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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Pelosi Bypasses Hastings on Intel
Bowing to public concerns about the ethical tone she was setting, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Rep. Alcee Hastings today that she would not name him chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Hastings, in an interview, said Pelosi did not indicate who she would select to head the sensitive panel, which oversees the nation’s intelligence community.
Pelosi has not chosen Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who is the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel.
Hastings, who was next in line after Harman, has been the focus of editorials criticizing his possible selection because of his impeachment and removal from the federal bench in the late 1980s on a bribery conspiracy charge.
Hastings and his supporters had argued that his impeachment came despite his acquittal on criminal charges. And he noted he has served on the secretive panel for seven years.
“You win some; you lose some; and some you get rained out,” Hastings said in the interview.
Hastings met with Pelosi for more than an hour today but said he would not disclose details of their conversation.
He acknowledged that the furor over his impeachment was the reason Pelosi would not name him chairman.
Pelosi has been under fire for the past few weeks after bucking her fellow Democrats and urging them to select Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., as House majority leader, despite the fact that he was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1970s Abscam case.
Murtha was trounced in the Democratic caucus by Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
Hastings said Pelosi’s decision had less to do with the facts in his case than the “negative climate and pressures” surrounding the appointment.
“She is no less subject to those pressures than I am,” Hastings said, adding that the Democratic Party’s future and “this country’s national security are a whole lot more important than I am.”
With Hastings out of the running, and Harman likely out as well, speculation focused on other potential chairmen, including Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, a former Border Patrol official who is third in seniority on the intelligence panel and who has the support of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus; or Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who is also on the committee.
Other potential chairmen being mentioned are Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Both previously served on the panel.
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Case Settled Over Barney Parody
The Texas-based company that owns Barney, that lovable purple dinosaur, agreed Tuesday to withdraw threats of legal action against a New York City musicologist who posted parodies of the children’s character on his personal website.
In agreeing to stop threatening Dr. Stuart Frankel with legal action, Lyons Partnership is settling a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group, in August.
The foundation filed a lawsuit against Lyons to stop the company’s laywers from sending Frankel cease-and-desist letters claiming that he was violating copyright and trademark laws.
“We wish we hadn’t had to file a lawsuit to finally get Barney’s lawyers to stop harassing a man who was just expression an opinion about a cultural phenomenon,” said Corynne McSherry, the EEF lawyer handling the case. “Hopefully, Lyons Partnership has learned its lesson and will have more respect for fair use in the future.”
Lawyers for Lyons have not responded to a request for an interview.
The settlement is the latest development in the foundation’s effort to protect online free speech.
For more about the Barney see this Cox story.
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Making Iraq Safe for al-Qaida
For a couple of hours this morning, thanks to a transcription error that left out two small but crucial words, the U.S. seemed to have something of a new policy in Iraq.
The transcript offered by the White House at 5:50 a.m. EST included this passage in which Bush spoke about his Thursday meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki:
“My question to him will be: What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence? I will assure him that we will continue to pursue al-Qaida to make sure that they establish a safe haven in Iraq.”
To make sure that they establish a safe haven in Iraq?
No, came the correction shipped out at 8:18 a.m. to note that Bush actually said “I will assure him that we will continue to pursue al-Qaida to make sure that they do not establish a safe haven in Iraq.”
The comments came at the National Bank of Estonia during a press availability with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
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Headed South
President Bush today turned to his father, two Mexican-Americans and a Cuban-American as the U.S. delegation to Friday’s inauguration festivities in Mexico City for Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s incoming president:
Former President George H.W. Bush will lead the delegation, which will include Antonio Garza, U.S. ambassador to Mexico; Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
Garza and Gonzales are Texans of Mexican ancestry. Gutierrez moved to the U.S. from Cuba when he was seven. He studied business administration at Mexico’s Monterrey Institute of Technology.
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