Click here to view this media We should have known that Saturday Night Live would not have passed up the opportunity to have a bit of fun with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange and they did just that during the opening segment this weekend where they pictured Assange teaming up with gossip site TMZ.
Continue reading …Crowley: Political Leaders Should Listen to Deficit Commission Even if Voters Hate Their Recommendations
December 5, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media While discussing America’s current economic situation and whether voters think it’s going to improve or not on CNN’s Your Money, panel member Candy Crowley made this bizarre statement as to how our political leadership should react to the recommendations from the Catfood commission’s co-chairs, Simpson and Bowles. CROWLEY: Well, they’re going to try next year. I mean, here’s the problem. Everybody talks about reducing the debt and reducing the deficit, which are two separate things. But nonetheless, we’ve had this debt commission come and say, well, here’s how you do it. And there’s just three big ticket items, right? Federally funded health care, the Pentagon and Social Security. Well, you know, what you need here are three politicians, the Speaker, the Majority Leader in the Senate, and the president who don’t care about re-election to kind of try to lead this. Because when you look at all the polling, the public is not for cutting any of those or changing the benefits. MARTIN: There you go. CROWLEY: And you can’t get to it any other way. First of all, since when do any politicians not care about being reelected? Sadly it seems to be all they care about too often and raising money to do it rather than looking after their constituents. Second, the “everybody” that’s obsessed with deficit reduction are not the American voters, but our beltway Villagers and the politicians who have decided to use this opportunity for some good old Shock Doctrine type changes to our social safety nets. Next we get Crowley saying we need to address “federally funded health care”, by which I assume she means Medicaid. Of course no mention there that the reason it is so expensive is the government is paying for the oldest and sickest patients while the insurance companies get to make a profit off of the rest of us and how opening that system up to everyone would make it viable and allow the rest of us to quit making the insurance company CEO’s rich. And I’d love to know what polls she’s looking at that say voters don’t want any cuts to the Pentagon and how they were worded. Since spending on the military and defense have more or less been used as a jobs program it would not surprise me to see polling that suggested voters did not want specific programs cut that benefited their areas of the country economically. Our military industrial complex has made sure that the benefits of keeping it in place are spread around to as many Congressional districts as possible intentionally so there’s never enough wide spread opposition to different programs to see the hatchet come down on that budget. And last of all, Crowley admits that making cuts to Social Security might be political suicide for anyone that does it, but thinks it’s some sign of leadership that any of them are willing to do it. And what is absent in her argument here? Increasing taxes to keep Social Security solvent past 2037 and the fact that Democrats are acting like scared sheep on tax increases to make that argument and lacking the leadership to be honest about what would fix it without inflicting the pain on the working class. She also more or less admits that Social Security is not a part of the problem with the deficit but conflates the issue so badly with her doublespeak on deficit and debt and what’s actually contributing to the problem with the federal budget that most of the viewers would not realize that after listening to her. Why Crowley is even a part of a discussion on economics on this show in the first place is beyond me, but I could say the same thing about the rest of them as well. Sadly this is the type of discussion which happens day after day on our cable “news” shows that do little or nothing to inform the public of what’s needed to get our economy growing again, which is to start making the rich pay their fair share in taxes, quit rewarding companies for outsourcing jobs, level the playing field for American workers with our trade laws and do something to reverse the trend where the the upper 1% control all of the wealth in America. I’m all for tax cuts for corporations that get rewarded for actually putting Americans back to work