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November 20, 2006
Read the damn book first, Larry
Cross posted at Able Danger Blog. I wanted to leave my review of Triple Cross at the top of the page, but this was too good to pass up:
Peter Lance, Crisscrossedby Larry C Johnson
Peter Lance is back hawking his latest book, Triple Cross. Unfortunately, it does not come with a “Buyer Beware” label. Peter, in my judgment, confuses self-promotion with analysis and is prone to jump to conclusions not supported by actual evidence. Consider for example Lance’s specious claim in his recent post on Huffington Post, touting his book and his accomplishments:
What isn't known and will be revealed for the first time in Triple Cross was that Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992 - a year before the WTC bombing carried out by the same cell members he'd trained.
Really?
Johnson goes on to quote from two news articles, both of which quote none other than Larry Johnson but neither of which claim Ali Mohamed was an informant since 1992 or provide any details about his handling agent, John Zent. My emphasis added. Lance has entire chapters full of details about Ali Mohamed and his inept FBI handling agent. Larry might know this if he read the book, but seeing as how it is not in stores yet, I guess he knew all he had to know from the cover. Leaving no truth unspurned, he keeps digging:
Peter does a slick job of intermixing facts and conjecture to create the impression that he has a special truth. Consider the following from Peter:
Using evidence from the SDNY court cases, interviews with current and retired Special Agents and documents from the FBI's own files, I prove in Triple Cross that Patrick Fitzgerald and Squad I-49 in the NYO could have prevented those bombings - not just by getting the truth from FBI informant Ali Mohamed, but by connecting him to Wadih El-Hage, one of the Kenya cell leaders.
Here’s the truth—there is not one document, piece of court evidence, or retired FBI agent that supports the claim that in the year prior to the bombing of the US Embassies in East Africa Ali Mohamed was recorded stating his intent to attack those embassies. Not one.
This is an easy one. Lance never said Mohamed stated his intention to attack the embassies beforehand! He said the FBI should have been able to stop the bombings by connecting him to Wadih El Hage. One of the articles Larry quoted describes the connection:
Ali Mohamed's testimony, which will likely earn him a reduced sentence, may prove particularly damning to el-Hage. The former U.S. Army sergeant, a naturalized American citizen born in Egypt, claims he worked with el-Hage in Nairobi and that during a visit to the man's house, bin Laden's security chief told him to surveil American, British, French, and Israeli "targets" in Senegal.
Of course, there is always that link chart Jay Boesen made in 2000 which shows two clear connections between them. First as personal advisors to Bin Laden, and second as associates of Abouhalima and the Brooklyn Cell of Al Qaeda in New York. Nonetheless, Larry continues:
Peter’s venom spewed at Patrick Fitzgerald is particularly crazy. Consider the following claim by Lance:
How was it that Fitzgerald, the man Vanity Fair described as the bin Laden "brain," possessing "scary smart" intelligence, had not connected the dots and ordered the same kind of "perch" or "plant" to watch Sphinx that the Bureau had used against Gotti?
Well, for starters, prosecutors in the United States are not like prosecutors in France. Fitzgerald and other junior prosecutors do not have the luxury of waking up each morning and deciding on their own to follow a hunch. Moreover, they normally don’t direct Federal investigations. The investigative part is handled by FBI agents who run field offices.
I'll have to quote Patrick Fitzgerald on this one:
I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden in early 1996. The team – prosecutors and FBI agents assigned to the criminal case – had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens. We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. Government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. And foreign citizens. And we did all those things as often as we could. We could even talk to al Qaeda members – and we did. We actually called several members and associates of al Qaeda to testify before a grand jury in New York. And we even debriefed al Qaeda members overseas who agreed to become cooperating witnesses.But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was “the wall.” A rule that a federal court has since agreed was fundamentally flawed – and dangerous.
