MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: March 11, 2007

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March 17, 2007

Right Wing Backs Terrorist When His Target is Ex-Prez Carter

Remember the buzz about anonymous commenters damning their luck that the attempt in Afghanistan on VP Dick Cheney’s life was unsuccessful? In fact, several commenters on my post yesterday about Donald Rumsfeld’s recent hospitalization have accused me of wishing the former Secretary of Defense dead.

Well, in the spirit of tit for tat, I call your attention to Glenn Greenwald’s blog post on responses at the major conservative blog Little Green Footballs to news that among the many—too many—things that KSM has confessed to was a plot to assassinate Carter. (How old is this guy?)

Greenwald’s post is worth reading in its entirety, but here are a few of the choicest comments:

Can we furlough him--just so he can realize the Carter plot? Please? /Is this wrong?

Can we trade Carter to get the WTC and it's occupants back?

#31 Earth2moonbat Can we trade Carter to get the WTC and it's occupants back? Yes. Absolutely. We won't get them back in the trade, but we will have gotten rid of Carter, so there is still a net benefit.

Really, why would Islamic terrorists plan to kill Jimmy Carter...the man is their best friend.

"Mohammed also admitted to planning assassination attempts on former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter." Even this schmuck had some good ideas.

Here are some supporting the torture that almost certainly, err, facilitated KSM's catch-all confessions:

But they got those confessions through torture! And worse than that, they probably hurt his feelings too.

They probably gained those confessions through brutal torture - you know, panties on the head and all.

Little Green Football's blogger-in-chief Charles Johnson has already blocked the link from Greenwald's post (which took time, Greenwald points out, that Johnson could have used to delete the comments), so check them out before they're gone.

March 16, 2007

FAA Backs Down: Reinstates Inspector Fired for Talking to MoJo

Mike Gonzales, the FAA inspector who had been on administrative leave for almost ten months, is back at work in the FAA's Scottsdale, Arizona, office. Gonzales, you may remember, was notified that the FAA had begun termination proceedings against him for supposedly "abusing his position" by escorting a Mother Jones reporter into a TIMCO aircraft-repair facility without identifying his guest as a journalist. The allegation was BS, as Frank Koughan, the reporter in question, demonstrated in this story, which features sound clips that clearly refute the FAA's allegations.

The irony is that the FAA could have avoided all this simply by letting its employees talk to Mother Jones in the first place. But instead they would only allow FAA staff to speak in their capacity as representatives of their union. Mother Jones honored that agreement, only to have the FAA harass staff who did speak to us. The original story on the FAA, "Waiting to Happen," painted a picture of an agency that is in bed with the industry it is supposed to regulate: By trying to muscle out one its own staff in order to protect the repair facility, the FAA only confirmed that its customer is the aircraft industry, not the flying public.

Adding to the outrage, remember that Gonzales was on full pay for the nine and half months he was placed on leave, a waste of taxpayer dollars that could have been better spent on letting him inspect aircraft!

Breaking: Rumsfeld Underwent Heart Procedure

Politico is reporting that Donald Rumsfeld was held overnight in the VIP unit of Washington Center for a heart procedure. He was released yesterday. No more information is available, but we'll keep you posted.

Mainstream Media Catching Up on KSM Doubts

Ah, the blogosphere is again one day ahead of the MSM. Yesterday, when news of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confessions came out, Jim and I expressed our doubts. Now we're seeing the same sentiment in the AP, TIME, and Newsweek.

Robert Baer, CIA agent extraordinaire and popular author, writing in TIME:

On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated...

Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.

The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated.

Michael Hirsh, who has broken some important scoops on the Iraq War, writes in Newsweek about how the KSM case is a perfect illustration of how not to fight a war against terror:

Had the case been handled properly, KSM’s confession to plotting 9/11 and many other actual or planned terror acts could have made him a "showcase defendant" for America’s cause, rallying support and allies around the world. "He could have been charged within six months of his detention and prosecuted in a proceeding, which would have added to the reputation of our country for justice," says [Scott] Horton[, a human rights attorney.]

