseas. How do you think we can improve in this area so that people understand what we stand for and what we believe, in the most positive light? ZM: Well it would help if we had more in the media who understand that when they criticize America or the military or anything that relates to...
Did Bush Win In Judicial Deal?
That's what the New York Times says this morning, in an analysis by Richard Stevenson that tries to look at the compromise as part of the overall power struggle for Bush's legislative agenda. Stevenson argues that the compromise frees up the most contentious and desired nominees for confirmation and the legislative process for more pressing issues, such as CAFTA and Social Security: President Bush won enough from the bipartisan compromise on judicial nominees on Monday night to claim a limited victory, but he now faces a series of additional tests of his political authority, with the stakes extending to the fate of his second-term agenda. On the plus side for Mr. Bush, the bipartisan agreement among 14 centrist senators expressly called for up-or-down votes on three of his nominees to federal appeals court seats, all but ensuring their confirmations, though it left in limbo the fate of two more. ......
Canadians Paying For Liberal Party PR Offensive
In a further twist to the Adscam scandal that has rocked Canada and nearly cost the Liberal Party its ruling status, records revealed at the Gomery Inquiry show that the Liberals have set up a "war room" for Gomery-related public relations using taxpayer money: The Liberal government has set up a war room -- at a cost of about $1-million to taxpayers -- to handle the fallout from the Gomery commission. Documents obtained by CanWest News Service through the Access to Information Act reveal the rapid-response war room, which is in almost daily contact with the Prime Minister's Office and the government's top bureaucrat, Alex Himelfarb, is operating out of the Privy Council Office. The cost of the strategic office, which does everything from prepare answers for Question Period in the House of Commons to keeping the PMO abreast of testimony at the inquiry, covers the salaries of staff and...
The Vanguard Of The New Comedy Comity
The Senate passed a cloture motion on the debate for Priscilla Owen's confirmation to the appellate court. Seventeen Democrats, despite yesterday's agreement and the unanimous accolades it received from Harry Reid and his crew, voted for a filibuster. Here's the Vanguard of the New Comity: Biden, Del.; Boxer, Calif.; Cantwell, Wash.; Corzine, N.J.; Dayton, Minn.; Dodd, Conn.; Dorgan, N.D.; Feingold, Wis.; Kennedy, Mass.; Kerry, Mass.; Lautenberg, N.J.; Levin, Mich.; Lincoln, Ark.; Murray, Wash.; Reed, R.I.; Sarbanes, Md.; Stabenow, Mich....
Drinks Are On Me
Today, our family will celebrate my son's 21st birthday, and I thought I'd take an opportunity to tell you a little about my only child. I married the First Mate when David was 9 years old (I adopted him later on), and we had our transition problems. In speaking to others about marrying into an existing family, I usually tell people it's like becoming the second Darrin on Bewitched; you know you have a new part, but you haven't got a clue about all the rules -- and, by the way, you're supposed to be on stage NOW. David has always had his own mind about things, and ... well, so do I. (As if you couldn't tell that from my blog.) However, David always had something special about him, even when he drove me up a wall. We had all the normal teenager issues with him, especially early on,...
No Filibuster On Bolton
In a report on the continuing opposition of George Voinovich to John Bolton for his confirmation as UN ambassador, the New York Times reports that the Democrats will remove the hold on his nomination and apparently will not start an expected filibuster: One Democrat, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, had sought to block a Senate vote on Mr. Bolton, saying she would oppose any vote until the State Department provided documents related to the nomination that the department has so far refused to hand over. On Tuesday afternoon, however, a spokeswoman for Ms. Boxer said she had decided to lift a hold on Mr. Bolton's nomination. Ms. Boxer's spokeswoman said she would join with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware in agreeing to a Republican plan to move toward a vote on Mr. Bolton after allowing up to 40 hours of debate. It appeared unlikely that any Senate Democrat...
May 25, 2005
NYT Hasn't Read The Constitution
I posted yesterday about editorial-board reaction to the compromise agreement on judicial confirmations, and noted that the New York Times had failed to comment on the development -- a surprising abstention, given their previous interest. The Gray Lady apparently took a day to mull it over, and came up with an unenthusiastic endorsement whose main complaints appear to be the Republicans who joined the centrists and a typical, if stunning, misrepresentation of Constitutional structure: If nothing else, the deal to end the Senate's "nuclear option" showdown was heartening in that it did demonstrate that moderates still exist in Washington, and actually have the capacity to work together to get things done. On the other hand, it's not terribly encouraging to see how low the bar is for joining the moderate camp. The seven Republicans who played the critical role in brokering an agreement include several staunch conservatives whose claim to...
Franken To Relocate To Minneapolis; Don King Next?
Michelle Malkin notes that Al Franken, the premier host of the dying Air America talk-radio network, will move back to Minnesota and broadcast his national show from the Twin Cities. Franken has lived in New York for decades, but returns to the Land of 10,000 Lakes for a particular purpose: Radio host Al Franken, who is mulling a run against Republican Senator Norm Coleman in 2008, has purchased a town house on the edge of downtown Minneapolis and will establish residency in Minnesota. "It's one of the things I need to do if I decide to make a run," Franken said from his current home in New York. "I haven't made the decision yet, but if I do, I'll have to have been living in Minnesota a while." Franken might also want to make a run for the seat that Mark Dayton will vacate at the end of next year,...
The Arrogant Regency
Tony Blankley writes today in the Washington Times that the new cabal of fourteen so-called centrists in the Senate represent a real threat to the traditional workings of Constitutional government. The bipartisan group resembles a regency, Blankley argues, and one that threatens to take over the entire business of the Senate: Well, it would seem that the Senate has been placed in to receivership by 14 self-appointed trustees, several of whom are among the Senate's most wanton exhibitionists. Some of these ladies and gentlemen can be seen almost daily preening in front of television cameras confessing their moral superiority over their colleagues by virtue of their lack of firm convictions and their unwillingness to be team players. ... Let no one assume that this little assemblage of selfless senators will limit the reach of their writ to the matter of judicial appointments. As if one couldn't guess, on Monday night...
Adscam Cost $355 Million: Auditors
Forensic accountants scouring the finances of the Sponsorship Program have found an additional $100 million in losses, bringing the total scam's loss to $355 million, according to their latest testimony: The total amount of money lost in the sponsorship scandal now appears to be $355 million -- $100 million more than was originally thought. "If you didn't like the sponsorship program to begin with, you've now got about a hundred million more reasons to not like it," CTV's Jed Kahane said Tuesday. The new figure of $355 million is from the forensic accounting firm, Kroll Lindquist Avey, which was hired by the Gomery commission to examine sponsorship spending between 1994 and 2004. Of this, the accountants have identified $51 million that went into the pockets of the well-connected ad firms, such as Groupaction, whose officers have testified that significant portions of the money went back to the Liberal Party. The...
Priscilla Owen Confirmed
The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Priscilla Owen to the Fifth US District Court of Appeals after four years of Democratic obstructionism. She received 56 votes for confirmation, including two from Democrats: The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Priscilla Owen as a federal appellate judge, ending the four-year ordeal of the Texas jurist who was thrust into the center of the partisan battle over President Bush's judicial nominations. The 56-43 vote to appoint Owen to the New Orlean-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a consequence of an agreement reached earlier this week that averted, for the time being, a bitter dispute over Democratic use of the filibuster to block Bush's judicial choices. Bush, pleased with the vote on a nominee he said would bring "a wealth of experience and expertise" to the bench, said it should be followed by others. "I urge the Senate to build on this...
May 26, 2005
Allawi Corroborates Abdullah On Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda Connections To Saddam
While Western press agencies continue to report years-old allegations of Qu'ran abuse from detainees as if they were new, the Exempt Media completely missed important corroboration from Iraq's new government that Saddam sheltered and even encouraged al-Qaeda terrorists during his reign of terror. CQ reader Jason Smith at Generation Why? notes this revelation from the Italian news portal AKI which confirms that Saddam's regime sponsored an Islamist conference and specifically invited AQ's #2 man and Zarqawi to attend: The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist...
New York Allowed Sex Offender To Be Foster Parent
The care of foster children remains a nightmare in American society. The majority of people who open their homes to these children do so for the best of reasons, but we expect the state that controls this system to do at least basic investigative checks before dumping their wards into the homes of strangers. New York apparently can't be bothered: Authorities are investigating how a convicted rapist was allowed to serve as a foster parent to as many as 50 children before his past was discovered. State laws prohibit all convicted felons, particularly those convicted of sex crimes or crimes of violence, from being foster parents or adopting children, except in rare instances. But Nicholas Chaney told WWNY-TV in Watertown Tuesday that he may have cared for as many as 50 foster children since late 2001 and even adopted a child while living in upstate New York. Chaney said he...
Baghdad Sweep Coming
The London Telegraph reports this morning that Iraqis intend on conducting a major military sweep of Baghdad to combat the bloody series of bombings that have left hundreds of civilians and police dead. More than 40,000 Iraqi security troops will take part in this new operation, making it by far the most extensive military event in the nascent democracy's life: More than 40,000 Iraqi troops are to be deployed in Baghdad to hunt down insurgents and their weapons, Iraq's defence minister has announced. Sadoun al-Dulaimi said the force would include troops from the interior and defence ministries and would be by far the largest anti-insurgent operation carried out in Baghdad by Iraqi security forces. He said: "We will divide Baghdad into seven main areas, and the number of the forces who will take part in the operation from the interior and the defence ministry will be more than 40,000 security...
Adscam Reaches Paul Martin's Office (Updated -- Not Quite!)
Testimony yesterday at the Gomery Inquiry put Adscam into the office of Prime Minister Paul Martin (not quite -- see Update II) for the first time yesterday, as one of the aides working directly for Martin revealed that part of his salary was paid not by the government but a key Adscam figure. Gaetano Manganiello told Gomery that he was not the only one in the PMO who received money from Adscam contractors, either: Gaetano Manganiello testified that he was one of at least three party workers in the Quebec wing's Montreal offices in the late 1990s who were paid by Mr. Corriveau even though they did not work for his firm. Mr. Corriveau, a close friend of Mr. Chrétien and a key broker in the sponsorship affair, earned $8-million in sponsorship subcontracts, according to evidence presented at the inquiry. Mr. Manganiello is on a paid leave from his job...