and not shipping our jobs overseas or just fleecing the public like our insurance industries. This ended up being just another really dishonest discussion about what’s causing our economic woes and what to do to fix them that we’re sadly seeing day after day by our chattering class in the media. Full transcript from CNN of the exchange above. MARTIN: The bottom line is – what I keep going back to, you can’t sit here and keep talking about deficit, deficit, deficit when the tax cuts speak to increasing the deficit. And then you say but keep the tax cuts will also cut the deficits. VELSHI: Unless – unless – interesting point that you both are making. Candy, unless there’s only one way to cut taxes and cut the deficit at the same time and that is with economic growth. If this – if this – MOORE: That’s right. VELSHI: — economy were to grow faster than it’s growing right now, you can have your cake and eat it, too, but it’s not. So this puts everybody in Washington into a difficult and precarious position. I mean, Roland makes the point, Candy, that it’s a percent or two percent of the population but it’s disproportionately a job creating one or two percent. So how do you square the circle? CROWLEY: Well, they’re going to try next year. I mean, here’s the problem. Everybody talks about reducing the debt and reducing the deficit, which are two separate things. But nonetheless, we’ve had this debt commission come and say, well, here’s how you do it. And there’s just three big ticket items, right? Federally funded health care, the Pentagon and Social Security. Well, you know, what you need here are three politicians, the Speaker, the Majority Leader in the Senate, and the president who don’t care about re-election to kind of try to lead this. Because when you look at all the polling, the public is not for cutting any of those or changing the benefits. MARTIN: There you go. CROWLEY: And you can’t get to it any other way. MARTIN: And, Ali – and, Ali, a critical point – MOORE: And, Ali, can I – VELSHI: Stephen, go ahead. MARTIN: – we also see when it comes to these politicians as well, and that is you now have all the politicians who keep saying Washington can’t create jobs. And so think about it. We keep saying what will Washington do, when we just saw an election where we have all of the people saying – VELSHI: All right. MARTIN: Washington can’t create jobs. OK. Then what is it? VELSHI: And, Stephen, last word on that. MOORE: The last word, this is a personal finance show, YOUR $$$$$. One of the things people have to realize, if we don’t get this tax issue resolved in the next week or so, that everyone’s taxes, not just rich people, Ali, on January 1st go up. And for a middle class family, you’re talking about $2,000 or $3,000 more per year. The IRS, by the way, says they’re not – they don’t have time now to change the tax forms. MARTIN: Two-fifty and less. That’s the answer, Steve. VELSHI: All right, guys. MOORE: You can’t shake it from there, Roland. VELSHI: Good discussion. Thank you, all of you. Thanks, Candy – MARTIN: That means your taxes and my taxes will go up, Steve. VELSHI: — and Roland and Stephen.
Continue reading …Fox Panel Ignores Big Elephant in the Room While Discussing WikiLeaks — Judith Miller’s Involvement in Plame Case
December 5, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media I found it pretty astounding that the panel on Fox News Watch could have a discussion about Joe Lieberman’s attack on the press with his desire to go after WikiLeaks and the subject of Judith Miller’s involvement or jail time in the Valerie Plame case isn’t mentioned. But then again, it’s Fox, so nothing they do should surprise me. Alan Colmes even brings up the Plame case but Miller’s part in it is completely ignored. Joe Lieberman Threatens to Put Dexter Filkins, Judy Miller in Jail to Fearmonger over Wikileaks : Joe Lieberman has introduced what he claims to be a law targeted at Wikileaks. “The recent dissemination by Wikileaks of thousands of State Department cables and other documents is just the latest example of how our national security interests, the interests of our allies, and the safety of government employees and countless other individuals are jeopardized by the illegal release of classified and sensitive information,” said Lieberman in a written statement. “This legislation will help hold people criminally accountable who endanger these sources of information that are vital to protecting our national security interests,” he continued. The so-called SHIELD Act (Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination) would amend a section of the Espionage Act that already forbids