Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

Reuters has turned a report of a tragedy into an anti-Bushie/anti-war propaganda piece, with the help of some of the left’s best PR.

A stampede on a bridge over the Tigris River near Baghdad Wednesday claimed the lives of up to 1,000 people. Officials say it began when someone in the crowd shouted that there was an insurgent suicide bomber on the bridge, causing people to push, shove, and leap.

Reuters reports this and goes on to almost explicitly blame the Bush Administration and attack the effort in Iraq, with a little extraneous reporting/press release repeating:

Despite the draft constitution, there has been no easing in an insurgency waged by Sunni Muslims, dominant under Saddam, and international guerrillas inspired by Osama bin Laden.

The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003 and has been battling insurgents while Iraqis have tried to form a new post-Saddam constitution and government.

The persistent fighting has helped to push down President George W. Bush’s approval rating to a career low of 45 percent on concerns over the war and soaring fuel prices, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll published on Tuesday.

The U.S. war in Iraq now costs more per month than the average monthly cost of military operations in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

The report, entitled “The Iraq Quagmire” from the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus, both liberal, anti-war organizations, put the cost of operations in Iraq at $5.6 billion per month.

This breaks down to almost $186 million a day.

“By comparison, the average cost of U.S. operations in Vietnam over the eight-year war was $5.1 billion per month, adjusting for inflation,” it said.

Note that there is no mention of the Iraqis fighting their own insurgency. Note the Vietnam comparison. And there is no mention of how such negative reporting tacked extraneously onto the end of a story about a stamped on a bridge can distort views of the war and of the President.

“The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing Home the Troops” propaganda piece cited without question by Reuters was put out by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF).

The piece lists as its “Key Findings”: “‘The Iraq Quagmire’ is the most comprehensive accounting of the mounting costs and consequences of the Iraq War on the United States, Iraq, and the world. Among its major findings are stark figures that quantify the continuing of costs since the Iraqi elections, a period that the Bush administration claimed would be characterized by a reduction in the human and economic costs.”

The Institute for Policy Studies describes itself:

The Institute for Policy Studies strengthens social movements with independent research, visionary thinking, and links to the grassroots, scholars and elected officials. Since 1963, we have empowered people to build healthy and democratic societies in communities, the U.S., and the world.

IPS public scholars pursue their work with a common set of 10 core values and principles: peace, justice, environmental sustainability, participatory democracy, human rights, freedom, dignity, diversity, community, and international law.

That covers most of the left’s socialistic code words.

Foreign Policy in Focus describes itself:

We believe U.S. security and world stability are best advanced through a commitment to peace, justice and environmental protection as well as economic, political, and social rights. We advocate that diplomatic solutions, global cooperation, and grassroots participation guide foreign policy.

[ . . .]
FPIF aims to amplify the voice of progressives and to build links with social movements in the U.S. and around the world. Through these connections, we advance and influence debate and discussion among academics, activists, policymakers, and decisionmakers.

Is there anything to add?

One of the authors of the report, the IPS’ Phyllis Bennis, lists as her current work:

The Middle East component of the Project challenges the drive towards U.S. empire in that region and beyond, focusing particularly on ending the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq, and supporting a just and comprehensive peace based on an end to Israeli occupation of Palestine. The United Nations component analyzes U.S. domination of the UN and attempts to strengthen the potential role of the UN as part of a new internationalism and the global resistance to empire. Since September 11, 2001, the New Internationalism Project has also been involved in assessing the root causes of, and critiquing Bush administration responses to, that tragedy.

The other, Erik Lever, seems slightly more benign:

Erik is a Research Fellow with the peace and security program and serves as the Policy Outreach director for the Foreign Policy In Focus project. His current work includes conducting education and outreach on issues surrounding Iraq and multilateral institutions. In the last year he has been interviewed on numerous radio stations, done appearances on TV shows including MSNBC and ABC, and quoted in publications ranging from The Nation and The Washington Post to Al-Ahram (Egypt).

This is fringe stuff.

