Rarely is the question asked: is our children threading?
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Ongoing Investigation
Think Progress has an excellent question. Maybe some reporters should ask Scotty tomorrow:
If the Attorney General of the United States can answer questions on the ongoing investigation, why can’t the White House?
Pro-Adultery Santorum
Ouch, local paper giving it to little Ricky:
OR A GUY who just wrote a stinging book about family values, Sen. Rick Santorum sure sounded mealy-mouthed when asked about U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood’s dalliances.
“I don’t know how it’s going to shake out,” Santorum said Monday during an appearance at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Plains Township. “All I would suggest is that, again, until we know all the facts and we look at the job that Congressman Sherwood is doing and make decisions based on the facts and the work he’s doing.”
Santorum dodged a reporter’s question about whether the allegations against Sherwood have hurt the Republican Party.
“I think what hurts and helps the Republican Party is what we’re doing in serving the American people,” he said, shifting the focus to the media, which he said likes to focus on racy and scandalous stories.
Pretty wishy-washy, huh? Especially since Santorum’s new book, “It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good,” lashes out at the nation’s “divorce culture” and “hostile cultural climate,” influenced by television shows such as “Sex in the City” and “Friends.”
...
Santorum’s book contains many harsh words. We wonder, why didn’t he have any for Sherwood on Monday?
Can This Administration Do Anything Right?
Wow. Just stunning.
(via kos)
The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case.
British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him.
But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple of months in central Seattle at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.
A federal indictment of Aswat in 2002 would have resulted in an arrest warrant and his possible detention in Britain for extradition to the United States.
"It was really frustrating," said a former Justice Department official involved in the case. "Guys like that, you just want to sweep them up off the street."
...
At the time, however, federal prosecutors chose not to indict Aswat for reasons that are not clear. Asked why Aswat wasn't indicted, a federal official in Seattle replied, "That's a great question."
(via kos)
Return of Heads Up Gate
I'm glad Frank Rich reminded the world of the absolutely unjustifiable delay the White House was granted allowing them to hold off on officially being required to maintain documents. It's one tidbit of this case that I'd forgotten. NPR reported at the time:
It's another part of this scandal which should've raised more than a few eyebrows among the beltway kool kids, but they weren't too concerned about it at the time.
APJ lets us know that we've learned something new - that Gonzales told Andy Card that night.
While we're walking down memory lane, we must also remember that the documents were also vetted by Gonzales before they even got to the Justice Department.
The White house asked for and got permission earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait a day, and who at the justice department told them they could do that, and why?
It's another part of this scandal which should've raised more than a few eyebrows among the beltway kool kids, but they weren't too concerned about it at the time.
APJ lets us know that we've learned something new - that Gonzales told Andy Card that night.
While we're walking down memory lane, we must also remember that the documents were also vetted by Gonzales before they even got to the Justice Department.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Blackhawk Down Again and Again and Again
Andrew Sullivan's War:
WASHINGTON, July 23 - The Bush administration's rallying call that America is a nation at war is increasingly ringing hollow to men and women in uniform, who argue in frustration that America is not a nation at war, but a nation with only its military at war.
From bases in Iraq and across the United States to the Pentagon and the military's war colleges, officers and enlisted personnel quietly raise a question for political leaders: if America is truly on a war footing, why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?
There is no serious talk of a draft to share the burden of fighting across the broad citizenry, and neither Republicans nor Democrats are pressing for a tax increase to force Americans to cover the $5 billion a month in costs from Iraq, Afghanistan and new counterterrorism missions.
There are not even concerted efforts like the savings-bond drives or gasoline rationing that helped to unite the country behind its fighting forces in wars past.
"Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," said one officer just back from a yearlong tour in Iraq, voicing a frustration now drawing the attention of academic specialists in military sociology.
Maglalang
Our friend Michelle writes:
Nice deflection. This issue is not those who are second-guessing cops who are frequently in horrible positions. I wasn't there and I don't know what they knew or what they thought they knew or what their orders were. Some of that will be revealed. The issue is the cheerleaders of the "shoot first ask questions later" attitude, and the critics of those who dare suggest that shooting someone the government has labelled "terrorist suspect" absent trial is problematic.
Bush and the Right generally have become masters of this rhetorical trick. Criticize the Bush policies in Iraq? You're attacking the troops! Criticze the Bush policies in Gitmo? You're attacking the troops! Criticize the 101st Fighting Keyboarders glee about the killing of "bad" brown people in London? You're attacking London bobbies!
It's long past time for the Right to take responsible for its own actions and rhetoric, and stop trying to pawn it off on those on the front lines.
Confronted with a furtive individual who reportedly refused to obey orders, dressed suspiciously, and fled over a turnstile towards the subway train, London authorities made a fateful split-second decision in a moment of great danger. I have a feeling that no one who works in law enforcement--here or around the world--will blame the police for the actions they took, and I doubt the majority of Britons will either.
Nice deflection. This issue is not those who are second-guessing cops who are frequently in horrible positions. I wasn't there and I don't know what they knew or what they thought they knew or what their orders were. Some of that will be revealed. The issue is the cheerleaders of the "shoot first ask questions later" attitude, and the critics of those who dare suggest that shooting someone the government has labelled "terrorist suspect" absent trial is problematic.
Bush and the Right generally have become masters of this rhetorical trick. Criticize the Bush policies in Iraq? You're attacking the troops! Criticze the Bush policies in Gitmo? You're attacking the troops! Criticize the 101st Fighting Keyboarders glee about the killing of "bad" brown people in London? You're attacking London bobbies!