Instead, the legal black hole is only getting deeper. The transcript released Wednesday night indicates that KSM’s references to his previous treatment are all carefully redacted. [John] Sifton [of Human Rights Watch] and others say the redactions clearly indicate that KSM was referring to his secret interrogations—during which he might well have been physically abused. The question of whether such dubiously extracted testimony could be used in any legal proceeding will probably prolong his case for years to come.

Sifton notes, accurately, that the administration has been wildly inconsistent over the past six years. Some terror suspects are held without recourse to habeas corpus at Gitmo; others have been prosecuted in the U.S. courts. In one case involving a Pakistani father and son living in New York, Saifullah and Uzair Paracha, the two have been treated completely differently. "The young Paracha is in federal prison. The older is at Gitmo," said Sifton. (The father, Saifullah, was arrested in Bangkok; his son in the United States, both on suspicion of agreeing to help an Al Qaeda operative sneak into the United States to carry out a chemical attack.) "There are no principles guiding this. It would be fine if the “war on terror” were just a metaphor, but it’s not," says Sifton.

And the AP:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's claims that he was responsible for dozens of successful, foiled and imagined attacks in the past 15 years relies on a loose definition of the word "responsible." Officials say the 9/11 mastermind was key to some plots but a bit player in others...

While there apparently is truth in much of the statement, several officials said, there's also an element of self-promotion. They view the claims as at least in part a rallying cry to bolster his image and that of al-Qaida...

One official cautioned that many of Mohammed's claims during interrogation were "white noise" — designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day's interrogation session.

Look -- KSM is a nasty, nasty dude. I said as much when I blogged about him yesterday. And I'm sure he's guilty of enough to be executed a dozen times over. But when the military releases a statement from a terrorist mastermind owning up to every unresolved high-profile terrorist act over the last ten years and releases with it no photos, no video, no audio, and no corroborating evidence, I have questions. I think, given the Bush Administration's record of being forthright with the nation, we all should.

Update: Colleagues report that the mainstream media began debunking KSM's claims as early as yesterday morning. So, kudos to the appropriate parties. I only found the print articles today, which led to this blog post.

Valerie Plame to Congress: I Was Covert

One of the unresolved issues of Plamegate is whether or not Valerie Plame was covert when she was outed as a CIA agent in Bob Novak's column. Conservatives have long maintained that she was not (Sean Hannity earlier this month: "She did not meet the criteria, in any way, shape, matter or form as a covert agent.") and have speculated that because no one was ever charged with revealing the name of a covert agent, Plame must not have met the strict definitions of "covert" under the law. Reporting from over a year ago said that Plame did covert work within five years of the leak, but was unlikely to do any more.

Well, for what it's worth, Valerie Plame went before Congress today and said that she was in fact covert. She's in a position to know, obviously. ThinkProgress has video, but her statement was:

"In the run-up to the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified."

"While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence."

Update: A congressman is claiming that CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden recently told Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) explicitly that "Ms. Wilson was covert."

The Ethanol Debate

Maybe Fidel and Hugo aren't so dumb! Stanard Schaefer in Counterpunch points out that the ethanol binge already has driven corn prices through the roof and, now wrapped in the Bush (and most Democrats') free trade mantra, promises to earmark corn in the developing world for export, thus, removing land from the production of food.

"There are other potential problems," he says. "In Indonesia, ancient forests are being burned up to make room for oil-palm biofuel. They're already digging up the rainforests in Brazil to plant soybeans that will be used in NutriSystem microwavable food packages designed to help fat Americans lose weight. As demand for ethanol increases to be equal to current oil consumption, it is almost guarantees forests will be dug up in the Global South to plant more sugar cane, since after all that is where it grows best. How then can ethanol be called carbon neutral when it will increase deforestation, when its promoters such as BP are notorious human rights violators, when companies such as BP are under a grand jury investigation for spilling 267,000 gallons of oil in Prudhoe Bay?"