It appears that someone at Reuters found an anti-Bushie press release and tacked it on to the end of a news story about a tragic stampede believed by the Iraqi government to have been provoked by terrorists, the ones who can perhaps take heart from such reporting.

It seems that 5.5 out of 10 Americans Surveyed do not approve of the President (as described by the press). Remove the propaganda and take another poll. But you can’t remove the distortion, as it’s out there – in both senses. The saving grace is the declining influence both of the MSM and of the American left.

This comes from a very brief Tuesday piece headlined Special Information Bulletin Issued in Nepal, dateline Pyongyang, from the “Korean Central News Agency of DPRK” (North Korea):

In recent years the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] has more dynamically advanced, holding high the banner of independence despite the evermore undisguised high-handed and arbitrary practices of the U.S.-led imperialist allies, it said, adding that the DPRK is now demonstrating its might to the world as a fortress of independence and the prospect of the human cause of independence is bright thanks to the DPRK.

All hail the Dear Leader!

Comrade Kim Jong Il. (Click on his image to be taken to the appropriate Saturday Night Live skit.)

She was almost a superstar!

“When I first started here, I was sitting in the ditch thinking, `What the heck did I do? Texas in August, the chiggers, fire ants, rattlesnakes, uncomfortable accommodations’ _ but I’m going to be sad leaving here,” Sheehan said. “I hope people will say that the Camp Casey movement sparked a peace movement that ended the war in Iraq.”

In her own mind.

Where’s the book deal?

We have several fresh columns at the web site of the Rightsided Newsletter this afternoon:

Barbara J. Stock - The Exodus of Gaza: Will It Bring Peace?

John T. Plecnik - Dr. Mike Adams Makes a House Call to North Carolina State: Hundreds Meet to Discuss Liberal Bias on Campus. (Adams is a conservative campus advocate.)

Dustin Hawkins - The Wicked Witch of the Ditch, dealswith Allmother Cindy Sheehan.

Sgt. Steve Boggess - Iraq vs. Vietnam: No Comparison, a response to another of MoDowd’s columns in the NYT.

Ayn Rand Institute - The Perversity of U.S. Backing for the Gaza Retreat.

Enjoy,

And when you’re through, subscribe FREE to the twice-weekly Rightsided Newsletter. (You can subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com. We ask for no other information, and you will receive no e-mail other than the newsletter by doing this. For more info and the latest RSN, check out the RSN site.)

The husband of Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois), Dem political consultant Robert Creamer, has pleaded guilty to one count each of bank fraud and failure to collect withholding tax. It was a plea bargain, and his indictment, Creamer had “caused a series of insufficiently funded checks and wire transfers to be drawn on accounts he controlled as executive director of the Illinois Public Action Fund. According to the indictment, he allegedly then used the inflated balances to pay the group’s expenses and own salary.

Schakowsky was neither implicated nor charged in the matter which, since it dealt with funds, fraud, and greed, must somehow be traceable to Chimpy McBushitlerCo., in the vernacular.

Schakowsky’s Chicago seat is Dem all the way, and she says she does not expect a challenger in next March’s primary.

Creamer was also arrested in June at an anti-Bushie protest at the Capitol Hilton in DC in June:

The incident reportedly happened when Americans United to Protect Social Security staged a demonstration during President Bush’s arrival at the hotel for a speech. Police said Creamer, one of the protesters, charged officers as Bush’s motorcade pulled up. Creamer was arrested and later pleaded not guilty in court.

He’s violent.

From UPI:

Relief officials in Biloxi, Miss., say they fear hundreds of people died in Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught, as bodies are turning up in waterfront debris.

In the city’s east, firefighters and emergency workers pulled bodies from the debris and placed them in black bags as they combed through small mountains of wreckage, the Biloxi Sun Herald said Wednesday.

A makeshift morgue was set up in neighboring Gulfport, while some families brought their deceased to the Harrison County coroner’s office, the newspaper said.

Two days after the Category 4 storm battered the area, officials were concentrating on search-and-rescue missions, looking for survivors trapped in debris.