Posted by Mike at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 19, 2006
My review of Triple Cross
Cross posted at Able Danger Blog:
Lance breaks new ground on Able DangerWhile I was deciding how I should start my review of Peter Lance's new book - "Triple Cross: How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI -- And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him" - I remembered a quote from Monica Gabrielle, one of the Jersey Girls, in a documentary about 9/11:
Well, we have found that person, and his name is Peter Lance. In his third book on the origins of the 9/11 plot and the failures of the FBI and others to stop the attack, Lance focuses on Ali Mohamed - yet another figure relegated to footnotes in the 9/11 Report who Lance shows played a central role in Al Qaeda's plan of attack. Not only did he create the "Brooklyn Cell" which supported the 9/11 hijackers, but he wrote the training manual for Al Qaeda and created training camps for hijackers! Arrested in 1998 for his role in the embassy bombings, Ali Mohamed has demonstrated foreknowledge of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and an outline of the 9/11 plot itself, all of which he did not reveal to the FBI until after the attacks! Worse, he has still not been formally sentenced because the FBI believes they can use him to get information on Al Qaeda even when he's been playing the FBI for two decades.
The one thing that I personally was hoping for was another Woodward and Bernstein with regard to 9/11. Someone, anyone that was willing to put their teeth into this.In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I am quoted twice in the Epilogue to Triple Cross. However, this review of the book is not based on my limited contacts with Lance. It is based entirely on the content of the book, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Able Danger. Some have expressed frustration at the delays in publication, but I can attest to the fact that Lance needed the extra time in order to include all of the latest details from the interviews National Geographic conducted for their documentary based on his book and the latest developments in the Able Danger and Greg Scarpa Jr. scandals.
The best part of Triple Cross is the way Lance weaves together the different strands of the 9/11 story and enhances them with his own original reporting on each. For example, the book quotes from numerous interviews Lance conducted with Tony Shaffer, Curt Weldon, and other members of the Able Danger team. While not a complete history of Able Danger, it is by far the most complete version published to date. He devotes four chapters to the subject and weaves together the story of Able Danger with the story of how the "Big Five" intelligence agencies all failed to detect the plot on time. He also provides new evidence that the discovery of what a central role Ali Mohamed played in the Al Qaeda leadership may have played a role in the destruction of all the Able Danger charts and data at LIWA in April 2000. This took place literally days after the chart linked above was produced by a member of the Able Danger team.
To give you an idea of the level of detail Lance includes about Able Danger, here is how he opens Chapter 37, "The Briefing in Bagram":
Able Danger is mentioned throughout the book, but some other chapters which focus on it include Chapter 31, "Operation Able Danger", Chapter 32, "Obliterating the Dots", and Chapter 33, "Able Danger Part Two". Over the past nine months, I was beginning to doubt if anyone would ever give the Able Danger story the treatment it deserves. Peter Lance has gone above and beyond my expectations in "Triple Cross" and anyone who is interested in getting to the bottom of the Able Danger story should read it.
That October in 2003, Shaffer, then an army major, was aboard an army UH 60 Blackhawk helicopter snaking along the Kabul River toward Asadabad, a small firebase in Northeast Afghanistan eight clicks from the Pakistani Border. Wearing forty pounds of body armor and brandishing an M-4 carbine and an M-11 pistol, Tony was attached to Task Force 180, whose mission was to "deter and defeat the re-emergence of terrorism" after 9/11 by hunting down and eliminating members of the fugitive Taliban. As a clandestine officer with the DIA, he was assigned to work in unison with the other "three-letter" agencies, including the FBI and the CIA, in what was a hoped-for reintegration of the intel services that had become so fragmented and stovepiped in the years before 9/11. While he got along well with the FBI agents who were engaged in the Taliban hunt, Tony and other DIA operatives still regarded the CIA as independents, nicknaming them the "Klingons" after the Star Trek aliens, who were reluctant members of "the Federation."Among other things, he points out flaws in the IG Report on Able Danger:
This Tuesday, go pick up a copy of "Triple Cross", then tune in to "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, where Lance is scheduled to appear for an interview with Bill.
It's also clear that, in attempting to impeach Capt. Phillpott, the IG relied heavily on the word of Dietrich Snell, the 9/11 Commission senior counsel, who found Phillpott's account of the Able Danger findings "not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the [Commission] report or further investigation." That was Snell's conclusion following a July 12, 2004, meeting with Phillpott ten days before the Commission's "final report" was to go to press:
But in this book we've demonstrated that there was massive evidence on the high visibility of 9/11 hijackers al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, who were living openly in San Diego as early as January 2000. We showed how Atta himself entered the United States on June 3 and rented a room in Brooklyn near the Al Farooq Mosque, using his own name. Just how difficult would it have been for the Able Danger analysts to track his movements via airline reservations and immigration sources, since, according to the IG's report, the Able Danger data harvest was "collecting data from 10,000 websites each day"?
