The View From Arlen

Posted 10:30 AM by Hank
SPITZER PROBE URGED AFTER "THREATS"

ALBANY—Top New York Republicans have called for a formal investigation into allegations that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer threatened a man who wrote an editorial critical of Spitzer’s conduct.

According to the New York Post, both Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer) and state Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik have urged that a formal investigation be launched into claims by John Whitehead, “one of the most respected figures on Wall St,” that Spitzer telephoned Whitehead and threatened him after Whitehead wrote an editorial about Spitzer in the Wall St. Journal.

a furious Spitzer tracked him down in Texas last spring after he authored an earlier piece in defense of former American International Group CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, who was being investigated by Spitzer for corporate fraud.
Citing notes he said he took during the telephone conversation, Whitehead quoted Spitzer as saying, "Mr. Whitehead, it's now a war between us and you've fired the first shot . . . I will be coming after you. You will pay the price."

In addition to Bruno and Minarik, the Post notes, Governor George Pataki has said he had "no reason not to believe" Whitehead was telling the truth.

Assemblyman Tom Kirwan (R-Newburgh) has called for Spitzer's impeachment “if Whitehead's charges are proven to be true.”

Spitzer has denied Whitehead’s claims. However, on Friday, the Post reported, Spitzer admitted to having a “a passionate conversation” with Whitehead.

Spitzer, considered the front-runner for New York's Governor in 2006, has come under criticism from some circles for what some view as "politically motivated" prosecutions of New York business leaders.

In November, the New York Daily News reported that Spitzer was using fines and settlements obtained from these prosecutions to hand out "millions of dollars to politically connected organizations that could boost his campaign for governor in 2006."

Spitzer denies that politics play a role in his office's activities.

Posted 11:54 AM by Hank
SCHUMER PREDICTS IRAQ FAILURE
(WANTS NATION SPLIT ALONG ETHNIC LINES)

AUBURN, NY--US Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) thinks that Iraqi democracy will fail, and that nation should be split along ethnic lines.

According to the Auburn Citizen, Schumer made that statement at a meeting with constituents on Tuesday (December 24) in Auburn.

Schumer does not expect an American-style democracy to flourish in Iraq, and if such democratic efforts do not succeed, he wants to offer semi-autonomous regions within one country to Iraq's three main ethnic groups, the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis.

According to the paper Schumer, while stating he "stands by his vote in support of the war in Iraq," does not believe the Bush administration was "thinking through the potential consequences of some its decisions in Iraq."

Schumer was ostensibly in Auburn to speak on what the Citizen called "the impact of fuel price increase for farmers." However, he also spoke on other issues during a brief question and answer session.

Schumer's comments on Iraq came in response to a question from an Auburn City Council member, the paper noted.

Posted 4:02 PM by Hank
ITHACA OFFICIAL: IMPEACH BUSH

ITHACA--The outgoing Ithaca City Attorney has publicly called for the impeachment of President Bush, over reports that he authorized wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant following September 11.

Writing in the Ithaca Journal, Marty Luster, a democrat, argues that the President and Vice President Cheney should be impeached, over what Luster characterizes as the administration's history of "lies," "secrecy" and "torture."

As if the lies that took us to Iraq were not enough. As if the knowing use of bad intelligence wasn't enough. As if the ever- shifting justifications for this war were not enough. As if the use of torture by and at the behest of the United States was not enough. As if the disclosure of classified information to retaliate against a critic of the war policy was not enough. As if the shroud of secrecy that binds this administration was not enough. As if the squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars in support of this war at a time when we can't find the money to rebuild one of our great cities, when millions of us go without health care and when the federal government has reneged on its commitment to public education was not enough....Now, after all that, now we have the disclosure that the president personally ordered and continues to order the interception of telephone and e-mail communications of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents on U.S. soil without search warrants, without court authorization of any sort and without any basis in the constitution or laws of this land.

According to Luster, Bush "has violated his oath of office by failing to “preserve, protect and defend” our Constitution and has violated the law of this land by ignoring the strictures and limits of (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)."

However, not all democrats agree with Luster. For example, John Schmidt, who served as an assistant attorney general during the Clinton administration, has stated his belief that Bush's actions were "consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents."

In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.
Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.
In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the . . . courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence . . . We take for granted that the president does have that authority."

Luster did not include any of the decisions cited by Schimdt in his analysis.

As Ithaca City Attorney, Luster has used his office for a number of controversial political actions. For example, in 2004, he sued the State of New York, using taxpayer funds, in an effort to force the state to allow gay marriage.

It is unknown whether Luster composed his column attacking Bush during his taxpayer-funded office hours. Under New York State law, the use of public property for partisan purposes may be illegal.

Luster is retiring at the end of this year. His replacement, Dan Hoffman, is also a well-known local Democrat.

Posted 3:03 PM by Hank
"AND THE BELLS WERE RINGING OUT ON CHRISTMAS DAY"

Over the past two days, as the holiday season approaches, I find myself playing the same Christmas song over and over: the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York":

It was Christmas Eve, babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me,
"Won't see another one"
And then he sang a song,
"The Rare Ole' Mountain Dew"
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on the lucky one
Came in at 18-to-1
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So Happy Christmas
I love you, baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

When you first took my hand
On that cold Christmas Eve
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
The crowd howled for more

Sinatra was swinging
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on the corner
Then danced through the night

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas? Your arse
I pray God it's our last

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

And the boys from the NYPD Choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
As the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

Patrick Hynes, of the American Spectator has written a column eloquently describing why this is the best Christmas song of the past twenty-five years.

Read the column then download the song.

And Merry Christmas.

Posted 5:28 AM by Hank
UCLA: Media Bias Real

A UCLA-led study confirms what most Americans have long thought: that the mainstream media is liberal.

"There is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co?author Jeffrey Milyo.

The study, which appears in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, both confirms some long held beliefs and offers a few suprises.

CBS News, the New York Times and the L.A. Times were the second, third and fourth most liberal news organizations. However, the most liberal was the news pages of the Wall St. Journal.

While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times.

As far as conservative or moderate news:

Five news outlets — "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," ABC's "Good Morning America," CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown," Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and the Drudge Report — were in a statistical dead heat in the race for the most centrist news outlet. Of the print media, USA Today was the most centrist.

A UCLA press release notes that the researchers "took numerous steps to safeguard against bias — or the appearance of same — in the work, which took close to three years to complete. They went to great lengths to ensure that as many research assistants supported Democratic candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election as supported President George Bush. They also sought no outside funding, a rarity in scholarly research."