Biloxi officials were worried about a shortage of potable water, as the city’s water and sewage systems are not working, city spokesman Vincent Creel said.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said the hurricane had destroyed every one of the casinos that generated $500,000 per day in revenues for the state.

You tell me.

Visit for ways in which you can help.

—

Dan Tencer at Rapid Politics Dot Com offers his reflections and some poignant survivor quotes.

Anti-American London Mayor Ken Livingstone faces a hearing before the independent Adjudication Panel for England to determine if he broke the Greater London Authority Code of Conduct.

What did he do?

The mayor accused Mr [Evening Standard reporter Oliver] Finegold of pursuing him and on tape he was heard asking the reporter if he was a “German war criminal”.

Mr Finegold replied: “No, I’m Jewish, I wasn’t a German war criminal. I’m quite offended by that.”

The mayor then says: “Ah right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren’t you?”

The BBC reports that Livingstone “could be banned from office, suspended, told to apologise, censured or told to go for training.”

Perhaps he could be sentenced to take a sensitivity training course from Cindy “It’s Israel’s War” Sheehan.

Cindy Sheehan, as she prepares to split Crawford, has had something posted under her byline at the lefty, anti-Bushie Daily Kos web site:

While George golfed yesterday, the worst hurricane ever struck New Orleans; oil went up to over 68.00/barrel; and an American soldier was killed in the charade and cataclysmic occupation of Iraq. The soldier’s family doesn’t even know what’s going to hit them yet. The death is “Pending Notification.” I continually ask myself: “How do George Bush and other death-mongers live with themselves?” While George vacations and bikes and golfs his way to the lowest poll numbers since Richard Nixon, other “patriots” are wrapping themselves in the Stars and Stripes and going along with the farce that the mission from hell: Killing more people in Iraq, because so many have already been killed” is somehow a good thing ordained by God. I can live with myself, but trust me, sleep does not come easily to me these days.

How sloppy they are. How damned fool sloppy.

Commence the Cindy Sheehan speaking tour.

[HT, Juan Cole at Balloon Juice.]

One wonders…

Call FEMA? Or there is always the Ford Motor Company, Petco, Anheuser-Busch, Lowe’s hardware, and Wal-Mart (in spades).

[A]s Americans, we should be grateful that we have such good neighbors in our corporate citizens. Remember: Those corporations are run, staffed by, and held by Americans and other humans — not soulless androids. Having seen my share of hurricanes the last couple of years, I can tell you this will all be needed, and more. Hats off to the folks who are putting their money down, without even being asked.

Just think about it. American companies and corporations can be the best of America.

This is from Rich Lowry at NRO’s The Corner:

We had a big problem with looting in Baghdad after the war, and didn’t deal with it strenuously enough. Watching Hannity & Colmes last night, I got the impression that things would have been very different if Haley Barbour had been in charge. Talking about any possible looters in Mississippi, the governor said (I’m quoting from memory) that they would be dealt with “ruthlessly,” that they are “sub-human,” and that they would get “a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget.”

Of course, Mississippians are not tasting freedom for the first time in three decades. governors from John Bell Williams to Ronnie Musgrave, excluding Kirk Force, not withstanding; but Lowry’s point is well taken.

Miguell A. Padilla, 25, was in this country illegally. Living comfortably, selling drugs for years, in this country without so much as note from his mother.

In the Sunday AM touching Saturday night, Miguell A. Padilla, 25, tried to get into the members-only drinking establishment called the UVA Club in Altoona, PA. The UVA Club is in an old building surrounding by old buildings, across the street from a few newer retail places with parking lots, right next to a low-clearance railroad bridge under which trucks sometimes get stuck. Miguell A. Padilla, 25, was not a member of the UVA Club, and thus was not allowed to enter.

Miguell A. Padilla, 25, returned to his Jag, retrieved a gun, and shot and killed the club’s bouncer, 58-year-old Fred Rickabaugh and the club owner, 61-year-old Al Mignogna. Also shot, also killed, was 28-year-old prison guard Steve Heiss. He had pushed his date to safety in time for his blast.

