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Tuesday, October 4, 2005 |
DeLay’s Risky Business. DeLay continues to insist that one of his “closest and dearest friends,” Jack Abramoff, deceived him. He still claims that he had no knowledge that Abramoff footed the bill for their lavish trip to Britain in 2000. (House Ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting such gifts from lobbyists.) This trip included a gold trip to a resort in Scotland, a performance of “The Lion King,” and stays at fancy hotels.
The one portion of the trip DeLay tries to justify as business is a meeting with Margaret Thatcher:
I’m involved in the conservative movement overseas, too. I went there to meet with Margaret Thatcher and other high-ranking officials talking and working with them on how the conservative party can get back into power.
Lord Bell, Thatcher’s spokesman, had a different story:
Lady Thatcher is visited by many politicians and political figures from around the world….It [the DeLay meeting] was not a business meeting.
If the meeting with Thatcher wasn’t buisness, what was?
[Think Progress]
8:23:50 PM 
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O’Reilly Tonight: How Blogs Are Destroying America. Set your TiVos. Bill O’Reilly targets blogs on tonight’s Factor:
Personal attacks lodged through the internet!
How are so-called “Web logs” being used as ideological weapons? And who’s behind the smear campaigns?
We’ll have a No Spin look at a dangerous new weapon in the culture wars!
We’re sure it will be an informed, reasoned discussion, especially considering O’Reilly doesn’t even read blogs:
AUTHOR BERNARD GOLDBERG: There are some conservatives on the list [”100 People Who Are Screwing Up America”], but there are mostly liberals. And when they could write unanimously on the Web, you know, a review or post.
O’REILLY: Blogs. I don’t even read them. I mean, it’s so outrageous.
GOLDBERG: It’s beyond — it’s beyond vile.
O’REILLY: Let’s go to the — look, that’s just a waste of time. You shouldn’t even read it. It’s garbage. Nobody cares about it. Everybody knows the simpletons who are doing it are cowards and they don’t have any influence. [7/18/05]
UPDATE: Crooks & Liars has more.
[Think Progress]
2:58:57 PM
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Miers Briefed Bush on Bin Laden PDB, But Papers Handle Photo From That Day Quite Differently
By E&P Staff
Published: October 04, 2005 10:45 AM ET
NEW YORKOn its front page Tuesday, The New York Times published a photo of new U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers going over a briefing paper with President George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch [base "]in August 2001,[per thou] the caption reads.
USA Today and the Boston Globe carried the photo labeled simply [base "]2001,[per thou] but many other newspapers ran the picture in print or on the Web with a more precise date: Aug. 6, 2001.
Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous [base "]PDB[per thou] that declared that Osama Bin Laden was [base "]determined[per thou] to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?
As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times. An article by Richard A. Serrano and Scott Gold observes that early in the Bush presidency [base "]Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing' hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.[per thou]
So the Aug. 6 photo may show this historic moment, though quite possibly not. In any case, some newspapers failed to include the exact date with the widely used Miers photo today. A New York Times spokesman told E&P: "The wording of the caption occurred in the course of routine editing and has no broader significance."
The photo that ran in so many papers and on their Web sites originally came from the White House but was moved by the Associated Press, clearly marked as an [base "]Aug. 6, 2001[per thou] file photo. It shows Miers with a document or documents in her right hand, as her left hand points to something in another paper balanced on the president's right leg. Two others in the background are Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Steve Biegun of the national security staff.
The PDB was headed [base "]Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,[per thou] and notes, among other things, FBI information indicating [base "]patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.[per thou]
1:57:25 PM
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Stephen Elliott: Eulogy For A Knight Ridder Stringer Killed By American Soldiers At A Roadblock In Iraq
Stephen Elliott
Today, 02:11 PM
Yasser Salihee. Because this is war and you were buying gas.
Because this is war, and in war you kill journalists. The problem with living in a society where everybody is shooting at you, where car bombs are going off in crowds, where you never know where a road block might suddenly materialize with soldiers warning you to stop your car, firing warning shots across your hot tin roof, is that you might not notice. One day, you might be driving along, and you don't know that a road block has been put up minutes earlier. You're on your way to get gasoline. From forty meters away, when you have not stopped after three warnings, a bullet slides through the windshield, slicing your head open. Dead, just like that.
You were a stringer. They've stopped sending American journalists out into the field. Too dangerous. An American can't go anywhere in Iraq without a convoy these days. The whole country's a boilerplate left on high, a burning building. The journalists that are there from the major American papers are huddled in hotel rooms in the Green Zone, afraid to go outside even to the heavily guarded cafe, waiting for reports from people like you, the locals. The ones who can speak the language, blend in. But sometimes you blend in too well. You don't hear the warning shots. You're on your way to get gas. Just another Iraqi. The bullet pierces the glass.
