Mike's Blog Round Up
By Nicole Belle Wednesday Aug 01, 2007 10:00amJust days after President Bush admitted the failure of his "no safe havens for terrorists" policy, Barack Obama said he will attack Al Qaeda in Pakistan if Pervez Musharraf won't. While Kevin Drum worries that's not feasible, Michelle Malkin just gets her hate on.
President Bush wants Congress to reform FISA ASAP. His preferred point man to oversee his expanded surveillance program? Alberto Gonzales.
A former Catholic turned evangelical supporter of Mike Huckabee attacks the former evangelical turned Catholic Sam Brownback. Meanwhile, Tom Tancredo wants to attack Mecca.
In Oregon, House Speaker Jeff Merkley jumps in the Senate race to replace Bush-enabler Gordon Smith. And in Texas, Lt. Colonel Rick Noriega shows John Cornyn what real war-time leadership looks like. Senate 2008 Guru has more.
While states are struggling to keep Ken Blackwell-style conflicts of interest out of elections, Georgia is moving ahead with its ID program to keep more residents out of the voting booth.
Dick Cheney finally admits the Iraq insurgents aren't in their "last throes," but probably still believes God will "roast their stomachs in hell."
Guest blogging the Round Up this week is Jon Perr from Perrspectives. Send your links, recommendations, comments and angst to mbr AT perrs.ectives DOT com.
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Antidisestablishmentarianism.
lets not label gordon smith a bush enabler mostly because he's a republican senator who originally sided with the war. he's come out against bush lately. you can say it was to protect his re-election. but im from oregon and he's never seemed shady like that. i respect the guy.
Can oreilly be charged under the patriot act sec 803 and sec 811 for encouraging a terrorist act to be committed on American soil when he invited and communicated with al Qaeda over an electronic device {his radio show} to come and blow up the coit towers in San Francisco
FYI-
C&L gets plug from Brit Hume: http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=25998. How nice!
PILOT @ 3:
Good question. Wouldn't that make him an enemy combatant?
Speaking of Bill, seeking Bad Bills here: http://www.badbilloreilly.blogspot.com/! Send em if you got em...or wanna make em.
john @ 2:
For what it's worth, Smith voted with Bush 90% of the time. Oh and by the way, has and will support his Supreme Court choices. More here:
http://www.stopgordonsmith.com/
How many days has it been since we've FAILED to get Osama "Dead or Alive"? I can't do math.
What's with cheney's obsession with stomachs? He says liberals "don't have the stomach" for fighting in Iraq and then he talks about roasting stomachs in hell. Seriously, WTF?
Obama's got a set of balls, AND a smart head on his shoulders. He's like the best of both parties in that regard. I hope he ends up President.
Stephanie Miller on AirAmerica said that Prez Bush, during his newsconference this morning, chose to bash Democrats, over spending for Iraq, instead of comforting victims in the wake of the bridge collapse in Minnesota. He also praised the republican governer (who recently vetoes a tranportation bill that would have improved infrastructure of the bridge itself because that would have raised taxes).
I don't think that Malkin got the memo that the viotrol hurled at dems is just for show. She seems to think it's a real thing.
Thank god for the voter ID program; it fixes the vot.. I mean it fixes a problem that is non-existent! This country has officially gone to Hell.
Did anyone else see Bush's statement about the bridge collapse this morning? He spent all of about 2 minutes talking about the tragedy then went on to bash the democrats about spending too much and not pushing key legislation. Leave it to Bush to turn a national tragedy into a political statement. What. A. Dick. Oh by the way, on Fox news this morning the White House released info on how the bridge scored only 50 out of 120 points on soundness. Hmmmm. Is the governor of Minnesota a democrat?
Straight Shooter @ 8:
If only Cheney would have had the "stomach" to fight in Vietnam. He could have won that war for us. Conclusion: Cheney's a pinko who wants commies to win.
Ooooh. I just realized how awesome it would be if faux news picked up that last Cheney comment! Hi Mom!
Of course, they would leave out the preceding sentences. Just to be fair. And balanced.
Malkin Ridicules the guy who wants to get Bin Ladin while worshipping the guy who let him get away. Pretty much par for the course for the right-wing commentariat. After all, if Bin Ladin were captured, who would they have to scare us with?