Freedom Means The Leeway Of Foolish Choices, Your Honor
An Indiana judge needs a remedial course in Constitutional law if this report in the Indianapolis Star accurately characterizes his custody decree. In determining custodial arrangements for a nine-year-old boy, Judge Cale Bradford instructed both parents to refrain from instructing their son in Wiccan beliefs, despite their shared religion not being a point of contention in their filings: An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals." The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth. Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, kept the unusual provision in the couple's divorce decree last year over their fierce objections, court records show. The order does not define a mainstream religion. Bradford's reasoning behind this ban? The boy attends a Catholic...
Syrian Operative Captured In Iraq?
The Daily Star in Lebanon reports that Iraqi security forces have captured a Syrian intelligence officer, one who staged a June 2003 attack on a television station owned by the late Rafik Hariri as a warning to get out of politics. The agent, Hussein Ahmed Tah, was captured in Baghdad attempting to bomb public facilities there as part of the so-called insurgency. If true, it may significantly shift Middle Eastern politics and strategy: A Syrian intelligence officer detained in Baghdad has admitted to launching the missile attack on the late premier Rafik Hariri's Future Television in June 2003, according to Al-Rai al-Aam Kuwaiti newspaper. In an article published on Wednesday, the newspaper said Hussein Ahmad Tah, 32, was arrested by Iraqi police when he was attempting to assassinate employees in an Iraqi public institution. Following his arrest, Tah decided to admit to his previous crimes, among which is the Future...
CBS Poll: Behind The Numbers
"Bush Out Of Touch," reads the CBS headline from their poll released today, and indeed that is what one of the poll's results show. However, CBS doesn't tell its readers that Bush's overall approval ratings actually increased as well: Four months into his second term, President Bush is increasingly viewed as being out of touch with the American people, according to a CBS News poll. Six in ten Americans say the president does not share their priorities, while just 34 percent say he does – the lowest numbers for Mr. Bush since the eve of his first inauguration. If there's any solace for Mr. Bush, it's that even fewer people, just 20 percent, say Congress shares their priorities. Overall, slightly more Americans (48 percent) disapprove of the job the president is doing than approve (46 percent). If readers click the link to the actual results, however, they will find that...
Tennessee Legislators Arrested In Corruption Scheme
Several Tennessee state legislators have been arrested by federal investigators after a two-year undercover operation that identified massive corruption in bribes and kickbacks. Most of those arrested have been Democrats, including two leaders of the party, one an uncle to rising Democratic moderate Rep. Harold Ford, Jr: Four Tennessee lawmakers, a former lawmaker and two others were indicted Thursday amid a federal investigation into the business dealings of a state senator from Memphis from a powerful political family, officials said. Those charged included the senator, John Ford; fellow Sens. Kathryn Bowers and Ward Crutchfield; state Rep. Chris Newton; and former state Sen. Roscoe Dixon. Newton is a Republican and the others are Democrats. Federal authorities said during a news conference Thursday that the charges were extortion and accepting bribes following a two-year undercover operation dubbed "Tennessee Waltz." The grand jury returned the indictments in Memphis. Ford has been under investigation...
If I'm Not Back By Tomorrow, Send Help (Updates!)
The new Sony VAIO laptop came in today, and it looks wonderful. I'm in the middle of transitioning my software and data from the Toshiba to the new system ... and of course, Windows XP won't recognize the home network, although I can get to the Internet just fine. I have the correct workgroup name and a unique computer name, but I can't see any of the other computers, including the old laptop. That means I have to use the portable hard drive to transfer files. Ecchh. I'll hopefully get the core files transferred tonight so I can start blogging with the new laptop. In the meantime, check out Mitch at Shot In The Dark, who has been running a bleg for funds to get a much-needed laptop. He may buy the Toshiba from me, now that I've figured out why it wasn't working properly before, or he may do...
Not One Dime: Non-Nuclear Winter
Hugh Hewitt has an excellent column titled "Non-Nuclear Fallout" in today's Daily Standard, which discusses the winners and losers from the "aftermath of a sellout," as Hugh puts it. After today's latest display of the so-called new comity in the Senate, as the Democrats filibustered John Bolton's nomination despite an earlier promise by Harry Reid to allow a vote, Hugh's analysis rings even more true: ON THE PRESIDENTIAL FRONT, it wasn't only McCain who lost big with the deal. So did Senator Bill Frist, at least for the moment, as legitimate questions are being raised about his ability to run the country when he cannot even corral his own caucus. Nebraska's Chuck Hagel contributed to the collapse of the caucus with his reprise of Hamlet on every Sunday show that would have him. Winners include Virginia's George Allen and Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Hugh gives me a prominent mention...
May 27, 2005
Reid: We're Tired Of You Amateurs, Losers, And Hacks Sniping At Us
Harry Reid continues to suffer from his terminal case of projection, the Washington Times informs us this morning. After months of bilious rhetoric from the Senate Minority Leader and his fellow Senate Democrats, Reid told the National Press Club yesterday that the country had tired of Republican partisanship: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid yesterday in a speech laying out Democrats' agenda accused Republican leaders of being so consumed with partisan political "sniping" that they've neglected a troubled economy and a weak national defense. "Democrats are the party of national security," Mr. Reid said at the National Press Club. "And we have an agenda to defend America from danger." ... Mr. Reid said Republicans have squandered the first five months of this Congress breaking the Democratic filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees, intervening in the Terri Schiavo case and trying to change the rules in the House ethics committee. "Perhaps the...
Morselli: Gagliano Was "The Big Boss"
The Gomery Inquiry heard the testimony of another colorful witness in the Adscam investigation, discussing cash payments and cronyism. Giuseppe "Joe" Morselli testified that Jacques Corriveau and Alfonse Gagliano directed the transfers of unregulated and unaccounted cash for fundraisers and politicians alike. Morselli admitted to keeping some of it for himself: Former Liberal fundraiser Giuseppe (Joseph) Morselli told the Gomery inquiry yesterday that a friend of former prime minister Jean Chrétien asked him to intervene to restore sponsorship contracts for two music festivals. After the request from Chrétien confidant Jacques Corriveau, Mr. Morselli said, he called the office of his long-time friend, Alfonso Gagliano, then the public works minister, and got half of the funding reinstated. Mr. Morselli, a caterer and key figure in the sponsorship scandal, gave testimony that suggested he knew of illicit practices, but, when questioned further, stopped short of confirming them. His loose grasp of French...
Not One Dime: Logo Contest
I have an appeal for all CQ readers regarding the Not One Dime campaign. Many of you have written to me in support of this effort to make our voices heard at the RNC by withholding donations to the NRSC until the GOP caucus improves its leadership in the Senate and starts acting like a majority party. In accordance with the enthusiastic response, I've registered a new domain -- www.notonedimemore.org -- and I need a logo for the effort which captures the essence of what we want. The plan for the moment is to have the new domain point to the Judiciary category on CQ, but a separate website may develop later. I'd like to offer something for this contest besides the glory and fame that will surely follow the successful effort [cough, cough], but right now I don't have anything else in mind. However, I can promise the finalists...
The Comity Comedy Continues
Captain's Quarters would like to give the Captain Louis Renault award to the Seven Dwarves -- those Republican Senators who sold out the Constitution in the name of Senate "comity" and trust, who found out last night exactly how much value those commodities have on the other side of the aisle. After last night's filibuster of the confirmation of John Bolton left the US without an ambassador to the UN for another few weeks, these titans of insight expressed their shock that Democrats acted out of partisanship again: The vote against cutting off debate over the confirmation of John R. Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations, just as Congress was recessing for Memorial Day, left Republicans fuming and showed there is still some distance to travel to reach the new spirit of Senate comity that some believed was represented in the judicial pact announced Monday. ... Its authors...
The Dog That Didn't Bark
Thomas Lipscomb continues to follow the Linda Foley story, this time on the pages of Editor & Publisher. Foley resurrected the Eason Jordan allegations that the US military had a policy of deliberate assassination of journalists, especially foreign journalists, in comments taped earlier this month. When Foley, head of the Newspaper Guild union, offered the same amount of evidence for this allegation as Jordan did -- none -- critics erupted with indignation. However, as Lipscomb notes, darned few of those critics came from the newspaper journalists whom Foley represents. Lipscomb draws attention to this with an analogy from a Sherlock Holmes mystery: Sherlock Holmes’s key clue to who stole the racehorse in “Silver Blaze” was a dog in the stall that didn’t bark. And something equally odd happened on the way to the Foley firestorm: To date, not a single pundit, editorial writer, or newspaper ran anything, with the exception...
Chirac Readies Post-Non Strategy: Blame Britain
Now that it appears inevitable that the French people will soundly reject the new EU constitution and reduce French influence in Europe dramatically, Jacques Chirac has readied his new political strategy for the debacle. Chirac will rely on centuries of French tradition -- and blame the British for their woes: Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac will be pitched into a furious six-month dispute over the future direction of the European Union if the French people vote No to the EU constitution tomorrow. Government sources are braced for the French president to round on the Prime Minister and blame him for making the constitution too "Anglo-Saxon" on economic issues and for plunging Europe into crisis as a result. ... British diplomats believe that Mr Chirac will call for France, Germany and other nations to form a "core Europe" in which they can push ahead with integration without being held back by...
May 28, 2005
Doing The Math On The Judicial Compromise
The Washington Times notices that a number of President Bush's judicial nominees were left out of the agreement that supposedly ended confirmation filibusters, except under "extraordinary circumstances". Other pundits have noted the ambiguity of the memorandum; however, the Times' editorial board points out that some of those specifically ignored have waited as long or longer than the enumerated nominees, and suspects that they, too, have been thrown under the bus by the Seven Dwarves: In a subsection of the memo --"Part I: Commitment on Pending Judicial Nominations" -- the senators specifically refer to five nominees. For three of these five so-called "pending" nominees (Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor), the gang committed themselves to permitting an up-or-down confirmation vote on the Senate floor. For the other two (William Myers III and Henry Saad) of the five "pending" nominees, the gang made no such commitment. Again, what were the...
