Iolani Palace Occupied by "Kingdom Government Group"

"Protest leader Mahealani Kahau said the group doesn't recognize Hawaii as a U.S. state."

FOX News (4-30-08) reports:

A Native Hawaiian group that advocates sovereignty for the U.S. state locked the gates of a historic palace Wednesday in downtown Honolulu, saying it would carry out the business of what it considers the legitimate government of the islands.

State deputy sheriffs weren't allowing anyone else to enter Iolani Palace grounds as unarmed security guards from the Hawaiian Kingdom Government group blocked all gates to the palace, which is adjacent to the state Capitol.

Arrest warrants were being prepared and would probably be served on the 60 or so protesters later in the day, officials said. Protest leaders said they were prepared to be arrested and would go peacefully.

Protest leader Mahealani Kahau said the group doesn't recognize Hawaii as a U.S. state. Supporters planned to keep the protest peaceful and if evicted would return later, she said. [Full text]

Retired NYC Detectives on the Trail of the "Smiley Face Gang"

FOX News (4-30-08) reports:

At least 40 young men who drowned may have died by far more sinister means — serial killings at the hands of a national gang that revels in murdering young men and leaving smiley-face markings at the scene, a team of retired New York City police detectives and criminal justice investigators said Monday.

They believe the victims, including University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins and Fordham University student Patrick McNeill, didn't accidentally drown but were actually killed by members of the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," according to KSTP-TV, which first reported the story.

A smiley-face symbol was found painted at some of the drowning locations — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa, the station said.

"They're telling you here that they're into evil, they're very happy as most serial killers are," retired NYPD Det. Kevin Gannon said at a press conference Monday. "They're content with their work and what they're doing and the fact that they're thwarting the police." [See full text and the very troubling KSTP-TV report]

The NYC detectives have a website, here.

The FBI does not seem to agree with the detectives and released this 4-29-08 statement:

FBI Statement Regarding Midwest River Deaths

"Over the past several years, law enforcement and the FBI have received information about young, college-aged men who were found deceased in rivers in the Midwest. The FBI has reviewed the information about the victims provided by two retired police detectives and interviewed an individual who provided information to the detectives. To date, we have not developed any evidence to support links between these tragic deaths or any evidence substantiating the theory that these deaths are the work of a serial killer or killers. The vast majority of these instances appear to be alcohol-related drownings. The FBI will continue to work with the local police in the affected areas to provide support as requested,” said Supervisory Special Agent Richard J. Kolko, Washington, D.C.

Senator Obama Condemns Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "Divisive and Destructive" Views

Senator Obama after he condemned the conspiracy thinking of his former minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright has claimed that the U.S. government made the AIDS virus to kill black people, although a State Department memo dated 1-14-2005 explains that in 1992, the head of Russia's foreign intelligence, Yevgeni Primakov, admitted right in Izvestia that the KGB had fabricated and circulated the lie that the U.S. had made AIDS.

This lie is extremely harmful because young blacks who believe that their government is trying to exterminate them may engage in destructive and unhealthy lifestyles.

If Rev. Wright were really speaking truth to power, he would denounce this vicious lie [see video] that is killing black young people. He would show them this State Department memo instead of making a lot of money by spreading lies.

Fox News (4-29-08) has a transcript of Senator Obama's press conference on Rev. Wright:

I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday...[Rev. Wright's] comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.

...when [Rev. Wright] states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st centuries, when he equates the United States wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses.

They offend me. The rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

...Reverend Wright does not speak for me. He does not speak for our campaign. I cannot prevent him from continuing to make these outrageous remarks, but what I do want him to be very clear about, as well as all of you and the American people, is that when I say that I find these comments appalling, I mean it
[Full text].

I also heard Rev. Wright say on T.V. that the American government infected black men with syphilis in the Tuskegee Study.

The Tuskegee study was unethical, but the men were not infected with syphilis. They already had syphilis.

When the study started, treatments for syphilis were dangerous, and the scientists were trying to see if the men might be better off without treatment. After penicillin was available, the men should have been treated. The researchers also failed to obtain informed consent from their subjects. These medical practices were wrong, but the goal of the experiment was to study syphilis and cure it. The goal was never to use syphilis to exterminate black people.

An informative Washington Post article (1-25-05), published a few days after the State Department memo (1-14-05) that contained Primakov's admission explained:

More than 20 years after the AIDS epidemic arrived in the United States, a significant proportion of African Americans embrace the theory that government scientists created the disease to control or wipe out their communities, according to a study released today by Rand Corp. and Oregon State University.

That belief markedly hurts efforts to prevent the spread of the disease among black Americans, the study's authors and activists said. African Americans represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, according to Census Bureau figures, yet they account for 50 percent of new HIV infections in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, said past discrimination is no longer an excuse for embracing conspiracies that allow HIV to fester.

"It's a huge barrier to HIV prevention in black communities," Wilson said. "There's an issue around conspiracy theory and urban myths. Thus we have an epidemic raging out of control, and African Americans are being disproportionately impacted in every single sense."

Black women made up 73 percent of new HIV cases among women in 2003, and black men represented 40 percent of new cases, according to the most recent federal figures available. Among gay men, blacks represented 30 percent of new infections, and adolescents ages 18 to 24 accounted for nearly 80 percent of new HIV cases.

"The whole notion of conspiracy theories and misinformation . . . removes personal responsibility," Wilson said. "If there is this boogeyman, people say, 'Why should I use condoms? Why should I use clean needles?' And if I'm an organization, 'Why should I bother with educating my folks?' The [Tuskegee]syphilis study was real, but it happened 40 years ago, and holding on to it is killing us."

Senator Obama has condemned Rev. Wright's conspiracy theories, but he didn't explain why Rev. Wright's conspiracy theories are untrue. Senator Obama only says that it is a "ridiculous proposition" that the U.S. government was "somehow...involved in AIDS."

I wish Senator Obama would explain to young black people where these lies about AIDS being "made in America" came from and that the American government and scientists are trying very hard to cure AIDS.

Perhaps if young people realize that their government is trying to help them, they will also help themselves by not engaging in dangerous behaviors that put them at risk for AIDS.

