McCain’s 10-second flip on whether he voted for Bush: ‘Of course not,’ ‘Of course.’
McCain’s 10-second flip on whether he voted for Bush: ‘Of course not,’ ‘Of course.’
This week, Arianna Huffington said that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his wife, Cindy, told her at a Los Angeles dinner party not long after the 2000 election that neither of them voted for George Bush. A McCain spokesman insisted “it’s not true,” and told reporters to “consider the source.” Appearing on Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor last night, McCain tried to clarify:
O’REILLY: Did you vote for President Bush?
MCCAIN: Of course not. I campaigned all over this country for him.
O’REILLY: So you voted for President Bush.
MCCAIN: Of course. I mean, that’s a ridiculous question.
Watch it:
Today, the New York Times reports that two other attendees at that Los Angeles dinner, “West Wing” actors Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff, say they, too, heard McCain say he had not voted for Bush.
McCain Stays Silent On Hagee’s Homophobic Slurs
McCain Stays Silent On Hagee’s Homophobic Slurs
Earlier this week, right wing pastor John Hagee, a supporter of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), re-embraced his oft-repeated belief that Hurricane Katrina represented “the curse of God” for the sins of New Orleans. Though the media have put McCain on the spot over Hagee’s characterization of the Catholic Church as “the Great Whore,” they have been reticent to press McCain on Hagee’s homophobic comments.
To his credit, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked McCain last night about the “bad things” Hagee has said “about Catholics and gays and other things like that.” McCain only repudiated the statements about the Catholic church, however, tacitly refusing to denounce Hagee’s despicable homophobic slurs:
O’REILLY: OK. John Hagee is a guy…
MCCAIN: Yes.
O’REILLY: …that you sought his endorsement in San Antonio, Texas. He said bad things about Catholics and gays and other things like that. And your opponents are saying, hey, you know, McCain hangs around with Hagee. Obama hangs around Wright. No difference.
MCCAIN: I do not embrace a view that he stated about the Catholic church. I steadfastly reject it and repudiate it. I’ve never been in Pastor Hagee’s church. I know him, but the fact is that I accept his endorsement.
Watch it:
Throughout the controversy, right wingers have completely ignored Hagee’s anti-gay comments. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich said McCain “should make clear that he disagrees with statements of anti-Catholicism.” He was silent, however, about Hagee’s homophobia. In the past, McCain has repeatedly rejected Hagee’s Catholic comments, but has refused to distance himself from Hagee’s anti-gay comments (even rejecting a question from a reporter on the subject as “nonsense.”)
O’Reilly suggested that McCain had little interaction with Hagee other than “having breakfast” with him once. In fact, as Newsweek pointed out, “McCain personally wooed Hagee for more than a year.” Indeed, Hagee’s endorsement was an integral part of McCain’s attempts to woo religious conservatives.
Latest KBR scandal: contractors accused of sexual harrassment at British Embassy in Iraq.
Latest KBR scandal: contractors accused of sexual harrassment at British Embassy in Iraq.
The latest in a long, long line of scandals plaguing Iraq contracting company KBR, today the Times of London reports that British employees of KBR working in the British Embassy in Iraq have been accused of sexual harassment. One Iraqi woman, a cleaner at the embassy, says that the KBR employee offered to double her pay if she slept with him; when she refused, she was fired:
The Iraqis accuse the embassy of leaving the abuse unchallenged and failing adequately to respond to complaints against several British managers for KBR. The company was allowed to conduct its own inquiry, an arrangement criticised as a very serious conflict of interest.
The complainants — the cleaner and two male cooks who worked in the embassy canteen — say that some KBR managers groped Iraqi staff regularly, paid or otherwise rewarded them for sex and dismissed those who refused or spoke out.
All three Iraqis lost their jobs in the Green Zone. Two KRB employees who worked in the embassy spoke out in support of the women; a few days later, KBR sent them home on paid leave and later fired them. The women also say KBR never interviewed them when conducting their internal review.
Elizabeth Edwards: ‘Most Preventable Cause Of Unnecessary Suffering’ Is Lack Of Health Insurance
Elizabeth Edwards: ‘Most Preventable Cause Of Unnecessary Suffering’ Is Lack Of Health Insurance
Conservatives love to crow that the United States has “the best health care in the world.” Yet these same conservatives overlook the fact that 47 million Americans lack any health insurance at all, leaving them shut out of access to this world-class health care.
