While Boxer is nothing more than an old liberal hack…

 Fiorina is a twice married and fired former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. It’s important to remember when Fiorina talks about jobs, she ran a company that hires skilled foreign labor over skilled American labor. HP under Fiorina promoted permanent status for Visa and green card foreign labor.

The bottom line is that Boxer and Fiorina are no different in that they are both lyin’ political hacks.

By Drew Zahn–WND

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will soon be facing a public-relations nightmare in his bid for re-election: a TV ad campaign produced by the same strategist whose “Willie Horton” commercial spoiled Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential hopes.

Floyd Brown, author and president of the Western Center for Journalism, created the infamous “Willie Horton” commercial accusing then-Massachusetts Gov. Dukakis of being soft on crime. The ad, which focused on convicted murderer William Horton, who was granted a weekend furlough under Dukakis and who used his freedom to flee, rape and murder, sent the Dukakis campaign flailing to the defensive and is credited with contributing to the candidate’s loss to then-Vice President George Bush.

Now a pair of political-action committees have hired Brown to create a new series of independent-expenditure advertisements that allegedly expose Reid’s record of political corruption and ties to Arab money.

Specifically, the commercial responds to an ad launched last fall that included the CEO of the MGM Mirage casino in Las Vegas, James Murren, praising Reid for calling banks and pressuring them to finance the casino’s failing $8.5 million construction project called City Center. Murren claims Reid’s efforts saved over 12,000 Nevada jobs.

Brown’s ad, however, points to Murren’s business partner, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The ad claims Al Maktoum used slave labor to build similar structures in Dubai and that the slave-labor bosses and union-labor bosses are now working together to get their financial friend in Washington re-elected.

“The ad focuses on the close relationship between triad Reid, Al Maktoum and the CEO of MGM Mirage, CEO James Murren,” said Brown in a statement. “The bottom line is that the taxpayers and citizens of Nevada pay a terrible price because of the collusion between this corrupt triumvirate.”

The advertisement boils down the collusion charge to the statement, “Slave labor in Dubai, union labor in Las Vegas – and both the slave bosses and the union bosses want Harry Reid re-elected. Go figure.”

Brown also took a shot at a commercial Reid made last fall that touted the senator’s difficult childhood in Searchlight, Nev.

“I can look back and it doesn’t seem that long ago that I lived in a home that didn’t have hot water,” Reid said in his advertisement last fall.

An announcer chimed in, “Harry Reid saw some difficult days. The son of a hard rock miner, Harry Reid hitchhiked 40 miles to high school, worked his way through college as a janitor and law school as a cop. But as tough as it got, he never backed down.”

Brown responded in a statement announcing the new ads, “Education and other essential services are being cut in Nevada because of MGM and Al Maktoum’s unwillingness to pay the cost of gaming regulation. While at the same time they shortchange the Nevada budget, they are pouring resources into making sure that their favorite political protector, Senator Harry Reid, is re-elected. These connections begin to explain why Harry Reid, the so-called poor public servant from Searchlight, is now a multi millionaire.”

Reid, additionally, served as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, a state government agency that regulates casinos, until his successful run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Since his election to Congress in 1982, Reid has been a U.S. representative for two terms and a U.S. senator for four terms. He is seeking his fifth Senate term in this fall’s 2010 election.

The new commercials attacking Reid have been paid for as independent-expenditure ads – meaning they have no formal ties or funding from any candidate – by the Republican Majority Campaign PAC and the Legacy Committee PAC.

The two PACs have also established a website, ExposeHarry.com, in the effort to oust the incumbent senator.

Gary Kreep, president of the Republican Majority Campaign PAC, has announced the ad is set to begin running on KTNV-TV, an ABC affiliate in Las Vegas, tomorrow.

“The buy for this – and already produced future ads – will be extended around the state in weeks to come,” Kreep said in a statement.

Brown and Kreep have also called a joint press conference for tomorrow to discuss the impact of the ad airing in Las Vegas and to show the news media a copy of a second ad scheduled to be released after the conference.