Here is a good government site that can educate people about AIDS research and prevention.

Joseph and John Trimbach, Paul DeMain, and Tim Giago Hosted by Michigan State University (4-23-2008)

Front cover of Joseph and John Trimbach's American Indian Mafia: An FBI Agent's True Story About Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM).

Retired FBI agent Joseph H. Trimbach and his son John Trimbach report that their April 23, 2008 presentation at the Kellogg Center Auditorium of Michigan State University (MSU) was a success. Click on the cache links to read how MSU promoted the event.

The MSU calendar reported:

FBI Special Agent in Charge Joseph Trimbach and John Trimbach will debate the legacy of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and challenge the three pillars of AIM: COINTELPRO versus AIM, the Anna Mae murder investigation, and Leonard Peltier as a political prisoner.

The students and professors in the audience were great, and there were no rabblerousers who disrupted the presentation.

The renowned Indian journalist Tim Giago was also scheduled to present, but became ill; so Paul DeMain, the Managing Editor of News from Indian Country, took his place. Mr. DeMain is sometimes disparaged as an "apple" (red on the outside, white on the inside) by panicky Aimsters because he has criticized AIM leaders for their violence and deception and has not vilified the FBI.

At the last minute, Mr. Giago fortunately recovered and was able to attend, but Paul DeMain still took his place as a speaker.

The Trimbachs report:

We hope we changed some minds on Churchill, Peltier, and the AIM leadership's role in the destruction of Wounded Knee village, the murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, and what was once an improving relationship between law enforcement on the reservation and the residents. There's a lot of historical damage to repair. We hope MSU was merely the first of many speaking engagements. Tim will hopefully join us for the next one.

The event was recorded and may be available at a later date. Maybe they will post the audio or video of this event on their site.

These posters were commissioned to promote the event.

I am glad that these fine men are working together to overcome the legacy of mistrust and violence created by the leaders of the American Indian Movement and their mouthpieces.

I posted a story about the March 2008 promotion of Trimbachs' book that I attended here. I have been writing about the Trimbachs' historic and long-awaited book since April 29, 2006.

The Doctors' Plot: Stalin's Anti-Semitic Canard

This January 1953 cartoon from the Soviet humor magazine Krokodil (Crocodile) shows Jewish doctors being unmasked as poisoners of the Soviet political and military leadership. They are getting money from American intelligence.

The "doctors' plot" is the name of an alleged conspiracy by Jewish doctors in the USSR to exterminate the Soviet leadership by poisoning them. This conspiracy theory began in 1952 and was discredited after Stalin's death in 1953.

The doctors' plot had its origins in the medieval antisemitic canard about Jews poisoning wells to give their Christian neighbors the plague.

Even some Jews in Israel on the left and in the Kibbutz movement repeated this lie and reportedly characterized the accused Soviet doctors as "murderers in the service of a Britanno-American spy-network."

Wikipedia, citing Simon Sebag Montefiore, notes:

After Stalin's death on March 5 [1953], the new leadership admitted that the charges had been entirely invented by Stalin and his cohorts.

The case was dismissed on March 31 by the newly appointed Minister of Internal Affairs Lavrenty Beria, and on April 3 the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party officially acquitted the arrested. Chief MGB investigator and Deputy Minister of State Security M. D. Ryumin (also Riumin) was blamed for making up the plot and after Stalin's death was arrested and executed.

Pravda (1-15-1953) published an article called "Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians":

Today the TASS news agency reported the arrest of a group of saboteur-doctors. This terrorist group, uncovered some time ago by organs of state security, had as their goal shortening the lives of leaders of the Soviet Union by means of medical sabotage.

Investigation established that participants in the terrorist group, exploiting their position as doctors and abusing the trust of their patients, deliberately and viciously undermined their patients' health by making incorrect diagnoses, and then killed them with bad and incorrect treatments. Covering themselves with the noble and merciful calling of physicians, men of science, these fiends and killers dishonored the holy banner of science. Having taken the path of monstrous crimes, they defiled the honor of scientists...

Whom did these monsters serve? Who directed the criminal, terrorist, and harmful activity of these vicious traitors to the Motherland? What goal did they want to achieve by the murders of leading figures of the Soviet government?

It has been determined that all participants of the terrorist group of doctors were in the service of foreign intelligence; having sold their bodies and souls, they appeared as hirelings, paid agents.
The majority of the participants of the terrorist group...were bought by American intelligence [Full text and commentary].

Of course, the real truth was that Stalin and his collaborators were defiling science.

The Soviet regime often circulated allegations about the Americans commiting genocide. Like the "doctors' plot," these allegations have their origins in the antisemitic canard that Jews are poisoning wells and spreading disease.

In the 1980s, the KGB spread claims in the world media that the American government had developed and spread AIDS. In 1992, the head of the Russian intelligence, Yevgeni Primakov, admitted that the KGB had lied about this.

The Russian politician Gennady Zyuganov claimed in 2006 that the Americans were spreading bird flu in Russia and Asia, although Russian scientists do not support his claim.

Even though Russia's intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov admitted in 1992 that the KGB had fabricated its story that AIDS was "made in America," Senator Obama's minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright still "informed" his congregation that their own government had made AIDS to kill black people.

This destructive lie has even been circulated on videos sold through Rev. Wright's church. These lies damage our county's reputation and make some black people believe that there is no point in being responsible for their health.

Senator Obama says that he doesn't agree with Rev. Wright's controversial comments, and he has represented himself as a candidate who wants to move beyond race and tackle our real problems, such as health.

If that were really true, Senator Obama would explain that the KGB was the origin of the "AIDS: Made in America" lie.

Senator Obama has distanced himself from Rev. Wright's controversial beliefs, but he has not corrected these beliefs. If Senator Obama is unable to identify the authors of his own minister's conspiracy theory, I think this a sign that he might not have the courage to confront the religious fanatics who are America's enemies.

In Boulder, Colorado, ex-professor Ward Churchill has fabricated claims that the U. S. Army deliberately infected the Mandan Indians with smallpox. In 1985, Ward Churchill also fabricated claims that the FBI backed death squads that killed Indians. For example, in the KGB mouthpiece "Covert Action Information Bulletin" Churchill claimed that the FBI had backed death-squads that murdered 342 Indians.

