Current Events

Check out these damning memos compiled by the Center for American Progress — internal memos that show The Bush Administration actually reversed the Clinton Administration’s strong emphasis on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Attorney General John Ashcroft not only moved aggressively to reduce DoJ’s anti-terrorist budget but also shift DoJ’s mission in spirit to emphasize its role as a domestic police force and anti-drug force. These changes in mission were just as critical as the budget changes, with Ashcroft, in effect, guiding the day to day decisions made by field officers and agents. And all of this while the Administration was receiving repeated warnings about potential terrorist attacks.

Wow — some fantastic images from around the world on the anniversary of the beginning of the American invasion of Iraq.

Former White House Counter-Terrorism expert Richard Clarke has written a book, “Against All Enemies: Inside the White House’s War on Terror–What Really Happened” which basically is a scathing criticism of everything George W. Bush did wrong; actions which lead directly to the 9/11 attacks.

Silly Andrew is making the argument that the liberal win in Spain was a victory for al Qaeda. Of course that’s ridiculous (see below) but the really bizarre thing is that he’s suggesting that it will lead to a major Al Qaeda attack in the US in an attempt to influence the election. If the ridiculousness of that isn’t obvious to you, let me point it out…. if there’s another major Al Qaeda attack in the U.S., then George Bush shouldn’t just be voted out of office, he should be impeached and escorted out of there under armed guard. He’s making the case for being the rock of safety in times of danger. Nevermind that he presided over the worst national security disaster in recent memory. If he can allow another major attack, then of course he shouldn’t be there. He should have been kicked out in October of 2001.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush has marked International Women’s Week by paying tribute to women reformers — but one of those he cited is really a man.
“Earlier today, the Libyan government released Fathi Jahmi. She’s a local government official who was imprisoned in 2002 for advocating free speech and democracy,” the president said in a speech at the White House on Friday.
The only problem was that, by all other accounts, “she” is in fact “he”.
“Definitely male,” said Alistair Hodgett, spokesman for the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International, whose representatives tried to see Jahmi in prison during a recent visit to Libya.

David Knight, son of the state senator who was the author of the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage, defied his father’s law and wed his partner of 10 years Tuesday in a quiet ceremony attended by just two friends in San Francisco City Hall.
Atop the grand staircase of City Hall’s rotunda, Knight and Joe Lazzaro of Baltimore exchanged rings and were pronounced spouses for life one month after Sen. William “Pete” Knight, R-Palmdale, proclaimed San Francisco’s same- sex marriages “nothing more than a sideshow.”
Knight, a shy 42-year-old cabinetmaker and former Air Force fighter pilot, broke his long silence on his father’s politics in 2000 to denounce Prop. 22 and talk about the pain it caused his family. He had told his father about six years earlier that he is gay.