publishing classified information on U.S. cryptographic secrets or overseas communications intelligence — i.e., wiretapping. The bill would extend that prohibition to information on HUMINT, human intelligence, making it a crime to publish information “concerning the identity of a classified source or informant of an element of the intelligence community of the United States,” or “concerning the human intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government” if such publication is prejudicial to U.S. interests. Problem is, not only would it not endanger Wikileaks (as far as we know). But it would put both good journalists–like Dexter Filkins–and bad ones–like Judy Miller and Bob Novak–in jail. Read on…
Continue reading …This WikiLeaks whack-a-mole reminds of the old film about early rock and roll, “American Hot Wax.” In a pivotal scene at the end, trailblazing DJ Alan Freed is arrested in a payola scandal during one of his rock shows. I can still hear him yelling, “You can stop me, but you’re never gonna stop rock and roll! ” (Rock and roll, in this case, being the internet.) The grownups didn’t understand the power of rock, and I can assure you that the political Beltway class does not understand the power of the internets. In fact, the feds narrowly dodged a bullet last week when they dropped a case against a man offering X-box modification services. (They gathered evidence in violation of California’s privacy laws. Hah!) As one gamer told me, “That was good, because you really don’t want to get those hackers mad. They’ll take down the entire government.” From a Foreign Policy blog: In a bid to stay one step ahead of the governments, companies , freelance hackers trying to shut down its operations, WikiLeaks mobilized its vast base of online support Saturday by asking its Twitter followers to create copies of its growing archive of hundreds of classified State Department cables. By late afternoon Eastern time, more than 200 had answered the call, setting up “mirror” sites, many of them with the name “wikileaks” appended to their Web addresses. They organized themselves organically using the Twitter hashtag #imwikileaks , in a virtual show of solidarity reminiscent of the movie V is for Vendetta . In that 2005 film, a Guy-Fawkes masked vigilantee inspires thousands of Londoners to march on the Parliament similarly disguised — while it blows up in front of their eyes. Presumably, many of these people believe they are facing the same sort of tyranny that V, the film’s protagonist, fought against.Critics of WikiLeaks have called on the Obama administration to shut down the site, but now it’s clear that doing so would be a difficult task indeed. The New Yorker ‘s recent profile of Julian Assange, the organization’s mysterious founder and front man, said that “a government or company that wanted to remove content from WikiLeaks would have to practically dismantle the Internet itself.” WikiLeaks has also posted a massive, heavily encrypted “insurance” file on The Pirate Bay , a sympathetic website, which presumably contains also 250,000-plus cables and would be released into the wild if anything happens to Assange. As my FP colleague Evgeny Morozov warns , aggressive action like arresting or killing Assange could spawn the rise of a vast, permanent network of radicalized hackers “systematically challenging those in power – governments and companies alike – just for the sake of undermining ‘the system’.” That could prove an extremely dangerous threat to the global economy and diplomatic sphere.
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Click here to view this media You’ve just got to love the framing they used for this segment from CNN’s Parker/Spitzer earlier this week — Can a centrist movement in the U.S. succeed or is it too ‘mushy’ to hold up? This just smells of more Republican re-branding with some of the so-called Republican “moderates” wanting to distance themselves from the teabirchers that have taken over their party. They may have done well during the mid-term elections just catering to their base, but that’s not going to work so well in 2012. Former Rudy Giuliani staffer John Avlon’s been pushing this nonsense for some time now, but as Karoli pointed out last week , there’s a new group jumping on his bandwagon as well. Kathleen Parker never mentioned the “No Labels” group during the segment, but it may as well have been an infomercial for them by Parker and Avlon. It’s really a shame that Thomas Frank wasn’t allowed to speak more to counter Avlon’s talking points. Kathleen Parker and John Avlon can put all of the “mushy middle”, “we’re a center-right country”, bipartisan