Courtesy The Smoking Gun, we have the laughable ending to the pathetic Durham DA, Mike Nifong. You remember Mr. Nifong, don’t you? He was the man who relentlessly pursued the Duke lacrosse players based on rape allegations, despite having no evidence to back up the charges. Mr. Nifong lost his law license as a result of his persecution of the Duke Boys, and he has now officially surrendered what was left of the document, noting that his dog ate it.

No, seriously. His dog ate it.

You will note that it contains a misspelling of my middle name…and damage subsequently inflicted by a puppy in her chewing stage. Consequently, it has never been framed or displayed.

“Never been framed.” Apparently the irony of those words was lost on Mr. Nifong when he typed them. We also discover that Mr. Nifong does not care for the way he has been treated in the aftermath of the Duke case.

…further evidence of the fundamental unfairness with which this entire procedure has been conducted.

That’s right, Mike Nifong is suddenly concerned with fairness in a legal proceeding. Better late than never, I suppose.

It is now disclosed that Donald Rumsfeld resigned before last year’s elections, Bush became aware of it by election day, and the announcement was held until after the GOP had lost control of both houses of Congress.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the unpopular Iraq war, resigned as defense secretary before last year’s November election but his decision was not announced until after the voting, according to his resignation letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

The letter was dated November 6, the day before voters, angered by Iraq, went to the polls and swept Republicans from power in Congress. According to a stamp on the letter, President George W. Bush saw it on election day.

Bush, however, did not announce that Rumsfeld would leave until the day after the election.

That infuriated some Republicans, who said their party might have kept more seats in Congress and perhaps kept control of the Senate if Rumsfeld had left before the election.

First of all, surely the administration and the media do not believe we are that naive. Does anyone really buy that Bush did not know, pre-election, that Rumsfeld was going to resign? Hogwash.

Second, I, for one, do not accept the media’s mantra that the sole reason the Republicans lost control of Congress was because of Iraq. As demonstrated on this blog, there was dissatisfaction with the GOP on a number of issues, including drunken-sailor spending (it’s apparently easier to denounce this sort of thing when the other guy is in charge), highly publicized corruption and sex scandals (gleefully repeated ad nauseum by the MSM), and failure to deal with the still-festering immigration mess. Nonetheless, it is impossible to say that there weren’t enough Iraq-motivated voters who turned on the GOP to have made a difference, particularly in the highly-contested Senate races.

Third, this story again reminds us of the contempt with which the Bush Administration has come to view the conservative Republicans who put him into office and kept him there. To him, announcing Rumsfeld’s resignation would have been a sign of weakness, an admission that somebody else might have a point, however modest, about the need for a new approach. Such was the level of Presidential hubris that he was willing to gamble on the outcome - in effect sacrificing both houses of Congress to the opposing party - rather than prove his opponents right.

I don’t think it can be credibly argued that announcing Rumsfeld’s departure before the election would have lost as many votes as did the President’s one-fingered salute to those even well-intentioned supporters of change. How many here would have changed their votes if Rumsfeld resigned, let’s say, on November 1? And, if the President truly felt that a pre-election resignation would do more harm than good, than he had lost all perspective on the real world by that time. (We should have known this when he and Karl Rove kept insisting that the GOP would do “just fine” at the polls last fall.)

So, another day, another painful reminder of the lost promise of G. W. Bush. In record time, he managed to squander even the capital of a clear-cut election win in 2004 (in contrast to the bitterly disputed 2000 contest), and send his supporters packing in droves.

All because he came to believe in his own Imperial Presidency - we were just the pawns who got him there.

At 6:50 p.m. last night, a Chronicle article on the death in combat of a Houston-area special forces soldier was posted to their site:

Army Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey D. Kettle, 31, was a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha senior engineer sergeant assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

Kettle was born and raised in Texas City. He enlisted in the Army in November, 1993, and has been stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C.

His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Valorous Unit Award, Expert Infantryman Badge, Parachutist Badge, Air Assault Badge, Ranger and Special Forces Tabs.

“Jeffrey Duane Kettle, my brother, my hero, joined the ranks of other heroes that have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country,” Clay Kettle, a combat medic deployed to Iraq, said in an e-mail sent to friends. “My brother joined the Army about a year before I did 14 years ago. He wanted nothing more than to ‘Be All He Could Be’ for himself, his family and his country.”

Kettle is survived by his wife, Brandi, and sons Jeffrey and Logan of Raeford, N.C.; parents Ronald and Cynthia of League City; and brothers Clay and Ryan Kettle.

Only two hours later, a liberal commenter named “bluecollar” decided to use the freedom Sgt. Kettle died defending to shill for Democrat Rick Noriega’s Senate challenge to John Cornyn.

bluecollar wrote:

click to this link to hear what a REAL HERO HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmWN-Ontkt0

http://www.ricknoriega.com

The above YOUTUBE is worth seeing and then visit Rick’s web site….

8/14/2007 9:05:48 PM

Classy.

Damn. [h/t Washington Post]

The United States has decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a “specially designated global terrorist,” according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group’s business operations and finances.

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said — a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that “provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists.”

The main goal of the new designation is to clamp down on the Revolutionary Guard’s vast business network, as well as on foreign companies conducting business linked to the military unit and its personnel. The administration plans to list many of the Revolutionary Guard’s financial operations.

“Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. “It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people.”

I wonder how much of Texas’ billions of tax-dollars in public pension funds are invested in companies doing business with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?

That could make for some interesting reading.

Hey Austin–would you rather take care of this now, or after it hits the front-page of the paper?

Dan Patrick has been warning about this since last March, and Gov. Perry is on board too.

Can we have some action, please?

For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Music to this right-wing Jew’s ears.

Smile!
(click pic for context)

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