Say goodnight, Ken

Read the rest of this post...

Terror suspects are buying guns in the US as we speak

NYT:

Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a Congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.

People suspected of being members of a terrorist group are not automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap.

But remember: Guns don't kill people, terrorists kill people. Read the rest of this post...

Mainstream media at its finest - The Sioux Falls Argus Leader (SD)

What follows is an email exchange I just had with Randell Beck, executive editor of the Sioux Falls Argus leader, over a story he wrote, or commentary, about Gannon, bloggers, etc. In his commentary he wrote a paragraph about bloggers that I found offensive and condescending, so I sent him an email.

First, here's the paragraph from his column that I didn't like:

The frenzy to discredit Gannon - like the frenzy to discredit Daschle - became nasty and personal as bloggers (and some mainstream journalists) dug into his past. I won't repeat most of what they found; that's stooping to the level of bloggers, and it serves no good purpose here.

Note his use of the phrase "stooping to the level of bloggers." He's talking generically about ALL bloggers, not "the" bloggers, but "bloggers." Apparently we, as a class, have a level, and according to the executive editor of the Argus Leader it's pretty low. So here's the email I sent to Beck:

From: John Aravosis
To: Beck, Randell
Sent: Mon Mar 07 19:55:59 2005
Subject: stooping to the level of bloggers?

Mr. Beck,

As one of those bloggers who apparently stoop, in your view, I'm curious why you think a practicing male prostitute working in the White House and operating within a knife's throw of the president isn't a valid point of concern?

Now, I admit, I don't know much about South Dakota values, but I'm willing to bet that gay prostitution isn't real high on the list, especially when gay prostitutes are given access to the West Wing and the president, and find themselves involved in CIA scandals and more.

And as an aside, this blogger has a Georgetown law degree and has written for the Economist magazine, among others. You do your readers a disservice by pandering to the canard that bloggers are lesser journalists than you and your staff. Many of us have better credentials than many of you.

JOHN

I thought I was fair. And I simply, and not too rudely, pointed out that he shows disdain for bloggers in the story without realizing that a lot of us are accomplished journalists, etc. So what response do I get?

Subject: Re: stooping to the level of bloggers?
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 21:26:37 -0500
From: "Beck, Randell"
To: AMERICAblog

Wow. Georgetown? The economist? Really? Us'n rubes is mighty impressed. Thank you for your comment. R. Beck
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

And people wonder what's wrong with the mainstream media. This is the guy who runs the entire newspaper. Read the rest of this post...

Monday night open thread

Have at it Read the rest of this post...

Is GannonGuckert threatening to out Joe Biden as a customer?

Sure sounds like it. This from GannonGuckert's Web site:

4:17pm

I watched a clip of Sen. Joe Biden on Bill Maher's HBO crapfest. I wonder why he didn't mention meeting me some years ago. C'mon Joe, think...

Now, GannonGuckert is either lying or telling the truth. If he's lying, his already sinking credibility will sink even further. If he's telling the truth, however, then things get even more interesting with this story as "some years ago" would be at least two years ago, and it's only two years that Gannon has been covering the White House. That would put GannonGuckert and Biden's "meeting" smack dab in the middle of Gannon's known prostitution years.

And if GannonGuckert is suggesting he slept with a senior US Senator (who is one of the top Senators on foreign policy issues) for pay during war time, then all bets are off on this investigation. That would mean we were right to be concerned about the security risk of GannonGuckert getting access to the White House, senior staff and the president. It would mean we were right to be concerned about who GannonGuckert might have slept with as a client to gain and retain access to the White House, and possibly sensitive information. It would mean we were right to ask what connection GannonGuckert has to Senator Thune in South Dakota, to Karl Rove, to Scott McClellan, and more.

If Gannon really wants to go there, then have at it. Because he's starting to make the case for one hell of an FBI investigation. Read the rest of this post...

Interesting article about how right-wing bloggers are part of the larger right-wing conspiracy

Digby has the goods. Read the rest of this post...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says South Carolina has a problem with Abraham Lincoln

Apparently the Republican Senator from South Carolina says his state still hasn't "gotten over" President Abraham Lincoln, and that's why they don't do Lincoln Day dinners in South Carolina.

Well perhaps it's time for the Republican party to stand up for the president who freed the slaves and stopped our country from cleaving in two. Not to mention, it's also time for the south to get over the Civil War. What is the education system like down there - one big southern madrassa where all you learn is how evil President Lincoln was for forcing you to remain Americans?

I often feel like so many of our problems would be solved as a nation if the GOP would stop pandering to how much we should hate each other. Read the rest of this post...

Please ignore the Chicago judge's dead family in the corner...

From the religious right propaganda organ AgapePress:

A conservative activist says if you're looking for radicals, the U.S. Supreme Court is the place to start. Author and political commentator Mark Levin says the Supreme Court is the last bastion of radicalism left in America today. The high court, he says, confers rights on terrorists, confers benefits on illegal immigrants, and seeks to eliminate all references to religion from the public square. "They want to deny you and me our free-speech rights before an election," he adds, "but they have no problem with upholding cyberspace child pornography as a constitutional right." Levin says the judicial activists on the high court believe they can do anything they want when, in reality, it is the people who decide the issues of the day -- not nine elevated lawyers.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Blogger is freaking out again today, so sorry for the intermittent posts. Read the rest of this post...

Bush press secretary defends male prostitute

You read it here first.

''As far as Jeff Gannon goes, anyone who follows the briefing on a regular basis knows there are a number of people on both sides of the political aisle who come to the briefing to express their views," McClellan wrote in his e-mail. ''I try to call on everyone who has a question. The briefing room should be an inclusive place, and it should not be the press secretary's role to pick and choose who covers it."