Posted 7:44 PM by Hank
BLOOD-THROWING CRIMINALS PROTEST AT GITMO

Guantanamo, Cuba—A group of anti-war protesters awaiting sentencing on charges of throwing blood on a soldier, a recruiting station and the U.S. flag are now in Cuba, protesting the alleged treatment of terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

According to a Ithaca Journal, the three Ithaca residents, “Daniel Burns, Clare Grady and Teresa Grady, have joined about 25 other protesters fasting since Monday at a Cuban military checkpoint outside the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay.”

The group is demanding access to the hundreds of detainees being held at the naval base, some since just after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. About 32 of the detainees are conducting a hunger strike to protest their treatment.

The three, along with fellow Ithacite Peter DeMott, were convicted of charges of trespassing and damaging government property after a jury trial in Binghamton in September 2005.

The group was accused of going to a Army recruiting center near Ithaca on March 17, 2003, and throwing their own blood on the walls, the floor, the United States flag and Staff Sgt. Rachon Montgomery, who was working as an army recruiter that day.

The protesters, while admitting to their actions, claim they have done nothing wrong. The four, who are representing themselves, claimed that their actions were legally justified because they did it to stop the United States from invading Iraq.

During the trial, it was revealed that two of the four protesters, DeMott and Clare Grady, had histories of committing violent acts against federal property.

Sentencing for the four is scheduled for January 2006.

The group is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Miroslav Lovric at the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York, Binghamton branch office. It is unknown whether prosecutors are aware of the four’s trip to Cuba.

According to the Journal, the three protestors “have had no travel restrictions placed on them…until their sentencing in January in federal court. But one of the conditions of their freedom is to not break any laws.”

”Americans face restrictions when traveling to Cuba and face both civil and criminal penalties if they don't get approval from the U.S. Treasury Department, a spokeswoman said [but] could not confirm whether the three protesters had obtained the required permission, saying that information was confidential.”

Posted 5:24 AM by Hank
TOOKIE WILLIAMS

Posted 10:49 AM by Hank
THE CONTINUING DEMOCRATIC CRACK-UP

John Marciano, a professor emeritus at Cortland State College, is a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq.

Unlike many in the anti-war movement, however, Marciano is at least consistent.

Rather than attack only the Bush administration, Marciano takes the leaders of the Democratic party to task for their own “opportunism” regarding the war:

Democrats accuse Bush of misleading the public in the invasion of Iraq, [but] we need to recall [Bill] Clinton's assertions about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction…Clinton has been joined in his support of war by leading Democratic senators, e.g., Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein, all of whom voted for the “War on Terrorism”…

If the United States had not faced sustained Iraqi resistance…we would not have heard a peep from Bill and Hillary Clinton and leading Democrats. They have no moral ground upon which to condemn Bush's conduct of this war because they are accomplices

Marciano, who also accuses the U.S. of “war crimes” in Iraq and “the slaughter of yellow, brown and black people across the world [and] at home,” is obviously a member of the more radical fringe of the left in America. However, for at least the past several years, this is the “base” of the Democratic party.

Most leaders of the party have tried to appease this base by blaming the war on “Bush LIED,” while trying to convince the “moderate middle” that they “support the troops.”

However, it seems as if more and more members of the Democrat base are catching on to this. For example, peace activists have begun regularly protesting Hillary Clinton over her past support of the war.

In response, the Democrat’s leader, Howard Dean, is now saying that the U.S. can’t win and effectively calling for surrender.

Democrats continue to hope that President Bush’s troubles at home will translate to big wins for their party in 2006 and beyond. However, the general disarray of their own party, with even their radical base starting to see through their cynical ploys, would seem to indicate that the Democrats should not be popping any champagne corks just yet.

Posted 5:13 AM by Hank
BLOOD-THROWING CRIMINALS FETED BY CAMPUS

GENEVA, NY—A group of anti-war protesters who threw blood on a soldier, a recruiting station and the U.S. flag will deliver a lecture at Hobart and William Smith campuses today.

According to a campus press release, the four Ithaca residents-- Daniel Burns, Peter DeMott, Clare Grady and Teresa Grady--are expected to address students on “the use of unconventional politics as a means for political organizing and resistance in a time of war and in a time of the Patriot Act.”

In addition, the group’s sponsor, Professor Craig Rimmerman of the HWS political science department, hopes to ask the group "what they were thinking about at the time that they made their decision, and how they have dealt with the legal ramifications of their actions."

The four were convicted of charges of trespassing and damaging government property after a jury trial in Binghamton in September 2005.

During the trial, it was revealed that two of the four protesters, Peter DeMott and Clare Grady, had histories of committing violent acts against federal property.

Sentencing for the four is scheduled for January 2006.

According to the campus website, “interview opportunities and additional background information may be requested through the Office of Communications, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York. Phone: (315) 781-3540. After business hours, Communications staff members are accessible through contact information on their answering machine at that number.”

Posted 5:40 AM by Hank
COMING SOON: THE BEERMOBILE?

Fox News is reporting that chemical engineers, working with the Coors Brewing Company, have found a week to run your car on beer, sort of:

Though Coors and its partner, Merrick & Co., aren’t pouring brewskies straight into your car, they are turning some of the waste created during the beer-making process into 200-proof high-octane alcohol called ethanol, used to purify gasoline.

“For every gallon of ethanol that we put into the gasoline pool, we get back out a gallon of crude oil that comes from who-knows-where,” said Steven Wagner of Merrick.

Posted 7:21 AM by Hank
WHOOPI AT "FAMILY SHOW":
TOM DELAY IN HANDCUFFS MADE MY WEEK

ITHACA—Outspoken liberal actor Whoopi Goldberg delivered an obscenity laden tirade to students and parents, bashing Republicans and joking about her own marijuana use, at Cornell University’s “family weekend” comedy show on Friday (October 28).

“Tom DeLay in handcuffs made my week,”Goldberg reportedly said, referring to the arrest of the former House majority leader. “When they took his mug shot and fingerprints, I thought I’d died and went to heaven.”

In addition to attacks on the Bush adminstration and FEMA, Goldberg also “shocked audience members with frank talk about bathroom humor, her marijuana use and aging,” the Cornell Daily Sun reported.

“If you thought you were coming to see Sister Act, you were f**king wrong,” Goldberg said.

As a “family weekend” comedy show, Goldberg’s performance attracted an “all ages” crowd, including college students, their parents and even some elementary school aged children, the Sun reported.

In addition to the “Sister Act” movies, Goldberg is known for such films as Rat Race, Monkeybone and Theodore Rex. She also starred in the short-lived NBC series “Whoopi.”

Posted 2:35 PM by Hank
THE AXIS OF WEASELS STRIKES AGAIN

The Telegraph is reporting that the Agent behind fake uranium documents worked for France:

The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France.

The man, identified by an Italian news agency as Rocco Martino, was the subject of a Telegraph article earlier this month in which he was referred to by his intelligence codename, "Giacomo".