Will The Tories Come Out Fighting?
Conservative Party leaders indicated yesterday that they plan on continuing their efforts to drive the Liberal minority government into collapse. The Tories plan on using their alliance with BQ to form a majority in committee and kill C-48, the $4.6 billion budget addendum that bought NDP support for Paul Martin and kept the Liberals in power -- a move which may have NDP leader Jack Layton rethinking his options: The Conservatives say they will attempt to block the government's two budget bills from being passed before the House of Commons summer recess to protest against what they say is excessive and unaccountable spending. And Conservative Leader Stephen Harper warned yesterday that his party may make further attempts to force an election, although he doubts they would succeed as long as the NDP supports the Liberals. Tory House Leader Jay Hill said Liberal pledges to pass the budget before the June...
McCain Rides To The Rescue Of Democrats Again
John McCain has decided to insert himself into the fray of yet another leadership debacle in the Senate, this time the John Bolton nomination to the UN. As Bill Frist embarrassed himself by scheduling Bolton for a floor vote by relying on the "comity" that McCain's last diplomatic effort yielded only to watch as the Democrats double-crossed him and filibustered Bolton, McCain launched his own initiative to reach an agreement -- by forcing the Republicans to capitulate yet again: One of John R. Bolton's leading Republican backers, Senator John McCain of Arizona, signaled his support on Friday for a compromise in which the White House might allow Senate leaders access to highly classified documents in return for a final vote early next month on Mr. Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador. The conciliatory signal from Mr. McCain came as Senate leaders traded blame over who was responsible for the miscalculation...
Haste Makes Waste, Even In Florida
Remember the hue and cry that ensued from the use of punch-card ballots in Florida for the 2000 election? After decades of use across the nation, we were led to believe that Florida voters suddenly became completely inept at punching ballots. New voting systems had to be bought, now, in order to save the poor incompetent dears from themselves. Anyone who balked or asked questions hated democracy, of course. Unfortunately, millions of dollars later, those questions have not disappeared. Miami-Dade's new voting machines are heading for the scrap heap, a $25 million testament to impulse buying and a lack of proper time and effort for researching needs and requirements: Miami-Dade County's elections chief has recommended ditching its ATM-style voting machines, just three years after buying them for $24.5 million to avoid a repeat of the hanging and dimpled chads from the 2000 election. Elections supervisor Lester Sola said in a...
The Rank And File Reply To Foley's Fables
Instapundit points to a response from Hiawatha Bray, a solid member of the Newspaper Guild, to president Linda Foley for her allegations of assassination policies against journalists. Bray published his open challenge to Foley on his blog Choose Honor, an excellent blog title considering the nature of this challenge: I take my membership in the Guild very seriously. That's why I was dismayed to learn that you, the president of my union, made a speech on May 13 in which you asserted that the US military has deliberately killed journalists. The relevant portion of the speech was videotaped and is available for viewing here. Since then, you have failed to provide supporting evidence for your remarks, but neither have you retracted them. I spoke with you at 11:10 AM today by telephone; union secretary-treasurer Bernard Lunzer was also on the call. When I told you that I would publish your...
NARN At White Bear Lake Super-Store!
It's pretty quiet in the blogosphere for the holiday weekend -- but the Northern Alliance Radio Network will be live at White Bear Lake Superstore today at noon CDT! If you're not in the Twin Cities, you can listen on our live stream at AM 1280 The Patriot. We'll be talking about the judiciary, the compromise, as well as having local conservative columnist Katherine Kersten as our guest in the second hour. Be sure to call us at 651-289-4488 to join the conversation! UPDATE: As always, it was a blast. I've posted a couple of pictures at the NARN site -- check them out!...
How Democrats Define Comity
The AP's David Espo gets behind the scenes in the hours after the announcement of the compromise on judicial confirmations that the Gang of 14 heralded as a new era of Senate comity. Far from an emergent period of truce and trust, Espo reports that Harry Reid and the Democrats immediately began planning the exploitation of the pact to their advantage even as the indulgent backslapping still echoed in the hallways: The signatures of 14 Senate centrists, seven from each party, spilled across the last page of a hard-won compromise on President Bush's judicial nominees. But whatever elation the negotiators felt, the Senate's Democratic leader did not share it. In the privacy of his Capitol office last Monday night, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked for commitments from six Democrats fresh from the talks. Would they pledge to support filibusters against Brett Kavanaugh and William Haynes, two nominees not specifically covered...
May 29, 2005
It Depends On The Entertainment
No one doubts that the United Nations has had a terrible past few years. They wound up supine to a genocidal maniac in Iraq, whose pockets they stuffed with billions in cash through corruption and incompetence while his people starved. Their peacekeeping missions have proven worthless as the troops stand by and watch civilians get massacred. Those women and young girls who are unfortunate to wind up at refugee camps get used by the soldiers and the UN management officials as prostitutes merely for subsistence levels of food, or an occasional dollar in return for sexual favors. Kofi Annan urges action in Darfur, but can't bring himself to declare the Arab rampage there a genocide, which would force the Security Council to intervene. This corruption and incompetence has been proven to run to the highest levels of the UN, and the organization still cannot bring itself to hold its leadership...
CQ - The End Of The World As We Know It
It's the end of the world as we know it, And I feel fine ... An alert CQ reader pointed out an op-ed in yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution that used Captain's Quarters as an example of how the media faces destruction in today's new market. Did Conrad Fink, a professor of journalism at the University of Georgia (go, Bulldogs!), talk about how blogs discovered the truth about the Killian Memos? Did Professor Fink review the Eason's Fables episode, where the vice-president of a major American news organization got caught committing slander on multiple occasions overseas? How about Newsweek's false report on Qu'ran flushing at Gitmo, and the role that bloggers played in forcing Newsweek to address its faulty editorial policies and reviews, let alone its inherent bias? Er, no. Instead, he lionized the journalism industry for -- get this -- actually reporting on Kyrgyzstan and criticized me for reporting on Adscam...
How The Seven Dwarves Have Impacted The Presidential Race
Yesterday on the Northern Alliance Radio show, I made an assertion that the judicial confirmation compromise both sprang from the presidential aspirations of its key GOP proponents and that it had affected the 2008 race already. We didn't have time to hash it out, as the hour came to a conclusion shortly afterwards, but Ralph Hallow has more on the latter hypothesis in today's Washington Times. He astutely notes that the GOP base may draw closer to George Allen of Virginia, who has resolutely stood for the principles enumerated by the GOP during the last election while the Seven Dwarves face irate voters back home: Last week's Senate compromise that averted a showdown over filibustered judicial nominees was actually the opening salvo of the 2008 presidential campaign, several veteran political observers say. The unexpected consequence of the filibuster compromise is to give a boost to the presidential prospects of Sen....
Parents Without A Clue
This story pops up every once in a while, proving that stupidity and cluelessness has a strong streak of repetition. A Nashville mother is the latest parent to get arrested for hiring strippers for a minor child and his buddies to celebrate a birthday: A mother faces criminal charges after she hired a stripper to dance at her 16-year-old son's birthday party. Anette Pharris, 34, has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and involving a minor in obscene acts. The boy's father, the stripper and two others also face charges. ... Anette Pharris took photos at the party and tried to have them developed at a nearby drug store. Drug store employees notified authorities, police said. "Who are they to tell me what I can and can't show to my own children?" the mother said. Where to start with Pharris?...
An Unusual Bleg
I have a favor to ask of CQ readers in my area, and it may sound unusual at first... I've been approached by a top-notch representative of public speakers to develop my efforts here into a speaking tour. This service represents some of the finest conservative speakers; while I don't want to get into the specifics, you can trust me that it's a good opportunity to expand my audience and the reach of CQ. If successful, it could eventually lead to the possibility of becoming a full-time, self-sustaining blogger -- something akin to Pinocchio becoming a real boy. In order to work on marketing this possibility, I need to find a public speaking opportunity fairly soon that I can videotape and use to demonstrate my skills (or expose my lack thereof, I suppose). I plan on writing a few different speeches, but the focus of my first would be the...
Another Sign Of Insurgency's Failure
Today's Washington Post notes a significant event in the foreign-based "insurgency" that has killed hundreds of Iraqis as well as American troops in Iraq. The terrorists of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi found themselves faced off against native Iraqi forces after killing a local tribal chief while the Marines watched from the sidelines. Most significantly, the Iraqis who had had enough of the Zarqawi insurgency were Sunnis: For four days this month, U.S. Marines were onlookers at just the kind of fight they had hoped to see: a battle between suspected followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a foreign-born insurgent, and Iraqi Sunni tribal fighters at the western frontier town of Husaybah. In clashes sparked by the assassination of a tribal sheik, which was commissioned by Zarqawi, the foreign insurgents and the Iraqi tribal fighters pounded one another with small weapons and mortars in the town's streets as the U.S. military watched from...
Will 'Non' Mean 'Oui'?
French voters turned out in heavy numbers to send a message to Jacques Chirac and the European establishment, trouncing the proposed new EU constitution by a 14-point margin. The loss not only deals a severe blow to Chirac's aspirations of Continental control -- it may portend the end of his career in France, as politicians there have called for new elections: Unhappy French voters on Sunday derailed plans to further political and economic integration in Europe, decisively rejecting the proposed European constitution and thumbing their noses at the country's governing elite, which had pleaded for approval of the measure. The turnout was heavy and the margin of defeat was wide, with about 57 percent rejecting the constitution and about 43 percent voting for it. Opposition leaders harnessed widespread disenchantment over a variety of issues, including the unpopularity of President Jacques Chirac, the weak French economy and fears that the country...
May 30, 2005
It's Their Fault For Hitting Back
Anti-Israeli bias occurs so frequently in the American media that it hardly bears remarking when it occurs. However, a short blurb in today's Scotsman demonstrates that same bias exists worldwide. In a three-paragraph article titled "Israeli air strike on Palestinian rocket positions," the Scotsman assigns blame to Israel for breaking the truce in the first paragraph: VIOLENCE flared in Gaza with an Israeli air strike on Palestinian rocket launchers only hours after Israel's Cabinet approved the release of 400 prisoners as a gesture to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. It gets worse in the second paragraph. It uses an IDF statement on the operation to make it appear that the attack was pre-emptive and unprovoked: The Israeli air strike last night was a rare attack since a February truce. The Israeli military said it targeted rocket launchers just before a planned attack from northern Gaza and two launchers were destroyed. Those...
In Defense Of Home Schooling -- In The Strib?
The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently hired Katherine Kersten as a featured columnist, a major step for the far-left Twin Cities daily. Long reviled for its outrageous bias and intellectually bankrupt editorials, the Strib has recently attempted to balance itself as more critics discover their shortcomings -- critics with voices of their own, such as Power Line, Shot In The Dark, Fraters Libertas, and other Twin Cities bloggers who regularly point out their inconsistencies. They hired D. J. Tice as an editor a few months back in order to demonstrate fairness in their news reporting, and Kersten now joins the Strib to give better balance to local columnists. Kersten is no middle-of-the-road commentator, either. She provides some of the driving force behind the Center for the American Experiment, a local conservative, free-market think tank that has grown in stature and influence tremendously since its founding 15 years ago. Kersten lends the...
Confidence Votes This Week? More Or Less
Canadian politics may have taken a breath after the failure of the Conservative/BQ no-confidence efforts on May 19th, but all indications are that they will come back into full swing this week. Despite a hasty comment by Stephen Harper earlier this month that the Tories would "probably" not try again if their first attempt failed to bring down the Liberal government, the CPC has made it clear that they plan to contest another confidence motion this week: The House of Commons is heading back to work after a week off, with the Conservatives holding what they say is a “loaded gun” to the head of the governing Liberals and threatening another non-confidence vote as soon as Tuesday. Jay Hill, the Tory House leader, said Sunday his party hasn't settled yet on its final strategy. But he pointedly refused to rule out a new confidence test, despite the fact that Prime...
Accuracy In Media: CQ Is Journalism
In an unintentional response to Professor Conrad Fink's hyperbolic dismissal of bloggers as journalists in Saturday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sherrie Gossett writes about my coverage of Adscam for Accuracy In Media today and reaches a different conclusion. Gossett writes: In one of the most dramatic stories to date of blogger influence, an American blogger listed the details of inflammatory testimony in a Canadian government corruption case-testimony that was under a publication ban enacted by the judge. Soon the blogger's website was inundated with hundreds of thousands of hits from Canadians hungry for information, but shut out of the story by the ban. It was a unique case of a lone blogger disseminating information the media were unable to publish. Ed Morrissey, the writer of Captain's Quarters blog, started reporting on the testimony on April 2 in an entry titled "Canada's Corruption Scandal Breaks Wide Open." The political scandal involved allegations of...
Let's Remember Them All
Longtime CQ readers will remember my friend Mike the Contractor, who spent a long time in Iraq both in the Seals and as a contractor. I've published some of Mike's letters in the past, especially those to his young sons in explaining the war on terror. Today Mike sends this message to his friends and family, reminding us of the role that his contractor friends continue to play in protecting Americans and Iraqis in the most dangerous areas. Mike will return to Iraq in the near future to continue this work himself. On this Memorial Day, we honor the military men and women who have been killed in action while defending our freedoms. After seeing fallen military brethren that I have served with receive official honors and family compensation, I thought it would be appropriate to honor some other comrades-in-arms, which are my contractor brothers who also paid the ultimate...
DeLay Travel Probe Reveals Massive Democrat Violations
The hounding of Tom DeLay continues to backfire on House Democrats, as the AP has discovered in a review of travel disclosures. Far from being a singular problem in the GOP Whip's office, it turns out that a number of Pelosi's comrades have also been remiss in disclosing their travel expenses and the people who paid them: Scrutiny of Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review has found. At least 43 House members and dozens of aides had failed to meet the one-month deadline in ethics rules for disclosing trips financed by organizations outside the U.S. government. ... While most of the previously undisclosed trips occurred in 2004, some date back to the late 1990s. House Minority Whip...
Did Democrats Take Drug Money In Exchange For Pardon?
I missed this at Patterico's site the other day, but his intrepid and dogged work on exposing bias at the Los Angeles Times may have led to an even bigger story -- one the Times may have covered up for political reasons. This story reaches back to the final days of the Clinton Administration, when a flurry of questionable pardons flowed from the Oval Office. The most notorious was the pardon of Marc Rich, who later turned out to be heavily involved in the Oil-For-Food scam. However, a more damaging revelation never got published, thanks to the LA Times, which buried the story according to the LA Weekly. It centers on the pardon of Carlos Vignali, whose father donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Democrats who lobbied Clinton on the younger Vignali's behalf. The father also hired Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, as his representative for $200,000, which...
Russia To Leave Georgia
Russia and Georgia finally completed an agreement that will end Russian military occupation of Georgian territory by 2008. Both governments have announced the successful conclusion of talks that were hastened by Georgian threats to declare Russian visas illegal: Russia has agreed to withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia by 2008. The deal was announced in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after he held talks there with Georgian counterpart Salome Zurabishvili. Mrs Zurabishvili called it an "important and constructive step", and said Georgia had achieved its goal. Russia currently has two Soviet-era bases in Georgia, whose continued presence has been a source of tension between Moscow and Tbilisi. The two bases are home to about 3,000 troops. This will make the Russian battles against separatists in the Caucasus more difficult. Georgia's bases have Russia a strategic anvil in the south against which they could press from the north. It...
Is Religious Education An Official Government Duty?
CQ reader BR brings an unusual document related to the House travel kerfuffle to my attention. It appears that Caitlin O'Neill, who works for Nancy Pelosi, forgot to file her disclosure form (PDF) for a trip she took to Havana, Cuba. O'Neill, who BR says is the granddaughter of former Speaker Tip O'Neill, identifies the purpose of her trip -- as an official duty of Congress -- as "religious education". Has religious education become an official government duty? What would Pelosi's allies at the ACLU say about that? That's not the end of the unusual aspects of this trip. Expenses totaled almost $1400 for the five-day trip to Havana, including $400 for meals. Of course, the American taxpayer didn't get stuck with this bill, which is the reason O'Neill and Pelosi had to file the disclosure. The entire cost of O'Neill's trip was borne by the Universal Life Church. This...
Grewal Tapes Contain Bribe Offer: CTV
The Canadian network CTV reports tonight that the complete transcript of the Grewal tapes contain much more than the curious dance conducted between Tim Murphy, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, and Tory MP Gurmant Grewal. Despite Liberal denials, the transcripts apparently contain a specific offer of a ministry for Grewal in exchange for his vote on May 19th: CTV News' Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reports that the Prime Minister knew of the negotiations. According to Fife, the full four hours of transcripts of Grewal's taped conversations with a top Martin aide and Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh show: * Martin was ready to talk to Grewal about defecting like he did with Belinda Stronach * Grewal was offered a government position two weeks after the vote The transcripts could be released Tuesday. Conservative House Leader Jay Hill has said the party will be turning the tapes over to the...
May 31, 2005
Not One Dime Goes National
Imagine my surprise when, after reading Howard Kurtz' excellent profile of Jeff Jarvis in the first half of his lengthy column today, I scrolled down to see that he had linked CQ and the Not One Dime campaign. Kurtz quoted my post explaining the effort without comment, except to say that I have called for a financial boycott of GOP leadership. For those who may come here for the first time from Kurtz' link, the Not One Dime campaign urges people to withhold donations to the National Republican Senatorial Campaign until they eliminate the judicial filibusters and get President Bush's nominations an up-or-down vote in the floor of the Senate. The NRSC raised millions of dollars from Republican voters by promising that judicial confirmations would be their highest domestic priority, but then after winning an eleven-seat majority, incomprehensibly dawdled for months before addressing the issue. That delay allowed the opposition...
Chirac Sacks Raffarin, Names De Villepin As PM
Jacques Chirac, after his humiliating defeat this weekend on the proposed EU constitution he helped create and heavily promoted, responded by firing his Prime Minister and naming a familiar anti-American as his replacement. Dominuque de Villepin gained notoriety here in the United States by reversing course at the UN on Iraq after assuring Colin Powell that France would stand by the US: Promotion of the loyal Villepin could be a sign Chirac intends to fight back after the referendum humiliation and keep open his options for seeking a third term in 2007. A career diplomat, aristocrat and sometime poet, Villepin won applause at the United Nations and plaudits at home on the right and the left for opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but angered and frustrated Washington. Washington and Paris have since been rebuilding ties. Raffarin's departure was expected, as he has not been a popular PM in France...
Mid-Term Senate Race Tough For Democrats
Ronald Brownstein points out in today's LA Times what has been pointed out here and elsewhere in the blogosphere about the 2006 Senate races -- that Democrats will find themselves in an uphill battle to regain any of the ground they've lost over the past six years. The numbers will once again be against them, as they defend more seats than the GOP and in tougher states: Democrats are optimistic about their chances of ousting GOP senators in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, states that voted for Democratic presidential candidates John F. Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. But the Democrats are unlikely to regain a Senate majority — in 2006 or soon thereafter — unless they can reverse the GOP consolidation of Senate seats in states that have supported Bush. Since 2000, both parties have gained Senate seats in the states they typically carry in presidential campaigns. But...
California Legislature Lightens Students' Load
California has provided yet another Great Moment In Education with the Assembly mandating the length of textbooks for use in its public schools. According to the just-approved AB 756, no textbook used in California public schools can exceed 200 pages: Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages. The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education. Critics lambasted Assembly Bill 756 as silly. "This bill is really the epitome of micromanagement," said Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Northridge. "(It's) absolutely ridiculous." ... But Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, said critics are thinking too narrowly. The Democrats in charge of the Assembly have decided that the value of a textbook lies in its bookshelf width, and they claim that the critics are thinking too narrowly? My...