These lies are nothing but updated versions of medieval conspiracy theory that Jews were poisoning Christians. These lies damage America's reputation, but they also kill American minorities who may behave irresponsibly with their health if they believe, based on historical injustices and persecution, that their own government is trying to kill them.

Phill Wilson, the executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, has observed:

[Conspiracy theories are] a huge barrier to HIV prevention in black communities...There's an issue around conspiracy theory and urban myths. Thus we have an epidemic raging out of control, and African Americans are being disproportionately impacted in every single sense...[Black] adolescents ages 18 to 24 accounted for nearly 80 percent of new HIV cases. The whole notion of conspiracy theories and misinformation...removes personal responsibility...If there is this boogeyman, people say, 'Why should I use condoms? Why should I use clean needles?' And if I'm an organization, 'Why should I bother with educating my folks?' The [Tuskegee] syphilis study was real, but it happened 40 years ago, and holding on to it is killing us.

Communist Turkey Gennady Zyuganov Spreads Feather-Headed Canards About Bird Flu

Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Propagandist

"It's strange that not a single duck has yet died [from bird flu] in America - they are all dying in Russia and European countries. This makes one seriously wonder why."---Gennady Zyuganov 3-14-2006 [See also Johnson's Russia List, Canada Free Press]

As I noted previously on 3-19-2006, the defamatory charge that America practices biological warfare has historically been a staple of Soviet and Russian propaganda. Sometimes Americans like the ex-professor Ward Churchill and Senator Obama's pastor Rev. Wright have also promoted destructive and defamatory propaganda themes about genocidal biological warfare like those originally disseminated by the KGB.

During the 1980s, the communist media claimed that U.S. Army biowarfare scientists developed the AIDS virus at Fort Detrick, Maryland. [Walter Laqueur writes that during the 1980s and 1990s, radical Arab nationalist and Muslim fundamentalist propaganda put a new twist on this propaganda: Jews were accused of spreading AIDS and other diseases.]

In 2002, the head of the Russian intelligence service, Yevgeni Primakov, admitted that the KGB had promoted the lie that the Americans developed AIDS.

In March 2006, the bird-brained Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who used to be a high-ranking party propagandist and not a scientist, claimed that America is spreading bird flu. His lie is reminiscent of the medieval canard that Jews poison wells.

Zyuganov claimed:

"The forms of warfare are changing. It's strange that not a single duck has yet died in America - they are all dying in Russia and European countries. This makes one seriously wonder why," Zyuganov said at a press conference at the Interfax main office on Tuesday...

Asked to be more precise as to whether he believes the bird flu outbreak could be a deliberate attack by the U.S., Zyuganov answered positively."I not only suggest this, I know very well how this can be arranged. There is nothing strange here," he said [Interfax March 14, 2006].

Zyuganov also spreads feather-headed canards about Jews and once opined:

The Jewish diaspora, which traditionally controlled the financial life of the continent, began expanding its own market by becoming the bearer of the controlling pocket of shares in the complete industrial-economic system of Western civilization.

Zyuganov's mendacious theories about the genesis of bird flu have been discredited by Russian scientists, as this article in the Canada Free Press (10-16-2006) shows:

A group of scientists from Russia made a U.S.-sponsored visit to American influenza labs last March to learn more about tracking emerging flu viruses.

Until August of 2005, when an outbreak of bird flu was discovered in Central Siberia, Russia had been considered free of the virus.

Unlike Zyuganov, Russian researchers, who said the virus was the same one that has caused concern in Southeast Asia, believe the avian flu was carried into Russia by migratory wild birds.

Although Zyuganov claimed in 2006 that the Americans are responsible for the bird flu, most Russian scientists at that time believed that the bird flu was brought to Russia by migratory birds. The Russian scientists were trying to solve the mystery of this dangerous disease, not exploit its appearance for political purposes.

In 2006 there was also another theory that domestic fowl are the principal carriers. Dr. Richard Thomas, an expert at Birdlife International, observed:

From the pattern of spread that we saw last autumn the spread [of the disease] just did not follow known migration routes. What it did follow, you can trace it from western China across to Eastern Europe," he says. "And you see a good correlation with the transport routes, with the railway that runs from Lanchow city heading west through Kazakhstan and southern Russia right away across to Romania.

I think ignorant people like Communist ideologue Gennadi Zyuganov, ex-professor Ward Churchill, and Senator Obama's pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright damage our country's reputation, scholarship, science, and people's health with their conspiracy theories.

These unscientific, bigoted charlatans get rich and powerful by promoting their lies in speeches and on tapes like the snake-oil salesmen of the old days. Anti-American propagandists should let the scientists do the research about diseases and stop spreading ignorant prejudices disguised as scholarship.

Phill Wilson, the executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, has observed:

[Conspiracy theories are] a huge barrier to HIV prevention in black communities...There's an issue around conspiracy theory and urban myths. Thus we have an epidemic raging out of control, and African Americans are being disproportionately impacted in every single sense...[Black] adolescents ages 18 to 24 accounted for nearly 80 percent of new HIV cases. The whole notion of conspiracy theories and misinformation...removes personal responsibility...If there is this boogeyman, people say, 'Why should I use condoms? Why should I use clean needles?' And if I'm an organization, 'Why should I bother with educating my folks?' The [Tuskegee] syphilis study was real, but it happened 40 years ago, and holding on to it is killing us.

Why Doesn't Senator Obama Counter This Deadly KGB-Sponsored Lie about AIDS?

"[Conspiracy theories are] a huge barrier to HIV prevention in black communities...There's an issue around conspiracy theory and urban myths. Thus we have an epidemic raging out of control, and African Americans are being disproportionately impacted in every single sense...[Black] adolescents ages 18 to 24 accounted for nearly 80 percent of new HIV cases. The whole notion of conspiracy theories and misinformation...removes personal responsibility
...If there is this boogeyman, people say, 'Why should I use condoms? Why should I use clean needles?' And if I'm an organization, 'Why should I bother with educating my folks?' The [Tuskegee] syphilis study was real, but it happened 40 years ago, and holding on to it is killing us."---Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles

Senator Barack Obama's pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. preaches the discredited KGB lie that the U.S. government made AIDS in order to commit genocide against black people.