No Surprise: Republicans Also Dodge "Is Homosexuality Immoral" Question

I slammed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for this yesterday, so I suppose I should do the same with the Republicans: John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani have all refused to give a straight response on whether or not homosexuality should be considered immoral. Romney and Giuliani, who have a history of supporting the gay community, actually come off as pretty good guys, though, and I think their relatively nuanced answers are worth evaluating in full. Each candidate's response taken from this Politico article...

McCain:

"The senator thinks such questions are a matter of conscience and faith for people to decide for themselves. As a public official, Senator McCain supports don’t ask, don’t tell." --McCain spokesman Danny Diaz. Per the AP, McCain was asked about the matter on the campaign trail in Iowa yesterday and declined to answer.

Romney, who once was a strong supporter of gay rights:

"I think General Pace has said that he regrets having said that, and I think he was wise to have issued an apology, or a withdrawal of that comment. I think that we, as a society, welcome people of all differences, whether there are differences in ethnicity, faith or sexual preference, and I think he was wise to correct his comment and to suggest that that was an inappropriate point to have made."

Giuliani, who supported civil unions as mayor of New York:

"We should be tolerant, fair, open, and we should understand the rights that all people have in our society."

Sam Brownback, who is crazy:

Sen. Sam Brownback... not only affirmed his view that homosexuality is immoral but sent a letter of support on behalf of Pace to the White House.

Still More KSM Doubts

Jonathan's and my blogs yesterday raised questions about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confessions. Today suspicions continue to grow. Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story suggests in her blog, At-Largely, that at least one of KSM's targets didn't exist when he decided to blow it up.

KSM says in his confession: "I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the New (or Second) Wave of attacks against the following skyscrapers after 9/11: ...Plaza Bank, Washington state."

Larisa looked up Plaza Bank's website and found that the Plaza Bank was not founded until 2006. According to their official Web site:

"Founded in early 2006, with a vision of creating the leading commercial bank in the Pacific Northwest, Plaza Bank’s story quickly captured the hearts and passion of some of the region's leading business minds. From Jack Creighton, former CEO of Weyerhaeuser and United Airlines, to former Seattle Mariner Edgar Martinez, and nationally acclaimed salon operator Gene Juárez, the story of a bank founded to bring "class to the mass" simply could not be contained."

March 15, 2007

Department Of Labor Ignores Law, Fails To Protect Nuclear Industry Whistle-Blowers

Though federal law requires the Department of Labor to safeguard whistle-blowers from reprisal, the department has been ignoring the law with regard to those who have complained about environmental and nuclear safety problems. Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Commission, is accusing the DOL of being compliant in blacklisting, which is a violation of federal law.

According to DOL documents Dingell obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, over 60% of nuclear industry-related whistle-blower settlements since 2000 have included permanent bans on working for the employer in question. The Government Accountability Project has petitioned the DOL to prohibit the bans. The department says it is "giving careful consideration" to the petition. One supposes that under this administration, "giving careful consideration" to the prospect of obeying the law should be looked at as progress.

Copyright? Right, Right, Viacom and Google Are Both Bullies

We won’t bore you with another news article about Viacom lunging at Google’s YouTube jugular. But there's oh so much more to learn about these finicky media giants beyond copyright squabbles.

Dollars may be at issue with this lawsuit but its content that's the real battleground. With each merger or media consolidation and with each ownership change, content is owned and determined by fewer, wealthier folks. News organizations are dealing with content wars in all kinds of ways, such as buying out older employees and investing more in online and niche operations. Eric Klinenberg offers, another take on the media melee, arguing that the hunt for larger profit margins among traditional media companies, not the Internet and its subversion of original content, is what is in fact killing the news. And for well over 25 years Viacom has been trying smash the little guys with media mergers.

