Chiquita banana knowingly gave terrorists $1.7 million over 7 years, Bush administration gives them a slap on the wrist

If you or I knowingly funneled $1.7 million to one of the worst, and best known, terrorist organizations in the world, we'd be sent to Guantanamo permanently. But when it's the senior management of Chiquita Banana, the Bush administration gives them a fine.

A fine.

Some war on terror we're running. We'll throw grandma in Cuba just for being Muslim, but if you're a corporate executive who knew what you were doing, and knew it was wrong (their own lawyers told them not to do it), the Bush Justice Department gives you a slap on the wrist.

Great message to be sending our troops, and every country on earth. Terrorism is bad, unless you're a big corporate friend of Bush. Then, not so bad.

One of the groups Chiquita funded was the terrorist group FARC in Colombia. Let me give you a quick look at who FARC is.

From the Council on Foreign Relations:

FARC is responsible for most of the ransom kidnappings in Colombia; the group targets wealthy landowners, foreign tourists, and prominent international and domestic officials. FARC stepped up terrorist activities against infrastructure in cities before Colombia’s May 2002 presidential election. Recent FARC operations include:

* the November 2005 kidnapping of sixty people, who are currently being held hostage by FARC, until the government decided to release hundreds of their comrades serving prison sentences. Former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt—who was kidnapped in 2002—is among the hostages;
* the February 2002 hijacking of a domestic commercial flight and kidnapping of a Colombian senator on board;
* the February 2002 kidnapping of a presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, who was traveling in guerrilla territory;
* the October 2001 kidnapping and assassination of a former Colombian minister of culture; and
* the March 1999 murder of three American missionaries working in Colombia, which resulted in a U.S. indictment of FARC and six of its members in April 2002.

Read the rest of this post...

This is what goes as conservative/Republican humor nowadays

From Townhall.com, probably the number one Republican Web site in the country:

But enough about what Ann [Coulter] ought not to do. Heres what she should do immediately:

1. Start a website called Global War on Fags today.

2. Begin writing essays calling for the cleansing and purification of society via the mass murder of homosexuals.

3. Distribute videos on the website showing the actual murders of homosexuals.

4. Circulate instructions on how to bomb gay bath houses in San Francisco.

5. Circulate a battle dispatch to give people specific information on Americas most notorious bath houses.

Almost as funny as suggesting terrorists take out the New York Times. And Republicans wonder why only 30% of the country likes them anymore. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Another wild day. Catch your breath. Read the rest of this post...

MN cop accused of calling Muslim-American member of US House a terrorist

Just a coincidence that a few short months ago CNN host Glen Beck was intimating the same thing on national TV, simply because of Ellison's religion? We report the hate, you decide. More from the City Pages.

PS Read the article, and this guy's history of dealing with people of color. Then ask yourself why he's still on the Minneapolis police force, let alone the VP of the police union. Read the rest of this post...

A Republican Senator says Gonzales should go

It's only a matter of time now.

New Hampshire Senator John Sununu was the first Republican to take the plunge saying that Alberto Gonzales has to go:

Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer.

"I think the president should replace him," Sununu said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Sununu, whose father served as Chief of Staff to the other President Bush, is running for re-election in 2008. Read the rest of this post...

McCain wimps out

Amidst the imperial stormtrooper aesthetic of his presidential website, Senator McCain has a section in which one can fill out college basketball brackets. You might not think his own tourney selections would indicate just how lame and conservative he is . . . but they do! The distinguished Senator picked not one, not two, not three, but all four number one seeds to make the Final Four. First of all, it's a terrible prediction, as all four number one seeds have never once all made it all the way through the field of 64.

More importantly, though, it's an all-time wuss move to pick all four number one seeds.

And not only that, he has no team seeded lower than 3 in his entire elite eight! What kind of person picks no significant upsets throughout the entire tournament? In the whole first two rounds, comprising 48 games, he picks only five upsets, two of which are just one seed number apart and none of which involve anything lower than a 10 seed.* Disgraceful. I'm offended as a basketball fan and as a political observer.

Bracket picks aren't high on my list of presidential qualifications, but really, Senator, these are just awful.

Of course, you can't expect much from a guy who skipped a critical vote on the 9/11 Commission recommendations on Tuesday . . . to attend a fundraiser in California.

To view his bracket, you have to submit an email address here -- after you enter a random email address, click on "Basketball Bracket" on the left side and then "View John McCain's" and you can witness the shame.

