They Followed Us Home Anyway

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Why did we invade Iraq?

Um, let’s see.  The WMDs right?

Uh, not so much.

Oh, then it was to bring peace and stability and democracy and love and understanding and warm fuzzy kissybear hugs to the people of Iraq?

Nope.  Guess not.

Oh, thaaaat’s right.  It was so all the other countries in the Middle East would see Iraq as a model country, and they would stop fighting amongst themselves, right?

Grrr.  Wrong again.

Wait!  I got it!  We were fighting the bad guys over there so we that they wouldn’t come here!

Oh, dammit:

Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9. 

A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions.

The training camp is in Afghanistan — the country where our soldiers were before most of them were pulled out to go into Iraq.

Question: Has Bush does ANYTHING in the war on terrorism that has actually made things better rather than worse?

RELATED:  A must-read primer for those not entirely following this Iraq thing by David Green, professor of political science at Hofstra University.

“Mommy’s In The Rug”

Ken AshfordCrime1 Comment

This sounds like the beginning of a horror movie:

A pregnant woman vanished from her home, leaving behind broken furniture, a pool of bleach on the floor and just one witness – a 2-year-old son who told police, "Mommy’s crying … Mommy’s in the rug."

Nobody knows what the 2 year old means by that.

Paul Potts To Perform Before The Queen

Ken AshfordPopular Culture1 Comment

Potts_177996aFollow-up to this post from last week….

Paul Potts won:

Singing mobile phone salesman Paul Potts woke up £100,000 richer today after winning television show Britain’s Got Talent, and revealed that he will spend part of his prize money clearing debts and improving his teeth.

Paul Potts, 36, won over the nation with a performance of Nessun Dorma in the final of the hit ITV1 talent show, watched by 12.1 million viewers.

The former Tesco shelf-stacker from Port Talbot, South Wales, will now perform in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance.

Potts said that his win had not yet sunk in but that he was planning to pay off his £30,000 debts – although he was not 100-per cent sure about giving up his day job.

Potts spent £12,000 on singing lessons before deciding his dream was not meant to be. He began stacking shelves in Tesco but had to quit work because of a spell of ill health.

Doctors treated him for appendicitis and removed a benign tumour, while Potts also broke his collarbone.

He landed a job at Carphone Warehouse after battling back to health and married a woman he met on the internet.

There’s been a little controversy over this guy, as some are claiming that he is not really all an "amateur".  And it’s true — he has had a gig or two with the Bath Opera House, although that does not appears to be an amateur company.

More to the point, he gave up his career in 2003, after having broken his collarbone in a motorcycle accident, a tragedy which also put him in to debt.

He’s an amateur, and it’s a Cinderella story:

From an interview:

Speaking to The Observer, the singer denied the allegations. ‘I have never worked as a professional singer. I have poured everything I could earn into a few lessons, but everyone taking part in this television show has had some training,’ he said yesterday.

‘My four performances with Bath Opera a few years back were all amateur. I am angry about this because I have never earned anything, although I did get petrol expenses a couple of times.’ His story is confirmed this weekend by the singing teacher who gave him lessons until Potts was forced to give up in 2003 because of illness. Potts adds that he has always been open about a trip to Italy to improve his voice. He had saved up to sing for Luciano Pavarotti in a masterclass, but had no tuition from the great tenor.

The Sippy Cup Saga

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/Torture2 Comments

3e79651b85627d9517b37f0a34f54ba0I don’t know if you caught the story last week, but there was an incident at the Reagan National Airport. 

A mother by the name of Monica Emmerson claims she was threatened with arrest for trying to carry her child’s sippy cup with four ounces of water through a security checkpoint (the allowed limit is three ounces). 

She claims that the security people harassed her, and that she accidentally spilled the water on the floor.

Here’s what happened in Monica’s words:

"I demanded to speak to a TSA [Transportation Security Administration] supervisor who asked me if the water in the sippy cup was ‘nursery water or other bottled water.’ I explained that the sippy cup water was filtered tap water. The sippy cup was seized as my son was pointing and crying for his cup. I asked if I could drink the water to get the cup back, and was advised that I would have to leave security and come back through with an empty cup in order to retain the cup. As I was escorted out of security by TSA and a police officer, I unscrewed the cup to drink the water, which accidentally spilled because I was so upset with the situation.

"At this point, I was detained against my will by the police officer and threatened to be arrested for endangering other passengers with the spilled 3 to 4 ounces of water. I was ordered to clean the water, so I got on my hands and knees while my son sat in his stroller with no shoes on since they were also screened and I had no time to put them back on his feet. I asked to call back my fiancé, who I could still see from afar, waiting for us to clear security, to watch my son while I was being detained, and the officer threatened to arrest me if I moved. So I yelled past security to get the attention of my fiancé.

