"Freshly Ground Black People" error boosts book sales

By GottaLaff

This is disgusting. Book sales have actually increased (although the number of books sold is tiny, but still...) since this happened:

Penguin Group Australia accidentally published copies of the Pasta Bible containing an unfortunate spell check error. A recipe calling for "salt and freshly ground black pepper" actually read "salt and freshly ground black people." The company is destroying and reprinting 7,000 copies of the book, but not recalling ones that have already hit bookstores. According to the company's head of publishing, Bob Sessions, it was an honest mistake.

That was then. This is now:

Since news of the misprint broke, sales have increased nearly four-fold, according to TheBookseller.com.

Sales increased, not just curiosity. People spent their hard-earned money on a book with that title.

Who is buying those books? And why? That was rhetorical.

VIDEO: Sean Hannity Calls His Audience "Tim McVeigh Wannabes"

By GottaLaff



I'm sure the families of the victims of the Murrah Building bombing appreciate Hannity's little "joke". Yes, that's what it's been called by callers to talk radio. On the Stephanie Miller Show this morning, I actually heard that with my own ears.

It's "satire", see.

According to Sean Hannity, the GOP also won the health care debate because they forced the Democrats to resort to "backroom deals" and other evil practices.

Wow, who knew the Democrats were such scoundrels!? I bet they all smoked cigars and wore sleeve guards and clear green plastic visors, too! Did you realize the Dems were doing all that?

Me neither.

But the Tea Tantrumers, those wacky, zany "Timothy McVeigh wannabes", they're the real heroes.

Imagine for just one minute what the media would say had a Democrat said what Hannity did in that clip. But he skates, and America stays misinformed.

H/t: Walt

WTF-O'-The-Day: Tea Bagger edition

By GottaLaff

WTF-O'-The-Day:

"A third party is continuing the liberal agenda."

--A convention Tea Bagger after CNN's Don Lemon asked if they would be starting a third party.

Did anyone else hear that? Soon after, Lemon wrapped up by saying something like:

It's good to see women speaking for the Tea Party. You're both very well spoken, thank you.

I'm sorry, but is there a shortage of Tea Tantrumettes I somehow overlooked?

1. Sarah Palin.

2. Michele Bachmann

3.

Oh, and the 2 interviewees weren't all that well spoken. They were adequate.

By the way, CNN, MSNBC (including dedicated graphics) and many media outlets on the Nets have promoted Sarah Palin's speech as if she were making an announcement to run in 2012. I wonder if she ever filled the room. Those 600 convention attendees may still be able to squeeze in if they really hurry.

Your liberal media at work.

(via)

Update, via Tweeter cjoehl:

...the hypocrisy of these loons. They hate the MSM, but they're falling all over themselves to talk to them.

Why does Sarah Palin need two Linked In pages?

By GottaLaff

As you know from my little rant, I posted a story yesterday (h/t: Taegan) about Barbie McLipSchmutz's plea for work, among other things, on her Linked In page.

But wait! Thanks to sharp-eyed reader and Twitter pal, lisahanockjasie, we now know that Barbie has two-- count 'em, two!-- Linked In pages. Why? To be available for twice the work opps? To double up on touting her grammatical errors? To keep up with everyone else with multiple identities? To get dates?

Oh wait. She's married. And she's way too ethical to do anything untoward. *Saracasm*

Quel mystery!

From yesterday's post (click on images to enlarge):

The newly discovered "lost episodes" Palin Linked In page:

Oh, and please note the recommendation from the president of the Boston Billiard Club who said he hired her as a consultant in 2008:

“Sarah is the person we need to be the second most powerful person in the world. I love the fact that she is NOT a beltway insider. I hope that she will not only be a Great Vice President, but will also be our first elected Female President. God Bless McCain/Palin and God Bless America! Energy independence is our best way to fight terrorism! Never forget 9-11!” September 11, 2008

Top qualities: Personable, High Integrity, Creative

Kurt J. Mathias
hired Sarah as a Business Consultant in 2008

It's good to know we can turn to Ms. McLipSchmutz for advice on cue butts.

