Say what you will about the Associated Press, they are always doing their best to buck up their masters in the DNC:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., questions government witnesses during a Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006, on a plan allowing a United Arab Emirates company to take over significant operations at six U.S. seaports.

Ports Debate Gives Democrats Opportunity

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent Fri Feb 24, 9:31 PM ET

WASHINGTON – Eight months before midterm elections, Democrats sense political opportunity in a Republican revolt over the Bush administration’s handling of port security in an age of terrorism.

Rather than risk attacking the president alone in an area of his unquestioned political strength, they can stand with GOP critics. And hope to benefit while the commander in chief is forced to defend his credentials in the war on terror.

The challenge for Democrats, says former White House press secretary Michael McCurry, is to "thread it into a larger tapestry" that challenges the administration’s policies.

"Port security is national security, and national security is port security," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday at the first of what may be many hearings in the GOP-controlled Congress into the issue.

The New York Democrat is a potential presidential contender in 2008, but in this case her criticism was no match for the brisk, one-sentence letter that North Carolina Republican Rep. Sue Myrick dispatched to the White House. "In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just no, but hell no," she wrote to a president from her own party.

In fact, the transaction doesn’t involve selling ports. It involves a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates taking over a British firm that holds contracts at ports in six U.S. cities. In response to the furor, the company has offered to delay its plans.

Whatever the details of the deal, there is little stomach for it among congressional Republicans, many of whom are clamoring for legislation to prevent the takeover and talking of overriding a veto if it comes to that.

The controversy came at a time when Democrats had been straddling other issues related to national security, looking for ways to criticize the president on the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping without leaving themselves vulnerable to seemingly inevitable attacks that they were soft on terror.

"What Democrats need to do is make clear that we favor a strong, aggressive posture toward going after terrorists, going after terrorist networks, breaking up terrorists before they strike, hunting them down and killing them," said Mark Mellman, a pollster who recently gave a private briefing to several Democratic senators.

"It is critical that we make it clear that Democrats yield to nobody in protecting the American people. Until we establish that fact, it’s hard to have a conversation (with voters) on any other subject," added McCurry, who was White House press secretary under President Clinton.

Thus, a Democratic-led filibuster against the anti-terror Patriot Act in the Senate melted away this month after four Republicans who had also opposed the bill reached a separate peace with the White House.

An initial Democratic staff memo said Patriot Act changes had made the legislation worse in one instance. But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, attended the news conference where Republicans announced their agreement. The party’s leader, Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada, swung behind it, and it quickly became clear that Democrats would not press a filibuster.

An outcry against Bush’s program of warrantless wiretapping of certain terrorism suspects softened, too. Rather than stress opposition to the eavesdropping itself, several Democrats chose to emphasize that no president was above the law, and added they were eager to work with the administration if changes were needed in a 1970s-era wiretap statute.

"It’s clear that Democrats can’t afford to have Americans believe that they would sacrifice our security for the principle of civil liberties," said pollster Geoff Garin. "Democrats, I think, need to be more assertive in a pro-security message."

One recent poll suggested that stronger criticism of Bush would appeal to partisan Democrats. Not so the voters more likely to make a difference in competitive House and Senate races. The ABC survey taken in January found that 65 percent of those polled said investigating terrorism was more important than protecting privacy. Among Republicans, the figure was 84 percent. Among Democrats, it was 51 percent. Among independents, 61 percent.

Democrats seek to calibrate their rhetoric in anticipation of Republican attacks. They paid close notice when Karl Rove, the top White House political strategist, promised recently to make the war on terrorism a central campaign issue in November. It’s a play the Republicans have called, successfully, in both national elections since Sept. 11, 2001.

"Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world, and Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world," Rove told Republican activists. "That doesn’t make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong — deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

Bush himself made similar comments to House Republicans. He urged them to stress the war on terror as well as the economy. And he defended his administration’s program of wiretapping, vowing to stay the course in a global campaign to wipe out terrorism. "Don’t lose your nerve. I’m not going to lose mine," one member of his audience quoted him as saying.

Too bad Hillary and company didn’t bother to learn enough about the subject before making jackasses out themselves.

But the AP says, keep trying.

Some good news for a change.

From Stars & Stripes:

A Code Pink member holds a sign that reads "maimed for a lie" as part of their weekly demonstration in front of the US Army’s Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

Counterprotests in works for Sheehan’s Germany protests

By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, February 26, 2006

RAMSTEIN, Germany — Efforts are under way to stage a counterprotest to Cindy Sheehan’s planned March 11 demonstration outside Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and Ramstein Air Base.

Sheehan, who is the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and who protested the war last summer outside President Bush’s Texas ranch, is scheduled to participate in a daylong war protest.

Stefan Prystawik, a German writer in Bonn, is working to stage a counterprotest. On his Web site, at www.stefan-prystawik.de, Prystawik characterizes Sheehan as “the great-great grandmother of all Bush haters.”

