Saturday Night Open Thread

We're at John Scully's kickass Holiday Party.

Anything happening? Read the rest of this post...

Message to Europe: Tell Condi Rice to take a hike

Condi Rice is reportedly preparing to take a "tough line" with Europeans governments and tell them to "back off" of inquiring about the US run terror camps at former Soviet installations in Eastern Europe.

That means that all of you Europeans out there need to contact your governments and your local journalists and tell them to stand up Condi and tell her to take a hike. Condi Rice is representing a government that's at 34% in the polls, she has no mandate whatsoever to be pushing you around. She doesn't even speak for the majority of the American people. George Bush is in serious trouble. The American public is sick and tired of the Bush administration alienating all of our allies and leaving us high and dry to fight the world's battles alone. It's time to call Condi's bluff. She has no support in this country, and certainly no mandate to go alienating you any further.

Condi is a lame duck. Her boss is lucky he's not being impeached. Call her on it. Do not let her bluff you into backing down. Is the new Europe willing or not to stand up for its principles? Read the rest of this post...

It's the obstruction, stupid

Fitzgerald has been looking at obstruction crimes in the Plame case for quite awhile we learned via court papers according to the NY Times. Read the rest of this post...

Lautenberg wants criminal investigation of Oil CEOs

There was a time when lying to Congress was a serious offense: :

Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg said on Thursday he will push the Justice Department to investigate whether major oil company executives lied to Congress when they testified their firms did not participate in a 2001 White House task force that formulated the Bush administration's national energy policy.

The heads of Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc's U.S. unit, ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp. and Shell Oil were asked to clarify their statements made at a November 9 hearing on the industry's soaring profits after The Washington Post later reported a White House document showed many of the oil companies had met with the energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Oh, this is going to be a fun week. Do you think Ford has any idea what's in store? Read the rest of this post...

"The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem," by Henry Ford

From Wikipedia:

Henry Ford began publication of a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, in 1919. The paper ran for eight years, during which it republished "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," which has since been discredited as an anti-Semitic forgery. The American Jewish Historical Society describes the ideas presented in it as "anti-immigrant, anti-labor, anti-liquor, and anti-Semitic".

The Independent also published, in Ford's name, several anti-Jewish articles which were released in the early 1920s as a set of four bound volumes, cumulatively titled "The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem." These volumes were distributed through Ford's car dealerships. Denounced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the articles nevertheless explicitly condemned pogroms and violence against Jews (Volume 4, Chapter 80), preferring to blame incidents of mass violence on the Jews themselves. None of this work was actually penned by Ford, though they required his tacit approval since he was the paper's publisher....

In the years between the wars, Henry Ford supported Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. His support abated as the United States entered WWII. There is also some evidence that Henry Ford gave Adolf Hitler direct financial backing when Hitler was first starting out in politics. This can in part be traced to statements from Kurt Ludecke, Germany's representative to the U.S. in the 1920s, and Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner, who said they requested funds from Ford to aid the National Socialist movement in Germany. However, a 1933 Congressional investigation into the matter was unable to substantiate whether contributions were actually sent. Regardless of whether direct financial support was provided, Ford repeatedly voiced his overt approval of Hitler's theories.

Ford's indirect financial backing of the Nazis was also undeniable, as Ford Motor Company was active in Germany's military buildup prior to World War II. In 1938, for instance, Ford assisted to construct an assembly plant in Berlin, the purpose of which was to supply trucks to the Wehrmacht. Forced labor was employed to produce 78,000 trucks and 14,000 track vehicles. In July of that year, Ford was awarded (and accepted) the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle (Großkreuz des Deutschen Adlerordens). Ford was the first American and the fourth person given this award, at the time Nazi Germany's highest honorary award given to foreigners. The decoration was given "in recognition of [Ford's] pioneering in making motor cars available for the masses." The award was accompanied by a personal congratulatory message from Adolf Hitler. [Detroit News, July 31, 1938.] A portrait of Ford was hung at the Nazi party's headquarters in Munich.

