Bad Deeds for 4-17-07

Bill O’Reilly and Tom DeLay Together – O’Reilly renewed his attacks against Rosie O’Donnell on 4/16/07 with the help of Tom DeLay for comments she made on The View. O’Reilly called O’Donnell ” the queen of mean” and “out of control” telling viewers in the tease that DeLay wanted her fired from ABC. He showed a clip of O’Donnell making the point that O’Reilly had called Mexicans ” wetbacks” which she considered racist and another clip of her making a brief sarcastic remark about DeLay’s ethical challenges. Tom DeLay talked about suffering through 11 years of these attacks from left wing groups and people like Rosie O’Donnell who ” carpet bomb” people unfairly. DeLay said we need ‘honest commentary” because the left is ” never held accountable”.

Pentagon ordered contractor to hire Wolfowitz friend – The U.S. Defense Department ordered a contractor to hire a World Bank employee and girlfriend of then-Pentagon No. 2 Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 for work related to Iraq, the contractor said on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, said the Defense Department’s policy office directed the company to enter a subcontract with Shaha Riza, under which she spent a month studying ways to form a government in Iraq. Wolfowitz, an Iraq war architect who left the Pentagon in 2005 to become president of the World Bank, is under fire for overseeing a high-paying promotion for Riza after he took the helm of the poverty-fighting global lender.

Bush Lawyers Say Bush Can Exclude Whoever He Wants From Attending His Speeches – Even though the speech is a taxpayer-funded event, you can be barred.

Logging decimates African rainforest – The world’s second largest rainforest — a haven of biodiversity and one of the planet’s vital safeguards against runaway global warming — is being devastated by illegal logging, environmentalists have warned. More than 15 million hectares of central African forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been given away to international logging companies since a moratorium sponsored by the World Bank was agreed in 2002, causing “social chaos environmental havoc.” According to the 2002 deal, the government of the DRC agreed not to issue any further logging licenses or to renew any existing contracts in return for $90 million in World Bank development aid. But Greenpeace estimated that up to 100 logging contracts had been issued since the moratorium was due to come into force. It also fears many of those could be legalized as part of a review subsequently initiated by the World Bank.

Conservatives Fear That the “Fairness Doctrine” May Return to Public Broadcasts – There’s nothing that scares Conservatives more than fairness. The Fairness Doctrine, which was enacted in 1949 by the FCC and eliminated during the Reagan administration, required broadcasters to give equal time to dissenting opinions. Its abolition is credited with the explosion of conservative talk radio in the 1980s. At the Next Conservatism Forum, conservatives were already thinking of ways to fight back. One idea was using misleading language such as saying the opposite of the Fairness Doctrine is the Freedom Doctrine.

Oliver North Attacks Nancy Pelosi Over Trip To Iran She Does Not Intend To Make – Only on FOX News would a guy like Oliver North, convicted of deceiving Congress about illegal sales of arms to Iran with profits being channeled to the Nicaraguan Contras (his conviction was later overturned on a technicality), be presented as a credible critic of any unofficial contact Nancy Pelosi might make with Syria or Iran. Yet Fox allowed North to accuse Pelosi of consorting with Iran for supposedly considering a trip there – even though she had already said she does not intend to go. There was no mention of North’s questionable record on the subject of Iran or his conduct of non-authorized foreign policy nor was any balancing view of Pelosi provided to the audience. With video.

They Decided Not to Brag About That Anymore
About a week ago, TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Regent University boasted that 150 of its graduates, including former top Deptartment of Justice aide Monica Goodling, are serving in some capacity in the Bush administration. According to Google cache, as recently as April 12, Regent’s “facts” web page included seven bullets noting graduates in various political positions, with the seventh noting, in all bold letters, “150 graduates serving in the Bush Administration.” As of yesterday, the same page is identical, except the seventh bullet has been deleted. Regent stopped bragging about staffing the administration almost immediately after someone from the media noticed. Is Regent suddenly embarrassed to be associated so closely with the Bush administration, or is the administration suddenly embarrassed to be associated so closely with Regent? Also in this blog.

Regards,

Jim