Guilty Plea In Adscam
Adscam has its first major conviction, as Paul Coffin agreed to plead guilty to 15 of the 18 counts of fraud and corruption he faced. The plea shifts his upcoming trial to a sentencing hearing, which will begin on August 16th: Advertising executive Paul Coffin pleaded guilty Tuesday to 15 fraud charges in connection with the federal sponsorship program, marking the first plea in the scandal that threatened to topple Paul Martin's minority Liberal government. Mr. Coffin, the first person charged in the scandal, had originally faced 18 counts. He was arrested by the RCMP in 2003 in connection with the matter. Three of the original charges were withdrawn by the Crown during Tuesday's hearing. Mr. Coffin, head of Montreal-based Communication Coffin, had been accused of submitting $2-million in false or inflated invoices as part of his handling of federal sponsorships of car and mountain-bike races, among other events, between...
So We Screw Up! Quit Griping!
Jon Carroll at the San Francisco Chronicle has had enough of the scandals involving the Exempt Media, especially those involving factual errors and inadequate sourcing. Does he take his fellow journalists to task for their shoddy and, in some cases, dishonest work? No -- he'd rather tell the critics to shut up and listen regardless of whether reporters get the story right: Look: Newspapers are a human enterprise run by fallible beings. Surgeons make mistakes; accountants make mistakes; journalists make mistakes. As Steven Winn pointed out last week, we apologize too darn much for making mistakes. Of course we're sorry, but the quest for perfection is just that, a quest. We never get there. You never get there. We hate hate hate it when we get facts wrong, but we are actually after bigger game. ... The media are under attack because we try to find stuff out. We are...
Most Notorious Political Whodunit Climax: Deep Throat Confesses
The mystery of the identity over "Deep Throat", Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's mysterious inside source for their Watergate exposés, has intrigued Americans for over thirty years. The media has played a number of games and written millions of words in analyses trying to decipher the code, including the Washington Post which published the exposés and maintains a web site dedicated to the question of its source's identity. Today, according to Vanity Fair, the guessing game is over -- as Mark Felt has confessed to being the elusive mole inside the Nixon administration: W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday. "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John...
Grewal Transcripts Released
The suspicions about vote-buying in the Liberal government deepened today when the Conservative Party released the transcripts of conversations between MP Gurmant Grewal and various Liberal Party leaders, including PM Paul Martin's chief of staff. Earlier, when it appeared that the Tories would resist releasing the entire set of tapes, Martin insisted that a deal had never been offered -- but after reviewing the transcripts, Canadians may reach a different conclusion: Transcripts and audio files from meetings between Mr. Grewal, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Dosanjh were posted on Mr. Grewal's Web page Tuesday. According to the transcripts, Mr. Martin agreed to meet with Mr. Grewal. "I talked to the PM moments ago," Mr. Dosanjh is quoted saying in the tapes during a meeting with Mr. Grewal on May 17. "He said he will be happy to talk to you over the phone tonight or in person if you want to...
About
Ed Morrissey has blogged at Captain's Quarters since 2003, and has a daily radio show at BlogTalkRadio, where he serves as Political Director. Called "Captain Ed" by his readers, Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather.
My Other Blog
The Crows Nest
Grewal Transcripts Released
The suspicions about vote-buying in the Liberal government deepened today when the Conservative Party released the transcripts of conversations between MP Gurmant Grewal and various Liberal Party leaders, including PM Paul Martin's chief of staff. Earlier, when it appeared that the Tories would resist releasing the entire set of tapes, Martin insisted that a deal had never been offered -- but after reviewing the transcripts, Canadians may reach a different conclusion:
Transcripts and audio files from meetings between Mr. Grewal, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Dosanjh were posted on Mr. Grewal's Web page Tuesday.According to the transcripts, Mr. Martin agreed to meet with Mr. Grewal.
"I talked to the PM moments ago," Mr. Dosanjh is quoted saying in the tapes during a meeting with Mr. Grewal on May 17. "He said he will be happy to talk to you over the phone tonight or in person if you want to move."
Mr. Grewal has accused the government of offering patronage positions if he and his wife tipped the balance in favour of the Liberal government during the confidence vote on May 19.
In the tapes, there is at least some suggestion of a possible Senate and cabinet appointment for the Grewals if they abstained from the confidence vote, though no specific offer is laid out.
Mr. Dosanjh talks vaguely about possible positions that may be offered to the Grewals.
"Nobody will make you totally blunt promises," Mr. Dosanjh said. "That is not done in politics, usually. Cabinet right away may be possible."
The question of whether a specific appointment was offered appears not to be clarified in the tapes. While both Mr. Murphy and Mr. Dosanjh fall short of saying there would be a specific reward for the Grewals' votes, there at least appears to be an understanding there would be some sort of benefit given if they did.
Stephen Taylor has the links to the transcripts on his site. While the G&M reports that no explicit offer of positions for Grewal and his wife appear in the transcripts, the totality of the conversations make clear that the Liberals wanted to assure Grewal that no ambiguity existed in their efforts to draw them across the aisle. In this conversation on May 17th, Ujjal Dosanjh and Tim Murphy want to assure Grewal that he will be able to rely on Martin and the Liberals if he switched sides:
TM - Absolutely, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to preclude that if obviously you have to feel where you are comfortable doing and where your personal stake is and what holds you and your wife, let me make it absolutely clear that we are a welcoming party we will do everything we can, obviously for us continuing to expend our base in BC and in prominent communities in this country is a political priority for us. It is a welcoming mat that has a lot of nice Comfy fur on it. Laughs.UD - I think what Tim is saying about trust is that most of these things do have our trust and you have to feel comfortable with that and at the end, of course if Chief of Staff say that certain conduct ought to be rewarded in due time that trust is kept 99.9% of the times. Sometimes you can’t do it circumstances will kill you. I told him about my conversation with the PM.
TM - Let me put one more fact that we can keep this one fact in this room. As I understand from my perspective, you know, I have two things I’m going to say One of which is, David Peterson, in terms of Belinda Stronach, David Peterson was the conduit. DP called me on Friday. And obviously we had a conversation to meet him and Belinda on the basis of trust and not surprisingly, if it did not work out then Stronach didn’t wanted to be in a position of being burnt by the discussion and so we did it on the basis of trust. Between us it didn’t happen but it was on the basis of trust. Ujjal Dosanjh is a crucially important minister in the govt and yet I could not tell him because I had given a promise, until today. Right? So, that I think is lesson about two things. One of which is, we live up to our commitments. Secondly, this conversation no matter what happens, something that happened to us that Saturday. And in fact, no one knew that we were doing it and this is the proof that we can do it. No matter what happens. So I want you to know that and that level of comfort.
Also, this conversation between Dosanjh and Grewal on the 19th sounds like an offer would come soon after an abstention or an outright switch:
UD -- I’m OK, I talked to Tim, I met him after lunch in his office. It can be OK but with some gap of time. Like Scott Brison, Scott Brison was made Parliamentary Secretary, that thing can not be ruled out. That, PRIME MINISTER can say to you or not. If that can not happen right now, that will be done in 2 or 4 weeks. You do understand that, right. Those are the thing that can happen. Gradually, when you hold the roots, while you sacrifice, I’m sure rewards are there at some point, right. No one can forget such gestures but they require certain degree of deniability. A Big Laugh. Right, You understand this.GG -- Belinda Stronach and others position, they had a straight forward deal.
UD -- You see, every circumstance is different. Your circumstances are different, mine were different, Scott’s were different. All circumstances are different. Right now, when Scott came, then there was not that much danger. PRIME MINISTER thought he could have been given a cabinet position, ‘coz, one minister had the responsibilities of two portfolios. Did you know that. So it was an easier thing to
do.
That not only sounds as though Dosanjh reassured Grewal that his reward would only be a couple of weeks away, but that similar tactics were used in seducing Dosanjh and Brison to the Grits. Dosanjh seems very comfortable talking about these benefits on behalf of the Prime Minister and his chief of staff.
Perhaps the Liberals can console themselves by telling everyone that no explicit deal existed, and the media can substantiate that in the most literal sense. However, after reading the totality of these transcripts, it's completely unreasonable to think they were talking about anything but a quid pro quo for Grewal's vote.
Most Notorious Political Whodunit Climax: Deep Throat Confesses
The mystery of the identity over "Deep Throat", Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's mysterious inside source for their Watergate exposés, has intrigued Americans for over thirty years. The media has played a number of games and written millions of words in analyses trying to decipher the code, including the Washington Post which published the exposés and maintains a web site dedicated to the question of its source's identity. Today, according to Vanity Fair, the guessing game is over -- as Mark Felt has confessed to being the elusive mole inside the Nixon administration:
W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday."I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John D. O'Connor, the author of Vanity Fair's exclusive that appears in its July issue.
Felt, now 91 and living in Santa Rosa, Calif. reportedly gave O'Connor permission to disclose his identity.
Felt had long been considered one of the leading candidates for Deep Throat. First off, he's still alive, and Bernstein and Woodward had promised to reveal their source's identity once he (or she) died. Felt had worked for J. Edgar Hoover for decades and had risen to the top ranks of the FBI under his tutelage, but got passed over for promotion when Nixon went outside the bureau after Hoover's death for political reasons. Felt eventually got convicted of complicity in other illegal break-ins and searches against the Weather Underground, but received pardons from Ronald Reagan shortly afterwards. Felt knew where to send the Post's reporters for evidence, and he had a lot of motivation to torpedo Nixon. Felt's involvement fits in with the FBI modus operandi of the time, when Hoover and his subordinates played for keeps with the secret information they compiled.
Oddly, however, neither Woodward nor Bernstein chose to confirm Felt's confession:
Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward broke the story as Washington Post reporters, issued a statement neither denying nor confirming Felt's claim. Bernstein stated he and Woodward would be keeping their pledge to reveal the source only once that person dies.
At 91, one would expect Felt to have grown past any need for self-aggrandizement, but perhaps he wanted one last fling of publicity before he shuffles off the mortal coil. It seems strange that the two reporters would refuse to confirm a source who publicly outs himself; surely, their responsibility for his confidentiality would end there. This whodunit may not yet have reached its resolution, Felt's claims notwithstanding.