(Note from John: You'd think Ford would recognize it's unique historical burden to remember the wrongs of the past and not cave yet again to the prejudiced whims of jack-booted bigots. You'd think that. But you'd be wrong. Read the rest of this post...

Ford Motor Company embraces homophobia in order to appease religious right

UPDATE: Some initial contact info for Ford's public relation's people. Let's fill their voice mail boxes over the weekend. Ask them if they'd pull all their advertising in black media or Jewish media if the Klan gave them a call:

Contact: Rosemary Mariniello, Jaguar Land Rover North America, (201) 818-8010
Contact: Jim Cain, Ford Division, (313) 248-6288
Contact: Sara Tatchio, Lincoln and Mercury, (313) 594-3744
Contact: Roger Ormisher, Volvo Cars of North America, Inc., (800) 970-0888
Contact: George Pipas, Ford Motor Company, (313) 323-9216
Contact: Dan Bedore, Ford Division, (313) 323-7045

Well, we just got our new campaign. Ford needs to be taught a lesson. If they think they're above the fray and too big to be influenced by the mean homosexuals, they ought to give Bill Gates a call and see what happened to Microsoft when they endorsed outright bigotry in order to appease America's Taliban.

In a nutshell, the rabid homophobes at the American Family Association threatened Ford with a boycott earlier this year because they were advertising in the gay press. Suddenly in June the AFA called off their threatened boycott because local Ford dealers had contacted the national Ford office and, apparently, suggested Ford might be amenable to working out a deal. Now we find out that Ford is pulling its gay ads and that Ford even tells the Advocate that the AFA's press release claiming credit for this entire thing is accurate.

Ford wants to dance with bigots, that's fine. But you don't get to do that in the year 2005 and remain a prosperous company in America.

I want phone numbers and email contacts for all of Ford's top executives and public relations people. Go to it folks.

More from the Advocate:

The antigay American Family Association claimed a cultural victory on Thursday and called off its threatened boycott of Ford Motor Co. On Friday, Ford spokesman Mike Moran confirmed to Advocate.com that the company will stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications but insisted it was strictly a business decision.

The Dearborn, Mich., automaker came under fire from the AFA in May for its longtime efforts to increase LGBT workplace diversity and support gay rights causes. Ford has long been a regular advertiser within gay media, including The Advocate, and has donated significant sums to LGBT causes and nonprofit groups such as the Human Rights Campaign.

Threatened with a boycott by the Mississippi-based AFA, Ford and some of its dealers agreed to negotiate, and the AFA announced in June that it would hold off on its planned action. On Thursday, AFA announced the boycott would be canceled altogether.

"They've heard our concerns; they are acting on our concerns. We are pleased with where we are," said Donald Wildmon, AFA’s chairman, in a statement. "Obviously there are still some small matters of difference, as people will always have, but generally speaking, we are pleased with the results—and therefore the boycott that had been suspended [is] now officially ended."

Specific terms of any formal agreement between the AFA and Ford—and whether any such agreement has in fact been reached—remain unclear.

When first contacted, Ford spokesman Moran referred Advocate.com to the AFA statement, suggesting that the company had no disagreement with Wildmon's assertions. In a second conversation he confirmed that the company would no longer advertise Jaguar and Land Rover products in the gay media, saying that the decision was strictly "business."

More info, here is Ford's Board of Directors. Anyone got contact info:

Sir John R. H. Bond
Ellen R. Marram
Stephen G. Butler
Homer A. Neal
Kimberly A. Casiano
Jorma Ollila
Edsel B. Ford II
James J. Padilla
William Clay Ford, Jr.
Carl E. Reichardt
Irvine O. Hockaday, Jr.
Robert E. Rubin
Marie-Josée Kravis
John L. Thornton
Richard A. Manoogian

You can also find Ford's senior executives here.

What would be most useful is if someone inside Ford can send us a copy of the entire company phone directory. The folks at Paramount did it during our StopDrLaura.com campaign, it was quite helpful. Read the rest of this post...