spin on this they want. It’s not going to change the fact that they’re both a couple of right wingers. There’s not a lick of difference between their economic policy positions and those of Dick Armey and the Koch brothers. CNN’s off air interview with Frank looked a lot more interesting than listening to Avlon’s claptrap about how voters just really want all the bickering to stop and for our politicians to all just get along, which is doublespeak demanding Democratic capitulation. Q: If we could arrange a private conversation between you and Rep. John Boehner, what would you say to him? FRANK: I was struck by his line about Democrats “snuffing out the America that I grew up in.” It’s a charge that I frequently apply to conservatives, who have so resolutely smashed the middle-class society where I grew up in favor of a nation that is heaven on earth for the very rich—and an endless, losing struggle for working people. It’s also something I often say about market forces generally, which are the most radical and disruptive cultural influences I know of. Conservatives always claim to love the market and to deplore what’s happening in “the culture,” but they never explain how they can hold these two views at the same time. Wouldn’t it be great to have John Boehner himself sort out these things out for us? I’m also always been impressed by his luminous neckties, and I would of course tell him so. Q: What credit do you give the Tea Party for changing American politics at this moment? FRANK: They demonstrated two important things: – That the supposed power of centrism is in fact just a comforting beltway fairytale. That the “median voter” doesn’t really determine things. That politics really is a battle of small, committed groups—and also of money. – That there’s a place in politics for class-based discontent. That conservatives can speak to that emotion just as readily as liberals can. And that if liberals don’t understand this—if they just blow it off on the grounds that working-class people will always vote for Democrats because duh—that they will keep losing, and they will deserve to lose. Q:As you get older, do you find yourself becoming more or less liberal? FRANK: Not speaking strictly for myself here, but what I find people outgrow isn’t liberalism per se, it’s the tendency to treat politics like a branch of aesthetics, where what matters are gestures and what you’re after—the object of politics—is a demonstration of your originality and your surpassing cleverness. When you get older you realize how impotent that approach is, and you also understand the disastrous consequences things like, say, banking deregulation have for people. Full transcript of the clip above below the fold. PARKER: Earlier this year, I used my syndicated column to declare myself a centrist, someone who is politically anti- ideological. And it seems I’m not alone. Political independents, those neither right or left that smack dab in the broad middle, today, constitutes 42 percent of the electorate. Of course, now I’m wondering — can a centrist movement succeed? SPITZER: Tonight’s “Constitution Avenue” guests have different answers to the viability of the political center, Thomas Frank satirically calls it the magic middle. Meanwhile, CNN contributor John Avlon literally wrote a book that what he calls the vital center. Welcome, gentlemen. Let me begin to this by asking, what is the middle? How do you define it? What does it really stand for? JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think the vast of the majority of Americans are non-ideological problem-solvers and they really distrust the absolutism our politics has started to come up with and the polarization of the two parties, the fact that the extremes have effectively hijacked our political debate and increasingly our government. And there’s a commonsense resentment of that approach to politics. SPITZER: All of which sounds wonderful and it’s almost impossible to disagree with that impure concept, but obviously, you think it doesn’t really translate into politics day to day. Why not? THOMAS FRANK, WALL STREET JOURNAL: I live in Washington, D.C., and when you — SPITZER: You can start your argument right there. (CROSSTALK) FRANK: To hell with that place. But, look, in Washington, D.C., centrism means, what John just said, that sounds so noble. You know, I don’t know anybody that wouldn’t sound of that. A practical problem solver, that’s me. PARKER: It is noble. It’s wonderful. (CROSSTALK) FRANK: But that’s not what they mean by that term in Washington, D.C. What they mean by that term in Washington, D.C., is this place — and there is only — by the