June 1, 2006
The latest Rasmussen poll delivers bad news to Republicans hoping to hold or expand their majority in the US Senate. Incumbent and key conservative Rick Santorum has fallen far behind his challenger, Robert Casey Jr, with only five months left in the campaign: The latest Rasmussen Reports election poll in Pennsylvania shows Republican Senator Rick Santorum solidifying his standing as most vulnerable congressional incumbent this election season. Santorum now trails Democratic challenger Bob Casey 56% to 33% (see crosstabs). Our latest survey of the governor's race also brings good news for the Democrat in that contest. Last month, Santorum trailed by thirteen percentage points. The incumbent began 2006 down by 20 points and closed to within single digits by March. That was before the Primary Election solidified Casey's position as the Democratic nominee. Santorum continues to flounder with his base, attracting support from only 67% of GOP voters. Casey now...
The UN again demonstrates its fecklessness by insisting that the world owes the Palestinians refuge from their own bad choices, requesting emergency aid donations to stave of a financial crisis of their own making. The UN wants almost $400 million to replace what the Palestinians threw away when they elected terrorists to control their protostate: The UN has appealed for a near doubling of emergency aid to the Palestinian territories to alleviate a crippling economic crisis after the freezing of foreign funds to the Hamas government and Israeli sanctions against the Palestinians. It has revised the amount it wants foreign governments to donate this year from $215m (£115m) to $385m to prevent the collapse of services such as health and education, and to provide food and medicines. The appeal document said the UN had taken the unprecedented step of asking for more money because of the "extremely bleak" humanitarian outlook...
The trouble with using elections to clean house is keeping even worse choices from reaching office. Voters can see this dynamic in play in Northern California, where a former Congressman has decided to challenge House Resources Committee chair Richard Pombo for his seat in the Republican primary. However, Pete McCloskey has a lot of his own baggage to carry: A former congressman and longtime critic of America's alliance with Israel is hoping voter anger over bribery and ethical breaches in Washington will help him unseat a powerful committee chairman in a Republican primary in California next week. Paul McCloskey Jr., 78, known as "Pete," is challenging Richard Pombo, 45, who has spent seven terms in Congress and presides over the panel that oversees energy and public land issues, the House Resources Committee. In an interview with The New York Sun yesterday, Mr. McCloskey, who served in Congress between 1967 and...
The latest ABC poll shows that House Speaker Denny Hastert miscalculated badly by erupting with outrage over the raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s offices. An overwhelming majority of Americans approve of the search performed by the FBI regardless of party affiliation: In the rift between Congress and the Justice Department, Americans side overwhelmingly with law enforcement: Regardless of precedent and the separation of powers, 86 percent say the FBI should be allowed to search a Congress member's office if it has a warrant. That view is broadly bipartisan, this ABC News poll finds, ranging from 78 percent among Democrats to 94 percent of Republicans. … Sixty-five percent of Americans give a negative rating to the ethics and honesty of members of Congress. More, 54 percent, rate their own member's ethics positively, but that's down from 69 percent in a 1989 poll. Nonetheless, support for FBI searches is about equally high...
After a chorus of apologists insisted that Harry Reid would have broken the law by buying his own tickets to boxing matches, the AP reports that Reid has now acknowledged that he misstated Senate ethics rules in defending his acceptance of tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission. Reid's staff now says that he will no longer accept gifts from the NAC: Reversing course, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s office acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets and has decided to avoid taking such gifts in the future. ... The announcement came after The Associated Press confronted Reid’s office early Wednesday with conclusions from several ethics experts that the Senate leader misstated congressional ethics rules in trying to defend his actions. ... Manley said Wednesday night that Reid “misspoke when he said the rule applies only to senators who represent the state agency.”...
Bobby Kennedy Jr has a turgid expose at Rolling Stone which purports to blow the lid off the 2004 presidential election by claiming that 350,000 Ohio voters were prevented from reaching the polling stations. This, unsurprisingly, has excited the entire port side of the blogosphere. However, when one begins to read through the argument, supported by a slew of citations but no evidence at all, it sounds like a very tired rehash of all the conspiracy theories we heard between November 2004 and January 2005, when the Electoral College made the results final. Kennedy's lead argument gives readers enough excuse to stop on the first page. He argues that exit polls are "exquisitely accurate", and therefore since the pollsters are infallible, their early returns must have been the truth: Over the past decades, exit polling has evolved into an exact science. Indeed, among pollsters and statisticians, such surveys are thought...
As I suspected, Condoleezza Rice's offer of direct American participation came as she solidified an agreement with Russia and China on a carrots-and-sticks proposal for Iran which will carry sanctions for a refusal to comply. The acquiescence of the two nations presents a brief, perhaps transitory moment of unity that might give Teheran reason to reconsider its intransigence: The United States, Russia, China and the leading nations of Europe announced agreement tonight on a general formula designed to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, but officials declined to specifically describe the package of incentives and punishments before it can be presented to Iran. "I am pleased to say that we have agreed a set of far-reaching proposals as a basis for discussion with Iran," said Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary. "We believe that they offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation." She said the...
June 2, 2006
... but probably won't get it, for a couple of reasons. The New York Times reports that some Congressional Republicans want to wait until after the election to reconcile the House and Senate versions of immigration reform, and the Washington Times predicts that a turf war over revenue will delay conference committee action. Meanwhile, Bush changes rhetorical tactics somewhat in a concession to hard-liners: Beginning a public relations offensive intended to prod divided Congressional Republicans into overhauling the nation's immigration laws, President Bush rebuked conservative opponents of his plan on Thursday and warned that there is "no excuse" for delay. With Congress set to return to Washington on Monday after a one-week recess, some Republicans have suggested they may fare better at the polls in November if the House and Senate wait until after Election Day to reconcile their vastly different immigration bills. But Mr. Bush made clear in a...
E.J. Dionne notes the extension of the hysteria in Congress over the raid on William Jefferson's Capitol Hill office, and likens it to a baseball game. The Congressional Republicans think they are employing a brushback pitch, but in this case they look more like the St. Louis Cardinals in the final game of the 1985 World Series. They have melted down beyond all sense, conducting silly hearings and making threats of impeachment against officials in the Department of Justice, in an attempt to intimidate anyone with the temerity to investigate corruption in DC: In baseball, the hurler intimidates the batter with a brushback pitch. In soccer, the official warns an unruly player by pulling out a yellow card. Politicians in legal jeopardy thunder and moan, threatening prosecutors while cloaking their pressure tactics in the grand language of constitutional rights and democracy. ... The hearing was dominated by talk of abuses...
Yousef Ibrahim reports that the next clash between secular Muslim governments and jihadist radicals may come in Tunisia. His column in today's New York Sun describes the efforts of that moderate nation to "rationalize" Islam, and the portents for violent backlash this program carries: The next confrontation between secular dictators and Islamic jihadists in the Arab world may happen in Tunisia. The country's interior minister, Hedi Mhenni, has spoken of plans to issue an electronic identity card to Muslim worshippers, pairing them with the mosques nearest to their homes in what he termed "the rationalization of religion." The crudely named initiative is an effort to restrict the political activities of Islamic fundamentalists, who for decades have used mosques as a staging ground to recruit, organize, and launch potential jihadists at home and abroad. When it comes to battling fundamentalists, nothing done by Tunisia's president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali -...
Daniel Henninger warns of the impending war fatigue in his column today for the Wall Street Journal's Opinionjournal. Instead of Viet Nam Syndrome, we will increasingly shut out news rather than allow ourselves to react to it -- and that will spell the end of the American prosecution for the war on terror: In El Paso, Texas, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, whose death from a roadside bomb is the event said to have precipitated the Marine shootings at Haditha, said simply: "I don't even listen to the news." This may be the widespread reaction as the Haditha story overwhelms all else--enough, I don't want to hear about it. And there begins the Iraq Syndrome. Some elements of the newly ascendant Democratic left may welcome it, but no serious person in American politics should. The Vietnam Syndrome, a loss of confidence in the efficacy of American military...
The DHS awards of block grants for the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) touched off a fiery round of criticism, with some calling for George Bush to fire DHS chief Michael Chertoff after seeing funding cut to New York City and Washington, DC. However, a look at the numbers calls the accuracy of this blamethrowing into serious question. First, the reaction: New York City will receive $124 million — the largest amount under the Urban Area Security Initiative. But that's just 60 percent of the $208 million given in 2005. The cut comes primarily because the Homeland Security Department determined that New York has no national monuments or icons. ... Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York and chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the cut in funding “indefensible and disgraceful.” “As far as I’m concerned the Department of Homeland Security and the administration have declared...
Using the material at the Department of Homeland Security website, I have created a spreadsheet listing the grant allocations on state and urban area levels for both fiscal year 2006 and FY 2005. The data on these years tell an interesting story. While New York and Washington DC have howled the loudest about the reduction in grants to their cities, eight urban areas saw bigger cuts by percentage. And although the two cities' percentage lost from FY 2005 allocations to both cities is substantial (40.4% each), their combined share of the Urban Area Security Initiative grants still accounts for a quarter of all UASI grants this year. The following cities have seen higher percentages of the FY05 UASI grants disappear in FY06: Phoenix - 60.79% Denver - 49.76% New Orleans - 49.60% Pittsburgh - 49.46% Buffalo - 48.53% San Diego - 45.96% Dallas/Ft Worth/Arlington - 43.22% Columbus - 42.96 Fifteen...
Several Canadian CQ readers have sent this update on Joe Volpe, candidate for the Liberal leadership post, who ran into some embarrassment when two of his major contributors turned out to be 11-year-old twins of a drug company executive. Volpe raised $54,000 from two families that had everyone contribute the maximum $5400, including underage children in apparent violation of Canada's campaign finance laws. The Liberal Party insists that the contribution came from the children and not from their parents, which would violate the strawman ban on using other people to launder contributions. The Liberals just can't seem to shake their reputation for financing shenanigans, and now it looks like they've decided to enhance it by attempting to silence Volpe's critics. A satirical website, youthforvolpe.ca, attempted to poke fun at Volpe's predicament by posing as a contribution website for civic-minded Canadian youngsters. Not seeing the humor, Volpe reacted by having the...
June 3, 2006
Frank Schaeffer gains a scoop in his Washington Post column by relating an incident in the British zone of control, an account of brutality and a potential war crime related by an eyewitness to the incident: "I saw an ugly sight: a British officer interrogating a civilian, and repeatedly hitting him about the head with the chair; treatment which the [civilian], his face a mask of blood, suffered with stoicism. At the end of the interrogation, which had not been considered successful, the officer called on a private and asked him in a pleasant, conversational sort of manner, 'Would you like to take this man away, and shoot him?' The private's reply was to spit on his hands, and say, 'I don't mind if I do, sir.' "I received confirmation . . . that American combat units were ordered by their officers to beat to death [those] who attempted to...
Bill Ardolino at INDC needs some legal advice in a case that has implications for all of us. Bill excerpted material from an article posted at Women to Women, a site dedicated to women's health issues, about breast cancer. In his post, Bill excerpted seven paragraphs of 23 to explain to his readers the potential triggers for the disease, complete with a link and block-quoting to show that the material was not original. That, however, was not good enough for Women To Women, who called this "plagiarism": The post at http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/002478.php used duplicate content from our following womentowomen website page http://www.womentowomen.com/breasthealth/estrogenbreastcancer.asp, without the author's permission. Moreover, its presence subjects our website to a duplicate content penalty assessed by search engines, directly causing us monetary damage. We do not mind you using our content for discussion purpose. However, please be sure they use the following at the top of the article:...
If the Bush administration used the Condoleezza Rice offer of talks with Iran to seal the deal on sanctions, Iran so far has played directly into their hands. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirmed their refusal to stop uranium enrichment -- as required by both the IAEA and the UN Security Council -- as a precondition for direct talks with the US: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday defied pressure from foreign leaders to accept a package of incentives in return for ending all nuclear activities, saying Iran will pursue its legal right to develop a peaceful nuclear program. "Any pressure to deprive our people from their right will not bear any fruit," he was quoted as saying on state-run television. "Their opposition to our program is not because of their concern over the spread of nuclear weapons," he said. "They are worried that Iran would become a model for other independent...
Canadian authorities rounded up seventeen suspected terrorists in a series of raids overnight, and have unraveled a plot to attack multiple targets in the Toronto area: Media reports Saturday alleged that the suspects engaged in terror training camps north of Toronto. It was further alleged that a group were plotting to attack targets in Toronto including the headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. ... The Canadian Security Intelligence Service aided the RCMP and officers from Toronto, Peel and Durham in detaining the suspects, described by an undercover officer involved in the operation as “terrorists, the ones who hate the West.” The ethnicity of the group was not clear. A well- placed police source said they are Muslims, but not Arabs, and unconnected to anti-terrorism raids that occurred simultaneously in Britain yesterday. Quoting anonymous sources, CBC said the targets of the raid are suspected of connections with al-Qaeda. A Canadian...