H/t: lisahanockjasie

Blackwater Offers Training to 'Faith Based Organizations'

By GottaLaff

Via Jeremy Scahill:

Meet the “Personal Security Awareness” program, which appears to be an off-shoot of Erik Prince’s Greystone, Ltd., a classic mercenary operation registered offshore in Barbados. [...] [T]he “program” is described as “a multi-phase course which is designed to assist Non-Government Organizations, Faith Based Organizations and Commercial Businesses by providing individual personal awareness and driver training for their personnel when deployed to unfamiliar environments.” It adds: “Greystone recognizes the importance of “preparation by doing” and looks forward to you joining us for this exciting training!”

Oh boy! Exciting faith based training! And from Blackwater!

Are they serious? I’m sure there are just scores of Islamic aid groups just lining up to take courses from Blackwater, Xe, US Training Center, Greystone, Personal Security Awareness.

Xe ya later.

Moreover, any legitimate “faith based organization” that wants harmony with other faiths would be insane to work with this company.

That would be cra-Xe, alright.

One of the courses offered is described as teaching “persons traveling to foreign environments how to remain safe during their travels in a vehicle.” This truly is surreal. [...] Remember how those unarmed Iraqi civilians were blown up in their car by Blackwater operatives at Nisour Square? Or the Afghan civilians allegedly killed in their car by Blackwater operatives in Afghanistan in May?

Yeah, somehow that whole Blackwater/car thing wasn't a good match. This can't end well.

Also, lets remember that Blackwater—headed by a man described in a sworn statement by a former employee as “view[ing] himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe”— is itself a twisted faith-based organization—and a very violent one at that.

I hope the ObamAdministration finally Xe's the light and breaks the contract they have with this bunch of thugs. I still need a good talking down from that one.

For a hard look at who these people are, see my Blackwater for Dummeez primer.

Read the rest of Jeremy's piece here.

Sarah Palin to speak at Hong Kong investor forum... but will she show?

By GottaLaff

Sarah the Quitter isn't the most reliable date keeper, now is she? Nor was she a very reliable governor. She continues to turn the phrase, "I just can't quit you" on its head:

According to this story in the Anchorage Daily News, people counting on Palin to be their keynote speaker sometimes get stood up. "Organizers of an Anchorage event that has been billing Sarah Palin for weeks as a star speaker were left scrambling Wednesday after learning that the former governor won't be there for tonight's event and claims to have never been asked," the newspaper reported last Wednesday. "It would be at least the fourth time in recent months that an anticipated Palin speech has fallen through after Palin and her camp disputed they had ever confirmed it. That includes the brouhaha over whether she'd speak at the annual congressional Republican fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., this summer."

So how insulted would CLSA be if she backed out of this speaking date? Or will she once again claim that she had never committed to it? Why, that could spark an international kerfuffly kerfuffle! You betcha:

CLSA, the Hong Kong-based brokerage, announced today that the hockey mom who quit her job as Alaska governor last month will be the keynote speaker at its annual investor conference in September.

Maybe they could invest in some I.Q. points for her while she's there.

Come to think of it, why exactly did they ask her, of all people, to speak? What possessed them? That is a question for the ages...

The CLSA forum is a big deal, having attracted not only Clinton, Gore and Greenspan in the past but also heavyweights like Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Walt Disney boss Michael Eisner and scientist Craig Venter (who founded the Institute for Genomic Research and led the team that sequenced the human genome). [...]

The press release from CLSA also has this surprising bit of news: The trip to Hong Kong will be Palin's first trip to this part of the world. [...] During last year's campaign, the governor touted her state's proximity to (the Asian part of) Russia as proof of her foreign-policy bona fides, so I'm surprised to read that she has never actually been here.

I'm not.