Strawberry @ 13:
I saw it. He stumbled through the first part like it was quantum physics and then let go on the dems. What a total ass. What I thought was interesting, is that the channel I was watching it on, cut him off before he finished. It WAS totally inappropriate for him to use this tragedy as a chance to slam the democrats.
Janet @ 17:
Janet, the sad part is, I'm not surprized.
Janet @ 17:
Buck Fush
Paying Attention @ 14:
We've been ruled by little Marxists for a lot longer than most people realize.
The only explanation is that Malkin is a liberal incognito as a crazed lunatic conservative - a flamebaiter to agitate conservatives.
...or she's just a loon.
It's time for a new constitution. Face it, old white men wrote it for their benefit and for white people. It's broken and chimpy and the house has proven it beyond a doubt. It's growth has been stunted. The constitution is built on a foundation of lies, oppession, racism and greed.
It's time for a change.
All I saw of what bush said this morning was a clip about the bridge where he mentioned prayer and prayers. Something about holding people up in prayer or whatever.
I hear Laura is going there tomorrow. Not exactly sure why.
PILOT @ 3:
This is the kind of thing we exactly need to do. If you want to kill the Patriot Act faster than Cheney can shoot an attorney in the face, don't petition Senators/Reps. to have it repealed, but petition to have it enforced on conservative pundits, politicians and other neo-con ilk.
Another fun tidbit of the Patriot Act: if anyone threatens a specific person with physical harm or fatal injury, the person issuing the threat can be placed on the terrorist watch list. There's got to be at least a half dozen personal threats that the neo-con punditsphere issues on a daily basis.
OBAMA = so again the DLC gives us YET ANOTHER ASSHOLE WHO WANTS TO BE A BETTER BUSH THAN THE CURRENT BUSH.
Since we don't need that, I'll be happy to say I'll be trying to vote him out in the primary.
Straight Shooter @ 8:
I'm just waiting for him to denied he said stomach at anytime. He is evil personified.
pissed off patricia @ 23:
I'm sure we all learned the worthlessness of prayer every time our school teachers handed out a pop quiz.
So yes, is the students learning?
Rick Noriega (d-tx) for senate 2008 !
Yeah, I'm sure the petty republican ads will attack his name "Noriega"..sounds like Manuel Noriega...as they do with Obama's middle name.
Gordon Smith is to be lauded for making some very courageous breakaway votes and speeches lately. He is following the tradition of Wayne Morse. We're not going to get more Republican crossovers if we don't acknowlege the efforts of the ones we have. I don't like all of his policies, but he deserves some respect for his strong anti-war stance as well as for working hard in caucus on several bipartisan bills. He doesn't deserve the label "Bush-enabler".
poor MALKINtent, Self-hatred can be such a burden!
bascombe @ 25:
MMM, didn't he say he wanted to talk to them all? He would go for diplomacy?
MMM, wasn't chimpy's response to diplomacy that it wouldn't work?
Didn't Clinton state that it was Obama's inexperience (hence naiveness) that led that to his proposal?
Just wondering.
It doesn't take an army to capture a few people (If they exist in the first place.) I believe Obama will do it the right way.
Wondering who's got the most of Crooks and Liars--USAorUK-read on ! Sad part--both countrie's media are silent.Samething as lying.
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Cambridge U. Press Seeks to Destroy All Copies of Book on Terrorism to Settle Libel Lawsuit by Saudi Businessman on Robert O. Collins, et al.
by David Glenn
The Chronicle of Higher Education
August 1, 2007
http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/08/2007080104n.htm
Cambridge University Press announced this week that it would pulp all unsold copies of the 2006 book Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, in response to a libel claim filed in England by Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker. The book suggests that businesses and charities associated with Mr. Mahfouz financed terrorism in Sudan and elsewhere during the 1990s.
"Cambridge University Press now accepts that the entire bin Mahfouz family categorically and unreservedly condemns terrorism in all its manifestations," a lawyer for Mr. Mahfouz declared on Monday in a London courtroom.