Sheehan’s planned protest is highly inappropriate, and her complaints are “very much an internal U.S. matter,” Prystawik said.

“First of all, it’s completely inappropriate to instrumentalize the troops here particularly, and above all, those who have suffered severe injuries and are at the hospital,” he said. “They are coming here with an attitude to deliberately demoralize troops who just got back or are going to go back [to Iraq].”

Also Friday, organizers of Sheehan’s protest said that they had obtained permission from German officials in Landstuhl and Ramstein to have their demonstration March 11.

On that morning, a press conference will take place in a Protestant parish hall in Landstuhl. After the press conference, Sheehan is scheduled to share her views, said Detlev Besier, a Protestant pastor in Landstuhl and an event organizer.

It is still possible that the group may try to take gifts and baked goods to troops in Landstuhl, the U.S. military hospital where wounded troops are treated before being flown from Ramstein to the United States.

After a break for lunch, protesters will walk from Landstuhl to a parking lot outside Ramstein’s west gate where a “Camp Casey” will be set up to pay tribute to those who have died in the Iraq war.

Sheehan’s son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004.

Besier said his group does not like the high emotions stirred by news of Sheehan’s visit.

“We want to bring the emotion down,” he said.

“We don’t want to have emotional conflict. It’s not our aim to come too close to somebody. We want to have discussion, and we know Cindy Sheehan wants to open the minds of mothers who have sons, children around the world.”

It really does sound like the whole idea is to take their despicable Walter Reed Hospital protest on the road.

I hope somebody does counter them.

A small victory for the "Scooter" in the latest round from his show trial.

No, this is not from Orwell, not from Kafka. It’s from the "Paper Of Treason," the New York Times:

Former Aide to Cheney Gains Access to His Notes

By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: February 25, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney who is charged with lying to investigators about his role in the disclosure of the identity of a C.I.A. officer, won the right Friday to review his handwritten notes for a nine-month period surrounding the publication of the information.

But the federal judge hearing Mr. Libby’s case seemed markedly skeptical to a second request that the defense also be given the highly classified documents known as the President’s Daily Brief for a similar period. The judge, Reggie B. Walton, suggested that the requests for those documents by Mr. Libby’s lawyers might "sabotage" the case against him.

Mr. Libby has been charged with lying to investigators about his role in the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s role as a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

In court on Friday, his chief defense lawyer, Theodore H. Wells Jr., argued that Mr. Libby needed the highly sensitive documents he was privy to as Mr. Cheney’s top assistant and national security adviser to mount his defense. Defense lawyers have said that if Mr. Libby’s statements to investigators were untrue, it was a case of innocent confusion or faulty memory because of his preoccupation with weightier national security matters at the time.

Mr. Wells said that even though the daily briefs were so valuable that they are often called the nation’s "family jewels," he needed to show the jury the kinds of momentous issues with which Mr. Libby was involved.

But Judge Walton, who deferred a final ruling on the matter, said the briefs were so sensitive that "the White House will never agree" to release them, adding, "If I order this, it will sabotage the prosecution."

The judge also suggested that Mr. Libby’s personal notes for that period, which he had just ordered to be turned over to the defense, could be sufficient to remind Mr. Libby of the issues he was involved in.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel prosecuting Mr. Libby, told the judge that if he agreed to order the intelligence briefs made available to Mr. Libby, the result would be months of arguments over executive privilege and relevancy that "would derail the case."

Mr. Fitzgerald has said in court papers that the request for the briefs was an obvious effort at "graymail," a technique in which defense lawyers demand highly sensitive information from the government to force the prosecution to choose between providing the information or dropping the case. He noted that the disclosure of part of the Aug. 6, 2001, daily brief to the Sept. 11 commission was the sole instance of a daily brief’s being publicly disclosed and that occurred only after much wrangling.

Judge Walton scheduled Mr. Libby’s trial to begin Jan. 7, 2007, a long lead time to allow for expected pretrial battles over difficult issues like the presidential briefs and whether reporters will resist subpoenas to testify.

Mr. Fitzgerald said Friday that he would readily agree that Mr. Libby had an important job and dealt with weighty matters. But he said that the presidential briefs would provide far more detail than Mr. Libby needed to make that argument.

Further, he said, in July 2003 when Mr. Libby had conversations with three reporters, he was "deeply involved" in dealing with the issue of Ms. Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Mr. Wilson, a former ambassador, had provoked the anger of the Bush administration when he asserted that the White House had exaggerated and twisted intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s efforts to buy uranium in Africa in order to make the case for invading Iraq.

Mr. Wilson has said the White House blew his wife’s cover to retaliate and to discredit his claims.