The Minnesota Republican convention overwhelmingly rejected the efforts of the current state legislature to fund a Twins stadium through the imposition of taxes without voter input, with 76% of all delegates adding a platform statement requiring any such revenue device to be put before the voters affected. This answers a bipartisan effort that has saddled the seven-county Metro area with a sales tax addition that will cost Twin Cities shoppers millions of dollars, all going to fund a new playground for millionaires: A new state Republican Party platform plank calling for voter approval of local sales taxes for professional sports stadiums was overwhelmingly adopted Friday by state convention delegates. The vote, which received 76 percent of the delegates' support, was a rebuff to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and dozens of Republican legislators who backed a 0.15 percent Hennepin County sales tax for a new Twins ballpark in Minneapolis. Pawlenty signed legislation...
The Canadian intelligence service monitored Internet communications to identify and track the homegrown jihadists rounded up in last night's raids, according to the Toronto Star. The investigation began two years ago when agents cracked passwords and gathered communications from the group: Last night's dramatic police raid and arrest of as many as a dozen men — with more to come — marks the culmination of Canada's largest ever terrorism investigation into an alleged homegrown cell. The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad. Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them. According to sources...
The NARN once again takes to the airwaves today on AM 1280 The Patriot. The opening act will cover the end of the state Republican convention, while the second half will take on the issues of the day. Chief among them, I'm sure, will be the terror bust in Toronto and the controversy around the DHS grant allocations that led Re. Peter King to accuse Michael Chertoff of declaring war on New York City. Be sure to listen on the Internet stream, and call us at 651-289-4488 to join the conversation!...
The picture of the day comes from Andy Aplikowski of Residual Forces, who managed to get his picture taken with future Senatorial hopeful Al Franken. Al looks thrilled to meet his constituents, doesn't he? Perhaps that might be because Andy's holding a Norm Coleman campaign sign. UPDATE: Doug at Bogus Gold has one almost as good. By the way, Doug reports that Franken had a good sense of humor about this....
The politically-correct whitewash of the Canadian terror cell has already begun in earnest. The Globe & Mail reports that the RCMP has decided to emphasize the fact that the suspected terrorists came from a "broad strata" of Canadian society: From an unmarried computer programmer to a university health sciences graduate and the unemployed, the 17 suspects charged in a foiled terrorist plot represent a “broad strata” of Canadian society. “Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed,” RCMP assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell said Saturday. ... Most of the group, who were remanded into custody until their next court appearance on Tuesday, wore street clothes although some appeared in white jump suits. The majority sported the traditional Muslim male beard. [emphasis mine -- CE] The RCMP and all of the Canadian government can keep talking about broad strata all day long, but the seventeen have this much in common: they...
Earlier today, the AP published a helpful list of the members of their House caucus that would assume control of the various committees if the Democrats win control of the lower chamber in the mid-term elections. While the list reflects the current ranking members of the existing panels, at least one comes as a surprise. Jane Harman has served as the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence since 2002. Upon gaining control of the House, one would expect Harman to ascend to the chair of this panel. However, she has lost favor with Nancy Pelosi for her support of the war in Iraq and other aspects of the overall war on terror. Harman also was one of the Congressional contingent that received briefings on the two NSA programs that caused such an uproar the past couple of months, until the Democrats found out that the American electorate...
June 4, 2006
The Toronto Star reports this morning that the RCMP itself sold the Toronto terror cell the three tons of ammonium nitrate it planned to use for devastating attacks on Canada. The Mounties moved to capture all of the suspects as soon as the deal for the fertilizer concluded: The delivery of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate to a group suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in southern Ontario was part of an undercover police sting operation, the Toronto Star has learned. The RCMP said yesterday that after investigating the alleged homegrown terrorist cell for months, they had to move quickly Friday night to arrest 12 men and five youths before the group could launch a bomb attack on Canadian soil. Sources say investigators who had learned of the group's alleged plan to build a bomb were controlling the sale and transport of the massive amount of fertilizer, a key component in...
As more information comes to light about the terror cell in Toronto smashed by Canadian authorities, the picture emerging is that of a global jihadist network that apparently does not require professionalism or guile to join. As this episode shows, any group of Muslims filled with enough hate for motivation can work through the Internet and a system of mosques to find like-minded terrorist wannabes and the resources to make their dreams come true: A Canadian counter-terrorism investigation that led to the arrests of 17 people accused of plotting bombings in Ontario is linked to probes in a half-dozen countries, the National Post has learned. Well before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden, and Bangladesh. The six-month RCMP investigation, called Project OSage, is one of several overlapping probes...
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to publicly release the package offered by Western nations for an end to Teheran's uranium-enrichment program. Brushing off a warning from Kofi Annan, Ahmadinejad says he wants his people to remain fully informed of the situation: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran would publish details of the package of incentives and possible penalties prepared by the United States and five other major powers aimed at halting Iran's nuclear program. In a speech in which he warned Iran's critics against "threats and intimidation," Ahmadinejad seemed to sweep aside a request by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to keep the process confidential. Western diplomats had said they were trying to avoid the appearance of threatening Iran by keeping the terms of the package as private as possible, especially the specific penalties Iran might face if it continues to enrich uranium. "We will record the talks...
June 5, 2006
The cuts to the DHS grant program of 34% from fiscal year 2005 have created a wailing and gnashing of teeth in New York, where elected officials have made accusations that DHS chief Michael Chertoff has "declared war" on the Big Apple for cutting UASI funding by 40%, along with Washington DC. The DHS did not help its case when their evaluation of the city's application resolved that NYC had no monuments or national icons, although as Newsweek reported yesterday, that description unfairly portrayed the analysis: The "risk" score sheets, based partially on classified data that included "suspicious incidents," "FBI Cases" and "Intelligence Community Reports," said New York had no "national monuments and icons," four "banking and finance" institutions with assets greater than $8 billion and two nuclear facilities. (The D.C. region was rated as having 18 monuments or icons, 2 major banking or finance institutions and 7 nuclear facilities.)...
The supposedly "broad strata" of society whence the Canadian terror cell sprang had an unusually narrow base: a single mosque in Mississauga. The eldest of the cell and apparently its ringleader, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, sat on the mosque's board and led prayers while organizing this conspiracy to attack Canadian targets: Several of the people arrested by Canadian authorities in a huge counterterrorism sweep over the weekend regularly attended the same storefront mosque in a middle-class neighborhood of modest brick rental townhouses and well-kept lawns. The eldest of the 17 Canadian residents arrested in the sweep, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, was described by his lawyer as an active member of the mosque, the Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, though not its leader. "He's on the board, he's there regularly, but he's not an imam," said Anser Farooq, the lawyer representing Mr. Jamal and three other people from this Toronto suburb...
Thomas Lipscomb, whose writing on the John Kerry campaign in 2004 earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination, has fired a salvo back at Kate Zernike and her article on Kerry's attempt to re-engage on the Swift Boat campaign. In an article at Real Clear Politics, Lipscomb deftly points out the journalistic, evidentiary, and logical flaws in Zernike's rather naive reporting: Kate Zernike's story on the front page of the Memorial Day Sunday New York Times, "Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss," is an unfortunate reminder of the Times's embarrassingly poor coverage of Kerry in the face of the Swift Boat Veterans' for Truth charges in the 2004 election. Now as then, the Times acts as if the issues involved were between Kerry's latest representations of his record and the "unsubstantiated" charges of the Swift Boat group. The Times used the term "unsubstantiated" more than twenty times during its...
Iranians have begun exporting their savings into international banks, also buying gold at an accelerated rate, according to the Wshington Times. This panic demonstrates that the Iranians understand the position that Ahmadinejad has placed their nation -- or perhaps it demonstrates something else entirely: Threats of an international financial squeeze stemming from the showdown over Iran's nuclear program have sent Iranians scrambling to get their savings out of the country, or if that won't work, to convert them into gold. An estimated $200 billion has left the country since last year's election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, accompanied by panic buying of gold. The Iranian stock exchange lost an estimated 20 percent of its value even as other bourses in the region rose. "The most tangible effect of the threat of sanctions in the private sector is downsizing," said Farhad Sanadizadeh, a Tehran-based oil and gas consultant who has let...
The news has not been good on the home front the past few days. The First Mate came home from the hospital last Tuesday evening to try to recover from her CMV infection. She ran fevers most of the week, sometimes as high as 103, and felt weak and unable to do much outside of restroom visits. Last Friday night, her fever finally broke and I hoped we would be heading for some improvement this weekend, but unfortunately, that didn't happen. On Saturday, she got disoriented and slipped down the stairs. She didn't get injured, but she obviously had some problems in moving around that required constant assistance when she wanted to walk. On Sunday morning, she wanted to eat breakfast in the dining room (which is on the same level as the bedroom), and I thought that might perk her spirits up. Unfortunately, she collapsed a couple of steps...
President Bush, as expected, spoke today on behalf of efforts to amend the Constitution to establish a definition of marriage outside the reach of judicial mischief. To no one's surprise, the definition establishes "one man, one woman" as the national standard. He gave this statement at a speech this afternoon, some of which I heard live and the rest from a recording of the event: This week, the Senate begins debate on the Marriage Protection Amendment, and I call on the Congress to pass this amendment, send it to the states for ratification so we can take this issue out of the hands of over-reaching judges and put it back where it belongs -- in the hands of the American people. The union of a man and woman in marriage is the most enduring and important human institution. For ages, in every culture, human beings have understood that marriage is...
The New York Times reports in tomorrow's edition that talks between Hamas and Fatah have ended without agreement, and Mahmoud Abbas will proceed with his plans for a plebescite on adopting the two-state solution as the official policy of the Palestinian Authority. This promises to escalate into a serious showdown between the two armed factions vying for power in the territories, and the chances of holding the referendum without an outbreak of civil war appears slim: The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, intends to call a referendum on a proposal developed by prisoners for a unified Palestinian political program that the governing Hamas faction opposes. Talks on the proposal ended without agreement late Monday night, and early Tuesday morning Mr. Abbas's office said in a statement that he intended to live up to his ultimatum to Hamas, the militant Islamic faction that heads the government, and announce a referendum later on...
My, how times have changed! After many years of complaints by the British, the Bush administration curtailed the fundraising and travel of Sinn Fein leadership in the US after the murder of a Belfast man last year. Now the British want the Bush administration to reverse the ban after getting SF leader Gerry Adams to agree to a total disarmament earlier this year, and the White House apparently has balked: BRITAIN is pressing President Bush’s Administration to lift a fundraising ban imposed last year on the leadership of Sinn Fein, The Times has learnt. But Mitchell Reiss, Mr Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, has so far refused to heed calls from the British and Irish governments. They believe that Sinn Fein should be rewarded for renouncing its armed struggle and decommissioning IRA weapons. Both sides are playing down any talk of a significant row, although sources in London have...
June 6, 2006
Seventeen suspects arrested this weekend as part of the terrorist roundup in Toronto will have their first court hearing today, where Canada will formally charge them with conspiring to detonate at least one bomb. Zakaria Amara, the 20-year-old student and father, will be identified as the man who bought the material, and another five as his primary accomplices: Government lawyers will allege 20-year-old Zakaria Amara, a university student and father of an 8-month-old daughter, was the man who purchased three tonnes of ammonium nitrate for bomb attacks on Canadian soil, sources have told the Star. Court documents released yesterday claim Amara and another five suspects were involved in the bomb plot. All 17 suspects in what police are alleging is a home-grown terrorist cell are expected to appear in a Brampton court today for the start of their bail hearings. More details have come out in the last twenty-four hours....
The presiding judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein castigated the defense attorneys for their repeated motions for dismissal as well as their inability to produce witnesses as promised. He angrily suspended the trial for a week to give the defense one last chance to organize themselves, and warned them against making allegations without substantiation: The defendants have been accused of orchestrating the massacre of 148 people in retribution for a failed assassination attempt against Hussein in 1982. But defense attorneys pressed their claim Monday that at least 14 of those people were not killed. Some of the alleged victims are still alive and others died in the Iran-Iraq war, they said. Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel Rahman had little patience for their complaints. Nor was he pleased to find most defense witnesses scheduled to testify hadn't shown up; lawyers said they were too scared to appear. Abdel Rahman ordered the...
Unfortunately, E.J. Dionne paints a fairly accurate picture in his column today regarding the sudden reappearance of the Marriage Protection Act. While Bush has always supported the traditional definition of marriage, he has not pursued the Constitutional option with much vigor until his polling numbers showed significant erosion among his base. Suddenly, the MPA has received front-burner status: This month's offensive by President Bush and his allies in Congress against gay marriage and flag burning proves one thing: The Republican Party thinks its base of social conservatives is a nest of dummies who have no memories and respond like bulls whenever red flags are waved in their faces. The people who should be angry this week are not liberals or gays or lesbians, but the president's most loyal supporters. After using the gay-marriage issue shamelessly in the 2004 campaign, Bush and Republican leaders left opponents of gay marriage out in...