During the court hearing, the publisher also promised to contact university libraries worldwide and ask them to remove the book from their shelves. It also agreed to pay "substantial damages" to Mr. Mahfouz. Representatives of both parties declined to tell The Chronicle how much money was involved in the settlement.
The book's authors — Robert O. Collins, a professor emeritus of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and J. Millard Burr, a retired employee of the U.S. State Department — were not personally named in the libel action, and they have refused to endorse the settlement. They declined to speak to The Chronicle on Tuesday, saying they were still talking to the university press about their legal obligations.
This is at least the fourth book against which Mr. Mahfouz has successfully pursued a libel action. His Web site also lists settlements involving Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan (Pluto Press, 2001), by Michael Griffin, a freelance writer; Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002), by the French writers Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié; and Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop It (Bonus Books, 2003), by Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy, a nonprofit organization in New York.
In an interview on Monday, Ms. Ehrenfeld characterized as "despicable" Cambridge's decision to settle this week, a move the press has defended as necessary and just. Ms. Ehrenfeld, who is a friend of Mr. Burr's, said that, as she understands it, press officials "caved immediately."
"They didn't even consider the evidence that the authors had given them," she said. "They received a threatening letter, and they immediately caved in and said, Do whatever it takes. Pay them whatever they want. Ban the book, destroy the book, we don't want this lawsuit."
Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of religion at Emory University who has her own experience with libel lawsuits (The Chronicle, April 12, 2000), sounded a similar note on her blog last week. Decrying Cambridge's decision to settle the Alms for Jihad case, she warned of a "pattern of silencing by the Saudis of authors who are critical of them."
But a representative of Cambridge insisted that the press had acted properly. "These were very serious charges, and any responsible publisher would have stopped selling the book immediately, as we did," Kevin Taylor, the press's intellectual-property director, said in an interview on Tuesday.
"There had already been at least two High Court rulings upholding Mr. Mahfouz's position in these matters," Mr. Taylor said. "When we looked hard into it, and we studied the tangled history of these claims, we quickly realized that our position was completely indefensible."
Mr. Taylor estimated that 1,500 copies of Alms for Jihad had been sold worldwide. He said he could recall, in his 23 years at the press, only one previous incident in which the press had asked libraries to remove a book from their shelves.
Mr. Mahfouz is a son of Salem bin Mahfouz, a Yemeni-born businessman who built an extremely prosperous banking business in Saudi Arabia in the mid-20th century.
In the passages of Alms for Jihad that deal with Mr. Mahfouz's alleged ties to terrorist financing, Mr. Burr and Mr. Collins generally cite news-media reports from the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Herald, and an African publication known as Africa Confidential. The authors do not directly cite any government documents or reports, or any firsthand knowledge of Mr. Mahfouz's activities. Mr. Mahfouz's Web site broadly asserts that no U.S. government agency has ever designated his businesses or foundations as conduits for terrorist financing.
Mr. Burr and Mr. Collins might someday have a new legal weapon to use in their defense. Ms. Ehrenfeld has sued Mr. Mahfouz in the United States, seeking to establish that the libel judgment he won against her in England has no force of law in other countries. (Her book was never published in England, but Mr. Mahfouz successfully brought suit there on the premise that residents of England could order the book from online booksellers in the United States. Libel law is much more favorable to plaintiffs in Britain than in the United States.)
Ms. Ehrenfeld would also like to try to establish on the record that her allegations about Mr. Mahfouz's conduct are true.
A New York court dismissed Ms. Ehrenfeld's suit last year, but in June a federal appeals court issued a ruling that asked the New York court to reconsider its dismissal.
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3779
What could be the harm in Gonzales being in charge of the wiretapping? It's not like he's capable of remembering anything.
StirFry @ 28:
You got that right. Repugs are immature. They hate change for the better and hate names that end in a vowel.
It reminds me of the posters (including myself) on the internet, playing on names.
The optimum word is internet.
Straight Shooter @ 8:
Maybe chainey's into the prego spreads in Juggs magazine.
Foo @ 9:
If he doesn't win, I hope whichever democrat does win listens to his policy advice, both foreign and domestic. Obama is the smartest candidate running, and if he is elected he will prolly be the smartest president this country ever had.
tHeGaMeOfLiFe @ 31:
Yep. Don't listen to the Obama detractors on this foreign policy statement. What they think it's only OK to make fun of Bush for ignoring Osama?
