Tag: Veterans

Palm Beach Post: The Nader Brand Means Nothing

Trish

The Palm Beach Post is not amused by Ralph Nader’s decision to run for president yet again.

Forty-five years after making his reputation as a consumer advocate, Ralph Nader is as deceitful and arrogant as the corporate titans he used to expose.

Nader chided Democrats for failing to enact “decent” energy policy, reminding voters they could have had a president leading the fight against global warming rather than a president who spent most of his two terms denying the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Mr. Nader is selling politics rather than cars, but Americans learned after 2000 that his brand of false advertising can have fatal consequences…If Mr. Nader had not participated, Florida’s electoral votes and the presidency would have gone to Mr. Gore, who would have won the state without controversy…

In 2000, Mr. Nader’s main campaign theme was that there was no real difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates. In retrospect, that statement sounds as ludicrous as the denials by the auto executives in the 1960s that they couldn’t make the safety changes Mr. Nader advocated without making cars prohibitively expensive…

Mr. Nader, demonstrating either that he is out of touch with reality or does not care about the truth, denies any responsibility for the Democrats’ loss in 2000 and thus any responsibility for the thousands killed and wounded and the hundreds of billions wasted [in Iraq].

Announcing his candidacy, Mr. Nader also chided Democrats for failing to enact “decent” energy policy. That criticism simply reminds voters that they could have had a president leading the fight against global warming rather than a president who spent most of his two terms denying the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2000, Mr. Nader received 2.7 percent of the vote. In 2004, he received just 0.3 percent. Mr. Nader blames the steep decline on Democratic legal maneuvering that kept him off the ballot in several key states. In 2004, though, Republicans – especially in Florida – also worked to get Mr. Nader on the ballot. The more important reason for the dropoff in support was Mr. Nader revealing that he has become a self-important fool. The Nader brand used to mean something. These days, there’s nothing new inside the box.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Mens Room) Seeking Summer Interns

Jon Ponder

This is not a joke:

Idaho Senator Larry Craig is currently seeking intern applications for the summer term, which runs from May to August. The application deadline is March 15, however if more time is needed for the application process, please contact Senator Craig’s office for an extension. Craig offers paid internships within the Washington, D.C., office. Preference is given to Idaho applicants attending Idaho schools who are in their junior or senior years of college (including graduating seniors).

‘”Interns have the chance to be an essential part of a working congressional office,” said Craig. “They participate in the legislative process as well as ensure that constituent services run smoothly. For those interested in politics, it is an incredible opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at how our government functions while serving the people of Idaho.”

As noted, this is not a joke but it certainly could be — please give it your best shot in the comments.

H/t: JR

Total Drag: Bush Judge Appointee Resigns After DUI Arrest While Cross Dressing

Trish

That I find this story so hilarious probably says more about me than the cross-dressing federal judge in question, but as they say these days, it is what it is. The punch line is probably the best part.

[Federal Judge Robert] Somma worked in private practice for years in Boston before he was appointed to the bench by President Bush in December 2004.

Yes, the fact that Bush appointed him as a federal bankruptcy judge does crack me up, but let’s start at the beginning.

Somma’s Mercedes-Benz E320 sedan hit a pick-up truck from behind about 11:29 p.m. on Feb. 6, the police report said. No one was hurt.

Somma, who lives in Newbury, Mass., fumbled in his purse for his driver’s license before handing it to the officer who later arrested him, the police report shows.

“He had a difficult time locating his license in his purse. He passed over it multiple times before removing it,” officer Paul J. Thompson wrote in his report.

The officer offered no other details with regard to the judge’s attire or accessories. Nor would representatives of the Manchester Police Department or the city solicitor’s office, which worked out the negotiated plea agreement with Somma’s lawyer…

But lots of other people did offer those details, of which Audrey Hepburn would have been proud.

When authorities removed him from the vehicle, they said he wore a black women’s cocktail dress, fishnet stockings and high heels.

But in his mug shot, the judge appears to be wearing blue eye shadow. Way to wreck a really chic look, Robert.

And where, you might ask, was the judge going that night dressed that way?