UPDATE and BUMP: The Washington Post confirms it with a statement from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The hesitation may have been an indication that Felt took them by surprise:
The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon.The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories. ...
In a statement today, Woodward and Bernstein said, "W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate."
The accompanying article has people describing Felt as a "hero", while some of the commenters here are more inclined to see him as a traitor. I don't think either applies. Felt worked with the Post for his own personal motivations of revenge and frustration at being passed over. If Nixon had made him Director of the FBI, he never would have lefted a finger for Woodward or Bernstein.
On the other hand, having decided to pursue wrongdoing by the White House, Felt's complicity in similar activity against terrorist groups like the Weather Underground would have made it difficult, if not impossible, for him to have any chance of success. Becoming a whistleblower probably made it possible for the truth to get out, even if that did provide a measure of personal satisfaction (short-lived as it was) for Felt.
Like the scandal he helped expose, Felt and his role were much more complicated than a simple hero-or-traitor binary choice allows.
So We Screw Up! Quit Griping!
Jon Carroll at the San Francisco Chronicle has had enough of the scandals involving the Exempt Media, especially those involving factual errors and inadequate sourcing. Does he take his fellow journalists to task for their shoddy and, in some cases, dishonest work? No -- he'd rather tell the critics to shut up and listen regardless of whether reporters get the story right:
Look: Newspapers are a human enterprise run by fallible beings. Surgeons make mistakes; accountants make mistakes; journalists make mistakes. As Steven Winn pointed out last week, we apologize too darn much for making mistakes. Of course we're sorry, but the quest for perfection is just that, a quest. We never get there. You never get there. We hate hate hate it when we get facts wrong, but we are actually after bigger game. ...The media are under attack because we try to find stuff out. We are under attack because we say what we believe to be true. (Even more annoyingly, we are protected by the Constitution.) We are a reality-based institution in a faith-based culture, and we are paying for it. Journalists die doing their jobs, which is more than you can say for lobbyists, TV commentators or corporate lawyers.
The problem is that we are fair-minded. We know that we make mistakes. We want to get better. The fair-minded have no chance against zealots. Zealots lie because the ends justify the means, and we say, "Oh, gosh, we're going to investigate and strive and improve." Are the zealots going to investigate and strive and improve? Of course not: They have an agenda, and the agenda does not include self-assessment. The zealots are working out of the Che Guevara handbook, friends.
The media are not under attack because they "find things out" -- they're under attack because all too often, they don't bother to try to find things out, and instead print what they believe to be true. There's nothing wrong with that in an editorial, but when journalists pass off their beliefs without any factual basis as "news", it winds up misinforming the public.
Both Eason Jordan and Linda Foley probably really believe that the US military has orders somewhere to kill journalists in war zones. That doesn't make it true -- and it shouldn't form the basis of allegations from news organizations or their management without substantiation. Carroll haughtily uses the death of journalists to out-flank critics who haven't faced death, but wants to defend those journalistic critics of American servicemen who die in much greater numbers and percentages trying to defend civilian lives while attacking terrorists and armed enemies. The hypocrisy not only staggers the imagination, but sickens and disgusts as well.
Mary Mapes may have believed that the Killian memos were authentic, but that's because they fit both her preconceived notions of George Bush's TexANG service and her absolute lack of knowledge on military documents. Unlike the Eason Jordan and Linda Foley scandals, however, Mapes and CBS actually hired document examiners prior to publication, who told them not to use the memos -- and they ignored the advice. Unlike Newsweek, who admitted their faulty report, CBS still claims that the Killian memos might eventually be authenticated despite the numerous typographic, format, and factual anachronisms their own document experts have identified.
In the end, Carroll's screed amounts to this: we consumers of the Exempt Media have no business complaining about poor quality and deliberate deceptions perpetrated by its most celebrated members. While the media must be protected by the First Amendment at all times, any attempt by their customers to exercise freedom of speech by criticizing their performance amounts to "zealotry", a conspiracy to destroy them by pointing out their flaws. How dare we question their work!
You really have to read the entire piece to believe it.
Guilty Plea In Adscam
Adscam has its first major conviction, as Paul Coffin agreed to plead guilty to 15 of the 18 counts of fraud and corruption he faced. The plea shifts his upcoming trial to a sentencing hearing, which will begin on August 16th:
Advertising executive Paul Coffin pleaded guilty Tuesday to 15 fraud charges in connection with the federal sponsorship program, marking the first plea in the scandal that threatened to topple Paul Martin's minority Liberal government.Mr. Coffin, the first person charged in the scandal, had originally faced 18 counts. He was arrested by the RCMP in 2003 in connection with the matter. Three of the original charges were withdrawn by the Crown during Tuesday's hearing.
Mr. Coffin, head of Montreal-based Communication Coffin, had been accused of submitting $2-million in false or inflated invoices as part of his handling of federal sponsorships of car and mountain-bike races, among other events, between 1997 and 2002.
Coffin's plea marks a major milestone in the Sponsorship Program scandal, which saw at least $355 million of government funds disappear into the pockets of Liberal Party activists and cronies. Up to now, the issue of criminality had been treated as an academic question, with some people wondering if the scandal would or could result in any convictions.
The sudden guilty plea on a large percentage of the charges may mean something else as well. With the Gomey Inquiry limiting itself on issues of specific criminality, the Crown prosecutors may have cut a deal with the ad executive to start talking on a wider range of topics. That also could explain the two-month delay in sentencing for Coffin; the punishment he faces for his part in corruption may well induce him to deliver much more specific testimony about Jacques Corriveau, Chuck Guité, and perhaps others more closely associated with the current Prime Minister.
Coffin's plea may leave us with many questions for the moment, but it also provides us with an answer about the danger that faces the various Adscam players. The stakes just got a lot higher for all of them.
California Legislature Lightens Students' Load
California has provided yet another Great Moment In Education with the Assembly mandating the length of textbooks for use in its public schools. According to the just-approved AB 756, no textbook used in California public schools can exceed 200 pages:
Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages.The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education.
Critics lambasted Assembly Bill 756 as silly.
"This bill is really the epitome of micromanagement," said Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Northridge. "(It's) absolutely ridiculous." ...
But Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, said critics are thinking too narrowly.
The Democrats in charge of the Assembly have decided that the value of a textbook lies in its bookshelf width, and they claim that the critics are thinking too narrowly? My native state has tried many silly ideas in education before, but cutting off textbooks by page count has to be one of the dumbest yet. Since when does a book's value come in the number of pages it contains? What's next -- comic books instead of textbooks?
The result will either be that textbook publishers start producing their work in volumes for the California market, or they abridge the material enough to slide under the 200-page limit. The first option will result in higher costs, as the consumer will have to buy each volume separately and the unit cost will go up due to the extra covers, typesetting, editing, etc. The second option shortchanges education rather than pocketbooks. Neither of these reactions, nor AB 756, truly addresses the real issues behind California's appalling educational performance: lack of competition and accountability in the government-mandated, union-run state educational monopoly.
Educated people already know that one cannot judge a book by its cover. We thought that the obvious corrolary of notjudging it by its page count would be understood implicitly. I'm sure we're correct, for most places. The intellect-challenged state capitol in Sacramento appears to be an exception to that rule.
Mid-Term Senate Race Tough For Democrats
Ronald Brownstein points out in today's LA Times what has been pointed out here and elsewhere in the blogosphere about the 2006 Senate races -- that Democrats will find themselves in an uphill battle to regain any of the ground they've lost over the past six years. The numbers will once again be against them, as they defend more seats than the GOP and in tougher states:
Democrats are optimistic about their chances of ousting GOP senators in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, states that voted for Democratic presidential candidates John F. Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. But the Democrats are unlikely to regain a Senate majority — in 2006 or soon thereafter — unless they can reverse the GOP consolidation of Senate seats in states that have supported Bush.Since 2000, both parties have gained Senate seats in the states they typically carry in presidential campaigns. But this political partitioning provides a clear advantage for Republicans because so many more states backed Bush in his bids for the presidency.
If Democrats only gain in their part of the map, "it's like saying, 'We're going to win more home games but never worry about road games,' " said Matthew Dowd, a political advisor to the Republican National Committee and senior strategist for Bush's reelection campaign. "They could have a great home record but never win a majority."
Republicans control 55 Senate seats and Democrats 44, with Vermont independent James M. Jeffords holding the final spot. In next year's midterm election, Republicans will defend 15 seats and Democrats 17. And Vermont voters will choose a successor to Jeffords, who is retiring.
I wrote about this seven months ago, just after the last election. I noted the five most likely red-state seats that the Democrats would lose in 2006, based on current voting trends. Brownstein points out a statistic that adds to this analysis, which is that Republicans now control 44 out of the 58 Senate seats from states that Bush has carried twice, while the Democrats control 28 of 36 of the seats from states that went for both Gore and Kerry. Not only does that show that the GOP could achieve a Senate majority just on that basis alone, but it also demonstrates the remaining potential for gains favors the Republicans, not the Democrats.
Normally, one would advise the Democrats to start attacking the GOP on their home turf, but the cyclical nature of Senate elections plays against them in 2006. More Democrat seats will come up for challenge than Republican in this election. They will have to defend against more GOP challenges overall. Even worse, they have more red-state seats at risk than blue-state seats for the Republicans.
Now with the successful arrogation of the Seven Dwarves, those blue-state seats mean less to the GOP than they do to the Democrats, as RINOs like Lincoln Chaffee and Olympia Snowe will not be seen as great losses for most within the Republican Party. The only blue-state race that means anything will be Rick Santorum's re-election in Pennsylvania, which does promise to be a tough contest. Ken Mehlman has worked hard to improve his chances for re-election by campaigning heavily in African-American districts, with some success.
