Posted on 10/01/2006 8:49:19 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
1. New Report Refutes Haditha ‘Massacre’ Claim
A report has surfaced casting doubt on published claims that U.S. Marines massacred 24 Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha last November.
But that report merely echoes what was reported by NewsMax back in June.
The new report came from Reuters, which disclosed on Sept. 22 that it had obtained a transcript of an interview with Maj. Sam Carrasco, who was overseeing troop movements in the area when the massacre allegedly took place.
He said he believed at the time the civilians died in crossfire between Marines and insurgents.
And he told investigators that Marines were so locked in battle with insurgents that the troops considered bombing a house where the insurgents took refuge.
"We saw insurgents go into a house, and we did not drop bombs on that house because we did not have [positive identification]," Carrasco told investigators. "They had engaged a previous unit and had run into a house with weapons.
"We vectored the [Marine] squad and they got shot up. I watched the whole thing happen as they got shot up … And now I'm kicking myself in the ass because we didn't drop the bomb and we didn't lead with appropriate force because we didn't have positive identification."
Iraqi witnesses say Marines shot civilians in their homes to retaliate for the death of a comrade, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, in a roadside bomb. Investigators are weighing charges.
But the firefight revelation was old news to NewsMax readers. On June 26 of this year, NewsMax correspondent Phil Brennan, an ex-Marine, wrote a lengthy article on the Haditha episode that included these passages:
“Military sources familiar with the incident have told NewsMax:
“Within minutes of the early morning IED [improvised explosive device] explosion, a firefight erupted between insurgents and Marines. Civilians were caught in the middle of the firefight. Also, although civilians did die, their deaths were the result of door-to-door combat as the Marines sought to clear houses and stop the insurgent gunfire.
“Ample evidence proves that a firefight took place. For example, every second of the ensuing firefight was monitored by numerous people at company, battalion, and regimental HQs via radio communications.
“Video evidence supports the Marines' claims. Within a very few minutes, battalion, regimental, and division headquarters were able to watch the action thanks to an overhead ultralight aircraft that remained aloft all day. Photos of some of the action were downloaded and in the hands of Marines and the NCIS [Naval Criminal Investigative Service].
“Some of the insurgents involved in planning the attack and firing at Marines during a daylong engagement have been apprehended and are in custody.”
Brennan cited a source who said some of the civilian casualties resulted when Marines came under fire from insurgents inside a house and tossed a grenade inside the dwelling to eliminate the threat. A similar incident occurred at another house.
He also wrote:
“When the Marines first went into the city, they were aware of the tight control insurgents exercised over Haditha. They discovered that the insurgents had freshly paved over dirt roads leading into town under the auspices of civic works projects.
“They were, according to a NewsMax source, ‘beautiful asphalt-surfaced roads’ that even included painted lines. The only problem, the source recalled, was that insurgents had laid more than 100 mega-IEDs under that asphalt. And, in order to avoid having to change batteries in the triggering devices, they had wired them into the city power lines lining the road.
“It is important to remember that the so-called details of the alleged massacre came from Iraqis and residents of Haditha, a city run by insurgents who have those residents not allied with them under their bloody thumbs.”
2. Democratic Caucus Has Links to Socialists
Need further proof that a Democratic victory in the House in November would swing the lower legislative body far to the left?
Many of the Congressmen who would become chairmen of powerful House committees are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, co-founded by avowed Socialist Bernard Sanders.
The Progressive Caucus has had strong links to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International Party, and the DSA hosted the Caucus’ Web site during the 1990s.
The DSA’s Web site declares: “We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.”
The Congressional Progressive Caucus itself has stated that it seeks the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as soon as possible, and elimination of all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation.
One prominent member of the Caucus is Charles Rangel from New York, who would become the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee – the most powerful committee in the House – if the Democrats gain a majority of seats in the midterm elections.
As NewsMax reported in a recent story profiling the likely leadership of a Democratic-controlled House, the Democrats need to pick up only 15 seats to gain the majority for the first time since 1994, and a number of recent polls show strong public sentiment in favor of Democrats.
Under House rules, the majority party selects the chairman of each committee and subcommittee, and Democrats traditionally go strictly by seniority when selecting a committee chairperson.
