Republican Lawmaker With Ties to Tom DeLay Aim to Weaken Travis County DA’s Office – State Rep. Wayne Christian has proposed legislation aimed at weakening the Travis County district attorney’s office, which became the pariah of Republicans everywhere after it indicted GOP stalwart Tom DeLay on charges of money laundering and violating election law.

Christian has ties to DeLay and his co-defendant and one-time associate John Colyandro. In addition, former District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who hastened the end of DeLay’s political career and indicted Colyandro, also named Christian in an indictment of the Texas Association of Business for violating campaign finance laws.

Christian’s signature piece of legislation, HB 566, would require that state elected officials and officers only be charged for official misconduct in their county of residence. The intent of that is clear: The Travis County DA’s office would no longer be able prosecute the vast majority of lawmakers on public corruption charges. That would now be the task of local prosecutors, who often don’t have the resources, if not the moxie, to indict their local representative.

Jim Wells County, Texas Ran on Seized Valuables and Cash – Cash and valuables seized from drivers in Jim Wells County, Texas, helped fund police, provided bonuses to secretaries.

Tom Tancredo Claims Sotomayor in “Latino KKK” – Tom Tancredo, the former Colorado congressman and radical anti-immigration activist, stepped up his attacks on judge Sonia Sotomayor Thursday. Appearing on CNN, Tancredo suggested that Sotomayor’s affiliation with the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights group, was equivalent to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He also said, “the logo of La Raza is “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.”

However, “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.” is not La Raza’s motto. Instead, the group’s motto is “Strengthening America by promoting the advancement of Latino families.” The phrase that Tancredo incorrectly links to Sotomayor is, in fact, found only in the founding documents a wholly different group to which Sotomayor has no known affiliation.

Limbaugh Says Nominating Sotomayor Like Nominating KKK’s David Duke – Rush Limbaugh, following a trend of conservatives depicting Sonia Sotomayor as a dangerous racist, suggested that President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination had set back civil rights progress and compared Sotomayor to David Duke:

And how can a party get behind such a candidate? That’s what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive.

G. Gordon Liddy On Sotomayor: ‘Let’s Hope That The Key Conferences Aren’t When She’s Menstruating’ – Yesterday on his radio show, conservative host G. Gordon Liddy continued the right wing’s all-out assault on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. First, just like Tom Tancredo, Liddy slammed Sotomayor’s affiliation with the civil rights group La Raza — and referred to the Spanish language as “illegal alien“:

I understand that they found out today that Miss Sotomayor is a member of La Raza, which means in illegal alien, “the race.” And that should not surprise anyone because she’s already on record with a number of racist comments.

Finished with the race-based attack, Liddy moved on to denigrate Sotomayor’s gender:

Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Regards,

Jim

Right-Wing Military Writer: We May Have to Kill War Journalists – Ralph Peters’ work regularly lands on the pages of The New York Post and has cropped up in USA Today. He’s even a special contributor to Fox News. In his latest column titled “The killers without guns” for the Journal of International Security Affairs, Mr. Peters suggests that the media is responsible for “saving” Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, but that media had “failed to defeat” the U.S. government’s charge toward Iraq.

Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.

Because, of course, in Peters’ mind America can do no wrong:

The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.

Torture Cost Hundreds ‘If Not Thousands’ of American Lives According to Former Military Interrogator – A 14-year military interrogator has undercut one of the key arguments posited by Vice President Dick Cheney in favor of the Bush Administration’s torture techniques and alleged that the use of torture has cost “hundreds if not thousands” of American lives. The interrogator, who uses the name “Matthew Alexander,” says he oversaw more than 1,000 interrogations, conducting more than 300 in Iraq personally.

“Torture does not save lives,” Alexander said in his interview. “And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse….literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.”

Moreover, Alexander avers that many — as many as 90 percent — of those captured in Iraq said they joined the fight against the United States because of the torture conducted at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

“At the prison where I conducted interrogations,” Alexander said, “we heard day in and day out, foreign fighters who had been captured state that the number one reason that they had come to fight in Iraq was because of torture and abuse, what had happened at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.”

“The point that is most absent is that our greatest success in this conflict was achieved without torture or abuse,” Alexander wrote in a blog post Sunday. “My interrogation team found Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaida in Iraq and murderer of tens of thousands. We did this using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques. These worked to great effect on the most hardened members of Al Qaida — spiritual leaders who had been behind the waves of suicide bombers and, hence, the sectarian violence that swept across Iraq. We convinced them to cooperate by applying our intellect. In essence, we worked smarter, not harsher.”

Regards,

Jim

Evangelist TV Preacher Rakes in the Money – As Easter approached, the ad ran repeatedly on the Inspiration Network: David Cerullo, clutching a Bible, told viewers they, too, could receive prosperity, physical healing and other blessings God gave the ancient Israelites.