The military will say that the killing was necessary. It wasn't necessary to leave you dead in your car, that wasn't good for the moral of the neighborhood, but the killing. The killing was justified. Because you live in a country that was thought to have weapons of mass destruction. Where you live we can not leave because if we leave the terrorists have won. If we leave, there will be another 9/11, and it will be bigger than that last one. We're fighting them over in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here at home. And that is why you were shot in your car at a distance of 40 meters. Glass and blood covering your lap; a corpse left in the sun. You didn't recognize what was going on around you. You were going to get gas. You were a doctor, a newspaper correspondent. A father.
Your family gets $2,500 for you death, plus another $2,500 for damage to the car. There is your equivalency. You and your automobile are worth the same. It makes sense, in some twisted way, if there weren't all these cars, all these automobiles drinking gas from sand, there might not have been a roadblock. There might not have been a 9/11, an invasion of Kuwait, a war with Iran. So much might not have happened if we didn't drink so much oil.
You were going to take your daughter to swimming practice. But you could have been a suicide bomber. How could anybody know? You were, after all, driving. We were there for the WMD, and we brought you freedom, if we leave you the terrorists have won. I imagine, before you died, you were just thinking about your daughter, a family man. You were not thinking - The Americans have made things worse. You were not thinking - The terrorists have already won. You didn't know you were going to join a statistic, one of thirteen journalists killed by the military, one of tens of thousands of Iraqis (maybe more?). Dead. In the name of weapons of mass destruction, in the name of freedom. Because we're taking the fight to the terrorists. It just so happens you live there. Yasser Salihee, you happened to live where we were taking the fight to the terrorists. Whose fault is that?
R.I.P.
- Stephen Elliott
1:49:58 PM
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DeLay’s Defense Full of (18) Holes. On Fox News Sunday, anchor Chris Wallace asked Tom DeLay about the ongoing investigation into the Scottish golf junket he took with Jack Abramoff in 2000. In response, DeLay defended his inablienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a decent tee time.
Watch in QuickTime Streaming.
Without the Majority Leader workload to deal with, DeLay will again be able to pursue his passion for golf, the “only thing” he does for himself.
Transcript below:
WALLACE: All right. Let’s talk about Jack Abramoff, a big-time lobbyist you once described as one of your closest and dearest friends. And Mr. Abramoff, in an unrelated case, now faces conspiracy and fraud charges by the federal government.
The Ethics Committee is investigating now a $70,000 trip you took to Britain in May of 2000. You stayed in fancy hotels, you went to “The Lion King,” you went on a side golf trip to Scotland to play at St. Andrews.
Did you really think that Abramoff, who you say was one of your close friends and a big-time lobbyist, who was along on this trip [base ']Äî did you really believe he had nothing to do with paying for this trip?
DELAY: Yes, because, again, we checked everything and double- checked and had lawyers check, and [base ']Äî can we do it?
Look, part of my job also, and what I love doing, is being involved in international affairs. I was raised in Venezuela. I was heavily involved in the Contra movement in Central America. I was heavily involved in defending freedom in Taiwan. I stand up for Israel and I fight for Israel.
I’m involved in the conservative movement overseas, too. I went there to meet with Margaret Thatcher and other high-ranking officials talking and working with them on how the conservative party can get back into power.
Sure, I enjoy myself. Am I supposed to be limited? I can’t go to the play that is right down the street? I can’t play golf? Golf is the only thing I do for myself. I love golf. I can’t play golf while I’m there? I can’t take an afternoon off and play golf?
WALLACE: You can do all those things. The question is, can you do it if it’s paid for by lobbyists?
[Think Progress]
1:43:30 PM
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It Takes More Than A Cabinet Post. In his press conference today, President Bush expressed confusion and disappointment about his standing in the African American community, saying:
I was disappointed, frankly, in the vote I got in the African-American community. I was. I’ve done my best to elevate people to positions of authority and responsibility — not just positions, but positions where they can actually make a difference in the lives of people. I put people in my Cabinet. I put people in my sub-Cabinet.
Maybe President Bush should take a look at the facts if he wants to clear up his confusion:
– Today, 33% of black children live in families under the poverty level.
– Last year, African American households had the lowest median income of any racial group ($30134), down a full percentage point from the year before.
– The unemployment rate for African-Americans is double the rate for white Americans. Over the past six months, the average unemployment rate for white Americans was 4.39 percent; for black Americans, it was 10.06 percent.
– President Bush[base ']Äôs political appointees in the Department of Health and Human Services doctored a report about racial disparities in healthcare. The department deleted a key section detailing racial ‘’inequalities” and ‘’disparities” in health care from its findings. Deleted: conclusion by HHS scientists that healthcare disparities are “national problems.” Deleted: key examples of health care disparities, including findings that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage cancer, die of HIV and be subjected to physical restraints in nursing homes.
– When a racial profiling report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics showed African Americans were more likely than whites to have their cars searched or be threatened with force after being pulled over in traffic stops, political supervisers at the bureau ordered the findings deleted. When the study[base ']Äôs author refused, he was fired.
[Think Progress]
1:40:55 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Patricia Thurston.
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