*Update: In my original post I screwed up McCain's home state. The post is corrected; I'm an idiot. Read the rest of this post...

Karl Rove reportedly pressured GOP senator to pick US Attorney for Illinois who would be lenient on GOP corruption

And Mr. Rove, you'll recall, is STILL one of George Bush's top aides. These people are corrupt to the core, and nothing is going to change until and unless we have a clean sweep of the White House in 2008. If we get another Republican administration, the same cronies, the same lies, the same war will continue. More from the Chicago Trib. Read the rest of this post...

Gay Republicans

I was a gay Republican, once. Back before I came out. That quickly came to an end in 1992 when I voted for Bill Clinton and never looked back. So, yeah, I have *some* sympathy for what gay Republicans are going through. Well, at least some of them.

In my case, it was the early 1990s. Not exactly a hey-day of gay acceptance anywhere outside of NYC and SF (and Key West). Sure, the early 90s were better than the decade before, which was before than the decade before that, but comparing 1992 to today, man what a difference 15 years makes. Back in 1992, no one was talking about marriage or civil unions. Well, okay, *some* people were talking about marriage, but it was a pipe dream back then - a very nice, noble goal that, at the time, was a naive and sure fire way to marginalize the movement as way way way too extreme. Hell, even civil unions were considered wildly unconventional 8 years later during the presidential race in the year 2000. Remember what a hero/wild man Howard Dean was during the 2000 presidential race for endorsing civil unions? Now even George Bush, the current president, says he has no problem with states passing civil union legislation. The landscape has changed in a way I certainly didn't expect to see in my lifetime. I thought maybe, MAYBE we'd get civil unions in my life, and maybe maybe MAYBE we'd get marriage by the time I hit my 80s. Now, we've already got civil unions and marriage in various states, and countries, and it's only a matter of time before they become federal victories at home as well.

I get being a gay Republican when the culture is hostile. And I get being a gay Republican when you're in the closet. Coming out takes time, and it takes major personal growth. You need to learn to love yourself, stop hating yourself and what you are, who you are, in order to come out. It's a process that only BEGINS when you come out. I like to say that when you come out, you're finally at 51% acceptance of yourself. The rest of your life is the rest of the journey to send that 49% into oblivion. But it's not a guarantee. As our illustrious president would say, it's hard work. It's hard work coming out to your parents and your family after years of being convinced that they'd hate you if they only knew. It's hard work dating and being able to settle down into stable emotional relationships after a life of thinking such relationships would never be possible. It's hard work understanding that being gay isn't just a small part of who you are, it *is* who are. And it's hard work coming to the epiphany that pledging your allegiance to people who hate you is seriously messed up.

I worry that far too many people who call themselves gay Republicans or gay conservatives are stuck at 51%. Well, rather, I worry that far too many Republican gays and conservative gays put their party above themselves and their partners and their children. (Eh, Mary?) To them, being gay is an asterisk, an afterthought, to the inner-Republican they really are.

We spent the last 14 years under the rule of an anti-gay Republican Congress. Back in 1996, two years into Republican rule, we lost ENDA, a bill outlawing job discrimination simply because you're gay (yes, it's legal at the federal level and in most states to fire someone simply for being gay), by one vote in the Senate (though it had no chance in hell in Newt Gringrich's House). Even then, the only way we were able to bring up ENDA for a vote at all in the GOP Senate was by promising to bring up the hideous Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) along with it - DOMA was passed the very same day. Then spring forward to October, 1998, the month Matthew Shepard died. Within weeks after Shepard's murder, GOP Majority Leader in the Senate, Trent Lott, killed the Hate Crimes amendment that would have added gender, disability and sexual orientation to the already-existing federal hate crimes law that has been on the books for 30 years now. Then came the Federal Marriage Amendment, another gift of the Republican congress and our Republican president. Our community successfully killed that legislation, and this congress the Republicans aren't even introducing the amendment since, and these are their words, the congress has now gone Democratic and there's no chance of the amendment passing.

But all that wasn't enough to stop the Republican and Conservative gays. We've spent the past 6+ years under the rule of an anti-gay Republican president who has destroyed far too many of our freedoms. Around 23% of gay voters voted in 2000 for George Bush. The same percentage voted for him again in 2004. The Log Cabin Republicans didn't just support George Bush in 2000, they supported the nomination of religious right clone John Ashcroft to Attorney General. This, even after Ashcroft was accused of discriminating in employment against a gay man simply because of his sexual orientation.