Somma told police he had been at the Breezeway Pub where he had one gin and tonic about two hours earlier, the police report reveals. He later said he drank two gin and tonics.

The Breezeway Pub, at 14 Pearl St., bills itself as “New Hampshire’s favorite gay and alternative bar,” according to its web site.

The arresting officer reported Somma smelled of alcohol, slurred his speech and fell backwards against the door frame while getting out of his car.

The Boston-based judge chose the bar in question, according to local rumor, because his wife, Wendy, was out of town and no one knew him in New Hampshire. Sounds like Wendy is pretty cool, though.

“I suspect that he will not be interested in talking to anyone from the newspaper, and I’m his wife,” said a woman who answered the telephone at the judge’s home yesterday. She referred media calls to Gary H. Wente, chief administrative officer for the First Circuit Courts.

Somma showed his sense of style to the end. He phoned in his resignation from a vacation spot in the Caribbean. If I were him, I think I’d just stay there.

Vietnam POW Activists Called McCain ‘Songbird’ and ‘Manchurian Candidate’

Jon Ponder

Among groups who oppose John McCain, the most serious charges come from a small but fervent cadre of Vietnam POW/MIA activists who accuse him of being a collaborator during his time in the Vietnamese POW camps.

They call McCain “Songbird,” and say he received special treatment. Some in the POW community even believe he was brainwashed like Raymond Shaw, the character played by Laurence Harvey in “The Manchurian candidate,” who was used as a tool by the communists to destroy America from within.

Activists accused McCain of stonewalling the release of POW records because they contained evidence he had collaborated with the North Vietnamese.

The issue boiled over in 1992 after POW families and activists felt they had been mistreated by McCain during hearings before the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. In the video above (posted at Vietnam Veterans against McCain) which was apparently shot soon after the hearings, POW advocates and experts, as well as Republican politicians, including then-Rep. Bob Dornan of California, assert that McCain was stonewalling the release of POW documents because his own records included transcripts of interviews he gave to communist and other media outlets in which he said the U.S. military had deliberately bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam.

Members of the committee included Vietnam veterans among the senators — Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass), Vice Chairman Bob Smith (R-NH), Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), McCain and others. (The only Vietnam vet who opted out was Sen. Al Gore.) The committee had two objectives. One was to investigate persistent rumors that Vietnam was still holding U.S. servicemen as prisoners. The second goal was to create a plan for normalizing relations between the United States and Vietnam.

McCain and other committee members traveled to Vietnam on fact-finding missions. Witnesses who appeared at committee hearings included Nixon era defense secretaries Melvin Laird and James Schlesinger and Nixon Sec. of State Henry Kissinger, among many others. In the end, no evidence was found that Americans were being held in Vietnam, and relations between the two countries were normalized.

Rough transcript of the video follows:

[…]

Kiss ‘n’ Tell: Got Me Some of that Larry Lovin’

Buck Banks

It was probably inevitable. The Idaho Statesman, the newspaper that originally broke the story of Sen. Larry Craig’s arrest in an airport restroom for soliciting an undercover cop, has published the names of four gay men who claim to have had sex with Craig, been solicited by him or experienced “unusual attention” from Mr. Wide Stance.

David Phillips. Mike Jones. Greg Ruth. Tom Russell.

Four gay men, willing to put their names in print and whose allegations can’t be disproved, have come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s guilty plea. They say they had sex with Craig or that he made a sexual advance or that he paid them unusual attention.

They are telling their stories now because they are offended by Craig’s denials, including his famous statement, “I am not gay, I never have been gay.” Those words, spoken on live national TV on Aug. 28, are now memorialized on a just-released-for-Christmas Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure.

OK, so there’s no video, photos or other hard evidence that backs up what the four men say. However, the Statesman has investigated and reports that there’s nothing to disprove what the men say, either:

But the Statesman’s investigation, which included reviews of travel and property records and background checks on all five men, found nothing to disprove the five new accounts. The men offer telling and sometimes similar details about what happened, or the senator’s travel records place him in the city where sex is alleged to have occurred, or his accusers told credible witnesses at the time of the incident.