Joe Liberman's Big Run-On Gitmo Detainee E-mail

By GottaLaff

Commenter Chris got this e-mail from Joe Lieberman, regarding Gitmo detainees. This is exactly the way she received it:

Dear Friend:

Thank you for contacting me to express your views regarding the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Guantanamo) and the closure of detention facilities there. I appreciate your views on this serious matter, and I welcome the opportunity to respond. As you may know, the Guantanamo facility has been used as a detention center following the attacks of 9/11 and the war against those who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Although nearly 800 alleged belligerents have been detained in Guantanamo since 2002, only 229 prisoners remain - - the others have been transported to other countries for detention or release or, in very limited circumstances, transferred to the United States for prosecution. Many of the remaining Guantanamo detainees are from Yemen, which lacks reliable prisons and terrorist rehabilitation programs. Negotiations are ongoing to transfer some of the Yemenis to neighboring Saudi Arabia, instead. As many as 50 prisoners have already been approved to be sent for detention in other countries. While some people have advocated in favor of closing Guantanamo, the question remains of what to do with the detainees without endangering our national security. As one of the first acts of his Administration, President Obama signed an executive order pledging to close Guantanamo within a year. As part of this order, the Administration commenced a six-month review of the status of each detainee and what to do with any detainees who cannot be tried but who are too dangerous to release. The President also issued executive orders prohibiting extreme interrogation practices and temporarily suspending military tribunals for suspected terrorists. On May 20, 2009, the Senate passed an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-32), restricting the use of any funds to transfer, release, or incarcerate detainees currently detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to or within the United States. Additionally, the Senate approved an amendment requiring a national security threat assessment of every detainee now being held at the prison. On July 20, 2009, the Administration announced it would be extending its original six-month Guantanamo detainee status review for an additional six months, stating that the extension would not interfere with the President's pledge to close the base by the January 22, 2010, deadline. The situation in Guantanamo has long been a highly controversial and politicized issue. The detainees held in Guantanamo are enemy combatants who were caught in the war on terrorism and have demonstrated a callous willingness to exploit international law, our laws, and basic standards of human decency to advance their cause. These extremist Islamist terrorists are committed to attacking America and killing American civilians. It is also critical to remember that, of the detainees released from Guantanamo, at least 74 have already returned to fight with the extremists. As you may know, there was a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush concerning the rights of Guantanamo detainees to file habeas corpus petitions in federal court. On June 12, 2008, the Supreme Court held, in a 5-4 opinion, that aliens designated as enemy combatants and detained at Guantanamo have a constitutional right to file habeas corpus petitions challenging their detention. The Supreme Court also indicated, however, that properly constituted military commissions would provide sufficient protection of detainees' rights. In this year's National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1390), the Senate has created a system of military commissions that fully satisfies the requirements identified by the Supreme Court. The Senate also adopted an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and I cosponsored, expressing the sense of Congress that members of Al-Qaida and other terrorists captured on the battlefield should be tried by military commissions rather than in Article III federal courts. As these terrorists are war criminals and not common street criminals, I believe they should accordingly be tried as war criminals, within our military commissions. As our country continues to fight a war against international terrorists, it is my first priority to protect American lives and ideals. With the newly created system of military commissions, established to provide due process and fairness to detainees while also keeping Americans safe, I believe that the Senate has struck the appropriate balance. As the debate continues, I promise to keep your thoughts and views in mind. Thank you again for sharing your concerns with me. I hope you will continue to visit my website at http://lieberman.senate.gov for updated news about my work on behalf of Connecticut and the nation. Please contact me if you have any additional questions or comments about our work in Congress. Sincerely, Joseph I. Lieberman UNITED STATES SENATOR JIL:tcs

Quite the communicator, huh?

By the way, the points he made have been thoroughly disputed by Lt. Col. Barry Wingard.

VIDEO: Public Option Would Not Pass Senate

By GottaLaff

If President Obama is backing away from a public option in his health care reform proposal, it's because he prefers to move the bill through the Senate's normal channels and not through the budget reconciliation process which would require only 51 votes.

In an interview on CNBC, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) said a Finance Committee proposal containing a health care cooperative insurance plan -- and not a government sponsored plan -- is the only proposal likely to get 60 votes in the Senate to prevent a filibuster.