We considered Mr. Snell's negative assessment of Capt. Phillpott's claims particularly persuasive given Mr. Snell's knowledge and background in antiterrorist efforts involving al Qaeda. Mr. Snell considered Capt. Phillpott's recollection with respect to Able Danger identification of Mohammed Atta inaccurate because it was 'one hundred per cent inconsistent with everything we knew about Mohammed Atta and his collegues at the time.' Mr. Snell went on to describe his knowledge of Mohammed Atta's overseas travel and associations before 9/11 noting the "utter absense of any information suggesting any kind of a tie between Atta and anyone located in this country during the first half of the year 2000," when Able Danger had allegedly identified him.In an interview following release of the report, one operative close to the data-mining operation told me that "we also accessed INS databases in the data harvest, so picking up Atta who had to get airline tickers and a visa prior to his arrival in early June was no big deal."
Posted by Mike Kasper at 7:20 PM.
Posted by Mike at 01:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 13, 2006
Borat meets the Big Apple
Borat whacked, New Yorkers live up to their rep
Borat - aka Sacha Baron Cohen - has been attacked after a prank backfired.The comedian - who created the fake sexist and racist Kazakhstan reporter Borat - approached a man in New York and said: "I like your clothes. Are nice! Please may I buying? I want have sex with it."
The man didn't find his comments funny and punched Cohen in the face.
Cohen cried out for help, but his pleas were ignored and he was repeatedly hit. Hello, he was in New York!
Fellow British actor Hugh Laurie finally rushed to Cohen's aid, managing to push the man away and drag the comedian to his feet.
A source told Britain's The Sun newspaper: "Sacha couldn't resist playing the fool as Borat, but he picked the wrong person. I guess this guy thought he was being attacked by someone unstable and lashed out. Sacha is very lucky he didn't get a much worse beating."
The incident happened after Cohen and Laurie appeared on US TV show 'Saturday Night Live'.
Cohen was not seriously injured.
Film bosses are pleading with Cohen, 35, to stop posing as Borat on US streets to avoid further violent attacks.
Posted by Mike at 07:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 12, 2006
Who is this I.F. Stone anyway?
That was the question I was hoping to answer when I started to read "All Governments Lie! The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone" and the book does a good job of answering that question. Unfortunately, once I started reading it, it dawned on me that reading the autobiography of a writer does not really make a lot of sense unless you are familiar with the body of their work. I had one of his books, but it was "The Trial of Socrates" which he wrote later in life. Even if you are familiar with a journalist's work, most of what the writer has achieved in their lifetime is right there in their columns. You don't need to read a biography just to find it. In fact, for most journalists - "Izzy" included - they don't want the focus to be on them. They want it to be on those crooks they are writing about, instead. At the same time, Stone was known for his strong opinions and personal touch, which attracted such a loyal following for his independent weekly.
Before diving in to "All Governments Lie!" it would probably be worth getting your feet wet with "The Best of I.F. Stone" which Kevin Drum describes as "just plain fun to read". The first thing that suprised me about I.F. Stone is that he was born in 1907. His family was Jewish and both of his parents had escaped the pogroms and massacres during the rule of Czar Nicholas in Russia by immigating to Philadelphia. His first assignment at a copy desk was back in 1927, but by his thirties he had moved up to become a senior writer for the New York Post then an associate editor for The Nation. His first book, out of fourteen that he would eventually write, was in 1937. As hard as it might be to fathom in our new media age, he was published in major newspapers of publications for over sixty years, from the 20s through the 80s.
While his career started off as an advocate for the Communist party and he initially heaped praised on Stalin, it is important to remember that back in the 20s and 30s there was a mainstream Communist party here in America. The Great Depression had renewed the socialist movement for change. It was not until Stalin signed a pact with Hitler that Stone and his fellow socialists started to realize the flaws of the Communist party.