His admission to investigating magistrates in Rome on Friday apparently confirms suggestions that - by commissioning "Giacomo" to procure and circulate documents - France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq.

Italian diplomats have claimed that, by disseminating bogus documents stating that Iraq was trying to buy low-grade "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, France was trying to "set up" Britain and America in the hope that when the mistake was revealed it would undermine the case for war, which it wanted to prevent.

Posted 7:19 AM by Hank
NEW STONES ALBUM A BOMB?

Fox News is reporting that the latest album by the Rolling Stones, "A Bigger Bang," is "less than a month old, [and] already out of the Top 50."

"A Bigger Bang" is the album that features "Sweet Neo-Con," a rare poltical song from the band, and one that attacks President Bush and Condoleezza Rice as "full of sh-t."

Fox also reports that the latest album by frequent Bush critic Barbra Streisand, "Guilty Pleasures," "has caused little excitement even among her rabid fans."

Both the Stones and Streisand are acts that appeal to the adult segment of the music buying public. Approximately half that public votes Republican. Maybe, therefore, the lesson is to not attack the politics of approximately half your potential audience.

Posted 6:16 AM by Hank
UNICEF KILLS THE SMURFS

Finally, the U.N. does something right:

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund....It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children."

As someone who grew up on Saturday Morning fare "Jonny Quest," "Space Ghost," and even "Super-friends," I always hated those little blue Eurotrash socialist bastards. I'd actually pay good money to own this on DVD.

Posted 6:39 AM by Hank
ITHACA PROTESTERS COST CITY THOUSANDS

BINGHAMTON, NY--The activities of supporters of four Ithaca-area protesters who throw blood on an American flag, a recruiting center and a soldier are expected to cost the City of Binghamton at least $15,000.00.

News 10 Now reports that city officials were forced to spend at least that amount in overtime to provide security during the trial of Ithaca-area protesters, who dubbed themselves the "St. Patrick's Day Four."

The four, Peter DeMott, Theresa Grady, Claire Grady and Daniel Burns, were tried in federal court in Binghamton earlier this month on charges ranging from conspiracy to vandalism.

During the trial, various anti-war groups, made up primarily of activists from Ithaca, staged demonstrations outside the federal building.

City officials say they don't know where they'll find that money in the budget. The Binghamton Police Chief says he is already looking for ways to prepare for the four's sentencing, in January.

The four were convicted of damaging government property and entering a military station for unlawful purposes

Posted 9:59 AM by Hank
ITHACA PROTESTERS GUILTY
BINGHAMTON NY--the Ithaca New York antiwar protesters who threw blood on a recruiting center, a soldier and the American flag in 2003 have been found guilty of three counts by a federal court.

According to the Ithaca Journal, the group, which calls itself “St. Patrick’s Day Four,” was found guilty of three counts of damaging federal property, but acquitted of the most serious conspiracy charge.

During the trial, it was revealed that two of the four protesters, Peter DeMott and Clare Grady, had previous histories of committing violent acts against federal property.

DeMott and Grady, along with fellow protesters Daniel Burns and Theresa Grady, will be sentenced at a later date.

The group had previously been tried on similar charges in a Tompkins County court, but that case ended in a hung jury. At that time, Tompkins County District Attorney George Dentes stated that he believed the Ithaca-area jurors were “motivated by political ideology and not by the evidence.”

Posted 10:15 AM by Hank
Blood-throwing Protester's History of Violence

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

BINGHAMTON, NY--The New York Times reports that one of the Ithaca, NY-area protesters who spilled human blood on a soldier and the flag in 2003 has a long history of attacks on government property.

According to the Times, Peter DeMott, one of the self-styled “St. Patrick’s Day Four,” has previous arrests for “ramming a car into a nuclear submarine in 1980 and hammering and pouring blood on a different submarine in 1982 when he was part of an activist group, Plowshares, which protested the nuclear arms buildup.”

DeMott and his fellow protesters, the Times reported, were portrayed as “religious zealots who routinely destroy government property yet have mostly evaded consequences” by prosecutors.

"You have decided unilaterally you can damage property," [the prosecutor] said, asking if [DeMott] had ever reimbursed the government. "When are you going to stop?"

One of DeMott’s fellow protesters, Teresa Grady, admitted on the stand, that as a child, she had been taught by her father, a Vietnam era war protester, about "jury nullification…the principle of refusing to convict a person for whom one feels sympathy with a cause,” the Times reported.

DeMott and Grady, along with fellow protesters Clare Grady and Daniel Burns, all of Ithaca, are currently on trial in Federal Court in Binghamton on charges of conspiring to impede the duties of U.S. officials and damaging or injuring federal property and officials. The conspiracy charge, the most serious, carries up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

They are accused of going to a Army recruiting center near Ithaca on March 17, 2003, and throwing their own blood on the walls, the floor, the United States flag and Staff Sgt. Rachon Montgomery, who was working as an army recruiter that day.

The protesters, while admitting to their actions, claim they have done nothing wrong. The four, who are representing themselves, claim that their actions were legally justified because they did it to stop the United States from invading Iraq.

“(Montgomery) doesn't understand exactly what's going on.” Burns said in the September 22 Ithaca Journal.

Posted 8:45 AM by Hank
ITHACA ANTI-WAR PROTESTORS SPLASHED SOLDIER WITH BLOOD

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

BINGHAMTON—A U.S. soldier has testified in federal court Tuesday (September 20) that he was splashed with human blood by anti-war protesters during a 2003 protest.

The soldier, Staff Sgt. Rachon Montgomery, was working as an army recruiter on March 17, 2003, the day that four protesters threw their own blood around a recruiting center in Lansing, NY, a suburb of Ithaca. As a result of the incident, press reports indicate, Montgomery was tested for blood-borne illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis.

In addition to Montgomery, the protesters also poured blood on the American flag, a military banner and the walls and floor of the center.

The protesters, Clare Grady, Teresa Grady, Peter De Mott and Daniel Burns, all of Ithaca, are currently on trial in Federal Court in Binghamton on charges of conspiring to impede the duties of U.S. officials and damaging or injuring federal property and officials. The conspiracy charge, the most serious, carries up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The protesters, who have dubbed themselves “the St. Patrick’s’ Day Four,” while admitting to their actions, claim they have done nothing wrong. The four, who are representing themselves, claim that their actions were legally justified because they did it to stop the United States from invading Iraq.

That defense was accepted in an earlier state court trial in Ithaca, which resulted in a hung jury.

However, according to the New York Times, District Court Judge Thomas McAvoy “is allowing the defendants to talk about their state of mind at the time of the protest in their opening arguments, but not to raise their belief that the Iraq war was illegal or immoral.”

The group’s supporters, many of whom are from the Ithaca, have conducted a daily vigil outside the courthouse, protesting, making speeches and conducting mock trials of the Bush administration. Image hosted by Photobucket.com

In response, a counter protest Image hosted by Photobucket.com , made up of veterans and others from around the state, has demonstrated their solidarity with the troops and the President.