Miguell A. Padilla, 25, phoned 9-11; Blair County District Attorney Dave Gorman revealed that Miguell A. Padilla, 25, told the operator that he had been experiencing blackouts but believed he might have hurt someone. Miguell A. Padilla, 25, is being represented by Blair County Attorney Tom Dicky, a man who has made a career of defending such cases. (Somebody has to do it.)

The Jag in Padilla’s name had been impounded by the Feds last January when it was involved in transporting drugs. Padilla himself was not arrested, according to radio station WRTA in Altoona, because “he was only believed to be the owner of the vehicle being used to transfer those drugs.” He got the vehicle back easily from the Feds.

25-year-old Miguel Padilla, am Illegal Immigrant living in Gallitzin, was arraigned in front of Magisterial District Judge Kenneth Garmen on three counts of criminal homicide following the shooting.

Meanwhile a make-shift memorial was set up at the entrance of the UVA Club to remember those gunned down by Padilla. … Police say Mignogna died at the scene. Rickabaugh and Heiss died shortly after in the Emergency Room at Altoona Hospital.

Padilla remains lodged in the Blair County Prison. No preliminary hearing date has officially been set.

Is this an immigration issue, or is it a triple-homicide? Remember, Miguell A. Padilla, 25, was not the hardworking illegal immigrant talked about by the President, the kind who fill jobs Americans are unwilling to accept. No, this guy is of the ilk that Tom Tancredo wants to lock in a giant dungeon under Elbert County.

For those of you who are Christians, you ought to take a few moments to consider this brief devotional posted at έχω ζωη (Echo Zoe). It brought to mind the matter-of-fact faith of a woman, interviewed by FNC, who was waiting in line to enter the Louisiana Super Dome Sunday evening.

There is a peace of mind…

Bill Hemmer, former co-host of CNN’s American Morning — which I’m led to believe no one watches – made his debut with FNC last night, covering Hurricane Katrina. This was a little early, as he was scheduled to make his debut Monday at noon, as David Asman’s replacement Fox News Live. Why’d he leave CNN? He wanted to stay in New York.

Wrote the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s TV columnist Tim Cuprisin:

CNN wanted to send him to Washington, D.C., to cover the White House and replace him on the morning newscast with Miles O’Brien. One thing Hemmer will say on the record is that he didn’t want to move out of New York City, something the job change would have required.

I knew Hemmer from the story of fat farmer Michael Moore screaming at the anchor at the Democrat National Convention last July. Moore’s fit was because of an earlier interview Hemmer had conducted with Moore[transcript].

The relevant portion:

HEMMER: Let’s move away from that. I’ve heard people say Michael Moore is the greatest living American.

MOORE: Oh, who are those people?

HEMMER: I’ve heard people say they wish Michael Moore were dead.

MOORE: Oh, well. Jeez, who would say that?

HEMMER: How do you take in the reaction that you are getting? And there is no one who is neutral after they see your film.

MOORE: Well, there’s a — there’s that minority of Republicans and right-wingers who are upset, because they know their days of numbered. I’d be upset, too, if I were them. You know, they’ve only got a few more months left in charge. And so they’re all running around, all saying crazy things like that.

HEMMER: The DNC did not invite you here, is that right?

MOORE: The Congressional Black Caucus invited me here, yes. Yes.

HEMMER: Enjoy your week.

MOORE: Those black congressmen, you know.

HEMMER: Thanks for your time. Michael Moore, the filmmaker from “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

MOORE: Right. Thank you very much.

HEMMER: All right.

Moore was angry, when he confronted Hemmer later that day, because Hemmer had suggested that some folks had said they wished the portly filmmaker were dead.

Besides being able to stay in the city, by going to work for FNC, Hemmer is certain to be safe from having to interview Michael Moore. Until the filmmaker-author-political analyst wants to promote himself again, at least.

[I had mentioned this interview last July, referring to Hemmer with two n’s in his surname.]

