Bush Administration Refuses To Condemn Saudi Court’s Punishment Of Gang Rape Victim

ThinkProgress.org: In his second inaugural address, President Bush stridently declared that his administration would not compromise on its demand for basic human rights:

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend…that women welcome humiliation and servitude.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice referred to these goals as the “non-negotiable demands of human dignity.” But a recent Saudi court decision has shown the administration very willing to fold when this rhetoric is tested.

A week ago, a Saudi appeals court increased the punishment for the female victim of a gang rape. The woman, who had been appealing her original sentence of 90 lashes, was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes after her appeal.

The Saudi judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” The Saudi Justice Ministry confirmed that the stiffer sentence handed out on appeal stemmed from the fact that the victim had gone to the media with her story. “Media may have adverse effects on the other parties involved in the case,” a statement said.

Asked to offer the administration’s position on the court ruling, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Monday that the administration was “astonished,” but had "nothing else to offer."

Yesterday, McCormack was asked if the administration’s silence was “driven by a desire not to offend Saudi Arabia as a close ally.” “No, it’s — no, that’s not it at all,” he claimed, but then acknowledged the administration has yet to convey its “astonishment” directly to the Saudis. “I am not aware of any direct contact with the Saudis on this issue,” he said.

Apparently, there is some negotiability in Bush’s demands for human freedom.

LSB: At the OPEC Summit last week Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister (and Bush friend), warned that even the mere mention to journalists of the fact that leaders were discussing the weak dollar would cause the US currency to plummet. This week this administration turns its back on the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Quid pro quo. Is this what makes America great? When did we lose our values?

Is Marriage Under Attack?

Bloggernista.com: That’s what Brian Wlliams of NBC Nightly News claimed on his show on November 19th:

He doesn’t say exactly what marriage is under attack from, but as Jeremy at Good As You points out, his comment fits nicely into the anti-gay conservative frame that evangelical activists are are promoting about gays wanting to destroy the “sanctity of marriage.

Marriage is being harmed by a lot of things, like serial adulterers like Rudy Guiliani and Newt Gingrich, economic pressures that make it difficult for couples to stay together, and the drive-through marriage culture of Las Vegas. Same-sex couples wishing to marry have nothing to do with those things.

Gay Americans should be applauded for fighting so hard for the right to marry, as some heterosexuals, like Britney Spears, change who they are married as often as the change their hair extensions.

Say it with me Brian, “Same-sex couples are not a threat to marriage.”

PART II: In response to questions raised by bloggers about his statement that “marriage is under attack,” NBC’s Brian Williams posted this statement to his blog:

I was the recipient today of several emails from well-intentioned people, telling me I was being attacked in parts of the blogosphere for something I wrote and said on the air in last night’s broadcast. It was a closing piece about Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip celebrating their 60th anniversary. I noted this accomplishment, especially in this era when, as I put it, marriage seems “under attack” as an institution. My meaning? Our national divorce rate, which is currently somewhere between 40 and 50 percent. Others took it upon themselves to decide that I was somehow attacking gay marriage. The simple fact is that nothing could have been further from my mind, as many others easily understood. In fact, one comment shared with me today came from a respected member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, who said, “It seemed to me he was talking about the sky-high heterosexual divorce rates. Marriage IS under attack — by straight people. It had nothing to do with the gay marriage movement.”

Note the dismissive tone of his post ("well-intentioned people") and him saying that he was under attack from bloggers because of the questions that we raised. He also makes it seem as though we pull the questions that we raised out of our butts:

Others took it upon themselves to decide that I was somehow attacking gay marriage. The simple fact is that nothing could have been further from my mind, as many others easily understood.

Its great that Williams has stated in his blog post that he was not referring to gay people, but he is an experienced news professional who uses words for a living. He should know the importance of being as clear as possible when making statements such as “marriage is under attack.”

As GLAAD president Neil Guiliano pointed out in a letter to Williams:

Your blog entry today confirms that your use of the phrase on last night’s broadcast was not in any way intended to disparage gay couples, and that expression is appreciated. However, the primary issue is whether a phrase that has been used predominantly in an ugly anti-gay context can be used in another, tangentially related context (here, marriage in a general sense) without invoking the stereotypes that imbrue its common usage.

