BREAKING: Creepy Spokane Mayor West, the one who trolled online for young men, was just recalled

Good.

Spokane voters ousted Mayor Jim West today, probably ending the political career of one of the longest-serving elected officials in the city’s history.

Preliminary results in the all-mail special election have 65 percent of the ballots marked in favor of the recall, and 35 percent against.

Read the rest of this post...

My bedside reading tonight

Yes, my Amazon.com order just arrived. We'll be excerpting particularly interesting passages all month.

But in all fairness to Ford, let me say this. It's entirely possible that "The International Jew" is simply Henry Ford's heart-warming story of a smart young upstanding Jewish college student studying abroad for the first time.

I'll let you know.

UPDATE: Well, it seems Henry Ford's book is not a travel guide for young Jewish students. Let me quote you a little of the preface:

"The International Jew and his satellites, as the conscious enemies of all that Anglo-Saxons mean by civilization, are not spared, nor is that unthinking mass which defends anything that a Jew does, simply because it has been taught to believe that what Jewish leaders do is Jewish."

Alrighty then. Read the rest of this post...

John Kerry really ought to sue Limbaugh for libel and slander

While we're on the subject of Republican hate speech...

Limbaugh said yesterday on his radio show that John Kerry called US troops "terrorists." The proof? John Kerry he didn't like the idea of US soldiers breaking into Iraq homes and "terrorizing" women and young children.

Taking the word terrorizing and making that akin to terrorists? That's lawsuit material. It's also material for filing lawsuits and FCC violations against the individual radio stations that aired it. John Kerry is a public figure, but if Limbaugh knows that what he's saying is factually wrong, he's liable for what he says to the tune of millions. And no reasonable person, let alone a wordsmith like Limbaugh, thinks the word terrorize means the same thing as terrorist.

The far right radio, extremist hate groups in the religious right, scum like Limbaugh and Coulter, and all the rest need to be taken down. They don't even think we have the right to be Americans, let alone human beings. It's time we take them down, and let's start with Ford Motor Company. Read the rest of this post...

Michael Reagan calls for Howard Dean to be killed

Okay, at what point do the Republicans start realizing the problem they have in their own midst? These people ought to be investigated by the FBI and thrown in Gitmo. Read the rest of this post...

Ford caught posting propaganda on AMERICAblog

Well, it's nice to know Ford is reading AMERICAblog and that they're so worried about our work that they're now posting misinformation anonymously in our comments section.

But someone at Ford really needs to take a lesson in Internet 101. First rule, don't use your Ford workplace computers to place your anonymous propaganda in our site's comments section because we know your IP adress and can trace it back to, as we just did.

It all started when astute AMERICAblog reader Margaret smelled a rat. Someone was posting in defense of Ford in our comments, and they just sounded a bit too good to be true. Knew too much about Ford, but at the same time wasn't acknowledging they were at Ford - wouldn't a Ford employee say, even anonymously, "Hey, I work at Ford, they're really not that bad"?

So, I decided to poke around and found the original comments by someone named "Wake Up" - Wake Up craftily refered to Ford as "they" to make it sound like "they" weren't even writing from Ford:



But after about a, oh, 5 second search online I discovered who really posted that comment:



Nice try though. And thanks for playing.

Though I am enjoying the fact that Ford is now calling the American Family Association "bozos." Read the rest of this post...

Charlie Brown Christmas on ABC now! Live blog it, baby

Go! Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

UPDATE: Crooks & Liars has the video up of Jacki's CNN spot on the Ford controversy.

We hear CNN is going to cover the growing Ford scandal during the 7 PM segment. Supposedly the plan is to air it during the last part of the show (just before 8pm), but things change all the time in the news, and you never know when a segment will be cut, so look out for it, but don't get angry at me if they cut it! Read the rest of this post...

Lieberman blames Democrats for acrimony in Washington, public disapproval of Iraq

Yes, Joe Lieberman today blamed YOU for the increasingly acrimonious debate over Iraq.

Lieberman, whom the Bush administration has praised repeatedly for his war stance, defended the president. "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he'll be commander-in-chief for three more years," the senator said. "We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

...The war debate, Lieberman said, is being too poisoned by partisanship....

"We can't tolerate the kind of division that current exists in our country," the senator said. "Why are we fighting among those who have the same goals?"

You see, bipartisanship to Joe Lieberman means YOU need to just shut up and stop criticizing the president. If you would just act like a good citizen and let your government do whatever it wants, unchecked, and without a public debate over the merits of their actions, America would be doing great.