What do DreamWorks, Infinity Broadcasting, King World, BET, Blockbuster, Paramount, Showtime, UPN, and VH1 all have in common? They are all part of the Viacom/CBS media machine. Google, too, is not exactly an innocent bystander in the media intimidation game. The gobbler in many a merger, the fledgling giant runs fast and loose with that little thing called privacy. So we'll see how things play out with this lawsuit, but truth be told they might just end up being one company someday, all owned by Time Warner maybe?

For a doomsday scenario for media in general check out the Museum of Media History’s mockumentary EPIC 2012 that predicts the final collapse of the Fourth Estate.

--Gary Moskowitz

Obama's Poor Showing on the Gay Immorality Question

This morning, I wrote about Hillary Clinton's refusal to give a straight answer to a question about whether she agreed Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who got in hot water for saying homosexuality is immoral. Instead of saying, "No, I don't agree with General Pace. I am a long time supporter of gay rights," Clinton said, "I’m going to leave that to others to conclude." Realizing the insanity of the situation, Clinton's campaign later released a statement saying that Clinton does not agree with the General.

Looks like Obama did the same thing, at least sort of. A Newsday reporter caught Obama as he was leaving Capitol Hill and asked him if he agreed with Pace. Obama said, "I think traditionally the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has restricted his public comments to military matters. That's probably a good tradition to follow." When asked for a straight answer, the senator from Illinois, in an attempt to reframe the question as one about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," said, "I think the question here is whether somebody is willing to sacrifice for their country."

Actually, the question is, "Do you think homosexuality is immoral?" And the answer is "Of course not." Recognizing that, the Obama campaign did like the Clinton one and released a statement later in the day saying Obama disagrees with Pace.

I truly look forward to a time a generation from now when America will have politicians who will face questions like the ones Obama and Clinton faced today, and say, "Don't be ridiculous." I know homophobia won't be stamped out, but at least being a homophobe won't be acceptable publicly and even desirable (!) politically.

Emergency Contraception, Is It Just Around Your Corner?

I love Feministing for finds like this. They call it "Head-banging emergency contraception." Ha. It's a Planned Parenthood commercial for ec.

More on the KSM Confessions

In addition to Jonathan's post below, there are other reasons to think something is fishy with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confessions. Kyle Hence at the 9/11 Citizens Watch puts it this way: "For a number of reasons I am just not buying this so-called confession by KSM. Why can't we hear the audio of the so-called confessions? And why is it no one in the media or general public, not a single person, has a seen but two photos of this man and not a single clip of video? Think about it. It's been three years since his capture and we have only two photos of the man whose story was at the core of the 9/11 Commission Report. Why are there no cameras, even military ones, in the tribunal courtroom? Were there no photographers, even military photographers, on the flight that transferred him to Guantanamo? What national security concerns could possibly nix cameras or digital audio recorders from documenting the professed 'mastermind' of the worst terrorist attack in history?"

Readers: Any idea what's going on here?

KSM Admits to Planning 9/11 and Every Terrorist Act Ever: Should We Be Suspicious?

So it looks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda No. 3 long-reputed to be the mastermind behind 9/11, was a worse dude than anyone thought. Last night, the Pentagon released a 26-page transcript of a closed hearing in which KSM (as he's called) admitted to planning or executing 31 terrorist acts, some successful and some unsuccessful. I think it's safe to assume he's sealed his death sentence.

From the AP, snippets of things KSM reportedly admitted to:

- The 9/11 attacks.

- The 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

- The failed Richard Reid shoe bombing.

- The beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

- Attempted assassinations of Pope John Paul II, President Clinton and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

- The 2002 bombing of a Kenya beach resort.

- The 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia.

- Planned but unexecuted attacks on the Sears Tower, the Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange, the Panama Canal, the Big Ben clock tower in London, and Heathrow Airport.

The two questions I have are:

(1) Were these admissions the product of torture? I mean torture in the immediate sense and in the "KSM has been through the black site prison system for three years and has probably been tortured dozens of times, creating a lasting psychological effect that might impair his ability to think, judge, and communicate." If KSM were to be tried in a court of law, would his confessions hold up?