Maybe if we had all the gay male Republican prostitutes try to get married FIRST, the Bush administration would welcome them and then not try to write us out of the US Constitution. Read the rest of this post...

SpongeBob takes to the streets

A very angry, but still smiling, SpongeBob took to the streets of Denver recently to protest the religious right having outed him. Read the rest of this post...

Former Canadian foreign minister writes an open letter to Condi

And it's not a love letter. Read the rest of this post...

If GannonGuckert sues Media Matters, bloggers, etc., who should we force to testify and what should we ask them?

GannonGuckert allegedly threatened to sue again in an interview last night. So, I say we let the White House and Gannon himself know what's coming.

For starters, we'd have to get sworn depositions out of:

1. Scott McClellan
2. Karl Rove
3. Bobby Eberle
4. Senator Thune and staff
5. Grover Norquist
6. G. Gordon Liddy (Norquist, Rove and Liddy are thanked by Eberle on the GOPUSA Web site)
7. Sean Hannity - who is friendly with GannonGuckert

Who else? I'm serious, no joke names - who would seriously force to testify?

And, seriously, what serious questions would you demand they answer under oath? Read the rest of this post...

Protecting Our Troops: How The Military Screwed Up

I was grousing just yesterday over the lack of follow-up articles about body armor for our troops -- both personal vests and the armor needed for Humvees and other vehicles. Lo and behold, the New York Times has a massive, front page feature on the many "missteps" of the Pentagon.

One order for bulletproof vests -- after a general realized his hasty decision that they weren't needed was deadly wrong -- took 167 days to get moving and weeks and even months more to get to the troops.

"By contrast, when the United States' allies in Iraq also realized they needed more bulletproof vests, they bypassed the Pentagon and ordered directly from a manufacturer in Michigan. They began getting armor in just 12 days," according to the New York Times.

It's a pretty dispassionate article, frankly, a "how did it happen" look at the past -- despite the fact that it details career soldiers resigning in frustration, shows anti-IED electronic equipment has been stalled and claims that a soldier who complained about the lack of armor was harassed when returning to his unit.

The article also fails to answer the one questions I had: Rumsfeld was lambasted over the number of Humvees that were poorly armored or nor armored at all. They insisted the problem was being tackled immediately. So what's the status? How many vehicles got the plating they need that can save lives? How many Humvees with pathetic scrap metal plating have been replaced with ceramic plating? Are soldiers still paying for armor out of their own pockets?

Please thank the NYT via letters@nytimes.com and push them to do the obvious followup.

If you've seen the pretty good new documentary "Gunner Palace," (which gives a sympathetic look at what our soldiers are enduring in Iraq), you know it shows one soldier giving a mock sales pitch for their Humvee. He describes the scrap metal plating they've improvised as being good enough to slow down bullets and shrapnel just enough so that they lodge inside of you rather than going right through your entire body. His buddies literally roll on the ground laughing. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's new UN ambassador hates the UN

Mending fences. Read the rest of this post...

Morning open thread

Back to work Read the rest of this post...

California clowns puts the "Junior" in Junior College

Ahhh, didn't Spain pull out its troops last year? Are these people trying to get jobs with wingnut universities or are they just trying to make a name for themselves in the wingnut community? Read the rest of this post...

The Democratic Underground rips Republican homophobia

Interestingly, it's a post about Ann Coulter being one of the Top 10 Conservative Idiots:

While we're on the subject of Jeff Gannon, Ann Coulter posed some curious questions in a recent article. "Are we supposed to like gay people now, or hate them? Is there a Web site where I can go to and find out how the Democrats want me to feel about gay people on a moment-to-moment basis?" This was, of course, in response to revelations that Jeff Gannon is a gay prostitute.

So I have a couple questions of my own: Are we supposed to like gay people now, or hate them? Is there a Web site where I can go to and find out how the Republicans want me to feel about gay people on a moment-to-moment basis?

It's just that I'm perfectly consistent in my support for gay rights. What I'm not comfortable with is the White House giving a real live prostitute with a fake name who works for a fake news organization that is actually a front for a Republican activist group free and easy access to press briefings so that the aforementioned prostitute can toss softball questions at the president to get him out of sticky situations.

But now we're in a bizarre situation where Republicans like Coulter are one day screaming about amending the Constitution in order to discriminate against gays, or telling me that gays are sinners who are going to hell, or that cartoon characters are secretly working on an evil gay agenda to corrupt our children, or that "tolerance" and "love" are secret gay code words, and then the next day they're telling me that I'm the homophobe and poor gay people like Jeff Gannon need to be defended from the likes of me and my awful liberal friends.

I mean, if gay prostitution is okay - which, according to all these Republicans who are now accusing the left of homophobia, it is - then gay marriage must be double-plus-good, right? Otherwise I just don't get the argument. How come, according to Republicans, it's fine for a gay man to sell himself for no-strings-attached sex with other men online, but it's not fine for two gay men to enter into a lifelong, loving marriage partnership?

Still, at least there's no ambiguity about the fact that Republicans think all Arabs are terrorists. In the same column, Coulter says, "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president." So while Ann may have suddenly had a dramatic transformation on gay rights, at least that ol' racism is alive and well.

Be sure to scroll up on that page and read their take on Gannon's latest. Read the rest of this post...

Honey, I shrunk the GOP agenda

Social Security is heading south. Bush says the Gay Bashing Amendment will never pass. The White House has no problem that they invited a gay prostitute into the midst for two years. And now tax cuts are off the agenda.

I'm melting.... Read the rest of this post...