All they had to do, the televangelist said, was send him $200 or more.

“Go to your phone,” he said. “Sow your Passover offering and watch God do what he said he would … Call now.”

Pitches like this have transformed the Charlotte-area cable network into one of the world’s fastest-growing Christian broadcasters, beaming into more than 100 countries on five continents. They’ve also helped turn Cerullo, Inspiration’s CEO and on-air host, into a wealthy man.

He brings home more than $1.5 million a year, making him the best-paid leader of any religious charity tracked by watchdog groups. His salary dwarfs those of executives leading far larger religious nonprofits.
David and Barbara Cerullo live in a 12,000 square-foot lakefront home in south Charlotte – complete with an elevator and an 1,100-square-foot garage. Their grown children also receive handsome salaries.

Republican Blog Says Jesus would be OK With Waterboarding – The following appeared in the Republican blog, Red State:

It’s likely even Jesus would have OK’d water boarding if it would have saved his Mom. He would’ve done the same to save his Dad, or any one of His disciples. For that matter, He even died to save all humans.

U.S. Holds Journalist Without Charges in Iraq – The Obama administration harshly criticized Iran for its imprisonment of Roxana Saberi, the U.S.-Iranian journalist who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison before being freed two weeks ago. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Iran’s treatment of Saberi as “non-transparent, unpredictable and arbitrary.” Washington also has called upon North Korea to expedite the trial of two U.S. journalists being held on spying charges.

Yet the U.S. has routinely used the arbitrary powers it assumed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks to hold journalists without charge in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the Reuters news agency was arrested by U.S. Forces in Iraq in September. Jassam, 31, has been in U.S. custody ever since. His case is the latest of a dozen detentions the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has documented since 2001. No formal accusations have been made against Jassam, and an Iraqi court ordered in November that he be released for lack of evidence.

Land of the Safe and Home of the Cruel – Obama’s May 21 speech at the National Archives combined a general repudiation of the Bush-Cheney policies with a surprising concession to methods that the former vice president, Dick Cheney, tried to graft onto the Constitution. This approach the Constitution repels as surely as a healthy body rejects poison; for in the Cheney interpretation, the common-law right of prisoners to be charged with a crime and to have due process in challenging the accusation was abridged in cases specified by the executive. Cheney singled out for detention as “enemy combatants” persons suspected of being hard-core terrorists without there being sufficient identification to charge or sufficient evidence to convict them.

We may think ourselves a safe country, but we can hardly be the United States of 1776, of 1865, and of 1945 so long as we retain a power imported by Dick Cheney and his lawyers from the 17th century into the 21st — the power of government to imprison and keep in jail a person against whom nothing has been proved and nothing charged. It is a bondage as complete as slavery; and like slavery, it can last for life.

Cheney’s Speech Was Full of Lies and Distortions According to Former U.S. Senior Interrogator in Iraq – The former U.S. senior interrogator in Iraq dissects former Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech on National Security, point-by-point. In essence, harsh methods don’t work and are not needed. Valuable information was obtained from detainees by working smarter, not harsher.

Dick Cheney Urges Obama to Name Bitter Psycho to Bench (Humor) – Former Vice President Dick Cheney weighed in today on President Obama’s impending choice to replace Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the President to name a bitter psycho to the bench.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Cheney said that the President’s choice to replace Justice Souter “should send a strong message to bitter psychos across the country that they will have a voice” on the nation’s highest court.

Mr. Cheney’s comments were widely interpreted as a sign that he himself was angling for a position on the Supreme Court, a charge he flatly designed.

“I have no designs on the Supreme Court,” Mr. Cheney said. “There are many other embittered psychotics out there who could do an excellent job.”

Mr. Cheney said that his own time was better spent “driving down the Republican Party’s approval rating to zero.”

Lack of Health Care Drove Terror Plotter to Get Money to Cover Brother’s Transplant – The lack of health care drove David Williams to plot an act of terror. “My insurance wasn’t good enough,” said Lord McWilliams, 20, who has a deadly liver disease. His brother, David Williams, wanted money “to speed up the process,” McWilliams said. “Medicaid only goes so far.” McWilliams said the FBI informant who lured his brother and three other hapless petty criminals into a plot to blow up synagogues and shoot down a plane promised enough money to take care of his transplant.

“[My brother] told me, ‘Don’t worry, when you go to the doctor, tell them you got money,’” McWilliams said. McWilliams, who has already had his spleen removed, said his brother told him he would have $20,000 for the operation. Their mother, Elizabeth McWilliams, said her older son had told her he would be able to give her a wad of cash Thursday, which was the day after the terrorist plot was to have been carried out.