Here is what the Russian newspaper Izvestia (3-19-02) wrote:

[Russia's foreign intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov] mentioned the well known articles printed a few years ago in our central newspapers about AIDS supposedly originating from secret Pentagon laboratories. According to Yevgeni Primakov, the articles exposing US scientists' 'crafty' plots were fabricated in KGB offices.

Primakov's 3-19-92 admission that the KGB was behind AIDS disinformation was followed by a new lie:

In revenge for [the KGB lies], the U.S. special services cooked up their own version of the attack on the Pope in the early 1980s, accusing the Soviet Union of organizing this terrorist act.

A 1992 US Information Agency report titled "Soviet Active Measures in the"Post-Cold War" Era 1988-1991" observes:

Primakov's claim was clearly impossible because charges of Soviet involvement in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II began to appear in 1981 and 1982, well before the USSR's AIDS disinformation campaign began. (The original AIDS charge, planted in the KGB-founded Indian newspaper Patriot in July 1983, went unnoticed by the world until October 1985, when the Soviets began to replay it in a concerted media campaign.) Even if the U.S. government had wished to respond to the AIDS disinformation campaign in kind - which it did not - it could not have retaliated for something that had not yet occurred [Full text].

Senator Obama has made health care an important part of his platform, so it is hard to understand why he doesn't use his position as a Senator and church member to educate black Americans about this KGB-inspired conspiracy theory that is endangering their health. This quote from Izvestia by the head of the Russian foreign intelligence service should do the trick.

I am not a Senator, but when I discovered that my church was disseminating easily-disproveable KGB lies, I spoke up. When I gave a speech about these lies, a Russian actually came from his embassy and screamed at me. I survived.

Senator Obama graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law School, so I doubt he believes this conspiracy theory about AIDS. I don't understand why Senator Obama doesn't give black people the benefit of his education.

Is he afraid people won't vote for him if he tells the public unpleasant truths about how they have been victimized by our enemy's lies? Does Senator Obama, who has expressed concerns about our health, care more about getting elected than about discrediting a vicious lie that is killing so many black Americans?

Even the Russian intelligence official Yevgeni Primakov owned-up to this lie in the Russian newspaper Izvestia on 3-19-92, and the State Department has also exposed this lie in a 1-14-2005 memo. Colin Powell was Secretary of State at that time.

The KGB-inspired AIDS conspiracy theory is the same kind of lie that the discredited ex-professor Ward Churchill tells, when he claims that the U.S. Army deliberately infected the Mandan Indians with smallpox.

An informative Washington Post article (1-25-05), published a few days after the State Department memo, explains that the health of some black people is endangered because they believe that the American government made AIDS in order to kill blacks. Like Senator Obama, the Post also fails to explain that the KGB made up this lie to discredit the American government:

More than 20 years after the AIDS epidemic arrived in the United States, a significant proportion of African Americans embrace the theory that government scientists created the disease to control or wipe out their communities, according to a study released today by Rand Corp. and Oregon State University.

That belief markedly hurts efforts to prevent the spread of the disease among black Americans, the study's authors and activists said. African Americans represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, according to Census Bureau figures, yet they account for 50 percent of new HIV infections in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, said past discrimination is no longer an excuse for embracing conspiracies that allow HIV to fester.

"It's a huge barrier to HIV prevention in black communities," Wilson said. "There's an issue around conspiracy theory and urban myths. Thus we have an epidemic raging out of control, and African Americans are being disproportionately impacted in every single sense."

Black women made up 73 percent of new HIV cases among women in 2003, and black men represented 40 percent of new cases, according to the most recent federal figures available. Among gay men, blacks represented 30 percent of new infections, and adolescents ages 18 to 24 accounted for nearly 80 percent of new HIV cases.

"The whole notion of conspiracy theories and misinformation . . . removes personal responsibility," Wilson said. "If there is this boogeyman, people say, 'Why should I use condoms? Why should I use clean needles?' And if I'm an organization, 'Why should I bother with educating my folks?' The [Tuskegee]syphilis study was real, but it happened 40 years ago, and holding on to it is killing us."

Why doesn't Senator Obama use his position to educate people about this divisive and dangerous false belief? Why doesn't he tell people what the Sate Department explained and even what Yevgeni Primakov, the head of the Russian foreign intelligence, openly admitted? I don't think Senator Obama, who has closely asssociated himself with Rev. Wright, has the courage to be President of the United States if he is afraid to tell the truth about the AIDS conspiracy theory.

Dante's Divine Comedy in Art

Gustave Doré's White Rose (above)--Illustration to Dante's Divine Comedy, Paradiso. Dante and Beatrice observe the Heavenly Host of Angels (Canto 31: The Saintly Throng in the Form of a Rose)

Gustave Doré's illustration of the Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto 34: The hideous Dis, or Lucifer, once God's most beautiful angel, frozen in the lake at the pit of Hell.

Here are some slide shows set to music that depict Dante's Divine Comedy (Don't miss the links at the bottom).

Doré's Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise

Inferno and Purgatory

Here is a link to the Princeton Dante Project.

Here is a link to the Bartleby Divine Comedy.

Sparknotes Inferno

Robert Hollander on Dante's Virgil

Pope Benedict XVI Prays for the 9-11 Victims at Ground Zero

Here is the prayer Pope Benedict gave at Ground Zero on the Jewish Passover.

O God of love, compassion, and healing,
look on us, people of many different faiths and traditions,
who gather today at this site,
the scene of incredible violence and pain.

We ask you in your goodness
to give eternal light and peace
to all who died here-the heroic first-responders:
our fire fighters, police officers,
emergency service workers, and Port Authority personnel,
along with all the innocent men and women
who were victims of this tragedy
simply because their work or service
brought them here on September 11, 2001.

We ask you, in your compassion
to bring healing to those
who, because of their presence here that day,
suffer from injuries and illness.
Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families
and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy.
Give them strength to continue their lives with courage and hope.

We are mindful as well
of those who suffered death, injury, and loss
on the same day at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Our hearts are one with theirs
as our prayer embraces their pain and suffering.