Said Conrad: "There's been no final resolution, but I think there's a good chance the cooperative plan will be adopted, at least at the committee level. The notion of a cooperative plan is that it's membership-controlled, membership-run -- not government-run, government-controlled."

Speaking of health, I feel sick.

UPDATE just now from a Tweet by CNN's Ed Henry:

on single payer, potus says, it would have been "politically difficult" to get done. interesting two or three pushed him on it at town hall

Military Weighs Private Security Contractors on Front Lines

By GottaLaff

Wasn't the blowback from Blackwater-- or Xe or Pee or whoever they are-- enough?

The U.S. military command is considering contracting a private firm to manage security on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan, even as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that the Pentagon intends to cut back on the use of private security contractors.

On a Web site listing federal business opportunities, the Army this month published a notice soliciting information from prospective contractors who would develop a security plan for 50 or more forward operating bases and smaller command outposts across Afghanistan.

Although the U.S. military has contracted out security services to protect individuals, military bases and other facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, this contract would award a commercial company unusually broad "theater-wide" authority to protect forward operating bases in a war zone.

"The contractor shall be responsible for providing security services, developing, implementing, adequately staffing, and managing a security program," the notice said, adding that the contractor would have to be available "24 hours a day, seven days a week."[...]

The intent of the proposed contract is to bring all "disparate and subordinate contracts" under single, theater-wide management at a time when the U.S. forces are expanding [...]

The Army has not issued a formal proposal for a contract, but the notice says that interested companies should reply by Wednesday and that a formal request for proposals should follow. The "anticipated award date" for a contract is Dec. 1, according to the notice.

The request for information comes as Gates is moving to put soldiers back in charge of security roles that contractors have filled in recent years. [...]

Lawmakers, too, have raised concerns about the cost of contractors and about outsourcing what have traditionally been government roles. [...]

Meanwhile, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight, said her panel had "revealed major concerns about the use of private security contractors in Afghanistan." [...]

"We don't want to waste scarce Afghan army and police, so we must be creative," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military expert at the Brookings Institution.

But O'Hanlon also said he is concerned that if contractors were to take over security at forward operating bases, they would be the first to see hostile fire, and they -- not soldiers -- would have to decide whether to employ weapons against an enemy.

Instead of hiring a private firm, O'Hanlon said, the Americans and Afghans could create a local version of Iraq's Facilities Protection Service, the modestly trained but government-paid guard force that was pulled together to provide protection for government ministries in Baghdad and the oil fields.

Privatizing another war doesn't sound like a wise move to me.

Someone want to ?

VIDEO-- Grassley: Obama willing to drop public option

By GottaLaff

Um, excuse me? Are we to believe this?




Another WTF moment:

In a call with progressive bloggers a day before the press conference, Obama said he continues to “believe that a robust public option would be the best way to go.” In the press conference itself, Obama said a public option is necessary “to keep the insurance companies honest” and his view that by taking “some of the profit motive out,” you can get a “better deal” for consumers.

But in his interview with Hunt, Grassley claimed that Obama has told him privately that he is willing to consider “reasonable alternatives” to a robust public option.

VIDEO: Dick Cheney gives Sonia Sotomayor a pass

By GottaLaff

Okay, so who's this guy doing the Cheney impression? That's two videos in a row where I didn't want to throw my computer against the wall:



Progressiver and progressiver. Move over, Arlen... Before you know it, the Nation of Dick will be a convert.

You do realize how sarcastic I'm being, don't you?

VIDEO: Keith Olbermann's WTF Moment about Boss Limbaugh May 20

By GottaLaff

If you missed this one, you missed Keith knocking it outta the park. Sample: "We believe you suck!"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists: A baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!”

By GottaLaff

On my honor I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my country

and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong,

mentally awake, and morally straight.

How helpful, kind, cheerful, friendly and courteous of them!

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

Now everyone gather 'round the campfire to roast some marshmallows for some yummy s'mores! Weeee!

Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

Speaking of being inappropriately excited:

There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them.

Several years ago, two University of Nebraska criminal justice professors published a study that found at least a dozen cases of sexual abuse involving police officers over the last decade. Adult Explorer leaders are now required to take an online training program on sexual misconduct.

What a healthy, wholesome program! Who's enrolling their kids this summer? Hands?

“Before it was more about the basics,” said Johnny Longoria, a Border Patrol agent here. “But now our emphasis is on terrorism, illegal entry, drugs and human smuggling.”

The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,” Deputy Lowenthal said. “I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid.”

How inclusive of them. Hey kiddies! Tell your friends! Fun for the entire family!

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

How precious. I hope she didn't muss her hair or scuff her shoesies.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Alrighty now, kids, this break has lasted way too long. Everyone in the van! We're off to grenade-throwing practice! Everyone grab your weapons, and don't forget to fasten your seat belts! Safety first!

H/t: The Joshua Blog

Confirmed, Mormon Web site shows Obama's mother as baptized after death

By GottaLaff

I leave for a couple of hours and come home to this:

A Provo, Utah newspaper has confirmed our earlier story - a Mormon geneological Web site does in fact list President Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, as having been baptized into the Mormon faith after her death (and presumably without her, or her son's, consent). The Mormon church has yet to confirm to numerous reporters' inquiries whether they did in fact baptize the President's dead mother last year in the middle of the presidential campaign. If true, and it's looking increasingly likely, this could cause the Mormons quite a bit of trouble politically and in the public relations sphere.

Still unanswered is whether the Mormons also baptized Obama's father.

More from the Provo Herald Extra:

At the same time that Barack Obama sealed the Democratic nomination for president last year, someone in the Provo LDS Church temple was performing a baptism and temple rites for his dead mother.

The move is a serious breech of protocol for church members, who in the past have been criticized for performing such proxy baptisms for victims of the Holocaust.
"Church members are specifically instructed not to submit the names of persons not related to them," reads a statement on the LDS Chuch Web site. "Before performing temple baptisms for a deceased family member born within the last 95 years, members are instructed to get permission from the person's closest living relative."

Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have yet to confirm the incident, but records on their FamilySearch.org genealogical site clearly show that Stanley Ann Dunham received proxy rites in the Provo temple on June 4 and June 8 of 2008. The birth and death dates of the person for whom the rites were performed match those of Obama's mother.

Headline-O'-The-Day: Privatizing edition

By GottaLaff

Via Oliver:

National Review: “Want to Prevent Piracy? Privatize the Ocean”

As Oliver confirms, no, this is not a parody.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln opposes Employee Free Choice

By GottaLaff

I want to shake her by the shoulders and yell, "Wake up!":

[Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), who is running for reelection in 2010, is the first Democratic Senator to openly oppose the legislation. The AP reports:

“I cannot support that bill. I cannot support it in its current form,” Lincoln told those gathered for the luncheon at the governor’s mansion. “I may not have said that as clearly before, but I’m saying it now.” … “It is one of those issues that creates great division, as well as distraction, at a time when we need all hands on deck,” Lincoln said. […]

The Arkansas-based Wal-Mart corporation had hired a former Blanche Lincoln staffer to lobby against the Employee Free Choice Act. Notably, Lincoln waited until after Vice President Biden helped her raise $800,000 before announcing her opposition to a piece of legislation that both Biden and Obama strongly support.

Blogger identity exposed by Alaskan Rep. Mike Doogan

By GottaLaff

As you know if you read TPC regularly, I link to the Alaskan blog "The Mudflats" a lot. In fact, I rely on them for much of what I post about Sarah Palin.

Mudflats is a friendly, reliable, well-written blog that provides accurate and steady information and insight that is hard to find elsewhere.

Now, for whatever reason, Democratic Alaskan Rep. Mike Doogan has chosen to reveal the identity of this blogger. Everything I am feeling and thinking is expressed by her in this post.

Please go read it. I'd love to hear your comments. I value my anonymity for many of the same reasons that she writes about. And I share her outrage and shock.

