67% of Pakistani journalists say US drones attacks are acts of terrorism: survey

By Sahil Kapur
Monday, February 14th, 2011 -- 11:15 am

WASHINGTON – Two out of three Pakistani journalists view United States drone strikes in the region as acts of terrorism, according to a new study conducted by Washington State University and Pakistan's Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Only 27 percent of Pakistani journalists said the US drone attacks did not constitute acts of terrorism. Six percent did not know. The study surveyed 395 Pakistani journalists and was supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

That said, about one in five also didn't view the Mumbai attacks of 2008, or the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, as acts of terrorism.

The figures still underscore the public relations debacle facing President Barack Obama as his administration oversees a continuing drone program in western Pakistan, in an effort to wipe out Islamic extremists spilling over to the eastern side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The unmanned drone strikes in the region began under the Bush administration and have continued unabated under the Obama administration. The volume and frequency of the attacks has intensified in recent years, according to collected reports.

Northwestern Pakistan is believed to be a hotbed for activity among Islamic extremist groups.

Although US officials say the drone attacks have killed high-ranking members of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, Pakistani and international media have reported that innocent civilians are also dying in the process.

Three-quarters of the Pakistani journalists viewed the American people are favorably, but a whopping 77 of them had a negative view of US foreign policy.

"Indeed, as the United States broadens its effort to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, it would do well to look into the heads of the journalists who shape opinions in those societies," wrote Lawrence Pintak of Washington State University and Syed Javed Nazir of Lahore University in the New York Times.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/14/67-of-pakistani-journalists-say-us-drones-attacks-are-acts-of-terrorism-survey/

Shirley Sherrod Sues Andrew Breitbart Over Video

Eric Lach | February 14, 2011, 10:36AM

Shirley Sherrod, who was fired from her USDA job last year after Andrew Breitbart posted online an edited video of her, has filed a lawsuit for libel and slander against Breitbart in D.C. Superior Court. The suit was filed on Friday, and Breitbart was served with it this weekend, while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference, according to The New York Times.

Sherrod was the Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA until July, when Breitbart posted the edited video, in which she was shown telling the Coffee County, GA NAACP about a time she didn't help a farmer as much as she could have because he was white. The video made national news, and Sherrod was forced to resign shortly after its release. But when the NAACP released the full version of the video -- in which it was clear Sherrod was speaking about overcoming her own racial prejudices -- the story turned. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered Sherrod public apologies, and she was offered a new job at the USDA -- which she turned down.

A press release on Breitbart's website Big Government responds to the suit against Breitbart and Breitbart.tv head Larry O'Connor, but does not refer to Sherrod by name, and does not mention the edited video. Instead, the release titled "Andrew Breitbart on Pigford Lawsuit: 'Bring It On,'" focuses on the Pigford settlement, which paid black farmers who said they had been discriminated against by the USDA. Breitbart's statement alludes to Sherrod as "a central figure in the Pigford 'back-door' reparations case."

"I find it extremely telling that this lawsuit was brought almost seven months after the alleged incidents that caused a national media frenzy occurred," Breitbart said in the statement. "It is no coincidence that this lawsuit was filed one day after I held a press conference revealing audio proof of orchestrated and systemic Pigford fraud. I can promise you this: neither I, nor my journalistic websites, will or can be silenced by the institutional Left, which is obviously funding this lawsuit. I welcome the judicial discovery process, including finding out which groups are doing so."

The statement also says that Breitbart "categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech and, to reiterate, looks forward to exercising his full and broad discovery rights."

Sherrod and her husband, a civil rights activist, received a multi-million-dollar settlement as part of the first Pigford settlement, resulting from discrimination the couple faced while running a collective farm in Georgia.

But when TPM reported last year that the release of the Sherrod video coincided with a Senate vote on Pigford II, Breitbart wrote us an email denying the connection.

"No. Seriously. On everything I hold dear," Breitbart wrote. Shortly before the video was released, the NAACP had passed a resolution condemning racist elements of the Tea Party movement, and Breitbart claimed the group was the video's real target.

"This was never about Sherrod. It was CLEARLY telegraphed at NAACP -- on Thursday when I, gulp, told Ben Jealous to 'go to hell' for spending week attacking racism with Tea Party. That the media and White House have turned this into me versus Sherrod is silly. My consistent angle is defending Tea Party from this predictable line of attack," Breitbart told TPM at the time.

Sherrod has hired a big-time lawyer to represent her: Thomas D. Yannucci. A partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Yannucci's bio boasts that he has been selected as "one of America's Leading Lawyers for Business in Litigation/General Commercial and in Media & Entertainment by Chambers USA every year since 2003." He also had a lead role in Chiquita Brands' claims against the Gannett Company Inc. and The Cincinnati Enquirer in the 1990s.

