Essential Reading

Thomas Frank. ‘Nuff said!

Actually not quite. Buy the book at Amazon and support your blogger.

There He Goes Again; More Lies And Flip-Flopping From President McCain

If he’s lying so much now, triumph of the heart or no, he may be turning a lot of people off by November….

First, his lying spew:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkKk2C1W1c

Now, the truth:

[H]is views on race in the 1980s do not stand up to the sunlight of America a quarter-century later. Most glaringly, McCain as a young congressman in 1983 voted against a federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Most Republicans in the House voted for the holiday (89 voted for the holiday, 77 opposed), though all three Arizona House Republicans were opposed. Reps. Dick Cheney, R-Wyoming, and Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, voted for the holiday. (Cheney had voted against it in 1978.)

In December 1999 McCain told NBC’s Tim Russert, “on the Martin Luther King issue, we all learn, OK? We all learn. I will admit to learning, and I hope that the people that I represent appreciate that, too. I voted in 1983 against the recognition of Martin Luther King…. I regret that vote.”

The problem, of course, is that the vote isn’t the only problem. In his home state of Arizona, conservatives in the state legislature blocked a measure to create a holiday honoring King, prompting then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt (D) to declare one through executive order.

In 1987, Republican Gov. Evan Mecham’s first act in office was to rescind Babbitt’s order on the King holiday. John McCain endorsed Mecham’s decision.

Now, McCain’s traditional defense is that he was initially wrong about this when he got to Congress, but learned over time. But this is also misleading. He voted against the King holiday in ‘83. Four years later, he didn’t fight against a governor of his own party; he endorsed the governor’s move to eliminate a King holiday.

Six years after his House vote he finally began supporting an official holiday in Arizona, but still opposed a federal King holiday. Eleven years after his vote, he tried to strip federal funding from the MLK Federal Holiday Commission. Seventeen years after his vote, McCain publicly endorsed South Carolina’s right to fly the confederate flag over its statehouse.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/election08/93753/#mce_temp_url#.

Three Good Questions For ABC News About Its Bogus Anthrax Scoops

1. Sources who are granted confidentiality give up their rights when they lie or mislead the reporter. Were you lied to or misled by your sources when you reported several times in 2001 that anthrax found in domestic attacks came from Iraq or showed signs of Iraqi involvement? 

2. It now appears that the attacks were of domestic origin and the anthrax came from within U.S. government facilities. This leads us to ask you: who were the “four well-placed and separate sources” who falsely told ABC News that tests conducted at Fort Detrick showed bentonite in the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to connect the attacks to Iraq in multiple reports over a five day period in October, 2001?

3. A substantially false story that helps make the case for war by raising fears about enemies abroad attacking the United States is released into public debate because of faulty reporting by ABC News. How that happened and who was responsible is itself a major story of public interest. What is ABC News doing to re-report these events, to figure out what went wrong and to correct the record for the American people who were misled?

Link.

American Justice

First:

It only took seven years….

It was science that led the FBI to the scientist. Beginning with cell samples of the anthrax that was mailed in 2001, as well as from the victims of the attacks, investigators used advanced DNA fingerprinting techniques to identify unique sections of genetic code. With that, investigators tracked the anthrax back to the biological weapons lab at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., where the highly specific type of toxin was overseen by scientist Bruce Ivins.

[more]

Second:

The FBI removed computer records from the C. Burr Artz Library this week, a library official confirmed Saturday.

***

This was the third time in his 10 years with FCPL that the FBI has come to the library seeking records, Batson said. It was the first time they came without a court order.

The library’s procedure for such requests usually requires a court order, however after the agent described the case and the situation, he was persuaded to give them access, Batson said.

“They had an awful lot of information,” he said, but he was not allowed to discuss specifics.

“It was a decision I made on my experience and the information given to me,” he said.

[more]

Well, if you can’t trust your librarian… your rights are at risk….

The Worst Comic Strip Ever? No!

Weekly Reader’s “Uncle Funny Bunny”.

Loved it when I read it as a kid and still love it. (Then again, I also love Zippy.)

 

The worst? No way! Sheer super-droll brilliance!