Judge Walton also rejected a request by Mr. Libby’s lawyers to obtain information about an unnamed official who worked in the administration but not in the White House who discussed Ms. Wilson’s identity with reporters.

Of course if this wasn’t Saturday, the slowest news day of the week, The Times wouldn’t have even told us this much good news.

But watching how Fitzgerald is fighting tooth and claw against discovery in this case is very revealing to say the least.

Why won’t Fitzgerald give Libby the material he needs to defend himself? Why isn’t he allowed the same rights any serial killer would be granted. Why isn’t he being given whatever he requests, and more?

Of course I think we all know why. This has nothing to do with justice. And everything to do with a witch hunting. Getting the scalp of at least one administration official.

Shame on Patrick Fitzgerald. He should be fired, fined and disbarred. Then, as an established hero of the left, he can get his mega million dollar book deal and give high priced speeches on the same circuit with Joe Wilson and Mother Sheehan.

Just as he has undoubtedly planned all along.

Don’t ask, don’t tell. And for God’s sake, don’t make gay pornos for money.

From those lovers of diversity at the DNC’s Associated Press:

Army Charges 7 With Having Sex on Video

By ESTES THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 25

RALEIGH, N.C. – The Army has recommended that seven 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers be discharged following allegations they engaged in sex acts shown on a gay pornographic Web site.

Three soldiers face courts-martial on charges of sodomy, pandering and engaging in sex acts for money. Four others received nonjudicial punishments, according to a statement released by the military Friday.

The charges do not mention the name of the site, but the division had previously been investigating allegations that soldiers appeared on a gay pornography Web site. A spokesman for the division said the charges were a result of that investigation.

The military-themed Web site did not make any direct reference to the division or Fort Bragg, a sprawling post about 70 miles south of Raleigh.

"As far as we’re concerned, it’s isolated to the unit, and our investigation determined that these seven individuals were the only ones" involved, said 82nd Airborne spokesman Maj. Thomas Earnhardt.

The charges indicate the soldiers’ behavior is "a much more serious matter than just their sexual orientation," said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a legal group that helps gays and lesbians in the military.

"I’m not going to make excuses for service members who are taking part in sexual conduct for money," said Ralls. "It would be absolutely criminal regardless of whether they were heterosexual or gay."

Earnhardt said the three soldiers charged under military law had been appointed military attorneys, but he said the lawyers would be unavailable for comment on Friday.

The three soldiers who face courts-martial are: Spc. Richard T. Ashley, Pfc. Wesley K. Mitten and Pvt. Kagen B. Mullen. The Army did not release their ages or hometowns, but said all seven paratroopers were members of the 2nd Battalion of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

An arraignment was scheduled for March 7.

The other four soldiers who received nonjudicial penalties were not identified. Their punishments included reduction to the rank of private, 45 days of restriction to the unit area, 45 days of extra duty and forfeiture of a month’s pay.

The registered owner of the Web site’s domain name lists an address in Fayetteville, the city that adjoins Fort Bragg. A phone number listed for the registered owner was not in service Friday, and e-mails to the owner have been regularly returned as undeliverable.

The 15,000 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne are among the Army’s most elite soldiers, having volunteered to serve in a unit that trains to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours.

The military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy states that "homosexual orientation alone is not a bar to service, but homosexual conduct is incompatible with military service." Service members who violate the policy are removed from the military.

Thanks again, Mr. Clinton.

The DNC’s Washington Post:

Sectarian Violence Resurges in Iraq

By Nelson Hernandez and Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 25, 2006

BAGHDAD, Feb. 25 — Fierce sectarian violence erupted anew Saturday despite an extraordinary daytime curfew, killing more than two dozen people in a series of incidents around the country, including a brazen attack on the funeral procession of an Iraqi television journalist in Baghdad.

The violence took place even though a daytime curfew emptied the streets of Baghdad and three neighboring provinces for a second day.

President Bush made a round of phone calls to Iraqi political leaders Saturday in an effort to defuse the violence that has killed more than 150 people in the country since the destruction of the golden-domed Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra four days ago.

Bush "encouraged them to continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord among Iraq’s communities," said Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, according to news agency reports.

Iraq’s top political and religious leaders held emergency talks in Baghdad and said they would join forces to ease the sectarian bloodshed that has put the country on tenterhooks waiting to see whether a full-scale civil war will erupt, news agencies reported from Baghdad. They also discussed the formation of a new government, the agencies reported.

In a symbolic gesture, Shiite and Sunni leaders held hands and then prayed after the talks at the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad, the Reuters news agency reported from Baghdad.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry announced that the ban on all vehicular traffic will be continued in Baghdad and its suburbs for 24 hours from 6 a.m. Sunday. The ban was lifted for three other Iraqi provinces, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said at a news conference, according to reports.

The first day of the curfew, Friday, brought a relative calm to the embattled country.