You see, when YOU openly disagree with your president, even when he's caught lying to the country and now wants to leave our troops to die in a quagmire of his own creation, YOU are the one putting our country "at peril." So the acrimony in Washington, according to Joe Lieberman, is the fault of the Democrats.

Joe Lieberman needs to get the hell out of our party. I don't know if he thinks he's running for president or what, but it better be as a Republican, because if he dares run as a Democrat, he's toast. Read the rest of this post...

Let's start dissecting Ford's lies

Lie number one is in Ford's recent open letter to its gay and lesbian employee group. It's Ford's description of what the extremist anti-gay hate group was upset about:

"The boycott, the purpose of which was to protest certain Ford marketing activities aimed at the gay and lesbian community, was announced in May and temporarily suspended in June."

In fact, while Ford would have you believe the American Family Association was simply complaining about some ads, in fact the AFA was protesting what it called Ford's support of "gay marriage."

From the AFA:

On Monday (May 30), AFA announced it has launched a boycott against the Ford Motor Company because of the company's track record for supporting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual "marriage." The pro-family group's founder and chairman, Donald E. Wildmon, says Ford's financial support of the homosexual agenda goes far beyond a few donations.

Dr. Don Wildmon
"From redefining family to include homosexual marriage; to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda; to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality; to sponsoring a commitment ceremony -- that is, 'marriage'; to sponsoring 'gay pride' parades, Ford leads the way," Wildmon states. "The goal of every homosexual organization supported by Ford is to get homosexual marriage legalized.

Here's the action alert the AFA sent out about Ford earlier this year over this issue:

Title: Ford Motor Company Supports Homosexual Marriage Movement

You are probably unaware that Ford Motor Company is a major supporter of the homosexual movement, including homosexual marriage.

From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality, to sponsoring a "commitment (marriage) ceremony", to sponsoring Gay Pride Parades, Ford leads the way.

To let you see Ford's support, we developed the BoycottFord.com site.

I urge you to take action today. Sign the petition to boycott Ford. Call your local Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo, Jaguar, Mazda and/or Land Rover dealer (all are part of Ford Motor Company) and inform them you will not be buying a Ford product until they stop their promotion of the homosexual movement and homosexual marriage.

Be sure to forward this information to your friends and family. They will be as surprised as you to learn of Ford's extensive promotion of homosexuality.

Yes, the AFA was demanding that Ford stop its diversity training, sponsorship of gay events and organizations, and more.

But it gets even better. The AFA was also demanding that Ford stop providing benefits to the partners of its gay employees, because that was akin to "gay marriage". The AFA's BoycottFord Web site, that has since been taken down, complained about the following:

numerous examples of Ford's pro-homosexual company policies, ads, and financial support for same-sex marriage

Yes, the AFA was objecting to the company's policies that helped gay employees. They weren't just objecting to two ads. They were objecting to every pro-gay thing Ford has ever done. And this is the same beef they had with Microsoft, and Kraft, and Procer & Gamble, and Wells Fargo and every other American corporation they're trying to destroy in their bigoted battle to dehumanize gay and lesbian Americans. Their demand is that corporate America discriminate against their gay employees and their gay customers, and the fact that Ford has appeased such an incredible demand in a secret meeting just last week, well that speaks volumes as to what Ford agreed to at that meeting that they're not telling us.

So, Ford is now telling us that this entire issue is simply about two ads run abroad. Yet, they pull their gay ads from two US publications, Out and Advocate. And, how much do you want to bet that Ford made promises that go far beyond these simple "ads"?

Are we having fun yet? Read the rest of this post...

In a first, Condi admits team Bush made a mistake

If she wasn't so close to the President, I think Condi could've gotten fired for this:

The Bush administration admitted it wrongfully abducted a German citizen on suspicion of terrorism, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday after a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Berlin.

Rice declined to comment on the specifics of the case of Khaled Masri but said she pledged to Merkel that "when and if mistakes are made, we work very hard and as quickly as possible to rectify them."

The first step is admitting the mistakes, Condi. This was a very small first step....but you have many, many bigger ones to admit and rectify. Read the rest of this post...

Ford issues public statement about anti-gay controversy

Ford just released a letter it has sent to its gay and lesbian employee group, below. I'd originally written more about this, but I deleted what I wrote because I decided I'd rather let this letter percolate for the next day or so. Then, tomorrow, we'll be presenting definitive evidence that Ford is lying throughout their entire letter. Yes, we'll be naming names of senior Ford employees who have now been caught lying, their conflicting quotes, everything.