Bill Gertz–Washington Times

The CIA and Justice Department are fighting over a secret investigation into a controversial program by legal supporters of Islamist terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay that involved photographing CIA interrogators and showing the pictures to prisoners, an effort CIA officials say threatens the officers’ lives.

The dispute prompted a meeting Tuesday at CIA headquarters between U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and senior CIA counterintelligence officials. It is the latest battle between the agency and the department over detainees and interrogations of terrorists.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. angered many CIA officials and Republicans in Congress by reopening an investigation last August into whether CIA interrogators acted illegally in questioning senior al Qaeda detainees.

According to U.S. officials familiar with the issue, the current dispute involves Justice Department officials who support an effort led by the American Civil Liberties Union to provide legal aid to military lawyers for the Guantanamo inmates. CIA counterintelligence officials oppose the effort and say giving terrorists photographs of interrogators has exposed CIA personnel and their families to possible terrorist attacks.

As part of the disagreement, a senior Justice Department national security official removed himself from the counterintelligence probe last week after opposing CIA security worries.

Donald Vieira, a former Democratic counsel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who in September became chief of staff at the Justice Department’s National Security Division, recused himself from the counterintelligence investigation into the recent discovery of photographs of CIA interrogators in the possession of defense lawyers at the prison in Cuba.

The investigation has been under way for many months, but was given new urgency after the discovery last month of additional photographs of interrogators at Guantanamo showing CIA officers and contractors who have carried out interrogations of detainees, according to three officials familiar with the investigation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Findings of the investigation to date produced some signs that the senior al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo gained intelligence on CIA interrogators through their lawyers that could be used in future legal proceedings.

CIA counterintelligence officials have “serious concerns” that the information will leak out and lead to the terrorists targeting the officers and their families, if the identities are disseminated to terrorists or sympathizers still at large, said one official.

“They have put the lives of CIA officers and their families in danger,” said a senior U.S. official about the detainees’ lawyers.

The case is being pressed by the counterspies who only recently were able to alert senior agency, Justice Department and White House officials to their concerns.

Details on Mr. Vieira’s recusal could not be learned, but the Justice Department team recently added Mr. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who led the controversial 2005 investigation into the public disclosure of the identity of CIA undercover officer Valerie Plame.

The recusal is said to be related to Mr. Vieira’s past work on the House intelligence committee on detainee policy before 2009, one official said.

Mr. Vieira could not be reached for comment, and Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler declined to comment.

A CIA spokesman also declined comment, as did Mr. Fitzgerald, through a spokesman.

According to the officials, the dispute centered on discussions for a interagency memorandum that was to be used in briefing President Obama and senior administration officials on the photographs found in Cuba.

Justice officials did not share the CIA’s security concerns about the risks posed to CIA interrogators and opposed language on the matter that was contained in the draft memorandum. The memo was being prepared for White House National Security Council aide John Brennan, who was to use it to brief the president.

The CIA insisted on keeping its language describing the case and wanted the memorandum sent forward in that form.

That resulted in the meeting and ultimately to Mr. Vieira withdrawing from the probe.

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta and his chief of staff, Jeremy Bash, a former chief counsel for the House intelligence committee, at first were unaware of both the scope and seriousness of the case.

However, both officials began addressing the matter after inquiries were made from members of Congress. Since then, Mr. Panetta and Mr. Bash are getting regular updates on the dispute, said the officials.

The legal underpinnings of the counterintelligence probe stem from the 1982 law that makes it illegal to disclose the identity of clandestine CIA and other intelligence officers. The law was passed after CIA defector Philip Agee in the 1970s disclosed the identity of Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Greece, who was assassinated in 1975 after the disclosure.

The law was tested in the Plame case, amid press accusations that senior Bush administration deliberately leaked the name to embarrass her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. However, no one was prosecuted under the statute for the disclosure.

The Pentagon also is involved in the investigation in the photographs compromising CIA officers’ identities at Guantanamo because the military provided the lawyers currently representing some detainees. A Pentagon spokeswoman in charge of detainee affairs had no immediate comment and said she was unaware of the case.