way, the definition I’m going to give you is only something that is believed in two parts of American life. One is the sort of punditocracy in Washington, D.C., maybe here in New York as well. Present companies clearly — (CROSSTALK) FRANK: And then the others in political science departments of the nation. PARKER: I’m going say something here. Talking about centrism in Washington is irrelevant, OK? Washington, as you say, it’s an industry town. If you’re not one thing or another, centrists are just this mushy middle people who don’t have any thoughts or any ideas. No ideology. Exactly. We don’t have an ideology because we’re anti- ideology. SPITZER: Now, I want to pick up on something that Thomas said before, which I think is exactly right. In fact, the Democratic Party has been very much in that middle and it’s the Republican Party that’s moved to the right. And I want to use one example, which is — the example that’s on the table, is the problem with the mechanics. But I want to talk about the issue that’s on the table today — the tax cut. FRANK: Yes. SPITZER: The Democratic Party is saying give a tax cut to everybody below $250,000. Point to $500,000, nobody would be terribly upset. But 65 percent of the American public believes that. The Republican Party is holding us hostage in opposition. So, answer to Thomas’ point, isn’t the Democratic Party kind of where that center is on that one critical issue? PARKER: John, you absolutely have an answer for this and I want to you say it. AVLON: Good. Here’s the issue. The Republican Party is dominated by the far right. They think tax cuts is theology. It used to be that fiscal conservatism was synonymous to fiscal responsibility. That’s stop the case during the 1990s and 2000, when all of a sudden, it was supply side no matter what. The Democratic Party has an opportunity here if they own that. FRANK: The conservative movement has a motto. I’m not a conservative. You guys know that. I’m pretty liberal but I admire the conservatives in all sort of ways and one of them is they have this great — PARKER: Somehow, I think this is going to be an insult. FRANK: What is a conservative movement about? You remember Howard Phillips (ph), the conservative caucus? SPITZER: Oh, yes. FRANK: He’s saying way back when, in the late ’70s, early ’80s, we organize discontent, OK? There is — that is the attitude that got the mood of the country exactly right this year. AVLON: That is the attitude behind conservative populism and far left populism. And there are people who want politics to simply be a mirror of that. And I think a lot of folks here on the far right who say, you know, as you’ve written in the past, that bipartisanship is the most perfunctory kind of campaign rhetoric, there are people on the far right who believe that, too. To play to their base crowd, the Karl Roves that believe — (CROSSTALK) AVLON: Well, not in the current context. Base politics that helped create the problem as a country. The 2010 election happened because it is — as you know — it’s a low-turnout, high intensity election. And because we’re a center- right country, if Republicans play to the base and got conservative populist outrage, especially in the time of economic downturn, they wouldn’t be able to get across. SPITZER: But here’s where the Democrats got it wrong and I’m with you on this. The Democratic Party by so degrading its ideology, stood for nothing. It was mush. Mush does not win. You need to stand for something. (CROSSTALK) SPITZER: They stood for such a Malcolm of nothing that nobody could stand up and say, I’m supportive because of X. But the Tea Party crafted an ideology, crazy as it may be, people could carry their pitchfork and feel good about it. (CROSSTALK) PARKER: You know what? You talk about people being angry. They are also angry about the pitchforks. They are tired of the partisan bickering. They may not be able to articulate a position on every single issue, which is what you want everyone to do, they want to say all they say is — OK, that’s the left, I’m not that. They see the Sarah Palin brigade on the right, they say, I’m not that. So, that leaves this is broad center where people are looking for a place to land, right? SPITZER: You go first. You’re just inching to get in there. AVLON: Look, we’ve got to plant a flag from the center. We need to stand for something. We need to play offense. That’s been part of the problem, how we’ve allowed extremes to hijack our politics here. But the problem in the whole debate right now is that 93 percent of the American people in a poll by “The Wall Street Journal” and NBC said that they’re tired. I think there’s too