:
But as he prepared to launch the book, "Unfit for Command," Jerry Corsi apologized for the remarks in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, saying they were meant as a joke and he never intended to offend anyone.
In chat room entry last year on freerepublic.com, Corsi writes: "Islam is a peaceful religion — just as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered and the infidels are killed."
In another entry, he says: "So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican (news - web sites) altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it."
Corsi, who described himself as a "devout Catholic," said the comments are being taken out of context. "I considered them a joke," said Corsi, who owns a financial services company and has written extensively on the anti-war movement.
In a March posting, Corsi discussed Kerry's faith, writing: "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judaism? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"
Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, are Catholic.
"I don't stand by any of those comments and I apologize if they offended anybody," Corsi said.
Yesterday, Pat Roberts (R) chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee which would handle his confirmation said:
“Porter Goss? That trial balloon went up, and Sen. [John] Rockefeller [D-W.Va.] got out his BB gun and popped it out of the sky,” said Roberts in a wide-ranging interview in his Hart Building office, referring to his committee’s ranking member.
“We do not want a partisan fight right before the election,” Roberts said.
“[Rockefeller] said he was too partisan and not acceptable,” Roberts said. “I don’t think Porter is too partisan or that he is unacceptable, but that doesn’t speak for the other side. Apparently, if you have the vice chairman firmly opposed to the nominee, I don’t think that’s a very good starting point.”
Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."
"I will promise you a battle like this nation has never seen ... The battle is for us, but I have confidence because the victory is for God."
But, NOOOOO!
I came to know Lt. John Kerry during the spring of 1969. He and his swift boat crew assisted in inserting our Special Forces team and our Chinese Nung soldiers into operational sites in the Cau Mau Peninsula of South Vietnam. I worked with him on many operations and saw firsthand his leadership, courage and decision-making ability under fire.
On March 13, 1969, John Kerry's courage and leadership saved my life.
While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonated under another swift boat. Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river, and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John's swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.
When I surfaced, all the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire from both banks. To avoid the incoming fire, I repeatedly swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, attempting to make it to the north bank of the river. I thought I would die right there. The odds were against me avoiding the incoming fire and, even if I made it out of the river, I thought I'd be captured and executed. Kerry must have seen me in the water and directed his driver, Del Sandusky, to turn the boat around. Kerry's boat ran up to me in the water, bow on, and I was able to climb up a cargo net to the lip of the deck. But, because I was nearly upside down, I couldn't make it over the edge of the deck. This left me hanging out in the open, a perfect target. John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat, came out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us from the jungle, and pulled me aboard...
Nobody asked me to join John's campaign. Why would they? I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans. I volunteered for his campaign because I have seen John Kerry in the worst of conditions. I know his character. I've witnessed his bravery and leadership under fire. And I truly know he will be a great commander in chief.
Now, 35 years after the fact, some Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Bush are suddenly lying about John Kerry's service in Vietnam; they are calling him a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed policies in Vietnam. Some of these Republican-sponsored veterans are the same ones who spoke out against John at the behest of the Nixon administration in 1971. But this time their attacks are more vicious, their lies cut deep and are directed not just at John Kerry, but at me and each of his crewmates as well. This hate-filled ad asserts that I was not under fire; it questions my words and Navy records. This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency, people who don't understand the bond of those who serve in combat.
As John McCain noted, the television ad aired by these veterans is "dishonest and dishonorable." Sen. McCain called on President Bush to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush ad. Regrettably, the president has ignored Sen. McCain's advice.
Does this strategy of attacking combat Vietnam veterans sound familiar? In 2000, a similar Republican smear campaign was launched against Sen. McCain. In fact, the very same communications group, Spaeth Communications, that placed ads against John McCain in 2000 is involved in these vicious attacks against John Kerry. Texas Republican donors with close ties to George W. Bush and Karl Rove crafted this "dishonest and dishonorable" ad. Their new charges are false; their stories are fabricated, made up by people who did not serve with Kerry in Vietnam. They insult and defame all of us who served in Vietnam.
But when the noise and fog of their distortions and lies have cleared, a man who volunteered to serve his country, a man who showed up for duty when his country called, a man to whom the United States Navy awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, will stand tall and proud. Ultimately, the American people will judge these Swift Boat Veterans for Bush and their accusations. Americans are tired of smear campaigns against those who volunteered to wear the uniform. Swift Boat Veterans for Bush should hang their heads in shame.
Mr. Rassmann, a retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, served with the U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam 1968-69.
"a debate between good on the right and evil on the left."
"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out
with a shotgun in order to get a deferment.
Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I
chose to better myself by learning how to fly
airplanes."