The officials said the photographs of the CIA officers found recently at Guantanamo were obtained by a joint program of the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called the John Adams Project.

The project, according to a Washington Post report in August, hired contractors to photograph CIA officers who were thought to have carried out terrorist interrogations. Those photographs were then to be provided to defense lawyers representing some of the Guantanamo detainees as part of an effort to identify the interrogators, for possible use as witnesses in military or civilian trials.

Joshua Dratel, a lawyer representing the John Adams Project, declined to comment directly on whether his group hired investigators to photograph CIA officers and supply them to military defense lawyers.

However, Mr. Dratel said in an interview that “none of the John Adams Project lawyers have done anything inappropriate or contrary to the protective order or any other rules that apply” to the prisoners.

ACLU spokesman John Kennedy also declined to comment on whether the project obtained photographs of CIA officers. However, he said none of the John Adams Project lawyers disclosed the identities of CIA officers to detainees held at Guantanamo.

Details about the investigation into the photographs remain closely held, but one official said CIA counterintelligence and security officials were alarmed by the discovery at the prison.

“What it says is that somebody is going out and finding these agents, taking their pictures, and taking them back to Gitmo, trying to get these guys at Gitmo to confirm who they are and where they are from,” one U.S. intelligence official said. “CIA is afraid this information will become public and jeopardize the lives of the agents.”

A second source said the probe also has heightened an ongoing political dispute among CIA, Justice and White House officials over the issue of terrorism detainees.

After the Bush administration’s Justice Department closed its investigation into alleged wrongdoing by CIA interrogators, Mr. Obama’s Justice Department team reopened the case into whether they broke the law while questioning terrorism suspects captured in the early 2000s.

The Justice Department, under Mr. Holder, also favors conducting civilian trials for some terrorism suspects, rather than holding military tribunals. It also has sought to treat captured terrorists more like criminal defendants in legal cases, rather than as enemy combatants captured in wartime.

Washington (CNN) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that Israel’s announcement of new settlement construction in disputed territory in East Jerusalem was “insulting” to the United States.

The Israeli announcement came during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit this week to Israel. It complicated U.S. efforts to set up so-called proximity talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, the latest attempt to nudge the two sides back toward talking directly.

Clinton said the United States’ relationship with Israel is not at risk: “Our relationship is durable. It’s strong. It’s rooted in common values.”

“But we have to make clear to our Israeli friends and partners that the two-state solution — which we support, which the prime minister himself says he supports — requires confidence-building measures on both sides,” Clinton told CNN’s Jill Dougherty. “And the announcement of the settlements the very day that the vice president was there was insulting.”

The construction, announced Tuesday, will be in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, in disputed territory in East Jerusalem. The Israeli Interior Ministry denies that the territory is in East Jerusalem. MORE

Carol J. Williams

A divided federal appeals court Thursday reversed itself, ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t violate the constitutional prohibition against state-mandated religious exercise even though it contains the phrase “one nation under God.”

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2002, which deemed that requiring students to recite the pledge violated their rights to be free of religious indoctrination by the government, was one of the most controversial to come out of the court that is second only to the U.S. Supreme Court in its power to determine law for nine Western states and two Pacific territories.

The appeals court’s earlier decision had been reviewed by the Supreme Court in 2004, but the justices dodged the constitutional question on procedural grounds, throwing out the lawsuit brought by a Sacramento atheist and leaving intact the wording of the patriotic declaration.

Also decided Thursday was a challenge brought by the same plaintiff, Michael Newdow, to the phrase “In God We Trust” printed on the national money. The same three-judge panel ruled that an earlier case had found the phrase to be a national motto and that its placement on U.S. coins and currency wasn’t required by any government statute.

The Establishment Clause of the Constitution’s 1st Amendment prohibits the enactment of a law or official policy that establishes a religion or religious faith. The 9th Circuit’s earlier ruling that the pledge unconstitutionally included “under God” stirred nationwide controversy and exposed Newdow, a physician and lawyer, to virulent scorn for attacking the religious references.