"I was ordered to apologize for the spilled water, and again threatened with arrest. I was threatened several times with arrest while detained, and while three other police officers were called to the scene of the mother with the 19 month old. A total of four police officers and three TSA officers reported to the scene where I was being held against my will. I was also told that I should not disrespect the officer and could be arrested for this too. I apologized to the officer and she continued to detain me despite me telling her that I would miss my flight. The officer advised me that I should have thought about this before I ‘intentionally spilled the water!’

"I missed my flight, needless to say after being detained for over 40 minutes. After the officer was done humiliating me, I was advised that I could go through the security check point in an attempt to catch my flight. The officer insisted that my son and I be rescreened despite us both being detained and under her control the entire time."

The story was seized on as an example of how the TSA is just a bunch of meanies.

Except for one thing.  It looks like Monica (who is a member of the Secret Service, by the way) was lying.

The TSA fought back today, releasing video of what actually happened.  You can also read the official report of the incident (pdf format).

Yes, Monica. Airports do have security cameras.  And it is quite clear (to me) that you did not "accidently spill" the water; you did it deliberately.

Sorry, honey.  The laws apply to you, too.

Trojan Pigs

Ken AshfordSex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

18adcol600This woman makes a good point:

"We always find it funny that you can use sex to sell jewelry and cars, but you can’t use sex to sell condoms,” a spokeswoman for Ansell Healthcare, which makes LifeStyles condoms.

She’s talking about a new commercial for Trojan condoms, which Fox and CBS have refused to air.

In a commercial for Trojan condoms that has its premiere tonight, women in a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs. One shuffles to the men’s room, where, after procuring a condom from a vending machine, he is transformed into a head-turner in his 20s. When he returns to the bar, a fetching blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him invitingly.

Now, if this was a commercial for beer or woman’s makeup or cell phones or — well — just about anything, I doubt anyone would have done so much as raise an eyebrow.  But because it involves (oh my God!) condoms, and the apparent suggestion that these young people are going to have sex, then we have to call in the morality police.

Silly.  Very silly.

UPDATE:  I missed this:

In a written response to Trojan, though, Fox said that it had rejected the spot because, “Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.”

If that’s so, can someone explain to me why Fox allows advertisements for Viagra?

Why is it okay to allow advertisements for something which enhances sex, but NOT for the prevention of pregnancy?

Anyway, maybe there is an EFFECTIVE condom ad that won’t upset Fox.  My proposal?  This one from France:

House Interim Staff Report on RNC Emails

Ken AshfordAttorney FiringsLeave a Comment

House investigators have learned that the Bush administration’s use of Republican National Committee email accounts is far greater than previously disclosed — 140,216 emails sent or received by Karl Rove alone — and that the RNC has overseen “extensive destruction” of many of the emails, including all email records for 51 White House officials.

The Presidential Records Act requires the President to “take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented … and maintained as Presidential records.” To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account.

The evidence obtained by the Committee indicates that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements. At this point in the investigation, it is not possible to determine precisely how many presidential records may have been destroyed by the RNC.

They are sooooo busted:

The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed. In March 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that only a “handful of officials” had RNC e-mail accounts. In later statements, her estimate rose to “50 over the course of the administration.” In fact, the Committee has learned from the RNC that at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts. The officials with RNC e-mail accounts include Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.

White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.

There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC. Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. Rove’s former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts. Although the RNC has preserved no e-mail records for Ken Mehlman, the former Director of Political Affairs, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Mehlman used his account “frequently, daily.” In addition, there are major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails. The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush’s first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006.

There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records. In her deposition, Ms. Ralston testified that she searched Mr. Rove’s RNC e-mail account in response to an Enron-related investigation in 2001 and the investigation of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later in the Administration. According to Ms. Ralston, the White House Counsel’s office knew about these e-mails because “all of the documents we collected were then turned over to the White House Counsel’s office.” There is no evidence, however, that White House Counsel Gonzales initiated any action to ensure the preservation of the e-mail records that were destroyed by the RNC.

It’s A Family Affair

Ken AshfordCongressLeave a Comment

CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has released a devastating report on government nepotism — how Congresspersons are using their positions to financially benefit their family members.