Needless to say, neither Larry the Love Machine nor his spokespeople would speak to the Statesman. However, a couple of concerned Idahoans did leave comments on the story. Here are the musings of someone who calls itself “PaulTheWasherWoman”:

I still can’t understand why gay men can’t be senators. Just what is it about this all makes it so he can’t continue. Nothing, that’s what. All this does is show the rest of the country that Idaho is either mormon controlled or neo-nazi controlled or whatever. In any case it completely sucks for our image as a state.

‘Nuff said.

Phonecards for Hospitalized Veterans

Buck Banks

injured-soldier

CREDO Action from Working Assets and Veterans For Peace have teamed up again this year to provide phone cards to veterans recuperating in V.A. hospitals so they can call their families during the holiday season. Last year they raised more than $90,000, which, thanks to a sweetheart 2.9-cents-per-minute deal with Sprint, was enough to ship more than 24,000 cards loaded with 3,180,000 minutes to V.A. hospitals all over the United States. A tax-deductible $10.50 donation will provide 120-minute phone cards to three veterans; a $35 donation will get two-hour cards to 10 veterans.

So how about helping out a needy veteran or two by enabling them reach out to family and friends during the holiday season. Go here to make a donation.

Dominatrice Who Claimed to Have S&M Sex with Bush Is Rumored to Be Missing

Jon Ponder

Leola McConnell, the former dominatrice and militant for civil equality for people of all sexual orientations — who claimed in her memoir, “Lustful Utterances,” to have had S&M sex with George Bush in the 1980s — is feared by friends to be missing, according to this unsubstantiated report:

“I hide from no man. I fear no mortal man of flesh and blood, regardless of the title he wears.”
–Leola McConnell

Several people who regularly communicate with her have told us they have not heard from her in a few weeks, and attempts by us to reach her have been unsuccessful to date. McConnell had told friends recently that she was growing increasingly concerned that her allegations about politicos who had used her services would somehow cause her harm.

Ominously, in a defiant email last spring, McConnell wrote:

A recent article in a tabloid newspaper, The Globe, claimed I was in hiding in fear for my life. Well, I hide from no man. I fear no mortal man of flesh and blood, regardless of the title he wears.

McConnell also claims to have firsthand knowledge that Bush had an affair in the mid-1980s with Victor Ashe, the former mayor of Knoxville, Tenn., who has served as the Bush’s ambassador to Poland since 2004.

In an article about McConnell’s book last month, I wrote, “What is evident is that McConnell has no hard copy evidence that she whipped the future president and called him bad names. Proof of this: She is neither fabulously wealthy and quiet, nor dead.”

I hope I was wrong — on all counts.

H/t: RT

Suicide and Homelessness At Epidemic Levels Among Former U.S. Troops

Jon Ponder

An investigation by CBS News has uncovered an epidemic in suicides among U.S. military veterans — 120 per week in 2005:

One study found that 120 veterans per week have committed suicide. Another found that veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population.

That’s 6,256 veteran suicides in one year, in 45 states – a rate twice that of other Americans, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports…

During a five-month investigation, the CBS News investigative team uncovered what amounts to a hidden “epidemic” of suicide among the men and women who have served their country …

Among the CBS News findings:

  • Veterans aged 20-24, who are those most likely to have served during the war on terror, are killing themselves when they return home at rates estimated to be between two-and-a-half and almost four times higher than non-vets in the same age group. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)
  • Overall, those who have served in the military were more than twice as likely to take their own life in 2005, than Americans who never served. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)

The high rate of hopelessness revealed by the high suicide rates among veterans may be reflected in results of another study — this one by the National Alliance to End Homelessness:

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.

Based on 2005 data, on any given night, 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 are veterans, according to the study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Larry Craig to File Appeal Today

Jon Ponder

Associated Press:

Sen. Larry Craig says he will file an appeal Monday over a judge’s refusal to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting.

In an interview Sunday with KTVB-TV, Craig repeated he will not resign his post in the Senate and said he will continue to work his legal options.

“It is my right to do what I’m doing,” said Craig, an Idaho Republican. “I’ve already provided for Idaho certainty that Idaho needed — I’m not running for re-election. I’m no longer in the way. I am pursuing my constitutional rights.”