God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world:
peace in the hearts of all men and women
and peace among the nations of the earth.
Turn to your way of love
those whose hearts and minds
are consumed with hatred.

God of understanding,
overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
we seek your light and guidanceas we confront such terrible events.
Grant that those whose lives were spared
may live so that the lives lost here
may not have been lost in vain.
Comfort and console us,
strengthen us in hope,
and give us the wisdom and courage
to work tirelessly for a world
where true peace and love reign
among nations and in the hearts of all.

Today Pope Benedict XVI Visits Ground Zero to Honor Those Who Died on 9/11

Picture credit and World Trade Center Facts.

"On [Passover] Sunday, the final day of his trip, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Ground Zero to honor those who died on 9/11....Praying and blessing the sacred ground at the World Trade Center site is being called the 'emotional high point' of the pontiff's visit to the United Sates."---WCBSTV

Stay tuned for more updates and links...
Official Papal Visit Site
Video and Audio
Prayer at Ground Zero for the innocent victims of 9-11
Text of Pope's 4-2-08 Homily at Yankee Stadium

It was awesome to hear Pope Benedict celebrate the Catholic Mass in English in the Washington Nationals' Baseball Stadium last Thursday. Even teenagers were totally silent as they watched the Holy Father on T.V. Here is the FOX News text of his Homily and his itinerary.

I am really happy that Pope Benedict, nicknamed "the German Shepherd," will be coming to the sacred ground at the World Trade Center today to comfort us and to help us to heal.

Pope Benedict will lead a private service for some family members of the victims of the 9-11 attacks. This service begins at 9:30 AM.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, the Pope will celebrate mass at Yankee Stadium [text of Homily]. Here is the Pope's schedule, according to WCBSTV.

Here is WCBSTV with complete coverage of the Papal visit.
Here is the FOX News coverage of the Papal visit.

Here is the WCBSTV news story with very extensive video about the Pope's visit to America and information about his visit to Ground Zero:

On Sunday, the final day of his trip, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Ground Zero to honor those who died on 9/11. Family members of several victims will join the pope for the private service.

Praying and blessing the sacred ground at the World Trade Center site is being called the 'emotional high point' of the pontiff's visit to the United Sates.

Papal flags and new white canopies mark the spot where the pope will enter Ground Zero to stand in solidarity with the family members of 9/11 victims, survivors of the attack and first responders.

More later...

Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs Arrested for Falsely Reporting Abuse to Authorities

"Perhaps the stories Flora Jessop [above; see also her site, the Child Protection Project] tells folks like Anderson Cooper [see here] every day of forced marriage and child rape [within the Eldorado, Texas, polygamist compound of the Fundamental Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints] are true. And if they are, then by all means the state has the right, and the obligation, to do something about it. But at this point, we have a case built on suspicion, rumor and innuendo, fueled by hysteria and religious bigotry, that looks shakier by the day."---Jesse Hyde at Unfair Park, The Dallas Observer Blog

"[H]ow does a mentally disturbed Colorado woman [Rozita Swinton, above] become aware of a secretive polygamist sect hundreds of miles away in Texas -- and more importantly, how does she get the phone number of Flora Jessop?"---Jesse Hyde at Unfair Park, The Dallas Observer Blog

The Houston Chronicle (4-18-08) reports that that Rozita Swinton has been arrested in Colorado Springs, Colo., and charged with making a false report to authorities in connection with the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) child-abuse case in Texas.

Swinton, who works for a Denver insurance company, has a history of making false reports to the police. The Denver Post (4-20-08) explains:

Colorado Springs police, accompanied by Texas Rangers, arrested Swinton in a local case, and Texas officials searched the home.

The Texas Rangers found items of interest during the search and the investigation is continuing.

In June 2005, Castle Rock police arrested Swinton after she posed as the teen mother of a newborn and told an adoption agency and police she was considering suicide and leaving the baby at a fire station, Castle Rock police Sgt. Scott Claton said.

Authorities charged her with filing a false police report. She is currently serving a one-year deferred sentence in that case.

In February, dozens of Colorado Springs police searched for a girl claiming to be locked in a basement. Again, it turned out to be Swinton.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

[Swinton] was charged with falsely reporting abuse to authorities in connection with a separate incident in Colorado Springs two months ago.

Texas authorities say Swinton is a person of interest in their search for the girl whose call prompted them to raid the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

Department of Public Safety officials declined to discuss the case as part of an ongoing investigation, but issued a statement Friday saying the Rangers accompanied Colorado Springs police to search Swinton's home for items related to previous false reports to authorities.

Officers found several items indicating a possible connection between Swinton and calls regarding FLDS compounds in Colorado City, Arizona, and the one near Eldorado.

The Rangers are "actively pursuing Rozita Swinton as a person of interest regarding telephone calls placed to a crisis center hotline in San Angelo," the DPS said.

A Colorado judge approved the Rangers' request to seal records in the case.

Child Protection Project founder Linda Walker and the Phoenix-based group's executive director, Flora Jessop, said Friday they were stunned when they learned the woman's identity.

"In her little baby voice, she said, 'If you rescue me, and I get out of here, do you think the black people will hurt me?' " Walker said. "She had done her homework. She knew it was a racist cult. We know that these kids are very frightened of black people.

"The Texas Rangers told us she was obsessed with the FLDS. They confiscated tons of material on the FLDS (in the search of Swinton's home). She even gave real addresses and real names of FLDS people."

Walker and Jessop hesitated to say that Swinton was the person who called the Texas hot line to describe sexual and physical abuse by a 50-year-old husband at the ranch outside Eldorado, but they endorsed the resulting actions of Texas authorities. [Full text].

ABC News (4-17-08) reports:

Texas Rangers participated in the arrest of a Colorado woman who allegedly pretended to be a girl locked in a basement. The Rangers were in the state as part of their investigation into the Texas polygamy custody battle, local police told ABC News.

It was unclear if the arrest was related to the phone call from a woman who claimed to be a 16-year-old girl, a phone call that sparked what has become one of the largest child custody cases in U.S. history.