The Kansas State school board member who recently referred to the theory of evolution as an “age-old fairy tale,” Connie Morris, has announced that she will seek to be elected to a second four-year term next year. Part of her platform, she says, will be that our nation’s borders are not adequately protected. (She opposes State-funding of education for illegals.)

She’ll be a target.

Running as a Republican, she faces opposition former Garden City mayor Tim Cruz, the Democrat whom Morris in 2002 called in a e-mail, “an admitted illegal immigrant.”

He says his challenge is not part of a personal vendetta, and that will be up to the voters in Western Kansas.

[It appears that the comments function on this blog is fixed, and I was able to do it without quasi-divine intervention. If you feel like commenting in the future, type in a name and do it. If not, I will, of course, understand.]

I’ve found something on the web site of the Detroit Free Press, put there by FREEP reporter Chris Christoff:

State Rep. John Stewart, R-Plymouth [Michigan], has established himself as an earnest, if not sometimes too earnest, public servant who’s not afraid to mention personal circumstances to make a point on matters of public policy.

As chairman of the House subcommittee on higher education appropriations, he’s planning a tour of at least six universities to participate in public forums to discuss, among other things, state funding for colleges.

So he released a detailed itinerary of his travels starting Sept. 13 at Saginaw Valley State University.

And while we appreciate knowing what our elected officials are doing, we’re not sure we needed to know that during the course of a day at Central Michigan University on Sept. 26, Stewart will:

5 p.m. — Jog 3 miles with president and visit with Dr. Renee Scott and Margo Jonker.

5:45 p.m. — Shower.

6 p.m. — Salad and Diet Coke.

We might be tempted to ask what kind of soap. But even state reps deserve some measure of privacy.

Okay, Mr. Christoff, could you talk to your sources and find out if your Senator Carl Levin ever bathes? We don’t want details, just a yes or no.

From Omar at Iraq the Model comes word that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has “dropped a bomb by rejecting federalism and thus rejecting the constitution.”

He links Al Mendhar.

Sistani: “In the name and Blessings of Allah we have found that the federation set in the constitution draft is division among your brothers in the north, center and south, marginalization for your unity, loss of your traditions and remoteness of your religion. The occupant desires to see you weak and desperate.”

The occupant = U.S.

Writes Omar:

This development reflects a critical turn in the relationship between the Sheat clergy and the government, and the ruling politicians will be faced again by the danger of having clerics interfering with politics but this time, the Sheat alliance which insisted onmentioning the clergy in the introduction of the constitution will certainly realize this danger and they will be left before a hard choice as they have put all their weight on the balance of the clergy and if the latter lets them down the consequences will be catastrophic for those politicians.

That being said, Sistani’s name has been used and words put in his mouth in the past. I’ve seen no corroboration of the Al Mendhar piece, so this might be proof positive that an MSM is emerging in Iraq along the lines of our own, albeit less constrained by even kernels of truth.

Bill Fitzpatrick at The American Check-Up, from the YCOP blogroll at right, does a nifty job answering some standard questions from lefty war protestors.

Occasionally after confronting or discrediting a liberal you may find the need to defend yourself. That’s because liberals resort to personal attacks as a compensatory mechanism for not being able to win on issues.

Check it out: HERE.

Monday, Monday… good morning.

Of concern to me is this thing here:

Not that I can do any thing other than be concerned.

I’m just saying.

We have the latest column by Army Sgt. Steve Boggess, stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany. It’s entitled Liberals: the 60s are Over, and it is a response to the NYT’s Maureen Dowd.

Check it out.

George Stephanopoulos lost it today on ABC’s This Week.

One has to wonder if Steph sees a Cindy-spawned opening to blatantly smear the President yet still appear “mainstream.” It was something of a meltdown, however, and it makes me question his current fitness for his job; by that, I mean that we can detect bias, or think we do, in Russert or Schieffer, in Wallace or Blitzer, but it’s never that bold.