As Myra MacPherson points out however, by the 1950s Stone was just as critical of the USSR as the USA. He had been burnt and it was a lesson he remembered as he maintained his independence from loyalty to any party or cause, while keeping true to his own leftist ideals. At one point, "All Governments Lie!" recounts a speech from June 1950:
In a New York hotel, stone jokingly told a sweltering crowd of leftists to "prepare your tomatoes." He plunged. "I'm sorry but I must say the North Koreans attacked the South Koreans" with Stalin's blessing. Many sat in stony silence as the journalist assailed both the United States and the USSR. "There is hippocrisy on both sides.... Both... want the markets of the world. God help any country occupied by the Russians or the Americans.... They should leave things to the Asiatics and get the hell out of there." To angry questioners, he kept repeating, "This is only my opinion."
At the same time, Stalin was not his enemy. No, Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover were destined to fill that role. Amazingly, the FBI spent thousands of hours trailing Stone as he went to buy cigarettes, going through his trash and monitoring his phone calls. All of which intensified when he rightly singled both men out for criticism. Eventually, Stone was blacklisted by all the major newspapers and started his own publication called "I.F. Stone Weekly" in response. While the book contains many thoughtfully selected quotes from Stone's writing, this one Kevin Drum found from another article of his seems like it highlights the ability Stone had to cut through BS:
Here's an excerpt from a 1966 essay written after a visit to Saigon. Stone is talking about the attitude he found among the cold warriors responsible for prosecuting the Vietnam War:
They place a very high value on the purity of their intentions and a very low estimate on the motivations of the Vietnamese.....Our capacity for overlooking the obvious is enormous. Even one of the best and most independent reporters here was shocked by the anti-Americanism of recent demonstrations in Saigon and in Hué and Danang. He shares the naive view that we are there to help the Vietnamese and regards the demonstrations as sheer ingratitude. The simple fact that occupying armies, whether allied or enemy, always become unpopular hardly ever figures in official calculation.
Compare this to the attitude expressed by President Bush in a recent private meeting at the Pentagon:
More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd. “I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,” said another person who attended.
The more things stay the same, the more they stay the same.
Here is a another quote, this one from "All Governments Lie!":
Since the press is largely Republican and this is a Republican administration, there is little market for "exposing" the government... the average Washington correspondent is content to write what he is spoon-fed by the government's press officers."
Stone made that observation over fifty years ago, back in 1953. Like the highlights of Stone's career, the bulk of "All Governments Lie!" focuses on the 1950s and 60s. Clearly, this was a time when America was at a turning point. Would we descend into the facist ramblings of the House Unamerican Activities Committee or rise to the heights of freedom expression to which our founding fathers aspired? Clearly, the answer is probably somewhere in between, but not for the lack of effort from the likes of I. F. Stone. Looking back at the work of those who have gone before us can offer us valuable lessions. It was interesting to note that Stone became a rich man simply from the subscription costs to his independent weekly, which topped of in the tens of thousands each paying $5 a year, which at the time was a lot.
As such, he was beholden to no one, other than his audience. This is the what bloggers are trying to do today, and those looking for a role model as they start independent publishing could do a lot worse than the legendary I. F. Stone or his biography "All Governments Lie!"
Posted by Mike at 10:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 10, 2006
Where have all the liberals gone?
We're still here, but we're called conservatives now. It has kind of a nice ring to it. Great post from Susan G at Daily Kos:
We're All Conservatives NowI woke up Wednesday morning and found out I was a conservative. See, a whole slew of candidates I supported were elected - enough to form a majority that will work to pass legislation of which I wholeheartedly approve - and I discovered from pundits that this is evidence of how conservative America really is. Since the outcome is precisely what I hoped for, I must be a "conservative Democrat" too.
They've been beating the drums for 72 hours now - "conservative Democrats, conservative Democrats, conservative Democrats." Both Hunter and Markos tried to set the punditocracy straight, but I suspect this probably does as much good as spitting in the wind. So I'm ready to go all contrarian and Zen on right-wing blowhards and embrace the label.