The United States has received information about additional possible terror targets in the country, including the U.S. Capitol in Washington, a counterterror official said on Sunday.
Homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said on CBS' "Face the Nation" the targets were in addition to the five cited last week when the terror threat alert was raised to the second-highest level for financial buildings in Washington, New York and Newark, New Jersey.
Asked if there had been a threat against Washington or lawmakers, Townsend said, "Yes, in the past and as part of this continuing threat stream, and so we shared that with them."
Overriding the opposition of the U.S. Forest Service and New Mexico state officials, a White House energy task force has interceded on behalf of Houston-based El Paso Corp. in its two-year effort to explore for natural gas in a remote part of a national forest next door to America's largest Boy Scout camp.
Forest Service officials discouraged efforts to drill in the Valle Vidal at least three times since the agency acquired the land in 1982, citing concerns about water pollution, wildlife and recreation if a large-scale energy project were approved...
Home to 200 species of birds and 60 types of mammals, including one of the state's largest elk herds, the "Valley of Life," as it was named by Latino pioneers, has been a proving ground for generations of young men and women in a wilderness training program run by the Boy Scouts of America.
Since 1938, the Boy Scouts have operated a national training center on the 200-square-mile Philmont Ranch southeast of the Valle Vidal. Each year some 25,000 young people converge on the ranch for a host of outdoor activities.
But when the Forest Service, in consultation with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, rejected El Paso Corp.'s request in 2002, the company appealed to the administration.
1988 Senate Results, Maryland:
Paul Sarbanes (D): 62% (999,166 votes)
Alan Keyes (R) : 38% (617,537 votes)
Comparitive Presidential vote in 1988 for Maryland:
Mike Dukakis (D) : 48% (826,304 votes)
G.H.W. Bush (R) : 51% (876,167 votes)
Number of votes Keyes runs behind the GOP Candidate: 258,630
1992 Senate Results, Maryland:
Babs Mikulski (D): 71% (1,307,610 votes)
Alan Keyes (R: 29% (533,668 votes)
Comparitive Presidential vote in 1992 for Maryland:
G.H.W. Bush (R) : 36% (707,094 votes)
Bill Clinton(D) : 50% (988,571 votes)
H. Ross Perot(I): 14% (281,414 votes)
Number of votes Keyes runs behind the GOP Candidate: 173,426
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.
Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.
In background briefings with journalists last week, unnamed U.S. government officials said it was the capture of Khan that provided the information that led Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to announce a higher terror alert level.
Khan is a computer expert who officials said helped Osama bin Laden communicate with his terror network.
Investigators found detailed surveillance information on certain targets in the United States, apparently conducted by al Qaeda operatives, on Khan's computer disks.
The unnamed U.S. officials leaked Khan's name along with confirmation that most of the surveillance data was three or four years old, arguing that its age was irrelevant because al Qaeda planned attacks so far in advance.
Law enforcement sources said some of the intelligence gleaned from the arrests of Khan and others gave phone numbers and e-mail addresses that the FBI and other agencies were using to try to track down any al Qaeda operatives in the United States.
Then on Friday, after Khan's name was revealed, government sources told CNN that counterterrorism officials had seen a drop in intercepted communications among suspected terrorists.
Officials used Sunday's talk shows to defend last week's heightened alerts, amid widespread claims the White House disclosed Khan's arrest to justify raising its terror alert level. (Full story)
But some observers have said that Islamabad should not have been compromised by political considerations in Washington.
One senator told CNN that U.S. officials should have kept Khan's role quiet.
"You always want to know the evidence," said Senator George Allen.
"In this situation, in my view, they should have kept their mouth shut and just said, 'We have information, trust us.' "
Senator Charles Schumer said he was "troubled" by the decision to identify Khan.
He said the public learned little from reports of Khan's role, "and it seems to me they shouldn't have put this name out."
"The Pakistani interior minister, Faisal Hayat, as well as the British home secretary, David Blunkett, have expressed displeasure in fairly severe terms that Khan's name was released, because they were trying to track down other contacts of his," Schumer told CNN.
Shiite Islam's most revered cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, was admitted to a London hospital, according to a statement from the cleric's Najaf office.
"Upon his arrival in London, Sayed Sistani met with a medical team that advised him to enter a specialist hospital to undergo the necessary tests or procedures," said the statement without providing further details.
(1) "Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful. "
--Chapter 9
(2) Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
--Chapter 17, Karl's Favorite
Since he took over from U.S.-led occupiers on June 28, Allawi has threatened tough action against insurgents carrying out a wave of car bombings, assassinations and kidnappings.
Backing those threats up, the interim government reinstated the death penalty Sunday for crimes including murder, kidnapping and drug offences, officials told a news conference.