In Thursday’s ruling, written by Judge Carlos T. Bea, an appointee of President George W. Bush, the judges ruled 2-1 that Newdow and others who joined his lawsuit didn’t have standing to challenge the 1954 amendment to the pledge adding the words “under God” because no federal statute requires them to recite it.

Senior Circuit Judge Dorothy W. Nelson joined Bea in the ruling, but Judge Stephen Reinhardt dissented, writing that “the state-directed, teacher-led daily recitation in public schools of the amended ‘under God’ version of the Pledge of Allegiance… violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.”

Nelson and Reinhardt were both appointed to the court by President Carter.

By Philip Klein

When a given issue is causing trouble for a political candidate, that trouble tends to get compounded if: a) it turns out that the one problem is part of a broader pattern and/or b) if the candidate can’t get his or her story straight. Along these lines, U.S. Senate candidate Tom Campbell of California will continue to be dogged by his past relationships with Islamic radicals because those relationships are numerous, and because he’s now been caught in several lies while trying to explain those associations.

Most of the reporting on Campbell’s ties to radicals has focused on Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who donated to the Campbell campaign and later pled guilty to conspiring to help associates of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Campbell keeps tripping himself up when trying to explain himself.

In an interview with the New Ledger last month, Campbell said point blank, “I received no contribution from Sami Al-Arian.” After I (along with others) reported that this was demonstrably false based on Federal Election Commission filings, he reversed himself and told the Politico that he made an “honest mistake, with no attempt to mislead.”

Then, in last Friday’s candidate debate, Campbell claimed that when he sent a letter to the president of the University of South Florida protesting Al-Arian’s firing, it was before an “O’Reilly Factor” interview in which Al-Arian called for the “Death to Israel.” Yet subsequent disclosure of the letter revealed not only that it was dated after the O’Reilly segment, but also that Campbell specifically referred to the segment in the letter itself.

Campbell wrote in defense of Al-Arian: “I read a transcript of the ‘O’Reilly Factor’ interview last autumn, and I did not see anything whereby Professor Al-Arian attempted to claim he was representing the views of the University of South Florida.”

I now see (via Jennifer Rubin) this Los Angeles Times report:

On Monday, Campbell said in an interview that despite the language of his letter, he had never read the full transcript of the O’Reilly interview, specifically the “Death to Israel” language. If he had seen it, he said, he never would have written the letter….

Campbell spokesman James Fisfis said the candidate’s memory of his dealings with Al-Arian is foggy because he did not have an original copy of the letter and because the events occurred nearly a decade ago.

“It was a long time ago,” Fisfis said. “We’re trying to piece together everything about that time period.”

So in other words, Campbell’s explanation for having been caught in yet another lie is that he’s telling the truth now, but was actually lying in 2002, when as a Stanford law professor he wrote to the president of another university on behalf of a campaign donor. And now, nearly a decade later, his memory is too foggy to accurately recall the lies that he once put in writing.

Even if you were totally to set aside his problems with al-Arian, however, it still wouldn’t explain away Campbell’s other associations. Just to review some of what I’ve already reported:

– In 2000, Campbell publicly defended Abdurahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council and refused to return contributions from him, even though both George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton rejected donations from Alamoudi, and even after the community leader was caught on video rallying support for Hamas and Hezbollah. In 2004, Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years in prison on terrorism-related charges.

– On a trip to the West Bank and Gaza while Congressman, Campbell bumped his head on a taxi door and recalled receiving a phone call from Yasser Arafat in which he chummily told the terrorist leader, “This makes me the first American to have shed blood in your country.”

– In 2000, an invitation to a Campbell fundraiser touted his votes to cut aid to Israel (the same votes he’s now claiming are being misrepresented to portray him as anti-Israel). Clinton rejected donations from the group.

– One month after the September 11 attacks, Tom Campbell accepted a lifetime achievement award from Muslim leader Agha Saeed at a conference in which speakers cited poverty and U.S. policy toward Israel as the “root causes” of terrorism. Clinton was forced to return donations from the group in 2000, but Campbell stood by it.