Fox Sports Starts Their List of Star Female Athletes With a Horse – Fox Sports has compiled a list of women that can hold their own against men in the sports world — because everyone knows the real measure of a female athlete is how she competes against dudes. Fox starts their “Girl Power” list with Rachel Alexandra. Perhaps you’ve heard of her: She’s a horse.

Last weekend Rachel Alexandra became the first filly in 85 years to win Preakness Stakes. And if horses can do it, so can humans!

Which female athletes had the good fortune of an equine comparison? Well, there’s Katie Hnida, first woman to score in a NCAA football game, but she was entangled in a rape-allegation scandal, Fox notes. There’s Michelle Wie, but of course she faced “substantial criticism” when she only qualified for one of 14 PGA events. Legendary athletic phenomenon Babe Didrikson Zaharias is also mentioned, plus that one time she didn’t qualify for that one event.

See [in Fox Sports land], it’s important to remember that while these women were able to compete against men, they weren’t necessarily very good at it.

Conservative Commentator Says Oprah is Secretly Running the Obama White House – Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart told Glenn Beck on Friday that he thinks that Oprah Winfrey is the real power behind the Obama throne:

Breitbart: Well, this doesn’t surprise me. Does it surprise you? This is the Oprah Winfrey presidency. She was his biggest supporter, and I think that she’s been behind the scenes orchestrating this presidency as a media presidency, photo ops, giving billions of dollars of gifts away to people and to companies like General Electric, and until the mainstream media starts realizing –

Beck: Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that Barack Obama walks into a room and goes, “GE CEOs, look under your seat!”

Breitbart: I think that’s exactly what it is.

Beck: You’ve got a bailout. Is that what you’re suggesting?

Breitbart: That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. It is the Oprah Winfrey presidency.

Newt Gingrich Proves That Fearful People Do Stupid Things – It’s hilarious that Newt Gingrich perfectly encapsulates the overriding motivation for everything about the GOP: they are frightened little bunnies, petrified by the bogeyman coming to get them. And according to the Newt-ster, because that bogeyman is so vewwy scawwy, anything and everything you do in the name of making the bad man go away is fine, damn treaties, laws, and morals, much less effectiveness.

The thing that I think motivates Cheney, and I watched this firsthand after 9/11, is the shock of 9/11, the reality that his children and his grandchildren could die, that he has an obligation to America to take extra steps to keep us alive. And I think this was burned into him that day and the following day, and the realization we had been caught totally off-guard. Despite all the warnings of the ’90s, we have been caught totally off-guard. And so they did everything for seven and a half years to–and they have a very simple principle: If you’re in doubt, do what it takes to help America survive every time. … Let me just say, I think people should be afraid. I think the lesson of 1993, the first time they bombed the World Trade Center, was fear is probably appropriate. I think the lesson of Khobar Towers, where American servicemen were killed in Saudi Arabia, was fear is probably appropriate. I think the lesson of the two embassy bombings in east Africa was fear is probably appropriate. I think the lesson of the Cole being bombed in Yemen was fear is probably appropriate.

(The terrorists are in the fear business. Newt Gingrich, why are you helping the terrorists to succeed? You are proof that fearful people do stupid things. – JLV)

Coalition and Afghan Forces Caused 828 Afghan Civilian Deaths, Largely From Errant Air Strikes and Raids – Incidents where Afghan civilians are accidently killed by coalition forces are not uncommon in Afghanistan today and parallel the situation in Iraq where similar shootings were instrumental in turning popular sentiment against the coalition forces led by the United States. In Afghanistan, as it was in Iraq, when civilians die, international forces say that a suspicious vehicle approached a checkpoint or convoy and failed to heed calls as well as possibly warning shots to stop. After those standard procedures are done, an “escalation of force” takes place.

British Network of Cameras and Computers Automatically Tracks Cars Including Protestors – A national network of cameras and computers automatically logging car number plates will be in place within months. Thousands of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras are already operating on Britain’s roads. John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.

It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a “marker” on his car. That meant he was added to a “hotlist”. This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.

“I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?”

Regards,

Jim

Cheney’s Speech Contained Misstatements – In a recent speech, Dick Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that’s considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were “legal” and produced information that “prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.” Cheney quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair , as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a “deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country.”