These gays, the ones who supported Gingrich, and Bush, and Ashcroft, are the same gays who now have the chutzpah to criticize our community, and our civil rights organizations, for not having a federal legislative victory in over a decade. Yes, the very gay Republicans (oh, I'm sorry, gay *conservatives* - that's PC for "traitor") who put the anti-gay Republican Congress in power in 1994, and kept them in power through January of 2007 - who put President Federal Marriage Amendment in power in 2000 - have the nerve to now ask the rest of us why there have been no legislative successes? Are they high?

No, just seriously stuck at 51%.

(As an aside: To its credit, Log Cabin didn't endorse Bush in 2004, nor did many other prominent Republican and Conservative gays (though many of them are now shining signs of wanting to return to the embrace of their masters). And while their one lone stand in 2004 was nice, and to be lauded, two years with your head out of your ass doesn't give you a very bully pulpit to lecture the rest of us about how much WE'VE done for the community.)

We are two months into the first free Congress in 14 years (aside from the split Senate we had for a very shortly while when Jeffords defected). There are those among us who talk a good talk but have no record of any gay rights successes of their own, who actually put our oppressors in power, and now these people wonder why our oppressors have been so successful at stymieing our success.

To paraphrase TIME: The sell-out of the year is you. Read the rest of this post...

Giuliani's firm represening Venezuela's Hugo Chavez

Gee, a Republican hypocrite. Don't see those every day. Oh wait, you do. Read the rest of this post...

Senate just voted on the Iraq resolution, sort of

Here's what just happened on the Senate floor, as described by a friend who knows such things:

There are 3 relevant votes on the Dems' binding Iraq legislation [the one mandating that we begin withdrawing combat troops as recommeneded by the Baker-Hamilty Commission] on the Senate floor today.

#1: Just passed - cloture motion to proceed to debate. Needed 60 votes. This is the vote R's blocked on previous non-binding measures (i.e. 'they won't even allow a debate'). This time, it passed.

#2: Cloture motion to end debate. Also needs 60. If they block this, also considered a filibuster.

#3: Vote on final passage. Needs 50. The Republicans can block getting to this if enough of them vote against #2 above.

Read the rest of this post...

Rove worried that Gonzales becoming a liability over US Attorneys scandal

Pot, meet kettle.

[I]nside the White House, aides to the president, including Mr. Rove and Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff, were said to be increasingly concerned that the controversy could damage Mr. Bush.

Read the rest of this post...

Editorial pages call for Gonzales to be axed

From Editor & Publisher

"We haven't seen a renegade U.S. Justice Department like this since John Mitchell ran it for President Nixon," declared the Sacremento Bee.

The Philadephia Inquirer demanded: "U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales should resign."

From Florida Today in Melbourne: "He should be removed and replaced with someone willing to protect the Constitution. Chances are Bush won't do that."

The Financial Times weighed in: "Mr. Gonzales had every right to sack prosecutors, who are political appointees. But he had no right to mislead Congress about why he did so – even though he is now blaming lower officals for the misinformation. Mr Gonzales has shown a disdain for Congress and the rights of the American people. He has amply proved that he will never be anything other than Mr Bush’s lawyer – a mere apologist for the imperial presidency. The affair has already claimed one top scalp at the justice department. It is high time Mr Gonzales stepped down too."

E&P; has way more. Check it out. Read the rest of this post...

Joe makes "The Onion"

Okay, now I'm totally jealous. And for the record, the quote is a fake (of course). Read the rest of this post...

Samarra was not "the turning point"

The Washington Post ran a story yesterday (and hat tip to Atrios and Sadly, No! who both covered it well) reporting on the increasing administration claims that Iraq was "moving in the right direction" until the Samarra mosque bombing on February 22, 2006. The piece, which is very solid, basically contrasts the administration claim with a number of experts, who have a variety of political leanings, virtually all of whom disagree with that assessment. And they're right: while the Samarra bombing accelerated the internal strife, it absolutely did not precipitate it, maintaining and accentuating a trend rather than reversing one.