The Center for Public Integrity reports that lobbyists provided Congress with over $50 million in trips between January 2000 and June 2005. The amount of time spent away from the office also comes to a staggering 81,000 days: Over 5 1/2 years, Republican and Democratic lawmakers accepted nearly $50 million in trips, often to resorts and exclusive locales, from corporations and groups seeking legislative favors, according to the most comprehensive study to date on the subject of congressional travel. From January 2000 through June 2005, House and Senate members and their aides were away from Washington for more than 81,000 days -- a combined 222 years -- on at least 23,000 trips, according to the report, issued yesterday by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity. About 2,300 of the trips cost $5,000 or more, at least 500 cost $10,000 or more, and 16 cost $25,000 or more. "While some of...
The Associated Press reports that Iran has described the Bush offer to end the nuclear-proliferation standoff as "positive", while reports indicating that the US has promised to give Teheran the technology to build a light-water reactor have some worried that we may have given away the prize. Ali Larijani, Iran's nuclear negotiator, changed weeks of contentious Iranian rhetoric by lauding the "positive steps" taken by the Americans, while noting that areas of ambiguity need clearer definition: Iran and the United States had a rare moment of agreement Tuesday, using similar language to describe "positive steps" toward an accord on a package of incentives aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. Diplomats said the incentives include a previously undisclosed offer of some U.S. nuclear technology on top of European help in building light-water nuclear reactors. Other incentives include allowing Iran to buy spare airplane parts and support for joining the...
Chuck Guité, one of the handful of people who faced criminal prosecution for his part in the Adscam corruption case that brought down the Liberal government, got convicted of five counts related to the fraud. The presiding judge gleefully revoked Guité's bail, which means he will start serving time while the judge ponders his sentence: Chuck Guité, the operational mastermind at the centre of the federal sponsorship boondoggle, was sent straight to jail Tuesday for steering money-for-nothing contracts to a friendly ad firm. Guité, 62, clasped his hands as the jury foreman, a scrapyard manager, read the guilty verdict on five counts of fraud. Justice Fraser Martin immediately told Guité he would go to prison for his crime — defrauding the federal government of about $1.5 million. "I have no hesitation cancelling your bail conditions," the judge said, surprising even the Crown prosecutor with the swift incarceration. Martin said Guité,...
While the entire world looked for Adolf Eichmann, the colorless bureaucrat that headed the Nazi "Final Solution" that sent millions of Jews to their ghastly deaths, the CIA knew exactly where to find him. Why didn't they capture him, or at least reveal his whereabouts to the Mossad? The American government needed to protect a former Nazi who worked for the anti-Soviet West German government of Konrad Adenauer: The United States was aware of the hiding place and alias of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal and architect of the "Final Solution" to exterminate the Jews, but did nothing to pursue him, according to CIA documents. Timothy Naftali, a University of Virginia historian who has looked through the newly released documents, said yesterday they showed that West German intelligence had told the CIA that Eichmann was living in Argentina under the pseudonym Clemens two years before he was abducted by...
June 7, 2006
The polls have closed in California's primary election, and the most significant contest looks like a real squeaker. With only 11% of precincts reporting, Republican Brian Bilbray leads Democrat Francine Busby by eight points in the race to replace the disgraced Randy "Duke" Cunningham. The early absentee returns should have given Bilbray a better lead at this stage; this one will probably go to the wire. I'll update this in the morning. UPDATE: Bilbray won, but shy of a majority: Republican Brian Bilbray beat Democrat Francine Busby early Wednesday in a close race to replace imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in the 50th Congressional District, a contest seen as a gauge of voter attitudes for the national midterm elections. ... Bilbray also said that running in a heavily Republican district was an advantage, to a degree. “It can also be a big negative, because people were really hurt by...
One of the topics that flew under my radar yesterday came from an interview Ann Coulter did with Matt Lauer on the Today show, promoting her new book, Godless. Other bloggers have picked up this story before I did, where I saw it at Rick Moran's Right Wing Nuthouse. Rick notes a particularly disturbing part of the transcript from the show: LAUER: On the 9-11 widows, an in particular a group that had been critical of the administration: COULTER: “These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing bush was part of the closure process.” "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies....
George Bush, like any good rancher, has to perform some fence-tending from time to time. Apparently he sees the need to do some with House Republicans who have opposed his ideas about fence-tending on the Rio Grande, and he now wants to emphasize border enforcement as a prerequisite for any comprehensive reform: President Bush tried on Tuesday to win back the trust of conservatives who have distanced themselves from him on immigration, promising to "get this border enforced" and warning those who enter the country illegally that "if you get caught, you get sent home." After weeks of embracing "comprehensive immigration reform" — Washington shorthand for a Senate bill that includes a temporary guest-worker program and a promise of citizenship for some illegal immigrants — Mr. Bush shifted his tone in remarks at the Border Patrol training academy here. Having nudged the Senate into action, Mr. Bush is turning his...
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have stopped a number of attacks from occurring in Canada, sometimes by disrupting networks when arrests could not be made, the Globe & Mail reports this morning. This semi-covert action rarely gets acknowledged but has kept the nation safe from terrorist attack and demonstrates again that the professionals have kept their eye on the ball: The RCMP has quietly broken up at least a dozen terrorist groups in the past two years, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail. "We have completed 12 disruptions of national-level terrorist groups across the country," the Mounties say in briefing notes prepared for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. Disruptive tactics -- sometimes as simple as letting targets know they are under close surveillance -- are used to prevent a terrorist attack when the police do not have enough evidence to lay criminal charges, the RCMP and the...
The Bush administration got significant international support for his latest diplomatic effort with Iran from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Showing a united front, Merkel told the Iranians that the new package of incentives could be negotiated, but not an end to their enrichment program: The terms of an offer of incentives delivered to Iran to end a dispute over its nuclear program can be negotiated but only if Tehran halts enrichment work first, Germany's chancellor said on Wednesday. "This is an offer to kick off negotiations but there must first be a suspension of (enrichment) activities implemented by Iran," Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters before a meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. ... Merkel urged the Iranians to consider the offer seriously, which she said was an opportunity to secure a peaceful resolution to the years-long nuclear standoff with Iran. "I believe that it is a truly...
As the voters in CA-50 put the corruption of Randy Cunningham behind them, the voters of William Jefferson's district got more information on his sellout. The New York Times reports that the FBI has acquired documentary evidence of bribery regarding Jefferson's efforts on behalf of a foreign power, albeit in a strange reversal: The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the Maryland home of the vice president of Nigeria last summer in search of bribe money that the bureau believed had been paid to him by Representative William Jefferson, according to documents released on Tuesday. The documents included an affidavit signed by an F.B.I. agent who said that the Nigerian vice president, Atiku Abubakar, now a candidate for president of that oil-rich West African nation, asked for at least half of the profits of a technology company controlled by Mr. Jefferson that was seeking to do business in Nigeria. About the...
Just when you thought that the United Nations could not possibly sink any lower, Turtle Bay manages to find a little more wiggle room in the muck. Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown told an audience that the American government uses the UN too much to allow its citizens to criticize its shortcomings, one of which is apparently an aversion to free speech: Secretary General Kofi Annan's deputy assailed the United States on Tuesday for withholding support from the United Nations, encouraging its harshest detractors and undermining an institution that he said Washington needed more than it would admit. "The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable," said the deputy, Mark Malloch Brown. "You will lose the U.N. one way or another." In a highly unusual instance...
Joseph Shahda has translated another key text from the archives of captured documents left untranslated by the Pentagon. In this case, Shahda appears to have struck gold: the memo describes not only the disposal of chemical-weapon materials but also where Iraq buried them. The memo dated September 15, 2002, comes from the General Relations group from one of Saddam's military/intelligence organizations, and describes in detail where the chemicals were hidden from UN inspectors (via Power Line): In the Name of God The Most Compassionate The Most Merciful The Republic of Iraq The Presidency of the Republic Saddam Feedayeens Secretariat The Supervisor of Saddam Feedayeens 2002/9 The Respected Supervisor of Saddam Feedayeens Subject: Information Salute and regards Sir We received information that state the following: 1. A team from the Military Industrialization Commission when Hussein Kamel Hussein was conducting his responsibilities did bury a large container said that it contains a...
June 8, 2006
What's better than capturing a terror suspect in an airport? Getting two of them. The London Times and the New York Times both reporton the British double play, as an American got captured at Heathrow and a Brit at Manchester: An American citizen who once lived in New York was indicted yesterday on charges of conspiring to send money and military gear to associates of Al Qaeda to use against United States forces in Afghanistan, federal prosecutors said. The defendant, Syed Hashmi, 26, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London on Tuesday night as he was trying to board a flight to Pakistan, according to the United States attorney's office in Manhattan. Prosecutors said he was carrying a large amount of cash. He was jailed pending extradition proceedings. The conspiracy alleged in the indictment was based in London, law enforcement officials said, but Mr. Hashmi, who had been living in...
The Guardian reports that Western negotiators have told Iran that the uranium enrichment suspension prerequisite to discussions over the package offered by the US only applies during negotiations. Any permanent end to enrichment will come as part of the overall negotiations, according to a report in today's Guardian: In a major western concession, Iran is to be allowed to retain some uranium enrichment activities if it reaches agreement with the US, Russia, Europe, and China on its nuclear programme. Diplomats said yesterday that the terms of a new package of proposed rewards delivered to Tehran on Tuesday by Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, state that Iran must freeze uranium enrichment activities before and during the talks. Once "confidence is restored in the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme", it would be allowed to resume enrichment on a scale to be determined. "Those are rights under the nuclear non-proliferation...
My debut at the Examiner as a founding member of the Blog Board of Contributors appears today, discussing the manner in which conservatives can defeat political fatigue and exert more influence over policy. Other bloggers and I have discussed this topic extensively, and in my column I attempted to bring all of the elements together: Many conservative voices have asked recently whether the Republican Party has any capability of representing conservative values. After all, Republicans have controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress for the past five years, yet we have seen discretionary spending go through the roof, an explosion of earmarks, a curious lack of the veto, and a belated and misguided effort at border control that hearkens back to the failed Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty bill of 1986. Under these circumstances, conservatives may wonder with some justification whether a continued association with the GOP unfairly tarnishes true conservative...
(Note to CQ readers: This post will be time-stamped to ride on top through most of the day, in order to post updates. Scroll down for newer posts.) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the driving force behind the foreign insurgency in Iraq, died in an air strike at a safe house while holding a meeting with his lieutenants. The announcement from Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki came early this morning, and subsequent reports detail the identification through scars and fingerprints: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and kidnappings, has been killed in an air strike, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday, adding his identity was confirmed by fingerprints and a first-hand look at his face. It was a major victory in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said...
So much for loyalty among terrorists. CNN now reports that the Coalition mission that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi came as a result of betrayal within the ranks of his own organization. The Pentagon also confirmed that US and Iraqi forces raided a total of 17 sites based on the intelligence gathered for weeks before today: Betrayal inside his al Qaeda in Iraq terror group led to success in a painstaking U.S.-led operation to kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the U.S. military said on Thursday. The most wanted man in Iraq died in a U.S. airstrike Wednesday evening when two 500-pound bombs slammed into a safe house near Baquba, according to U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell. "Last night was the first time that we have had definitive, unquestionable information as to exactly where [al-Zarqawi] was located, knowing that we could strike that target without causing collateral damage to other Iraqi civilians...
The Los Angeles Times reported earlier today that the stepdaughter of a powerful Congressional committe chairman benefitted from a relationship with a company that had business before her stepfather's panel. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), chair of the ultrapowerful House Appropriations Committee, oversaw the granting of over $11 million in earmarks to Trident Systems, whose founder and president hired his stepdaughter to run his political action committee: A political fundraising committee headed by a defense contractor has paid thousands of dollars in fees to the stepdaughter of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) at a time when the contractor has been lobbying Congress for funding. Lewis' stepdaughter, Julia Willis-Leon, has been paid more than $42,000 by the Small Biz Tech Political Action Committee, according to campaign finance records. The PAC is led by Nicholas Karangelen, founder and president of Trident Systems Inc. Records show the company received at least $11.7...
It turns out that Western politicians do not have a monopoly on spin. The leftovers at al-Qaeda in Iraq put a message out on their website today congratulating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on his great victory today in allowing two bombs to fall on his head. No, I'm not kidding: As the U.S. military announced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death, al-Zarqawi’s lieutenants did the same, with a statement on his own Web site, with a highly positive spin. “We are bringing the good news of the martyrdom of our Sheikh,” reads the site. “What hit us is a blessing to our nation. ... It will encourage us to continue waging Jihad.” Jihadi bulletin boards and chat rooms were quickly overwhelmed. Al-Zarqawi’s photo was posted, adorned to glorify his death. One posting said: “Zarqawi’s blood will serve as fuel to burn the invaders and the apostates.” If that's how they feel about it...
