Michigan’s hyperpartisan representative John Conyers has admitted that he “possibly violating House rules by requiring his official staff to perform campaign-related work, according to a statement quietly released by the House ethics committee late Friday evening”, according to this Hill Magazine article.

The top Republican and Democratic members on the ethics panel, Reps. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Howard Berman (D-CA), said in a statement that Conyers acknowledged a “lack of clarity” in communicating what was expected of his official staff and that he accepted responsibility for his actions.

“[Conyers] agreed to take a number of additional, significant steps to ensure that his office complies with all rules and standards regarding campaign and personal work by congressional staff,” they stated. “We have concluded that this matter should be resolved through the issuance of this public statement.”

Regardless of the “additional, significant steps” taken, this is proof of the Democrats’ own culture of corruption. It smacks me as hypocritical if further steps aren’t taken by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Whether she realized it or not, she set the bar by bypassing Alcee Hastings for the House Intelligence Committee Chairmanship because he was impeached by a Democratic House and convicted by a Democratic Senate. How can Conyers chair the House Judiciary Committee in light of his admitting his unethical behavior?

I’d further suggest that the Ethics Committee’s work isn’t finished, contrary to their statement saying that “We have concluded that this matter should be resolved through the issuance of this public statement.” Issuing a public statement and putting in place some undisclosed “additional, significant steps” isn’t nearly good enough. This behavior isn’t nothing. Instead, it’s rather disturbing. Conyers’ actions were deliberate and they were repetitious in nature. (continue reading post »)

Readers who’ve visited LFR for any amount of time know that I’m a big fan of Ralph Peters. After reading his NY Post op-ed on Saddam’s execution, I can proudly recommend that you read his entire op-ed. Here’s two of my favorite paragraphs:

Everything changed in 2003. For all of its later errors in Iraq, the Bush administration altered the course of history for the better.

It may be hard to discern the deeper meaning of our march to Baghdad amid the chaos afflicting Iraq today, but President Bush got a great thing right: He recognized that the age of dictators was ending, that the era of the popular will had arrived. He and his advisers may have underestimated the difficulties involved and misread the nature of that popular will, but they put us back on the moral side of history.

Ralph Peters isn’t a Bush apologist but he’s an honest man who calls things as he sees them. He’s right that President Bush put us on the morally right side of history by vanquishing a tyrant like Saddam. That’s why I believe history will regard George W. Bush’s accomplishments as historic. I’d doubt that they’ll consider him a great president on a par with Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR & Reagan but I’ll guarantee that they won’t be able to ignore his liberating 50 million Afghani and Iraqi people within months of each other. (continue reading post »)

Saddam Hussein began his career in 1959 as part of seven-man hit squad to assassinate Iraqi leader Gen. Abdel Karim Kassem. The plot fails, Saddam went into exile…

July 1979 in Iraq, Saddam staged a palace coup and President Bakr resigns. Among Saddam’s first actions after assuming the presidency is purging the Ba’ath Party of any potential enemies.  Saddam called a meeting of the Ba’ath Party leadership and insists it be videotaped. He announces there are traitors in their midst and reads out their names. These individuals cried, some begged for their lives, and fear fully overtook the auditorium while Saddam callously smoked a cigar.  One by one, the individuals are led out and executed.

This would be representative of Saddam’s reign.

There is no way to describe the horror that Saddam inflicted upon his people. My husband, who served with the 82nd ABN DIV in 2003-04, told me last night a story about a torture building he helped Iraqis reconstruct into a cultural center in Baghdad. He was given a tour of the rooms that previously witnessed the most gruesome of murders and torture at the hands of Saddam at his order. Now the torture prison brings together Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and Muslims as they read, learn and explore in a cultural center that defies the efforts of Saddam Hussein. This was a very symbolic turnaround; what Saddam used for evil has been turned into good.

My husband’s unit also, just after the fall of Baghdad in 2003, found a children’s prison where kids as young as 7 were incarcerated as punishment for whatever perceived offense Saddam believed their parents had committed.  Some children, 12 and 13, had been jailed for 5 years.  The conditions were unspeakable.

