Stephen Payne, a “GOP lobbyist and fundraiser with close ties to the White House has quit a Homeland Security Department advisory committee following allegations of influence peddling and quid pro quo donations to the Bush presidential library,” UPI reports:

Department spokeswoman Laura Keehner confirmed to United Press International that Stephen Payne was asked to resign. [...]

“The department asked him to step down” from his post on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, Keehner said, declining to comment on the reasons.

[Payne] said he had resigned from the advisory council because “under the current circumstances there will be too many distractions for me to successfully focus on (its) important work.”

Both DHS and the House Oversight Committee have opened investigations into Payne’s activities. The watchdog group CREW is urging the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Payne and his relationship with the Bush administration. (HT: TPM)

Today, lawyers for Canadian national Omar Khadr, a Guantanamo detainee, released an interrogation video from 2003, showing Khadr weeping and begging for better medical treatment. Discussing the video today on Fox News, host Trace Gallagher declared Khadr had killed an American solider — Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade — and so “maybe he deserves” to be tortured. Watch it:

According to reports, Khadr — who was just 15 years old when captured — was tortured while held by the U.S. in Bagram, Afghanistan, where “he was repeatedly brought into interrogation rooms on stretchers, in great pain” and “pain medication was withheld, apparently to induce cooperation.”

In May, British international lawyer Philippe Sands told Vanity Fair that Iraq war architect Doug Feith was instrumental in the Bush administration’s shredding of the Geneva Conventions. Feith “took the steps to ensure that none of these detainees could rely on Geneva,” Sands said.

In a house hearing today, Feith disputed Sands’s interview, calling it a “twisted account.” “I strongly championed a policy of respect for Geneva, and I did not recommend that the President set aside Common Article 3,” he claimed. Feith said Sands had “smeared” him:

So Mr. Sands’s account about me is fundamentally wrong. This is important not because that account smears me, it’s significant because it exposes the astonishing carelessness or recklessness of his book and his Vanity Fair article.

In his opening statement, Sands said Feith’s claim “is not an accurate statement.” “I did interview Mr. Feith for my book,” Sands explained, volunteering to make available the “audio and the transcript” of his interview to the committee. Sands said that Feith told him that detainees were not to receive Geneva protections “at all”:

This is what he said to me: “The point is, the al Qaeda people were not entitled to have the Convention applied at all. Period. Obvious.”

Watch it:

Feith has tried to whitewash his role in the administration’s torture program before, for example, telling right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt that he was “extremely strongly pro-Geneva convention.”

Another torture architect who has worked closely with Feith has tried a similar attack on Sands. Last month, John Yoo said Sands had falsely claimed he interviewed Yoo, claiming it “reflects on the veracity of the balance of the book.” Sands in fact never made such a claim and was quoting Yoo’s statements from a 2005 debate.

In a press conference today previewing a House Republican trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that’s meant to promote drilling, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) doubted the existence of actual wildlife in the refuge. “We’re going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I’m hoping to see some wildlife,” said Boehner. “But I understand there’s none there.” Boehner repeated his skepticism during an interview on CNN, telling Wolf Blitzer, “I’ll be looking for all that wildlife.” Ironically, CNN paired Boehner’s interview with b-roll of actual wildlife moving around the refuge. Watch it:

Boehner would likely be less skeptical if he just visited the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s website for the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which notes that it is “renowned for its wildlife” and is inhabited by 45 species of land and marine mammals, 36 species of fish and 180 species of birds. View photos of some of the wildlife here.

The blog Rum, Romanism and Rebellion pulls out a 1986 Tucson Citizen article recounting a joke about rape told by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Speaking to the National League of Cities and Towns in Washington, DC, McCain allegedly said:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, “Where is that marvelous ape?”

McCain was swiftly criticized by women’s groups. A spokeswoman for NOW in Arizona said the organization’s members were “incensed by his cruel and sexist remark.” McCain said he did not “recall” telling the joke. More recently, the McCain campaign scheduled a fundraiser with a Texas oilman who compared rape to the weather while running for governor. “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it,” said Clayton Williams in 1990. After public outcry, the event was “postponed.”

Digg It!

During his townhall meeting in New Mexico today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “our commanders on the ground in Afghanistan say that they need at least three additional brigades.” “Thanks to the success of the surge, these forces are becoming available,” added McCain. “Our commanders in Afghanistan must get them.” Watch it:

But on his campaign bus after the event, McCain “modified his assertion” that the U.S. could send three additional brigades to Afghanistan by drawing on troops that were leaving Iraq. Instead, he told reporters that “he might call on NATO to supply part of the additional troops he hopes to send to the region.”