Switzerland just got its first big public win in the war on terror, overshadowed on the day American forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda in Iraq targets and Israel took out #2 on their own hit parade. The Guardian (UK) reports that the Swiss foiled an airliner attack on El Al last December, and announced arrests in the case today: A terrorist cell plotted to shoot down an Israeli airliner over Switzerland but was foiled by intelligence services, Swiss prosecutors said yesterday. Seven people of north African origin are under arrest in connection with the alleged plot, said a statement from the federal prosecutor's office. Officials declined to give further details. Israeli media reported last month that terrorists had planned a rocket attack on a plane operated by the Israeli airline El Al last December during takeoff from Geneva. A series of arrests began last month around Zurich...
The First Mate is still recovering in the hospital, but we got some good news today. The MRI taken of her brain reveals no damage, so we know she did not have a stroke or a seizure. Her phosphorus and potassium levels were very low, unusual for a dialysis patient; she has had IV infusions for both and they have improved her stamina and color tremendously. Her anemia still causes problems with oxygenation, but another transfusion has improved that too, although she remains on oxygen now. She may improve enough to come straight home in the next day or two, although we're hearing conflicting stories on that. No one thinks she needs an intermediate-care facility with the improvement she's shown so far, which relieves both of us. In the meantime, she's relaxing (ha!) in the hospital, and this time she promises that she will not leave until the doctors agree....
June 9, 2006
Iran answered the West regarding the offer of a set of incentives, including more modern nuclear-power generation, for a cessation of uranium enrichment by the Iranian government. The IAEA reported late yesterday that Iran restarted its uranium enrichment on the day it received the offer despite public knowledge of the preconditions for talks: Iran restarted important nuclear activities on the same day this week that six world powers offered it incentives aimed at encouraging the complete suspension of the nuclear work, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Thursday. On Tuesday, Iran restarted the pouring of a raw form of uranium into a set of 164 centrifuge machines to produce enriched uranium, said the I.A.E.A., the nuclear monitoring agency based in Vienna. That same day, Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, was in Tehran, where he presented Iranian leaders with an international package of incentives to help resolve...
In an unusual plea for assistance from a group known for its fear of outsiders, Canadian Muslims reached out to mainstream Canada to help manage an impulse among younger Muslims towards fundamentalism and radical Islam, the Toronto Star reported last night. Part blameshift and part honest introspection, the request for a conference on better integration at least acknowledges that the problem exists: Muslim leaders pleaded for help Thursday in their struggle against extremists in their midst, saying they can't fight a small minority of radicals alone. "We're not here to say we don't have an issue," said social worker Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association. "Of course we have an issue," she told a news conference on Parliament Hill. "But we can't deal with it ourselves. We're part of the Canadian society and so we demand that the Canadian society come forward, help us root out this."...
E.J. Dionne takes a hard look at the failure of Proposition 82 and gives liberals a truth they need to hear -- that tax and spend policies will not succeed any longer, even in a state as liberal as California. He advises liberals to start considering reality when it comes to proposing large and expensive government programs, and to make sure that they have a convincing argument before spending a lot of money trying to convince people to buy: While the political world was obsessed with the Republican victory in a special election for a California congressional seat, the truly sobering news for liberals was in the statewide voting. Proposition 82, the ballot measure that would have guaranteed access to preschool for all of California's 4-year-olds, went down to resounding defeat, 61 to 39 percent. Not only that, voters also rejected a $600 million bond measure for the state's libraries....
One of my correspondents has started a blog to keep an eye on media reports regarding our men and women in the armed forces. Sharon's new blog, Spirit Builders, began five days ago and is intended to counteract the overly negative press coverage on all military affairs in the shadow of Haditha and its aftermath. Be sure to drop by and check on her observations regularly!...
The conference committee on the emergency appropriations bill has reached agreement on the measure which had an original spending gap of $16 billion. The resulting bill will reach the White House at $94.5 billion, $2.5 billion more than the House-approved plan but much lighter than the heavily-porked version the Senate tried mightily to get: House and Senate negotiators reached agreement last night on a $94.5 billion package to pay for Iraq war and hurricane recovery costs, after shaving numerous extraneous provisions that the Senate had wanted to stuff into the bill. The bill, which is expected to reach President Bush's desk next week, would designate $65.8 billion to the Pentagon to cover troop pay, provide recruiting incentives, buy new body armor and fund continued operations of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other items. Diplomacy projects in the region would receive $3.9 billion in new funding. The bill would...
The London Times reports this rather depressing news: KREMLIN hardliners pushing for President Putin to serve a third term have been given a significant boost by an opinion poll indicating that 59 per cent of the population would support such a move. Mr Putin, who took power in 2000, has promised to step down before the next presidential election, in 2008, because the Russian Constitution does not allow anyone to serve more than two consecutive four-year terms. However, none of the potential successors identified so far has the popular appeal of Mr Putin, whose sobriety and steely manner have consistently won him approval ratings of higher than 70 per cent. And the Kremlin controls more than the two-thirds majority in the Duma needed to amend the Constitution to allow Mr Putin, 53, to stand for a third term. The poll by the respected Levada Centre suggested that 59 per cent...
Almost five years into the war on terror, we still have yet to see Western governments take domestic threats seriously, and two editorials make excellent points in that regard today in response to the revelation of the Toronto terror cell this week. The Examiner talks about the "broad strata of delusion" in how security checks get conducted in the age of Islamist terror: Here’s something to think about while standing in line at the airport. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police official described the 17 recently arrested members of an alleged terrorist cell as representing “the broad strata of our community.” The more we learn about these individuals, their recent activities and their alleged plans, the more the RCMP’s description looks like evidence of a dangerously common delusion among many Westerners, especially those in positions of authority where the demands of political correctness too often make it impossible to speak honestly...
A good friend of CQ has spent decades in the Naval Reserve as a SEAL, volunteering regularly for active duty during conflicts. He has served in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf as a SEAL and spent some time as a contractor in Iraq. He was in Iraq when Islamist "insurgents" murdered four contractors and desecrated their corpses -- burning them, hanging them from a bridge, and then tearing them to pieces. Since then, Mike has occasionally shared his thoughts on Iraq and the war on terror with CQ readers. After the death of Zarqawi, Mike sent me this letter and allowed me to once again pass it along to you, after redacting some personal information. As I am in and out of town on active duty until mid-summer I am really enjoying magical weekends off with my awesome high energy boys. At the same time I, like many veteran friends...
So Abu Musab al-Zarqawi didn't die instantly from the bombing of his safe house in Baquba two days ago, as it turns out. He lived long enough to know who killed him: Major-General Bill Caldwell said that he had learnt early yesterday that al-Zarqawi had survived the initial airstrikes on his two-floor breeze-block hideout. “We did, in fact, see him alive,” General Caldwell said. “He mumbled something but it was indistinguishable and it was very short.” US medics tried to save the life of the most-wanted man in Iraq, but it was too late, General Caldwell added. “Zarqawi attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher,” he said. “Everybody resecured him back on to the stretcher but he died almost immediately from the wounds he’d received. “He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am...
Hamas has announced the end of a truce that never was, after a series of artillery exchanges between Palestinians in Gaza and the IDF resulted in seven civilian deaths on a Gaza beach, apparently from an errant Israeli volley. After the seven victims died on the beach, Hamas angrily announced their renunciation of the truce: Hamas militants called off a truce with Israel on Friday after a barrage of Israeli artillery shells tore into Palestinians at a beachside picnic in the Gaza Strip, killing seven civilians. The declaration raised the prospect of a new wave of bloodshed. Hamas militants suspended a campaign of deadly suicide attacks on Israelis with a February 2005 cease-fire, and have largely stuck to the truce. The Islamic group now leads the Palestinian government. "The earthquake in the Zionist towns will start again and the aggressors will have no choice but to prepare their coffins or...
New Zealand authorities found out that an eager young student pilot might have more on his mind that just cruising through South Pacific clouds. The country deported Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali, an undeservedly obscure cast member from the 9/11 plot who told the Kiwis that his dream was to fly a commercial airliner: A Saudi Arabian linked to one of the September 11 hijackers spent four months in New Zealand before being expelled as a national security risk. The United States-qualified pilot, Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali, was admitted to New Zealand in February on a student visa, saying his dream was to become a commercial airline pilot and that he needed an English language qualification to assist. Today the Weekend Herald reveals that on May 29 police and immigration officials raided Ali's Palmerston North home and deported him. ... The Government claimed last night that Ali had lived and trained...
June 10, 2006
Forbes Magazine reported on a potentially explosive story when it relayed accusations that campaign material for James Webb used anti-Semitic imagery to combat his opponent in the upcoming Virginian Democratic primary for the Senate, Harris Miller. According to Forbes, the drawing used stereotypical cartoon images about Jews to show Harris as a greedy manipulator, charges that came from the Harris Miller campaign itself: Senate candidate James H. Webb, President Reagan's former Navy secretary, was criticized by his Jewish opponent Friday over a campaign flier that depicted the opponent with a hooked nose and cash spilling from his pockets. The flier was intended for distribution among labor groups. It was titled "Miller the Job Killer," referring to Webb's opponent for the Democratic nomination in Tuesday's primary, businessman Harris Miller. The flier, drawn in comic-book cartoon style, depicts Miller with a grotesquely hooked nose and cash overflowing from his suit pockets as...
Rep. John Murtha inadvertently provided a rare moment of unity last fall when he demanded an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. House Republicans took him at his word and introduced a bill to that effect, and the measure only gained three votes -- none of them Murtha's, as it turned out. He later complained that the bill misrepresented his position and that he meant to give the Pentagon six months to leave, although even the most precipitous retreat would take nearly that long to organize and execute, given our deployment throughout Iraq. Now he apparently intends to provide that kind of unity again, among Republicans at least, by throwing his hat into the ring for a key Democratic leadership post -- that doesn't even exist yet: Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), one of the Democrats' leading antiwar voices, startled his political colleagues yesterday by announcing he would seek a senior leadership...
The Washington Post leads with an analysis of the impact from the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq this week, and the news sounds much better than some of the talking heads on television would lead viewers to believe. Zarqawi's death will not only degrade his own AQI network, but will have a tremendous impact on terror networks worldwide, according to analysts: The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi could mark a turning point for al-Qaeda and the global jihadist movement, according to terrorism analysts and intelligence officials. ... Some European and Arab intelligence officials said they had seen signs before Zarqawi's death that the number of foreign fighters going to Iraq was already waning. For recruitment efforts, the importance of Zarqawi's death "cannot be overestimated," Germany's foreign intelligence chief, Ernst Uhrlau, told the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Guido Steinberg, an expert on Islamic radicalism at the German Institute for...
The Los Angeles Times has a blockbuster report this morning on a judicial system in Nevada that has allowed corruption into the state's justice system, an embarrassment that has benefited organized crime, casinos, and the judges themselves. By allowing a classification for jurists as "senior judges" to escape rules of accountability, the predictable outcomes have occurred: One Nevada judge was nearly indicted on blackmail charges. Another ruled repeatedly for a casino corporation in which he held more than 10,000 shares. Still another overruled state authorities and decided in favor of a gambling boss who was notorious as a mob frontman, and whose casino did the judge a $2,800 favor. Yet the Nevada Supreme Court has conferred upon these judges a special distinction that exempts them from some of the common rules of judicial practice and reduces their accountability. They are among 17 state judges whom the high court has commissioned...
My sister flew in for a brief visit and the entire family spent the day at the hospital with the First Mate, which is why I couldn't make it to my normal Northern Alliance Radio Network spot today. The FM needed me to go over the lab results with the doctors, who had told her several seemingly contradictory prognoses. The complexity of her case has her wondering what it all means, and we had the opportunity to get a lot of the fog cleared today. She's doing much better, but the fever is still there and her hemoglobin dropped suddenly two days ago, necessitating another transfusion. Hematology wants to see what happens over the next couple of days whether she continues to have problems in this regard. The FM will probably stay in the hospital now until Monday evening at the earliest -- which displeased her, but is probably necessary....
My, the stories I miss when I'm away! It turns out that the US military didn't just kill a terrorist monster Thursday, but also a major party monster. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi apparently brought out the beast in his women, according to the clothing found in the rubble of his safe house in Baquba: The ruins of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s house are strewn with a random jumble of wreckage -- magazines, a leopard-print nightgown, a religious slogan and a few hints at the violent career of Iraq’s most wanted man. What is left of the “safe house” where the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq lived suggests that he and his companions lived there with few luxuries. Apparently, it didn't take much for Zarqawi to get relaxed. Besides the latest from Victoria's Secret for his women (well, we assume for his women), Zarqawi seemed a bit obsessed with the culture he hated...