Again, perhaps any one of these single cases could be explained away for those who want to be charitable. But when there’s such a consistent pattern over a number of years, it becomes much more difficult to reconcile the old Campbell with the current Campbell who is trying to portray himself as a pro-Israel national security hawk while seeking the Republican nomination. And it makes it even harder to give Campbell the benefit of the doubt when he continues to be dishonest and his explanations are constantly evolving.

Kara Rowland–Washington Times

Tales about the White House’s hot-tempered, foul-mouthed chief of staff are legion, from Rahm Emanuel’s mailing of a dead fish to a pollster to a lawmaker’s accusation that Mr. Emanuel berated him over a vote in the shower at the congressional gym.

Mixing mockery and scorn, the Obama administration Tuesday dismissed new accusations about Mr. Emanuel from Rep. Eric Massa, a freshman New York Democrat who has formally resigned his seat amid a growing ethics scandal and charges of sexual misconduct involving his staff.

Top White House officials made it clear that President Obama is standing behind his combative chief of staff as the best person to shepherd his agenda through Congress – something Mr. Emanuel knows a thing or two about as a former congressman from Chicago and one-time head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm.

Asked whether naked politicking is standard practice, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs chuckled and told a reporter to e-mail the query to Mr. Emanuel, saying he hadn’t discussed the matter with him. Mr. Gibbs then took aim at Mr. Massa, accusing him of changing his story numerous times.

“The notion that somehow the White House had anything to do with the series of events that have caused him to not seek re-election and ultimately leave the House, the notion that somehow we were involved in that I think is … silly and ridiculous,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Regardless of their veracity, Mr. Massa’s bizarre accusations provide the latest headlines about Mr. Emanuel, whose behind-the-scenes wrangling has fueled journalistic speculation about divisions within the West Wing. A slew of stories have speculated on the former Clinton White House aide’s relationship with the Chicago-based political team that carried Mr. Obama on his successful 2008 presidential quest.

As the administration’s legislative quarterback, Mr. Emanuel has been blamed for the fact that Mr. Obama has not signed into law any of his legislative priorities: health care reform, energy and education measures and financial regulatory reform. Mr. Emanuel’s defenders have suggested that Mr. Obama is not listening closely enough to his Washington-savvy chief of staff.

The proposed civil trial in downtown Manhattan, N.Y., of the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is a prime example of the conflicting narratives.

A Washington Post account reported that Mr. Obama and senior political adviser David Axelrod sided with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on his position that a civilian court was the most appropriate venue, overruling objections from Mr. Emanuel, who lobbied for a military trial and warned that the decision would complicate the administration’s stalled efforts to close the prison at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The administration has since backed away from its plan to hold the trial in New York and reportedly is considering moving the proceedings to a military tribunal. Meanwhile, Mr. Emanuel has continued to negotiate the logistics of closing Guantanamo with Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican.

Mr. Gibbs last week sought to tamp down any suggestions of disunity at the White House, telling reporters that Mr. Emanuel “absolutely has the president’s confidence” and dismissing the articles as inside-the-Beltway “parlor games.”

“There’s nobody working harder at passing the president’s agenda than the chief of staff is,” Mr. Gibbs said. “I know Washington likes to do this stuff. They love the parlor games.”

But the bizarre week-old story of Mr. Massa, a Democratic backbencher, has breathed new life into the controversy over Mr. Emanuel’s effectiveness.

In the news this week are audio clips of Mr. Massa blaming his downfall not on his ethics problems but on bare-knuckled politics and the White House’s desire to pass a health care bill he opposes.

Mr. Massa referred to Mr. Emanuel as the “son of the devil’s spawn” and detailed an awkward confrontation in which Mr. Obama’s lieutenant needled him over his opposition to the budget while both men were nude in the congressional gym showers.

In an interview with a New York radio station over the weekend, Mr. Massa recalled, “I am showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped round his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn’t going to vote for the president’s budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?”

In an interview with Fox News’ Glenn Beck on Tuesday evening, Mr. Massa seconded complaints that Mr. Emanuel’s negotiating style was hurting the president’s agenda.

“Rahm Emanuel is very good at making enemies and not very good at making friends,” Mr. Massa said.

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