Posted 4:58 AM by Hank
CLINTON: KATRINA A "POSITIVE" THING

Former President Bill Clinton described the devastation from Hurricane Katrina as "a positive thing for our country" on Saturday (9/17/05).

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4's Today program, Clinton said that the disaster could encourage Americans to view government involvement in their lives more positively, something the Democrats wanted.

"I think [Katrina] is likely to make us far more sensitive to ...to the importance of effective, good government after repeated decades of often voting for the party that condemned government," Clinton said.

"You know, we all hate government until we need it. So as a Democrat I think that is a positive thing for our country."

Clinton also expressed hope that the disaster would bring the races closer together.

"I think people were very sensitive to the fact that it disproportionately affected Americans of color, principally African Americans, and low income Americans," Clinton said. "So I think it is likely to make us far more sensitive to things that divide us, to fight them."

President Bush has appointed Clinton, along with his own father, former President Bush, a special envoy for New Orleans, and the surrounding area.

Posted 6:03 PM by Hank
A TALE OF TWO DOCTORS

The Associated Press reports that Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, Republican, and a doctor, has gone down to Louisiana to treat hurricane victims:

The senator spent the day treating diabetics for low blood sugar and dealing with cases of high blood pressure and dehydration. Though he is a surgeon by training, there was no need to perform surgery on Saturday, he said. After overnighting in Nashville, Tenn., following his day in New Orleans, Frist planned to return to the Gulf Coast on Sunday to work in storm-ravaged areas of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as returning with supplies to New Orleans.

Meanwhile, Frist's fellow politician/physician, Democrat Party Chair Howard Dean is issuing press releases attacking Frist for his position on the estate tax.

Posted 5:23 AM by Hank
HURRICANE KATRINA: WHO SHOULD PAY FOR CLEAN-UP?

An Economics Professor tells Fox News that federal aid for disaster ravaged areas is unconstitutional:

..if we look at Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution — and I encourage all Americans to look at that before we start opening up our tax coffers to pay for all of this — we have every obligation to provide for New Orleans in terms of charity, private charity from one person to the other.
But the founding fathers never intended...to provide one dollar of taxpayer dollars to pay for any disaster or anything that we might call charity.
What we now have is the law of unintended consequences taking place, where FEMA has come into New Orleans, a place where, ecologically, it makes no sense to have levees keeping the Mississippi River from flooding into New Orleans, like it naturally should.
Now with FEMA bailing out Louisiana, bailing out Florida and lowering the overall cost of living in these places, we have people with no incentive to leave. And the law of unintended consequences means that more people are dying with every one of these storms. They're becoming more and more expensive, more and more property loss, just because the federal government has violated the Constitution to provide for these funds.

It's an interesting viewpoint and, given that, more often than not, the free market approach tends to be proven the correct one over time, it is possible the Professor is correct that less, not more, federal aid will save lives in the long run.

Posted 10:35 AM by Hank
SOMETHING DID GO WRONG

An Army intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, is alleging that his unit, known as "Able Danger," had identified two of the three cells involved in the 2001 terrorist strikes more than a year before the attacks.

According to the Associated Press:

the unit had identified Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta along with three other hijackers as terrorist suspects

However, he says, his unit was prohibited by the Clinton Administration from passing the information along to the FBI "out of concerns about the legality of gathering and sharing information on people in the U.S."

"The lawyers' view was to leave them alone, they had the same basic rights as a U.S. citizen, a U.S. person and therefore the data was kind of left alone," Shaffer said.
Shaffer said he and a Navy officer disagreed with that and tried to set up meetings with the FBI, but each time the idea was rejected by lawyers from the Special Operations command.
"There was a feeling ... if we give this information to the FBI and something goes wrong, we're going to get blamed for whatever goes wrong," Shaffer said.

Posted 7:59 AM by Hank
“FREE SPEECH”, ITHACA STYLE
(August, 2005, ed.)

Today’s Ithaca Journal editorial page is a good primer on what passes for “free speech” in what claims to be “the most enlightened city in America.”

First, there are letters to the editor about recent liberal calls to censor both Rush Limbaugh and "the Wizard of Id" from the city’s airwaves and newspapers.

Then there is the paper’s own editorial, which calls for the end to “inane, insulting and infuriating” Native American nicknames for sports teams.

In support of their call for censoring these team names, the paper trotted out the usual litany of alleged sins committed by the United States against Indians. In fact, the newspaper went so far as to compare the U.S. to Nazi Germany in its choice of team names:

Imagine, just for a horrifying moment, the Nazis won a partial victory in World War II….Move to the 21st century. Sitting in a giant football stadium in Berlin, you get set to watch Paris play Warsaw for the German national collegiate title. The Frogs vs. The Ghetto Fighters, complete with a tall man dressed like Joan d' Arc on a paper mache horse chasing a short Moses parody with foam rubber tablets and oversized staff. …Inane? Insulting? Infuriating? Good. Now you get it. Native Americans have been enduring this cultural insult for decades.

Ironically, however, the paper, in using hypothetical “European” nicknames as “The Frogs” and “The [ Warsaw ] Ghetto Fighters” to illustrate what would be “hostile and abusive” towards those of European descent, did not bother to condemn other “ethnic” nicknames, such as the “Fighting Irish” or “Trojans.”

This would seem to demonstrate that, in Ithaca, “cultural insults” are apparently fine against some ethnic groups, but not others.

In fact, between the Indian nicknames, “the Wizard of Id,” and Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, it would seem to demonstrate that even the local newspapers support censorship, as long as the “right” voices are censored.

Posted 4:55 AM by Hank
Paper: New yellow Ithaca police Beetle: ‘Not striking fear'

ITHACA NY--The Ithaca Police have a new patrol car: a yellow Volkswagon bug.

I am not making this up.

Today’s Ithaca Journal reports that Police Chief Lauren Signer used the year’s patrol car budget to buy two bright yellow beetles for the department, for a total cost of $30,858. One was striped and fitted like a “normal” police car, and is used downtown. The other is driven by Signer “as part of her compensation package for the post.”

Reaction from the community has ranged from disgusted to amused.

The Journal, in a bold display of journalistic insight, noted “The cost for the new Beetles may not be justified.”

One city council member was insulted that the car was not patrolling his own neighborhood, claiming that the more traditional police cars used in in his district were reflective of “police officers in combat boots.”

Others referred to the new patrol car as as “a clown mobile” or “clown car.”

“It's not really striking the fear into anyone,” one person told the Journal.

Posted 8:00 PM by Hank
ADM. JAMES STOCKDALE, R.I.P.