(2) Should we be suspicious of the timing? Who knows when these admissions were actually made. All we do know -- as Josh Marshall points out -- is that their release is timed to knock Alberto Gonzales and the Attorney General flap off the front pages. Remember when Jose Padilla's arrest was announced? John Ashcroft interrupted a trip to Russia to declare that the U.S. had arrested a domestic terrorist and heroically stopped his "dirty bomb" attack. As it turned out, Padilla had been arrested a month before and Ashcroft's announcement was timed to knock a bunch of bad news out of the headlines. And the government could never prove the "dirty bomb" charge.

It's a true shame that even when a really nasty guy is caught and proven guilty, alert citizens have to be suspicious and skeptical of the Administration's behavior. But it poisoned the well from which we all drink.

Brownback Doing Just Fine in the Polls, Thank You Very Much

In an encouraging sign for right-wing Bible thumpers who want to see the American government run like a Christian theocracy, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback ("God's Senator"!) has done surprisingly well in recent head-to-head polls against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Sen. Hillary Clinton - 46%
Sen. Sam Brownback - 41%

Sen. Barack Obama - 49%
Sen. Sam Brownback - 34%

I hope we can chalk this up to the fact that most Americans don't know much about Sam Brownback. Like how he refused to sign Newt Gingrich's Contract with America because it wasn't conservative enough. Or how his political idol is Jesse Helms. Or how his wife boasts, "Basically, I live in the kitchen." Or how he once stonewalled a judicial confirmation because the nominee had attended the lesbian commitment ceremony of a longtime neighbor's daughter. Or how he said that abortion has become such a problem in America that youth today "feel they're the survivors of a holocaust." Either Americans are willing to answer poll questions about people they are almost completely ignorant of, or there's some divine intervention going on here.

Prosecutor Purge: Senate Doesn't Care What Bush Says, Going to Subpoena White House Officials

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on whether to authorize subpoenas for top White House officials who have been implicated in the recent firings of eight U.S. Attorneys. Throughout his presidency, Bush has asserted his executive privilege often. If Bush denies requests by the Senate and House to speak with Harriet Miers, Miers' top aide William Kelley and Karl Rove, it could get ugly. From TPMmuckraker's news-culling of today's papers, we see that the senate committee doesn't really care whether the president authorizes the officials to explain themselves or not. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said, "Frankly, I don't care whether Fielding (White House counsel who will report the President's decision to Congress) says he's going to allow people or not. We'll subpoena the people we want.... If they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation I suspect they don't want to have."

Did I mention I love divided government?

Giuliani and Hugo Chavez, Quite the Couple

Found this hilarious: Rudy Giuliani's law firm is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of Citgo, the Houston-based oil company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez, as you know, refers to Bush as "the devil," once claimed at the U.N. when speaking a day after George W. Bush that the podium shared by both smelled "of sulfur," and lobbed insults at Bush repeatedly as our beloved presidente traveled South America on his recent tour.

Giuliani's people are claiming that even though the law firm is named Bracewell & Giuliani, Giuliani had nothing to do with the account. Whoops!

Seriously, WTF? Hillary Clinton Waffles on Whether or Not Homosexuality is "Immoral"

What a pathetic little saga. When ABC News asked Hillary Clinton yesterday if she agreed with General Peter Pace's comment that homosexuality is "immoral," Clinton responded, "Well I’m going to leave that to others to conclude." This despite her long history of supporting the gay community and her previously stated opposition to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

It was either the biggest brain fart of the campaign season to date, or a really, really ugly attempt to tack to the center -- what's a little bigotry in the name of campaign-season moderation? I've always agreed with the sentiment that Clinton is running for the general election, not the primary -- everything she says and does is geared towards making her palatable to the country as a whole, not just the hardcore Dems that vote in primaries. But nonetheless, this is insane.