much partisan infighting in Washington. And the problem is that the elites — UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That’s true. AVLON: But the elites in Washington seem to think that 93 percent of the Americans are stupid. They seem to think that they don’t really know what they want. And there’s an academic group on the far left that always seems to think that the American people would vote socialist if they only knew how. SPITZER: By the way, John, here’s the thing. I think the Democratic Party if you understood it is in the middle. They just haven’t managed to stand up and speak with enough fervor, excitement and energy to say, having — AVLON: Bill Clinton. SPITZER: Bill Clinton did, but I’m talking about the past couple of years. Having been in that game for a little while, and I did OK for some period of time, you do it with a passion and you say whether it’s Wall Street, whether it’s the environment, whether it’s the middle class, just do it with some energy and some passion. AVLON: I agree. SPITZER: And then people will forgive you having an argument with the other side because they know they’re with you. It’s when you don’t stand for anything other than Bush that they run to people who do. FRANK: Partisanship is one of the most disgusting things when you move to Washington, D.C., and you behold it first had and it’s like you have a Republican kick ball team in the Democrat. AVLON: Right. FRANK: It’s ridiculous and they have fistfights at keggers (ph). It’s idiotic. AVLON: Yes. FRANK: That doesn’t mean that the ideas are bad. And look, the problem is the conservative movement did a very, very good job this time around of expressing itself as a movement of the disenfranchised and reaching out to anger across the board, anti-Washington, anti- partisan anger, and the Democrats are like, but we’re the party of reason. AVLON: — will not do as well. Here’s the thing. We’re a center right country. (CROSSTALK) FRANK: No, no, no. PARKER: Ding, ding, ding, ding. I’m sorry, we do have to wrap up. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. PARKER: But before we go, let me just say this. Nobody can argue that a debate about centrism is boring. And I was going to ask you, I know you said you want to be aggressively centrist. And I thought for a while that might be an oxymoron. AVLON: No. PARKER: But you have proved that it is not. AVLON: There you go. SPITZER: All right. AVLON: Pulling off from the center. SPITZER: Thomas Frank, John Avlon, thank you for helping me effectively abolish the mushy center. It doesn’t exist anymore. PARKER: Wrong, wrong, Eliot. SPITZER: You can be mushy. I’m not going to be mushy. PARKER: Not going to be mushy. SPITZER: No.
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Rachel Maddow did an absolutely wonderful job dismantling the Republican talking points that Ronald Reagan’s “Voodoo Economics” or “trickle-down economics” worked, pointing out how the Republicans who keep coming on the air claiming that tax cuts for the rich benefit the “job creators” are full of a bunch of bullpucky. The people who end up primarily benefiting from these tax cuts are the rich, who as Rachel showed in the footage from when Reagan’s tax cuts first passed, spend more on luxury items they don’t even need, while the rest of us get to feel those economic benefits trickling down our heads in the form of something besides water. Now if we just had every pundit making things this clear to the American public instead of allowing the Republicans to come on the air and lie about “job creators” being taxed day… after day… after day… maybe… just maybe we’d have a less misinformed public. Sadly this segment on Rachel’s show isn’t required viewing for every citizen in the United States. Her charts and graphs about what’s happened to the incomes of the rich and the poor sadly are ones that we’re not seeing on any other broadcast as well. Pass this one on to your friends and neighbors. We need to be letting every member of Congress and President Obama know it’s not acceptable to see these tax cuts for the rich allowed to be extended at the expense of bankrupting our country or attempting to balance our budget on the backs of the working class and the poor. Kudos to Rachel for laying out the lies about tax cuts trickling down to the rest of us so plainly. UPDATE: Compare and contrast that to lying hack Pat Buchanan who appeared with “Democratic strategist” Peter Fenn on MSNBC today after the first two votes for a partial extension of the tax cuts failed. Click here to view this media
Continue reading …Will Republican arrogance finally push Democrats to reform the filibuster?