Yes, I'm a "conservative Democrat" and I agree with the upcoming agenda I've seen floating around here and there: oversight hearings on Iraq and spending, raising the minimum wage, nationalizing health insurance for everyone under 25 as Howard Dean suggested on The Daily Show, using skillful diplomacy as a first resort and military force as a last one, restoring the checks and balances of the Constitution, outlawing torture, re-legalizing habeas corpus.
These are "conservative" ideas? Cool. I'm hinky with it. Call them what you like, just implement them.
So go ahead, Blowhard Boys and Girls, keep saying it: "Conservative Democrats won on Tuesday, which proves that America is really conservative."
And please, don't catch on that every time you insist that "conservative Democrats" won, every time you couple the words, "conservative" and "Democrat," not only does an angel get its wings, some voter in Mississippi is getting the message that there is a natural home for conservatives in the Democratic Party. Make it crystal clear, repeatedly, from now until 2008, that citizens in the Mountain West and the Midwest who cast their vote next to a "D" for perhaps the first time in their lives were NOT betraying "traditional values," but were, in fact, reinforcing them.
If the right-wing devotes thousands of hours to this "conservatives really won by electing a Democratic majority" in the next two years, they'll have softened the South up enough for us to canvass in 2008 with the simple statement, "Hey, I'm a Democrat and I want your value vote," and it will make perfect sense.
So thanks, Rush, Sean, O'Reilly and the whole gang at National Review: You're saving Democrats a boatload of cash two years from now that would have been spent on re-representing our party as the natural home for those with true American values. We couldn't get this message out without you.
Honestly, that is the key to this election. It's a fundamental shift in public perception of the Democratic party with long lasting effect.
Posted by Mike at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 09, 2006
Has Jonah been talking to Condi Rice?
Skating star Kwan gets new diplomacy jobHoping to boost America's image abroad, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed U.S. figure skating star Michelle Kwan on Thursday as a public diplomacy envoy for the Bush administration.
Once an aspiring skater herself, Rice said Kwan showed humility and grace under pressure during her athletic career and was the perfect choice as a goodwill ambassador."It is a time of great consequence in the world and I know you are going to play an important and valuable role for our nation," said Rice, with Kwan, 26, at her side.
As the top U.S. diplomat, Rice has a bag full of diplomatic challenges -- from the growing violence in Iraq to North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs.
The State Department hopes using sports and other public figures as envoys will stem a tide of suspicion over U.S. foreign policy goals, particularly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
For what it's worth, the Michelle Kwan Fan Forum seems like a pretty Democratic place to hang out from the looks of it.
Posted by Mike at 09:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Is Jonah Goldberg on crack?
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he just couldn't sleep after such a devastating loss on election day. Via Daily Kos.
How Bush Should Handle Loss [Jonah Goldberg]I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."
This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak.
Posted at 6:49 AM
Simple question. If Bush and Cheney have similar hunting skills, what are the chances Bush might mistake Dick Cheney for a black bear and transform his drab black suit into a bear skin rug? Just asking.
Posted by Mike at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"At least we still have Walmart"
Republicans may have lost both the House and Senate, but they can take heart in the latest resounding victory in the War on Christmas:
Wal-Mart: We're not afraid to say Merry ChristmasWal-Mart has told its employees that it's OK to once again greet shoppers by saying "Merry Christmas" this holiday season instead of the generic "Happy Holidays."
CNN confirmed that Wal-Mart will announce Thursday that it plans to use the phrase "Merry Christmas" in products and around its stores this holiday season.
The announcement comes a year after religious groups such as The American Family Association and The Catholic League boycotted retailers including Wal-Mart last holiday season for excluding the word "Christmas" from products sold in stores."We, quite frankly, have learned a lesson from last year," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Linda Blakley told USA Today in a separate report. "We're not afraid to use the term 'Merry Christmas.' We'll use it early, and we'll use it often."
Posted by Mike at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 08, 2006
Who Lost?