In a statement April 21 , however, Blair said the information “was valuable in some instances” but that “there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”

Here’s a rundown of the other “omissions, misstatements and exaggerations” Cheney apparently made:

• Cheney said Obama’s move to release Bush memos on torture was “flatly contrary” to national security. - Fact: National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair “strongly supported” Obama’s decision to release the memos and said “we do not need these techniques to keep America safe.”
• Cheney claimed that the Bush team “moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks.” - Fact: Osama Bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri , remain at large. Moreover, the US diverted critical military resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, where al Qaeda was not in force until the US invaded.
• Cheney asserted there was no connection between Bush administration torture and detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib. - Fact: The Senate Armed Services Committee found in December that Abu Ghraib abuses were linked to approval of Bush administration techniques.
• Cheney said “only detainees of the highest intelligence value” were subjected to torture. - Fact: Cheney ignored Abu Zubaydah.
• Cheney said “the key to any strategy is accurate intelligence.” - Fact: The Bush administration used bogus intelligence as a pretense for invading Iraq — including a forgery that purportedly linked Saddam Hussein to an attempt to purchase uranium from Niger.
• Cheney ignored the recently “suicided” al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri, who provided bogus intelligence about Iraq’s links to al Qaeda.
• Cheney said Obama selectively released documents on Bush detainee policies. – Fact: A decision to withhold documents Cheney requested for declassification was made by the CIA under a standing order from President George W. Bush.
• Cheney claimed that only “ruthless enemies of this country” were detained by US agents and sent to secret prisons and Guantanamo. - Fact: “A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.”

Fear of Prosecution Caused Cheney to Speak Out, Daughter Says – Elizabeth Cheney told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that her father decided to speak out after he learned there was a possibility of legal action.

Republican National Committee Uses Controversial ‘Daisy’ Ad to Target Obama – The Republican National Committee Friday unearthed one of the most controversial political ads in American history to take aim at President Obama’s decision to close the detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

Called “Daisy,” The RNC’s new 30-second Web ad uses footage of the now-infamous 1964 Lyndon Johnson commercial by the same name that showed a young girl picking off the pedals of a flower as a nuclear explosion is heard in the background.

That ad, which only ran once but was widely criticized as being extreme, ends with the image of a mushroom crowd and Johnson declaring, “We must either love each other, or we must die.”

The New RNC ad splices the image of the girl with Obama’s earlier declaration suggesting that closing Guantanamo Bay is “easy.” This time the girl asks “To close it? To close it not?” as she picks off flower pedals.

Conservative Radio Host Gets Waterboarded, and Lasts Six Seconds Before Saying its Torture – Chicago radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller decided he’d get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn’t torture. It didn’t turn out that way. “Mancow,” in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul.

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’… It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow told listeners. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

George W. Bush Did NOT Keep Us Safe – Here’s a few examples of how George W. Bush did NOT keep us safe:

• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, thousands of soldiers died in Iraq–a war we now know without question to have been waged as part of an ideological program, not out of necessity. Those thousands of soldiers each had parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children, and hometowns dragged through the cruel stop-gap policies imposed on service men and women by George W. Bush.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were injured, only to return to the squalid conditions and cruel indifference of a veterans’ care medical system that fell through the cracks of America’s for-profit healthcare racket. The tragedy of our injured soldiers came to light during George W. Bush’s Presidency.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, the number of Americans living in abject fear for lack of health insurance reached the tens of millions. More Americans were subject to death and disease. As a result of this crisis of fear, a private medical relief agency initially set up to fly doctors to remote jungles in South America began flying relief into poor American communities.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history occurred.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, the tragic death of thousands occurred in New Orleans.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, the citizens of nearly all American foreign allies began to view the United States as a hostile threat to world peace, safety, and security as a result of (1) the preemptive invasion policies of Dick Cheney and (2) the torture-of-prisoners policies of Dick Cheney, turning some of those people toward terrorism.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, job security for working communities dropped, underemployment reached historic highs, and earned wages for worker output stagnated. People could not provide care for their families.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, corporations and fat-cats defrauded private citizens, retirement funds, and not-for-profit organizations out of billions of dollars.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, the United States impeded global cooperation to lower carbon emissions levels, thereby increasing the destructive potential of [climate change].
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, pet food produced in China was discovered as the cause of deaths for American dogs and cats contaminated by toxic melamine, resulting in a nationwide panic.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, ecoli contamination killed multiple people who had ate spinach, tomatoes, and peppers.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, elderly Americans panicked over shortages of flu vaccines.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency the largest gun massacre on a university campus occurred at Virginia Tech, resulting in the violent deaths of 5 faculty members and 27 students.
• During George W. Bush’s Presidency, the CIA at the bequest of Dick Cheney tortured prisoners using techniques in direct violation of U.S. and international law, dramatically increasing the likelihood that captured U.S. prisoners in the future will also be subject to torture.

And that is just to name a few, but you get the point. So, remind me again: How did George W. Bush’s policies keep us safe? Call me crazy, but I just do not see it.