Indeed, as Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Elizabeth Edwards told the Senate Health Committee today, “It doesn’t matter what kind of services we have if we don’t have access to them”:
Health insurance matters. The quality of coverage, of course, matters, but health insurance itself is really crucial part of this. Probably the most preventable cause of unnecessary suffering in our health care system is the lack of adequate health insurance. … We know how to lengthen and improve the lives of people with cancer. But we’ve chosen as a nation to turn our backs on some of us who have the disease. I urge you to reform health care responsibly, morally, and aggressively.
Watch it:
Edwards urged the senators to “build on the successful system of employer-based coverage,” a system that covers 158 million Americans — and that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has promised to completely dismantle. Instead, he has proposed a paltry $5,000 tax credit for individuals to fend for themselves in the health insurance market, even though the average annual premium of an employer-based insurance policy is $12,000.
Edwards also mentioned the disturbing disparities in access faced by minorities. FamiliesUSA writes, “Although racial and ethnic minorities constitute one third of the total U.S. population, they comprise more than one half (52 percent) of the uninsured population. In fact, in 2003, 23 million of the 45 million uninsured were racial and ethnic minority Americans.” Rather than cover these people, McCain’s plan could result in 158 million more Americans losing their health insurance.
Max Boot Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties
Max Boot Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties
Today, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot continued to cheerlead for the “success” of the surge in Iraq in an online debate. Boot insisted that Iraq has met two-thirds of the original 18 benchmarks, that the government’s offensive in Basra was successful, and that the so-called Sons of Iraq will always remain loyal to the Shiite-controlled Iraqi state.
Boot concluded by conceding that there are walls separating Sunni neighborhoods from Shia, but dismissed the fact by stating simply that “there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too”:
It’s true that there are walls around Dora and other Baghdad neighborhoods. … But then there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too. The walls per se are not evidence of reconciliation, I’ll grant you that. But nor are they evidence that reconciliation is impossible. They are one of the important security measures implemented in the past year that is reducing violence and making possible political progress—which is real, whether you admit it or not.
There is a world of difference between American gated communities — where at least 7 million families have chosen to live — and the walls that divide Baghdad. The policy, begun last April, of walling off neighboring communities with a “12-foot high, three mile long wall” is hardly the benign trend Boot describes. The move was widely condemned by the Iraqi press, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a halt to its construction almost immediately. As one Iraqi put it, “This will make the whole district a prison.”
Despite what Iraq war hawks are willing to admit, the surge has transformed Baghdad into an ethnically-cleansed and religiously divided city that bears little resemblance to its former character.
It is, in essence, an update of the old plan known as “concentration” zones or camps. The latter name causes understandable confusion, since we’re not talking about extermination camps of the kind that Hitler built, but rather of settlements where locals can be moved to live under guard, thereby preventing insurgent infiltration. The British used this strategy in the Boer war, the Americans during the Philippine war, and many other powers took similar steps in many other conflicts. In Vietnam they were known as “strategic hamlets.”
Pence Derides Torture Critics As Advocating ‘Oprah Winfrey Methods’
Pence Derides Torture Critics As Advocating ‘Oprah Winfrey Methods’
Yesterday, the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing on the Bush administration’s use of torture. During the hearing, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) scoffed at what he called the “Oprah Winfrey methods” of interrogations built on long-established relationships — the same method used to successfully interrogate Saddam Hussein. He also seemed to defend waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a 9/11 mastermind:
Some have said relationship-building interrogation techniques are preferable and even more reliable in the long run than stress methods. … I can tell by your grin that you acknowledge the somewhat absurd thought that you could move people who have masterminded the death of 3,000 Americans by Oprah Winfrey methods.
International lawyer Philippe Sands, who recently published a book on Bush’s interrogation program, replied by stating simply, “Coercion doesn’t work.” He cited the British fight against the IRA, and said the use of torture “extended the conflict” by 15 to 20 years:
The thinking in the British military and the thinking across the board politically — it’s really not a left right issue, it is a broad consensus in the United Kingdom — is that coercion doesn’t work. That the experience of the United Kingdom, which moved in the early 1970’s to use techniques that were very similar to those that were used on Detainee 063, putting stress positions, humiliation, and so on and so forth, didn’t not work. The view is taken in the United Kingdom that it extended the conflict with the IRA probably by between 15 and 20 years.
Watch it:
Sands also rejected the term “war on terror,” which he said “transform[s] criminals into warriors.” He said by using such language, “you create a context in which they are able to recruit in their struggle.” Despite some attempts in 2005 to shift away from the term, President Bush has maintained his determination to call the fight a “war on terror.” Britain dropped the terminology language in December.