Back in July, Sherrod told CNN she would like to "get back at" Breitbart, and said she was considering suing.

TPM's attempts to contact Breitbart on Monday were not immediately successful.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/shirley_sherrod_sues_andrew_breitbart_over_video.php?ref=fpblg

Top Reagan DOJ official slams Scalia for ‘secretly’ meeting tea party members

By Sahil Kapur
February 14, 2011 @ 9:50 am

WASHINGTON – A top Justice Department official under President Ronald Reagan tore into Justice Antonin Scalia for holding a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill with tea partyers.

"Justice Antonin Scalia galloped beyond the farthest boundaries of judicial propriety in secretly meeting on Capitol Hill to discuss the Constitution with Tea Party members of Congress saddled with a co-equal duty to assess the constitutionality of legislative action," Bruce Fein, Reagan's associate deputy attorney general, wrote in a published letter [1] to the New York Times.

"If there are better ways to destroy public confidence in judicial impartiality, they do not readily come to mind."

Scalia last week attended a private gathering with on Capitol Hill, ostensibly to discuss the Constitution, with a group of tea party lawmakers led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the leader of the House Tea Party Caucus.

Fein wrote that "[n]o justice has ever testified on the constitutionality of bills before Congress," and noted that former Justice Abe Fortas was forced to resign for privately advising President Lyndon Johnson.

"[J]ustices must be above suspicion," he added.

Scalia, 74, was nominated to the bench by Reagan in 1986, as has reliably voted on the conservative side of issues during his tenure.

His actions only fueled criticisms that members of the Supreme Court are evolving into partisan entities, more openly expressing political preferences and losing their stature as neutral arbiters of the Constitution.

Another recent target of the same misgivings has been conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni Thomas came under fire for openly cozying up with the tea party movement and involving herself with activism on its behalf.

URL to article: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/14/top-reagan-doj-official-slams-scalia-for-tea-party-meeting/

URLs in this post:

[1] letter: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/opinion/l11scalia.html?_r=3

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/14/top-reagan-doj-official-slams-scalia-for-tea-party-meeting/print/

Congressman Ron Paul booted from conservative group for anti-war views

By Eric W. Dolan
February 13, 2011 @ 3:08 pm

The conservative group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) announced Saturday that Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) would be expelled from the group's National Advisory Board because of his "delusional and disturbing alliance with the fringe Anti-War movement."

"It is a sad day in American history when a one-time conservative-libertarian stalwart has fallen more out of touch with America’s needs for national security than the current feeble and appeasing administration," YAF’s Senior National Director Jordan Marks said in a statement.

"Rep. Paul's refusal to support our nation's military and national security interests border on treason, aside from his failure to uphold his oath to the United States Constitution and defend our country and citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic," Marks continued.

According to the group's founding statement of principles, the Sharon Statement, "American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?"

Supporters of Ron Paul shouted down former Vice President Dick Cheney ^[1] at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Thursday, in a sign of a growing foreign policy rift on the American right.

Young Americans for Freedom helped to found the CPAC 38 years ago along with other conservative organizations, such as the American Conservative Union.

Cheney had appeared on the first day of the 2011 CPAC ^[2] to introduce Donald Rumsfeld, the former Bush-era defense secretary who was scheduled to receive ^[3] this year's "Defender of the Constitution Award."

That didn't sit well with "Team Paul," supporters of Rep. Ron Paul who have long called for an end to the US's foreign wars.

He drew thunderous applause ^[4] for bashing the Patriot Act, US aid to foreign nations, and US military bases overseas during his speech at CPAC on Friday.

"The United States is the world's leader - a beacon of light for the wretched and the oppressed," YAF National Chairman Michael Jones added. "God has blessed the United States with liberty and the strength and heart to spread that liberty to all of his children. Rep. Paul has abandoned this mission, abandoned the United States' citizens, and abandoned the citizens of the world in their quest for their God-given natural rights."

When asked about being expelled from the YAF Advisory Board, a position Rep. Paul has held for more than two decades, a spokesman for the congressman seemed less than concerned.

"I hadn't heard of YAF doing anything in years, I thought they were defunct," Ron Paul's political director Jesse Benton told Politco ^[5]. "Young Americans for Liberty is the group of the future."

URL to article: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/13/congressman-ron-paul-booted-from-conservative-group-for-anti-war-views/

URLs in this post:

[1] shouted down former Vice President Dick Cheney: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/10/paul-backers-crash-cheney-rumsfeld-reunion/

[2] 2011 CPAC: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=59717860748

[3] receive: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/rumsfeld-receive-defender-constitution-award-cpac/

[4] drew thunderous applause: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/11/ron-paul-encourages-revolution-conservative-conference/

[5] Politco: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49412.html#ixzz1Ds4j9znu

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/13/congressman-ron-paul-booted-from-conservative-group-for-anti-war-views/print/