The AP has caused quite a stir today by publishing an uncorroborated account by a supposed eyewitness to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The witness, identified as Mohammed, says that Americans beat and stomped Zarqawi until blood flowed from his nose and he died: The Iraqi, identified only as Mohammed, said he lives near the house where al-Zarqawi was killed. He said residents put a bearded man in an ambulance before U.S. forces arrived. "When the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach and wrapped his head with his dishdasha, then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," Mohammed said, without saying how he knew the man was dead. Interesting. Of course, Reuters reported earlier tonight that the house could not be seen from any of the local houses, screened...
June 11, 2006
Canadian imams spoke out for patience and trust in the Canadian justice system and told their congregants that they themselves failed their children. Other Muslims protested the Canadian efforts to round up suspected terrorists in their community: Imams across the GTA urged families and communities to take more responsibility for shaping the minds of young Muslims, following the arrest of 17 young men and boys on terrorism-related charges last Friday. In Mississauga, North York and Scarborough, they spoke to thousands gathered for Friday afternoon prayers, some addressing concerns about backlash, others urging the community to have faith in the Canadian justice system to provide a fair trial. "There is nothing wrong in saying we failed our youth," said Imam Munir El-Kassen at the Toronto and Region Islamic Congregation in North York. "We did not fail them intentionally, but our community was in a formative stage and our youth searching to...
Due to a back injury that has gotten progressively worse, I've taken the day off from blogging, with the exception of the one interesting story on the Canadian imams. I just got back from Urgent Care, and they've upgraded me from Vicodin to Percocet. I'm told by those who know that I will shortly discover an entire new world of sleep, so unless I'm as impervious to Percocet as I apparently am to Vicodin, I'll be unable to do much more. However, I don't want to leave you with no place to go, so .... Ed Driscoll podcasts an interview with Hugh Hewitt about his book, Painting The Map Red. Be sure to tune in; with Ed and Hugh on the podcast, it should be very entertaining. Blue Crab Boulevard has an e-mail from his son memorializing a lost comrade, killed by an IED in Iraq on Friday. I have...
June 12, 2006
I have heard from a number of people about my back problems, both in comments and e-mails over the last twenty-four hours. I cannot express my appreciation for all of your kind thoughts and prayers, and excellent advice as well. Some of you have shared some personal insights into painkillers and their long-term effects, and that level of concern has been very touching indeed. I will definitely keep all of that in mind while I work with my doctor to get a plan for recovery together in the next few days. Assuming I can remain alert, I will be blogging on and off, since I do not appear capable of doing much of anything else. Of course, I may also take some time to watch more of my Firefly episodes, or something equally important, so we shall see! Also, the First Mate will return home today. Fortunately, our son will...
Thomas Lipscomb continued to give John Kerry the rematch he demanded on the Swift Boat debate, this time by addressing one of Kerry's rebuttals about the first Purple Heart medal. Lipscomb revisits the skimmer mission that resulted in his eventually winning the medal after first having it denied by his commanding officer and later caused Kerry to call an admiral a liar: According to Kerry's accounts in both Michael Kranish's Boston Globe reporting, the Brinkley account of TOUR OF DUTY, and the Zernike Times piece, Kerry, an officer stationed at Coastal Division 14 at Cam Ranh Bay, still in training before being assigned a Swift boat, who had never been in combat before, "volunteered for a special mission on what the Navy called a skimmer but he knew as a Boston Whaler." Coastal Division 14 operations officer Bill Schachte, who says he was glad to have Kerry volunteer, agrees so...
Canadian politics have transformed since the revelations of Adscam showed the rot in the Liberal governance that had been in place for more than a decade. Once considered a mere shadow of a party, the Tories roared back from oblivion to cpature a minority government earlier this year, in what appeared to be a "test drive" for Canadians. Since their election, the Conservatives have built an impressive following, polling into the 40s nationally and poising themselves for a majority government in the next elections. The Liberals have found themselves in a free-fall, unable to find new leadership that can attract those offended by the corruption of Adscam and by the fear-based electoral tactics they used against the Tories and Stephen Harper. Until now, however, the Grits could count on Ontario as their power base. That seems to be changing as well, according to a new Ipsos poll: According to a...
Contrary to the AP's uncorroborated witness who claimed that American servicemen beat Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to death, an autopsy performed on his corpse reveals that the al-Qaeda leader died from injuries consistent with close encounters to two 500-lb bombs. This should put an end to a very strange episode where people accused soldiers of murdering a man by beating him instead of blowing him up: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi lived for 52 minutes after a U.S. warplane bombed his hideout northeast of Baghdad, and he died of extensive internal injuries consistent with those caused by a bomb blast, the U.S. military said Monday. Col. Steve Jones, command surgeon for Multinational Forces, said an autopsy concluded that the terrorist leader died from serious injuries to his lungs. An FBI test positively identified al-Zarqawi's remains. ... "Blast waves from the two bombs caused tearing, bruising of the lungs and bleeding," he said. "There...
Every once in a while, a politician provides a moment of utter clarity, usually inadvertently, which defines their character so well that further defense is pointless. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) not only did that for himself but for his entire party, and provided the Republicans with a valuable sound bite for the upcoming mid-terms in every district: If Democrats win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November, U.S. Rep. Jim Moran said he would use his position in the majority to help funnel more funds to his Northern Virginia district. Moran, D-8th, told those attending the Arlington County Democratic Committee's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on June 9 that while he in theory might oppose the fiscal irresponsibility of “earmarks” - funneling money to projects in a member of Congress's district - he understands the value they have to constituents. “When I become chairman [of a House appropriations...
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger broke his jaw and injured his knees in a motorcycle accident late this morning. According to reports, he has undergone surgery to repair the injuries and has shown no signs of brain damage: Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was badly hurt in a motorcycle crash Monday and undergoing surgery. The extent of his injuries was not known. Roethlisberger was in serious but stable condition, said Dr. Larry Jones, chief of trauma at Mercy Hospital. "He was talking to me before he left for the operating room," Jones said before the operation. "He's coherent. He's making sense. He knows what happened. He knows where he is. From that standpoint, he's very stable." The 24-year-old Roethlisberger likes to ride without a helmet, a habit that once prompted coach Bill Cowher to lecture him on the dangers. It was not known whether Roethlisberger was wearing a helmet when he...
The Israeli Defense Force believes that the explosion that killed seven members of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach did not come from Israeli guns. After analyzing the shrapnel taken from the bodies of the dead and reviewing the records of their assault on the Palestinian firing position, the IDF suspects that the explosion came from a buried device meant to discourage an Israeli invasion: The IDF probe investigating the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians, caused by an explosion on a beach in Gaza on Friday evening, concluded that chances were slim that the accident was caused by IDF shelling. According to Channel 2, the findings, expected to be formally released on Tuesday, showed an inconsistency between the shrapnel found in the body of one of the wounded babies and the metal used in IDF artillery. Moreover, the investigation noted the absence of a large enough crater at the...
June 13, 2006
Karl Rove will not face any charges stemming from the leak of Valerie Plame's identity or of any cover-up in its aftermath, the New York Times reports. The decision brings an end to the politically-charged waiting game that had some of George Bush's opponents salivating for Rove's head: The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case on Monday advised Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, that he would not be charged with any wrongdoing, effectively ending the nearly three-year criminal investigation that had at times focused intensely on Mr. Rove. The decision by the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, announced in a letter to Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, lifted a pall that had hung over Mr. Rove who testified on five occasions to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the disclosure of an intelligence officer's identity. In a statement, Mr. Luskin said, "On June 12, 2006, Special...
George Bush paid a surprise visit to Baghdad and the newly-formed constitutional government of Iraq. Keeping the news secret until he landed in Baghdad, he delighted the new Prime Minister, who greeted him enthusiastically: President Bush arrived in Baghdad this afternoon for a face-to-face meeting with new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- an effort, the White House said, to get a clear sense of the premier's priorities and how the U.S. government could help his government succeed. The White House originally had said Bush was scheduled to be at Camp David and to hold a video-conference with Maliki this morning. Instead, without telling the Iraqi government or all but his closest advisers, the president slipped out of Washington last night and made the 11-hour trip to Baghdad International Airport, landing at 4:08 p.m. Baghdad time (8:08 a.m. EDT). ... "Good to see you," Maliki said to the president, who...
I had an opportunity to speak with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist this morning and talk to him about immigration, spending, and the upcoming elections. Senator Frist and his staff graciously squeezed me into a tight window between television appearances. Q1: The immigration bills are now heading into conference. When will we know the composition of the committee? The composition of the committee will not be announced until the committee starts its work, Senator Frist told me. He plans on making sure the committee is large and diverse on this topic. The Senate side will split equally on supporters and opponents of the Senate version of immigration reform. The House has not yet made its selections, according to Frist, so he has no idea about its composition. Q2: For you, what are the essentials that the final bill must have for you to support? The bill has to have strong...
I just got the results back from my MRI, and it isn't good news. I've had a ruptured disk between L3 and L4 that has caused all the mischief, and I will be admitted to the hospital later today for treatment. I don't know what the treatment might be, but it's going to keep me for a while. I'm hoping to have internet access, but if I don't, CQ will be off line for a few days. I'll try to post an update when possible. Just do me a favor, and don't let anything really cool happen while I'm gone, mm-kay? Blessings to all of you who have written and prayed for my health and that of the First Mate. She's coming home today, but she's going to have the place to herself for a bit. UPDATE: I can cheerfully report that the hospital does indeed have a wireless network...
Regardless of whether a voter trends liberal or conservative, one expects their leaders to display a certain level of maturity in their public pronouncements. John Kerry's office has demonstrated their own level of maturity by calling Karl Rove fat in response to his criticism of their stamina in the Iraq War, and Raw Story has the specifics: The move comes one day after Rove called plans to exit Iraq proposed by Senator Kerry and Representative John Murtha (D-PA) "profoundly wrong" "cut and run" strategies. "They may be with you for the first few bullets," Rove said, "but they won't be there for the last tough battles." Both Kerry and Murtha are decorated service veterans. "The closest Karl Rove ever came to combat," said Kerry spokesman David Wade, "was these last months spent worrying his cellmates might rough him up in prison. This porcine political operative can't cut and run from...
A quick update on the hospital stay and some technical issues arising from it ... I have confirmed that the rupture is between L3 and L4 and that it is causing the pain that pretty much disabled me for the past few days. Tomorrow we will try an epidural cortisone injection to see whether that resolves the problem enough to avoid surgery. I should know within the next couple of days whether it will do the trick. Some of you had commented and e-mailed with that suggestion, and it looks like you were correct. I do have Internet access and can keep up with the news and blogging, and I can get e-mails, but for some reason I am unable to send e-mail. I do not know whether that is a problem with the hospital connection or with my hosting service, but I'm trying to get it resolved. If you're...
The Hill quotes another Congressman who believes he has a right to spend our money on whatever pork projects he can fund. At a time when serious questions arising from Appropriations chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) have cast doubt on the credibility and integrity of the House committee, another of its members, Rep. Ray La Hood (R-IL), declared that he has had enough of the taxpayers' "crap": Appropriations members have already vowed to fight any move to strip spending from the bill. “I’m not going to take their crap,” Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) said last week. The Illinois appropriator said he included several projects for his district and would fight to keep them all. “They think they’ve gotten a little steam building, and we’re going to have to shoot them down,” LaHood said. He ripped RSC members this year on the House floor for successfully stripping $507 million in construction projects...
Indonesian authorities have released the cleric who gave his blessing to the bombings in Bali that took over 200 lives in 2002, mostly Australian tourists. Scores of Islamists greeted him enthusiastically at the gates as their spiritual leader: Authorities released militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir from prison on Wednesday, and about 150 of his supporters jubilantly greeted him with shouts of "God is great!" The 68-year-old cleric, an alleged key leader of the al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, had served 26 months in prison for giving his blessing to the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, which killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists. Bashir's supporters gathered at Jakarta's Cipinang prison for his release, which came about 45 minutes earlier than expected. "God is great!" they shouted. Bashir has maintained his innocence of the charges, but an Indonesian court found him guilty of the crime. In a sentence that...
Almost three weeks ago, I posted about a new FBI focus on public corruption, adding more than 200 agents for their work in discovering and stopping bribery and malfeasance by public officials. At the time, the FBI stated that most of the new effort would go to investigating illegal campaign contributions rather than an increased effort to catch outright bribery and payoffs. Now the FBI wants to clearly show a broad effort in this fight -- and they're hoping to use some new Internet tools to help them succeed: Even with stories about public corruption probes flooding the morning papers, Internet and cable news airwaves, the FBI's new Web site for individuals to report malfeasance and just plain bad behavior hasn't made splashy headlines. But the site, reportcorruption.fbi.gov, is up and running and the G-Men are paying attention. ... Tipsters from any walk of life are welcome to report suspicious...