You see, Ford doesn't understand that if you're going to lie in a public letter, make sure you haven't already told the truth to numerous journalists on the record, including some whose stories haven't been printed yet.

But for now, read the letter. Feel free to dissect it in the comments.

Last week, we were joined by a Ford dealer representative in a meeting with the American Family Association (AFA). Following the meeting, the AFA announced that it was ending its boycott of Ford Motor Company. The boycott, the purpose of which was to protest certain Ford marketing activities aimed at the gay and lesbian community, was announced in May and temporarily suspended in June.

Our latest discussions with the AFA cleared up a lot of misunderstanding about Ford's policies and practices. The AFA mentioned in its announcement that differences with Ford remain, which is true. But in our view the boycott ended because AFA leadership now has a better understanding of the principles that drive our company's policies as well as our wish to avoid politically and socially charged debates, which can only distract from our primary purpose -- to design, manufacture and sell the best vehicles we can.

The boycott was partly touched off by some ads produced and run in Europe, that some of our customers found offensive. Frankly, in retrospect we certainly could have marketed our product in a manner that was just as effective without offending anyone. We advised AFA that most of the ads were running outside of North America or no longer running.

We agreed to open a dialogue with the leadership of AFA, as we would with other groups who might represent views of our customers, so that we could better understand their concerns and share information about our marketing practices and policies in this country.

Here is some of what we shared in our discussions:

· We believe the surest way to avoid offending or antagonizing social, religious, political and cultural groups is to focus on product design, features and benefits in our advertising.

· When we portray customers in our ads, we strive to be diverse and respectful, and make the context relevant to the product. We don’t intend – directly or indirectly – to take sides on controversial or emotionally-charged social or moral issues.

· We reserve the right to advertise our brands and products wherever we think it makes business sense. This is something we spoke very candidly about with the AFA. Right now, Volvo has identified an opportunity to market directly to the gay and lesbian community but other brands have not.

· Decisions on where Ford's brands advertise are made for business reasons not as a social statement one way or another.

We also discussed with the AFA Ford's values as an employer and corporate citizen. Ford is proud of its record in dealing with people regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and cultural or physical differences. These policies will not change.

Like any good business, we try to listen to all of our customers and learn from their input. But, in the end, it is not always possible to please everyone. In these cases we rely on open dialogue and take actions based on principles.

Read the rest of this post...

Baghdad Police Academy Attacked; 43 Dead

Are we winning yet?

Two suicide bombers struck Baghdad's police academy Tuesday, killing at least 43 people and wounding 73 more, U.S. officials said, while Al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent video claiming to have kidnapped a U.S. security consultant.

Read the rest of this post...

Ford exec who brokered secret deal with gay-haters caught leading the charge for Bush's extreme right Supreme Court nominees out of his Ford office

So, Ford embraces anti-gay bigotry. And the two Ford execs who negotiated the anti-gay secret deal with the gay-hating extremist groups, Ziad Ojakli and David Leitch, are actually former top officials in the Bush White House. And now we find out, below, that one of those same top Bush/Ford officials is also running secret meetings out of Ford's own offices in support of Bush's far-right Supreme Court nominees.

Putting aside the question of who this Ford employee actually works for, Ford or the White House, is anyone seeing a larger pattern here?

Maybe you folks ought to give Mr. Ujakli a call here in DC and let him know you're not amused by Ford having become an adjunct of the Bush White House:

202-962-5400
From Roll Call, via Bulletin News:

Lobbyists, meanwhile, are already plotting their strategy to further the [John Roberts Supreme Court] nomination. Roll Call (7/26, Newmyer) says that "just one day after President Bush announced Roberts as his pick to succeed retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, an elite group of GOP lobbyists gathered in the downtown offices of Ford Motor Co. to discuss strategy." The meeting, "which lasted less than an hour, gathered some of the relatively small number of veteran Republican loyalists with experience in Supreme Court confirmation fights, participants said." The gathering "was hosted by Ziad Ojakli, who earlier this year finished up three years as the administration's top lobbyist in the Senate to take a job in Ford's Washington office. Helping Ojakli lead the meeting were Candi Wolff, Bush's top Congressional liaison and Ed Gillespie, the former Republican National Committee chairman tapped by the White House to help win Senate confirmation for Roberts."

(Hat tip to AMERICAblog reader Cadejo.) Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Read the rest of this post...