Officials in Texas raided a polygamist compound and took 416 children into custody after an abuse hotline received a series of phone calls from the purported teen who said she was being held at the compound. The girl, who called herself Sarah, said she was being physically and sexually abused by her adult husband, court documents say.

Texas child protection lawyers have said they believe the girl does exist, even though they have not found her.

But ABC News has learned that Texas Rangers flew to Colorado Springs, Colo., and participated in the arrest of a 33-year-old woman who was charged with filing a false report.

The FBI also told ABC News it is assisting local police in the investigation. Colorado Springs police said in a statement that "The Texas Rangers were in Colorado Springs Wednesday as part of their investigation involving the compound in Texas."

Colorado Springs police said they arrested Rozita Swinton last night on local charges of pretending to be a girl locked in a basement, claiming abuse and calling authorities for help.

Local police said Swinton had been under investigation for some time on that accusation, but police made an immediate arrest after the Texas Rangers became involved...

Swinton became a person of interest to Texas authorities when former Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints member Flora Jessop, who now operates a rescue mission for teenage girls trying to escape the sect, told authorities she had been getting calls from a girl claiming to be Sarah -- the same girl who made the call for help to a San Angelo, Texas, shelter that led to the raid on the El Dorado compound.

Jessop told ABC News that she -- at the direction of Texas Rangers -- began recording those calls in the past two weeks and that the Rangers were able to trace them to Colorado Springs, where the arrest was made.

The Dallas Observer blog Unfair Park (4-18-08) raises some interesting questions:

[H]ow does a mentally disturbed Colorado woman become aware of a secretive polygamist sect hundreds of miles away in Texas -- and more importantly, how does she get the phone number of Flora Jessop?

Jessop is a former polygamist Annie Oakley-type who wears a knife on her boot and has made it her life’s work to eradicate the practice of polygamy from America. A noble cause to be sure.

But the fact that she is involved in this mess is troubling.

Earlier this week, a private investigator in Salt Lake City who is involved in the anti-polygamist movement there told me he thought it was Jessop who made the phone call that sparked the raid in the first place. He also told me he wouldn’t be surprised if Jessop is the informant the sheriff in Eldorado says he’s been communicating with from inside the compound for the last four years.

Maybe, and maybe not. But we do know that Jessop has been bugging law enforcement to do something about the compound since residents in Eldorado first figured out it wasn’t a hunting lodge. In fact, it was Jessop who first alerted the town’s newspaper editor that the polygamists had come to town, and together, the two have kept the drumbeat going to get rid of the place. Nothing wrong with that.

But when we’re talking about removing children from their families, we’re talking about evidence, not what someone thinks about a religion or what someone thinks might be going on within the ranch’s log cabins or hilltop temple. And it can not be ignored (although it is not understood by the mainstream media because they don’t know what they’re dealing with here) that all the information to date that has ever been made public about what goes on within FLDS communities in Arizona, Utah and Texas (including Jon Krakauer’s sloppily researched Under the Banner of Heaven) has come from people who have left the sect or been kicked out, making their information, at the least, suspect.

Perhaps the stories Flora Jessop tells folks like Anderson Cooper every day of forced marriage and child rape are true. And if they are, then by all means the state has the right, and the obligation, to do something about it. But at this point, we have a case built on suspicion, rumor and innuendo, fueled by hysteria and religious bigotry, that looks shakier by the day...

We have an unsubstantiated phone call from a girl authorities have never located reporting abuse. It now looks like that phone call -- which appears to be the entire basis for the search warrant, the raid and the removal of 416 children from the custody of their parents -- was a fake. We have a bed in a temple. We have a piece of paper with a list of names on it. We have an informant, who for all we know, could have been Flora Jessop, or could have been made up out of thin air. And now the judge in this case, who approved the search warrant in the first place, is talking about sending these kids to foster homes throughout the state.

Read the full article. Author Jesse Hyde raisies some good questions. Hopefully, investigators will be able to find out the truth.

A blog called The Jawa Report is getting a laugh out of the fact that Rozita Swinton is an Obama State Delegate!

On a more serious note, here is a 4-18-08 press release (scroll down below news article) and the pdf text from the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety:

April 18, 2008

Rangers release new details in FLDS case

The Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety is actively pursuing Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs, Colorado, as a “person of interest” regarding telephone calls placed to a crisis center hotline in San Angelo, Texas, in late March 2008.

Two Texas Rangers traveled to Colorado Springs, Colorado, on April 16 and met with officers from the Colorado Springs Police Department to discuss a possible connection between Swinton and telephone calls made regarding activities at the polygamist Yearning For Zion (YFZ) Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in Eldorado, Texas.

Texas Rangers accompanied the Colorado Springs officers while they executed an evidentiary search warrant at Swinton’s residence for items related to previous false reports to authorities in Colorado. During the search, officers found several items that indicated a possible connection between Swinton and calls regarding the FLDS compounds in Colorado City, Arizona, and Eldorado, Texas.

These items of interest to Texas authorities were seized by the Colorado Springs Police Department and released to the Texas Rangers. These items will be evaluated and forwarded to various crime laboratories in Texas for analysis. The Texas Rangers, with the approval of local officials in Colorado, requested that the affidavit for the search warrant for Swinton’s residence be sealed by an El Paso County, Colorado judge. A judge granted that motion, and the Texas Rangers will not comment further on these items.

Swinton became a “person of interest” several days after law enforcement agencies entered the YFZ facility on April 3. The Department of Public Safety entered the compound after the child abuse center in San Angelo told law enforcement about several distressing calls from a female caller that she was inside the YFZ compound and needed immediate help. The seriousness of these calls was conveyed from the family crisis center to Child Protective Services (CPS). The CPS then contacted the Schleicher County Sheriff’s Department in Eldorado, Texas, who immediately requested the assistance of the Texas Rangers for the massive operation.

Once officers had gained access to the property, investigators obtained a second warrant based on evidence they witnessed regarding possible sexual assault.

The information leading the Texas Rangers to Swinton took several days to develop with intelligence and assistance from numerous law enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada, including he [sic] United States Marshal’s Service in San Antonio and Denver and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, Canada.

The information, evidence and a statement obtained from Swinton by the Texas Rangers while they were in Colorado will be forwarded to state and federal prosecutors for their review and determination as to whether Swinton will be charged with a criminal offense.