Highlights:

  • 96 members of Congress used their positions to financially benefit members of their family (44 Democrats and 52 Republicans)
  • 64 paid family members through their campaign committees or PACs (26 Democrats and 38 Republicans);
  • 24 have relatives who lobby Congress (10 Democrats and 14 Republicans);
  • 19 used their campaign committees or PACs to pay a family business or a business that employs a family member (9 Democrats and 10 Republicans);
  • 17 used their campaign funds to make campaign contributions to relatives (11 Democrats and 6 Republicans);
  • 15 used their positions to benefit a family member or a family member’s client (3 Democrats and 12 Republicans);
  • At least 7 paid offspring who ranged from school-age to college-age (all Republicans)

    • Some examples:

    • Rep. Randy Forbes’s (R-VA) campaign committee paid his three children over $45,000.
    • Rep. Paul Kanjorski’s (D-PA) campaign committee and leadership PAC have paid his own company (which he co-owns with his brother) over $40,000 in rent and his campaign committee paid two of his nephews over $70,000. In addition, two companies which are partly owned by Rep. Kanjorski’s family members have received over $9.4 million in earmarks.
    • Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-CA) campaign committee has paid her husband’s two businesses almost $350,000, mostly for event management, accounting and fundraising services.
    • Rep. Chris Cannon’s (R-UT) campaign committee paid six of his eight children over $60,000. In addition, Rep. Cannon has used his position to assist his brother’s clients.

    None of this is, technically speaking, illegal, but it is the hope of CREW that changes should be made in the law to prevent this sort of thing.

    Read the full report here (PDF format).

    Mike Gravel Wants Your Attention

    Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

    Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2008 Presidency.  You probably haven’t heard of him — he’s been overshadowed by Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and — well — just about everybody else.  Still, he’s a legitimate candidate (he’s been in all the Dem ’08 debates) with strong anti-war creds.

    Now to the heart of this post.  Here is one of Gravel’s latest campaign ads:

    In another campaign ad, Gravel walks through the woods, picks something up, walks off camera, then the video cuts to him sitting alone at a fire. The entire rest of the video might as well be the TV Christmas yule log. It’s nothing but branches burning.

    You gotta hand it to him.  While people are trying to figure out exactly what these ads MEAN (if anything) and/or if Mike Gravel is (oh, I don’t know…) batshit CRAZY, one thing is clear: there’s a little buzz about Mike Gravel as a direct result of these political ads.  And that’s pretty smart campaigning for a guy nobody heard of.

    UPDATE:  Gravel’s Press Secretary Shaun Alexander Colvin explains the ads:

    "It’s a personal statement rather than a usual political statement that you get from candidates. This message and this candidate are not just about rhetoric and promises or about being verbose. It’s about a candidate looking you in the eye. He’s laying himself out, exposing himself, showing who he is."

    "He’s a man who’ll look you in the eye. He could’ve been standing in the park making political statements and promises and such, and he’s doing just the opposite. His message is out there. He’s articulated it for a year. He’s standing by his word. And giving you a chance to see who he is."

    "The beginning part of it is very interpretational. In metaphor, it would be the rock in the water and the ripple effect of the senator and his message and who he is, a man with an idea, who is little by little, day by day communicating that message.

    "We are seeing a ripple effect from here in our offices in Arlington to communities across the country for his platform on Iraq and economic fairness. That metaphor is how a man spreads his message."

    Replacing Ethnic Women With “Good Americans” (White Christian Men)

    Ken AshfordAttorney FiringsLeave a Comment

    Bradley Schlozman, a Bush political appointee to the Department of Justice, reportedly tried to remove many female minority attorneys (who came on board under Democratic presidents) and replace them with — his alleged words — "good Americans".

    An anonymous phone call in 2005 led to an internal investigation, which resulted in these words from the Inspector General:

    Schlotzman

    The full report is here.  The report also says:

    "Bradley J. Schlozman is systematically attempting to purge all Civil Rights appellate attorneys hired under Democratic administrations . . . Schlozman told one recently hired attorney that it was his intention to drive these attorneys out of the Appellate Section so that he could replace them with ‘good Americans’"

    And here’s the irony: this all happened within the DOJ’s Appellate Section of Civil Rights Division!!!

    Was there fallout?  Apparently not — until now.  TPMmuckraker writes:

    It’s unclear if the Department’s inspector general ever pursued the allegations from the December, 2005 letter at the time. But the office certainly is now. In a letter to the judiciary committee chairmen last month, Glenn Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility counsel Marshall Jarrett announced that their joint probe into the U.S. attorney firings had been expanded to include hiring practices in the Civil Rights Division. Schlozman has been accused of recruiting Republicans for career spots and then asking them to scrub mentions of their GOP bona fides from their resumes.

    To be continued… no doubt.

    Why Will Nobody Listen To Me About Killer Terrorist Squirrels?

    Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

    I wrote about them on December 2, 2005.

    I wrote about them on November 2, 2006, and again on November 7, 2006.

    And again on May 10, 2007.