That means the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee would go to outspoken liberal John Conyers from Michigan, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Here are other members of the Caucus and the committees they would chair:
Barney Frank (Mass.), Financial Services.
Henry Waxman (Calif.), Government Reform.
George Miller (Calif.), Education and Workforce.
Bennie Thompson (Miss.), Homeland Security.
Tom Lantos (Calif.), International Relations.
Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), Rules.
Nydia Velasquez (N.Y.), Small Business.
Sanders is giving up his House seat and running for the Senate from Vermont.
3. Whitewater Still an Issue for Democrats
Whitewater is anything but water under the bridge for Democrats and former Clintonista Susan McDougal. She was the headline speaker this past week for Palm Beach Democratic Club in Florida.
But there was a financial incentive to focus on the events of many years ago – she was signing copies of her book “The Woman Who Wouldn’t Talk,” about the Whitewater affair.
McDougal was one of the key figures in the Whitewater investigation into a 1980s land deal that also involved Bill and Hillary Clinton.
She was convicted in 1996 on fraud and conspiracy charges and spent time in prison.
She also spent 18 months behind bars for civil contempt of court for refusing to answer questions from Whitewater prosecutors, including whether Bill Clinton lied in his testimony during her Whitewater trial when he denied any knowledge of an illegal $300,000 loan – hence the title of her book.
Her husband Jim was also convicted, but he cooperated with Whitewater prosecutors in return for a delayed and lighter sentence. However, he died of a sudden heart attack in prison in 1998.
Susan McDougal received a pardon from Clinton in the final hours of his presidency.
During her address in Florida, McDougal recalled the night when she was taken from a holding cell on her way to prison, in handcuffs and leg irons and linked by waist chains to two men arrested for bank robbery, the Palm Beach Daily News reported.
She expected a quiet exit. But as she left the building, “the world was out there,” McDougal said. “There were news vans. The lights were on. It looked like midday. People were screaming questions. But behind me, I heard a voice. The bank robber said, ‘What the hell did you do?’”
4. Fox’s Eric Shawn Rips United Nations
Americans are paying the lion’s share of the bill to provide U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan with a $50 million New York mansion.
“It’s on Sutton Place, probably one of the grandest private mansions in Manhattan,” Fox News correspondent Eric Shawn – author of the book “The UN Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America’s Security and Fails the World” – disclosed in an interview with Rush Limbaugh for his must read monthly Limbaugh Letter.
“It was built by J.P. Morgan’s granddaughter, Ann Morgan, in 1921 – now worth at least $50 million.
“That’s the ‘official residence.’ We pay 22 percent of all U.N. expenses, so that’s on our dime.”
Here are a few of the other points Shawn made in his wide-ranging interview, which appeared in The Limbaugh Letter:
5. Linda Chavez Yells ‘Racist!’
Does expressing opposition to illegal immigration make a person a racist? Evidently Linda Chavez – who was nearly Secretary of Labor – thinks so.
“This story strips the pretense cloaking the contempt amnesty advocates have for those opposed to illegal immigration,” Dimitri Vassilaros writes in a column for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
“It starts with an e-mail to Chavez from Diane Alden, author, research analyst and media pundit for NewsMax.com.”
The e-mail to Chavez – who heads the Center for Equal Opportunity in Sterling, Va. – contained Vassilaros’ Sept. 17 column, “Illegals: An apocalypse now,” and three government reports about the impact of illegal immigration on infrastructure and crime.
The “apocalypse” column told of the near anarchy in a federal wildlife refuge along the Mexican border, and described a U.S. government pamphlet warning visitors to the refuge of the many problems caused by the thousands of illegals who pour in daily from Mexico.
Race was never mentioned, Vassilaros writes in his Sept. 24 column.
Nevertheless, Chavez’s office sent this response to Alden, who forwarded it to Vassilaros: “Don’t e-mail to us your racist propaganda again.”
The issue is legality, not nationality, according to Vassilaros, who notes: “Apologists for illegals such as Mrs. Chavez have no argument when the topic is about obeying the law. That’s why she and others do the only thing they can do – name-calling.”
