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Linda Liberty, a co-blogger here, directs me to an excellent web site, vote-smart.org. Go there, enter your 9 digit zip code, and you'll have excellent non-partisan information on both the national and local election races. All candidates are included, not only the Republican/Democrat candidates.
FYI: To find the state ballot issues, click on My State/Ballot Measures in the top navigation bar.
A great resource-check it out.
vadkins
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The Colonel AKA my Dad had a letter to the editor published in the Lansing State Journal:
Lacking a record
The themes of Debbie Stabenow's political ads are about crossing the line to vote for Republican legislation, and then taking credit for such legislation.
Poor Debbie, so little to point to with pride after six years in the U.S. Senate.
Since she signs off the ads with "I'm Debbie Stabenow and I approve of this ad," it brings her integrity and character into question.
On Sept. 29, she voted for Republican legislation again on terror prisoner treatment, one of 10 Democrats to take such action. All 10 just happen to be up for re-election.
Carl Levin must be livid.
Harv Adkins
Lansing
IMO, Adkins should be blogging.
vadkins
QT Monster Blog Home
It's reassuring to be reminded that Ronald Reagan worked his heart out campaigning in 1986 for the goal of GOP gains in the House and Senate. Didn't work out that way (the GOP lost seats in both chambers), but Reagan soldiered on for conservatism. (I didn't know that Jack Kemp called Ronald Reagan was called the Old and Wise One (O&W).
vadkins
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This article was first published in the Times Herald on Oct. 2, 2006
NORRISTOWN — The Pentagon shot down claims by members of the "Able Danger" data-mining project who said they had knowledge of Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta more than a year before the attacks.
In fact, the Pentagon Inspector General’s (IG) investigation, which was released last week, rejected nearly all of the many allegations leveled against the Defense Department by Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer over its handling of the secret program to gather information on al-Qaida in 1999 and 2000.
The Pentagon report, released last week, also rejected Shaffer’s accusation that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), his civilian employer, retaliated against him for revealing the existence of "Able Danger" to 9/11 Commission staff members in 2003.
In 1999, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton, now retired, directed U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to develop a campaign plan to obtain intelligence on international terrorists.
The program, which began at the Army’s Land Information Warfare Center (LIWA), in Ft. Belvoir, Va., was transferred to defense contractor Raytheon’s Garland, Texas facility and finally to SOCOM in Tampa, Fla.
In 2005, Shaffer told Rep. Curt Weldon that SOCOM lawyers prevented the team from passing on information to the FBI about terrorists linked to a "Brooklyn cell."
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2005, Erik Kleinsmith, a former Army major who worked at LIWA on the data-mining effort, said he was ordered in 2000 to delete 2.5 terabytes of computer data gathered on suspected terrorist.
The report found said the data, that contained the names of "U.S. persons," was destroyed in accordance with Defense Department policy.
The Times Herald broke the story after interviewing Shaffer in the congressman’s Capitol Hill office in June 2005. For the next several months, Weldon characterized "Able Danger" as a missed opportunity that could have thwarted the Sept. 11 terrorist plot and criticized the Pentagon for shutting down the program in 2000.
Weldon was zealous in championing Shaffer, who he believed had been blackballed by the DIA. The day before Shaffer was to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2005 his security clearance was revoked.
The inspector general’s report said testimony by Shaffer and "Able Danger" colleague, Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, was riddled with inconsistencies. The military officers and a dozen others worked on the program.
After interviewing Shaffer, Phillpott and civilian intelligence analysts James D. Smith and Eileen Preisser, Pentagon IG investigators concluded their recollections of seeing charts with Atta’s picture or hearing his name prior to Sept. 11, 2001, lacked credibility.
"While we interviewed four witnesses who claimed to have seen a chart depicting (Atta) and possibly other terrorists of ‘cells’ involved in 9/11, we determined that their recollections were not accurate," the report said.
The 90-page report is full of peoples’ differing memories about the former intelligence effort.
During the program, the team mapped out linkages of al-Qaida members on several large paper charts.
In his first interview with Pentagon investigators, Phillpott testified he saw Atta’s picture on one of the charts, however, after being shown a memo he’d signed and the specific chart referred to in the correspondence, he changed his story.
"Well, I mean, obviously there’s a compelling amount of evidence that would make it appear that I did not see Mohamed Atta. I will absolutely grant you that based on what you’re showing me, my recollection could have been wrong," Phillpott admitted to investigators.
By the third interview the Navy officer stated "I’m convinced that Atta was not on that chart, the chart we had."
Shaffer insisted that he attempted to arrange three meeting between the program’s former director, Air Force Col. Robert Worthington, and the FBI to discuss strategies to disrupt terrorist activities.
Shaffer said he set up meeting through his FBI contact, Xanthie Mangum.
But Worthington denied the he was ever scheduled to meet with the FBI to discuss "Able Danger," even after investigators showed him a memo he prepared indicating Worthington planned "on going to LIWA and the FBI the latter part of the week."
In a statement made to FBI agents on Dec. 12, 2005, Mangum said she had "never received any requests to schedule meetings related to Able Danger."
When Pentagon investigators told Shaffer about Mangum’s denial, he insisted he spoke to someone at FBI to arrange meetings.
"It was either her or someone over there (FBI) that we made the meeting with," he testified.
Interviewed a week ago, Weldon said he planned to prepare a formal response to the Pentagon’s report.
"The harassment of (Lt. Col.) Shaffer was not looked into (thoroughly)," he said.
Shaffer’s attorney Mark Zaid was asked via e-mail why he thought the IG probe found no evidence of reprisal against his client by the DIA, despite significant circumstantial evidence.
"The (Department of Defense Office of Inspector General) selectively chose information to report on," he wrote in an e-mail message. "It gave significant weight to those who repeatedly changed their stories and failed to question motives, yet sought to penalize Shaffer for staying consistent."
Weldon also pointed out that Mangum, who was supposedly asked to set up meetings at the FBI, was not interviewed by Pentagon investigators.
The Seventh District Republican congressman, who is running against retired admiral Joe Sestak, a Democrat, said previously that Pentagon officials downplayed "Able Danger" revelations to avoid criticism about its failure to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.
He also said both the Bush and Clinton administrations would feel political heat if the entire story came out.
"It’s a very complicated story," Weldon said. "It’s going to embarrass people in this (Bush) administration and the Clinton administration."
-Keith Phucas can be reached at kphucas@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 211.
This is beyond serious. Victor Davis Hanson has already posted, From Foley to Footnotes:
North Korea may well have let off a 20-kiloton nuke. Last week Iran’s Ahmadinejad ridiculed efforts to corral his own nuclear ambitions. The stock market was nearing an all-time high. The deficit is suddenly falling in near record fashion. Falling gas prices might hit $2 a gallon. In Iraq, the U.S. military was taking on the Shiite militias.
And what was Washington in response talking about?
A pederastic flirtatious Congressman who wrote soft porn emails to his targeted virtual sex victims. Yes, “Mark Foley” now warrants about 23,000,000 Google matches—or about four million more Google hits than for the founder of Western philosophy, the Platonically pederastic “Socrates.” Perhaps when one of Foley’s former pages—one now claims at 21 to have had relations with his mentor— pens a Republic or Laws we will duly appreciate this better known genius who earned more attention from our contemporary electronic world in a week’s worth of IM messages than poor Socrates had after some 2400 years. And after the Dick Cheney shotgun hysteria, the flushed Koran, and all the other nonstories, it is legitimate to ask whether the New York and Washington media are simply unhinged.
I don't think Professor Hanson thinks we're serious enough about our national security. Sounds right.
Hugh Hewitt's post is up also, North Korea Goes Critical:
The Clinton-Kim 1994 Agreement, midwifed by Jummy Carter, bears its fruit.
How long until the gangster regime sells its wares to jihadists?
Pajamas Media coverage is here.
But the yield was very low-there are doubts that this was a nuclear explosion.
vadkins
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John Kerry was ripped off-in the 2004 election that is. Seeing Foleygate unfold, some folks figure that it's the ol' Clinton War Room come back to life that's behind the story. And some folks say that there's evidence that the pervert Foley was pursuing boy pages back several years, back to 2003. So I'm wondering why didn't the Clinton's get this dirt out there to help John Kerry win in 2004?
Maybe because they didn't really want to help poor ol' John win in 2004? Really, what good would a President Kerry be to Hillary's presidential run in 2008? A politically weakened and battered President Bush is so much more useful for Hill to play off of in her presidential campaign-don' cha think? So why unload the big guns against the Republicans for the 2006 elections? Maybe because she really needs at least the Senate or the House to be controlled by the Democrats so they can have some good ol' fashioned subpoeana power. I mean, the way it stands now it's near impossible for the Dems to drag anybody in front of the TV cameras for a political show trial.
And those show trials would give Hillary plenty of ammo for building her reputation in the eyes of Democrats and some independents. The conservatives will hate her, but they already do anyway-that's not going to change.
I'm just sayin', wonderin'...
vadkins
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From Mac Ranger:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a political conspiracy unravel as fast as this one that involves former representative Mark Foley
Read his post to see where things stand today.
vadkins
QT Monster Blog Home
The survival of the country is at stake in this election as it was in the past two. Where ex-Rep. Foley is concerned, watch for the Democrats to over reach in their reaction to this scandal in their quest to win majorities in the House/Senate in this election.
And note the double standard. If Clinton, Rep. Barney Franks, Rep. William Jefferson, and former Rep. Stubbs had been Republicans rather than Democrats, they would have been forced to resign also. But they were Dems, so they were welcome to stay.
Center-right bloggers are working away (as they did with Rathergate) to find the answers to some puzzling questions concerning the evolution of this news story. There's evidence that some leftie groups/organizations (plus at least one Democrat Congressman) held on to damning instant messages from Foley to the pages for a long time. Thereby saving this story for the 2006 election, to crush Republicans. So what if Foley got more time to pursue his perversions against children. I hope this turns out not to be the case.
The Foley emails may have been altered?
Discussion here of the Foley affair, Woodward's book and Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower.
Tradesports.com, the gambling site that predicts who will win elections based on gambling bets (much more accurate that opinion polling BTW), puts the chance of Republicans retaining their majority in the House at only 50%. Before the Foley affair the bets were 58% that Repubs would retain their majority. Republicans need to hang tough. We are in a live and death struggle. A vote in the 2006 election for a Democrat (except for Sen. Lieberman), is a vote for vulnerability.
MAJOR UPDATES at Flopping Aces:
The fact that emails were altered is small fry compared to the fact that a known lefty operative appears to have had these emails and IM's for quite some time and didn't release them until now....putting how many kids at risk? For what?
A October Surprise.
vadkins
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