June 14, 2006
After making references to Harry Truman in recent speeches, George Bush received criticism from Democrats who complained that Bush falsely assumed Truman's mantle in foreign affairs. They claimed that Truman set the standard for multilateralism through his founding of the United Nations, bringing his predecessor's dream to fruition. Max Boot answers them in today's Los Angeles Times by reminding them that even Truman found the UN and an insistence on multilateralism to be a hindrance to American security: WHEN HE delivered the West Point commencement address last month, President Bush compared his efforts to stand up to terrorists to Harry Truman's efforts to stand up to communists during the early years of the Cold War. Liberal pundits were outraged. How dare this Republican cite a sainted Democrat as his inspiration? Commentators such as Peter Beinart, the former New Republic editor, suggested that Bush should instead learn from Truman about the...
The Washington Post editorial board recognizes the value in yesterday's surprise visit to Baghdad by George Bush. In its unsigned editorial today, the Post applauds the message that Bush delivered by his presence as well as his words -- and the Post has a few words for John Kerry as well: PRESIDENT BUSH delivered an important demonstration of American support for Iraq's new democratic government in his visit to Baghdad yesterday. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki represents the best and maybe last hope that a national government can stem sectarian bloodshed, defeat Islamic terrorist organizations and die-hard defenders of Saddam Hussein, and make economic recovery possible. He has formed a unity cabinet, appointed a well-qualified defense minister and spelled out the right agenda, including an imminent campaign to pacify Baghdad with tens of thousands of Iraq's newly trained troops. But Mr. Maliki desperately needs international help to turn the tide of...
A delegation from Afghanistan spent ten days at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay and pronounced conditions at the facility 'humane': The head of the delegation, Abdul Jabar Sabhet of the Interior Ministry, said the delegation was given the chance to speak freely with all 96 Afghan prisoners about their living conditions. Sabhet said there were "only one or two" complaints. "Conditions of the jail was humane. There were rumors in this country about that. It was wrong. What we have seen was OK," he said. Sabhet's assessment comes five days after the suicides of three detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Much has been made of the three suicides last week at Gitmo. While any suicides should be investigated, it is plain to see that the men involved took their own lives as a protest, a means of generating publicity for the overall cause. The US...
The Russian democracy has begun to resemble Russian communism in the way in which its government has become pre-eminent among thieves. The New York Times reports that government agencies and the police are less likely to protect Russians from crime than to participate in crime themselves. Motorola just experienced a multi-million dollar lesson in the Russian concept of free-market international trade: On March 29, agents of the Interior Ministry seized 167,500 mobile phones that Motorola had shipped into Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, dragging the company into the Kafkaesque world where Russian justice intersects with business. The phones were first declared counterfeits, then contraband, then a health hazard, and now they are evidence in a criminal investigation focused, again, on suspected smuggling. In April, the Interior Ministry made a show of destroying some of the phones — 49,991, officials said — after saying that one model violated safety standards, though suspicion...
On occasion, a candidate for election demonstrates such poor judgement that both Democrats and Republicans wind up endorsing the same person in the general election. This usually happens in local and state races for legislative or executive positions. In North Carolina, the voters face this unusual situation in the state Supreme Court race after one of the major-party candidates started violating Godwin's Law as if it were the 55-MPH speed limit: The leaders of the state's Democratic and Republican parties have asked voters not to cast ballots for state Supreme Court candidate Rachel Lea Hunter, whose fiery rhetoric in recent weeks has included comparing the actions of a black congressional candidate to that of a slave. "She's unstable and unqualified, and the thought of her serving on the highest court in North Carolina is scary," state Republican party chairman Ferrell Blount said Tuesday. Blount's comments came after Hunter, a former...
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shown a peculiar obsession with the Holocaust, claiming that it never occurred and that the establishment of Israel therefore has no legitimacy. This claim goes along with many other conspiratorial claims about Jews and their supposedly destructive history, a disturbing characteristic of a national leader seeking nuclear arms and believing in a messianic vision. One might hope that Ahmadinejad's advisors might hold a moderating influence on his anti-Semitic paranoia, but unfortunately they appear to feed his madness. MEMRI has just posted a translation of remarks made by Ahmadinejad's advisor Mohammad Ali Ramin, who both questions the Holocaust and insists that the question will only find an answer in Israel's destruction: On a visit to Gilan University, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s advisor Mohammad Ali Ramin said to a group of students in the town of Rasht, 'Ten years ago, when I brought up the issue of the...
The House Budget Committee has returned the line-item veto to the full House on a bipartisan vote, 24-9, delivering a potentially valuable tool in the fight over earmarks. The new bill would allow the President to return line items from bills for an up-or-down vote in Congress, forcing porkers to take responsibility for their spending habits and links to benefactors: Congress is moving to give President Bush and his successors greater power to try to weed bills of certain spending, though the new power would pale compared with the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998. The House Budget Committee on Wednesday approved by a 24-9 vote a bill to allow the president to single out wasteful items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. The idea is that wasteful "pork barrel" spending would...
Not too much to report on Day 2 of my personal hospiblogging quest. I received an epidural cortisone injection as a first tactic to resolved the ruptured disc, but both of my doctors don't hold out a lot of hope that it will bear much fruit. The anesthesiologist took a few moments before the procedure to show me a model of vertebrae with discs in various stages of injury. ("This is a normal disc ... and this [pulling out a model reminiscent of Igor] is your disc, Mr. Morrissey.") It went well enough, since they sedated me prior to the procedure. I woke up in time to get moved back into my own bed. So far, I haven't noticed much difference. I still cannot walk more than a couple of steps without serious assistance, and the pain even in rest has not improved much. This solution takes a couple of...
Iraqi forces set out to crack the country's toughest security problem in a mission launched today, and the early returns look promising. CNN reports that the security forces freed hostages and captured several terrorists as the violence dipped in the Iraqi capital: Iraqi troops Wednesday uncovered a kidnapping ring, seized weapons -- including three rockets -- and defused two roadside bombs after beginning a security clampdown on the often lawless streets of Baghdad. In the first day of the new government's push to restore order in the capital, Iraqi troops also enforced a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and issued a weapons ban for civilians. Four insurgents were detained at one checkpoint after three people emerged from a car "screaming for help," said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "We found eight people that had been kidnapped now for four days that we were...
Note: Be sure to read Dennis Hastert's response through his attorneys in the updates below, as well as more information on the transaction. The Sunlight Foundation reports that another apparently clear linkage between pork and a politician's pocket exists in the business dealings of Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). They report that Hastert has pushed through $207 million in earmarks for a business venture financed by a trust owned in part by Hastert himself: House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has used an Illinois trust to invest in real estate near the proposed route of the Prairie Parkway, a highway project for which he's secured $207 million in earmarked appropriations. The trust has already transferred 138 acres of land to a real estate development firm that has plans to build a 1,600-home community, located just a few miles from the north-south connector Hastert has championed in the House. Hastert's 2005 financial disclosure...
June 15, 2006
Minnesota has just completed a twelve-day roundup of sex offenders who have failed to keep their registrations up to date. They managed to resolve a little over half of these cases, most of whom just neglected to send their paperwork back on time: A 12-day sweep by law enforcement officers across Minnesota has rounded up hundreds of sex offenders who failed to keep current with the state's tougher registration requirements, officials said Wednesday. Of the 636 offenders targeted in the dragnet May 15 through 26, the first such statewide sweep, 219 were brought into compliance, 35 were arrested and 90 cases were forwarded to prosecutors for possible felony charges, said Tim O'Malley, assistant superintendent of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). Another 215 offenders had responded to reminder mailings sent out before the sweep. Assuming that the 90 cases referred for felony prosecution have skipped town (since those arrested...
In a ruling that affirms executive branch power in wartime, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the government has broad powers under immigration law to detain non-citizens indefinitely, and to do so on a wide variety of criteria. This ruling deals a strong blow to a class-action effort by Muslims rounded up after the 9/11 attacks, who claimed that the US violated their rights to due process: A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation. The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue...
If al-Qaeda in Iraq reads Western news sources, and their media-savvy but tactically insane recent communications suggest they do, they may soon decide that their operation has blown its cover completely. After an AQ associate dropped a dime on Zarqawi, they now have a much larger security breach than they knew: Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday a "huge treasure" of documents and computer records was seized after the raid on terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout, giving the Iraqi government the upper hand in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie also said he believed the security situation in the country would improve enough to allow a large number of U.S.-led forces to leave Iraq by the end of this year, and a majority to depart by the end of next year. "And maybe the last soldier will leave Iraq by mid-2008," he said. Al-Rubaie...
Once dominoes start to fall, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop their momentum. The terrorists who pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until he attained room temperature have discovered this, much to their dismay. CENTCOM spokesman General William Caldwell gives us the scorecard on the Zarqawi mission, and it looks like a rout: American and Iraqi forces have carried out 452 raids since last week's killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and 104 insurgents were killed during those actions, the U.S. military said Thursday. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said the raids were carried out nationwide and led to the discovery of 28 significant arms caches. He said 255 of the raids were joint operations, while 143 were carried out by Iraqi forces alone. The raids also resulted in the captures of 759 "anti-Iraqi elements." That result should impress even the deepest cynics. 452...
Iraqi officials released a document found in the run-up to the Zarqawi mission that discussed al-Qaeda in Iraq tactics and strategy, accompanied by a gloomy prognosis for the AQI network. In the memo, the author acknowledges that the momentum had shifted to the Americans and that AQI would quickly run out of time and recruits, and proposed starting another war with America as a distraction -- preferably with Iran: A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. ... While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses, "time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," the document said. The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program...
Less than a week after declaring an end to the "truce" with Israel -- a truce that allowed Palestinian terrorists to continue launching rockets at Israeli citizens -- Hamas has offered to resume the truce. This time, Hamas leaders will pledge to stop all other groups from launching separate attacks: The Hamas-led government offered Thursday to restore a cease-fire with Israel, several days after calling off the truce to protest a deadly explosion on a Gaza beach, but said the calm would depend on Israel's response. Hamas said it is ready to put pressure on other militant groups to halt rocket fire against Israel. The rocket attacks have drawn tough Israeli reprisals and raised the possibility of a broader conflict. "This is very clear for us. We are interested to keep the situation and quiet, especially in the Gaza Strip," said government spokesman Ghazi Hamad. "We have contacts with the...
Both houses of Congress spent today debating the Iraq War and the troop deployment, and the Senare voted on a bill presented by the GOP caucus that mirrored John Kerry's amendment to the defense authorization bill calling for a withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq by the end of the year. When the rhetorical dust had settled, the motion failed by a whopping 93-6 vote, embarrassing Democrats who have stepped up calls for exactly such a withdrawal: The Senate rejected a call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq by year's end on Thursday as Congress erupted in impassioned, election-year debate over a conflict that now has claimed the lives of 2,500 American troops. The vote was 93-6 to shelve the proposal, which would have allowed "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in 2007. ... The...
Mary Katharine Ham makes her debut as a member of the Examiner Blog Board in an excellent column regarding competition and accountability in the media. Mary Katharine might be the only one of us on the board who has worked in the mainstream media, and she brings her unique perspective to the issue of external checks and balances for newspapers and broadcast media outlets: I grew up in a cross-town newspaper battle — one of the few left in a news climate where chains had bought most major dailies and many markets had become monopolies. I learned early that two newspapers fighting for scoops and readers meant that readers got better news coverage than they would have gotten if they were served by one paper. I know because I watched both papers grow. We got the competition’s newspaper delivered to our house for opposition research. ... I decided to give...
Today was a day of clarity for the doctors and myself, as the cortisone injection failed to produce any good results. I woke up this morning feeling a little less pain, and I even managed to get a shower for the first time here. Let me tell you, I've used more luxurious bathrooms but I never had a shower that felt so good. In fact, I concentrated so hard on getting into the shower that I forgot I still had my glasses on until I knocked them onto the floor. That respite was short-lived, as it turns out. By the end of the morning, all of the pain had returned and it became apparent that cortisone therapy would not address the rupture. My two doctors and I decided that surgery would be the best course of action, and so we have it scheduled for tomorrow, either early in the morning...
Rep. William Jefferson, whose freezer held over $90,000 when the FBI searched it in connection with an ongoing bribery and corruption probe, has lost a vote by the House Democratic Caucus to retain his committee seat on the Ways and Means Committee. The lopsided vote affirmed Nancy Pelosi's influence as caucus leader, but may have caused a bitter racial split among her colleagues: House Democrats, determined to make an election-year point about ethics, voted to strip Rep. William Jefferson of his committee assignment Thursday night while a federal bribery investigation runs its course. Members of the rank and file approved the move after Jefferson refused for weeks to step aside on his own, and despite claims by some members of the Congressional Black Caucus that he was being treated unfairly. Officials said the vote was 99-58. The action must be ratified by the full House, and Jefferson left open the...
