Year: 2007

Times of London: U.S. Military Leaders Threaten to Resign if Bush Attacks Iran

Jon Ponder

Finally, a glimmer of hope for our country:

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

Unfortunately, these military officers are now marked men.

Preacher Arrested for Gay Sex Invitation Claims No Law Was Broken

Jon Ponder

Early last year, Rev. Lonnie Latham, a Baptist preacher who railed against the evils of homosexuality, was arrested for inviting a male undercover cop in a seedy part of Oklahoma City up to his motel room for oral sex. Latham’s trial is underway now, and his lawyer’s opening gambit is interesting in light of the fact that many of Latham’s co-religionists would make homosexuality illegal if they could:

Latham’s attorney, Mack Martin, filed a motion to have the misdemeanor lewdness charge thrown out, saying the Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.

“Now, my client’s being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that’s legal,” Martin said.

Both sides agree that there was no offer of money, but prosecutor Scott Rowland said there is a “legitimate governmental interest” in regulating offers of acts of lewdness.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has filed a brief alleging that Latham’s arrest also violated his right to free speech.

Before his arrest on January 3, 2006, Rev. Latham was a member of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and preached against civil marriage rights for gays and supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their “sinful, destructive lifestyle.”

But Rev. Latham is not on trial for hypocrisy, unfortunately, or for sleazy and stupid behavior. He’s on trial for offering legal sex to a stranger, who happened to be a cop.

If he’d made the same offer on the Internet or in a bar, rather than on a street corner, he would have gotten what he wanted without having to give up his pulpit — or his hypocrisy.

Poll: Most Americans Drastically Undercount Iraqi Civilian War Deaths

Jon Ponder

Propaganda works:

The number of Iraqis killed, however, is much harder to pin down, and that uncertainty is perhaps reflected in Americans’ tendency to lowball the Iraqi death toll by tens of thousands.

Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.

Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower…

Whatever their understanding of the respective death tolls, three-quarters of those polled said the numbers of both Americans and Iraqis who have been killed are “unacceptable.” Two-thirds said they tend to feel upset when a soldier dies, while the rest say such deaths are unfortunate but part of what war is about.

Last October, a team of U.S. and Iraqi epidemiologists using a standard sampling method estimated that the number of Iraqi civilians who have died was 655,000.

Cheney Digs His Hole Deeper; Carter Hands Him Shovel

Trish

If he said it once, he’ll say it again. And he did. Dick Cheney wants us to know he really meant it when he said Nancy Pelosi and the members of the House who voted to dial down on Iraq are on the side of al Qaeda.

Carter says Dick is no better at assessing foreign affairs than he is at recognizing quail

“My statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, is that we will validate the strategy of al Qaeda,” Cheney said. “I said it, and I meant it.”

By “the Pelosi policy,” Dirty D must mean anything that involves transitioning from military to political solutions in Iraq. Or Iran, for that matter.

But former president Jimmy Carter says Dick hasn’t been right yet. In an interview to be aired on ABC’s This Week, Carter says Dick is no better at assessing foreign affairs than he is at recognizing quail.

“If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn’t been right on hardly anything, in his prediction of what was going to happen; reasons for us going over there; the status of the situation to have a good result. So he’s been almost completely wrong on just about everything he’s said.

“And obviously, this is not playing into the hands of Al Qaida or the people who are causing violence and destruction over there, to call for a change in policy in Iraq.”

South Florida Under Influence of Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet

Buck Banks

I don’t often read Dave Barry because I grew tired of booger jokes back in fifth grade, but sometimes the guy is worth reading. Today’s commentary is a case in point where Barry attributes all the weird stuff that gravitates to South Florida (O.J. Simpson, Elian Gonzalez, hanging chads, Virgin Mary cheese sandwich, Anna Nicole Smith, etc.) to a giant underground weirdness magnet that we must find and dig up to rid us of this constant flow of life’s rich pageant.

We need to find it, dig it up, and get rid of it.

I’m talking about the South Florida Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet. It’s buried around here somewhere. It has to be. How else can you explain why so many major freak-show news stories either happen, or end up, in South Florida?

O.J. Simpson, for example. Why is he here? Did anybody in South Florida ever say, ”Hey O.J.! Why don’t you pack up your golf clubs, your one glove and your remaining cutlery, and come be part of our community!”? Of course not! Nobody WANTED him here. He was DRAWN here, by the Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet.

Read the rest here.

Poll: Conservatives Play Blame Game on Viguerie’s Site and You Can Play Too

Buck Banks

Texas pick ’em: Our favorite strident-voiced REAL conservative Richard Viguerie has a poll running on his site that is kind of fun in a perverse way. He lists 31 people or reasons why the Republican Party got beaten worse than Keith Moon’s snare drum in last fall’s elections and invites us to choose 10 of them.

Of course, you have to provide a name and party affiliation “to prevent fraud,” and you can’t vote for more than 10 (I tried), but it’s still interesting to be forced to make some hard choices when all you really feel like doing is pushing every button. Viguerie gives the results of how those identifying themselves as Republicans voted and how the total vote count came out with Dems, independents and others included.

According to Viguerie, the number-one reason for blame chosen by 76 percent of the Repugs was “Conservative leaders who kept silent when the GOP became the party of Big Government,” which coincidentally is one of Richard’s obsessions. Second was “Illegal corruption, such as Mark Foley, Robert Ney, and Jack Abramoff” at 64 percent, followed by George W. Bush at 57 percent.