The phrase ”marriage under attack” — like “defense of marriage,” which you use elsewhere in your blog entry — is a meme designed and used by far-right anti-gay activists to scare people into opposing legal protections for gaycouples. Media professionals who talk about marriage-related issues in their reporting should simply and factually discuss them, rather than uncritically repeating rhetoric calculated to make people feel threatened by and afraid of loving, committed couples.

12,000 Flags for 12,000 Patriots Display

Joe.M.God.: Servicemembers United (formerly Call to Duty) is partnering with the Human Rights Campaign, Log Cabin Republicans, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the Liberty Education Forum for a three-day tribute on the National Mall to honor the 12,000 Americans who have been discharged under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law since its inception. One American flag will be placed on the Mall for each discharged service member, which will serve as the backdrop for a series of events honoring LGBT Americans' service, their sacrifice, and their fight to serve with dignity.

UPDATE (Photo): 12,000. Number of American flags on the National Mall this weekend, as part of a “3-day salute” honoring the “12,000 members of the United States military who have been discharged under the practice of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’” Marking the law’s 14th anniversary, 28 retired generals and admirals yesterday sent a letter urging Congress to repeal the legislation.

Time rejected Rove as a columnist.

ThinkProgress.org: Radar reports that, prior to securing a spot as a Newsweek columnist, Karl Rove approached Time magazine for a job. Time, however, rejected Rove as “essentially like an unindicted coconspirator in a whole host of felonies”:

Time’s editors apparently felt the cost/benefit analysis wouldn’t be in their favor if they embraced the man who has done more than anyone to keep the spirit of Joe McCarthy alive and well in American politics. … “They think Karl is essentially like an unindicted coconspirator in a whole string of felonies.”

Ari Fleischer’s Freedom’s Watch Involved In ‘Marketing Sessions’ To ‘Sell’ Iran War

ThinkProgress.org: In September, the New York Times reported that the White House front group Freedom’s Watch, led by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, was considering a “national advertising campaign” to make the case for war with Iran, claiming that “Iran poses a direct threat” to U.S. security. Previously, Freedom’s Watch doled out $15 million to flack for the Iraq escalation.

While 63 percent of Americans oppose to military action in Iran, Freedom’s Watch apparently believes it can coax the public into another war. Laura Rozen reports that Freedom’s Watch is involved in test-marketing “language” to sell war with Iran. Laura Sonnemark, an attendee of the sessions, describes her experience:

After joining a half dozen other women in a conference room, she found, to her surprise, that she had been called in to help some of the country’s most prominent hawks test-market language that could be used to sell a war against Iran to the American public. […]

“He was asking questions about [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad going to speak at Columbia University, how terrible it was that he was able to go to Columbia and was invited,” Sonnemark says. “And he used lots of catch phrases, like ‘victory’ and ‘failure is not an option.’” […]

“After two hours, [the leader] asked three final questions,” Sonnemark recalls: “How would you feel if Hillary [Clinton] bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?”

While the focus group was commissioned by another organization, Freedom’s Watch reportedly “shared information” produced by the session.

In the next step of their PR campaign, the Freedom’s Watch announced
a redesigned website yesterday, complete with a new blog, “guest posts by prominent conservative figures,” and ways for visitors to be “heard directly by their members of Congress.” In an e-mail blast to supporters today, President Bradley Blakeman states, “our efforts have just begun.”

These attempts to sell war with Iran smack of the White House’s efforts to sell the Iraq war. In August 2002, Karl Rove chaired the White House Iraq Group, whose mission was to “develop a strategy for publicizing the White House’s assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States.” At the same time, Fleischer was propagating these false assertions to the public.

As a founding member of Freedom’s Watch, it is no surprise Fleischer is importing his White House propaganda tactics for war with Iran.

Bush Pentagon supports troops by demanding signing bonuses back from soldiers who have lost arms, legs, eyes in Iraq

lambert's blog: Here’s a heartwarming Thanksgiving story from the Bush administration:

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

The Republicans really are trying to destroy the military, aren’t they? Read more. (And Steve Benen at TheCarpetBaggerReport.com has more, too.)

LSB: Why do the Republicans hate our troops?

(UPDATE: Fox was relieved of paying back his enlistment bonus once the administration found out he was to appear on national TV about this. What about the others billed for reimbursement by the Republican administration?)

A gap in GOP candidates' healthcare proposals

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times: When Rudolph W. Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the spring of 2000, one thing he did not have to worry about was a lack of medical insurance.

Today, the former New York mayor joins two other cancer survivors in seeking the Republican presidential nomination: Arizona Sen. John McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson had lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

All three have offered proposals with the stated aim of helping the 47 million people in the U.S. who have no health insurance, including those with preexisting medical conditions.

But under the plans all three have put forward, cancer survivors such as themselves could not be sure of getting coverage -- especially if they were not already covered by a government or job-related plan and had to seek insurance as individuals.

"Unless it's in a state that has very strong consumer protections, they would likely be denied coverage," said economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, who has reviewed the candidates' proposals. "People with preexisting conditions would not be able to get coverage or would not be able to afford it."

If the arguments against the Democratic presidential candidates' healthcare plans include higher taxes and greater government involvement, then the Achilles' heel of the GOP plans is their dependence on the private market, which often rejects applicants with health problems.

Republicans want to expand the existing private insurance system, offering new tax breaks as a way of helping people buy insurance individually. But they also want to avoid federal regulation that would tell insurers whom they have to cover and how much they may charge.

That means the self-employed and others seeking individual coverage would be subject to a marketplace in which insurers generally pick the healthiest applicants and turn the rest away. Cancer survivors -- even if they have been free of disease for several years -- are routinely denied health insurance when they try to purchase it as individuals.

Even if coverage is offered, it often comes with restrictions or high premiums that many find unaffordable. (Full story)

Are the Dems (finally) drawing a Line in the sand over Iraq funding?

John Amato, Crooks and Liars: David Obey and John Murtha had strong words for the GOP over their stonewalling the funds for the troops in Iraq. No withdraw date, no cash–plain & simple.

Obey: The Bush Administration is promoting a lot of stories over the past week about nasty actions in the Pentagon that will have to be taken if Congress doesn’t provide a bridge fund for the Iraqi war. Like so many other things in this town, those stories have things backwards. The House has already passed a $50 billion bridge fund which will provide all of the funding necessary for Iraq through at least February and beyond. But the President’s allies in the Senate are preventing it from even reaching his desk because they don’t like the conditions under which the money is provided. Let me repeat: the money has already been provided by the House of representatives. If the President wants that $50 billion released, all he has to do is call the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, and ask him to stop blocking it. That phone number is (202) 224-2541, in case anyone is interested.

Huff Po: “As reported by the Huffington Post, the Democrat war supplement proposal is the party’s most aggressive funding measure since taking over Congress. In addition to insisting on a full withdrawal plan the bill would also require that troops be fully trained and equipped before being sent into the field and that the government abide by the Army Field Manual with respect to prohibiting torture.”

As Pelosi says: “Democrats and the American people support our troops in the field and will always insist they receive all the resources they require. If there is any delay in funding for our men and women in uniform, the responsibility will squarely lie with the President and Senate Republicans who are blocking the bill.”

Murtha: I thought we’d gotten rid of Secretary Rumsfeld, but this really worries me that there would be such a political document. … This is a political document. They’re scaring people. They’re scaring the families of the troops with this document. That’s the thing that’s so despicable about what they’re doing.

LSB: Why do the Republicans hate our troops?

Olbermann On McClellan Revelations: Bush Was A Passively Involved “Liar In Chief”

Logan Murphy, Crooks and Liars: Tonight on Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked to MSNBC’s David Shuster about revelations from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book, that President Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove were directly involved in deceiving the American people about their roles in outing covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame. Anyone paying attention knew these allegations to be true all along, but as you would expect, Olbermann and Shuster nail it. (Click on pic for vid.)

Keith also spoke with John Dean (video link) about the resurrected scandal and brought up some more than interesting points. The Plame leak investigation is still ongoing, Patrick Fitzgerald never formally closed it. Dean suggests that there is a real possibility that these allegations open the door to a possible conspiracy to defraud the government charge and if Fitzgerald found enough evidence to proceed with his investigation, he could do so at any time. We can only hope…

Scottie Comes Clean?

Richard Blair, AllSpinZone.com: Over the next 18 or 24 months, there’s going to be a lot of Lady MacBeth-style handwashing going on as the “Bush-insider-tell-all-for-nice-cash-advance” books start hitting the shelves, but no amount of scrubbing and blood remover is going to take remove the stains from the Bush administration. We get a preview today from former press secretary Scott McClellan.

Apparently, Scottie told a (gasp!) lie. Well, perhaps multiple lies, but the one he’s fessing up to today is the whopper he told that went something like this:

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were “not involved” in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes, according
to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.” …

So, Scott McClellan told a lie. Then, the stenographic White House press corps dutifully regurgitated the lie so that it became truth (or whatever passes for “truth” with the Bush administration).