Shiite and Sunni Arab political leaders have issued public pleas for calm, but each side has accused the other of mounting revenge attacks since the Askariya bombing.

The main Sunni political bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, issued a statement Saturday welcoming the government’s promise to rebuild the Shiite shrine in Samarra and Sunni mosques that were damaged in reprisal attacks afterwards.

The Sunnis suspended talks with the Shiites and Kurds on Thursday following attacks against more than 180 mosques in retaliation for the Samarra bombing.

Despite the flurry of meetings and calls, on Saturday there were signs that the Sunnis were conducting their own offensive. In the morning, gunmen burst into a Shiite house and killed 13 members of one family living near the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Baqubah, north of Baghdad. The victims, all men, consisted of three generations of one family, the Associated Press reported.

In Karbala, a Shiite holy city some 50 miles south of Baghdad, a car bomb explosion killed at least five people and injured more than 30, police and hospital officials said, according to the Associated Press. Karbala’s governor said on television that a suspect, who witnesses said detonated the bomb by remote control, was caught as he tried to flee the scene.

And in Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on the funeral procession for an Al Arabiya television reporter, who was killed along with two colleagues while covering the bombing in Samarra. One security guard was killed in the firefight, the network said.

When the mourners were returning from the cemetery, a car bomb ripped through an Iraqi military patrol that was escorting the mourners, news agencies reported. At least two soldiers and one police commando were killed then, police and army officials said, according to the Associated Press.

And at least two rockets slammed into homes in Baghdad’s Shiite slum, Sadr City, killing three people, including a child, the Associated Press reported.

Sunni leaders say Shiite militias affiliated with political parties have been allowed to rampage through the streets unchecked by the army and police. The Sunnis, in turn, have hastily organized groups of local men to defend their neighborhoods from attack.

Or the Australian Sunday Times:

Sunnis and Sadr’s Shiites make peace

From correspondents in Baghdad
26 Feb 06

THE movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, alleged to have played a role in the anti-Sunni violence over the last few days, publicly made peace with political and religious Sunni leaders overnight.

Four sheikhs from the Sadr movement made a "pact of honour" with the conservative Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, and called for an end to attacks on places of worship, the shedding of blood and condemning any act leading to sedition.

The agreement was made in the particularly symbolic setting of Baghdad’s premier Sunni mosque Abu Hanifa where the Shiite sheikhs prayed under the guidance of Sunni imam Abdel Salam al-Qubaissi.

The meeting was broadcast on television and the religious leaders all "condemned the blowing up of the Shiite mausoleum of Samarra as much as the acts of sabotage against the houses of God as well as the assassinations and terrorisation of Muslims".

The statement made reference to the key concerns of both communities with the violent aftermath to the attack on the Samarra mausoleum which saw more than 119 people die.

The sheikhs condemned "those who excommunicate Muslims" a reference to the "takfireen" or Islamist extremists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who justify killing fellow Muslims by declaring them non-Muslims.

"It is not permitted to spill the Iraqi blood and to touch the houses of God," said the statement, adding that any mosques taken over by another community should be returned.

The meeting also announced the formation of a commission to "determine the reasons for the crisis with a view to solving it", while also calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.

On the political front, Salam al-Maliki, a cabinet minister allied to Sadr, and Iyad al-Sammaraie of the Sunni Islamic Party proclaimed their own reconciliation at a joint press conference, aired on Iraqi state television.

The Islamic Party belongs to the Sunni National Concord Front, which won 44 seats in parliament and has broken off talks on forming the next Iraqi government since Wednesday’s eruption of violence.

While overwhelmingly Shiite and representing thousands of poor and disaffected Shiites across the country, Sadr’s movement has often made overtures to the Sunni Arabs over their mutual dislike of the US presence in the country.

Still, the roving bands of gun-toting, black clad youths attacking Sunnis and their places of worship on Wednesday were widely believed to have connections to the Mehdi Army, the armed wing of Sadr’s movement.

In fact, Sadr’s office in Najaf issued a statement Saturday calling on his followers to eschew their trademark black uniforms.

"The order has been given to members of the Mehdi Army to no longer wear their black uniform, so that it not exploited by those who commit crimes," said the statement.

The statement added that those attacking mosques were "criminal bands with no links to the Sadr movement."

Maybe they are talking about two different Iraqs.

That is to say the Saudis "control" these ports as much as the UAE’s Dubai Ports World ever will.

But it’s funny that our one party media hasn’t mentioned this Saudi-owned company, NSCSA, or its operation in even more ports than the UAE will have a berth.

Maybe the press don’t know about them, as the company’s only been around since 1979. And of course the longshoremen’s and DNC’s press releases, which they regurgitate verbatim, haven’t mentioned them:

The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia

Owners

Government of Saudi Arabia, Saudi individuals and establishments

Head Office Riyadh, KSA

The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (NSCSA) was established in 1979 to meet the transportation needs of Importers and Exporters in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East.