Here is the latest list of incumbents, all Republican:
Missouri Senate - Talent
Montana Senate - Tester
Ohio Senate - DeWine
Pennsylvania Senate - Santorum
Rhode Island Senate - Chafee
Virginia Senate - AllenArizona 05 - Hayworth
California 11 - Pombo
Connecticut 05 - Johnson
Florida 22 - Shaw
Indiana 02 - Chocola
Indiana 08 - Hostettler
Indiana 09 - Sodrel
Iowa 02 - Leach
Kansas 02 - Ryun
Kentucky 03 - Northup
Minnesota 01 - Gutknecht
New Hampshire 01 - Bradley
New Hampshire 02 - Bass
New York 19 - Kelly
New York 20 - Sweeney
North Carolina 11 - Taylor
Pennsylvania 04 - Hart
Pennsylvania 07 - Weldon
Pennsylvania 08 - Fitzpatrick
Pennsylvania 10 - Sherwood
Posted by Mike at 11:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
New Committee Chairs
Twelve years. That's how long it's been since we controlled Congress. From 1992 to 1994, Clinton and a Democratic Congress swept through a series of legislation that led to the prosperity of the 90s. Then the Contract for America steamed through and Republicans took power. As the new Congressman in my own district John Hall has pointed out, the contract itself called for twelve year term limits for members of Congress. It's 2006 now. Their twelve years were up.
John Conyers (D-MI) becomes chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. His portfolio to investigate election fraud and Patriot Act abuses may result in possible impeachment articles being put forward.John Dingell (D-MI) becomes chairman of the House Commerce Committee. His committee has oversight for energy (Cheney's secret energy task force is under the gun), telecommunications (media consolidation issues could be on the table), consumer protection, and public health.
Barney Frank (D-MA) becomes chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Minimum wage increase on the agenda.
Charlie Rangel (D-NY) becomes chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Rolling back tax cuts for billionaires as well as corporate offshore tax havens will be on the agenda.
Henry Waxman (D-CA) becomes chairman of the House Government Reform Committee. He will exercise subpoena power to bring witnesses (friendly and hostile) before his committee to investigate Pentagon contract fraud (watch out Halliburton and KBR).
Ike Skelton (D-MO) becomes chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Will also investigate Pentagon contract fraud.
Alcee Hastings (D-FL) may become chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Look for real fireworks here with former members of the US Intelligence Community being called to testify on pre-war intelligence cooking.
Neo-conservative ally Tom Lantos is slated to take over the House International Relations Committee. This is the only committee where the Bush administration will have anything close to a safe haven. Lantos was a supporter of the Iraq war.
In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Patrick Leahy will be able to bottle up any right-wing nominations to the Supreme Court, if any should arise. Bush will be forced to submit the names of moderate consensus judges.
Joe Biden will become Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Iraq will be at the top of the agenda.
Jeff Bingaman becomes Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where gasoline price gouging and Interior Department scandals will feature prominently.
Jay Rockefeller becomes Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence with subpoena power on pre-war intelligence cooking. Pat Roberts, who has stonewalled for the White House, will be relegated to ranking member.
Carl Levin becomes Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Max Baucus becomes Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
Robert Byrd takes over as Chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Byrd also becomes President pro tem of the Senate, fourth in line for the White House after Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Posted by Mike at 09:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 01, 2006
NBC rejects ads for Dixie Chicks film
LOS ANGELES - Citing its policy barring ads dealing with "public controversy," the NBC network said on Friday it rejected a TV commercial for a new film documenting the furor over the Dixie Chicks' criticism of President George W. Bush.Ads for the documentary "Shut Up & Sing" also were rebuffed by the smaller CW network, though local affiliates of all five major broadcasters, including NBC and CW, ran promotional spots for the film in New York and Los Angeles, the two cities where it opened on Friday.
The ad features footage of lead singer Natalie Maines declaring during a London concert in March 2003 that the band was "ashamed" to come from the same state -- Texas -- as Bush.
The film's distributor, the Weinstein Co., seized on the rejection of its spots as evidence of political censorship by NBC and CW and said it was "exploring taking legal action."
The studio provided media outlets copies of "clearance" reports from NBC's standards and practices department bearing handwritten notations stating the ads were deemed unacceptable because "they are disparaging of President Bush."
Similar documents from the CW cited "concerns we do not have appropriate programing in which to schedule this spot."
"It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America," studio co-owner Harvey Weinstein said in a statement.
Posted by Mike at 05:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)