From today’s Rightsided Newsletter, containing the review of all the Sunday shows:

JOE BIDEN ON TW. George Stephanopoulos interviewed the imperious Joe Biden about the way things really are, just level with us, look, George, these people, George, I just don’t get it, etc. Steph seemed to be moving Biden into the role of the most slanderous, staunch anti-Bush candidate, goading Biden into one-upping things he himself said or that were uttered by other anti-Bush politicians.

The war’s not unwinnable yet, Biden averred. He wondered how much of the Sunni rejection is gamesmanship, but it is a “formula for civil war” if the Sunnis don’t sign on. Steph said there already was a civil war in Iraq, and he cut off Biden from trying to respond.

Steph stated the constitution mandates Islamic law and puts clerics and Islamic judges in charge, and that this was bad news for women. It will be in the hands of the clerics, he said, and he wondered if the Americans should sacrifice lives for this.

Joe Biden said he told us so, that this just might happen, but that “it remains to be seen” if this actually does occur.

Steph interrupted insisting that it had already happened.

Joe Biden, losing his patience, explained what we knew. That Sharia was A source of law, that the family decided whether decisions were made in civil courts or religious courts. He chastised Steph for demanding comment on reports he could not verify.

By now, Joe Biden was feeding off of Steph’s anti-Bush vibe. He declared that the Administration had so badly screwed things up that it just might be as bad as Steph had asserted.

Steph cited Gary Hart’s recent WashPost op/ed accusing Senate Democrats of blowing it. Biden said it was ridiculous for him to have to defend himself against (with contempt) Gary Hart. Steph insisted that Gary Hart was important. Joe Biden insisted that he hated the Administration more than Hart, with a long list of things this Administration has been wrong. He’s listed what’s wrong and offered solutions. So have John McCain and Chuck Hagel, he said.

Biden yelled at Steph for characterizing his suggestions to bring aboard the French and the Germans as “internationalization.”

He told Steph to “go back and check” what he had said.

Joe Biden defended Russ Feingold's request for dates when the President will do this and that.

Steph wanted to know if Joe Biden and Feingold are on the same page, and Joe Biden said that he wasn’t going to speak for Russ Feingold. He’s going to be where he’s been for the last year and a half: offering specific recommendations.

He called this “a stark failure” but indicated that it was “redeemable.” He said that the important thing was to protect our national interests. “This President has broken the pottery. He owns it.”

First, “get rid of Rumsfeld” to reassure foreign governments. Lay out how many Iraqis to train, so that we know whether or not he has a plan.

Joe Biden said that he is closer to running for President, and Steph said: “That’s good to know.”

Steph was milder with Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), perhaps treating the Senator as beneath his intellect. Thune proved to be more than equal to this nonsense, though, fending off Steph’s baiting questions with uncanny aplomb. (Of course, he did just save Ellsworth.)

Sunday’s Rightsided Newsletter, the review of the Sunday shows, has been sent to the sundry global Inboxes. If you do not yet subscribe, you can read the RSN at it web site: here. It will also, with brief introductory remarks, be at Redstate.org later this afternoon.

For now, Part I of the review – MTP, FNS, FTN – is at the RSN site. In a while, I’ll append Part II, with the reviews of TW and LE.

The entire Rightsided Newsletter is now live at the RSN site.

Biden and McCain, McCain and Biden…

Meet the Press (NBC): Host Tim Russert will talk to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, then he convenes his “war council” of retired generals: Wes Clark (Ret.), Former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe; Wayne Downing (Ret.), Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Special Operations Command; Barry McCaffrey (Ret.), Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Southern Command; and Montgomery Meigs (Ret.), Commanding General, U.S. Army, Europe. I wish he could talk to General Eric Shinseki, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff. The man’s name has been used by the anti-war left for years.

FOX News Sunday: Host Chris Wallace will talk with two mother’s who lost their soldier sons in Iraq, Rhonda Winfield and Dr. Barbara Porchia. If there is a difference of opinion between the two, will they each have Mo Dowd’s “absolute moral authority,” or is it time to forget about that one?

Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democratic Policy Committe Chairman Byron Dorgan of North Dakota will talk war.