Retired vice admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot's running mate in 1992, died yesterday at 81, the Associated Press reports:

Stockdale gave a stumbling performance in the nationally televised vice-presidential debate against Dan Quayle and Al Gore and later said he didn't feel comfortable in the public eye.
"Who am I? Why am I here?" he asked rhetorically in his opening statement. Toward the end, he asked the moderator to repeat a question, saying, "I didn't have my hearing aid turned on."

What many didn't realize was that Stockdale lost his hearing as Prisoner of War in Vietnam:

[He spent] seven years in a North Vietnamese prison, where extensive physical torture became a ritual, and where Stockdale gambled his own life to force better conditions for his fellow prisoners. His back was broken, one leg was shattered beyond repair, his shoulders were torn from their sockets, and his hearing was irreparably damaged.
Stockdale was made a particular target of his captors. He was the POW leader; it was obvious he was counseling defiance. He was informed one day that he would be taken downtown to read a propaganda statement.
"They were always careful not to torture us in ways that would look too obvious, like punishment to the face. They wanted it to seem like we were making these statements of our own free will, which of course would have been ludicrous."
"While they were gone, I picked up a mahogany stool and bashed my own face with it," Stockdale says. "Both my eyes swelled up and closed. They couldn't take me out in public now because anyone seeing it would think they'd beaten me to make me cooperate."
As punishment, Stockdale spent much of the next two years in solitary confinement, usually in leg irons. He was tortured more than a dozen times. Undeterred, he communicated with other prisoners by tapping out code on cell walls with tin cups. Whenever he was allowed to talk directly with other Americans, he instructed them to resist any form of cooperation with the Viet Cong.

Stockdate was a patriot, a war hero and, as Dennis Miller noted, "a brilliant, sensitive, courageous man. And yet he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture: he was bad on television."

Rest in Peace, sir.

Posted 9:45 AM by Hank
AND THAT'S WHAT INDEPENDENCE DAY IS ALL ABOUT, CHARLIE BROWN...

From the Finger Lakes Times, a small town paper in upstate New York, comes this combination of good news from Iraq and a nice reminder of what July 4 really stands for:

[Spc. Christopher Bean], 20, of Port Gibson, finished up a year-long stint in Baghdad as a truck driver with the 594th Transportation Co., a 101st Airborne division. His time in the military has given him a different perspective on the Fourth of July.

“In Iraq, we’re not fighting for ourselves,” said Bean, “We’re over there fighting so the Iraqis can have their own Fourth of July.”
One of the things that struck Bean most about his time in Iraq was the people themselves. Most of the Iraqis he met were proud to have the Americans there, he said, and watching them go through their daily lives made him appreciate the historic significance of our Independence Day.
“Being there really opens your eyes to what our forefathers went through to get the freedom we have today,” he said.
Before he was deployed to Baghdad in June 2004, Bean said the Fourth of July was just another holiday.
“It was basically another day to have fun and spend time with people,” he said.
While the Beans celebrate today, safe in the knowledge that their soldier is home, other military families face the Fourth of July with proud, but heavy, hearts.
For almost 17 years, Tina Smith of Waterloo has lived with her husband, Dave, being in the Army. A unit armorer for the Army National Guard E Troop 101st Calvary serving in Iraq, Smith is also a Seneca County sheriff’s deputy.
“He’s got two jobs that he loves,” Tina said. “One is for his country, and the other is for his county.”

Tina said her daughters, Stephanie, 13, Miranda, 11, and Rhiannon, 8, understand that their father is in the Army and they’re very proud of him.
When Rhiannon’s school had a coffee break for Father’s Day, Tina said, she took her uncle and explained to her friends that “Daddy is in Iraq protecting us.”
Today will be spent at a simple barbecue with family and friends, Tina Smith said.
“It means a lot more to us because we’re a military family,” she said.
“My kids and I know what he’s doing there, and we agree with it,” she added.

Posted 8:34 AM by Hank
SLOW NEWS DAY IN UPSTATE NEW YORK:

Apparently, every time a single person tries to talk people out of seeing a movie, its big news in Rochester, New York.

A local TV station is reporting that a "a local college student tried to get people to ...not to go to Tom Cruise's latest movie, 'War of the Worlds.'"

Fugle believes Cruise is adding to the stigma of mental illness, by talking about his scientology beliefs. Cruise made comments about...post partum depression [and claimed it can be cured] by taking vitamins.

Better alert the media, since I plan on telling my wife I don't want to go to anymore foreign art flicks.

Posted 5:53 PM by Hank
"NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING
WRONG WITH IT?"

First Hoover, then Lincoln, now "Malcolm X, gay icon":

Marking what would have been Malcolm's 80th birthday, Peter Tatchell writes in London's Guardian that "Now it is time to blow the whistle. Young black lesbians and gays need role models."
Tatchell, who calls Malcolm a personal "inspiration," cites the 1991 book "Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America," which quotes a friend who claims Malcolm experimented sexually with men from childhood until he joined the Nation of Islam.
Biographer Bruce Perry contended that Malcolm had sex with men for money in his early 20s and struck up a friendship with a transvestite named Willie Mae.

The article (fourth item) goes on to note that filmmaker Spike Lee has called this allegation "blatant character assassination." That's an interesting description, implying that Mr. Lee thinks being gay is, to put it mildly, a character flaw.

It will be interesting to see whether other leaders of the civil rights community consider this allegation an attack on Mr. X. If they do, it would seem to imply that they also think homosexuality is wrong.

Posted 6:42 PM by Hank
WES CLARK COMPARES BUSH TO DARTH VADER

ITHACA--Apparently, democrats are tired of comparing President Bush to Hitler, and have decided to compare him to fictional dictators for the rest of the summer.

Speaking at Cornell University's convocation on Saturday (May 28), former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark compared the President to "Star Wars" supervillain Darth Vader:

"We don't need the kind of leadership that is so hackneyed that George Lucas quotes it in "Star Wars:" 'If you're not with us, you're against us,' " Clark said to an over-capacity crowd

Ironically, "Star Wars" creator George Lucas himself has denied the Bush-Vader comparison.

However, apparently Clark, like many modern Democrats, will not let the facts stand in the way of a good Bush attack.

Posted 6:04 AM by Hank
DEM CONGRESSMAN BLAMES "REPUBLICAN SPIN” FOR $161,000 IN JUNKET MONEY

ITHACA"New York State Congressman Maurice Hinchey, recently under fire for “racking up a stunning $161,393 [in free travel] footed by special-interest groups,” is excusing his actions by blaming “Republican spin.” But a non-partisan group tells a different story.

Writing in the Ithaca Journal, Hinchey, claims that his trips, to such places as Rome, Shanghai and Morocco, are ethical because he does not consider the groups that footed the bills to be lobbyists:

"[A]ll of my privately funded trips abroad have been sponsored by well-known and highly regarded non-partisan, non-profit organizations that are dedicated to informing public policy.”