The Texas Rangers are continuing their investigation into the underage marriages of adolescent females with older males within the sect.

Since this is an ongoing investigation, DPS and the Texas Rangers will have no further comment at this time.

Dumb and Dumber!

Plague Doctor's mask--No, not this!

Senator Barack Obama and his pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. The clergyman preaches in church that the U.S. government made AIDS in order to commit genocide against black people.

"[Former KGB official Yevgeni Primakov] mentioned the well known articles printed a few years ago in our central newspapers about AIDS supposedly originating from secret Pentagon laboratories. According to Yevgeni Primakov, the articles exposing US scientists' 'crafty' plots were fabricated in KGB offices."--Former KGB offical and Russia's SVR chief (1991-1996) Yevgeni Primakov as cited in Izvestia 3-19-92

In January 2005, the State Department published an article explaining that Yevgeni Primakov, a former intelligence official in the KGB and chief of the SVR, admitted that the Russian intelligence had fabricated the story that the American government invented AIDS. The Soviet Union abandoned this disinformation campaign in 1987 after protests by the American government.

This conspiracy theory was reportedly advanced by the Russian-born East German scientist Jakob Segal. He was accused of being an agent of the East German Stasi and the Russian KGB (See details here).

The State Department report explains:

AIDS as a Biological Weapon

Allegations suggest that AIDS virus fabricated by United States

When the AIDS disease was first recognized in the early 1980s, its origins were a mystery. A deadly new disease had suddenly appeared, with no obvious explanation of what had caused it. In such a situation, false rumors and misinformation naturally arose, and Soviet disinformation specialists exploited this situation as well as the musings of conspiracy theorists to help shape their brief but highly effective disinformation campaign on this issue.

The Beginning of Misinformation and Disinformation

In March 1992, then-Russian intelligence chief and later Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov admitted that the disinformation service of the Soviet KGB had concocted the false story that the AIDS virus had been created in a US military laboratory as a biological weapon. The Russian newspaper Izvestiya reported on March 19, 1992:

"[Primakov] mentioned the well known articles printed a few years ago in our central newspapers about AIDS supposedly originating from secret Pentagon laboratories. According to Yevgeni Primakov, the articles exposing US scientists' 'crafty' plots were fabricated in KGB offices."

The Soviets eventually abandoned the AIDS disinformation campaign under pressure from the U.S. government in August 1987 [Full text].

Primakov's 3-19-92 admission that the KGB was behind AIDS disinformation was followed by a new lie:

In revenge for [the KGB lies], the U.S. special services cooked up their own version of the attack on the Pope in the early 1980s, accusing the Soviet Union of organizing this terrorist act.

A 1992 US Information Agency report titled "Soviet Active Measures in the"Post-Cold War" Era 1988-1991" observes:

Primakov's claim was clearly impossible because charges of Soviet involvement in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II began to appear in 1981 and 1982, well before the USSR's AIDS disinformation campaign began. (The original AIDS charge, planted in the KGB-founded Indian newspaper Patriot in July 1983, went unnoticed by the world until October 1985, when the Soviets began to replay it in a concerted media campaign.) Even if the U.S. government had wished to respond to the AIDS disinformation campaign in kind - which it did not - it could not have retaliated for something that had not yet occurred. Furthermore, charges of Soviet involvement in the attempted papal assassination were the result of investigations by independent journalists, not the U.S. government, which never blamed the USSR for this event [Full text].

Primakov appears to be plagued by the the same problems with chronology as the discredited ex-professor Ward Churchill. Must be catching!

Vice President Rice!

"[Our parents] refused to allow the limits and injustices of their time to limit our horizons."---Condoleezza Rice

"I remember the bombing of that Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen, and I felt it happen, just a few blocks away at my father’s church. It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. That bomb took the lives of four young girls, including my friend and playmate, Denise McNair. The crime was calculated to suck the hope out of young lives, bury their aspirations. But those fears were not propelled forward, those terrorists failed."---Condoleezza Rice

ABC News reports (4-6-08):

...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the vice presidential nomination, Republican strategist Dan Senor said.

“Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

..Senor explained that Rice’s history in public office would make her a prime candidate, especially in light of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain’s emphasis on experience throughout his campaign...

Here is the Secretary of State's Wikipedia, and here is her official biography.

The Al Qaeda Media Nexus

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (4-4-08) reports:

A new study by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty examines how Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups use the Internet to spread their message of global jihad.

The study, by RFE/RL senior analyst Daniel Kimmage, was formally released today at the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. It focuses on the structure of the relationship between Al-Qaeda-linked media entities and armed groups that conduct operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The study -- "The Al-Qaeda Media Nexus" [download here] -- follows up on a similar study that Kimmage and RFE/RL analyst Kathleen Ridolfo produced in 2007 about Iraqi insurgent media. [Full text]

GQ Interviews Karl Rove

KARL ROVE: I'm actually in [Obama's] book. He wrote that "people like Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Ralph Reed, and Karl Rove say we are a Christian nation." And I did not say that. I confronted him about it. At the White House....Well, first he denied that I was in the book! And then he denied that it said that I said that it was a Christian nation. And then when I pulled out the thing...and showed it to him, he sort of blah-blah-blah-blah-blah- blah-blah...

GQ: What's your goal with [your] book? You intend to set the record straight, as you see it?

KARL ROVE: Absolutely, absolutely. Sure. You bet. I intend to set the record straight.

GQ: I imagine you're going to have a lot to say.

ROVE: Yeah, exactly. Available soon for $29.95…. I gotta go! I gotta go!---GQ

GQ (4-2-08) recently interviewed Karl Rove about his life and times. Here are some highlights:

...Do you like being a TV analyst?

Uh, it's odd. You know, it's weird for me. But it's interesting.

Do you think Fox News is fair and balanced?

I do. I think they go out of their way to be fair and tough in questioning. I'm really impressed with the people I've gotten to know. Brit Hume is a very bright person; Chris Wallace has got a lot of integrity.

You also sold a book recently.

I did.

What'd ya get?

A lot.

...What did you do wrong?

Oh, look, I did a lot of things wrong. But the main thing is, we're fighting an important but unpopular war.