In case you had forgotten what Dorgan looks like, as I had:

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer will talk to John McCain.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos chats it up with Senators John Thune of South Dakota, fresh from saving Ellsworth, and… Joe Biden.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer talks to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) and Dem committee member Ron Wyden of Oregon. Trent Lott continues his book tour, and Max Cleland stops by to spread some late August cheer.

I will review and summarize the shows for Sunday’s Rightsided Newsletter, to which you can subscribe for free by visiting the web site at http://rightsided.tripod.com, or by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com.

It will arrive if your inbox shortly after it is completed early Sunday afternoon.

Also, as always, it will be posted at Redstate.org, with a preface.

Venezuelan Marxist despot Hugo Chavez, Friday:

“If something happens to me, the responsible one will be George W. Bush.”

What if Castro accidentally shoots Chavez while the two are playing with guns? What if Chavez falls while running with scissors?

On the RSN we site, we have the latest from Doug Hagin: The Evil of Pacifism.

Check it out.

A third person, defense contractor named J.D. Smith who asserts that he worked on the technical side of Able Danger, has gone public to verify that Able Danger had identified 9-11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and other unsavory mutants a year before Atta flew his airplane into north tower of the World Trade Center.

“I am absolutely positive that he [Atta] was on our chart among other pictures and ties that we were doing mainly based upon [terror] cells in New York City,” Smith said.

Curt Weldon asks: “What’s the Sept. 11 commission got to hide?”

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., arranged the media roundtable with Smith. Weldon drew attention to Able Danger by speaking about it on the House floor months ago and has publicly called for the Sept. 11 commission to explain why the intelligence information wasn’t detailed in its final report.

Besides Smith, Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer and Navy Captain Scott Philpott have also gone on the record, saying they were discouraged from looking further into Atta, and their attempts to share their information with the FBI were thwarted because Atta was a legal foreign visitor at the time.

“This story needs to be told. The American people need to be told what could have been done to prevent 3,000 people from losing their lives,” Weldon told FOX News this week.

Shaffer and Philpott claim that in October 2003, they told Sept. 11 commission staffers of the presence of Al Qaeda operatives in the United States in 2000 yet little was included in the panel’s final report about those conversations.

Snarlin’ Arlen Specter is talking about Judiciary Committee hearings regarding this matter:

Specter sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday asking the agency to provide to the committee “all information and documents it has in connection with Able Danger, , Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer, Captain Scott Philpott or any other persons having any connections with Project Able Danger, including, but not limited to, e-mail communication, notes, phone message slips, memos or any other supporting documentation.”

Specter also asked Mueller to make available FBI agent Xanthig Mangum to meet with his staff. Mangum is reported to have corresponded in 2000 with Shaffer, who helped run Able Danger’s mission and has offered to testify on its findings, about scheduling a meeting between Able Danger and FBI staffs. No meeting ever took place.

This could be a case of the 9-11 Commission staff drawing a “BUSH LIED!” conclusion and trying to find evidence to support it. This could be a case of the 9-11 Commission staff trying to prevent further damage to the historical reputation of the Clinton Administration This could be a case of the 9-11 Commission getting caught up in the glamour of the Richard Clarke’s New Years Rockin’ Eve book tour.

It stinks.

The new site design, though not complete, has allowed me to have more extensive blogrolls. (Just click on the tab to the left – A-1 Blogroll, Christian Blogs, Homespun Bloggers, etc. – to open up each blogroll on this page.) I’ve purged most of the of the unfortunately deceased blogs – some abandoned, some homeless – and I am starting to add more.

In Overseas blogs, for instance, I’ve installed Wangjianshuo’s blog, a blog out of Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China. For variety, anyway.

In Christian blogs, I’ve added The Burr in the Burgh, by Pastor Scott Stiegemeyer out of Pittsburgh. He looks at events, Christianity, and activities at his own church. It’s a very friendly blog.

I am looking for more blogs for the various rolls. A-1 is for political blogs, but I’ll especially be latching onto Christian blogs, Overseas blogs, and Non-Political blogs.

Good morning!