Facing a showdown with a delicate coalition on the UN Security Council demanding a cessation of its uranium-enrichment program, Iran has decided to do its best to split the East from the West before answering the offer it received this week. The Times of London reports that Iran has opened talks with Russia and China concerning the creation of a diplomatic and military bloc that would oppose the US and the West: MAHMOUD Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, held talks with Chinese and Russian leaders at a summit meeting yesterday to build up a security grouping in opposition to the US and Nato. Mr Ahmadinejad was invited to address a meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), a China-sponsored proto-alliance that aims to strengthen defence links across Central Asia. In an implicit reference to the US and its pressure on Iran to end its nuclear weapons programme, he said that the...
Newly freed Indonesian Islamist Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Bali bombers that killed 202 people, might appear to be the best authority on salvation in ... well, anywhere or any time. However, that did not keep Bashir from advising world leaders to convert to Islam or face eternal damnation: A reputed leader of an al-Qaida-linked terror group blamed for deadly bombings across Indonesia on Thursday accused President Bush and Australia's prime minister of waging wars against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir also called on Bush and Prime Minister John Howard to convert to Islam, saying it was "the only way to save their souls." I doubt that either Blair or Bush will take the oportunity to act in accordance with the wishes of a terrorist leader and murdering thug who exhorted his followers to commit mass murder in the name of said...
June 16, 2006
The Supreme Court ruled that evidence collected on a valid search warrant can be admitted in court, even if the officers did not knock on the door to announce themselves at the time of the search. The ruling narrows the exclusionary rule which normally would render invalid any evidence arising from a search with any defect, a limit that will have civil libertarians seeing red: Evidence found by police officers who enter a home to execute a search warrant without first following the requirement to "knock and announce" can be used at trial despite that constitutional violation, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. The 5-to-4 decision left uncertain the value of the "knock-and-announce" rule, which dates to 13th-century England as protection against illegal entry by the police into private homes. Justice Antonin Scalia, in the majority opinion, said that people subject to an improper police entry remained free to go...
Michael Barone pens a must-read editorial for the Wall Street Journal that reflects on the charged political environment of the past few decades. He remarks on how the media have changed its approach to political coverage and how the political landscape has adapted to it: It has been a tough 10 days for those who see current events through the prisms of Vietnam and Watergate. First, the Democrats failed to win a breakthrough victory in the California 50th District special election--a breakthrough that would have summoned up memories of Democrats winning Gerald Ford's old congressional district in a special election in 1974. Instead the Democratic nominee got 45% of the vote, just 1% more than John Kerry did in the district in 2004. Second, U.S. forces with a precision air strike killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on the same day that Iraqis finished forming a government. Zarqawi will not be available...
I'm out of surgery -- the doctors squeezed me in early in the schedule. So far as I can tell, it looks like it went well. It hurts, but it's a different kind of pain; it feels more like a typical lower-back muscle ache. The shooting pain down the right leg is gone, and I was able to stand for a few minutes in the last half-hour or so. The prevailing opinion is that I will be released sometime tomorrow or Sunday at the latest, depending on some secondary considerations. Anesthesia causes the bowels to go to sleep, so we have to make sure they return to normal function first. I'll know more by tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying that cleal-liquid diet that I've been looking forward to having all week. I'm very encouraged, and with any luck I'll be home very soon!...
One day after a near-unanimous vote against retreating from Iraq in the Senate, the House also rejected the cut-and-run strategy, although this time on a mostly party-line vote. Forty-two Democrats joined all but five Republicans in refusing to abandon the democratic Iraqi government before the Maliki government wants us to go: The House of Representatives voted, 256 to 153, today in favor of a resolution promising to "complete the mission" in Iraq, prevail in the global fight against terrorism and oppose any "arbitrary date for withdrawal" of American troops. The nonbinding but politically significant resolution was approved with just three Republicans voting against it and 42 Democrats voting for it. The measure also expresses gratitude for the valor and sacrifice of American and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and congratulates the new Iraqi government. This morning's vote, coming after an emotional and partisan debate, was a victory for President...
Rep. Cynthia McKinney will not face charges for her assault on a Capitol Hill police officer in an incident started by her refusal to stop and show identification at a security checkpoint. The Washington Post reports that the grand jury could not find probable cause for an indictment, according to the office of the US Attorney handling the case: A grand jury has declined to indict Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) in an incident at a House office building where she admitting hitting a police officer who tried to stop her from entering after she failed to show identification. The grand jury found "no probable cause" after an "extensive and thorough" investigation, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. "We respect the decision of the grand jury in this difficult matter," U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein said in the release. The grand jury's...
June 17, 2006
If the lopsided vote against a duplicate of John Kerry's amendment to the defense authorization bill signaling surrender in Iraq didn't tell him that he had joined Fringeland, then a scolding from Martin Peretz at The New Republic should correct any misunderstandings. Peretz not only dislikes Kerry's stand on the war, but he believes that Kerry is the wrong messenger for the message: John Kerry can be trumped by just about anybody. But today, the titular leader of the Democratic Party was trumped by Mitch McConnell, consummate cynic and the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate. Kerry had announced that he would soon offer a measure requiring the administration to withdraw almost all of the American troops now in Iraq by the end of the year. What was in the tactical side of his brain when he made this pronunciamento before he had figured out the details of his proposal?...
The Democrats have announced their latest version of the electoral agenda for the 2006 midterms, but they selected an unusual news day for its release. Politicians use Friday afternoon to release information that they hope will see little coverage, and in reviewing Agenda 2.0, one can understand why: Their plan, presented at a news conference, included promises to raise the minimum wage, make college tuition tax deductible, eliminate subsidies for oil and gas companies, negotiate lower drug prices for the prescription plan passed last year, increase stem cell research and restore a pay-as-you-go policy for federal budgets. They noted that Congress had not increased the minimum wage, now at $5.15, since 1997, a fact that Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, declared "immoral." Their proposal to raise it to $7.25, they said, would benefit seven million workers. They rejected the argument that such a raise would shrink...
The Toronto Star has the story this morning on the British capture of al-Qaeda's chief online resource, Irhabi007, and how badly the discovery has impacted the entire AQ operation. His arrest eight months ago allowed Western nations to make almost 40 arrests around the world, including important links to the 17 Canadians arrested in Toronto last month: On a cold night last October, police stormed a West London apartment and found Younis Tsouli at his computer, allegedly building a Web page with the title "You Bomb It." Initially, the raid seemed relatively routine, one of about 1,000 arrests made under Britain's terrorism act during the last five years. The more eye-popping evidence was allegedly found in the London-area homes of two accused co-conspirators: a DVD manual on making suicide bomb vests, a note with the heading "Welcome to Jihad," material on beheadings, a recipe for rocket fuel, and a note...
The Northern Alliance Radio Network goes on the air at 11 am CT. The opening half includes John from Power Line, and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. At 12:30, we will have Dr. Charles Kupchella of UND, discussing their lawsuit against the NCAA regarding their school's "Fighting Sioux" nickname and logo. The second half will feature Mitch from Shot In the Dark and King from SCSU Scholars from 1 to 3 pm CT. Unfortunately, I will not make it into the studio, but Mitch and King have a great week of news to review and may have a few surprises up their sleeves. Call in and join the fun at 651-289-4488, or send an e-mail to comments@northernallianceradio.com!...
David Broder's column in tomorrow's Washington Post reviews the conundrum of Joe Lieberman, a leader in a Democratic Party that has largely stopped following him. Lieberman knows why his party, especially the state party, appears poised to throw him under the bus, and he forcefully answers their complaints about the Iraq War: "I think we did the right thing in overthrowing Saddam, and I think we are safer as a result," he continued. "Second, while I have been very critical of the Bush foreign policy before the war and the Rumsfeld-Bush policies in Iraq after Saddam was overthrown, I also made a judgment I would not invoke partisan politics on this war." That was the point of a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Lieberman wrote last November endorsing the president's announced strategy to defeat the insurgency and establish a democratic government in Iraq. That article infuriated Lamont and launched his...
Princeton has invited former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to teach at the university starting this fall. Fischer, known to Americans as a bitter opponent of the Iraq War, will teach courses on crisis diplomacy: The Bush administration didn't much like what Joschka Fischer had to say during the Iraq war. So what will Washington say now that the former German foreign minister is trading his parliament seat for a professor's cap at Princeton? This fall, Fischer will teach the next generation of American elites about international crisis diplomacy at the university. Fischer will begin his new job as a guest professor at the Ivy League institution, SPIEGEL is exclusively reporting this weekend. He has also been given a contract to work as a scholar at the respected Council on Foreign Relations think tank. Fischer is currently a Green Party member of the German parliament, but he hasn't said when...
I left the hospital this afternoon and returned home to recuperate further. The Admiral Emeritus and his wife have come out for a week to take care of both the FM and me, and after that my sister will do a tour of duty here in Sick Bay. I am comfortably ensconced in the recliner on the lower level; my doctors and nurses advised me to avoid using a bed until I could comfortably rise from a full laying position. Well, that day is still a few more off, so downstairs in the recliner I will stay! It's good to be home -- and it's good to have family around. I'll be back later....
June 18, 2006
I want to wish all of my readers a happy Father's Day and hope that you have a chance to spend some time with your fathers or close family today. In a way, I'm fortunate to have had my surgery this week, as the Admiral Emeritus had just been out a week before my injury and hadn't planned on coming back out this way this soon. Now we'll be able to put four generations of Morrisseys under one roof on Father's Day for the first time ever -- even with the second generation firmly planted in a recliner, it will still be a special day. Even hard times have their blessings, and this is certainly one of them. I'm very grateful that I still can celebrate the day with my father -- I know that plenty of people don't have that luxury, especially those whose fathers have given their lives...
Time Magazine reported yesterday that an inside mid-level source in al-Qaeda informed the US that the terrorist network built a device that would have turned New York's subway tunnels into a gas chamber that could have killed hundreds in an attack. Inexplicably, AQ's #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri called off the attack in 2003, but American analysts proved the design of the weapon could easily have worked: It was time to call on Ali. His handler contacted him through an elaborate set of signals, and a meeting was set up. cia operatives mentioned to him the names of the captives in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and the existence of the mubtakkar designs. Ali said he might be able to help. He told his cia handlers that a Saudi radical had visited bin Laden's partner al-Zawahiri, in January 2003. The man ran the Arabian Peninsula for al-Qaeda, and one of his aliases was...
Kofi Annan warned the United States yesterday not to pull the plug on the United Nations by defunding Turtle Bay. Annan assured the US that the world body would reform itself despite the slow progress thus far: Secretary-General Kofi Annan predicted on Thursday the United Nations would avert a budget crisis threatened at the end of the month over the slow pace of U.N. reforms and implicitly warned the United States against trying to "pull the plug" on the world body. "The reform will proceed, and the cap on the budget will be lifted. There will be no crisis as far as I can see this month," Annan told a news conference. Rich nations, pushed by the United States, imposed a cap on the U.N. budget in December in hopes of increasing pressure on developing nations to approve long-delayed management reforms by June 30. ... Annan told reporters he saw...
The efforts of Democratic caucuses in both houses of Congress to set a mid-term election agenda have had a definite effect on their standings with the electorate -- they've eroded them significantly. According to CNN, Democrats have lost seven points and the majority in support for a generic party preference, while Republicans have remained steady: When registered voters polled were asked if they were more or less likely to vote for a candidate Bush supported, 47 percent said they were less likely, while only 27 percent said they were more likely. Twenty percent said it made no difference. The sampling error for the question was plus or minus 4 percentage points. However, the poll showed that Democrats have so far not been able to capitalize on Bush's political difficulties. When voters were asked which party would be their choice for Congress in November, 45 percent said Democrat and 38 percent...
This apple apparently fell far from the tree. Hossein Khomeini, the grandson of the Ayatollah Khomeini that overthrew the Shah and established the first Islamic Republic in Southwest Asia, wants the US to invade Iran in order to establish a representative democracy to replace the mullahcracy his grandfather established: The grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the inspiration of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has broken a three-year silence to back the United States military to overthrow the country's clerical regime. Hossein Khomeini's call is all the more startling as he made it from Qom, the spiritual home of Iran's Shia strand of Islam, during an interview to mark the 17th anniversary of the ayatollah's death. "My grandfather's revolution has devoured its children and has strayed from its course," he told Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language television station. "I lived through the revolution and it called for freedom and democracy - but it has persecuted...
I have received many e-mails and comments on my back injury and recuperation from CQ readers, giving me their personal stories and advice based on their own experiences, and I have found all of it tremendously helpful. I have been grateful for all of the correspondence, but I would like to acknowledge one correspondent whose personal story and outreach to me touched me very deeply, especially considering his experiences with his own difficulties. I wrote last week about the excruciating pain that the disc rupture caused and the painkillers that doctors prescribed to ease the situation. Some of you wrote to caution me about Vicodin and Percocet and their addictive qualities. One person in particular wrote to me about his own addiction, and in particular gave me solid advice on physiological conditions that would indicate an addictive response from my body. Given the very public nature of his addiction, his...
