The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.
I won’t be there, but I suspect Goldy and the usual suspects will be.
Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.
ITT fined $100 million for illegal exports
Manufacturer admits to exporting night vision materials to China, Singapore and Britain without U.S. authorization.
March 27 2007: 1:32 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The leading manufacturer of night vision gear for the Defense Department has admitted sending classified materials overseas and will pay a $100 million penalty, according to federal prosecutors, who say the actions of ITT Corp. have jeopardized the security of U.S. soldiers.
ITT, based in Roanoke, Va., exported classified or sensitive technical data to China, Singapore and Britain without having obtained authorization from the United States, prosecutors said.
Video More video
CNN’s Jamie McIntyre gets an exclusive tour of the Army’s top helicopter flying school. (March 17)
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The conviction is the first involving a major defense contractor violating the Arms Export Control Act, prosecutors said.
Saying that American soldiers are “the principal victims of ITT’s crimes,” U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said he has structured the $100 million penalty so that half of the money is spent by ITT to develop a next-generation night vision system and “ensure that our soldiers have the best night vision equipment in the world.”
Safety gizmos that aren’t worth the cost
ITT must invest the $50 million over five years to accelerate development of night vision technology, and the government will maintain rights to all technology that is developed under the agreement.
tell it to the Chinese – we are no longer making goods, just sending raw materials and buying finished goods
what, a colony you say, my God
Tillman’s mom to ESPN: ‘They were lying to us’
POSTED: 7:49 p.m. EDT, March 27, 2007
(CNN) — The mother of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former NFL player killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004, on Tuesday rejected the latest explanation from the U.S. military about her son’s death.
“It became very obvious early on that they were lying to us,” Mary Tillman said on ESPN Radio’s “Dan Patrick Show.” “They were only telling one side of the story. They weren’t telling the other side.”
The military reported Monday that nine military officers, including four generals, will face “corrective action” for making critical mistakes in the aftermath of the Army Ranger’s death.
An investigation by the Army’s inspector general and Criminal Investigation Command concluded officers in Tillman’s chain of command knew almost immediately after his death that he had been killed by fire from his own platoon, but that information was withheld from his family for more than a month, in violation of Army regulations.
The investigation also concluded that inadequate initial investigations “contributed to the inaccuracies, misunderstandings and perceptions of concealment.”
Tillman’s mother was not convinced.
Everyone involved in the shooting knew almost immediately that her son had been shot three times in the head by his own troops, she said.
Yet, at the memorial service for her son in May 2004, the military said Pat Tillman had been killed by enemy fire, she said.
“That was not a misstep, that was not an error,” she said. “This was an attempt to dupe the public and to promote this war and to get recruitments up, and that is immoral.”
Mary Tillman called for a congressional hearing “to have it all aired out.”
She added, “I really don’t know what happened. We’ve been told so many different things.”
Shot intentionally?
Mary Tillman said she was not excluding the possibility that her son was shot intentionally.
“Pat was used,” she said. “Once he was killed, I think they saw this as an opportunity.” She noted that April 2004 was the worst month up to that time in the year-old Iraq war, and the shooting occurred right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
The latest investigation “only presented the points of view of the soldiers in the vehicle” who fatally shot her son and an Afghan soldier and wounded two others, she said.
“They never brought into play what the other witnesses said,” Mary Tillman said.
She described as “shocking” the military’s claim that no rules of engagement were broken.
The platoon members “fired at soldiers who weren’t firing at them in areas where hands were waving and at a building,” she said. “All of those things are breaking rules of engagement.”
The soldier believed to have shot her son three times in the head was asked whether he had made a positive identification of the target before firing, she said. “This soldier said, ‘No, I wanted to be in a firefight,’ ” she said. “That was a definite breaking of the rules of engagement.”
She said the military is still spinning the story for its own gain.
“The first investigative officer, in his statement to the third investigative officer, said in his opinion, there was evidence of criminal intent, and he also used the term ‘criminal negligence,’ ” Tillman said.
“Yet his report has been devalued because it doesn’t go along with what they want out in the public eye.”
In 2002, Pat Tillman, a safety with the Arizona Cardinals, turned down a multimillion-dollar contract offer and instead joined the Army, a decision he said was a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He was shot April 22, 2004, in a remote area near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Patriotism is abound!
Roger Rabbit is recovering from a fucking injury and won’t attend tonight.
That’s nothing, you should see the frying pan marks on Roger’s ass!
So what? I can drink standing up.
@1 Republican corporatists are nabbed selling critical military technology to our adversaries — again!!! All these traitors care about is putting as much money as possible in their own pockets over the bodies of our dead soldiers. Hang them all!*
* Just kidding — Ann Coulter humor.
I was hoping for a thread on the $1bb intentional budget overspend the Dims in the house just passed….
(and yeah the feds overspend, but we don’t have the luxury of printing more money, so its pretty stupid to intentionally try to over spend) Their quip was, “if you have faith in the kids, the money wil somehow showup”
dumb
Liberal Jackasses abound. With the INSANE left wing in charge of both houses, it will only be time before they shoot themselves in the foot so bad that the American people will cry for mercy. It’s already started. Look at the joke the libs are trying to do to downtown traffic by not getting enough balls to build a decent tunnel. Let’s go back to horse and buggys. You liberals have life too good. I can’t wait for a disaster to occur in the U.S. under the dems… Of course 4 years after George is gone it will be hard to blame him… though you losers will try.
Loser @ 10:
Talk about pathetic!! Your hypocritical comments are the epitome of pathetic.
You “can’t wait for a disaster to occur in the US”?!?! Of course, what’s bad for America is GOOD for Republicans.
Blame Bush?!?! How many times have you ass holes blamed President Clinton for letting 9/11 happen on your watch?
Oh, and how about the tragic “Clinton recession”?
You’re a fucking joke and an idiot.
Losers like you are the reason your asses got thrown out of congress!!
Not one Democrat running for re-election as a governor, congressional representative, or senator was defeated. Not a single ONE.
In 2008 the Republicans have to defend 21 of the 33 seats up for grabs in the Senate.
Americans gave modern day conservatism an honest try for 26 years going back to Reagan. Last November, America rejected that model of government and went back to Liberalism.
In 2008 that trend will continue with the Dems maintaining control of the House and picking up at least 5-6 more seats in the Senate.
And if more scandals continue to break out implicating Republicans, you might even wind up losing 10 seats in the Senate, giving President Al Gore, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid a filibuster proof agenda.
2010, the Republicans have to defend 19 seats in the Senate vs. 15 for the Dems.
You guys are going to be insignificant in national politics for years, if not decades to come.
Good riddance.
Roger Rabbit says:
Roger Rabbit is recovering from a fucking injury and won’t attend tonight.
03/27/2007 at 6:06 pm
What happened, Rog? Excessive masturbation again?