When Vassilaros objected, Chavez’s office manager said “it’s not that big of a deal.”
Vassilaros declared: “If accusing someone of penning racist propaganda is not a big deal to the Center for Equal Opportunity … what is?”
Chavez was President Bush’s nominee for Labor secretary until it came to light that she had housed and employed an illegal alien from Guatemala.
6. Sen. Inhofe Attacks Media’s Global Warming Hype
Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has delivered a blistering speech attacking the global warming hoopla – and slamming Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
The Oklahoma Republican titled his speech, delivered on the floor of the Senate on Sept. 25, “Hot & Cold Media Spin: A Challenge to Journalists Who Cover Global Warming.”
The address read in part:
“Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930's the media peddled a coming ice age.
“It is an inconvenient truth that so far, 2006 has been a year in which major segments of the media have given up on any quest for journalistic balance, fairness and objectivity when it comes to climate change. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try and convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation.
“Just last week, the vice president of England's Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism.
“After more than a century of alternating between global cooling and warming, one would think that this media history would serve a cautionary tale for today's voices in the media and scientific community who are promoting yet another round of eco-doom.”
Sen. Inhofe had this to say about Al Gore and his documentary about global warming, which the 2000 presidential candidate described as potentially “the worst catastrophe in the history of human civilization”:
"In May, our nation was exposed to perhaps one of the slickest science propaganda films of all time: former Vice President Gore's ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ In addition to having the backing of Paramount Pictures to market this film, Gore had the full backing of the media, and leading the cheerleading charge was none other than the Associated Press.
“On June 27, the Associated Press ran an article by Seth Borenstein that boldly declared: ‘Scientists give two thumbs up to Gore's movie.’ The article quoted only five scientists praising Gore's science, despite AP's having contacted over 100 scientists…
“I am almost at a loss as to how to begin to address the series of errors, misleading science and unfounded speculation that appear in the former Vice President’s film.”
In his speech, Sen. Inhofe cited many examples of the media’s lack of objectivity in covering the global warming controversy, including:
“The April 3, 2006 global warming special report of Time magazine was a prime example of the media's shortcomings, as the magazine cited partisan left-wing environmental groups with a vested financial interest in hyping alarmism.
“So in the end, Time's cover story title of ‘Be Worried, Be Very Worried’ appears to have been apt. The American people should be worried – very worried – of such shoddy journalism.”
7. NewsMax.com Is Top Conservative Web Site
NewsMax.com easily leads all other conservative Web sites – and all liberal Web sites as well – in the number of visits per month, with over 1.7 million, according to a report on Fox News’ Beltway Boys last week.
Citing Nielsen Net Ratings, the Fox show said conservative sites dominate the web over liberal blogs. The program showed a graphic detailing the number of hits the top five conservative and top five liberal sites got in August:
Conservative:
NewsMax.com – 1,756,000 hits
Free Republic – 1,280,000
Rush Limbaugh – 1,076,000
Townhall – 1,070,000
Hot Air – 975,000
Liberal:
Huffington Post – 1,193,000 hits
Daily Kos – 843,000
Crooks and Liars – 778,000
Raw Story – 607,000
DNC – 448,000
8. Oprah Tired of Gay Question
Oprah Winfrey is once again denying that she and her best friend Gayle King are gay, and says she won’t discuss the issue anymore.
“I will never address it again,” Oprah said on “Larry King Live” on Sept. 25.
“What will you say if somebody asks you?” King inquired.
“I will say, ‘I’m never discussing it again. Get the tape of the Larry King show,’” Oprah replied. “Because I have said it and said it and said it.”
Oprah and Gayle King, a divorced mother of two, have been close friends for 30 years, and their relationship has been the subject of much gossip.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay,” Oprah told Larry King. “And if I were, I would tell you.”
9. Taliban: Report of bin Laden’s Death Untrue
A Taliban official has told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is alive and in good health.
According to Al Arabiya, its Pakistan bureau received a call from the unnamed Taliban official shortly after the leaking of a secret French document that said Saudi intelligence believed bin Laden died from typhoid in Pakistan in August.
“The official said bin Laden was alive and that reports that he is ill are not true,” said Al Arabiya correspondent Bakr Atyani.
