Month: August 2005

According to cruise industry news site Cruise-Community.com, Jason Epstein, husband of Judith Miller, the “New York Times” reporter jailed for not revealing confidential sources, just got back from a solo Med cruise. Epstein, former editorial director at Random House and a founder of “New York Review of Books,” sailed on ultraluxury line Silversea with a handful of other luminaries.

Also on board were Julia Reed, political author and columnist, now covering politics for Vogue, and novelist Shirley Lord, a Vogue contributing editor. Lord traveled with husband Abe Rosenthal, who was long-time executive editor and op-ed columnist at “The New York Times.”

Guest lecturer for the sailing was Robert Sam Anson, the celebrated Vietnam War correspondent and author, who is working on a book about U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Anson gave a talk about a possible presidential run by Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2008.

The Transportation Safety Administration — you know, the goons at the airport — are tired of catching congressional crap for making little old ladies and U.S. soldiers take off their shoes at airport security gates. So they’ve come up with a brilliant idea: offer companies an opportunity to develop and submit a weapon-detection system that can find bombs, guns and/or knives in a pair of Air Jordans without forcing the potential perp to show us the heel holes in his tube socks.

We air travelers all have to subject ourselves to the humiliating shoe-removal process thanks to asshat Richard Reid who, in 2001, tried to blow up his feet and the airplane he was on with some matches, plastic explosive and Dr. Scholl’s foot powder.

A notice on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site describes the program in characteristically ungrammatical TSA language (or T-bonics, as I like to call it):

[TSA] invites voluntary participation to a qualification test program leading to a list of qualified sources for shoe weapon inspection [technology] that can inspect footwear for weapons without passengers having to remove or divest them from their feet.

In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security clarified its shoe-screening policy. Screeners supposedly are instructed to encourage travelers to remove their shoes before entering the metal detectors, but passengers are not required to do so. So even if they tell you to, you really don’t have to — unless you want the special cavity-check security procedure.

Having experienced the delay created by General Electric’s phone-booth-sized device that hits you with a puff of air and then tests whatever blows off for explosive residue, I can’t wait to see what the goobers at TSA come up with in the footwear weapon detection technology department.

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts has been accused of suffering a mental breakdown by a second conservative group that is withdrawing its support for the man widely praised for his wingnut values only weeks ago. The group, Committee for Traditional American Values, has withdrawn its support of Roberts because of his pro bono work that helped defeat a Colorado referendum against gays.

This follows on the heels of a similar announcement yesterday, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, that Public Advocate of the United States was the first right-wing group to withdraw support for Roberts.

Eugene Delgaudio, the president of [Public Advocate of the United States], said in an interview that he hopes his stance will prod others.

“I know that others feel the same way. I know they believe as I do. They’re just not going to act,” the 50-year-old Northern Virginia man said. “But once I’ve done it, then they can’t claim that no one’s opposing Roberts.”

“We can’t take our limited resources and put it toward a candidate who is not a strict constructionist when we were told he is,” Delgaudio said.

The Committee for Traditional Values joined Delgaudio’s movement to start a groundswell of nonsupport for Roberts, who has been endorsed by a number of conservative organizations and condemned by as many liberal ones.
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This sounds interesting.

Seattle Post Intelligencer:

In an extraordinary move, the Army sacked a four-star general who was the subject of a Defense Department investigation into alleged sexual misconduct, officials said Tuesday.

Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command, was approaching retirement when the decision to relieve him of duty was made by the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker.

The Army announced no specific allegation against Byrnes, but a senior official said it involved unspecified sexual misconduct. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the allegation.

Disciplinary action against officers is not rare, but it is extremely unusual in the case of a four-star Army general…

Byrnes, 55, a Vietnam veteran who entered the Army in 1969 as a second lieutenant, ranked third in seniority among the Army’s 11 four-star generals.

And from ArmyTimes.com:

In April the Pentagon announced that Lt. Gen. William Wallace had been nominated for a four star and assignment as commander of Training and Doctrine Command, to succeed Byrnes, but he has not yet been confirmed by the Senate. There was no public indication at the time that Byrnes was under investigation.

Funny how so many toadies from the 2000 Presidential election are coming out of the woodwork again. First there was John Roberts, who gave so “freely” of his time to strategize a Supreme Court case in favor of Bush. He was recently paid back in full, with a nomination for a lifetime appointment on that very panel.

Now there’s Katherine Harris’ faithful lackey, Adam Goodman. The St. Petersburg Times paints a portrait of Goodman, who will help Harris run against Sen. Bill Nelson, today:

Amid the public snubs from top Republicans and the grim poll numbers showing Nelson drubbing Harris are the whispers from fellow Republicans that Goodman is just out for a buck. Word is that his firm, the Victory Group, stands to make more than $1 million on the race.

“Ka-ching,” said Rick Wilson, a political consultant who used to work with him. “It would be hard to ignore the temptation of that much money, even if you cared about the odds.”

Goodman…hinted that his deal with Harris called for him to get a bonus if she wins.

Back in early 2001, according to democrats.com, Goodman and Harris were trying to figure out how to bill Florida for something surely all states would have wanted to pay for – helping get George Bush installed as president. But the two had a little trouble arriving at the right price.

Secretary of State Katherine Harris tried to have the state pay $12,000 to a Republican operative who she has maintained was a volunteer working out of her Capitol office during last year’s presidential recount…

She was responding to an April 3 note from Goodman suggesting that she pay him $20,000 from an as yet nonexistent campaign account for his work…

[I]n her April 9 reply to Goodman, she wrote: “As we discussed in DC — You said $12,000. I am not trying to be weird about this because I want to pay you what you deserve, but they have been working on this since I returned. Now you say $20,000. I am confused — they will be, too. This is a delicate matter.”

It is unclear in the correspondence who the “they” were that Harris referred to.

Probably the same press corps who doctored her photos with all that extra make-up. Goodman never did get paid that time, but it sounds like he learned his lesson and plans to make up for it now. We might have gotten a further preview in 2000 of the lengths to which he is prepared to go.

[Harris] returned to the headlines last month thanks to The [N.Y.] Times article, which reported that Harris’ lawyers said the computers Goodman and Stipanovich used had essentially been wiped clean — a possible violation of Florida’s public records law. Harris’ office later recanted that story and, after initial resistance, allowed a media consortium including The Post to hire a nationally known data recovery company to examine the computers.

That review found hundreds of documents that had been deleted, including a political speech written by a Harris press aide in early 2000 endorsing George W. Bush for president as well as draft memos of a public statement that showed her position shifting over a span of hours from one that favored Gore to one that helped Bush.

Whatever works, I guess. Look out, Bill Nelson.

The Columbia Journalism Review has an article about how Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has quietly hired a conservative activist as an advisor. Penny Nance is a well-known anti-porn, pro-Jesus “former” lobbyist and president of the Kids First Coalition.

According to CJR, she’s got some scary wingnut creds:

Nance is a long-time anti-pornography activist and has worked as a lobbyist for groups that “push for Christian precepts in public policy.”

Until recently a board member of Concerned Women for America, which describes its mission, in part, as “helping … to bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy,” Nance also worked as a lobbyist for a group called the Center for Reclaiming America. On its Web site, the Center claims that it “focuses on five key fronts of the modern-day culture war: (1) Religious Liberties, (2) the Sanctity of Life, (3) the Homosexual Agenda, (4) Pornography, and (5) Promoting Creationism.”

The site also says that its aim is to “defend and implement the Biblical principles on which our country was founded.”

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