The reason why this is important is because it shows a desperate attempt by the administration to blame a single event -- and an outside influence -- for the colossal failures in Iraq. In fact, the entire debacle was caused by myriad failures, many of them repeated over and over, primarily at the strategic and planning levels. Iraq was very clearly getting worse before the bombing and continued to get worse afterwards. The mistakes and the shame of Iraq belong squarely on the shoulders of this administration, not on a single incident, or the nebulous group casually (and misleadingly) referred to as "al Qaeda in Iraq", or, especially, on those who rightly recognized that going to war in Iraq was a horrific idea.

It is also vital to note the administration did not believe Samarra was a turning point when it happened. Military and administration officials claimed the event did not signal a civil war, and President Bush insisted that the event was caused by external actors who would not derail the process. So first officials claimed the event did not signal a civil war and would not throw the nation into one, and now they say it was the single event that turned Iraq from the right track to the disaster it is today.

But the consensus intelligence position, and the position of experts, was (and is) that the Samarra bombing simply took a bad situation and made it worse. Iraq experts in the intelligence community thought of the event as an "accelerant," as in, something that would continue the destruction. I know this because I was one of the intelligence officials saying so. We tried to tell our superiors that the bombing was indicative of the rapidly deteriorating situation. Instead we were told, "If this hasn't sent the country into civil war, nothing will." Now the administration says it turned everything around. They were wrong then and they're wrong now. More evidence that the architects of this war are either completely oblivious to the ground truth of the war, lying through their teeth, or both. Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post editorial blasts General Pace & Don't Ask Don't Tell policy

Washington Post

As Gen. Pace considers the uproar over his remarks on morality, he might reflect on Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Fidelis Alva, who like his father and grandfather chose to serve in the military. When he enlisted 17 years ago, he lied about his sexual orientation. Sgt. Alva was the first American wounded in the Iraq war, when he stepped on a land mine. President Bush presented him with the Purple Heart. His moral fitness for duty was unquestioned. What's immoral is that Sgt. Alva -- and thousands of other brave members of the armed forces -- had to lie or be silent for the right, the risk and the honor of serving his country.

Last fall, Staff Sgt. Alva decided he wanted to come out and make a difference on the military ban issue. He contacted the Human Rights Campaign, now works for them on this issue, and HRC has been coordinating all of his media and his lobbying efforts. The reason you are hearing about Alva in the Washington Post today - and have heard about him all over the news the past few weeks - is because of his own courage, clearly, but also because of the behind the scenes work of the Human Rights Campaign in making Alva a household name. Not too shabby at all. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

How long does Alberto Gonzales last? He's been part of the Bush team for a long, long time. He knows all George Bush's dirty secrets.

Thread the news. Read the rest of this post...

Global markets down again today

As interconnected as business is these days, a sniffle quickly can turn into a cold and spread around the world in no time. The irony of this situation - where markets are nervous due to the exposure of large financial organizations who joined the subprime lending game - is interesting since it's the large financials and big business who is starting their latest whining campaign about softening regulation just as the world is witnessing their self-made problems. There were plenty of critics who warned of such problems but no one (such as Greenspan, the man who never shied from ignoring problems on his own watch) took a stand.

The current situation is so serious that even troubled GM is sending $1 billion to GMAC to help ease the pain of bad housing loans. With New Century Financial Corp being de-listed on Wall Street and a list of other possible candidates to do the same, where exactly was the over site? Who could not see the negative impact of losing billions of dollars from Wall Street? It is in everyone's best interest to avoid major disruptions in the financial markets but the Republicans chose to ignore the problem and let business regulate itself. Some leadership though it explains so many problems that the US and world is facing right now. Read the rest of this post...

The Republican gutted FDA hard at work

We just can't do anything at all, so cross your fingers and hope it all works out and bon appetit. Sorry about that salmonella and e.coli.

Fruit and vegetable-related outbreaks of food poisoning are on the rise and in recent months have struck in spinach, tomatoes, lettuce and cantaloupes.

In the new, voluntary rules, announced Monday by the Food and Drug Administration, fruit and vegetable processors are urged to adopt food safety plans similar to those in the meat industry.

“We’ve never before formally recommended that the industry adopt regulations such as” the meat industry’s, said Nega Beru, director of FDA’s Office of Food Safety. “So this is a first.”

The FDA is suggesting that the produce sector follows the meat industry, which is an interesting model. Did someone forget about the extended problems of salmonella that occur repeatedly? Did they fail to see the problems of mad cow and e.coli or does the FDA not see a problem? Sounds like the FDA is run by a former Arabian horse association director. Read the rest of this post...