Texas to Use Stimulus Funds to Repair the Governor’s Mansion After Governor Criticizes Stimulus Funds – While Gov. Rick Perry is criticizing Washington bailouts, state lawmakers are planning to use $11 million in federal stimulus money to help rebuild the badly burned Texas Governor’s Mansion. Approximately $10 million in state tax money will also be spent on a renovation, which is expected to cost about $20 million, officials said Thursday. Perry has railed against federal bailouts and what he called the free-spending, power-hungry ways of Washington. In January, he said Texas was endangered by Uncle Sam’s “audacity.”

Conservative University Bans Democratic Club – Liberty University — the largest evangelical university in the world — has revoked its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club. In their explanation, the university said they were “unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by” the school.

Liberty’s vice president of student affairs Mark Hine penned an email to the group’s chief, saying the club must immediately desist from using the university’s name, holding meetings on campus or advertising events — and that violations could, if frequent, result in expulsion.

“We are in no way attempting to stifle free speech,” Hine quipped when asked about the email on Thursday by the Lynchburg News and Advance. “We looked at each club and organization to determine where it stood and unfortunately this one kind of got in the sights of policy, if you will.”

Update: After being criticized for the ban, Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. has now said the Democratic club can exist but cannot use the University’s name.

Regards,

Jim

Terrorists Plant Bombs in New York City: What Can We Learn? – Four men arrested for planting bombs at a New York synagogue and Jewish community center also wanted to use surface-to-air missiles to fire at U.S. military planes, said a criminal complaint filed this week in White Plains, New York. The charges are based on information from an FBI informant, with whom the men met as they plotted to carry out their attacks, authorities said. The bombs had been made by FBI technicians. They were totally inert; no one was ever at risk or in danger of being injured. Three of them are U.S. citizens and one is a Haitian, the FBI said. One of the suspects allegedly said his parents live in Afghanistan, that he was angry over the U.S. war there, and that he was interested “doing something to America.”

Let’s review. In this actual case of an attempted terrorist act:

• Three of the suspects were American citizens (They didn’t sneak in to our country).
• At least one was motivated to commit a terrorist act because of U.S. actions.
• They were apprehended using law enforcement techniques (not military).
• No torture or abuse was needed to obtain information.
• The Obama administration’s FBI kept us safe.

Alberto Gonzales Approved ‘Borderline Torture’ Months Before ‘Torture Memos’ Were Issued: Report – Months before the first “torture memo” was issued by Bush administration lawyers in 2002, Alberto Gonzales – then White House counsel – personally approved “borderline torture” techniques used on Abu Zubaydah, according to a new report.

An anonymous source told NPR that in April and May of 2002 CIA contractor James Mitchell sought approval on a daily basis for so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” via top-secret cables to the CIA’s counterterrorism center. The CIA forwarded those cables to the White House, and Gonzales would approve the technique.

Oil and Gasoline Supply Up, Demand Down, But Prices Up: What Gives? – Oil and gasoline prices are rising fast as Memorial Day weekend approaches, but not because supplies are tight or demand is high. U.S. crude oil inventories are at their highest levels in almost two decades, and demand has fallen to a 10-year low, but crude oil prices have climbed more than 70 percent since mid-January to a six-month high of $62.04 on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, although refiners are operating at less than 85 percent of capacity, leaving them plenty of room to churn out more gasoline if demand rises during the summer driving season, the price of gasoline at the pump has climbed 28 cents a gallon from a month earlier to $2.33.

This time, Wall Street speculators – some of them recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ bailout money – may be to blame. Big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and others are able to sidestep the regulations that limit investments in commodities such as oil, and they’re investing on behalf of pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and other big institutional investors, in part as a hedge against rising inflation.

John Boehner Admits the CIA Lied to Pete Hoekstra – On The Situation Room John Boehner again calls for Nancy Pelosi to apologize for her statement that the CIA lied to her. When Boehner is asked about Pete Hoekstra’s similar claims that the CIA lied to him, he says it’s true, but somehow it’s different. What’s different? Oh, yes, Hoekstra’s a Republican. That makes it ok.

Banks Using Life Insurance Policies on Low-Level Employees to Fund Executive Bonuses – Banks are using a little-known tactic to help pay bonuses, deferred pay and pensions they owe executives: They’re holding life-insurance policies on hundreds of thousands of their workers, with themselves as the beneficiaries. Banks took out much of this life insurance during the mortgage bubble, when executives’ pay — and the IOUs for their deferred compensation — surged, and banking regulators affirmed the use of life insurance as a way to finance executive pay and benefits.

The Rich Give to Charity at Only Half the Rate as the Poor – The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America’s households contributed an average of 4.3 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in 2007. The richest fifth gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.

tePolice Asset Forfeiture Programs Breed Corruptionxt – Under civil asset forfeiture, police can seize money or property upon “probable cause” that it was connected to a crime. The onus then falls on the owner to prove innocence. Police departments use the proceeds to help fund their budgets.

