Politics: J'accuse!

[Not Me]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118466,00.html

• The Justice Department released documents publicly on Wednesday that were given to the National Commission on Terror Attacks Upon the United States on Tuesday. The documents show that Gorelick was responsible for signing off on the new policy of separation and rejecting criticism from U.S. prosecutors who feared it could undermine future efforts to stop terror attacks.
  
  The documents also show sharp criticism from Mary Jo White, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office prosecuted the terrorists convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. That office also indicted Usama bin Laden for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
  
  "It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorneys' offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," White wrote in a June 13, 1995, memo to then-Attorney General Janet Reno.
  
  White wrote that the new policy would leave prosecutors blind to ongoing terror investigations and could create arbitrary lines of communication. A top aide to Gorelick, Michael Vatis, wrote that Reno should request White's request that U.S. attorneys' offices should be notified of ongoing terrorism investigations at the outset. Vatis wrote that the request seemed to seek special treatment for White's office.
  
  Gorelick reviewed the Vatis memo and sent her handwritten approval of it to Reno. Gorelick has said that she will not resign, and commission chairman Thomas Kean has said she is doing a fine job on the panel and will not ask her to leave.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Whatever happened to waiting for people to die and naming things in honor posthumously?

I want you so bad right now --- this is my pet peeve. Especially public works projects. Or, even worse, naval ships and such being named after the politicians who have been hawks. I'd feel more comfortable if they just named the damn destroyers after the first 500 people in the Boston phone book.

If I'm ever elected to Congress, I'll introduce a bill banning this practice, see it voted down, and die happy, anonymous, and unremembered.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I'd feel more comfortable if they just named the damn destroyers after the first 500 people in the Boston phone book.

Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, you just outed yourself. Now I know for sure that you are Atticus Aardvarkof Boston, MA. I always suspected it, but until today, I didn't have proof.

[Monstrosity]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I want you so bad right now --- this is my pet peeve. Especially public works projects. Or, even worse, naval ships and such being named after the politicians who have been hawks. I'd feel more comfortable if they just named the damn destroyers after the first 500 people in the Boston phone book.

If I'm ever elected to Congress, I'll introduce a bill banning this practice, see it voted down, and die happy, anonymous, and unremembered.

Agree that they shouldn't be naming naval ships after living politicians or, for that matter, chairmen of the congressional Armed Services Committee.


U.S.S. John C. Stennis

[Not Me]

I predicted this.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...MPLATE=DEFAULT

• DENVER (AP) -- Minority groups called on Republican Senate candidate Peter Coors to apologize Wednesday after a spokeswoman said it would be worse to be compared to Sen. John Kerry than to a convicted killer.
  
  The dispute arose last week when an appeals court upheld the conviction of a reputed Ku Klux Klansman in the murder of a black man.
  
  The New York Times mistakenly used a photo of Coors with a story about the ruling. Asked about the error, Coors campaign spokeswoman Cinamon Watson said: "It could have been worse. Pete could have been identified as John Kerry."
  
  The Rev. James Peters, spokesman for the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, said the remark was insensitive.
  
  "If Peter Coors or Ms. Watson thinks it is funny or lighthearted to compare Sen. Kerry to a convicted KKK murderer, then they are either willfully ignorant of the emotion African-Americans feel about such matters, or they are terribly out of touch and they should be ashamed," Peters said.
  
  Watson said her remarks were not meant to offend anyone. "It's unfortunate that this has taken away attention from the real issues of our campaign," she said.

Someone needs to tell these people to LIGHTEN-UP, FRANCIS!!!!

[Monstrosity]

Originally posted by Not Me
I predicted this.

In the sense that you said it on this board, or in the sense that Hank invented being 6'11"? (Not remembering the post -- sorry.)

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Monstrosity
In the sense that you said it on this board, or in the sense that Hank invented being 6'11"? (Not remembering the post -- sorry.)

I predicted it and I would have let the board know about my prediction on this board, but the board crashed and I was prevented from doing this. You wouldn't know about this because you are a newbie. Stick around kidoo, and watch and learn from the master.