Capital punishment was suspended after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in April last year.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and William Safire.
Do as I say not as I try to do.
One of President Bush's twin daughters reeled in a 38-inch (96.5-centimeter) striped bass, the president proudly announced.
"Jenna caught it. Jenna caught the fish!" Bush shouted to journalists from his father's boat. Photographers said the monster was thrown back into the Atlantic.
"The fact that he chased an armed enemy down is not something not to be looked down upon but it was an act of courage. And the whole outfit served with honor..."[T]here was no question that it was above and beyond anything that we had seen down there in that case at that time frame...It just so happened that this one was so outstanding that the Silver Star was eventually awarded."
"In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, LTJG Kerry was unsurpassed. He constantly reviewed tactics and lessons learned in river operations and applied his experience at every opportunity. On one occasion, while in tactical command of a three boat operation his units were taken under fire from ambush. LTJG Kerry rapidly assessed the situation and ordered his units to turn directly into the ambush. This decision resulted in routing the attackers with several KIA. LTJG Kerry emerges as the acknowledged leader in his peer group. His bearing and appearance are above reproach. He has of his own volition learned the Vietnamese language and is instrumental in the successful Vietnamese training program. During the period of this report LTJG Kerry has been awarded the Silver Star medal, the Bronze Star medal, the Purple Heart medal (2nd and 3rd awards)."[U.S. Navy, Officer Fitness Report signed by George Elliott; 18, Dec 1969]
The [Silver Star] ceremony [for John Kerry] was meant to be a morale booster,' Commander George Elliot recalled. 'We were trying to pay tribute to Kerry and the others for going above and beyond the call of duty. The Silver Star is always a big deal." [Tour of Duty, 2004, Brinkley; p. 294]
After the past two days of fighting in southern and central Iraq, the difference between firebrand cleric Muqtada al Sadr and Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi couldn't be any more clear: Al Sadr has an army, and Allawi does not.
In Iraq, security is politics. When Allawi took office, the self-styled strongman lost little time before declaring that his government wouldn't tolerate the insurgency that's swept the country.
But as in previous battles, when al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia began to overrun Najaf and several neighborhoods from Baghdad to Basra, the Iraqi police force and national guard fought for a little while, then ran.
And as in previous battles, Iraq's Achilles' heel was revealed: To defend their country, Allawi and the interim government must go to the American military, an institution that's widely reviled by many Iraqis as an occupational force run amok.
Many in Iraq take al Sadr's popularity as a sign of the U.S. failure to provide an alternative. The militia, it seems, may not be as much a coordinated fighting force as an expression of Iraqi rage at the American presence.
"The Iraqis are frustrated by the heat, the lack of water and the lack of electricity," said Sadoun al Dulame, the head of an independent research center in Baghdad. "All that we have gotten is talk and promises, but nothing has actually been done."
In Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, there are long gas lines, a near-epidemic of typhoid and hepatitis due to poor-quality water, and an electrical grid that provides only six hours of power daily for many residents.
Adel Hamid, a vegetable merchant in Sadr City, which was named for al Sadr's late father, said that over the course of about 15 months of suffering through a lack of basic services, he'd come to see the Americans as the enemy.
"The fight will continue and (Allah willing) we will be victorious," Hamid said. "I will sacrifice my three boys for the Sadr movement; they are in the Mahdi Army now to protect the city."
One problem with an all-out attack on the Mahdi Army was that it might endanger the life of, or meet opposition from, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He was therefore spirited out of Najaf on the pretext that he had heart problems. But Al-Zaman reports today that Sistani stopped off in Beirut on his way to London, where he met with moderate Shiite leader Nabih Berri of the AMAL party, who serves as Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament. Sistani then went on to London, but is not in hospital and won't be for at least a week. This story just does not square with him being so ill that he had to be airlifted to London for emergency heart treatment. It would not have been easy for al-Zurufi and the Americans to convince Sistani to leave, but they could have simply shared with him their plans to have an all-out war in Najaf, and told him they could not protect him. That would have left him no choice but to leave. If you think about it, he could not possibly have been gotten out of Najaf to Beirut and London without US military assistance, though he flew a private plane from Baghdad airport.
Al-Hayat reports that Sistani's reason for leaving at this juncture was to remove himself from the scene of the fighting and to lift the mantle of his authority from the Sadrist movement. It was alleged that his distance from Muqtada, always substantial, had widened further in recent weeks. Al-Hayat suspects that if Sistani has ceased trying to protect Muqtada, it could mean that a decision has been made to put an end to him.
U.S. officials providing justification for anti-terrorism alerts revealed details about a Pakistani secret agent, and confirmed his name while he was working under cover in a sting operation, Pakistani sources said on Friday.