You still think it was the right thing to do?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, one of our biggest mistakes was, the first time Harry Reid got up and said, "You lied and you deliberately misled the country," we should have gone back immediately and hit back hard, and we didn't. We let that story line develop. In reality, you go back and look at what Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore—I'd be happy to supply you the quotes—what they said about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction.

What are you most proud of?

Being part of a group of people I have a great deal of respect and admiration for in service of the country.

If you had to make a bet, can Hillary pull it off?

The odds are long, but improbable things have happened almost every month in this race. She wasn't supposed to win New Hampshire, and she did. So we'll see. You know, she's got a lot of strengths, and he does, too. We got two wellmatched opponents going at each other hammer and tongs. It's fun to watch.

If it's mathematically impossible for either of them to get enough delegates, how will this get resolved?

Somebody can get to a majority, but they're gonna have to get to a majority with superdelegates. Neither of them can win enough delegates to win it on just simply the elected delegates.

...What do you make of this whole thing where Hillary was talking him up as a vice president and he came back saying, "Wait a minute, I'm winning—why are you asking me to be your number two?"

Very calculating on the part of the Clintons, and a mistake for him on his part.

Why?

Because they wanted him to get down to their level. They want him to look like, you know, not the golden inspiring figure but instead, you know, like an average ordinary pol who's got three years in the United States Senate. So they lay it out there. And rather than having it be dismissed by a surrogate, instead he goes out there! And rather than having an inspiring, forward-looking message, instead he's out there as an ordinary pol saying, "Hey, I'm number one, I'm in first place! I won more states than she did. I won more delegates than she did. What the hell's she doing offering it to me? That's insulting." And he did it in an arrogant way that I don't think made him look that good.

So you don't think his response played well?

No. Take a look at the footage. Turn the sound off and look at it. You can tell that he is arrogant, and you can tell that he's a little bit angry, and you can tell he's very dismissive. He takes his hands and he sort of, you know, waves his hand like, "I'm dismissing something." That was the moment to say, you know, "Look, I know what my opponents are saying, but you know what? I'm focused on one thing and one thing only, which is to help bring Republicans and Democrats and independents together to move America forward." Instead of "Hey, lemme just remind you, I'm winning! I'm beatin' her!"

So he took the bait?

He took the bait.

Have you gotten to know Hillary or Barack to any degree?

Yes, I have.

What have been your dealings with them?

Well, you know, I used to have her office at the White House. And I got to know [Obama] because we have a mutual friend, Ken Mehlman, who was his law-school classmate at Harvard. And so as a result, whenever in the last three years he's been around at the White House, I've gotten to see him, and we sort of would hang around and chitchat about things. I'm actually in his book. He wrote that "people like Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Ralph Reed, and Karl Rove say we are a Christian nation." And I did not say that. I confronted him about it. At the White House.

And what did he say?

Well, first he denied that I was in the book! And then he denied that it said that I said that it was a Christian nation. And then when I pulled out the thing [he had a copy of the offensive page with him] and showed it to him, he sort of blah-blah-blah-blah-blah- blah-blah. And I thought, That's who he is. I mean, look, he may claim that he's for a different kind of politics, but that was a cheap shot. And I'm not certain if any of the four said it either. But it was like, you know, Let's just strap it in there and see if it goes someplace. Another example: Him saying, "We honor John McCain for his fifty years of service" was a cheap shot. He was going out of his way to say John McCain's old.

...Do you think Obama's gotten a free ride from the press?

Yes.

How so?

I don't think they hold him to the same standards. You know, look, his Web site is full of all kinds of proposals written by academics galore. But he's not required to defend them. He's not required to explain what it is he wants to do. Now I think that's changing. I think, when you have an editorial in USA Today that says, in essence, Where's the beef, what's the substance? When reporters start asking him tough questions about his relationship with Tony Rezko—you know, what was the value of the lot? What was the price that you paid? How many fund-raisers did he do for you? How much money did he raise at those fund-raisers? When they start asking him those questions, then it starts to change. I mean, the kind of questions that have been routinely asked of other candidates—about their background and associations and involvements—have only recently begun to be asked of him.

...Tell us about your wife.

She's a terrific, courageous person.

Is it hard being married to you?

Uh, I don't think it's hard being married to me. I think it's hard being married in public with me.

Let's talk about the last couple of scandals you've been involved in. Don Siegelman in Alabama [the Democratic governor whom Rove was recently accused of trying to sabotage by forcing U.S. attorneys to bring corruption charges against him prior to an election]. What happened?

[rolls his eyes] Will you do me a favor and go on Power Line and Google "Dana Jill Simpson" [the Republican lawyer who told 60 Minutes that Rove asked her to take a picture of Governor Siegelman cheating on his wife]? She's a complete lunatic. I've never met this woman. This woman was not involved in any campaign in which I was involved. I have yet to find anybody who knows her. And what the media has done on this… No one has read the 143-page deposition that she gave congressional investigators—143 pages. When she shows up to give her explanation of all this, do you know how many times my name appears? Zero times. Nobody checked!

Then how did this happen?

Because CBS is a shoddy operation. They said, "Hey, if we can say 'Karl Rove,' 'Siegelman,' that'll be good for ratings. Let's hype it. We'll put out a news release on Thursday and then promo the hell out of it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday." And Scott Pelley—the question is, Did [60 Minutes correspondent] Scott Pelley say to this woman, "You say you met with him. Where? And you say that he gave you other assignments earlier. When did he begin giving you assignments, and what campaigns did you work with him in? What evidence? I mean, this woman, she said she met with him: Okay, you met with him—where? Did you fly to Washington?" Now she says that she talked to me on the phone and she's got phone records. Of calls to Washington and Virginia. But what's Virginia? I don't live in Virginia. And it's 2001. What is in Virginia? It's not the Bush headquarters; that was in Austin, Texas. What is in Virginia? So—but look, she's a loon.

...What's your goal with this book? You intend to set the record straight, as you see it?

Absolutely, absolutely. Sure. You bet. I intend to set the record straight.

I imagine you're going to have a lot to say.

Yeah, exactly. Available soon for $29.95…. I gotta go! I gotta go!