[...] Clark Contact the Webmaster Link to Article tom tancredo Mike’s Blog Round Up » Posted at Crooks and Liars on Thursday, [...]
bascombe @ 25:
What we have with bascombe @ 25 is guy who on one hand says "Where's Osama" and on the other hand condemns Barack Obama for announcing he will go to the source of where Bin Laden has his base. This just proves that not everyone is ready for the Democrats to sweep in 2008.
[...] Clark Contact the Webmaster Link to Article barack obama Mike’s Blog Round Up » Posted at Crooks and Liars on Thursday, [...]
Gordon Smith hasn't really gone antiwar. He didn't turn against the war until AFTER the '06 election, and just in time for the '08 election--where he'll be on trial as a Bush toady. Even his antiwar rhetoric was weak, and he backed it up by ... voting with the Republicans on the war.
The Merkley v. Smith race is going to be one of the key contests in '08.
So let me get this straight--Obama is beating the war drum and this is a good thing? The Democratic party has become the "Neocon Lite" party. The Democratic party leaders seem to believe that they are amassing power, when in fact the opposite is true.
Even if the big machine allows Hilary or Obama to become president, the only result will be more war, and less liberty. I used to feel sorry for Americans, but I don't anymore.
It's all happening right in front of your eyes, and you sit around and do nothing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2139715,00.html
Politicians fear civil war as Musharraf's regime is battered by suicide attacks, civilian revolt and American threats
President Pervez Musharraf's rule has been "catastrophic" but his regime could yet "turn really nasty" said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution in Washington and author of The Idea of Pakistan. "The country hasn't had a crisis of this magnitude since the 1970s when East Pakistan split off and became Bangladesh. But in this case it's an Islamist movement that wants to transform the country from within."
"We are very scared," said Enver Baig, a senator with the opposition Pakistan People's party, who says his wife calls him several times a day to check he is still alive. "If we don't mend our ways, it could spell the end of the country. The Islamists have sleeper cells in every city. We could have a civil war."
It is apparent from this article that radical Islamists are spread throughout the country, not just on the border. "Targeted" attacks rarely take out only intended targets and frequently hurt innocent civilians, often women and children. If the U.S. undertakes unilateral attacks on Pakistan, it will put this country into the midst of another civil war and will serve as a great recruitment device for the radicals.
For once, I agree with Hillary: the U.S. should not undertake any unilateral action against Pakistan. I believe that this bit of neoconservatism from Obama is designed to attrack votes from so-called independents. I'm also beginning to believe that Obama will say just about anything to get that nomination.
Just wanted to say thanks for the linkage. I slammed out the Alberto must go post in a fit of rage, so it may seem a little overwrought... But when you think about how this administration uses terrorism for political gain, and now they are actually trying to put Gonzo in charge of this fix for the FISA law. A fix which everyone who has been briefed including Senator Feingold agrees needs to be made... it really is outrageous.
But so is everything else that comes from this abomination of an administration.
Man, I thought that particular Georgia voter ID law was dead, but they're still flogging it, huh? The alarming thing is that this Supreme Court is so right-wing and "activist" they're happy to throw out the law and common sense for conservative, authoritarian goals.
Bush has promised that the Federal Government would help rebuild the Bridge in Minnesota. What he neglected to say, but certainly implied, was that this time the government WOULD help because, unlike Katrina, the victims were white.
Cheney's only knowledge of 'god' is as a prefix for 'damned'.
im not surprised. he is republican so 90% sounds like a fair number. im independant and lean towards the left. i just dont like how people were attacking him from day one just because he's a republican. its mostly out of state people who don't know anything about Oregonians. i checked out the site and its sponsored by the democratic party in oregon. which sounds pretty biased to me. obviously they have an agenda.
i dont agree with gordon smith's politics or most republicans. but i dont like hearing people who dont know him call him a bush enabler. its petty politics which is why im not part of the 2 parties. and i stopped reading about obama recently because im disappointed the clinton obama rift exchange hasn't stopped.
Angry One @ 6:
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