A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested in Lahore secretly last month, had been actively cooperating with intelligence agents to help catch al Qaeda operatives when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.
"After his capture he admitted being an al Qaeda member and agreed to send e-mails to his contacts," a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. "He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the U.S. agents said he was a computer whiz."
"He was cooperating with interrogators on Sunday and Monday and sent e-mails on both days," the source said.
The New York Times published a story on Monday saying U.S. officials had disclosed that a man arrested secretly in Pakistan was the source of the bulk of information leading to the security alerts.
The Gatlin Brothers
Dexter Freebish
Dana Glover
Donnie McClurkin - Oh my Gawd. A Black man.
Sara Evans
the Blind Boys of Alabama -- What, because Helen Keller is unavailable?
Johnny Lang
Brooks & Dunn
Lee Ann Womack
Jaci Velasquez
Michael W. Smith.
Dennis Miller -- Cha, cha, cha. Not since Pericles decided to give the benediction has a speach been so warmly received Chachi.
Ben Stein
Ron Silver
Angie Harmon & Jason Sehorn
Lynn Swann - Without John Stallworth so who gives a crap.
The Labor Department report showed only 32,000 new net jobs added to payrolls during the month, down from a revised 78,000 jobs that were added in June. The unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent, an improvement from the 5.6 percent reading in June.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecast a 243,000 gain in jobs, and the unemployment rate staying unchanged at 5.6 percent, while economists surveyed by Reuters had a median jobs growth forecast of 228,000, with a range of estimates between 200,000 and 300,000.
Brabender then played “Ski Patrol,” which was created with the Bush campaign in mind but never had a chance to air. It begins with a shot of blue sky and pristine alps. “Howard Dean was granted a deferment from the military after showing up at a recruitment office with an x-ray indicating he had a bad back,” the voice-of-God narrator says. Suddenly a skier shoots off a snowy precipice and slaloms expertly down the mountain. “That very same year, Dean went on to ski eighty times — eighty — helping him to become an expert skier and the perfect commander in chief ... if we ever go to war against Switzerland.”
"Commander Geoge Elliott, who wrote up the initial draft of Kerry's Silver Star citation, confirms that neither he, nor anyone else in the Silver Star process that he knows, realized before 1996 that Kerry was facing a single, wounded young Viet Cong fleeing in a loincloth. While Commander Elliott and many other Swiftees believe that Kerry committed no crime in killing the fleeing, wounded enemy (with a loaded or empty launcher), others feel differently. Commander Elliott indicates that a Silver Star recommendation would not have been made by him had he been aware of the actual facts.
''I still don't think he shot the guy in the back," Elliott said. ''It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one in trouble here."
Elliott said he was no under personal or political pressure to sign the statement, but he did feel ''time pressure" from those involved in the book. ''That's no excuse," Elliott said. ''I knew it was wrong . . . In a hurry I signed it and faxed it back. That was a mistake."
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the 'wingers who seem to have taken over the Illinois GOP think this is going to happen. But this is the really the stupidest idea in the world.
Keyes is something else to watch on the hustings or in a debate. But calling him a master debater is rather like saying Dolly Parton has a dynamite bod or Lou Ferrigno is toned -- or, perhaps mostly aptly, that the Tasmanian Devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoons is quick on his feet. In other words, impressive in his own way, but also a bit cartoonish and rather less than subtle.
If and when these two guys debate what we're going to hear are rants from Keyes -- both spellbinding and inane -- about how tort reform is necessary to bring America back into compliance with natural law, how drug reimportation is incompatible with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and how gun control has been outlawed by God.
Attention, Rush Limbaugh and everyone else who thought that liberal talk radio couldn’t work: Portland is proving otherwise. At least if you believe the folks who measure listenership.
The spring Arbitron ratings show that KPOJ (620 AM), which carries the upstart Air America Network with Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, et al., has made huge strides since its March 30 launch.
In the important 25-54 age category, KPOJ ranks third in the Portland market with a 4.9 share (which means a 4.9 percent share of the listening audience). It’s ahead of all other AM stations and finished behind top-ranked country-music KUPL (98.7 FM) and No. 2-ranked adult rock station KINK (101. 9 FM).
In a three-month period, KPOJ went from 12,000 listeners to almost 80,000 listeners per week, with little promotion or marketing. Previously KPOJ had been airing golden oldies, drawing a 1 percent share.
With numbers like that, KPOJ’s success could very well spawn other stations featuring “progressive” talk in Portland and around the country where underperforming stations may be looking for a new format.
Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service "dishonest and dishonorable" and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.
The White House declined.
Rising Hegemon