“The Taliban checked with members who are close to al-Qaida that these reports are baseless.”
Bin Laden was last seen in a video statement in November 2004, although he has issued several audio messages in the past two years.
10. Bill Clinton Ribs Michael Douglas
Former President Bill Clinton was the major attraction as an odd combination of VIPs came together to raise money for charity in London.
The Sept. 26 gala dinner marked the launch of the Fortune Forum, an umbrella group seeking to funnel contributions to several charities.
The guests on hand to hobnob with Clinton included actor Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, entrepreneur Richard Branson, New Age spiritual guru Deepak Copra, antiwar activist Vijay Mehta, supermodel Lily Cole, and musician Yusuf Islam, who was known as Cat Stevens before converting to Islam 20 years ago.
Tickets for the event started at 1,000 pounds (about $1,894) a head, though sponsorship deals went for upwards of $140,000.
Major donors were able to meet and greet Clinton and pose for a joint photo.
During his keynote address, Clinton deviated from his prepared remarks to take a playful swipe at “The American President” star Douglas, who is 25 years older than his wife.
"Michael Douglas, thank you for being here," Clinton said. "Most of you will have no way of knowing this but I admire Michael Douglas very, very much and I was delighted when I heard he was going to be here tonight.
"I was delighted to see him earlier today and delighted that he and Catherine Zeta-Jones married and I realized he would be well cared for in our old age."
11. Hugo Chavez Could Head U.N. Security Council
This month the United Nations General Assembly will elect five non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms – and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela is eagerly pursuing the Latin American seat.
The U.S. sought to promote Guatemala for the seat instead, but diplomatic sources say that effort seems to have stalled, according to NewsMax’s U.N. correspondent Stewart Stogel.
Washington is now looking for a new candidate to contest vehemently anti-American Chavez and Venezuela, and the choice appears to be Chile.
It’s not known whether it’s too late to head off Venezuela. What is known is that the Bush administration is less than enthusiastic with the prospect of confronting Chavez for two years on the Security Council, as well as during the time he would assume its rotating presidency and control its monthly agenda.
12. We Heard . . .
THAT the four authors of the upcoming book “I Hate Ann Coulter!” don’t have the guts to put their names on the book – they’re remaining anonymous.
“None of us want our real names in the hands of gun-toting, abortion clinic-bombing, self-proclaimed ‘wing nuts’ who follow Coulter,” one of the four told the New York Post.
The cover of the book shows conservative pundit Coulter with a devil’s tail and horns.
THAT Howard Stern’s ad rates on Sirius Satellite Radio have plunged to a fraction of what they were when he was on terrestrial radio.
Spots on his Sirius show are selling for as little as $5,000, according to the industry monitoring Web site AdAge.com.
And live reads – which require on-air talent to pitch the product – are maxing out at $10,000, compared to the $30,000 Stern’s show charged on terrestrial radio stations.
Before Stern’s show debuted on Sirius eight months ago, Sirius was offering media buyers a live read for $20,000, AdAge reports.
One problem in boosting ad rates on Sirius is that it’s not known for sure how many of Sirius’s 4.7 million subscribers actually listen to Stern’s show.
Stern’s audience on terrestrial radio was around 7 million.
THAT Ethel Kennedy will present the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award to Bill Clinton at a fund-raiser in New York.
The award is given to those who “effect positive changes in the lives of others,” and will be presented to the former president at the Oct. 9 event at the Chelsea Piers in New York.
The affair will feature a reception, dinner and a performance of the play “Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark,” with stars including Martin Sheen, Lorraine Bracco, Christian Slater, Peter Boyle, Sharon Stone and Sigourney Weaver.
Tickets start at $1,000, and the proceeds will benefit the work of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.
PING!
I heard on a talk radio program last week that the military is spending upward of $3/4 million to build a media center for the trial of the so-called Pendelton 8.
There's an old expression that you're known by the company you keep.
The HuffingGlue gets more hits than the Kos,, lolol
Has anybody ever figured out what "speak truth to power" means ..??
She wears NO bra!!!
Hmmmmm???
I think it only comes in by email, though.
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