And the Clinton camp thought so too. So later in the day, the communications folks there released a statement from Clinton saying, "I disagree with what [Pace] said and do not share his view, plain and simple.... It is inappropriate to inject such personal views into this public policy matter, especially at a time in which there are young men and women in such grave circumstances in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in other dangerous places around the world."

There are rumors that Barack Obama also dodged the question when asked about it yesterday. If so, expect another indignant blog post later in the day.

March 14, 2007

Mother Jones Nominated for Two National Magazine Awards

Well, the moment long awaited by a couple hundred magazine editors and virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world has finally arrived! Finalists for the 2007 National Magazine Awards (read: stuff we all printed in 2006) were announced today, and Mother Jones scored two nominations, which is less than the New Yorker, but just as many as Time.

We got the big one, General Excellence! Which is sort of like being nominated for Best Picture. OK, in our circulation size (between 100,00 and 250,000), it's probably more like Best Foreign Feature. But still! Our fellow nominees are: Foreign Policy, Philadelphia Magazine, Salt Water Sportsman, Seed. If we get just a little bigger (hint: subscribe, you webbies) we'd be up against the likes of (this year) The Atlantic, New York, Audubon, Texas Monthly, and Cookie (sadly, not as yummy as it sounded).

Check out the three issues that got us this far here, here, and here.

And we were also nominated for Best Interactive Feature, for our fabulous(ly labor intensive) Lie by Lie: Iraq War Timeline. Learn more about it here.

MoJo last won in 2001, for General Excellence. Last year we were nominated for Public Interest for our ExxonMobil exposé.

A list of the mags that got multiple nominations is after the jump. You can go to the full breakdown here.

Meanwhile, thanks to everyone involved. Staff, former staff, writers, illustrators, photographers, fact-checkers, web designers, subscribers, donors, advertisers, to say nothing of our agents, personal trainers, life coaches, Harvey Weinstein....

New Yorker (9)
Esquire (7)
New York (7)
National Geographic (5)
Field & Stream (4)
GQ (4)
Vanity Fair (4)
The Atlantic Monthly (3)
Newsweek (3)
Gourmet (3)
The Believer (2)
BusinessWeek.com (2)
City (2)
Condé Nast Traveler (2)
Foreign Policy (2)
Glamour (2)
Martha Stewart Living (2)
Mother Jones (2)
O, The Oprah Magazine (2) [BTW, do they call it that so we won't think it is the orgasm magazine?]
The Paris Review (2)
Rolling Stone (2)
Seed (2)
Slate (2)
Time (2)
The Virginia Quarterly Review (2)
W (2)
Wired (2)

Military Man in a Pickle Over Anti-Gay Remark

Comments made by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune may make his, from a PR perspective, one of the most disastrous interviews ever given.

Pace said he believed homosexuality was immoral and that he doesn't "believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way." He compared homosexuality to adultery, I suppose to avoid the obviously delusional comparisons conservatives such as Rick Santorum have made. But his comparison raises the question: Will the military institute a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy with regard to adultery?

Of course, Pace was only saying what most military men think—but the military, led by Colin Powell, carefully crafted an alibi for its homophobia when it demanded in 1993 that Clinton not allow out gays to serve in the military. It's not that we're homophobic, the brass said; it's that the grunts are so homophobic they'd sooner fight a gay platoon-mate than the enemy—and that's OK.

Pace also violated another military stance in speaking the truth that dare not speak its name. The military is, at present, desperate not to revisit the gays in the military issue, because commanders know now would be an opportune time to repeal the rule. Homophobes can get down with the idea of sending gays and lesbians off to die for them, as evidenced by the drop by half in the annual number of soldiers discharged for being gay since 9/11. More than half of all Americans support lifting the ban.

John Warner, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee, suggested that the policy will at least be reviewed when he said, "I respectfully but strongly disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral." A Republican! This could only happen with the military desperate to boost its numbers.

