Disclosure: Richard Ben-Veniste

An bit posted on Late Final.com suggests that the DNC’s ‘attack poodle’ may have some questionable connections. Why is this man still on the commission? Why, in fact, is this man not being arrested?

“Ben-Veniste is a member of the Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw law firm based in Washington, D.C., and has had his shingle hanging there since 2002.
As a member of the 9/11 Commission, Ben-Veniste has almost limitless access to classified government information into every aspect of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks that tore down the World Trade Center, hit the Pentagon and killed 3,000 people.
At the same time, his firm is listed as representing two companies – Westfield Corp. and Westfield America – that are key parties to the multi-billion-dollar litigation over insurance liability in the towers’ collapse.”

I know for a fact that the law firm is a huge DNC contributor. I’ve not seen any links to the two firms BenVineste is representing, but I’m willing to bet they are as well.

In eny event, that’s two people who should not be on this commission for a clear conflict of interest…. BenVineste and Gorelick. and what do you know; they’re both partisan Democrats… and act like it in the hearings.

HatTip: Billy Beck

By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
April 13, 2004

WASHINGTON (Talon News) — Members of a black leadership group are asking Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) to resign from his position in the United States Senate because of recent comments he made regarding Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV).

Talon News was one of the few national media outlets that reported on this story last week about Dodd’s remarks about Byrd made on the floor of the Senate on April 1 (read previous story).

“I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great senator at any moment,” Dodd exclaimed. “Some were right for the time. Robert C. Byrd, in my view, would have been right at any time.”

Despite the fact that Byrd was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Dodd even remarked that the West Virginia Democrat “would have been right at the founding of this country, right during the Civil War.”

Dodd concluded his controversial statement by claiming, “I cannot think of a single moment in this nation’s 220-plus year history where [Byrd] would not have been a valuable asset to this country.”

Project 21 spokesman Kevin Martin said he is outraged at the comments made by Dodd and is shocked that Dodd was allowed to make them without any backlash whatsoever.

“How could Senator Dodd have made the comments he did with a straight face? And how can he believe he’s going to get away with it?,” Martin asked in a press release. “Robert Byrd is a former leader in the Ku Klux Klan, and later an opponent of civil rights legislation. I can think of many places in American history where I wouldn’t want him setting our nation’s agenda.”

Martin recalled the treatment given to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) after he found himself in a situation to Dodd’s.

“When Senator Trent Lott made similar comments about Senator Strom Thurmond at a party, he was roundly condemned,” Martin recalled. “He lost his leadership post, and almost drummed out of the Senate.”

Talon News reported last Thursday that Lott made a speech at the 100th birthday party for the legendary South Carolina Sen. Thurmond where he asserted that if he had been elected president in 1948 running as a member of the segregationist Dixiecrat Party, then “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years.”

The media onslaught was treacherous as Lott attempted to apologize for his comments. The pressure did not let up until he decided to step down from his position as Senate Majority Leader.

Demonstrating their consistency on this, Project 21 roundly criticized Lott at the time and called for him to resign his leadership position.

“What Lott said was hurtful, and he paid a price at Senator Dodd’s urging,” Martin stated. “Now it’s Dodd’s time to face the music and resign.”

What Martin is referring to is a quote made by Dodd about Lott’s comments about Thurmond in December 2002.

“If a Democratic leader had made [Lott’s] statements, we would have to call for his stepping aside, without any question whatsoever,” Dodd told United Press International at the time.

He continued, “If Tom Daschle or another Democratic leader were to have made similar statements, the reaction would have been very swift. I don’t think several hours would have gone by without there being an almost unanimous call for the leader to step aside.”

Actually, Dodd was at the forefront of the movement to have a “bipartisan” censure of Lott to make him face the “reality” of what he had said.

Following the petition effort begun by GOPUSA’s (web site) “Call for a Public and Official Rebuke of Sen. Christopher Dodd,” Project 21 believes it should go one step further.

“Senator Dodd’s statement is tasteless and wrong,” Martin declared. “It’s time for him to follow his own advice and leave.”

The Herald Sun] reports:

“The alleged mastermind of the al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, is believed to be in the city of Fallujah, which is under US marine siege, a senior coalition spokesman said today.”

By way of the Captain’s Quarters

The Galvin Opinion seems to be the one to come up with extensive research on the bigger stories. This time, Tom’s come up with a very extensive telling of the links between the UN and the Oil for Food Scandal… a political no-man’s land for Democrats.

(Has anyone noticed how quiet Kerry’s been on the UN of late?)

Found while looking up soemthing else; Kerry Waffles – Home of the Waffle Newsletter and Blog

Worth a look!

The Command Post has a post up saying:

“The U.S. troops arrested radical Shiite Imam Muktada al-Sadr in Baghdad on Tuesday. The report came from Hazem al-Araj, his closest associate, who is the head of the Baghdad bureau of the ?Mahdi army? group.
Looking to either confirm or deny. More as we find it”

I’ve not seen anything other than this, but I’m watching.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Shoppers turned out in force in March, a Commerce Department report Tuesday showed, pushing retail sales to their strongest gain in a year.

February sales were also revised upward, to a 1.0% increase from the previously reported 0.7% gain. February ex-auto sales were revised to a 0.6% increase from a previously reported flat reading

This ties in rather well with the story below about Kerry’s fantasy index. Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters thinks so, too, saying, in part:

John Kerry faces a difficult task: selling the notion of a failing economy to a nation that demonstrates growing confidence in its success. Sooner or later, that message will face its tipping point, and Kerry will wind up with egg on his face. Expect to see Kerry continue to find arcane methods of measuring economic performance, such as his suggested “misery index”, which laughingly showed strong economic growth during the Carter presidency.

(OK, I should have figured some way to work Ed’s thing in as an update to the earlier post, I guess, but I’m rather busy today with work) -Bit

John Kerry and his fellow Democrats are being forced further and further out of the realm of reality, as the reality of the Bush record of success becomes more apparent to the American people. Kerry’s band of wandering liars have come up with the following list for his ‘misery index’.

* Health premiums
(Apparently ignoring the concept that the vast majority of people have health benefits as a part of their employment)

* Median family income
(Odd they should use this instead of family wealth… Not everyone wants or needs to work, after all. Well, maybe their proven is that income is taxable, wealth isn’t. Taxes are what they’re really after here, huh?)

* Gasoline prices
(I’ve addressed this one. When it gets up to $2.40 in 2004 dollars, where it was in 1980 following the Peanut Farmer’s idiocy, let me know. And then there’s the little matter of Kerry’s proposals for a 50 additional cent tax on gas, that he’d like us to forget.)

* College tuition
(Most Americans don’t pay tuition. Those that do are among the ones the Democrats love to hate… The rich. Like, Kerry, for example.)

* Home ownership
( At the moment, it’s at the highest levels in our recorded history. How does this make Kerry’s case? It doesn’t.)

* Job growth

(Explain to me how this makes the slightest difference to people who are already working, which more are, now. Unemployment is down, after all and if you look, jobs are being created… as you read this.)

* Personal bankruptcies

(Most of these are as result of the dot.com bubble bursting…. see also, Bill Clinton. In any event, the numbers of these too, are dropping.)

Why did they pick these? Because they make a fellow Democrat look like a success… Jimmy Carter. They do that by ignoring the points that really do matter to everyone; inflation, (Under Carter, we had 22% inflation) and economic growth (Which was in negative numbers and in freefall by the end of Carter’s being inflicted on the American people)

Does this point give you a clue as to what Kerry plans to do, as far as economic policy goes? He plans to follow in Carter’s footsteps.  I was there. I lived through it. I would suggest we not let the Democrats do that to us again. It took a God-given miricle in the form of Ronald Reagan to save us last time.

Update: Greg Easterbook seems to ahve picked up on this point as well:

Kerry’s index can make you giggle because, in order to be manipulated such that George W. Bush has “the worst record of any president ever,” indicators must be chosen that give a great economic rating to Jimmy Carter. Check the Kerry campaign’s graph, halfway down the page. When were times best by this index? At the end of the Clinton administration, and in 1978. Can you find one single person in the United States who would want a time-machine ride to the economic conditions of 1978? That was the time of “stagflation,” combined inflation and lack of growth. Unemployment was worse in 1978 than today, too.

But then the Kerry middle-class misery index has been doctored to remove inflation and unemployment as leading concerns, and there’s a reason–both trends here are in a positive cycle.

protein wisdom seems to have come to the same conclusion as I regards who got in more words while Condi Rice was in the hotseat.

Ron Brownstein passes along some interesting news in the world of election ads, in his LA TIMES column today: (No, I won’t link it; they require registration, and I won’t link registration-demanding sites)

“One leading Democratic interest group recently asked a focus group in Florida to respond to a potential television ad accusing Bush of negligence in failing to stop the attacks. The result was volcanic — against the ad.”

“‘They were so angry I thought they were going to turn the tables over,’ said a Democratic operative who watched the session. ‘It was a very polarizing ad, and it pushed people who were on the fence decidedly away from us.'”

But hasn’t that been the argument of the Democrats all along? Consider their positoning with the 9/11 commission, and the angle of attack as displayed by BenVineste.  The Democrats have backed themselves into a corner on this one, I think.

Rasmussen Polling is reporting the results of their reseach following the Rice testimony of the other day.:

“April 8, 2004–In the wake of Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before a national television audience, 50% of American voters have a favorable view of the nation’s National Security Advisor. “

Whereas, with regards to who has greater credibility, her or the accuser;

“Clarke is viewed favorably by just 27% of voters and unfavorably by 42%.”

drowning at 2 feet sea levelis runing an E-mail, which says in part:

“On March 26 we lost a 21 yr old Marine from the Houston area in Iraq. On Saturday March 27 the Chronicle sent a reporter – Lucas Wall – to the family’s home to interview them. The body hadn’t even made it home yet. On their driveway the reporter (more than once) made it apparent through his questions that he wanted to draw a negative conclusion for President Bush and his Iraq policy from the family reaction at this time of grief. Clearly he came to sell an agenda than to respectfully report a story at a sensitive time of grief. The family responded in specifically instructing the reporter to NOT put anything negative about Bush in the story – they supported the President.

The piece was published Sunday March 28 – and the writer inserted a statement at towards the end of the story between 2 quotes from family members strongly implying that they recognized Bush’s failure to find weapons of mass destruction and that failure undermined the President’s authority or justification for the war in which they just lost their son. Clearly this was in direct conflict with not only the facts but also the requests of the family in their time of intense grief.”

RTWT.

If you’re looking for an RSS ‘clean’ feed of BitsBlog, you can try Bloglines .

And of course there’s an ATOM feed as well…

I’m reviewing ATOM readers just now.

They’re both rather cool. If I have any objection to either, it’s that neither shows up on my hit counters.

Winds of Change is suggesting this morning that all of it, or nearly so is coming from outside Iraq.

Iran, for example has pumped upwards of $80million US into Sadr’s insurgency.  THey’re now linking The Sunday Herald, who claims that last month representative of the Mahdi Army, the Islamic Path Party, and Hezbollah met in London with Syrian and Saudi Islamists to add a Shi’ite component to the insurgency.

WOC goes on to suggest that Sadr’s planning on making a break for Iran where he will claim political assylum.

I’ve been getting an incredible amount of mail of late. Sorry for not responding to you all but I just can’t handle it. Trust me when I say I do read it, and it’s appreciated. Even the ones calling me a jackass.

One of e-mail of note comes from Florida..(Where I seem to be getting quite a bit from of late) This Vet we’ll call Ben. Though he doesn’t say so, a records check reveales Ben to be a Purple heart recipiant. He writes and says:

“I was on PBR132- River section 533 based at My Tho and was on patrol in the Delta the day this phoney shot a half dead or dead V.C. His swift boat stopped by our base for the night. We had a beer party with thier crew and they said their J.G. (Kerry) was sent there to get medals.  I served with Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class James Elliott Williams (who was) a real hero.

This man (Kerry) has no honor , is a traitor, and every time he talkes about his Vietnam ‘service’ he pisses on the wall of honor for the men who died doing their duty.

Ben goes on to make a number of very kind remarks about Bithead’s Place.

Thanks for reading, and for taking the time to write, Ben. I’m sure your time serving on the River with Wille was memorable.  I’ve heard other men who served with him both in his military roles and in his role with the Federal Marshall’ office, later on, speak of him; I’d like to have met the man myself; I get the impression I’ve missed something special.

Then again, please don’t negate your own service. I certainly will not. I am quite sure I speak for my readers as well as myself and my family, when I say to you thank you for your service.