Copy Editor Suspended for Attending Peace March
Tim Mahoney, a copy editor at Pioneer Press in Saint Paul, was
suspended for three days without pay for attending a peace march in September. This after the paper launched an internal investigation. Mahoney thought the interview by the investigators was
"friendly" and there wouldn't be a problem.
Last week, however, Mahoney learned the outcome of the investigation: He was suspended from work for three days without pay. In addition, Mahoney was informed that he would no longer be allowed to edit any stories about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It was also made clear, in a letter written by senior editor Mike Bulger, that participation in any similar political activities would result in his termination.
via Romenesko
Use a W, Pay a Fine
In Turkey, 20 people
have been fined about $75 for using the non-Turkish letters
W and
Q on placards, written in Kurdish, during an event last year in the southeastern city of
Siirt. Turkey is one of the countries covered by
Kurdistan, and has a large Kurdish population.
Rosa Parks is Dead
She was 92
when she passed. She will
not be forgotten. She was a leader, part of a much larger cause.
Senator Hutchison and Perjury
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
apparently told the folks at Meet the Press that perjury is a
technicality and not a crime.
SEN. HUTCHISON: ... And secondly, I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.
But isn't it odd that
she didn't feel that way about perjury when it concerned President Clinton. At that time, after years of investigation and millions of taxpayer dollars, Senator Hutchison
voted guilty to perjury charges against the former President. At the time she argued that perjury wasn't just a criminal act, but a
high crime, justifying the impeachment of a sitting President.
Perhaps someone will ask her about her flip-flop regarding perjury being a
"high crime" then, but merely a
"technicality" now.
Daily News: WH Leaking False Info
The Daily News
has a story today about how the President has always been aware of Karl Rove's close (and anonymous) relationship with the press. Near the bottom of the story, we find this:
A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.
The Senators Who Aid Inhumaninty
When
the vote came, here are the 9 Senators who voted against an amendment that would prohibit the use of
"cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against anyone in U.S. government custody, regardless of where they are held.
Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)
Here are
their justifications. And here are
some good, Christian reasons why they are wrong.
AFR Cancels Ed Schultz?
Think Progress
has a story up today about how Armed Forces Radio, which continues to broadcast right-wing extremist Rush Limbaugh, is apparently
reversing its plan to broadcast Ed Schultz' radio program,
before it's even broadcast!
The story is that Alison Barber (the woman
seen coaching soliders just before last week's Presidential "conversation") has informed
Ed Schultz that his planned debut on Armed Forces Radio has been indefinitely postponed. Last Friday Shultz's program began with outtakes of Barber's coaching session.
Wal-Mart Calls Cops for Anti-Bush Poster
High school teacher Selina Jarvis gave her students and assignment "to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights".
One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster."
When that student took the poster to a Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to have it finished, a
Wal-Mart employee in that store's photo department called the police on the student. The police in turn called the U.S. Secret Service, who visited the high school and reportedly
confiscated the poster. The two Secret Service agents later interviewed the teacher.
"They asked me, didn't I think that it was suspicious," she recalls. "I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project!"
At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident "would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted," she says.
So much for that Bill of Rights, huh kid?
Bush Stages Iraq Teleconference
ABC News is
reporting that President Bush's teleconference today with soldiers in Iraq was
"choreographed to match" his own agenda.
Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary ran the soldiers through their paces, making sure they knew who was to answer which questions.
"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"
"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.
"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.
"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.
And so it went.
"If the question comes up about partnering how often do we train with the Iraqi military who does he go to?" Barber asked.
"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.
"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit the hometown and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested the advance preparation was to cope with technical problems, such as satellite delay, and to give the soldiers an idea of what to expect.
Scalia Bars Journalists From Speech
A Supreme Court spokeswoman is saying a decision to
prevent journalists from attending Justice Antonin Scalia's speech to life insurance executives was a
"misunderstanding". Last year Scalia apologized after two reporters were forced to erase recordings of the justice's remarks in Mississippi.
Southwest: No Anti-Bush T-Shirts!!
Southwest Airlines has reportedly kicked a passenger from a flight because
she was wearing an anti-Bush Administration shirt. The T-Shirt has pictures of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a sports a phrase described as "similar to the popular film title
Meet the Fockers." Lorrie Heasley and her husband were escorted from the plane during a stopover in in Reno, NV. during a flight from Los Angeles and Portland OR.
"Here we are trying to free another country and I have to get off an airplane in midflight over a T-shirt. That's not freedom."
She is suing for the expenses in completing her trip (by rented car) from Reno to Portland.
Bush Talks to God
Now we know who to blame for the Iraqi War. It was God.
Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did.'
From the upcoming
BBC documentary "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs"
Army Misses Goal, Lowers Standards
The Nation
is reporting that the U.S. Army missed its yearly recruiting goal by about 7,000 recruits. As a result, it will double the number of Category IV recruits (those who score between the 16th and 30th percentile in the aptitude test) they will accept.
And in a bit of
doublespeak truly worth noting, Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey insists they are
not lowering their standards, but merely conforming to the guidelines suggested by the Department of Defense.
"They really weren't standards. They were just kind of guidelines," he said.
Okay, so they aren't lowering their standards, because they don't have any. Instead, they are implementing a lower suggested
guideline, which will result in recruits who would have been rejected previously.
via HuffPost
CNN: Pushing the Agenda
Here's the caption under a front page photo of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid standing next to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid praised Miers' courtroom experience.
Now here's the actual quote in the
story:
"I like Harriet Miers," Reid said in a statement. "As White House counsel, she has worked with me in a courteous and professional manner. I am also impressed with the fact that she was a trailblazer for women as managing partner of a major Dallas law firm and as the first woman president of the Texas Bar Association."
Funny, I don't see
any praise of courtroom experience.
This is the same CNN, owned by Time Warner, which
recently hired Tom Delay's Chief of Staff, Tim Berry, as a top lobbyist in Washington D.C.
She's The Best He Could Find?
So the President has
nominated his former personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, as a replacement for Sandra Day O'Conner. The 60 years old Miers was a corporate lawyer and has never been a judge. She's the former White House Staff Secretary, and current White House Counsel. She's the person responsible for withholding information from the Senate about new Chief Supreme Court Justice Roberts during his confirmation process. Now her supporters expect the same treatment for her.