Therefore, Hinchey blames “Republican spin” for his reputation as “New York's king of comped travel.”

However, according to the non-partisan website, PoliticalMoneyLine, this does not, as Hinchey implies, mean that the groups are unaffiliated with lobbyists:

"There is no legal prohibition to prevent a lobbyist from serving on the board of these organizations, and in some cases lobbyists may encourage a client to contribute to the non-profit. In some cases, serving on a non-profit's board permits the lobbyist to participate in the sponsored event or travel for Members of Congress."

In defending his actions, Hinchey also fails to mention that, while all of his foreign travel is funded by “non-partisan, non-profit organizations,” his domestic travel is not.

For example, PoliticalMoneyLine reports, in December, 2003, Hinchey traveled to Naples, Florida, as guest of the American Shipbuilding Association, racking up nearly $1800, in meals and lodging in that resort community.

Hinchey closes his defense of this travel by stating he plans to travel to Ithaca soon, to hold a “community forum” and meet with Ithaca Journal editors. No word yet on which “non-partisan” group will be footing the bill.

Posted 11:41 AM by Hank
GANNETT EDITOR: OK TO VANDALIZE PROPERTY,
THROW BLOOD ON FLAG

A Gannett News editor has called for the dismissal of criminal charges against four anti-war protesters who vandalized an Army recruiting office near Ithaca, New York and poured blood on the office's American flag.

Writing in his syndicated column, Dave Rossie justified the actions of the self-styled "St. Patrick's Day Four" as necessary to counter "Americans' sheep-like acceptance of this administration's lies and deceptions" over the war in Iraq:

The defendants have said they acted out of conscience in opposition to an unjust and illegal war, and it would be unfair, it says here, to doubt their motives. They certainly had nothing to gain from what they did. Defenders of our misadventure in Iraq bridle at comparisons with Vietnam, but they are becoming impossible to ignore. Civilian protest is but one example. Home front protests against our involvement in Vietnam were far more explosive and widespread, and they helped bring that sorry episode in our history to an end.

Because the defendants acted out of "conscience," Rossie noted, "The federal judge should toss the case after opening arguments."

In addition to writing a column for Gannett, Rossie serves associate editor of the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, in Vestal, New York.

Unless he is a hypocrite, it would seem that he invites anyone who, in good conscience, disagrees with what he wrote to go there and trash his office, with no threat of criminal prosecution whatsoever

Posted 11:34 AM by Hank
ITHACA COLLEGE PAPERS STOLEN AS "RACIST"

ITHACA, NY—Another college newspaper was stolen and thrown out to protest its “racist” coverage earlier this month.

According to published reports, “hundreds” of copies of the April 21 edition of the Ithacan, the official student newspaper of Ithaca College, were stolen and thrown out that evening.

One of the thieves was later identified, reports indicate. “She said she had been upset with the paper for …what she saw as the lack of coverage of the Erase the Hate rally,” the Ithacan editors reported.

The “Erase the Hate” rally was a billed as a response to a series of “racial slurs” that were written in various places all around Ithaca College earlier in April. “These incidents were preceded by bias-related incidents against Asians, African-Americans and women in February and March,” the Cornell Daily Sun reported.

The student was not the only person on campus who attacked the paper for not giving the rally “sufficient” coverage, the Ithacan noted:

One politics professor was described as “ranting and raving,” alleging the paper was “racist” because The Ithacan did not cover the rally in the print edition and instead covered it online. The paper covered the rally online with more than 30 photos so that students could read about the event that day, rather than waiting a full week.

Ironically, prior to the newspaper theft, organizers of the “Erase the Hate” rally had reportedly billed the event as a way to “look for solutions to deal with intolerance” on the Ithaca campus.

“Newspaper theft is a crime in New York state. The loss of hundreds of copies means lost printing costs, labor costs and revenue from ads readers never saw. It also robs other students of the opportunity to be informed,” the Ithacan reported.

The same month that hundreds of newspapers were stolen on campus, a single “gay pride” flag was also stolen from a flagpole at Ithaca College.

Unlike the theft of the newspapers, the theft of the gay pride flag has generated intense local coverage, both on and off campus, with calls for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.

Posted 6:22 AM by Hank
THIS "STRIKE" COULD LAST FOR MONTHS...

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Diana Ponce talks on a phone in the yard of her San Pablo home Wednesday, the fifth day of a hunger strike to protest the gathering of armed volunteers, the Minuteman Project, at the Arizona-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States. Chronicle photo by John O'Hara

Posted 11:33 AM by Hank
THE FLAT TAXMAN COMETH?

Okay, fair tax and flat tax advocates, now is our chance to speak up. From today's LA Times, comes the invitation to "Add Your 2 Cents to Ideas for a Tax Code Makeover"

Hate the U.S. tax code? Now's the time to speak up.

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, four months into examining what's wrong with the U.S. income tax system, is soliciting ideas from the public.

It is possibly the first time in history — and certainly the first time in generations — that the general public has been asked to help revamp tax law.

Reform plans should incorporate the president's goal of simplifying the code without shedding its progressive nature — richer Americans paying a higher percentage of income than those with less income pay. The code should continue to "recognize the importance of home ownership and charity in society," according to the mandate the president gave the panel. And, reform plans must be "revenue neutral" — neither increasing nor decreasing what the government rakes in.

[The panel]suggests that reform proposals be as specific as possible, including such details as what exemptions, credits and deductions would remain in the revamped system and how the proposal would distribute tax burdens by income groups.

Americans who want to weigh in on taxation can contact the panel by e-mail at comments@taxreformpanel.gov.

The article also notes that "Taxpayers have until Friday to submit proposals on how to fix or replace the income tax system," so don't delay.

Posted 9:37 AM by Hank
WOULDN'T IT HAVE BETTER TO HOLD A TRIAL?

"Man acquitted of murder in gunfight"--

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Posted 4:37 AM by Hank
WHAT PASSES FOR "INTELLIGENT DISCOURSE" ON THE LEFT TODAY...

Comic book artist Alex Ross apparently drew this picture of President Bush for the October 2004 Village Voice, entitled "Sucking Democracy Dry":

You hear a lot from conservatives that liberals "hate" the President. This seems to be another example of that.

It also seems like a good example of how this hatred has prevented, and is preventing, them from making a serious argument against the President.

Portraying a world leader as a blood sucking monster is neither original nor insightful. In fact, the voice could have saved itself Ross's commission and just drawn devil horns and fangs on a picture of the President to make the same simplistic point.

And they wonder why they lost the election.

Posted 2:47 PM by Hank
NEW YORK'S COOKIE MONSTERS

Heading into its 21st year without an on-time budget, the State of New York is working diligently to put aside its partisan differences and select....a state cookie.