Though the right wing refuses to believe that torture does not work, experts agree with Sands’s assessment. As Gen. David Petraeus said clearly last year, “Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone ‘talk;’ however, what the individual says may be of questionable value.”
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
KBR Rehired Employee With Child Pornography Fetish
KBR Rehired Employee With Child Pornography Fetish
Yesterday, Ira Waltrip, an employee for Iraq contractor KBR, was formally charged with possession of child pornography. According to a court affidavit, Waltrip was first caught with pornographic materials in 2006 and fired from KBR. However, KBR rehired Waltrip before the year ended, and he returned to Baghdad, where he returned to his past behavior:
Last month, while working as a KBR bus driver in Baghdad, Waltrip, 48, was again discovered with suspected child pornography, including some pictures of prepubescent children engaged in sex with adults and some pictures of Waltrip with nude females who “appear to be young teenagers,” according to the federal affidavit.
Today, in U.S. District Court in Austin, where Waltrip has been charged with possession of child pornography, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Pitman appeared dismayed that Waltrip was rehired.
“He was rehired by that employer and participated in the same behavior…and then may have possessed child pornography he produced,” Pitman said in explaining his decision to order Waltrip detained without bail.
A Houston-based KBR spokeswoman had no immediate comment today.
The latest scandal further illustrates KBR’s refusal to hold employees accountable for their actions. Last week, a former employee testified that a camp manager caught stealing from Iraqi palaces was promoted by KBR, rather than disciplined.
Even more disturbingly, more than thee dozen women who worked for KBR have come forward saying they were sexually assaulted by coworkers while stationed in Iraq. The alleged assailants will likely never face a jury, and KBR is determined to settle these allegations in private arbitration, without “public record nor transcript of the proceedings.” In fact, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) told a story that one KBR employee who told her superiors she was raped found her rapist assigned to work next to her.
Pentagon Warns Of ‘Harm’ From Webb’s Effort To Give Educational Benefits To Soldiers After ‘Only’ 2 Years
Pentagon Warns Of ‘Harm’ From Webb’s Effort To Give Educational Benefits To Soldiers After ‘Only’ 2 Years
There are currently 56 senators –including 10 Republicans – who have joined Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)’s effort to dramatically expand educational benefits for returning veterans. The 21st Century GI Bill would pay a significant portion of college costs for all service members, including national guard members, who served in active duty after Sept. 11, 2001.
The Pentagon and the White House oppose the bill, however, apparently “out of fear that too many will use it.” In a press briefing today, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell explained the administration’s opposition, warning of the “harm” Webb’s bill would do to troop retention and objecting to the generous benefits given after “only” two years of service:
We have no issue with the fact that Senator Webb wishes to provide a more generous education benefit to troops. But we are certainly concerned that this would be eligible to them after only two years of service. We think pegging it to a longer period of service — the number we have in mind, at this point, is six years of service — that the longer you stay in, the sweeter the benefits are to you. Six years would show a commitment to service. … The last thing we want to do is provide a benefit — or the last thing we want to do is create a situation in which we are losing our men and women who we have worked so hard to train.
Morrell suggests that those who serve their country for a full two years somehow do not show “a commitment to service” and are thus undeserving of Webb’s generous benefits. Under Morrell’s terms, a soldier who participated in the invasion of Baghdad, in April of 2003, and had remained in service ever since would be forced to wait a whole year before becoming eligible for full benefits.
As the New York Times’ Bob Herbert pointed out, more robust educational benefits will only help the military fill its enlistment quotas with qualified Americans. He took opponents of Webb’s bill to task for failing our troops:
The notion that expanding educational benefits will have a negative effect on retention seems silly. The Webb bill would cover tuition at a rate comparable to the highest tuition at a state school in the state in which the veteran would be enrolled. That kind of solid benefit would draw talented individuals into the military in large numbers. … Politicians tend to talk very, very big about supporting our men and women in uniform. But time and again — whether it’s about providing armor for their safety or an education for their future — we find that talk to be very, very cheap.
As VoteVets chairman Jon Soltz and Gen. Wesley Clark wrote recently, “it is morally reprehensible to fix the system so that civilian life is unappealing to service members, in an attempt to force them to re-up.”
House votes to subpoena Addington.
This morning, the House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena David Addington, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, to compel him to testify about the administration’s interrogation programs. He has said he will agree to testify if subpoenaed. The AP also reports that John Yoo, author of legal memos that sanctioned torture, has reversed course and agreed last night to testify before the committee as well, along with Douglas Feith and former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Former CIA Director George Tenet “is still in negotiations with the committee, according to House Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell.”