December 4, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media We’ve been rooting since the election for Senate Democrats to show some spine and reform the filibuster at the start of the coming session — Sen. Jeff Merkley, as we reported then, has been developing a plan that makes so much sense it’s almost certain never to make it through. Moreover, as with the public option and the economic stimulus package, we haven’t exactly been holding our collective breaths waiting for it to happen, given Democrats’ extensive history of evolving spines made of orange Jell-O. Now, however, it seems Republicans have so overplayed their hand in bullying Democrats around that they might actually force the Democrats to grow spines and do the job. Ezra Klein has the details : Mitch McConnell’s threat to filibuster literally everything Democrats want to do until Democrats and Republicans agree to a compromise on the Bush tax cuts can be read as a power play, but it can also be read as a dare: At this point, Republicans are sure that they can abuse the rules as much as they’d like and Democrats won’t dare do a thing about it. McConnell’s blanket filibuster now joins Richard Shelby’s blanket hold as the two most egregious acts of procedural brinkmanship in a Congress that’s been chock-full of rules-based obstruction. If there’s a wild card here, it’s Sen. Jeff Merkley and the other Democrats who’ve been agitating for rules reform for well over a year now. Today, Merkley released his proposal (pdf), and it’s a detailed, thoughtful and supportable package of reforms — even for those who believe in the filibuster. You can read the whole memo here (PDF – 101.98 KB) . As we noted before, the beauty of the Merkley plan is that it preserves the filibuster but makes it so it actually in practice is what it was intended to be: a last resort of a determined minority willing to stake its members’ precious time and resources to make it happen, instead of an easy way to halt any kind of deliberation with a simple check-off, as is the case now. As Ezra notes: This is filibuster reform that even the filibuster’s supporters can love: It focuses the practice on the tradition of debate and discussion that Senate traditionalists consider to be the institution’s indispensable trait. Even so, a few days ago, I would’ve told you it didn’t have a chance, as there’d be no energy to look at the rules again. But McConnell’s announcement of a blanket filibuster that’s meant to stop the Senate from debating legislation rather than ensure that all sides have time to be heard may be just the push the traditionalists needed. Greg Sargent noted that making the change will not require a filibuster-proof majority : Merkley’s office believes such a change to the rules could be accomplished with a simple majority vote in the Senate, and Merkley will be pushing colleagues to join his effort to make such a vote happen at the outset of the new session in January. Sen. Merkley was on Rachel Maddow’s show the other night to explain. Heather has the transcript here.
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Islamabad: A Pakistani anti-terrorism court, conducting the trial of suspects charged with involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, on Saturday issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of two police officers for “failing” to protect the former premier. The warrants were issued for former Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz and senior police officer Khurram Shahzad, prosecution lawyers told the media. Both officers played a key role in security arrangements for the election rally addressed by Bhutto on the day she was killed in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. Prosecutors filed an application for the two police officers to be summoned as accused in the case…
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Wayne State University announced Friday that as a result of the anti-Semitic remarks made by the former White House correspondent the previous day, it is ending its Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in Media award. The Detroit Free Press reported Saturday: read more
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enlarge First, read this: TRINITY — The call came at 1:28 p.m. Friday, the caller ID cryptically reading, “U.S. Government — Honolulu.” Larry Dalla Betta, just getting home from a youth football game, answered in the kitchen. “Is this Larry?” an operator asked. Dalla Betta said yes. Then he heard another voice, speaking from half a world away, sudden, strained: “Dad, I’ve been hit. I’ve lost both my legs.” “Where are you?” Dalla Betta asked. “Where are you?” “I’m in Afghanistan,” his son said. “I can’t talk. They’re taking me to Germany. I can contact you in 24 hours.” Dalla Betta began to talk. The line went dead. He screamed. “Justin! Justin!” He started to cry. Justin’s siblings Larry Jr., 11, and Nicole, 5, started to cry, too. Now read this, and tell me what you think: Ed Rendell, the media-friendly governor of Pennsylvania, has a surprisingly stark quote in USA Today this morning questioning President Obama’s decision to continue the war in Afghanistan: “I question the value of us being there at all ,” Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview. “I have a great deal of faith in President Obama and in (Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton and I want to believe that their strategy is the right one for the country. But I’m not sure 10 years from now and with all that money invested, things are going to be measurably better.” He argues war funding would be better used to build schools, roads and bridges at home. President Obama, how do you ask a man to lose both legs for a mistake?
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