It's long past time for the Right to take responsible for its own actions and rhetoric, and stop trying to pawn it off on those on the front lines.
12 Hours
Frank Rich reminds us of a long forgotten part of the cover up of this scandal:
But the scandal has metastasized so much at this point that the forgotten man Mr. Bush did not nominate to the Supreme Court is as much a window into the White House's panic and stonewalling as its haste to put forward the man he did. When the president decided not to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a woman, why did he pick a white guy and not nominate the first Hispanic justice, his friend Alberto Gonzales? Mr. Bush was surely not scared off by Gonzales critics on the right (who find him soft on abortion) or left (who find him soft on the Geneva Conventions). It's Mr. Gonzales's proximity to this scandal that inspires real fear.
As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months.
Thus is Mr. Gonzales's Supreme Court aspiration the first White House casualty of this affair. It won't be the last. When you look at the early timeline of this case, rather than the latest investigatory scraps, two damning story lines emerge and both have legs.
Jean Charles de Menezes
Well, I suppose Michelle Malkin got one thing right. The "Muslim Council of Britain's grievance-mongerers" probably didn't have a case to monger any grievance, though the Brazilian Embassy of grievance mongerers might.
In all seriousness, the guy could be a Muslim for all I know. Or, even worse, look like one! But he also, apparently, was innocent.
In all seriousness, the guy could be a Muslim for all I know. Or, even worse, look like one! But he also, apparently, was innocent.
Five in the Noggin
Deep thoughts by John Gibson:
Punchline here.
(thanks to Doug)
What is also good is the Brit police tactics that we saw at work in the subway Friday morning. The tackle and kill team is incredible, if for no other reason than their bravery. Can you imagine the job of those cops? Tackle the guy wearing a vest bomb and hope your colleague is right behind with the gun to put five bullets in the noggin before he sets off the bomb.
Turns out he didn't have a bomb, and turns out he wasn't one of the four bombers Thursday. And if it turns out ultimately that he had nothing to do with anything, no doubt there will be hell to pay. But the police say he was linked to the terror probe, so let's wait and see.
Meantime, got to admire the cojones of those Brit cops to go after him like that. All of this trumps any of my other complaints that the Brits weren't making the right noises about fighting terror. They like to go about things a bit more quietly than us. Not my style, but okay, fine — as long as they get the five in the noggin of the right bomber boy. They do that and I'm fine.
So for the moment, alls well. Just catch the four bombers. Five in the noggin is fine. Don't complain that sounds barbaric. We're fighting barbaric.
Punchline here.
(thanks to Doug)
Blog Blogging
Dragonballyee talks about alt-weekly blogging. I've always been puzzled by the fact that alt-weeklies have largely missed the blogging boat. They seem to have all of the infrastructure in place to do the kind of local culture/arts/music/hipsters/politics/gossip/happenings blogging which is essentially what they do anyway. Doing that kind of local blogging well would be a smart move. Blogs with a primarily national focus and audience can't really expect to attract local advertisers, but a decently trafficked site with a local focus could.
I've never really read the Gothamist or its progeny but it's the kind of thing which could have had a happy home in house at an alt-weekly. For some reason they've been rather late to the table.
Along those lines, say hello to one of Gothamist's newest children, Phillyist.
I've never really read the Gothamist or its progeny but it's the kind of thing which could have had a happy home in house at an alt-weekly. For some reason they've been rather late to the table.
Along those lines, say hello to one of Gothamist's newest children, Phillyist.
Judgment
Fred Clark gives us his weekly installment of "he reads Left Behind so you don't have to."
He concludes with:
He concludes with:
The other option is to read such tirades as wholly directed at Other People. Judgement is never for Us, only for Them. This is one of the main points of LB and indeed of the entire pseudotheological framework of premillennial dispensationalism on which it is based.
This approach -- judgement for Thee but not for Me -- also helps to account for the current antigay mania of American evangelicalism. In a couple of Paul's other rants, he includes "sodomites" in his bestiaries of badness. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, the dubious assumption that Paul misunderstood the story of Sodom, and therefore used this as a synonym for "homosexuals," it doesn't follow that "homosexuals are bad" is the main lesson that heterosexuals should be gleaning from such passages. But if you read such passages looking for any excuse to exempt yourself from the apostle's condemnation, this offers an ideal escape hatch. Preaching against self-love, ingratitude, love of money or love of pleasure can be a two-edged sword. But if you're heterosexual, and you're preaching against homosexuality, then you're safe. You've found the ideal target for self-exempting, self-justifying self-righteousness.
Judgment is for Other People.
Bobo's World
FL edition:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The state suspended the licenses of two church-affiliated day care centers where children allegedly were sexually molested, forced to eat worms and pick each other's noses during employee-led games of "Truth or Dare."
The former director of the Kid's Palace centers and one employee have been charged, and the investigation is continuing.
...
The former director of the day care centers, Joshua Palin, 25, has been charged with molesting 10 children, some of them during what investigators said were twisted games of Truth or Dare. He is the son of the affiliated church's pastor.
Palin was charged last month with molesting two girls, ages 12 and 13, and more charges were added this week after Clay County sheriff's investigators interviewed children at the child care centers.
Palin is charged with "daring" children age 5 to 14 to fondle him or each other or to perform oral sex on each other over a one-year span ending last month.
The centers, which were licensed for 176 children, were operated by Faith Ministries. The church did not return calls Friday or earlier in the week. The church closed the day care centers June 15, but they could have been reopened without the license suspensions.
Eric "Stumpy Joe" Childs
From the most recent Harper's Index:
Number of killed or captured suspects reported so far by U.S. media to be Al Qaeda's "number 3" man: 4
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