Is Scottie feeling bad about it? Fat chance. He’s passing the buck to superiors who “misled him”, and he’s gonna make a bundle off of his book. Both actions are laughable, and lamentable, in the extreme.

During his tenure as press secretary, McClellan took to the podium on a daily basis to sling the lies, spin, and deceit. And now that Scooter Libby’s been convicted of (and pardoned for) Cheney’s crime, McClellan’s going to come clean with his mea culpa?

Here’s what I think. Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney have been referred to the House Judiciary Committee. Immediately after the Thanksgiving recess, Chairman Conyers should be summoning McClellan before the committee. If Scottie was duped by the Bush / Cheney smoke and mirrors, it’s hard to tell what else was he duped into during his term as BushCo’s “Baghdad Bob”.

We have a right to know, particularly since Scottie’s publisher has chosen to toss this blockbuster into the public domain to sell a few more books.

UPDATE from RawStory.com: Following the publication of an advance excerpt from a new book by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Democratic presidential contender Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) on Tuesday called for a Justice Department investigation into President Bush's role in events surrounding the outing of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame.

"Today's revelations by Mr. McClellan are very disturbing and raise several important questions that need to be answered," Dodd wrote in a statement posted at his campaign's website on Tuesday. "If in fact the President of the United of States knowingly instructed his chief spokesman to mislead the American people, there can be no more fundamental betrayal of the public trust."

Later in the statement, Dodd asked that newly confirmed US Attorney General Michael Mukasey investigate the president's involvement in the matter.

"During his confirmation process, Attorney General Mukasey said he would act independently," the senator added. "Accordingly, today, I call on the Attorney General to live up to his word and launch an immediate investigation to determine the facts of this case, the extent of any cover up and determine what the President knew and when he knew it."

UPDATE: Scottie Goes Dirty Again. Well, ya knew it was too good to be true. A BushCo insider, a “made man”, ratting out the boss? It didn’t take Scott McClellan long to backtrack on the excerpt made public yesterday from his upcoming book. Can you say, “damage control“?

WASHINGTON - Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan does not believe President Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, according to McClellan’s publisher.

Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan’s book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McCLellan, “Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him.”

The excerpt published yesterday seemed pretty straightforward. It makes one wonder who got to Scottie today.

LSB: Maybe it was the invite from Dick Cheney to go hunting!

Kicking out old people because they’re on Medicaid?

LSB: Profits ahead of people. Is this how we are to treat our elders? What has happened to us?

Act Against Eviction:

Eleven residents of Victoria House in Port Townsend, Washington State, (some in their 90s) are being evicted from the assisted living facility with 90 days notice. Why? Because the Victoria House management company, has decided to stop accepting Medicaid, and there is no law in Washington that makes them have to stick with their agreements with tenants.

Yup. They can just kick ‘em out.

The same company kicked out all the Medicaid patients from their Oregon facilities last year. Community action got together, and now Oregon has a law, like the one in Illinois, that prohibits such practices.

The company has the Orwellian name of “Assisted Living Concepts” and their motto is “Life Just Got Easier”. No, really. And this is a deliberate business decision on the part of a company that says they are committed to eldercare. Elder Law Answers says, “Over the next five years, company officials say they plan on having their 1,800 remaining Medicaid recipients move out, either voluntarily as they choose to move into other assisted living facilities or nursing homes, or involuntarily through evictions.”

Assisted Living Concepts’ chief executive officer Laurie Bebo said the company filed for bankruptcy twice in the 1990s and is now moving toward serving only private-pay residents in part because it does not want to undergo a third bankruptcy… Even with Medicaid residents in its facilities, Assisted Living Concepts made about 24 percent more in fourth-quarter earnings in 2007 than it did in 2006.

Goldman Sachs: $2 trillion lending "shock" for US.

Chris in Paris , AmericaBlog.com: But that's OK because Dick Cheney says the US economy is very resilient. He's been pretty much spot on about everything and what do they know at Goldman Sachs anyway? (Hint: Goldman is holding up OK since they didn't join the subprime hysteria.)

Not to flog a dead horse here, but the Democrats really need to rub Bush's nose in this early and often. Mr Bubble ought to step up and accept his massive failure as well and just go away. When losses remind people of the Great Depression, this just might be a hot issue moving forward. Just maybe.