According to the Elmira Star Gazette:

Assemblywoman Sandra Lee Wirth, R-Elma, Erie County, has proposed making cinnamon applesauce the official New York cookie.
"Given both the popularity of the cinnamon applesauce cookie, and its symbolic representation of both New York's apple growers and of agriculture in general, no better candidate for the official cookie can be imagined," says Wirth's memo on the bill to settle the cookie debate once and for all.

If a state cookie is chosen, it would join other state "mascots," including "a state beverage (milk) and a state muffin (apple) ...a state insect (ladybug) and state fossil (sea scorpion)."

Wirth all but admits her bill is "frivolous" and "stupid," but defends it as a "lesson" to an elementary school in her district.

I'd submit it's a lesson, just not the one our elected officials intended.

Posted 7:04 AM by Hank
CORNELL CUTS FUNDING FOR PRO-LIFE, OTHER, GROUPS; "ROE" VISIT CANCELLED.

ITHACA NY--Following a thirty-three percent cut in its funding, the Cornell Coalition for Life was prevented from bringing pro-life activict Norma McCorvey to speak at Cornell, the Cornell Daily Sun reports.

McCorvey is better known as Jane Roe, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court case that created the right to abortion. In 1995, she converted to evangelical Christianity and founded an anti-abortion organization called Roe No More.

McCorvey was scheduled to speak on campus, and the event was confirmed last year, the article says. However the University's Student Assembly Finance Committee cut the group's budget last week, the article explains.

According to the article:

The student organizations sponsoring the event asked for $5,700 and received $3,800 from the SAFC. [Paul Ibrahim, the group's president] said that he had committed at least 80 hours personally planning the event and that McCorvey had spent time scheduling and planning as well. According to Ibrahim, $700 in funds from co-sponsoring organizations had already been spent on the event.

According to the article, the Student Assembly maintains that the budget cuts were "for all student organizations," not just Cornell Coalition for Life.

However, Ibrahim feels that SAFC money could be better allocated among different types of groups, with more diverse political views, noting "'There are so many identical groups that [the SAFC] keeps funding ...'"

The article reports that the Cornell Coalition for Life will continue fund-raising to bring McCorvey to campus. Other potential fund-raising options, the article notes, include, "CU2Nite" and sponsorship through one of Cornell's academic departments.

However, given that studies have indicated that only approximately three percent of Cornell's faculty are Republican or Conservative, the student group may have little luck funding such a sponsor.

Posted 9:58 AM by Hank
DEAN ADMITS:
TROUBLE FOR SOCIAL SECURITY IF NOTHING DONE

ITHACA NY—Newly elected Democratic National Commitee Chair Howard Dean, speaking at a Cornell University rally Wednesday (February 23), admitted that social security faced “problems” if not reformed, contradicting the claims of many in his own party.

According to the Cornell Daily Sun, which covered the event locally, “Dean pointed out that…if Social Security were left alone for 30 years, its benefits would be reduced to 80 percent of what it is now. He acknowledged that… there were indeed problems with the program.”

The article also indicates that Dean also attacked the notion of many that social security was a “pension” for the middle class: “ ’[Social Security] was a response toward [overcoming] abject poverty...it is not meant as a retirement program...it was meant as a social safety net for people who had reached the end of their working careers and did not deserve, after a long lifetime of dignified work, to live in poverty,'" the paper quotes Dean as saying. "'It's not supposed to be a pension.’ "

While Dean did not endorse President Bush’s call for privatization, his views still put him at odds with many of his fellow democrats, some of whom have actually accused the President of lying about the need to reform to social security.

For example, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy recently accused President Bush of playing “the politics of fear” with social security.

Similarly, a number of the liberal blogs, a medium Dean himself helped pioneer as a campaign tool, accused the President of “"crisis rhetoric"” and "a deliberate distortion (read: lie) in an attempt to mislead the American public."

It is unknown whether Dean’s acknowledgement of the “problems” with social security will have any effect on the direction of his party. In fact, while the Cornell Sun indicated that social security issues were a major point in Dean’s speech, other papers, such as the Ithaca Journal and Syracuse Post Standard, did not even cover his comments on the issue, preferring to focus on Dean’s appeal to the “youth vote.”

Posted 6:53 AM by Hank
NEW YORK'S "WILLIE HORTON" IN WAITING?

The New York Post is reporting that a college student who died of a drug overdose in New York City, was "partying" with a convicted felon out on "work release:"

Veronica Hagman, a 22-year-old psychology major...at Western Connecticut State University, met buff inmate Javier Tamez at the trendy Chelsea nightclub Crobar on Saturday night.
Tamez, a construction worker who grew up in Queens, was doing hard time while Hagman was making the dean's list....In 2002, he was sentenced to five to 15 years after pleading guilty to attempted sale of a controlled substance. The sentence was later slashed under a 1997 law that gives inmates "merit release credits" for good behavior.
That made him eligible for work release last June, when he was assigned to a minimum-security facility on West 110th Street near Central Park West.
In December, he was able to move into his own apartment, but was required to return weekly to show proof of employment and have occasional drug tests.
A state Correctional Services spokesman said Tamez's work-release status may be in jeopardy because of the circumstances surrounding Hagman's death.

The article also notes that "Tamez, 27, told police they spent the day partying and popping ecstasy in his Maspeth apartment."

There's no evidence reported so far that Tamez deliberately caused the girl's death. However, if the rules governing New York State's work release program are so lax that a convicted felon can be out going to nightclubs and "popping ecstasy," it is not a very far stretch to assume that another inmate in the program could be out robbing, raping or murdering someone, instead of behind bars where he belongs.

New York Governor George Pataki is often rumored to have national political ambitions. If so, he had better end this program immediately, before another "Willie Horton" makes him the Mike Dukakis of the Republican party.

Posted 4:50 PM by Hank
THE CBS MEMO MYSTERY "SOLVED"

Democratic Congressman Maurice Hinchey, who represents parts of Upstate New York, including Ithaca, the City of Evil, has "solved" the mystery of who forged those fake National Guard documents about President Bush that CBS aired.

According to Hinchey, as reported at Little Green Footballs, the culprit is...Karl Rove?!?!

...it originated with Karl Rove, in my belief, in the White House. They set that up with those false papers....They knew that he had no defense for that period in his life. And so what they did was, expecting that that was going to come up, they accentuated it: they produced papers that made it look even worse. And they — and they distributed those out to elements of the media. And it was only — what, like was it CBS? Or whatever, whatever which one Rather works for. They — the people there — they finally bought into it, and they, and they aired it. And when they did, they had ’em.

When pressed by an audience member, Hinchey at first claimed he had proof of this, but then backed off and admitted he did not.

This story has been making the rounds of the blogs all day, and even CNN and Fox News have done stories on it now.