California Woman, Kept Alive With Marijuana, Again Declared A Potential Federal Criminal

Angel Raich has an inoperable brain tumor, a seizure disorder, scoliosis, severe chronic pain, chronic nausea, and some other ailments that leave her unable to eat and cause her to be officially dying. You may recall that, five years ago, the 41-year-old Oakland woman sued then-U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft and the federal government over her right to use medical marijuana, which is legal in California. According to her doctors, she will die without it. According to a federal appeals court, she can drop dead.

The Supreme Court ruled against Raich two years ago, saying medical marijuana users and their suppliers could be prosecuted for breaching federal drug laws even if they lived in a state such in which medical marijuana is legal. Today, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled that Raich and her suppliers could be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws. However, the court left open the possibility that if Raich were arrested, her attorneys may be able to mount a "medical necessity defense."

Raich says she will continue to smoke and eat marijuana.

State of Texas: A Plague of Warts on You

After years of living in Texas, I developed a handy rule of thumb: If the State of Texas does something reasonable, it's not going to stick. And so it is with Governor Rick Perry's order to mandate HPV vaccinations for public schoolgirls.

(I should clarify that the strains of the HPV virus linked to cervical cancer are not the same ones that cause warts. Yet another reason why vaccinations will not encourage kids to have sex.)

Center for American Progress' Campus Progress Launches New Iraq Campaign and Film Project

Campus Progress, the campus arm of Washington-based think-tank the Center for American Progress, has just launched two new programs, the Iraq Campaign and the Iraq Film Project, both geared toward changing the course of the war through advocacy and education. Campus Progress is offering grants of $200-1,000 to students working on Iraq advocacy and education campaigns on their college campuses. The group is sponsoring the Iraq Film Project, whereby Iraq movies can be screened on campuses nationwide, "as a means of intensifying and enhancing [the] debate on the war, and engaging young people in a search for the right course going forward." They are dedicated to assisting students who want to plan an event and have award-winning films available, like The War Tapes and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (read the Mojo review of the film here), as well as speakers available for the events. Several schools including Lehigh, Princeton and Amherst have already planned screenings for their schools. To get involved or for more information, click here.

For a comprehensive look at the situation in Iraq, read Mother Jones' new report, "Iraq 101" in our current issue. And for a look at other activism happening on campuses nationwide, check out our 13th annual roundup of campus activists here.

Why is Salon Running Garrison Keillor's Ridiculous Stereotypes of Gay Men?

In a column called "Stating the Obvious" no less, Keillor spouts:

The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men -- sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control. Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts. That's for the kids. It's their show.

Does Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva who fought and was wounded in Iraq fit this stereotype? Does John Amaechi, a retired NBA player? Keillor is just vomiting up his own homophobic impressions.

Write Salon and ask why they're giving bigotry a platform.

Watchdog Group Files FEC Complaint Against Duncan Hunter's PAC

Today, CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a FEC complaint against long-shot Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter's leadership PAC. According to CREW, Hunter's PAC, Peace Through Strength Political Action Committee (PTS PAC), has illegally supported the presidential candidate. Before a potential candidate declares a bid for the presidency, they are able to "test the waters" (money can be spent on travel, polling and under $5,000 can be spent on ad campaigns). It appears Hunter didn't follow the rules. PTS PAC spent $17,575 to run an ad campaign last December (before he announced his bid) in NH, which promoted the Representative's support for the construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mother Jones didn't need CREW to tell us that Hunter is a bit of a shady character. Read some fun tidbits about the Rep. in Mother Jones' "The Men Who Would Beat Hillary" and don't miss our profile on him and his humanitarian brother John Hunter in our current issue. You'd think they were "separated at birth."

Senate Low-Balls 9/11 While NYFD Fight Giuliani

Five years after 9/11 the Senate has finally gotten around to endorsing the proposals of the 9/11 Commission, weak as they may be. The Senate legislation in its current form faces a veto because it supports the rights of Transportion Security Administration workers to organize. That's anathema to Republicans on the usual anti-union grounds, and in this instance, the outcry will be intense since it was the breaking of the air traffic controllers PATCO union in the early 1980s that launched the Reagan Revolution’s march to privatization.