What was this guy thinking?

On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution

By GottaLaff

From the Department of WTF:

These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity.

It's 2009. I just know it is.

KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths

By GottaLaff

From the Department of WTF? Paging ObamAdministration oversight, spill on aisle KBR:

Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, rejected the company's explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company's "continuing quality deficiencies" and said KBR executives were "not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground." [...]

KBR announced last week it won a new $35.4 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers to design and build a convoy support center at Camp Adder in southern Iraq. It will include a power plant, electrical distribution center, water purification and distribution systems, wastewater and information systems and road paving.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the new KBR contract was inappropriate. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he has formally asked the Corps of Engineers whether it was confident KBR could accomplish it and whether the Corps had any alternatives.

"This is hardly the time to award KBR a new contract for work they've already failed to perform adequately, and which put U.S. soldiers at even greater risk," Dorgan said in a statement. "Ultimately, contractors must be held accountable, and so should those who continue to award these contracts." [...]

Separately, court papers filed in Houston on Friday show KBR is preparing to plead guilty to federal bribery charges for promising and paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Nigeria in exchange for engineering and construction contracts between 1995 and 2004.

And they were re-hired... why?

H/t: Babzter

True or False: Holder assures GOP on interrogation prosecution and telecom immunity

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Patrick Leahy and Sheldon Whitehouse dismiss this as bunk.

Original post:

How can one make a decision to prosecute or not prosecute before one investigates and has seen the evidence? Granted, this piece is from the Washington Times, but.... If accurate, this would be politicizing the legal system, which was BushCo's M.O. It better not be Holder's:

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, a Republican from Missouri and the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview with The Washington Times that he will support Eric H. Holder Jr.'s nomination for Attorney General because Mr. Holder assured him privately that Mr. Obama's Justice Department will not prosecute former Bush officials involved in the interrogations program.

Mr. Holder's promise apparently was key to moving his nomination forward. [...]

Sen. Bond also said that Mr. Holder told him in a private meeting Tuesday that he will not strip the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the National Security Agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks of retroactive legal immunity from civil lawsuits--removing another potential sticking point among GOP senators.

In the interview Wednesday, Mr. Bond said, "I made it clear that trying to prosecute political leaders would generate a political firestorm the Obama administration doesn't need."

He added, "I was concerned about previous statements he made and others had made. He gave me assurances that he would not take those steps that would cause major disruptions in our intelligence system or cause political warfare. We don't need that kind of political warfare. He gave me assurances he is looking forward." [...]

Mr. Holder made a similar point to senators last week in a little-noticed written response to questions from Republican senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas. Mr. Holder indicated that he would not prosecute any intelligence officers who participated in the interrogation program and who had followed Justice Department guidance.

Prosecutorial and investigative judgments must depend on the facts and no one is above the law, Mr. Holder wrote. But where it is clear that a government agent has acted in 'reasonable and good faith reliance on Justice Department legal opinions' authoritatively permitting his conduct, I would find it difficult to justify commencing a full blown criminal investigation, let alone a prosecution.

The legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union, Caroline Fredrickson, said Wednesday that she was alarmed by Mr. Bond's statements and was hoping, Kit Bond is not stating this in the way that Mr. Holder stated it to him. She added, We are hoping there will be a clarification. It would be extraordinary if our top prosecutor, before taking office, would have predetermined whether or not to pursue certain cases because of political pressure.[...]

Mr. Specter called "satisfactory" Mr. Holder's statements that interrogation techniques authorized by legal opinions would provide a strong cover from prosecutions. According to Mr. Specter, Mr. Holder could not make any more explicit statements without knowing the facts of specific cases.

According to Ellen Ratner (of Talk Radio News Service) on Thom Hartmann just now, Holder is also caving on the question of Karl Rove's claims of "executive privilege".

Thom Hartmann's reaction to the Rove matter: We have to put the pressure on these guys. Yes, and the pressure better be enormous. This is not acceptable.

H/t: Fernando