And look at the ports where they control berths:

Marine Terminals

Baltimore, MD

Halifax, Canada

Newport News, VA

Houston, TX

New Orleans, LA

St. John, Canada

Houston, Texas

Savannah, GA

Wilmington, NC

Port Newark, NJ

Brooklyn, NY

Where’s the outrage?

No turning the other cheek here.

From the New York Times:

People pass by bodies amid burning tires and debris Thursday in a street in Onitsha, Nigeria. Muslims fled the city and corpses still smoldered in its streets Thursday as two days of sectarian violence that killed scores.

Christian mobs kill Muslims in Nigeria; homes, shops looted

By Lydia Polgreen
February 24, 2006

ONITSHA, Nigeria – Charred bodies littered the streets of this bustling commercial center yesterday after three days of rioting in which Christian mobs wielding machetes, clubs and knives set upon their Muslim neighbors.

Rioters have killed scores of people here, mostly Muslims, after burning their homes, businesses and mosques in the worst violence yet linked to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper. The violence erupted after similar attacks on Christians in northern Nigeria last week by Muslims infuriated over the cartoons.

Old ethnic and political tensions between Muslims in the north and Christians here in the south have been refueled, with at least 33 bodies still visible on the streets yesterday.

The riots in Onitsha were ignited when a busload of the bodies of Ibo victims of violence in the north returned home this week.

The cycle of tit-for-tat sectarian violence has pushed the total death toll in the last week well beyond 100, making Nigeria the hardest-hit country in the caricature controversy.

The main thoroughfare leading into the city across the Niger River was covered in bodies of Muslim Hausas who had tried to flee rampaging bands of youths, witnesses said. Many victims appeared to have been beaten to death; most bodies had been doused with gasoline and burned.

Residents combed through destroyed shops and homes of Muslims to loot.

“These things belong to Igbos,” said Sunday Tagbo, 25, referring to the dominant ethnic group of this region, more commonly known as Ibos, as he helped himself to sooty car parts left behind by fleeing merchants. “This is Igbo land. No more Muslims can live here.”

For whatever reason there are now dozens of photos available that show the damage done to the Moslems by the Christians in Nigeria. Yet I can still only find two photos about the Moslems attack upon Christians, neither of which shows any damage whatsoever.

And this and other accounts seem to want to downplay the number of Christian deaths, which has been placed elsewhere over 130.

It will be interesting to see if fighting back stops the attacks. Nigeria seems to be the only place where it has been tried to any extent.

More chipping away at freedom of speech.

From the terrorist enablers at Reuters:

London Mayor Ken Livingstone is to be suspended for four weeks after a disciplinary tribunal found him guilty of bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Livingstone suspended for "Nazi" jibe

Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:03 PM GMT9

By Peter Graff

LONDON (Reuters) – Feisty London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended for a month on Friday for comparing a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard, a verdict the mayor said struck "at the heart of democracy".

A three-person panel which hears complaints against local authorities ruled in a case brought by a Jewish group that Livingstone, 60, had brought his office into disrepute.

It ordered him suspended for four weeks from March 1.

"Three members of a body that no one has ever elected should not be allowed to overturn the votes of millions of Londoners," Livingstone said in a statement.

"This decision strikes at the heart of democracy. Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law."

He added he was discussing with lawyers whether to appeal.

The suspension came as a surprise: the mayor, one of the most colourful and popular politicians, could have faced up to a five year ban on holding public office, but media were expecting at most a public rebuke.

Livingstone’s deputy Nicky Gavron said she would run the city in his absence, and that services would not be interrupted.

"There’s a very well oiled machine," she told Sky News. "If there’s any incidents in London, people know what to do."

SUSPENSION "DESERVED"

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which brought the complaint, said the suspension was deserved.

"I think the message one would hope the mayor would take away from this is that he is not the sole arbiter of standards in public life, that an elected official can nevertheless go beyond what is acceptable," the group’s Jon Benjamin told BBC Radio.

Livingstone sparked the rumpus when reporter Oliver Finegold questioned him as he left a party for a gay politician last year.

When the reporter identified himself as working for the Evening Standard, a paper loathed by the mayor, Livingstone asked: "What did you do? Were you a German war criminal?"

Finegold said he was Jewish and found the remarks offensive. Livingstone replied that the reporter was "like a concentration camp guard — you are just doing it because you are paid to."

He later refused to apologise, noting that the Standard’s sister paper, the Daily Mail, had supported the Nazis in the 1930s. He also said he had been rude to reporters for decades, others hadn’t complained and he had no intention of changing.

"ILL-FITTING"

The paper’s editor Veronica Wadley said it was now time Livingstone apologised.