“Probable cause” can include the mere fact of carrying a large amount of cash, or a police dog’s sniff of drug residue on your property. One may have a legitimate reason for carrying the cash, and the residue may have been left over from the previous owner. It doesn’t matter. The police can seize your property to enrich their departments, and it’s often too risky and expensive for you to fight for its return.

Civil asset forfeiture breeds corruption. Last month, a South Tucson, AZ, cop who ran his department’s asset forfeiture program was convicted of stealing over $560,000 from it.

This month, the cop who handles asset forfeiture funds in Spring Lake, NC, was arrested for stealing $2,900. Another cop was arrested for having seized the money in a hotel room under false pretenses.

Regards,

Jim

Mr. President,

There was an exclusive news report on MSNBC tonight. The main point was that instead of reemphasizing what you have said in public about letting the Justice Department decide about prosecuting wrong doings of the previous administration, you instead said, in a private meeting today, that this issue is settled. You did not repeat that it’s up to your Attorney General. This, and other Bush leaning actions worry me and here’s why.

The Lucifer Effect documents how “bad barrels” produce “bad apples.” How one’s environment changes who you are. How good people come to do bad things. (Think Abu Ghraib and The Stanford Prison Experiment.)

I think that “inside the beltway” represents the bad barrel of the country and that the longer one is inside that beltway, the greater the chance that a good man will be adversely affected.

Please recognize the threat of the bad barrel and keep true to your heart and we the people. Keep empathy in the fore and help the country relearn that the government is here to protect and empower all of us – not just the mega rich.

By the way, it also sounds like we are losing the healthcare battle in the Senate to profit.

Thank you for taking on this tough job in these bad times!

Don McLeroy Nominated as Chair of the Texas State Board of Education – Earlier today at a surprise meeting, the Senate Nominations Committee voted to send the nomination of Don McLeroy, R-College Station, to the full Senate for confirmation as State Board of Education (SBOE) chair. This sets up a major showdown on the floor of the Texas Senate, likely next Monday or Tuesday.

Gov. Perry appointed McLeroy board chairman in July 2007. Since then, the board has turned debates over language arts and science curriculum standards into “culture war” battlegrounds. Chairman McLeroy has also endorsed a book that says parents who want to teach children about evolution are “monsters” and call clergy who see no conflict between faith and science “morons.” This spring McLeroy led other creationists on the state board in adopting new science curriculum standards that call the scientific consensus on evolution into question and even drop references to the age of the universe.

And if you need another reason why McLeroy is unqualified to be board chair, click here to watch this short video of McLeroy wildly declaring, “I disagree with all these experts! Somebody has to stand up to these experts!”

Please take a moment to contact your senator and tell him or her to vote against Don McLeroy as SBOE chair. (Click here to find your senator.)

Though numerous news outlets reported that McLeroy’s nomination was blocked after an embarrassing hearing before the Senate committee last month, it appears a flurry of calls from religious-right pressure groups has reinvigorated McLeroy’s nomination. Many of these groups are claiming that McLeroy is a victim of religious persecution:

“It is hard to believe that in the United States of America, religious discrimination at the level of the Texas Legislature has occurred. Dr. McLeroy is being vilified and condemned because he is a Christian and holds a Biblical worldview of creation.” — E-mail alert dated May 19, 2009

That kind of accusation is both ridiculous and offensive. McLeroy’s nomination is in trouble because the board under his chairmanship has made Texas a national laughingstock. The decision to confirm or deny McLeroy’s appointment is a clear referendum on the outrageous antics of the State Board of Education.

It requires just 11 senators to reject a confirmation. But we need your help to find 11 reasonable senators who believe education policy should not be held hostage to the personal and political agendas of extremists on the state board.

The religious right recognizes the importance of having McLeroy as board chair. If we don’t match their passion and determination, we can expect two more years of “culture war” battles fought on the backs of Texas schoolchildren.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Health Care Plan Lets Patients Choose To Spend Their Own Money – The Republican Party has a deal for you: Under the health care proposal the GOP released Wednesday, you are fully entitled to spend your own money in the free market to purchase health insurance, a chief backer of the plan, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), said Wednesday.

Under the rubric of choice, the plan treats employer-based health insurance as income and taxes a worker’s benefits. If it costs an employer $12,000 to cover your health care, for instance, you’d be responsible to pay taxes on that $12,000 as if it were paid out to you.

To offset the tax, the plan provides a $5,700 tax credit. If a family doesn’t have insurance, that money can be used to buy it. But Burr acknowledged that the credit would be far less than the roughly $12,000 cost of health insurance.