Those percentages and rankings were about the same when all results were lumped together, but that makes sense, since Republicans constituted 75 percent of the poll pool, which is a testament to all the liberals who don’t go to Viguerie’s site: 76 percent for silent conservative leaders, 64 percent for illegal corruption and 63 percent for Bush.

Viguerie plans to release his “findings” to the MSM on Monday, provided he can get anybody’s attention besides the guy who writes the column on crackpots. So there is still time to get your votes in and skew the findings. If we all vote as Dems or independents, we can perhaps help George Bush win again by being named the number-one reason why Repugs lost the House and Senate.

Go here to vote.

Dems Plan to Repeal Bush’s 2002 War Resolution

Jon Ponder

This would be sweet justice if it happens:

Senate Democratic leaders intend to unveil a plan next week to repeal the 2002 resolution authorizing the war in Iraq in favor of narrower authority that restricts the military’s role and begins withdrawals of combat troops…

In both chambers, Democratic lawmakers are eager to take up binding legislation that would impose clear limits on U.S. involvement in Iraq after nearly four years of war. But Democrats remain divided over how to proceed. Some want to avoid the funding debate altogether, fearing it would invite Republican charges that the party is not supporting the troops. Others take a more aggressive view, believing the most effective way to confront President Bush’s war policy is through a $100 billion war-spending bill that the president ultimately must sign to keep the war effort on track.

The 2002 resolution, which had Karl Rove’s pudgy political fingerprints all over it, was rammed through Congress in October, immediately before the mid-term elections in order to get Democrats in Congress on the record about Bush’s bogus war plans.

The resolution has had long-ranging political ramifications. It successfully snared Bush’s opponent in 2004, Sen. John Kerry, who stupidly said, on the record, that he voted for the resolution before he voted against it. Even now, 2008 frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton is being pressured to apologize for her vote in favor of it.

Repealing the resolution would likely put the president and the Congress on a course toward a constitutional showdown over the War Powers Act and the president’s ability to wage war without congressional interference.

Rightwing Terrorist Terry Nichols Says FBI Was Behind OK City Attack

Jon Ponder

Oh, here we go:

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says a high-ranking FBI official “apparently” was directing Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to a new affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah.

The official and other conspirators are being protected by the federal government “in a cover-up to escape its responsibility for the loss of life in Oklahoma,” Nichols claims in a Feb. 9 affidavit.

Documents that supposedly help back up his allegations have been sealed to protect information in them, such as Social Security numbers and dates of birth.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah had no comment on the allegations. The FBI and Justice Department in Washington, D.C., also declined comment.

Please, GOP, Don’t Swift-Boat Hillary! (You Might Rally the Wrong Base)

Jon Ponder

That rustling you hear in the dark, acccompanied by the putrid smell of decay, is the rotting carcasses of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy pulling themselves up from the grave. What has given new life to the cadaver corps, of course, is the announcement that Hillary Clinton is running for president.

Nothing could energize the Democratic base faster than seeing the poo-slinging monkeys on Fox Noise and AM radio coming after Sen. Clinton with their patented brand of lies and innuendo.

Instead of a DNA-stained blue dress, the undead zombies have announced that they will be wearing a different costume this time — the threadbare uniform of the Swift Boat veterans for Truth, a group from the 2004 campaign whose name has become synonymous with lying:

Conservative admirers of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth media blitz that helped torpedo Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry’s presidential candidacy in 2004 are now agitating to “Swift-boat” Clinton.

“People are doing what they’re doing because they want to defeat her before she has a chance to win. You can’t hold off your silver bullet to the end,” said veteran Republican operative David N. Bossie, who is involved in [an anti-Hillary, pseudo-documentary] film project with Dick Morris, a former advisor to Bill Clinton…

“Those Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were the real heroes of the 2004 election,” one online exhortation reads. “We at the StopHillaryPAC want to do the same thing to Hillary.”

That group’s website, headed by former Rep. John LeBoutillier (R-N.Y.), collected enough early funding to launch a round of negative television ads on Iowa stations timed to Clinton’s visit there in late January…

Bossie, a blunt-spoken opposition researcher who has mined Clinton controversies since Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, said that the [mock-documentary] film would mimic the hard-edged partisan style of left-wing filmmaker Moore and that camera-carrying “trackers” would tail Clinton during campaign events.

Bossie is delving into Clinton’s roles in the Whitewater real estate deals, her $100,000 profit from cattle futures and the firing of White House travel officials — well-trod controversies that Clinton aides dismiss as old news. He and GOP allies are convinced new nuggets will turn up — and they also see new opportunities in contrasting Clinton’s avowed centrism with what they call her “polarizing liberalism.”

“Conservatives believe she’s more dangerous today as a potential president than when she tried to take over the healthcare plan and root it in socialism,” said public relations man Greg Mueller, who handled media appearances for anti-Kerry veterans in 2004.

Bossie and his Citizens United partners have long vexed the Clintons and Democratic presidential contenders. Morris — the architect of Bill Clinton’s mid-1990s political revival until he was fired in August 1996 after revelations he consorted with a prostitute — declined interview requests from The Times, though he has discussed the movie on Fox News. Bossie said his partner’s past “is an acceptable risk we’ll take because of Dick’s personal knowledge of Hillary Clinton

This is all they’ve got?! Whitewater, cattle futures, the travel office? That same old tired crap is it?

Nothing — nothing — could switch hardcore Dems like Yours Truly off of our neutral-to-negative stance on Hillary Clinton faster than seeing the Bossies and Morrises of this world, along with poo-slinging monkeys on Fox Noise and AM radio, coming after Sen. Clinton with their patented brand of lies and innuendo.