    What do I have to do to get people to pay attention to this impending global threat?  Make an Academy Award-winning documentary?

    An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.

    The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said Thursday.

    With the squirrel still hanging from her hand, the woman ran onto the street in panic, where she managed to shake it off.

    The animal then entered a building site and jumped on a construction worker, injuring him on the hand and arm, before he managed to fight it off with a measuring pole.

    "After that, the squirrel went into the 72-year-old man’s garden and massively attacked him on the arms, hand and thigh," the spokesman said. "Then he killed it with his crutch."

    How long will it be before it is "too late"?

    Squirrels

    And In The End, The Love You Take….

    Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

    Sixfeetunder_1With the general disappointment over the last episode of "The Sopranos" (I’m not a watcher, so I have no comment), the folks at MSNBC compiled a list of the "best" and "worst" endings of movies, TV shows, and books:

    BEST ENDINGS:

    Movies:

    • The Godfather
    • Notorious
    • The Lady Eve
    • The Wild Bunch
    • The Third Man
    • The Usual Suspects 
    • McCabe and Mrs. Miller
    • The 400 Blows
    • Midnight Cowboy
    • Blazing Saddles
    • Some Like It Hot
    • Kiss Me Deadly
    • Yojimbo
    • Bambi Meets Godzilla
    • Planet of the Apes
    • The Lives of Others 
    • Blade Runner [director’s cut]
    • Carrie

    GoodbyeBooks:

    • The Great Gatsby
    • Light in August
    • The Grapes of Wrath
    • Charlotte’s Web
    • For Whom the Bell Tolls
    • The Dead
    • Love in the Time of Cholera
    • Blood Meridian
    • Portnoy’s Complaint
    • A Handful of Dust

    Television:

    • The Howdy Doody Show
    • Six Feet Under 
    • St. Elsewhere
    • Newhart
    • Mary Tyler Moore Show

    WORST ENDINGS:

    Movies:

    • The Village
    • Signs
    • Clue
    • Eyes Wide Shut
    • Planet of the Apes [the remake]
    • Blade Runner  [theatrical release]
    • Wedding Crashers
    • Rosemary’s Baby
    • Godfather III

    Books:

    • Huckleberry Finn
    • Portrait of a Lady
    • Great Expectations 
    • Atlas Shrugged   
    • It 

    Television:

    • Twin Peaks
    • The X-Files 
    • Seinfeld
    • 24 [this season’s final episode]

    I’m unfamiliar with a lot of these, but I have to agree with the best endings of "The Usual Suspects", "Bambi Meets Godzilla" (youtube’d below), and TV’s "Newhart" show (the ending to end all endings).

    By the way, the best ending in music?  The Beatles’ "A Day In The Life".

    Got any to add?

    But Who’s Counting?

    Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

    WaPo:

    BAGHDAD, June 15 — The full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq — what military leaders call a "surge" of troops to improve security and stability in the capital — was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country, a U.S. military spokesman said.

    Uh, make that 28,495 additional troops:

    BAGHDAD, June 15 – Five American soldiers died in Iraq, the U.S. military announced Friday, a day after extremists fired shells into Baghdad’s Green Zone during a visit by the State Department’s No. 2 official.

    I Got A Crush On Obama

    Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

    With almost half a million views on YouTube, this thing is majorly viral.

    This morning, the mainstream media is even covering it.  The austere New York Times included:

    CREATOR: Ben Relles, Leah Kauffman and Rick Friedrich.

    ON THE SCREEN: A sexy young woman watching the 2004 Democratic National Convention on C-Span falls for Senator Barack Obama and then calls him on the phone. In mock MTV fashion, she starts singing a rapturous urban ballad about her crush on him. She slinks around various locales in New York City, including the subway, the park and her office, suggestively sidling up to images of Mr. Obama while proclaiming her adoration for him.

    SCRIPT: “Hey B., it’s me. If you’re there, pick up. I was just watching you on C-Span (sigh). Anyway, call me back … won’t you pick up your phone, ’cause I got a crush on Obama. …

    You’re into border security/let’s break this border between you and me/universal health care reform/it makes me warm. You tell the truth, unlike the right/You can love but you can fight … I got a crush on Obama."

    THE BUZZ: The video plays on the sex appeal of the candidate, a terrain considered off limits by political campaigns in their own commercials. By using theatrical devices common in R & B videos — like the woman leaving a breathless message on the phone — the video has a campy appeal while also giving a nod to the issues in a playful manner. While overtly salacious, the video is unlike to raise any objections from the Obama campaign.

    Leah Kauffman is the performer.  And no, the Obama campaign has nothing to do with this.  The video has led to its own website/blog.

    And here’s what the buzz is about: