Head of Joint Chiefs: Homosexuality is Immoral

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“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Gen Pace told the Chicago Tribune. “As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behaviour] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behaviour,” he said.

Marine General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he backed the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuality. The policy bans homosexual acts between members of the military.

A gay rights group called the comments “a slap in the face to gay men and women serving with honour and bravery”.

Joe Solomonese, president of Human Rights Campaign, said: “What is immoral is to weaken our national security because of personal prejudices.”

[BBC News]

Curveball, the Defector Whose Lies Led to War

The Iraqi defector known as Curveball, whose fabricated stories of “mobile biological weapons labs” helped lead the U.S. to war four years ago, is still being protected by the German intelligence service, an ABC News investigation has found.

Intelligence sources, who provided ABCNews.com with the first known photo of the man, say he has been resettled in a small town near the Munich headquarters of the German service, which has continued to honor its original commitment made when he fled Iraq in 1999.

Curveball’s false tales became the centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the United Nations in February 2003, even though he was considered an “unstable, immature and unreliable” source by some senior officials at the CIA.

[ABC News]

Viacom Sues YouTube for $1 Billion

Big Media took its first big swing at YouTube Tuesday as Viacom Inc., the owner of MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and other cable networks filed a $1 billion copyright lawsuit against the video-sharing site and corporate owner Google Inc.

The lawsuit marks a sharp escalation of long-simmering tensions between Viacom and YouTube and represents the biggest confrontation to date between a major media company and the hugely popular site, which Google bought in November for $1.76 billion.

Last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from its site, and since that time the company has uncovered more than 50,000 additional unauthorized clips, Viacom spokesman Jeremy Zweig said.

[Forbes]

Russians: Iran nuke plant to be delayed

MOSCOW – The state-run Russian company building Iran’s first nuclear power plant said Monday that the reactor’s launch will be postponed because of Iranian payment delays.

Russian media reports, meanwhile, indicated that the Kremlin was growing tired of Iran’s nuclear defiance in the face of U.N. Security Council sanctions, with three agencies citing an unidentified official warning Iran to cooperate and stop playing “anti-American games.”

Russia, which has remained close to Iran even as the Islamic republic defied international demands to stop enriching uranium and answer  questions about its nuclear program, has accused Iran of paying only a fraction of the $25 million monthly payments for construction work at the Bushehr reactor in recent months. Officials have warned that the funding delays would push back both the launch — originally planned for September — and the delivery of the uranium fuel needed to power the reactor.

[Yahoo!/AP]

Waxman to Rice: Answer 11 ignored letters on Iraq claims

The Chairman of the House’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee today demanded that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice respond to 11 outstanding requests for information sent by his office since 2003. The letters primarily concerned claims, later proved erroneous, on the threat posed to the United States by Saddam Hussein’s government in the run up to the Iraq War.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) warned Dr. Rice that a failure to respond to his committee’s inquiries would undermine Constitutional governance.

“Refusing to allow officials to testify before Congress…or ignoring congressional requests for information, as you apparently ignored my inquiries, are not consistent with our constitutional system of government,” said the Committee’s Chairman in a letter released today.

[RawStory]

Chemicals May Play Role in Rise in Obesity

The evidence is preliminary, but a number of researchers are pursuing indications that the chemicals, which have been shown to cause abnormal changes in animals’ sexual development, can also trigger fat-cell activity — a process scientists call adipogenesis.

The chemicals under scrutiny are used in products from marine paints and pesticides to food and beverage containers. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found one chemical, bisphenol A, in 95 percent of the people tested, at levels at or above those that affected development in animals.

[washingtonpost]

The only non-theistic national politician

The Secular Coalition for America announced that Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA) is the first openly non-theistic congressperson in history. Congressman Stark has served in Congress for California’s 13th District since 1973. He is currently a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee and the Chairman of its Health Subcommittee. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

[RawStory]

Mercenaries

Meet BLACKWATER USA, the world’s most secretive and powerful mercenary firm. Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, it is the fastest-growing private army on the planet with forces capable of carrying out regime change throughout the world. Blackwater protects the top US officials in Iraq and yet we know almost nothing about the firm’s quasi-military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and inside the US. Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.
[Amazon.com]

NYT: The Failed Attorney General

During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution.

Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference. He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency. If anyone, outside Mr. Bush’s rapidly shrinking circle of enablers, still had doubts about that, the events of last week should have erased them.

[NYTimes]

Why Libby’s Pardon Is a Slam Dunk

Frank Rich sounds off:

EVEN by Washington’s standards, few debates have been more fatuous or wasted more energy than the frenzied speculation over whether President Bush will or will not pardon Scooter Libby. Of course he will.

A president who tries to void laws he doesn’t like by encumbering them with “signing statements” and who regards the Geneva Conventions as a nonbinding technicality isn’t going to start playing by the rules now. His assertion last week that he is “pretty much going to stay out of” the Libby case is as credible as his pre-election vote of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld. The only real question about the pardon is whether Mr. Bush cares enough about his fellow Republicans’ political fortunes to delay it until after Election Day 2008.

Either way, the pardon is a must for Mr. Bush. He needs Mr. Libby to keep his mouth shut. Cheney’s Cheney knows too much about covert administration schemes far darker than the smearing of Joseph Wilson. Though Mr. Libby wrote a novel that sank without a trace a decade ago, he now has the makings of an explosive Washington tell-all that could be stranger than most fiction and far more salable.

[NYTimes]
(Times Select subscription required) 

Nevada Dems Nix Fox Debate

The Nevada State Democratic Party is pulling out of a controversial presidential debate scheduled for Aug. 14 in Reno and co-hosted by Fox News, according to a letter released late Friday from state party chairman Tom Collins and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev).

The letter said Nevada Democrats had entered into the agreement with Fox, despite strong opposition from Democratic activist groups such as MoveOn.org, as a way of finding “new ways to talk to new people.”

But Collins and Reid wrote that comments on Thursday by FOX News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, when he jokingly compared Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, to Osama bin Laden, “went too far,” and prompted Nevada Democrats to end the partnership.

[Politico]

Gonzales, Mueller admit FBI broke law

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left open the possibility of pursuing criminal charges against FBI agents or lawyers who improperly used the USA Patriot Act in pursuit of suspected terrorists and spies.

The FBI’s transgressions were spelled out in a damning 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. He found that agents sometimes demanded personal data on people without official authorization, and in other cases improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

[APnewsire]

D.C. Handgun Ban Struck Down by Federal Appeals Court

March 9 — A U.S. appeals court struck down a three-decade-old District of Columbia law that bans residents from keeping a handgun in their homes, saying the Constitution’s Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Washington also threw out a district law requiring registered firearms to be kept disassembled or under trigger lock.

It’s the first time a federal appeals court has struck down a gun-control measure on Second Amendment grounds. Nelson Lund, a constitutional law professor at George Mason University in neighboring Virginia, said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is “very likely.”

“This is clearly an extremely significant ruling,” Lund said, “The District of Columbia had some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.’

The Second Amendment says, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Lawyers for the District of Columbia, which banned residents from owning handguns in 1976 for public safety reasons, argued that the amendment guarantees the right to bear arms only for members of a militia.

[Bloomberg]

Bush greeted by protests in Latin America

[neoncobra.blogspot]

Yet as the protests demonstrate, anti-Americanism runs deep in Latin America, and many are skeptical (LAT) of this new attention from the United States. Some see Bush’s visit as a weak attempt to counter Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s influence. High oil prices have given Chavez the ability to buy some $1.5 billion of Argentina’s bonds and offer to underwrite coca production in Bolivia, among other ventures. In contrast, Bush’s newly-announced aid package and his proposed 2008 foreign aid budget for Latin America are quite modest (NYT). Due to likely congressional restraints, “Bush, particularly on trade issues, probably has very little to concretely offer these countries,” says CFR Fellow Shannon O’Neil in an interview

[CFR]