"There is no question that he caused offence to many Londoners by his comments, and his stubborn refusal to say sorry aggravated the position," she said in a statement.

Brian Coleman, London assembly member from the opposition Conservative Party said Livingstone should resign. But the Green Party called the suspension an "hysterical over-reaction".

Livingstone, known as Red Ken in the 1980s as a left-wing maverick in local government, won election to the newly created post of mayor in 2000 after leaving the Labour Party and defeating Prime Minister Tony Blair’s candidate.

He later returned to the party, but has frequently clashed with Blair, leading marches against the war in Iraq.

He was widely praised last year for guiding London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympics and for his handling of suicide bomb attacks on the city’s transport network in which 52 commuters died.

But he has long had a prickly relationship with the Evening Standard, the capital’s biggest local paper, where he was once an occasional freelance restaurant critic.

Can you imagine the chaos if people decided to "suspend" our elected officials over perceived slights to reporters or some other protected group?

And whatever happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me"?

From Saudi-owned Reuters:

Saudis foil attack on oil facility

By Andrew Hammond

RIYADH (Reuters) – At least two cars exploded at the gates of Saudi Arabia's huge Abqaiq oil facility on Friday when security forces fired on suicide bombers trying to storm the world's biggest oil processing plant, Saudi officials said.

Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said oil and gas output was unaffected by the "terrorist attempt" — the first direct strike on a Saudi oil target since al Qaeda militants launched attacks aimed at toppling Saudi Arabia's pro-Western monarchy in 2003.

"Security forces foiled an attempted suicide attack at the Abqaiq refinery using at least two cars," an official said.

Oil prices jumped $2 a barrel on news of the attack in the world's largest oil exporter, which came a year after Saudi-born Osama bin Laden urged his supporters to hit Gulf oil targets.

Saudi security adviser Nawaf Obaid said security forces fired on three cars packed with explosives as they rammed the outer gates of the Abqaiq facility, one mile from the main entrance.

"Three cars rammed the first of the three sets of gates protecting Abqaiq and when security shot at them all three cars exploded," Obaid said.

Dubai-based television station Al-Arabiya said the attackers had been killed. It added the cars they used had the logo of Saudi state-owned oil company Aramco.

Oil minister Naimi, quoted by the Saudi Press Agency, said a small fire was quickly brought under control after the incident which he said took place at 3.10 p.m. (1210 GMT).

Most Saudi oil is exported from the Gulf via the huge producing, pumping and processing facility at Abqaiq, also known locally as Baqiq, in the mainly Shi'ite Eastern Province.

SPECTACULAR TARGET

Friday's attack was the first major strike by militants in Saudi Arabia since suicide bombers tried to storm the Interior Ministry in Riyadh in December 2004.

The prospect of a direct attack on Saudi crude facilities has been a doomsday scenario for oil consumer nations heavily reliant on Saudi oil. The kingdom accounts for around a sixth of the world's oil exports, supplying 7.5 million barrels a day.

Former Middle East CIA field officer Robert Baer has described Abqaiq as "the most vulnerable point and most spectacular target in the Saudi oil system."

Abqaiq handles crude pumped from the giant Ghawar field and ships it off to terminals Ras Tanura — the world's biggest offshore oil loading facility — and Juaymah. It also pumps oil westwards across the kingdom to Red Sea export terminals.

"It's not clear what damage there is but Abqaiq is the world's most important oil facility," said Gary Ross, CEO at PIRA Energy consultancy in New York.

"This just emphasizes fears over global oil supply security when we're already facing major ongoing risks in Nigeria, Iran and Iraq."

Officials say around 144 foreigners and Saudis, including security forces, and 120 militants have died in militant attacks and clashes with police since May 2003, when al Qaeda suicide bombers struck at three Western housing compounds in Riyadh.

The next year militants bombed a Saudi security building in the capital, killed Western engineers in the Red Sea city of Yanbu, and attacked oil company and housing compounds in the Gulf city of Khobar.

Saudi officials say they have killed the most dangerous al Qaeda leaders in the country and broken the back of their insurgency, but that al Qaeda will remain a threat in the kingdom for years.

"There had been concern that even though their capabilities had diminished they still had the intent to launch attacks in the kingdom," a U.S. counter-terrorism official said.

It's nice of Reuters to point out what a spectacular target this is.

The hell you say!

From the DNC charity, the Associated Press:

IRS Finds Charities Overstep Into Politics

By MARY DALRYMPLE, AP Tax Writer

WASHINGTON – IRS exams found nearly 3 out of 4 churches, charities and other civic groups suspected of having violated restraints on political activity in the 2004 election actually did so, the agency said Friday.

Most of the examinations that have concluded found only a single, isolated incidence of prohibited campaign activity.

In three cases, however, the IRS uncovered violations egregious enough to recommend revoking the groups’ tax-exempt status.

"While the vast majority of charities, including churches, did not engage in politicking, our examinations substantiated a disturbing amount of political intervention in the 2004 electoral cycle," IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said in a statement.

The tax agency looked only at charities, churches and other tax-exempt organizations referred to the IRS for potentially violating laws that bar them from participating in or intervening in elections, including advocating for or against any candidate.

Those referred to the IRS represent a tiny fraction of more than 1 million tax-exempt organizations organized under section 501(c)(3) of the tax law.

The IRS examined 110 organizations referred to the tax agency for potentially violations, and 28 cases remain open.

Among the 82 closed cases, the IRS found prohibited politicking and sent a written warning to 55 organizations and assessed a penalty tax against one group. Those organizations included 37 churches and 19 other organizations.

In the three additional cases in which the IRS recommended revoking tax-exempt status, none of the organizations were churches. The agency did not identify the three.

The IRS found tax violations unrelated to politics in five cases. Examinations of the 18 remaining groups did not turn up any wrongdoing.

Among the prohibited activities, the examiners found that charities and churches had distributed printed material supporting a preferred candidate and assembled improper voter guides or candidate ratings.

Religious leaders had used the pulpit to endorse or oppose a particular candidate, and some groups had shown preferential treatment to candidates by letting them speak at functions.

Other charities and churches had made improper cash contributions to a candidate’s political campaign.

The IRS said the cases covered "the full spectrum" of political viewpoints.

The tax agency set up a task force in 2004 to review allegations of improper political activity. The special procedures, revealed shortly before the election, drew criticism from some tax-exempt groups.

An audit by Treasury Department inspectors found nothing inappropriate in the examinations, but it faulted the IRS for creating the appearance of political motivations by waiting too long to announce the project and contact organizations.

The IRS said it plans to continue using the task force, and its speedier procedures, for this year’s election and in the future. It also released detailed guidance to charities and churches about the prohibitions against political activities.

Amazingly, I’ve still gotten no response back to my letters to the IRS about Mother Sheehan’s group the GSFP and their violations of their 501c3 status. Including their participation in George Soros and Fenton Communication’s "Real Voices" ad campaign.

Despite the fact that Cindy has publicly bragged about how she violated the IRS regulations:

Memorial Day Interview: Gold Star Families for Peace

by Kevin B. Zeese

Zeese: Describe some of the projects you have pursued?

Sheehan: We are lobbying Congress to have an inquiry into the lies that caused Iraq. We are trying to meet with the Sec of Defense to hold him accountable for the lies. We campaigned against George Bush during the elections. We are working on Counter-recruitment. We work closely with the AFSC’s Eyes Wide Open Exhibit and the VFP’s Arlington West.

Zeese: What are some upcoming events?

Sheehan: We are walking the halls of Congress on June 15th to push the Resolution of Inquiry into the AfterDowningStreet.org request and and inquiry into the lies and betrayals that killed our sons and daughters.

But I’m sure the IRS will be cracking down on her and the other America-hating groups any minute now.

Whatever else you can say about Moslems, they have the oddest ways of showing their reverence for shrines.

From the terrorist enabling Associated Press:

Violence After Mosque Attack Kills 111

By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen shot dead 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad Thursday as militia battles and sectarian reprisals followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine. Sunni Arabs suspended their participation in talks on a new government.

At least 111 people were believed killed in two days of rage unleashed by Wednesday’s attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, a mostly Sunni Arab city 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The hardline Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked around the country, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted since the shrine attack. The Interior Ministry said it could only confirm figures for Baghdad, where it had reports of 19 mosques attacked, one cleric killed and one abducted.

The bullet-ridden bodies of a prominent female correspondent and two other journalists who had been covering Wednesday’s explosion in Samarra were found on the outskirts of the city.

The sectarian violence threatened to derail U.S. plans to form a new national unity government representing all factions, including Sunni Arabs, who form the backbone of the insurgency.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, summoned political leaders to a meeting Thursday. But the biggest Sunni faction in the new parliament, the Iraqi Accordance Front, refused to attend, citing the attacks on Sunni mosques.

"It is illogical to negotiate with parties that are trying to damage the political process," said Tariq al-Hashimi, a leader of the Accordance Front.

President Bush said the bombing was intended to divide the Iraqi people.

"The act was an evil act," Bush said. "The destruction of a holy site is a political act intending to create strife. So I am pleased with the voices of reason that have spoken out."

Bush said the U.S. was committed to helping rebuild the mosque.

As the country veered toward sectarian war, the government extended a curfew in Baghdad and Salaheddin province for two days. All leaves for Iraqi soldiers and police were canceled and personnel ordered to report to their units.

The U.S. military said four soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, were killed Wednesday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Hawijah.

Three others from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division died when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb Wednesday near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accused the Iraqi government and U.S. forces of failing to protect the Samarra shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq.

