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Published May 19, 2015
Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Retired Army General and FOX News contributor Paul Vallely says he knew former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was a CIA agent long before she was outed in a newspaper column in 2003 because Wilson told him so. Vallely says Wilson volunteered the information in at least three separate conversations while both men were waiting to appear on FOX News programs during the fall of 2002.
Wilson's lawyers are demanding a retraction and an apology and in an e-mail received by the World Net Daily, Wilson himself called the claim "slanderous." Vallely, however, is refusing to back off his story.
Tall Tales?
Former Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey has become a hero of the anti-war left, appearing in national news stories and giving speeches on atrocities he says he and other Marines committed in Iraq, including killing peaceful protesters, shooting a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head and filling a tractor-trailer with the bodies of civilian women and children killed by American artillery.
But after interviewing more than a dozen Marines and journalists present when these events supposedly took place, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports no one can recall the incidents Massey describes. And Massey himself tells the paper that despite giving first person accounts, he never witnessed the events he describes in person, but was told about them by other marines.
Reader Rage?
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is standing by a November 1 editorial arguing that the Supreme Court's lone black justice, Clarence Thomas, "deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America." The paper says it's received "quite a lot of response" from readers who felt the line was racist... implying that all black people must think alike, and that Thomas isn't "black enough."
But in a letter to it's readers, the Journal-Sentinel says it was merely pointing out the obvious differences between Thomas and the majority of African Americans and blamed the uproar on "conservative talk radio."
Seal of Approval?
Voters in Redlands, California will decide if the city should reinstate its seal featuring a church and a shining cross. The Redlands City Council had the seal covered two years ago after the ACLU threatened a lawsuit, which the city estimated would have cost $750,000 to defend.
But outraged voters put the measure on Tuesday's ballot, saying Redlands' long-standing reputation as a "city of churches" gives the cross an historic significance. An ACLU attorney who tracks crosses on seals statewide said he's never seen a seal brought back by a citywide vote, adding it's "highly likely" the ACLU will file a lawsuit if the city reinstates the cross.
— FOX News' Aaron Bruns contributed to this report
https://www.foxnews.com/story/loose-lips