Which, of course, is hardly surprising. After all, not only is a long serving member of Congress spouting a completely improbably conspiracy theory, but, in doing so, he is recklessly accusing a Senior White House official of committing a felony.

However, in regard to local coverage, the Ithaca Journal and other papers in Hinchey's district devoted...not...one...word to Hinchey's conspiracy theory, instead reporting simply that Hinchey had discussed social security issues at the event in question:

Leave Social Security alone. That was the message U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-22nd District, had for President George W. Bush as he addressed more than 50 people at a community forum Saturday at the Ithaca Town Hall.

The first impulse when faced with this lack of non-coverage is to assume liberal bias, or an instinct to protect a Democrat Member of Congress. However, maybe it is simpler than that.

Perhaps the local press is now so used to the partisan nature of the Democrat Party that outlandish, unsupported, attacks on Republicans are no longer news?

Sarcasm aside, either way, this story says less about President Bush, and more about the people who oppose him, both in politics and the media.

Posted 6:55 AM by Hank
BLACK HISTORY IN ITHACA: A MODERN MINSTREL SHOW

ITHACA, NY—Instead of pride at the accomplishments of African-Americans, students in Ithaca are being taught that “black history” is little more than exercises in “simulated racism,” and reinforced stereotypes.

According to the Ithaca Journal, middle school students spent the day engaged in classes such as "Jim Crow Simulation" as part of a “diversity” program called "Black History, what does it mean to me?”

According to the Journal, one of the ways that the school helped students “understand racism” was to break them into groups. Once broken into groups, the students “were instructed to take a brief written test, not knowing there were actually two sets of tests distributed -- one easy, one difficult.”

This, the staff argued, was meant “to draw empathy," for African-Americans, completely missing the implication they created that Blacks find learning more "difficult" than whites.

The article also notes there were workshops about the African-American community’s success in “anything from hip-hop … to blues,” as well as “a dance presentation.” There were also presentations in cooking “hush puppies.”

Once again, it seems that the educators missed the subtle message of what they were doing: telling their students that the only accomplishments of African-Americans worth celebrating are as entertainers and cooks, reinforcing the unfortunate stereotype of blacks as little more than minstrels and servants.

Following a day of victimhood and stereotyping, one of the students happily told the Journal, "It was a firsthand opportunity to see how racism is."

Little does the student know, the real racism was coming from his teachers.

Posted 6:18 AM by Hank
AIDS: WORSE THAN EVER?

Bad news in the war on AIDS: both New York City and Boston are reporting a "strain of highly drug-resistant HIV that quickly progressed to AIDS."

As noted here:

"This is just scary. This just throws out the medicine chest," said Dr. Charles Gonzalez, an AIDS specialist at NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital.
Modern treatments rely on a cocktail of two to three types of drugs...that combat HIV. But because three of the four types of drugs are ineffective against the new mutant strain, options are bleak....

Given how fast mutating the HIV virus seems to be, it looks like we may need to return to the days of encouraging prevention, through abstinence and safe sex, rather than holding out for a cure.

Posted 7:12 AM by Hank
HOW MANY ELECTIONS CAN ROVE STEAL, ANYWAY?

In an editorial in the Ithaca Journal, Susan Buck-Morss, a "professor of political philosophy and social theory at Cornell University" wrings her hands over the recent Iraqi elections and argues they may not be legitimate.

Bush-Morss, in arguing against the election results, attacks the election on issues that including campaign financing, ethnic politics and not letting prisoners vote.

In other words, she seems to hinting that "Bush stole another election."

My first thought was that this was just more "sour grapes" from the left, stuck in a rhetorical rut that forces them to mistake rehashing conspiracy theories and Bush hatred for intelligent ideas.

Then it occurred to me: maybe this is part of another "insidious Karl Rove master plan."

Perhaps Rove purposefully had the Bush team set up the elections this way to draw in the left. Perhaps, Rove thought, this will draw not just terrorists, but liberals, to Iraq.

For example, if their behavior over here is any guide, Jesse Jackson can show up and argue that the Iraqis were "disenfranchised." Howard Dean can fly over there and scream for Iraqi campaign finance reform. John Kerry can claim the elections were fair, but then "flip flop" and call for an investigation to make sure they were.

Barbara Boxer can stand on the steps of the Iraqi capitol, tears streaming down her burka-covered face, and argue that the results should not be certified. Thousands of American college students can go over for the Iraqi inauguration and turn their backs on the new President. In fact, the possibilities for leftist mischief over there are endless now.

So, I say keep finding new ways to attack the Iraq elections, liberals, especially if you can go over there and do it in person. And especially if you don't ever come back.

Posted 6:33 PM by Hank
MAYBE THEY THOUGHT IT WAS A SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT?

Well, so much for Democrat calls for civility:

Democrats... booed President Bush twice last night during his State of the Union Address as he detailed his plan to save Social Security, a program that even President Clinton acknowledged eight years ago was in trouble.
"Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in," he explained. "And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before...By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt."
At that Democrats in the chamber erupted in groans, boos and howls of "No." Bush continued on, however, pretending to be oblivious to the interruption

This is proof positive of just how partisan, divisive and, yes, hateful the Democrat Party has become: not simply members of the public, or protestors, but elected members of Congress, the Democrat Party's "official representatives", are acting like drunken fans at a basketball game, during the State of the Union.

Nobody is saying the opposition party has to agree with everything a President says. Certainly, no one is saying they need to applaud his every word. But for any politician to rudely "boo" another, especially during this particular speech, is beyond the pale.

For over four years now, Democrats have been saying "Bush promised to be a uniter, not a divider." They then go on to claim that Bush is a divider.

Their basis that Bush is a "divider"? Typically it's that he has the "nerve" to propose something they don't agree with. And even when Bush cuts a compromise with the Democrats (for example the Education bill with Ted Kennedy), the Democrats still attack him and claim Bush isn't being a "uniter."

Now, we reach the point where the President can't even give the State of the Union Address without being subjected to partisan booing.

If the President can't even address Congress without the Democrats there booing him, I think it's finally laid bare who are the real "dividers" here.

Posted 1:10 PM by Hank
DEJA VU ALL OVER THE WEB

There must be a glitch in "the Matrix."

The "Wal-Mart Living Wage Coalition," of Ithaca, New York, has its own website, which features a picture of a handful of the many committed, "ethnically diverse," men and women of Ithaca who tirelessly work against Wal-Mart's everyday low prices and job opportunities for the disadvantaged class.

Incidentally, the exact same committed, "ethnically diverse," men and women are also featured at Ithaca's own Bush MUST Go website, telling us not to vote for the recently re-elected Republican:

If you are wondering why they use the same picture, it might be because this is what the bulk of the "living wage coalition" actually looks like:

I guess the ones at the two websites are the only Ithacites that take the time to bathe or shave on a regular basis.