Rummy still crying that the public does not buy into pro-war propaganda

Waaaaaah. Could it be because the public was told that invading Iraq had to happen because of WMD and a connection to 9/11? Could it be because the war was sold as a walk in the park and the US would be welcomed? If the administration wants to continue selling this war as a success, fine, but quit the whining about the other side that gets reported. If it is such a success, why are the civilian and military deaths still so high? The administration has failed over and over to be honest so of course people are not going to believe their hype and propaganda.

His criticism of the press, a theme to which Mr. Rumsfeld returns frequently in public and private statements, came only a few days after the Pentagon acknowledged that it had paid Iraqi newspapers to publish news articles that presented a positive view of developments in Iraq.

That disclosure "has been pounded in the media," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We don't know what the facts are yet."

A student in the audience whether the administration believed before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that reconstructing the country would be "easy."

"There is no question there were people who believed that they would be met as liberators, and indeed they were for a period and still are in a number of parts of the country," Mr. Rumsfeld replied. "But anyone who had an optimistic view, I think has confronted reality. And it is clearly not easy. War is never easy. And you never heard a word like that out of my mouth, I don't believe."

The staff of the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, later released a transcript of a September 2002 interview Mr. Rumsfeld gave several reporters in which he said American troops had been welcomed after invading Afghanistan. "That's what would happen in Iraq," it quoted Mr. Rumsfeld as saying.

Gosh, to think people don't believe the administration. Read the rest of this post...

CNN, AP, more covering Ford controversy

I just got a report from a friend:

Can't leave message for Rosemary Mariniello, Jaguar Land Rover North America, (201) 818-8010 - Mailbox full!

Story was just covered on CNN's American Morning "Minding Your Business" segment.

Excellent, Smithers...

And AP now has a story, and CNN Money. Read the rest of this post...

Former senior Bush White House officials negotiated anti-gay deal for Ford

Oh doesn't this get interesting. The two Ford execs who sat down with the extremist gay-hating organization to work out the secret deal, who do you think they were? Why, two former senior Bush administration officials. Aren't things getting interesting.

Two Ford officials sat down with the hate group last week to work out the deal (by the way, this is the seminal article on this entire issue, they're the guys who broke the story, and reveal that contrary to Ford's current lies, an entire deal was worked out with the gay-haters):

In a Nov. 29 meeting at AFA headquarters in Tupelo, MS, David Leitch, general counsel and vice president for Ford, and Ziad Ojakli, group vice president-Corporate Affairs, along with Dallas-area Ford dealer Jerry Reynolds, hammered out a deal.

So who are these two boys, Leitch and Ojakli?

Ziad Ojakli
Ford group vice president-Corporate Affairs

From Open Secrets we learn that Mr. Ojakli is a big GOP donor - Ojakli was a Bush Pioneer fundraiser, who himself donated $3000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004 and $2000 for Bush's re-election campaign. He's also a senior former Bush administration official, serving as Deputy Assistant to the President, Legislative Affairs.

Oh, but there's more on Ojakli. He's worked for the worst of the worst of the right-wing Christian-right-loving Republicans. From Ford's own bio on him:

Prior to joining the White House staff, Ojakli served as the Senate liaison for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team and as Congressional liaison for Victory 2000 at the Republican National Committee....

From 1995 to 1998, Ojakli served as chief of staff to Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) and was Souder's key political and policy advisor. Prior to that, he was a legislative assistant to Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN), specializing in budget, tax, trade, energy and environmental issues.

Dan Coats was the religious right's boy in the Senate. And Souder was just as bad in the House.

David Leitch
Ford General Counsel, Vice President

Leitch was deputy general counsel to George Bush at the White House, and now is the general counsel at Ford. (Source: Ford's own press release.)

Remember how Microsoft had all sorts of suspicious dealings with Ralph Reed at the time it embraced the religious right? Well, now we have Ford embracing bigotry and the deal is worked out by - who? - two senior (former) Bush White House officials. Surprise, surprise.

(Hat tip: All of this was discovered by a group of incredibly smart and earnest AMERICAblog readers who worked all of this out in the comments on the blog last night while the rest of us were asleep. Amazing.) Read the rest of this post...

This morning's Ford action step: Contact Jaguar

Jaguar is one of the specific Ford brands that pulled it ads to appease the gay-hating extremists. Contact these three Jaguar execs (I'm guessing at the first one's email address).

Jaguar Cars Corporate Offices

- Joe Greenwell, CEO, 949-341-6100
- Tom Scarpello, VP Mktg, 949-341-6100
- Mark Kaline, Global Media Mgr, mkaline@ford.com, 313-594-3913

And feel free to keep contacting these senior public relations reps from Ford and its subsidiaries - I want us calling these folks every day.