Compare the possible loss of three seats, only one of which reliably voted for the GOP, against the five that the Democrats have at risk. Only Robert Byrd's might be considered a likely Democratic hold, and only if the doddering Byrd runs again for the seat, a probability at this point. The rest of the four will have to defend the continuing obstructionism of their caucus, a losing electoral strategy that led to a loss of four seats in the last election. Any promises to work with the Bush administration will lose any credibility in the face of the unprecedented onslaught of filibusters on executive appointments. Voters will remember Ken Salazar's promises to Colorado voters to support up-or-down votes in the Senate, only to turn around and support the knee-jerk filibusters that Harry Reid demanded.
The key for Republicans will be to run candidates in these contests who can articulate the conservative policy positions in a naturally attractive way, and who will stick to their principles after election, rather than those who value clubbiness and the "comity" of surrender to the minority. It would also help to have Senate leadership that can look at these numbers and understand that the GOP represents the majority -- and start to act accordingly.
Chirac Sacks Raffarin, Names De Villepin As PM
Jacques Chirac, after his humiliating defeat this weekend on the proposed EU constitution he helped create and heavily promoted, responded by firing his Prime Minister and naming a familiar anti-American as his replacement. Dominuque de Villepin gained notoriety here in the United States by reversing course at the UN on Iraq after assuring Colin Powell that France would stand by the US:
Promotion of the loyal Villepin could be a sign Chirac intends to fight back after the referendum humiliation and keep open his options for seeking a third term in 2007.A career diplomat, aristocrat and sometime poet, Villepin won applause at the United Nations and plaudits at home on the right and the left for opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but angered and frustrated Washington.
Washington and Paris have since been rebuilding ties.
Raffarin's departure was expected, as he has not been a popular PM in France during a period of economic stagnation. Unemployment is now over 10% and the budget shortfalls caused Raffarin to insist on some market-based reforms, none of which won him any friends in the streets of Paris. De Villepin will likely return to the common socialist approach that landed France in the mess it is today, an approach encouraged by the French 'non' to the EU charter.
Most people had expected Chirac to name Nicolas Sarkozy, the leader of the right-wing UMP, as PM. However, Sarkozy wants even more market-based reforms than Raffarin to cure France of its economic ills, and the Chirac government clearly has no stomach for that fight. Instead, Chirac wants to appease the madding crowds by giving them what they crave -- a sense of French superiority as embodied by the poet-diplomat de Villepin, as well as a healthy dose of anti-Americanism. The BBC notes in contrast that he embodies the kind of elitism that French voters rejected in the referendum, and that his unfamiliarity with elections and his difficult relationship with Parliament will also handicap him in the weeks ahead.
De Villepin may be enough to keep calls for Chirac's resignation at bay in the short run. However, the underlying economic problems in France won't magically disappear through Gallic pride alone, and until the French start rethinking their Ponzi-schemed economic system, it's guaranteed to get worse. By the time Chirac runs again in 2007 -- probably against Sarkozy -- even the French may have figured that out.
Not One Dime Goes National
Imagine my surprise when, after reading Howard Kurtz' excellent profile of Jeff Jarvis in the first half of his lengthy column today, I scrolled down to see that he had linked CQ and the Not One Dime campaign. Kurtz quoted my post explaining the effort without comment, except to say that I have called for a financial boycott of GOP leadership.
For those who may come here for the first time from Kurtz' link, the Not One Dime campaign urges people to withhold donations to the National Republican Senatorial Campaign until they eliminate the judicial filibusters and get President Bush's nominations an up-or-down vote in the floor of the Senate. The NRSC raised millions of dollars from Republican voters by promising that judicial confirmations would be their highest domestic priority, but then after winning an eleven-seat majority, incomprehensibly dawdled for months before addressing the issue. That delay allowed the opposition to paint the effort to return to the 214-year tradition of majority rule on judicial confirmations as "extremist" and created the environment for the Seven Dwarves to betray their election-year promise to guarantee fair treatment to the judges nominated to the federal appellate bench.
The Not One Dime campaign does not encourage people to vote for Democrats or to withhold funds for all GOP candidates. It specifically targets the NRSC, as that typically comes under the control of the Senate GOP leadership -- the same leadership that showed so little backbone and had to be forced by grassroots activists to finally start working on the nominations. We want people to save their money to contribute directly to those Republicans who don't sacrifice the Constitution in the name of maintaining the clubbiness of the Senate. The money that goes to the NRSC maintains the current leadership in their positions of power, as incumbent Senators have to remain loyal to this failed management team in order to get their funding. No doubt some of the NRSC money would also wind up in the campaigns of the Seven Dwarves, and I for one will not ever contribute to their campaigns again for any reason.
Some who have questioned this effort claim that by attacking the NRSC and current Senate leadership, we will be cutting off our nose to spite our faces, a point Timothy Goddard graphically registered with a tongue-in-cheek logo submission. In response, I would ask people to assess where we stand in relation to the priorities that the GOP set at the election and at the beginning of the session. They've porked up the highway bill, gone nowhere on Social Security, and have caved into the Democrats on the issue that they claimed as their highest domestic priority and used for generating millions of dollars in contributions. Asking for even more money to win a larger majority, as I pointed out before, is analogous to buying your dog a Cadillac when you discover he can't drive your Dodge Neo.
The problem isn't the car, people. It's the dog driving it.
Don't forget about our logo contest for the Not One Dime campaign. I've received a number of submissions now, and I'm hoping to start posting a sampling of them in the next couple of days. The new URL for NOD is now active -- www.notonedimemore.org -- which for the moment just leads back here. Make your feelings known when the NRSC asks for your money; either contribute nine cents, or nothing at all, with an explanation why they won't see any more from you until they fulfill their election pledges or elect leadership that can.
Grewal Tapes Contain Bribe Offer: CTV
The Canadian network CTV reports tonight that the complete transcript of the Grewal tapes contain much more than the curious dance conducted between Tim Murphy, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, and Tory MP Gurmant Grewal. Despite Liberal denials, the transcripts apparently contain a specific offer of a ministry for Grewal in exchange for his vote on May 19th:
CTV News' Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reports that the Prime Minister knew of the negotiations.According to Fife, the full four hours of transcripts of Grewal's taped conversations with a top Martin aide and Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh show:
* Martin was ready to talk to Grewal about defecting like he did with Belinda Stronach
* Grewal was offered a government position two weeks after the voteThe transcripts could be released Tuesday. Conservative House Leader Jay Hill has said the party will be turning the tapes over to the RCMP soon.
The federal ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro is alsohave expected to announce Tuesday whether he will conduct an investigation into the alleged Liberal deal-making.
Could it be that Stephen Harper played "chicken" with Paul Martin on the Grewal tapes -- and won when Martin didn't flinch? If the CTV is accurate, it appears that the Tories have gaslighted the Liberals into demanding the release of information that will wind up indicting them, rather than exonerating them. Perhaps Murphy wasn't as artful a dancer as first reported.
Is Religious Education An Official Government Duty?
CQ reader BR brings an unusual document related to the House travel kerfuffle to my attention. It appears that Caitlin O'Neill, who works for Nancy Pelosi, forgot to file her disclosure form (PDF) for a trip she took to Havana, Cuba. O'Neill, who BR says is the granddaughter of former Speaker Tip O'Neill, identifies the purpose of her trip -- as an official duty of Congress -- as "religious education".
Has religious education become an official government duty? What would Pelosi's allies at the ACLU say about that?
That's not the end of the unusual aspects of this trip. Expenses totaled almost $1400 for the five-day trip to Havana, including $400 for meals. Of course, the American taxpayer didn't get stuck with this bill, which is the reason O'Neill and Pelosi had to file the disclosure. The entire cost of O'Neill's trip was borne by the Universal Life Church.
This is where the questions really start. From reading its website, the ULC doesn't require much in terms of religious education for its membership or its clergy. In fact, the church openly states on its website that it grants ordination on line, instantly, for free:
You can become a legally ordained minister, instantly, online, at this website. The Universal Life Church is totally non-denominational, interfaith and welcomes all religions. After you fill out the ordination form, you will receive a pop-up instant credential, which serves as your receipt of your ordination. Print it immediately.As a ULC (Universal Life Church) minister, you can officiate one wedding ceremony or you can make weddings, funerals, baptisms, house blessings, etc. your business. You can even start your own ministry. The Universal Life Church is interfaith and non-denominational.
We have, online, free training for ministers, an online, one-year seminary program, where you can receive a diploma to enhance your knowledge and your credibility, and a monk program.
So O'Neill claims to have pursued religious education as a government duty, in Cuba, where we oppose the oppressive regime of Fidel Castro. She says the Universal Life Church paid her way, despite their granting of free ordinations to anyone who signs up on their website. None of the services or training on their website requires acolytes to travel to Cuba for certification.
So perhaps the House Minority Leader can explain why Caitlin O'Neill went to Cuba in the middle of last December for five days as a guest of a fake church that issues mail-order ordinations. The explanation had better improve on the "religious education" that O'Neill claims. Otherwise, Pelosi and her caucus would be well advised to back off on criticisms of faith-based initiatives coming from the Bush administration.
Russia To Leave Georgia
Russia and Georgia finally completed an agreement that will end Russian military occupation of Georgian territory by 2008. Both governments have announced the successful conclusion of talks that were hastened by Georgian threats to declare Russian visas illegal:
Russia has agreed to withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia by 2008.The deal was announced in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after he held talks there with Georgian counterpart Salome Zurabishvili.
Mrs Zurabishvili called it an "important and constructive step", and said Georgia had achieved its goal.
Russia currently has two Soviet-era bases in Georgia, whose continued presence has been a source of tension between Moscow and Tbilisi.
The two bases are home to about 3,000 troops.
This will make the Russian battles against separatists in the Caucasus more difficult. Georgia's bases have Russia a strategic anvil in the south against which they could press from the north. It also kept Chechen rebels from escaping Russian efforts by slipping over the southern border, or at least it gave the Russians some ability to screen for that.
Georgia, on the other hand, not only throws off the last vestiges of Russian/Soviet colonialism but also becomes more of a bystander in the Caucasus. The hard line of Vladimir Putin in the region threatens to set fire to the various ethnic segments. Georgia doesn't need the headaches that come with "hosting" Russian regiments that will undoubtedly be targets for various kinds of terrorism and insurgent attacks.