Reports from the West Bank have Hamas considering a compromise with Fatah on the proposed plebscite on their plan to recognize Israel and work towards the two-state solution. Hamas may agree to an implicit recognition in order to rescue themselves from a back-breaking sanctions regime forced on the Palestinians due to their defiance, but it may not be enough: The ruling Hamas and rival Fatah factions were moving closer to an agreement on implicitly recognizing Israel, negotiators said Sunday in a sign that international pressure on the new Palestinian government could be yielding results. ... One official, who was serving as a mediator, said Hamas is desperate to reach an agreement with Fatah as a way of lifting the international aid boycott that has bankrupted the Hamas-led government and left public workers unpaid since March. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were still in progress. A...
Earlier this evening I posted an update on the tensions between Fatah and Hamas regarding the efforts by Mahmoud Abbas to use a plebescite to bypass Hamas and work towards a two-state solution. At least, that has been the reporting from the mainstream media. However, CQ reader Dan and Charles at LGF point towards the actual document -- and we find no evidence that the so-called National Conciliation Document envisages any such solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The proposal has some problems in its presentation at the Jerusalem Media & Communication Centre. Either the translation is sketchy or the original language has a number of grammatical errors. The writing uses long run-on sentences that seem to double back on themselves. However, it clearly never states any intention of recognizing Israel, nor of accepting 1967 borders for a Palestinian state. Let's take a look at the key paragraphs of the proposal:...
June 19, 2006
The problem in the debate over the war in Iraq has suddenly clarified itself thanks to two people on the Left who demonstrate that their side has no idea what a successful military decision looks like. Between John Murtha and Frank Rich, both of whom argue that Iraq is a disaster, Somalia is either a brilliant tactical decision or a stunning loss for America -- and this within hours of each other. On yesterday's Meet The Press, where Murtha followed the John Kerry strategy of criticizing Karl Rove's weight rather than his positions (I guess this kind of ad hominem insult attracts voters on the Left), Murtha has this to say about Somalia: REP. MURTHA: He’s, he’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air conditioned office with his big, fat backside, saying, “Stay the course.” That’s not a plan. I mean, this guy—I don’t...
The New York Times reports that Viet Nam has received plenty of attention lately, and not just as an analogy to our current war in Iraq. American investors, prompted by the US government, have renewed interest in an increasingly capitalistic Viet Nam. In fact, DC wants to use its economic leverage to beat the Chinese in Viet Nam's market, a strange but interesting twist by the players of a much different conflict four decades ago: With the fastest growth in East Asia after China and a capitalist game plan that is attracting global investment, Communist Vietnam is emerging as a regional economic power as it moves steadily from rice fields to factories. And with the wounds of war all but healed, Washington is paying attention. Trade talks between House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and his Vietnamese counterpart turned into a lovefest here recently, choreographed by the hosts...
The trial of Saddam Hussein has concluded its evidentiary phase and now has proceeded to final arguments. To no one's great surprise, the prosecutors demanded the death penalty for Saddam and his co-defendants, while the defendants tried to disrupt the proceedings yet again: The prosecutor asked for the death penalty for Saddam Hussein and two of his co-defendants, saying in closing arguments Monday that the former Iraqi leader and his regime committed crimes against humanity in a "revenge" attack on Shiite civilians in the 1980s. The arguments brought the eight-month-old trial into its final phase. After Monday's session, the court adjourned until July 10, when the defense will begin making its final summation. Saddam, dressed in a black suit, sat silently, sometimes taking notes, as chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi delivered his arguments, listing the evidence against each of the eight defendants. Concluding his remarks, al-Moussawi asked for the death penalty...
Sabine Herold, acclaimed by French libertarians as a harbinger of the policies that would rescue France from itself, has announced her intent to run for the National Assembly. Herold will run for office in an upscale Paris district where a center-Right member of Jacques Chirac's coalition currently serves -- a message that Herold might eye a higher office soon: Sabine Hérold, who sprang to fame when she led a protest movement against French workers' readiness to go on strike, now hopes to exploit growing disillusionment with her country's political elite by winning a seat in parliament. Miss Hérold, 25, who regards her French media nickname - Mlle Thatcher - as a compliment, also refuses to rule out standing as a candidate to replace Jacques Chirac as president next year. Miss Hérold, a prominent figure in the new Liberal Alternative Party, told The Daily Telegraph last night that her aim was...
This seems almost unfair: In a twist in corporate synergy, chocolate-maker Nestle AG said Monday it will fatten up its weight-loss business by buying Jenny Craig Inc. for $600 million. The acquisition follows Nestle's purchase for around $670 million last month of Uncle Tobys, an Australian maker of nutritional cereals and snacks, and is part of the company's "continuing commitment to nutrition, health and wellness," the Swiss company said in a statement. While best known for its namesake chocolates, Nestle is the world's largest food and drinks company, making baby formulas, nutrition foods such as PowerBar, drinks to aid weight loss and the Lean Cuisine line. The company's purchase of Jenny Craig follows the lead of consumer products company Unilever, which bought both Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Slim Fast in 2000. So Nestle will sell you enough of their original product line until you need Jenny Craig --...
Mike Nifong's pursuit of the Duke rape charges regardless of the evident collapse of the case has generated at least one reaction -- he now will face a Republican challenger in the general election. La Shawn Barber has followed the case closely and has more on this development. Jeralynn at TalkLeft has also covered this story with precision and excellence. Be sure to visit both sites to catch up on the story. UPDATE: I had Nifong's first name incorrectly as Matt instead of Mike. Thanks to CQ reader and Duke student Mike J for the correction....
Today's Washington Examiner editorial decries the pressures of political correctness and underscores how it undermines the very concept of free speech as well as freedom of religion. It takes a debate in DC over how homosexuality is perceived through secular and religious viewpoints and notes that the consequences of speech seem a bit one-sided: Robert Smith, Roman Catholic and now-former Metro board member, believes homosexuality is a form of “deviancy.” Jim Graham, District of Columbia Council member, believes Smith’s beliefs are “ancient and archaic.” Graham’s views cost him nothing. Smith’s cost him his job. Graham and Smith’s now-former boss, Maryland Gov. Bob Erhlich, should have said something like this: “I repudiate Smith’s views and find them disgusting, but it’s a free country and he can say whatever he thinks about any issue.” In a culture increasingly dominated by political correctness, however, such remarks would be derided. So we have a...
North Korea's impending missile test has captured the attention of the United States and Japan, with both countries threatening new sanctions in response to any missile launch: North Korea has finished loading fuel into a long-range ballistic missile, a Bush administration official said Monday as signs continued that the reclusive communist state will soon test a weapon that could reach the United States. U.S. intelligence indicates that the long-range missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2, is assembled and fully fueled, said the official, who requested anonymity because the information comes from sensitive intelligence methods. That reportedly gives the North a launch window of about a month. ... The United States, Japan, Australia and News Zealand all cautioned the impoverished country that a test would bring serious consequences and further isolate the regime. The White House has warned of an appropriate response and Japan has threatened a "fierce" protest to the...
I admit that I have not kept up with this story well enough, but the conflict between independent journalist and photographer Michael Yon and Hachette Filipacchi Media over their use of his poignant photograph without permission prior to publication has escalated. HFM CEO Jack Kliger has sent a letter to retailers that have come under pressure to pull all HFM publications from their shelves, especially Shock, where HFM used Yon's photograph without permission, according to Yon. Kliger essentially has told retailers to stand fast, as the entire controversy is a tempest in a blogpot: Even though we had purchased the rights to use the photograph through a reputable photo agency, we recognize that misunderstandings do occur. We acted quickly to address Mr. Yon's concerns, attempted to settle the matter, and when he agreed to a settlement, Mr. Yon himself stated on June 5th via his on-line magazine that he was...
In honor (or denial) of my temporarily disabled state, I offer the following roundup of political and cultural liabilities around the blogosphere. I don't think this will exactly be a trend, but it's good for a laugh for now: In an apparent attempt to wrest the title of World's Worst Television Variety Presentation from Lifetime Achievement Award winner Chevy Chase, Connie Chung sings goodbye to her MS-NBC audience, her credibility, and any respect she still might have in broadcasting. The Moderate Voice has the YouTube video and the sound. Trust me, the latter is worse than the former, but that ain't saying much ... Ankle-Biting Pundits picks up on the Democrats' plan to combat the "culture of corruption" in Congress by making impeached former judge Alcee Hastings their chair of the House Intelligence Committee. That's somewhat akin to improving Connie Chung's singing by having her accompanied by PDQ Bach. I...
In a departure from the lenient sentencing originally given to Paul Coffin for his crimes in the Sponsorship Programme corruption ring, Chuck Guité received significant jail time for his five convictions. The Montreal court has given the former Liberal bureaucrat forty-two months in prison, the harshest sentence thus far: Former bureaucrat Chuck Guité was sentenced Monday to 42 months in prison after being found guilty of all counts of fraud in the wake of the federal sponsorship scandal. The Crown had sought a sentence of between three to four years. Prosecutor Jacques Dagenais told a Montreal court that Mr. Guité's power and position of trust meant he deserved the harshest sentence to date of the three players convicted in the federal scandal. Mr. Guité was found guilty earlier this month of five counts of fraud. Mr. Guité oversaw the program set up by then prime minister Jean Chrétien after the...
The Los Angeles Times reported earlier that the DoD investigation into the circumstances of the civilian deaths in Haditha show no attempt at a cover-up. Instead, the report appears to point towards poor investigative technique on the part of Marine officers allowed faulty information to flow back to CENTCOM: The general charged with investigating whether Marines tried to cover up the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha has completed his report, finding that Marine officers failed to ask the right questions, an official close to the investigation said Friday. Nothing in the report points to a "knowing cover-up" of the facts by the officers supervising the Marines involved in the November incident, the official said. Rather, he said, officers from the company level through the staff of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in Baghdad failed to demand "a thorough explanation" of what happened in Haditha. In an official announcement about...
The Jerusalem Post reviews a book by Joshua E. London on the first war that pitted Americans against jihadist Muslims titled Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation. The history of that conflict, and how America prevailed over an enemy comprised of suicidal zealots, would appear informative in today's conflict: A fledgling republic without a navy, the United States seemed ripe for the picking. In 1783, Muslim pirates - the sea-faring terrorists of their day - began attacking American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean, and the following year, the Moroccans captured a brig called Betsey and enslaved its crew. Soon afterwards, the ruler of Algiers declared war on the US, a declaration backed up by marauding corsairs. The situation worsened with each coming year, but for the life of them, the Americans could not figure out what they did...
In an early poll determining the strengths and weaknesses of the various potential candidates for the 2008 presidential race, both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry face a skeptical electorate. Both candidates have at least 47% of the voters opposing them already, the second-highest of any would-be Democratic contenders. Another previous nominee takes first prize, while a presidential brother takes the top spot for the GOP: With the presidential election more than two years away, a CNN poll released Monday suggests that nearly half of Americans would "definitely vote against" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Respondents were asked whether they would "definitely vote for," "consider voting for," or "definitely vote against" three Democrats and three Republicans who might run for president in 2008. Regarding potential Democratic candidates, 47 percent of respondents said they would "definitely vote against" both Clinton, the junior senator from New York who is running for re-election this year,...
June 20, 2006
Today the Senate will start debate on a non-binding resolution that will demand an end to the American presence in Iraq except for those troops engaged in training Iraqi security forces. This new proposal contains much of the same language as the amendment offered by John Kerry to the defense authorization bill that got soundly thumped last week 93-6 when offered by the GOP separately for debate, but as the newly appointed Iraqi National Security Advisor writes today in the Washington Post, the effort is completely unnecessary. First, let's take a look at the latest Democratic effort to shut down the American effort in Iraq, a silly and nonspecific proposal that inspired Senator Mitch McConnell to call it a "cut and jog": Trying to bridge party divisions on the eve of a Senate debate, leading Democrats called Monday for American troops to begin pulling out of Iraq this year. They...
The Iraqi government has found the bodies of two American soldiers reportedly captured by terrorists in Iraq last week, and the bodies show signs of torture according to the preliminary reports: The bodies of two U.S. soldiers who had been reported kidnapped have been found near the checkpoint where the men disappeared after an attack, a senior Iraqi military official said Tuesday. The U.S. military said two bodies had been found but had not yet been identified. Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., went missing Friday near the town of Youssifiyah, south of Baghdad. Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the attack. ... Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer who said he witnessed the attack Friday, said three Humvees were manning a checkpoint when they came under fire from many directions. Two Humvees went after the assailants,...