- Rosemary Mariniello, Jaguar Land Rover North America, (201) 818-8010, rmariniello@jaguar.com
- Jim Cain, Ford Division, (313) 248-6288,
- Sara Tatchio, Lincoln and Mercury, (313) 594-3744, statchio@ford.com
- Roger Ormisher, Volvo Cars of North America, Inc., rormishe@volvocars.com, (800) 970-0888
- George Pipas, Ford Motor Company, (313) 323-9216, gpipas@ford.com
- Dan Bedore, Ford Division, (313) 323-7045, dbedore@ford.com

Read the rest of this post...

No free ride for Lieberman says Lowell Weicker

The former GOP Senator/Independent Governor says Lieberman is out of touch and needs an opponent:

:"When you've become the president's best friend on the war in Iraq, you should not be in office, especially if you're in the opposing party," Mr. Weicker, 74, said in a phone interview from his home in Essex, Conn. "I'm going to do everything I can to see that Joe Lieberman does not get a free pass."

He's right. Weicker may challenge Lieberman himself. Now that would be interesting. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

How's it going so far? Anything new? Read the rest of this post...

Rice continues to dodge the issue of torture

Unfortunately Merkel wants to push this issue aside as well as Rice tours Europe. After Condi's 9/11 commission testimony I can't believe much of anything she has to say since she failed to tell the truth for such an important moment in history. As much as I want Europe to press on the issue I suspect that they won't because there was probably an understanding going on with all of the flights going on in Europe. How in the hell would they not know anything about hundreds of flights? For that reason alone Europe probably also wants this issue of CIA flights to pick up a few headlines but ultimately go away.

The prison camps within the EU may be another problem though. There is still plenty of tension between East and West within the EU, with many voters still not happy about the absorption of the East into the EU. With economic stagnation in Europe, racial tensions and politicians looking for someone to blame their troubles on, the Eastern countries could be in for a rough ride. Read the rest of this post...

FOX News kills Christmas

A bit of non-Ford news that's quite amusing.

Air America's Majority Report reports (I know) that FOX News' parent company News Corporation is holding a "Holiday Part" next week.

Oops.

Air America even has the invite, check it out. Read the rest of this post...

Ford lies to the New York Times

You gotta love the NYT. Even with Judith Miller gone, there's nothing like a good lie to get their reporters to parrot whatever made-up story you tell them. Ford spun the New York Times a good one. Unfortunately, the Times reporter didn't bother doing any research or he'd have seen that Ford already publicly said they were pulling their ads specifically in response to the anti-gay hate group.

In any case, we've now got Ford on the record outright lying about this entire affair, and we've got the quotes to prove it.

Let's start with what Ford told the Advocate, one of the magazines it pulled its advertising from:

When first contacted, Ford spokesman Moran referred Advocate.com to the AFA statement, suggesting that the company had no disagreement with Wildmon's assertions.

I also confirmed today with another journalist I know and trust that Ford told him basically the same story, that they caved to appease the anti-gay extremist group. That journalist's story won't be running until later this week.

And finally, there's this report I received yesterday of a conversation a top gay rights advocate had with a Ford employee:

I reached XXXX on his cell phone, xxx of Ford pr. We had a lengthy and civil, if tense, discussion. He clearly confirmed that Ford was pulling ads from "advocacy publications," which seems to cover every gay magazine and newspaper in the country since they "advocate" a "gay rights agenda." xxxxxxx said that this all started due to Ford ads in Europe, which apparently include some gay people/couples in a positive way. But he did confirm that Ford had indeed reached a formal settlement with AFA, and this specifically includes withdrawing advertising for certain Ford vehicles from LGBT publications/media.

Now, call me confused, but three different credible witnesses, two of whom are credible journalists, have Ford on the record admitting not only that they caved to pressure from extremist gay-hating groups, but in one conversation Ford admitting to having reached a "formal settlement" with the gay-haters. That's extremely troubling since it now leaves us wondering what other anti-gay actions has Ford agreed to in its secret agreement with the anti-gay bigots?

So we now know Ford is lying to America's civil rights community. The only question is whether they lied to 3 different sources this weekend, or whether they're lying now that this controversy has exploded in their face. Gee, which situation do you think provides Ford with a greater incentive to lie?

And one more thing. The story is now in the New York Times, in just two days of working it. This is when the floodgates open.

See ya in the morning! Read the rest of this post...