Pelosi demands answers on TX redistricting scandal

She's right. This is a big issue:

"There must be an independent inquiry into the contemptible politicization of the Justice Department to rubberstamp Congressman Tom DeLay's illegal redistricting scheme in Texas," Pelosi said.

Read the rest of this post...

Scalito has no credibility

Honesty and credibility should be at least minor considerations for Supreme Court nominees. Scalito fails on both counts. His latest contortions to cover up his record make him look even more ridiculous:

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. yesterday tried to tamp down criticisms of several past statements -- including his assertion that the Constitution does not protect the right to abortion -- by saying they were personal views or an advocate's work and not necessarily indications of how he might rule if confirmed, according to a key senator who quizzed him for more than an hour....Alito's explanation was meant to lessen the documents' impact, but it may expose him to accusations of insincerity or irresolution, advocates said.

Even the right wingers are starting to get concerned. They want Alito on the Court so he will overturn Roe:

Conservative lawyer Bruce Fein, who was a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration, said he is baffled that Alito is pulling back from his well-argued 1985 memos. "I think the administration is misreading the Senate and the public, because you end up losing more if your credibility is strained and people think you're playing them for dupes," Fein said.

How can any Senator believe anything Scalito says? His standard seems to be just say anything to get the job. He did it before. He's doing it now. Read the rest of this post...

"Smokey Joe" Barton, R-TX, has a lot of free time on his hands

Apparently Smokey Joe, the anti-gay, anti-environment, anti-ethics, pro-Big Oil/Energy, pro-cronyism and close friend of Tom DeLay, has already solved all of the difficulties facing the US such as the war, corporate handouts, excessively high gas prices, war in Iraq, budget mess, struggling middle class, he's got it all covered because now he is focused on college football and the Bowl Championship Series. I love college football and think the BCS has plenty of problems but c'mon, what the hell is this guy doing? The GOP is reaching for anything to change the subject from their mountain of failures and this is just their latest. It also shows how much the GOP has become the party of Big Government during the last five years. The GOP is so far from having any answers to the mess that they created so they ought to focus more on that instead of such a secondary issue. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

It's early and it's cold.

Anything interesting? Read the rest of this post...

AFP decides to join the racist spin machine

Since the French government clamped down on the race riots a few weeks ago people in government have been providing some of the most disgusting, racist spin that has no links to the real problem but instead seems to be their way of battling Le Pen and the ultra-right. The current regime has talked about polygamy and immigration as the root cause of the race riots and have rejected attempts to introduce affirmative action because in theory everyone is equal under the Republic, regardless of what your eyes show you is the reality. Theory always seems to win over reality in France.

The reality here is that while new immigrants have problems facing racial discrimination the bulk of the rioters were not new immigrants but second and third generation French whose parents or grandparents came from abroad. So do they need to live in France (or Europe) for five generations, six generations, how many? Should they all change their name to sound more French, whatever that is supposed to be?

It is sickening enough to hear politicians repeat the hideous racist remarks about polygamy and immigration but in this AFP article, they too repeat the absolute rubbish that is being spun:

France, where recent violence in poor suburbs has highlighted problems of integration of young immigrants from former colonial possessions in north and west Africa, has tightened its immigration policy.

Tell a lie how many times before people accept is as the truth? They are not "young immigrants." They are French. Read the rest of this post...

9/11 Panel says government is failing America

Big surprise. Who would ever think that the GOP, who controls everything in DC and who campaigned on their special ability to protect America and Americans, would get such pathetic marks from the 9/11 panel? Disgraceful and pathetic. So besides fancy PR campaigns and them telling America how great they are, the GOP continues to fight the commission that Americans wanted but they never accepted.

The members have reconstituted themselves, using private funds, as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project and will release a new report Monday assessing the extent their directives have been followed.

Overall, the government has performed "not very well," said former commission chairman Thomas Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey.

Why does Bush and the GOP hate America? Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Watching "The Abyss" on TiVo Read the rest of this post...