"If the government had real sovereignty, then nothing like this would have happened," al-Sadr said in a statement. "Brothers in the Mahdi Army must protect all Shiite shrines and mosques, especially in Samarra."

The destruction of the gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine sent crowds of angry Shiites into the streets across Iraq. The crowds included members of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias that the United States wants abolished.

A spokesman for the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars blamed the violence on the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and other Shiite religious leaders who called for demonstrations against the shrine attack.

Abdul-Salam Al-Kubaisi also said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad may also have enflamed the situation when he warned Monday that the United States would not continue to support institutions run by sectarian groups with links to armed militias. Sunnis accuse Shiite militiamen operating in the ranks of the Interior Ministry, which controls the police, of widespread abuses.

"Without doubt, these statements mobilized all the Shiites," al-Kubaisi said. "It made them ready to go down to the street at any moment."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday that he suspects Al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was responsible for the mosque attack.

"It has the hallmarks of their nihilism

," Straw told a news conference in London. He called on leaders of Iraq’s religious communities to defuse tensions caused by the attack.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said the attack was "an act of desperation as well as desecration."

In Diyala, a religiously mixed province northeast of Baghdad, 47 bodies were found in a ditch. Officials said the victims appeared to have been stopped by gunmen, forced out of their cars and shot in an industrial area near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Most were aged between 20 and 50 and appeared to include both Sunnis and Shiites, police said.

Dozens more bodies were found dumped at sites in Baghdad and the Shiite heartland in southern Iraq, many of them with their hands bound and shot execution-style.

Fighting broke out Thursday afternoon in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, between al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia and Sunni militiamen. Two civilians were killed and five militiamen were injured, police Capt. Rashid al-Samaraie said.

Gunmen fired automatic weapons and grenades at a Sunni mosque in Baqouba, killing one mosque employee and injuring two others, police said. Assailants also set fire to two Sunni mosques in eastern Baghdad, police said.

Thousands of demonstrators carrying Shiite flags and banners marched through parts of Baghdad, Karbala, Kut, Tal Afar and the Shiite holy city of Najaf in protest against the shrine attack.

U.S. military units in the Baghdad area were told Thursday morning to halt all but essential travel. Commanders feared that convoys might be caught up in demonstrations or road blocks.

Nineteen people, 11 of them civilians, died in two bombings north of Baghdad that appeared unrelated to the sectarian fighting.

Of course this will be used by Al Qaeda (and their allies, like Mother Sheehan) to whip up more anti-Americanism.

That’s why they did it in the first place.

Attention whore Busy bee Mother Sheehan is planning to follow in her hero Jane Fonda’s footsteps with an anti-American anti-USO type tour.

From Fox News:

Jane Fonda laughing with a North Vietnamese gun crew.

Sheehan, REM Frontman Plan ‘Bring ‘Em Home Now’ Concert

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

NEW YORK — Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and REM frontman Michael Stipe will headline a New York concert to urge the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The concert, dubbed "Bring ‘Em Home Now!" will be held at the Hammerstein Ballroom on March 20, the 3rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Rufus Wainwright and Bright Eyes will also perform, it was announced Wednesday.

Sheehan, who camped outside President Bush’s ranch in Texas last year to protest the Iraq war, will speak during the concert. Her 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Chuck D, Fischerspooner, Peaches, Steve Earle and Devendra Banhart are also scheduled to perform.

"It is impossible not react to the current state of affairs through personal action and artistic production," said Casey Spooner of Fischerspooner in a statement.

Organizers said the concert will be followed by a national "Bring ‘Em Home Now!" speaking tour that will feature Sheehan and various authors traveling to 15 U.S. cities in April.

More concert performers are expected to be added later.

From Wikipedia:

Jane Fonda

Opposition to the Vietnam War

In April 1970, Fred Gardner, Fonda and Donald Sutherland formed *FTA* ("Free The Army", a play on the troop expression "Fuck The Army"), an anti-war road show designed as an answer to Bob Hope’s USO tour. The tour, referred to as "political vaudeville" by Fonda, visited military towns along the West Coast, with the goal of establishing a dialogue with soldiers about their upcoming deployments to Vietnam. The dialogue was made into a movie that contained strong, frank criticism of the war by service men and women. It was released in 1972.

Of course the lefty Wikipedia can’t resist re-writing history. The name of the tour and the subsequent movie was "Fuck The Army." A fact Fonda is proud of to this day.

And she is not alone. From the GI Movement Scrapbook:

FTA, Fuck The Army, appeared on almost every U.S. military base around the world. We take pride in knowing that GI and vet opposition to that war contributed to the eventual well-deserved defeat of the U.S. in Vietnam.

Of course Mother Sheehan also hopes that someday she will also be able to brag about how she contributed to the well-deserved defeat of the US in Iraq.