Putin, however, rarely gives away the store, even when he has little choice. One has to wonder what Georgia promised in return for the Russian departure.
Did Democrats Take Drug Money In Exchange For Pardon?
I missed this at Patterico's site the other day, but his intrepid and dogged work on exposing bias at the Los Angeles Times may have led to an even bigger story -- one the Times may have covered up for political reasons. This story reaches back to the final days of the Clinton Administration, when a flurry of questionable pardons flowed from the Oval Office. The most notorious was the pardon of Marc Rich, who later turned out to be heavily involved in the Oil-For-Food scam.
However, a more damaging revelation never got published, thanks to the LA Times, which buried the story according to the LA Weekly. It centers on the pardon of Carlos Vignali, whose father donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Democrats who lobbied Clinton on the younger Vignali's behalf. The father also hired Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, as his representative for $200,000, which Rodham returned when the payment was made public. All of this got some press at the time, but later slid off the pages of most newspapers.
What made the LA Times more culpable than those? It had evidence in 2001 that the father also was suspected of drug trafficking by the DEA, but suppressed it until well after the furor died down. Read all of Patterico's post for details. The LA Times has a lot for which to answer -- and the Clintons and the Democrats need to explain why Vignali got a Get Out Of Jail Free card based on pusher money.
DeLay Travel Probe Reveals Massive Democrat Violations
The hounding of Tom DeLay continues to backfire on House Democrats, as the AP has discovered in a review of travel disclosures. Far from being a singular problem in the GOP Whip's office, it turns out that a number of Pelosi's comrades have also been remiss in disclosing their travel expenses and the people who paid them:
Scrutiny of Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review has found.At least 43 House members and dozens of aides had failed to meet the one-month deadline in ethics rules for disclosing trips financed by organizations outside the U.S. government. ...
While most of the previously undisclosed trips occurred in 2004, some date back to the late 1990s. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer recently disclosed 12 trips, the oldest dating back to 1997. ... Hoyer's undisclosed trips were nearly doubled by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., with 21. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., reported 20 past trips and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. reported 13. ... Staff members for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., disclosed 11 prior trips, while staff members for DeLay, R-Texas, had 4. Rep. John Linder of Georgia, a former chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, belatedly filed 9 trips, as did Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
Glass houses. Stones. Whoops.
Perhaps the Democrats might want to rethink this witch hunt. It appears that enough sorcerors abound on both sides of the aisle, and the Democrats can't afford to lose their own leadership in an attempt to torpedo DeLay. They have enough problems as it is keeping up with the GOP.
Let's Remember Them All
Longtime CQ readers will remember my friend Mike the Contractor, who spent a long time in Iraq both in the Seals and as a contractor. I've published some of Mike's letters in the past, especially those to his young sons in explaining the war on terror. Today Mike sends this message to his friends and family, reminding us of the role that his contractor friends continue to play in protecting Americans and Iraqis in the most dangerous areas. Mike will return to Iraq in the near future to continue this work himself.
On this Memorial Day, we honor the military men and women who have been killed in action while defending our freedoms. After seeing fallen military brethren that I have served with receive official honors and family compensation, I thought it would be appropriate to honor some other comrades-in-arms, which are my contractor brothers who also paid the ultimate price over the last couple years.
This e-mail will go out to a couple hundred military friends as well as civilians. Many of you already know very intimately what armed contractors do and also what it is to lose someone who has gone into the fray with you.
For those who don't, there are two (2) main kinds of contractors in war zones.
The kind that you have frequently seen on TV pitifully held hostage and beheaded on video are the un-armed kind. They generally work for companies like KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) or construction or oil companies and are the completely innocent people who are doing the major rebuilding and support work in Iraq. Their slayings are particularly heinous at all levels including the Islamic Qur'an that states "If you kill someone who is not himself a killer, it is as if you have killed all of mankind."
The other kind of contractor is the kind that I was and served with. We are fully armed with American as well as foreign weapons. We work for government contracted security companies and/or specialized medical support companies that primarily hire former special operations personnel. Many of the men I worked with were on leave of absence from a Special Forces unit or like in my case a Reserve Navy SEAL unit. There is virtually no chance that any of us could ever be taken alive and to my knowledge, none of us have.
But no matter how well you plan or train, you can certainly die a violent death like anyone else. In fact as I look back over my 334 days in Iraq, I realize that there are well over a dozen contractors who I knew who died there. Scottie Helvenston, who was slain in Fallujah and hung on a bridge on March 31, 2004 is probably the only one with any public name recognition. American names like Roy Buckmaster and foreign names like Cristoph Kazka will only be remembered by their eternal friends and relatives and the Lord.
I will pick 2 men to profile here whom I worked with closely and who were killed a few short weeks after I returned home to the privileged surrealistic world we call America. I will state their names as they were released to the press but I will leave out the name of the agencies they worked for.
Todd Engstrom and Dave Randolph were not just shooters, they were Team Leaders and Program Managers for two different security companies operating at the same time out of a forward operating base near Fallujah. Because I was a medic, I was honored to work for and with both of them in the last months of a contract to secure and dispose of explosive ordnance. But it really didn't matter who you worked for at this place, affectionately called "the Rock," because we all felt like brothers in the same family and Todd and Dave made that happen. They were friends to all of us and obviously the closest of friends to each other.
Todd was qualified to teach the Sate Department Alpha & Bravo course, so he made sure that everyone on site had ample opportunity to qualify on his course even if they worked for a different company. Todd's company set up combat shooting courses all the time even though temperatures went over 130 in the summer and their operational work schedule was oppressive. I remember one week where the course was a 12 station AK-47 shoot-on-the-move timed evolution. We were issued only Iraqi ammunition to shoot because it misfired so frequently (we always loaded good American or Russian ammo in our operational magazines) and required you to clear your weapon several times on the course. Guys from Todd's company challenged guys from Dave's company to compete against them. Dave showed up on the last day and set the course record on his first run.
Todd and Dave were just about the best leaders I have ever seen. You may have heard instructors or leaders say, "I will never ask you to do something I wouldn't do myself." Todd and Dave never said words like that (Dave rarely said anything without an F word in it). They didn't have to. They were always right there with you doing it. And although they were both strong enthusiastic leaders, they were not reckless.
Whether it came to patrolling the outer regions of the FOB at night, clearing areas strewn with unexploded ordnance, or going on convoys outside the wire, both of them had only one thing in mind - bringing back their men alive. As such they made sure that everyone knew every job. Everyone had their own maps and knew all of the main routes as well as escape and evasion routes. Everyone had the communications plan, medevac plan, intelligence summaries, all of it. Because Todd and Dave literally led from the front, they made sure that they could be replaced by anyone of us if disaster struck.
While I was processing back into the U.S. at Fort Bliss Texas in October of 2004 I was notified of the death of Todd Engstrom who was in the lead vehicle when an improvised explosive device was detonated north of a place called Taji.
The following month, while I was home around Thanksgiving with my family, David Randolph was killed by an RPG that exploded into his lead vehicle on a convoy between Fallujah and Baghdad. Next to him was another man I worked with who I will call Avin. Although Avin was not his real name, it is close enough for those who know to remember. Avin's brother is another SF contractor that I know and greatly respect. He was in country at the time and flew home with the remains of Avin and is now back in Iraq, which is why I leave his family names out of this.
In each tragedy, the remaining contractors instantly unleashed 'violence of action' to vanquish the enemy, cross-loaded their guntrucks with the bodies of their fallen leaders and friends and got out of the kill zone.
American contractors get paid OK on a daily basis, once we are actually working in the war zone. However, when a contractor is killed in action, there is no fanfare, no pension for the family, not much in the way of life insurance.
A memorial fund has been set up for the families of Todd Engstrom and David Randolph and Avin by their respective company. Dave & Avin have surviving children.[I will post the website for this as soon as I have it -- CE]
"No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
John 15:13
Coalition means partnership. This Memorial Day, please know that the Coalition Forces of Iraq who paid the ultimate price, be they men or women; military, government or civilian; American, Iraqi, British or more than 40 other nationalities, included all who love freedom as their partners and friends.
Michelle Malkin has an excellent roundup of other Memorial Day tributes.
Accuracy In Media: CQ Is Journalism
In an unintentional response to Professor Conrad Fink's hyperbolic dismissal of bloggers as journalists in Saturday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sherrie Gossett writes about my coverage of Adscam for Accuracy In Media today and reaches a different conclusion. Gossett writes:
In one of the most dramatic stories to date of blogger influence, an American blogger listed the details of inflammatory testimony in a Canadian government corruption case-testimony that was under a publication ban enacted by the judge. Soon the blogger's website was inundated with hundreds of thousands of hits from Canadians hungry for information, but shut out of the story by the ban. It was a unique case of a lone blogger disseminating information the media were unable to publish.Ed Morrissey, the writer of Captain's Quarters blog, started reporting on the testimony on April 2 in an entry titled "Canada's Corruption Scandal Breaks Wide Open." The political scandal involved allegations of bribery, kickbacks and illegal campaign financing to the tune of tens of millions of dollars which found their way into liberal party coffers. Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed the Gomery Commission to investigate the charges and determine whether to bring charges against government officials. ...
While insightful journalists have previously suggested no one yet can judge the future path and potential influence of citizen journalism and blogging, here is a truly unique incident whereby a blogger was able to inform the public when all of Canadian media was under a publication ban. In this instance, the flexibility and quick moves of a one-man operation trumped what all major media were able to do in Canada. It's reminiscent of cases where ham radio operators have disseminated crucial information during natural disasters and political crises-information unavailable by other means.
Ironically -- this is no joke -- I used to be a ham radio operator several years ago. My call sign was KJ6FR, and I held an Advanced license, the second-highest certification. I took part in Field Day almost every yeaar, and I even manned the most noted ham-radio station on a volunteer basis: the Queen Mary, which hams around the world know quite well. I still have my equipment but have long since let the license lapse. I looked over the radio gear I have and thought about the similarities between blogging and ham radio, and how both allow the creation of virtual communities dedicated to public service and friendship.
Read all of Gossett's column in AIM. (via Marc at Cranial Cavity)
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