The Senate bill is weaker than the House version. Probably the biggest terrorist threat to the U.S. comes in the form of ignored or non-existent security measures on the docks on incoming freight. Many of the freight containers come from China and are marked in Chinese. They are unloaded in ports like New York or Newark, loaded onto Chinese trucks, and driven away. Any one of them could contain explosives, a load of poison, even a low-level nuclear device. The House bill would have these ships checked at points of origin. The Senate version does not. The Bush administration opposes doing so.

The House bill also would require that all baggage being loaded into a plane be inspected in the same manner as the passengers. The government says that would cost too much and it's plenty OK just to check 30 percent of the baggage as is the current process. The machines that check the baggage are of questionable value, meaning the 30 percent figure probably is on the high side.

On top of all this, the Darth Vader of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani, is using his ill-gotten reputation as a national hero to run for the presidency. NYFD doesn't think he's a hero. This evening at 6 pm, a group called 9/11 Firefighters and Families will hold a press conference outside the New York City Sheraton, the site of Rudy's fundraiser, to expose his failures on 9/11 and before. Here is what they have to say:

"On 9/11/01 NYC was completely unprepared for a terrorist attack, despite the fact that the WTC was first targeted in 1993 with dire consequences, and those responsible vowed to 'return to finish the job.' The first WTC attack was characterized by disorganization, lack of radio communications, lack of an integrated FD & PD command structure, and yet an honorable and heroic response was made by our firefighters and emergency responders."

"History was repeated on 9/11. With eight years as Mayor of NY to correct the problems & protect our city, Rudy Giuliani left the City of NY defenseless on 9/11, resulting in the needless deaths of 343 firefighters and nearly 3,000 innocent victims. Rudy Giuliani was responsible for our City's lack of emergency planning, emergency preparedness, emergency management and the most critical lack of FDNY working radios which doomed the NYC Fire Department on September 11th.** We love our country & America's fire service and they need to know the truth about the real Rudy Giuliani. Since he did not prepare NYC for the second terrorist attack on 9/11, how can the American people trust him to safeguard our entire nation?’’

Prosecutor Purge: New Development, Carol Lam Not Fired for Cunningham Investigation

TPMmuckraker reports today that Carol Lam, one of the USAs fired, was on a DOJ list of prosecutors to be removed months before the Duke Cunningham scandal was revealed. Lam's successful prosecution of Cunningham has been widely believed to be the reason she was fired. This list created by the AG's chief of staff Kyle Sampson may tell another story. Was Lam then actually fired for performance-related reasons? It hasn't appeared so. Last Tuesday, at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on prosecutorial independence of U.S. attorneys, where Lam, along with 3 other prosecutors testified, Dianne Feinstein produced a letter from the DOJ which praised Lam's performance. Well, so why then, was she fired? At last Tuesday's hearing, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions claimed she was asked to resign because she did not prosecute enough gun cases. Um...doubtful. Stay tuned!

Republican Reaction Must Get Stronger Before Gonzales Resigns

Luckily for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, the Senate is leaving him alone today as it plunges into the Iraq war debate. From Mexico City, Bush signaled lukewarm support for Gonzalez, saying he is "not happy" about the US Attorney mess, but adding, "I do have confidence in AG Al Gonzales." While Gonzales should have more involved in the whole affair, said Bush, the firings were "entirely appropriate." Gonzalez himself tried to wiggle clear and keep his job by saying he accepts responsibility for the mess. Yesterday he uttered the famous phrase "mistakes were made.''

At mid day the Republican leadership in the Senate was holding firm on the Attorney General, refusing to join the growing number of Democrats who want his resignation. Gonzalez himself told CNN it was up to the President whether he stays or goes. Bush, as everyone knows, is extremely stubborn and