Waterboarding is ‘tip of the iceberg’ According to Military Attorney – A military attorney who represented a now-freed Guantanamo detainee told CNN on Wednesday that waterboarding is only “the tip of the iceberg.” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley said that when her client was first held at a CIA prison in Morocco, “They started this monthly treatment where they would come in with a scalpel or a razor type of instrument and they would slash his genitals, just with small cuts.”

Air Force Fires a 25 Million Dollar Hero Pilot (He’s Gay) – Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach, a fighter weapons systems officer, has been flying the F-15E Strike Eagle since 1998. He has flown numerous missions against Taliban and al-Qaida targets, including the longest combat mission in his squadron’s history. On that infamous September 11, 2001, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach was handpicked to fly sorties above the nation’s capital. Later he flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has received at least 30 awards and decorations including nine air medals, one of them for heroism, as well as campaign medals for Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is now a flight instructor in Idaho, where he has passed on his skills to more than 300 future Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force weapons systems officers.

Since 1987, when Fehrenbach entered Notre Dame on a full Air Force ROTC scholarship, the government has invested twenty-five million dollars in training and equipping him to serve his country, which he has done with what anyone would agree was great distinction. He comes from a military family. His father was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, his mother an Air Force nurse and captain. Lt. Col. Fehrenbach has honored that tradition.

And the Air Force is about to discharge this guy, a virtual poster boy for Air Force recruiting, because he is gay? Someone has to be kidding. This is sheer madness.

Texas Rep. Barton: We Shouldn’t Regulate CO2 Because ‘It’s In Your Coca-Cola’ And ‘You Can’t Regulate God’ – Discussing the bill on C-Span’s Washington Journal this morning, Rep. “Smokey Joe” Barton (R-TX) defended his head-in-the-sand approach to climate change by fundamentally misunderstanding the science, misstating the reality of carbon dioxide emissions, and mocking fuel-efficient cars. Some highlights:

I would also point out that CO2, carbon dioxide, is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term. … I am creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola, you’re Dr. Pepper, your Perrier water. It is necessary for human life. It is odorless, colorless, tasteless, does not cause cancer, does not cause asthma.

And something that the Democrat sponsors do not point out, a lot of the CO2 that is created in the United States is naturally created. You can’t regulate God. Not even the Democratic majority in the US Congress can regulate God.

Regards,

Jim

Former Democratic Fund-Raiser Guilty of Campaign Fraud – A former Democratic fund-raiser who contributed to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been convicted in federal court on four counts of campaign fraud — one for each year from 2004 to 2007. Lev Dassin, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that Hsu not only swindled investors out of at least $20 million but, according to the indictment, also told some investors to make campaign contributions to the candidates he supported, and suggested that their investments could be jeopardized if they didn’t do as he asked.
He “also asked victims to contribute to specific candidates for federal office, and then directly reimbursed the victims for their contributions from his fraud proceeds, in violation of federal campaign finance laws,” the indictment said.

When Hsu’s activities came to light, the campaigns of Obama and Clinton — as well as others — either returned his donations or gave them to charity.

More Errors in CIA Records of Briefings – Congressman David Obey (D-WI) has become the latest lawmaker to highlight erroneous information in CIA records. Rep. Obey sent the following letter to CIA Director Leon Panetta on Tuesday:

Dear Director Panetta:

In light of current controversy about CIA briefing practices, I was surprised to learn that the agency erroneously listed an appropriations staffer as being in a key briefing on September 19, 2006, when in fact he was not. The list the agency released entitled “Member Briefings on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs)”, shows that House Appropriations Committee defense appropriations staffer Paul Juola was in that briefing on that date. In fact, Mr. Juola recollects that he walked members to the briefing room, met General Hayden and Mr.Walker, who were the briefers, and was told that he could not attend the briefing. We request that you immediately correct this record.

Sincerely,
David R. Obey

Newt Gingrich Makes False Accusations About Uighurs – Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs, have been detained for more than six years at the American prison at Guantanamo Bay. The Uighurs were picked up by bounty hunters in Afghanistan who sold them to the U.S. military.

Newt Gingrich stated in an op-ed, that ‘[b]y their own admission, Uighurs being held at Guantanamo Bay are members of or associated with the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an al Qaeda-affiliated group designated as a terrorist organization under U.S law.”

No, they have never admitted that, says Abbas, adding that the Uighurs call the claim “baseless, factless slander against them.” Abbas returned from Guantanamo Monday. She now works with the Uighurs’ defense attorneys.

“Why does he hate us so much and say those kinds of things? He doesn’t know us. He should talk to our attorneys if he’s curious about our background,” Abbas relates. “How could he speak in such major media with nothing based in fact? They were very disappointed how Newt Gingrich was linking them to ETIM which they never even heard of the name ETIM until they came to Guantanamo Bay.”

Regards,

Jim

Rumsfeld Sent Bush Top Secret Wartime Memos With Cover Sheets That Mixed Bible Scripture and Battle Photos – Top secret military intelligence briefings prepared by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and often hand-delivered to George W. Bush featured Crusades-like Bible quotes above triumphant photos of the U.S. military effort in Iraq. These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense.

Many inside the Pentagon, including one Muslim analyst, were offended by the biblical quotes, while others worried that the briefing cover sheets, if leaked, would do serious damage as the U.S. and its allied coalition of mostly Western troops prosecuted a war in an Islamic nation. The Bible quotes adorned the reports in part because Rumsfeld wanted to forge a connection with his boss, George W. Bush. Rumsfeld likely saw the Scriptures as a way of making a personal connection with a president who frequently quoted the Bible.

Additional images of “Worldwide Intelligence Update” cover sheets can be found in the slideshow at the link.

Palin’s Lies to Nowhere About Obama’s Recovery Package – Alaska governor Sarah Palin indicated that she was initially going to veto more than 30 percent–or $288 million–of the stimulus package. Her reasoning was that it “would grow government” and leave the State of Alaska holding the bag for expanded programs two years down the line when the funds ran out. She then floated a proposal to accept the stimulus funding if the legislature agreed to cut state spending, primarily for education, and use the federal money instead–a proposal that was summarily rejected by the Republican leadership in the legislature.

And when push came to shove to fight the stimulus, Palin was nowhere to be seen. The Alaska legislature held 20 public hearings on the recovery bill and discovered that the strings Palin and her economic advisers claimed were attached to the funding were nonexistent. There were no “unfunded mandates.”

Palin also bailed on a scheduled meeting with state lawmakers, and then blamed them for the cancellation, leading Gary Stevens, the state’s Republican Senate President, to essentially call Palin a liar. He vehemently characterized Palin’s account of events surrounding the cancellation as “absolutely false.” Indeed he was so emphatic about it that he used the phrase “absolutely false” twice.

Palin has continued to slide down the slippery slope of hypocrisy. Her last bastion of opposition to the stimulus package is $28.6 million in State Energy Program funding. Palin claims that “Alaska’s vast expanse and differing conditions are not conducive to a federally mandated, universal energy code” and that “one size does not fit all.”

This past week, two state senators–Anchorage Republican Lesil McGuire and Anchorage Democrat Bill Wielechowski–have formally confronted Palin on her position. So has freshman U.S. Senator Mark Begich (the former Democratic mayor of Anchorage) and a host of other community activists from all across the political spectrum.

Several have pointed out that Palin has exaggerated and distorted the federal requirements attached to the energy funding, noting that virtually all Alaska municipal codes already meet federal guidelines and that rural communities with populations of less than 2,500 are exempt. Wielechowski and McGuire asserted in a letter to Palin that “Alaska can meet the requirements for receipt of $28.6 million in State Energy Program stimulus funds through adoption of local energy standards, rather than a statewide energy code.” All 49 other states have accepted the funds.

So much for Palin’s argument of “one size” needing to fit all. It’s yet another of her lies to nowhere.

Obama’s Military Commission Disaster – Candidate Obama told us “[a]s President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions.” But now, President Obama has announced that we are now about to embark on our third attempt at trying terrorism suspects in military commissions–a forum that has been proven not to work at delivering justice that is either swift or fair. Today’s mindboggling announcement promised that the system created by one of the last acts of the 2006 Republican congress–the Military Commissions Act (or MCA)–would be revised by Congress to add procedural safeguards before any trials moved forward.

James Dobson Lies About the Hate-Crimes Bill – James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, said about the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009:

The dangerous bill, awaiting Senate consideration, would create a new class of crimes based on the victim’s “actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Those who speak out against homosexuality, including pastors, could face prosecution for “inciting” violence against gay individuals.

No, they wouldn’t. That’s a flat-out lie. Here’s what the bill says:

Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by, the Constitution.

The only “right” that this bill infringes upon is the “right” of violent yahoos to seek out victims based on their perceived status as a member of a minority group and commit criminal acts against them. That’s the right Dobson is defending here.

You also said this about the bill:

Even more concerning, the legislation could create special protection for pedophiles. Democrats voted down an amendment to the bill that would have excluded pedophilia from the definition of “sexual orientation.”

That’s a lie too.

There’s nothing in either the federal legislation, or in any state law, that could credibly be construed as offering protection to pedophiles. In fact, the entire construct — that these laws create “protected classes” — is false to begin with.

But [this] argument appears predicated on the wholly fabricated notion that pedophilia might somehow legally qualify as a “sexual orientation” — which is to say, it rests on the assumption that homosexuality is somehow akin to pedophilia.

We understand it when right-wing politicians and pundits lie about this bill. We’re accustomed to it. It’s what they do.

Regards,

Jim