I voted for Camejo in the CA recall last fall, but if Nader’s people think getting Camejo to agree to be his VP is going to get me to vote Nader, they have another think coming.
I thought about voting for Nader in 2000 but opted to vote for Gore. After what happened in 2000, there is no way in hell that I would vote for Nader. Camejo or not.
If anything, this lowers my opinion of Camejo and the Greens, that they would consider attaching their party to Nader’s self-serving blather.
It would be laughable if it weren’t the Vice-President of the United States doing all this lying.
Transcript, CNBC
I find myself using the term ‘Orwellian’ more and more lately when it comes to the Bush administration. The latest spluttering over the 9/11 Commission is another good example of this. And over at the Whiskey Bar, Billmon has a great rundown of it. Here’s one of the high points:
The panel has become “a tool for partisan politics,” Rep. Eric I. Cantor (Va.), a member of the House Republican leadership, charged in an interview last week. “With the latest commission finding coming out that there were allegedly no ties between Hussein and al Qaeda, I think they are totally off their mission, and I think that’s indicative of the political partisanship.”
The RNC talking points on this must have gone out earlier last week, because Porter Goss, the intelligence committee chairman in our Chamber of People’s Deputies, and Dennis Miller, the anti-intelligence chairman of late night television, have both been yammering about that same basic theme. But Cantor’s quote is such a gem of non-logic, I’d like to look at it again more closely.
The 9/11 commission, Cantor argues, is partisan. Why? Because it went “off mission” by questioning the alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Now since the 9/11 commission was specifically instructed by Congress to “make a full and complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding the [9/11] attacks,” and to “investigate relevant facts and circumstances … including intelligence agencies … diplomacy … the flow of assets to terrorist organizations … and other areas of the public and private sectors determined relevant by the commission,” it’s fairly ridiculous to argue the commission exceeded its mandate by reviewing the evidence regarding Bin Ladin’s alleged contacts with Iraq. What Cantor is really arguing is that the commission went “off mission” by arriving at conclusions that were extremely embarrassing to the administration, and possibly damaging to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
Emphasis added. And let us remember that the 9/11 Commission was created with an even split of Democrats and Republicans and is chaired by a Republican former governor picked by the White House. Not exactly a raving bunch of left-leaning wing nuts. But they came up with a conclusion that Bush/Cheney doesn’t like, so they ipso facto must be partisan, and on the wrong side too.
Or at least they’re trying to. Senator Orrin Hatch has introduced a bill to the Senate which is worded in such a way that it would not only make Kazaa illegal, but also TiVo, the CD burner in your computer, and even VCRs and cassette recorders illegal.
News.com reports that:
The proposal, called the Induce Act, says “whoever intentionally induces any violation” of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations, a prohibition that would effectively ban file-swapping networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. In the draft bill seen by CNET News.com, inducement is defined as “aids, abets, induces, counsels, or procures” and can be punished with civil fines and, in some circumstances, lengthy prison terms.
“Induce” stands for “Inducement Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation,” making this yet another example of cloaking wildly restrictive legislation in the mantle of “save the children!”. Because of course, it’s all about keeping kids away from porn. Never mind that adults would have to throw away every recording device in their homes to make it work.
The good news? Even if this lame excuse for a bill were to actually pass both houses and be signed into law, I doubt it would stand, because the Supreme Court said in 1984 that VCRs are legal devices. But still, it’s annoying to have to fight the same battles over and over again.
Generally speaking I am highly skeptical of conspiracy theories unless there’s some serious paper trail to back them up. But the one thing that the latest Al Qaeda beheading shows is that there may in fact be some truth to the rumors that the Nick Berg beheading is a little … well … suspicious.
Now, I must admit I did not actually watch the Berg video, but I did see some of the still photos. I wasn’t planning on viewing the Paul Johnson photos but Drudge put them directly on his site instead of linking to them. And it struck me right off … that is a lot of blood. Blood that is definitely missing from the Berg footage.
Something’s not right here. It could be as simple as Berg’s captors didn’t have the nerve to behead a living man and killed him first. Or it could be much more complex. I don’t know and I doubt the truth will come out any time in the near future.
This site has a pretty comprehensive list of the issues related to Nick Berg’s death.
Sometimes it feels like the Teflon coating so famously ascribed to Ronald Reagan sticks itself to every Republican administration. Per Atrios today:
I’m starting to wonder when the Bush administration will start receiving the label, “scandal plagued,” as the Clinton administration does and did, even though most of those scandals were just made up scandals and not real ones.
How many CIA agents have to have their covers blown?
Maybe it’s just that the Congress is also Republican led, hence no pesky panels of inquiry, special prosecutors, or impeachment articles.