[Monstrosity]

Originally posted by Not Me
I predicted it and I would have let the board know about my prediction on this board, but the board crashed and I was prevented from doing this. You wouldn't know about this because you are a newbie. Stick around kidoo, and watch and learn from the master.

I predicted you would say this.

[Atticus Grinch]

His death was not really reported out of proportion to the reporting of his decision to become a Ranger after 9/11. In the end, giving more coverage to his decision to give up a multimillion dollar NFL contract than his death would have been monumentally wrong.

I'm friends with members of Tillman's family. Never met the guy, but by the accounts credible to me (that is, those coming from people not talking out of their ass on Internet chat boards), America lost more than a Ranger or NFL player. Can anyone here claim to have been both of those? Can anyone here claim to have accomplished anything requiring as much dedication and sacrifice? If you have, I will want to read about your death, because I'd say you were worth learning from, and worth missing.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
His death was not really reported out of proportion to the reporting of his decision to become a Ranger after 9/11. In the end, giving more coverage to his decision to give up a multimillion dollar NFL contract than his death would have been monumentally wrong.

I'm friends with members of Tillman's family. Never met the guy, but by the accounts credible to me (that is, those coming from people not talking out of their ass on Internet chat boards), America lost more than a Ranger or NFL player. Can anyone here claim to have been both of those? Can anyone here claim to have accomplished anything requiring as much dedication and sacrifice? If you have, I will want to read about your death, because I'd say you were worth learning from, and worth missing.

While I respect and admire Pat Tillman for following his convictions and fighting for his country and what he believed in, the fact that he was an NFL player is meaningless and hardly an accomplishment. Who gives a fuck that someone is a professional sports player? Idiots that is who. The fact that he gave up a life of privilege and luxury and celebrity to fulfill his sense of duty and honor and patriotism, that is something to be admired.

But the NFL thing, that ain't shit. I don't say that to denegrate Pat. He is an American hero of the finest caliber. But not because he ever played professional sports. Because he is the rare individual who gave up a life of privilege and luxury and celebrity for a what he believed in. Now that is impressive. Being an NFL player is not impressive (except to the idiots on the FB, but hell, they are impressed with reality TV).

BTW AG - you seem to know quite a few people who end up dying in high profile events. I think you are either a jinx, or embellishing things to make yourself BMOC on the PB.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
BTW AG - you seem to know quite a few people who end up dying in high profile events. I think you are either a jinx, or embellishing things to make yourself BMOC on the PB.

I'm the Jessica Fletcher of IRL. Be warned.

Seriously, I'm struggling to think of times I've mentioned people who've died in high profile events. My niece was good friends with an entire family flown into the Pentagon, but that's just a "friend of a friend" story (like my tenuous connection to Tillman) and no more impressive than other statistics games, like a morbid version of the Kevin Bacon game.

ETA: Tillman grew up in San Jose, so knowing members of his family is no great trick here.

[Monstrosity]

December 10, 2003. Woodward interviews Bush for his book, and asks him, where are the WMD. Bush evades, answers different questions. Woodward presses.

• "Why do you need to deal with this in the book?" he asked. "What's this got to do about it?"
  
  I said that I had to cover the aftermath of the war. This was a key question.
  
  The president said he wanted to make sure that his acknowledgement that no weapons of mass destruction had been found so far would not be published in The Washington Post until the book was released. "In other words, I'm not going to read a headline, 'Bush Says No Weapons.'"
  
  I promised that he would not, though less than two months later he would effectively make that acknowledgement, saying on February 8, 2004, on NBC's Meet the Press, "I expected there to be stockpiles of weapons" and "We though he had weapons."

Plan of Attack 423-24.

So he acknowledged there were no WMD, but insisted on misleading people for another couple of months.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Monstrosity


So he acknowledged there were no WMD, but insisted on misleading people for another couple of months.

Whom was he misleading? Did anyone continue to believe that there were WMD between december and february?

[bilmore]

Seems 80% of the Oil-For-Food contracts have mysteriously disappeared from the UN offices, crippling the fraud investigation.

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/19813.htm

[Monstrosity]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Whom was he misleading? Did anyone continue to believe that there were WMD between december and february?

Yes. A lot of people still believe it. Was it news when he said this in February?