With the last mid-term elections and a possibility that Democrats could take the White House in 2008, Iraqis have grown increasingly nervous in the past year about Saddam living in a jail cell as Democrats tout their ambitions for a full and swift withdrawal from Iraq. The fear that Saddam could regain power was a very real one. This execution was necessary in every way; for national unity, for moral equity, for social justice..

Iraqis can be proud that they carried out this execution with as much decorum as possible, affording Saddam the dignity a human being deserves, even if he really doesn’t deserve it. An execution is never a joyous thing, but it is sometimes a necessary thing. This has never been truer but for the case of Saddam Hussein and humanity.

This is another gigantic step toward the healing of Iraq’s past and the brightness of Iraq’s future.

Cross-posted @ Amy’s Blog: Bottom Line Up Front

That’s the official videographer’s account of Saddam moments before the “Butcher of Baghdad’s” demise.

Ali Al Massedy was 3 feet away from Saddam Hussein when he died. The 38 year old, normally Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s official videographer, was the man responsible for filming the late dictator’s execution at dawn on Saturday. “I saw fear, he was afraid,” Ali told NEWSWEEK minutes after returning from the execution. Wearing a rumpled green suit and holding a Sony HDTV video camera in his right hand, Ali recalled the dictator’s last moments. “He was saying things about injustice, about resistance, about how these guys are terrorists,” he says. On the way to the gallows, according to Ali, “Saddam said, ‘Iraq without me is nothing.’”

As I said moments after the news broke, Good riddance!!! I agree with Captain Ed that this will be a big thing inside Iraq because it eliminates any illogical hope that the Ba’athists had of regaining control. This will also give a little morale boost to the Coalition forces but it’s unlikely that it’ll be more than temporary.

What’s striking to me is that Saddam went out with a wimper, not with the roar of a lion. For all his bluster over the years, images of his capture and his execution will portray him as a little man when removed from the mechanisms of destructions that he fashioned to bully people. (continue reading post »)

Saddam was hanged just minutes ago according to this article:

U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday.

The former Iraqi president ousted in April 2003 by a U.S.- led invasion was convicted in November of crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi’ite villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination bid in 1982.

An appeals court upheld the death penalty on Tuesday. Iraq’s government has kept details of its plans to conduct the execution completely secret amid concerns it could spark a violent backlash from his former supporters.

Good riddance.

Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, Iraq

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and investigative reporter who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, has published excerpts from an interview with the late president Gerald Ford one day after Ford’s death. Ford, a Republican, the longest living and only unelected President in U.S. history, died yesterday at the age of 93. The Washington Post reported that Ford said his comments could be published at any time after his death.

According to the Washington Post:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colorado….

The Ford interview — and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005 – took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death. In the sessions, Ford fondly recalled his close working relationship with key Bush advisers Cheney and Rumsfeld while expressing concern about the policies they pursued in more recent years.

The Washington Post and Bob Woodward are misrepresenting these comments. Here are the four excerpts Woodward decided to publish:

EXCERPT 1: Listen
FORD: Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people. Whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what’s in our national interests, there comes a point where they conflict. And I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.

EXCERPT 2: Listen 
FORD: I don’t think if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly, I don’t think I would have ordered the Iraqi war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer.

EXCERPT 3: Listen
FORD: I think Rumsfeld, Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction.

EXCERPT 4: Listen 
FORD: And now, I’ve never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do.

Curious how a four-hour interview, along with a subsequent interview the following year, would only produce these four small excerpts ascertaining Ford’s views on the war in Iraq, particularly since Ford has publicly supported the administration and the war effort.  Perhaps these are only the excerpts Woodward wanted published.

These excerpts appear conveniently selective. No matter what the full context of the questions and answers were, or what the full text was, there is one thing very clear that is totally misrepresented by the media and Woodward. That is, Ford is not opposed to the war in Iraq, the deposing of Saddam Hussein or the mission itself; he opposed using WMD as the primary reason for it.

(continue reading post »)

I just got an email from a close friend who has been digging into the Pendleton 8 scandal. Tim will be appearing on Kit Jarrell’s show Friday night. I strongly recommend everyone tune it in. Here’s what’s going on:

BREAKING: Radio Interview about the Pendleton 8

This information was just posted on Free Republic. This is a ‘heads up’ so you can make plans to listen and alert others to listen………

Don O’Nesky

Radio Interview about the Pendleton 8.

December 29: Coverups and Corruption
Written by Kit Jarrell 23 December 2006

Listen at 10 PM on Friday, 12-29-06…….

http://blogtalkradio.com/kitjarrell

It’s my first show on BlogTalkRadio, and it’ll be absolute, MUST-listen radio! If you’ve followed the saga of the Pendleton 8 cover-up at Euphoric Reality, then you’re well aware of the lengths that certain folks have gone to in order to keep their dirty little secrets buried. But no more. We’re hitting the public.

The story we’re telling is beyond important, because it goes to the heart of the problem in the War on Terror: Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are being offered as sacrificial lambs for the political gain of those in power.

Do I agree with the War on Terror? Absolutely. I support the mission. However, the military justice system is broken. Instead of being a system for justice and integrity, a place where the innocent are exonerated and the guilty punished, it has become a place where the end is known before the first witness is called; the winners are the generals and admirals and attorneys.

The losers are the men who go out day after day and hold their fire when they’re shot at for fear that they will be charged with murder. Just in case you still don’t think what I’m talking about is really happening, allow me to tell you a story.

In 1990, the executive officer of the USS Mars was court-martialed and convicted of dereliction of duty. It was just another court-martial, another win to chalk up for military prosecutors–who have a 97% conviction rate. But this case was different. Even the prosecutor is on sworn record as saying there was not enough evidence for conviction. (continue reading post »)

That’s just one of the multitude of laments in Nick Coleman’s latest collection of whinings, otherwise known as his column. Here’s the segment that I’m referring to:

Here is some of what is going away: the Star Tribune Foundation, which has funded nonprofit groups in the Twin Cities for decades; and the Washington bureau and foreign correspondents, including those in Iraq. They’ll still be working, but not for the Star Tribune. Also disappearing: the pooled financial resources a chain can use to gather news and resist the fickle winds of market forces.

Poor Nicky Coleman. If he chooses to stay, he’ll be forced to work at a newspaper that actually has to produce a quality product. He’ll be forced to work at a newspaper that actually checks its facts. He’ll be forced to work at a newspaper that tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The poor dear. He might even have to work for an editor who will actually hold him accountable for the things he writes. The injustice of it all. What is this world coming to?

If you think that’s the extent of Little Nicky’s whining, then you obviously don’t know him. Here’s another whiny rant: (continue reading post »)

That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from this AFP article.

Iraq was preparing for the rapid execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein, with the US-backed government eager to bring his chapter in the country’s bloody history to an end.
Justice Minister Hashem al-Shibli said Saddam’s death sentence for crimes against humanity, upheld by an Iraqi appeal court on Tuesday, would be rubber stamped by the presidency and the prison service would hang him.

It’s time that Iraq rid themselves of Saddam. That said, Saddam’s execution won’t cure the violence inside Iraq. That won’t subside until Moqtada al-Sadr is marginalized or exterminated & until Iran’s influence is eliminated. Exterminating al-Sadr is definitely doable in the short term but eliminating Iran’s influence will be a much more difficult project.

One thing that might happen as part of Saddam’s execution is that it might tamp down the Sunni-initiated violence. That might happen independent of what al-Sadr’s militias do.

Tension was boiling up further south in the holy city of Najaf after an American soldier killed a senior ally of Sadr during a raid on his house. Sadr supporters and local police told AFP that US and Iraqi soldiers had stormed the family home of Sahib al-Ameri, the president of a pro-Sadr political foundation in the holy city of Najaf, and shot him dead.

Let’s hope that Sadr gets the message that American troops aren’t waiting on Maliki’s blessing with regards to Sadr. This is a clear message to Sadr that he isn’t immune to American attacks. He can’t depend on Maliki protecting him anymore.

Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, Moqtada al-Sadr, Maliki

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Check out this headline:

DOW HITS 12,500 FOR FIRST TIME…

Chalk this up as more proof of President Bush’s failed economic policies, especially his tax cuts. What a disaster he’s been for businesses and retirement accounts. NOT!!!

Technorati Tags: President Bush, Dow Jones Industrials, Economic Growth, Tax Cuts

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog