Gannguckerton on Real Time

by Shakespeare's Sister

Crooks and Liars has the video up of Jeff Gannon on Real Time with Bill Maher.

They note, “Pretty tame questioning for Bill after he has lambasted Jimmy/Jeff in the past.,” and I agree. It was pretty tame. Better than most, though. Still, I’d love it if one single stinking interviewer would respond to Gannon’s boilerplate reply about his past as a rentboy—“Those allegations aren’t relevant”—with the obvious follow-up question, “But aren’t they true?” It’s not like his reply is unexpected; he answers the same way every time. Ditto to the follow-up to his assertion that this whole thing started because he asked a question “liberals didn’t like.” When will someone call his ass out on the fact that his question was not objectionable because of its blatant conservatism, but because it contained a blatant lie, attributing a quote to Harry Reid that was not accurate, but instead an imaginary concoction conjured by Rush Limbaugh? Given the opportunity, wouldn’t any of us be willing to ask the tough questions no interview will? Why are they so pathetic?

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Criminally Right

by STP

It often baffles me why the fascist element of our country is referred to as the "right;" they so rarely are. However, they have criminality down pat via their crimes against the people of this country, their crimes against God and their crimes against the world.

With that in mind, I wrote the poem, "Criminally Right." Go check it out.

NC County Commissioner has an unholy anal fixation

by Pam

Commissioners Jennifer Roberts and Park Helms want to bring Mecklenburg County into the 21st century by supporting anti-discrimination laws that include gays and lesbians and add domestic partner benefits. There's a battle ahead of them that includes combatting a level of ignorance that is not to be believed.

Holy sh*t (pun intended). When I posted a few days ago that members of the Mecklenburg County Commission said they would advocate for domestic partner benefits, Commissioners Park Helms and Jennifer Roberts expected a firestorm from the bible-beating, homo-hating Right. The county, which includes Charlotte, has a number of large companies in the area that do offer domestic partner benefits, but it hey didn't have to wait long to find out what the wingnuts thought of the county taking that action...

Bill James, a Repug (of course), is serving his third two-year term on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, representing District 6. This redneck bumf*ck is in desperate need of therapy, and I would add, a bit more literacy, sex ed and access to factual information. His obsession with real or perceived sex acts is, well, insane. Note the preoccupation with male sexuality...

Bill James - one of the ignorant faces of hate and bigotry in NC.

From: Commissioner Bill James
To: =emails deleted=
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 8:56 AM
Subject: Perversity is not diversity

You really think that a pool of people (homosexuals) where 45% of them eat feces from the rear end of another male is "normal"? If you do, you are frankly nuts.

A lifestyle where one of their past times is buying gerbils and hamsters from the pet store and cramming them up their rears in an activity called feltching? A group of people who like to urinate on their partners and call them "golden showers"? Where one of the honored members of the Gay Alliance is an organization called the "Man-Boy Love Association" that promotes sex with underage boys?

That behavior is worthy of protection? That behavior is worthy to be taught in our schools? to our children? You are one sick "Independent, white, married-heterosexual, presbyterian" if you do.

The stat's below are unimpeachable. I intend on talking about each and every one of these "behaviors" if this sorted subject comes up. I am lining up speakers including Doctors and Nurses to talk about these in gruesome detail. And these are the behaviors that Parks Helms wants to "insure"?

Attached is a wav file with a Charlotte news account of one of those "feltching" accounts gone wrong. I will play it from the BOCC dais if this comes up.

This attached account stars Robert D. Raiford in a real news account when he read the news from a local radio show in Charlotte . He now plays in County funded show "The Mecklenburgers".

This and more is summarized at the attached web page.

In a 1994 survey of 2,500 homosexual men in The Advocate (a national homosexual magazine). The results were published in the August 23, 1994 issue are as follows (warning again - this material is explicit):

Sex acts homosexual men say they love:

Insertive oral intercourse 72%
Receptive oral intercourse 71%
Insertive anal intercourse 46%
Receptive anal intercourse 43%
Receptive anilingus (tongue in the anus) 45%
Insertive anilingus 29%
Sex acts they engaged in (last five years):

Three-way sex 48%
Group sex (four or more) 24%
Bondage & discipline sex 20%
Use of nipple clamps 19%
Sadomasochism 10%
Where they met their "partners" (last five years):

Bar/disco 65%
Bathhouse, sex club 29%
Adult bookstore 27%
Park, bathroom 26%
Roadside rest area 15%
Most (57%) report having had more than 30 partners over their lifetime, and about a third (35%) report more than 100 partners.

About one quarter (26%) of HIV-positive men who have had insertive oral intercourse have had sex in another man’s mouth, most typically with someone they have just met.

Among men who have had insertive anal intercourse in the past year, 44% had sex with a partner without a condom. Among those who had receptive anal intercourse in the past year, 58% had a partner who had sex with them without a condom.

Among HIV-infected men who have had insertive anal intercourse in the past year, 19% had sex without wearing a condom. They most typically did this with long-term partners or with men with whom they had a purely sexual encounter rather than within the context of a relationship.

Anilingus (tongue on or in the anus) is fairly common:

41% have performed it in the past year, and 47% have received it.
When engaging in insertive and receptive anilingus, only 4% to 5%, respectively, have used dental dams to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Among men who had had a positive result from an HIV antibody test, 11% have said or implied that they were HIV-negative in order to have sex.

Another study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in 1972 revealed that 50% of male homosexuals have had over 500 different sexual partners. Other studies show that AIDS victims average 1,100 different sexual partners.

In one study, two homosexual researchers found that 73% of adult male homosexuals had had sex with boys age 19 or younger. 93% report anal sexual relations.

92% report oral/anal sexual activity.
17% report eating and/or rubbing themselves with the feces of their partners.
29% report urinating on or in their partners.
37% report sadomasochism.
42% report "handballing" or "fisting" where the hand or arm is inserted into the rectum of their partner.
32% report bondage.
12% report giving or receiving of enemas for sexual pleasure.
15% report sex with animals.

You know, Republicans want the Democrats to bring it up because they see it finishing off the Democrats next year. The statement I get the most is "if your opponent is self-destructing, let him do it".

Commissioner Bill James
Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners
Matthews, North Carolina
http://billjames.org
Wjames@carolina.rr.com

This is out of control bullsh*t. I'm sick of this kind of sex obsession when all we're talking about are civil rights. The only people thinking about sex and orifices in this debate are the far-Right Taliban types that are likely engaging in much of this behavior since they are studying it so hard. It's embarrassing to think the majority of people in his 150,000-population district actually voted for this bastard.



James also made national headlines fairly recently by asserting publicly that urban black children '...could not be taught...' because they are raised in a 'moral sewer' constructed by their parents. He also got a very public smack down on Hannity & Colmes for his extremism. He is a publicity whore.

As the person that passed this on to me said, "The more extreme the Religious Right gets, the more it can help the causes of liberty and justice for all by exposing the hatred and xenophobia that fuels its actions rather than the 'Love One Another' admonition the faith was founded upon. Bill James needs some serious therapy to get to the root of the pain and damage within that causes him to spew this sewage from his own personal moral sewer."

To send emails of support -- here you go:
Parks Helms PHelms@helmshenderson.com
Jennifer Roberts Roberjw@co.mecklenburg.nc.us

President George Allen?

by Shakespeare's Sister

Link:

A National Journal poll to be released tomorrow of "congressional and political insiders" finds Sen. George Allen (R-VA) ranked first among 2008 GOP presidential candidates and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) ranked first among Democrats. Each of 215 insiders were asked to rank their top five choices.

On the Republican side, Allen finished with 229 combined points, while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) finished second with 217, Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) third with 184, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani fourth with 129 and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney fifth with 109 points.

On the Democratic side, Clinton led all Democrats with 388 points, followed by former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) with 192, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner with 166, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) with 125 and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) with 90.

George Allen?! Well, I had to do some research on this guy. (Does anyone know anything about him? Is he a former professional athlete or something?) We’ll get back to that in a moment.

A couple interesting points to note. The GOP top 5 slots eluded both Santorum and Jeb Bush, but not Frist. Huh. Also interesting is that Clinton is the first choice for Dems by a much larger margin, considering she’s actually a rather divisive figure among rank-and-file Dems. No real conclusions to be drawn, considering the results are from a fairly vaguely-defined source, but still worth noting.

Now, back to this George Allen character. He’s pretty much our basic nightmare.

He’s rated 20% by the ACLU, likely because of voting NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes (Jun 2002), YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping (Oct 2001), and supporting an anti-flag desecration amendment (Mar 2001).

On the upside (if you’re a wealthy Republican fucknut), he’s got a 100% approval rating from the US Chamber of Commerce and he supported the bankruptcy bill.

He supports trying juvenile felons as adults, tougher sentencing for drug crimes, allowing the FCC to approve larger media conglomerates, and requiring minor mothers to live at home and forcing them to identify their children’s fathers. He’s rated 100% by the Christian Coalition, but 0% by NARAL (abortion rights), APHA (public health advocacy), ARA (rights of seniors), and SANE (anti-war advocacy).

And those are pretty much his good attributes.

I haven’t even covered his stances on tax reform, energy and oil, free trade, government reform, healthcare, or poverty. If you’re interested, go here.

And I think you should be. George Allen: All of the wingnuttiness of Frist and Santorum, but none of the well-known baggage. Watch out.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Sic ’Em!

by Shakespeare's Sister

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) is my new hero.

[Bush] wants to dismantle a program [Social Security] that defines what the Democrats are proudest of. That’s what this is about. The Republicans—almost all of them—opposed Social Security when it was proposed by Franklin Roosevelt. Almost all of them opposed Medicaid. They voted against Medicare in 1965. So these are programs that provide a safety net for the poor and I think the Republicans basically resent the poor and they figure if we can get the poor investing in the stock market, maybe they’ll start thinking like Republicans. God help us.

Except for the religious fundamentalists, most of the hardcore Republicans have incomes over $90,000. I don’t think it’s the taxation system that bothers them, it’s the safety net. They believe in survival of the fullest. The people who are best off in this society are the ones who have been the beneficiaries of all of their policies. And now if they can get people to invest in—the more money you put into the stock market, the higher the average value, [the more] it accrues to the owners of our society. The people who have enough means to own stock, to own the means of production.

I think the Social Security thing is all about ideology. It’s certainly not about fiscal responsibility. If he wanted to get us excited about a crisis, he’d talk about healthcare, and how Medicare is actually going bankrupt, and how 45 million people don’t have health insurance.

Yowza! You tell ’em, Jimmy-boy! But here is the best part:

Raw Story: Do you really think the president is sheltered from those he’s pitching his plan to?

Moran: The only actual news that he reads is the sports section. All the national news, all the opinions that he gets have been filtered, and it goes to his daily briefing that has already been pre-screened to give him what he wants to read. He doesn’t read any books, and he doesn’t talk with people that don’t already agree with him. He’s surrounded himself with ideological sycophants. And the biggest ass-kisser of all is Dick Cheney.

Slam!

Awesome. Well done, Mr. Moran. Big Brass Balls of the Day Award to you, my good fellow.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Go see the rest of this Microsoft-bashing cartoon

by Pam

This is just a snippet. From Bad Reporter in SF Gate by Don Asmussen

The Chimperor had no clothes

by Pam

Reuters chart.

That was an incredibly content-free press conference last night. It wasn't even entertaining, quite frankly. The transcript is here - part 1, part 2.

Ostensibly, the press conference was mostly about addressing high gas prices and revealing Chimpy's Social Security dismantling plan. As the AP notes

on the SS front: the White House said Bush's proposal could be accomplished with a "sliding-scale benefit formula." That would mean lower Social Security payments for future middle- and upper-income retirees than they are currently guaranteed - a fact Bush himself did not mention in his 60-minute session with reporters." So it looks like a little Ponzi scheme is under way, but he didn't want to talk about it.

What else did Chimpy say? I'll let him speak for himself...



On sh*t continuing to implode in Iraq, and increasing attacks by the insurgency:
"There are still some in Iraq who aren't happy with democracy. They want to go back to the old days of tyranny and darkness and torture chambers and mass graves. I believe we're making really good progress in Iraq, because the Iraqi people are beginning to see the benefits of a free society. They saw a government form today."

"Well, we've made the decision to defeat the terrorists abroad so we don't have to face them here at home. And when you engage the terrorists abroad, it causes activity and action....And we are making good progress. The al-Qaida network that attacked the United States has been severely diminished. We are slowly but surely dismantling that organization."

Responding to James Dobson's statement that judicial filibusters are an attack against people of faith (Bush is already being blasted by the Freepi for this answer):
"Well, I can only speak to myself. And I am mindful that people in political office should not say to somebody, You're not equally American if you don't happen to agree with my view of religion. As I said, I think faith is a personal issue. And I take great strength from my faith. But I don't condemn somebody in the political process because they may not agree with me on religion. The great thing about America is that you should be allowed to worship any way you want. And if you chose not to worship, you're equally as patriotic as somebody who does worship. And if you choose to worship, you're equally American if you're a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim. And that's the wonderful thing about our country and that's the way it should be."

Freeper: I would have liked the President to say that it isn't right to keep someone off the bench because they are pro life or disagree with the homosexual lifestyle, because that is what it is.

Bush gave his press conference on the same day that Exxon Mobil posted a profit in the last quarter of nearly $8 billion, a 44 percent increase, yet he said:
"There will be no price gouging at gas pumps in America."

On the intensifying criticism over the qualifications of U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton, known for berating and bullying colleagues:
"John Bolton is a blunt guy. Sometimes people say I'm little too blunt. John Bolton can get the job done at the United Nations....See, the U.N. needs reform. If you're interested in reforming the U.N. like I'm interested in reforming the U.N., it makes sense to put somebody who's skilled and who's not afraid to speak his mind at the United Nations."



On North Korea a country that has the bomb, unlike Iraq, the country we did invade:
Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person. He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps. And, as David accurately noted, there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il, to assume he can. hat's why I've decided that the best way to deal with this diplomatically is to bring more leverage to the situation by including other countries. It's better to have more than one voice sending the same message to Kim Jong Il. The best way to deal with this issue diplomatically is to have four other nations beside ourself dealing with him. And we'll continue to do so.

Finally, as you know, I have instructed Secretary Rumsfeld, and I have worked with Congress, Secretary Rumsfeld has worked with Congress to set up a missile defense system. And we're in the process of getting that missile defense system up and running. One of the reasons why I thought it was important to have a missile defense system is for precisely the reason that you brought up: Perhaps Kim Jong Il has got the capacity to launch a weapon; wouldn't it be nice to be able to shoot it down?"

On renditions, the practice of the U.S. "kidnapping" prisoners, taking them to countries that allow the practice of torture for interrogation:
"That's a hypothetical. We operate within the law, and we send people to countries where they say they're not going to torture the people. But let me say something. The United States government has an obligation to protect the American people. It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way. And we will do so within the law. And we will do so in honoring our commitment not to torture people."

Becoming unhinged when asked about lawsuits filed over his No Child Left Behind Act:
"I don't know about the lawsuit. I'm not a lawyer. But I _ you know, I'll ask my lawyers about the lawsuit. But I know some people are trying to unwind No Child Left Behind. You know, I've heard some states say, Well, we don't like it. Well, you know, my attitude about no liking it is this: If you teach a child to read and write, it shouldn't bother you whether you measure."

(Many thanks to all that joined us in the Big Brass Blog chat room; hopefully we'll have another soon - with more advance notice).

Live chat during Chimpy's conference...

by Pam

Hey folks, I'll be in the Big Brass Blog live chat room, listening to the BS:

Join me at:

http://bigbrassblog.com/ChatClient/livechat.cgi

Shakespeare's Sister will join us for the after show.

Women’s Rights ON the March – backwards to 1890

by JJ

Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA, H.R. 748) passed yesterday 270-157.

On April 1, 2004, President George W. Bush set precedent for fetal protection by signing into law The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Laci and Conner's Law), which recognizes unborn children as victims when they are injured or killed during the commission of federal or military crimes of violence. The vast media coverage of the murder of Laci and Conner Peterson helped boost the bill. (…)

"Roe v. Wade stripped all unborn children of being recognized in the eyes of the law. Legislation like Laci & Conner's Law helps to right this wrong by bringing justice to little victims of violence," said Wendy Wright, CWA's senior policy director.

The Concerned Bigots of America are lobbying all states to enact an unborn victim’s law. This is nothing more than an attempt to obliterate a woman’s right to choose.

The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a warning to birthing facilities across the United States that the government agency fully intends to enforce the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.

The Beverly LaHay Institute goes so far as to say the ideology of feminism is a “counterfeit creed" and compares to “The millions of deaths from Hitler’s Nazi horrors or Stalin’s Gulag or the bloody massacres of today’s suicidal terrorists reveal all to clearly the true character and threat of counterfeit creeds…”

She goes on to say that the women of today are too self centered and “Is there any greater tyranny than self-centeredness? “ Apparently all you ladies out there including the Bloggrrrlz should give up all your self centered creativity, throw your ankles behind your ears and start popping out the kids!!! What’s the matter with you anyway???

Nature will not forever be denied; women are beginning to see the costs of imbibing the un-natural cocktail of self-centeredness served up by radical feminism. In the meantime, however, the costs have been staggering. So-called sexual freedom, loudly touted by libertines and radical feminist, has brought soaring rates of sexually transmitted diseases and plummeting rates of marriage. Abortion has eliminated 45 million pregnancies, but it has not erased the countless heartbreaks.

She is saying here that it is un-natural for you girls to not have 10 kids by the time you are 30... It is not natural for you to value a career, independence and reproductive rights. It goes without saying she is supporting the "If you're old enough to bleed you're old enough to breed" mentality; so ladies... Get back in the kitchen where you belong and where the F***k is my beer? OH and by the way its all your fault that there are sexually transmitted diseases and bad marriages! Whew! What a relief, for awhile there it was all my fault because I am gay...

This madness combined with the House and Senate agreed upon definition of a woman in Linnet’s post below is slowly changing the meaning of being a woman with a brain and the ability to make decisions for herself into nothing more than a piece of chattel to be bartered for breeding purposes only.

While we are all standing by thinking Roe Vs Wade can never be overturned the precedent is slowly being picked away; bit by bit, little by little. All of you ladies out there may as well say good bye to your uterus because if these people CONTINUE to have their way it will no longer belong to you! As for me, I have already called my reps and shared my opinions with them, (not likely going to be enough coming from a little old gay boy on the red side of WA) so get off your asses and start fighting for your vaginas!!!!!!

Bibles in the TX classroom -- no problem

by Pam

What separation of church and state? (WaPo):

The school board in this West Texas town voted unanimously to add a Bible class to its high school curriculum.

Hundreds of people, most of them supporters of the proposal, packed the board meeting Tuesday night. More than 6,000 Odessa residents had signed a petition supporting the class. Some residents, however, said the school board acted too quickly. Others said they feared a national constitutional fight.

Barring any hurdles, the class should be added to the curriculum in fall 2006 and taught as a history or literature course. The school board still must develop a curriculum, which board member Floy Hinson said should be open for public review.

The board had heard a presentation in March from Mike Johnson, a representative of the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, who said that coursework designed by that organization is not about proselytizing or preaching.

See the Board of Directors and Advisory Board of the organization here. Lest you think the mission of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is benign and only about the Bible as literature, take a look at some of the folks endorsing its mission (links go to my earlier posts on these organizations):


* Liberty Counsel (Jerry Falwell and legal bootlicker, Mathew Staver)

* N.C. Family Policy Council (local wingnut organization)

* Stephen Melchior, Attorney, representing Judge Roy Moore in the Ten Commandments Case

* Southern Baptist Convention


* Eagle Forum (Phyllis Schlafly)


* Concerned Women for America (Beverly LaHaye and Robert H. Knight)


* Family Research Council President, Tony Perkins

Denny's at it again: FL men sue after being called 'bin Ladens'

by Pam

Ehab Mohamed: "We are in fear of being discriminated everywhere we go."

Is it just me, or do you think that this chain has a recruiting program for prejudiced crackers? Denny's has had to deal with numerous discrimination lawsuits all over the country because, of all things, they seem to have a problem receiving cold hard cash from paying customers simply because they are not white.

One case in 1994 was settled for $54.4 million that involved Denny's asking blacks to prepay for meals. Since then, Denny's has been slapped with at least six more discrimination lawsuits -- by African-Americans and Hispanics -- and at least another two cases involving discrimination against people of Middle Eastern descent. Here's another (with Freeper reaction to the story following)... (Newsday):

Seven men of Middle Eastern descent have sued a Denny's restaurant in Florida City, claiming the restaurant refused to serve them.

Ehab Albarabi, Nabil Arafat, Usama El-A-Baidy, Esam Hessein, Mohammad Natour, Usama Mohamed and Ehab Mohamed, all of Boca Raton, filed the civil rights suit April 22 in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. They seek $4 million each from the owner and a former manager of the restaurant. The suit alleges that last year the restaurant discriminated against the men and humiliated them.

"We certainly are very hurt by all of this," 31-year-old Ehab Mohamed said Wednesday. "We are in fear of being discriminated everywhere we go."

The men decided to stop for food at the Denny's in Florida City shortly after 2 a.m. on Jan. 11, 2004, attorney Alan Kauffman said. According to the suit, the discrimination started when the waitress who took their drink orders took "an unusually long time" to bring their drinks and take their food order.

After waiting more than one hour, Albarabi asked manager Eduardo Ascano about the delay. According to the suit, Ascano called the men "Bin Ladens," referring to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

After waiting another 30 minutes, El-A-Baidy questioned the manager about the remark and delay. According to the suit, Ascano said, "We don't serve Bin Laden's here ... You're not welcome here anymore."

You can see video here.

The Freepi here spew some of the most hateful crap I've seen in a long while. It makes me sick...

Actual Freeper Quotes™

"Ha..Ha..Ha....Get over it...You need to stop your kind from killing people because they are not Muslims...."

"Two guys named Osama, a guy named Arafat and a guy named Hussein. Boy, I hope a Denny's manager doesn't make a crack about Nazis if he gets a customer named Adolph Hilter."

"Why didn't they just self detonate?"

"I think there may be more to this story. They just sat there for an hour politely waiting? I wouldn't have. Anyway. I didn't see anything about them being American. I would like to know where they were going at 2 am."

"In case you haven't figured it out, you're not welcome in this country anymore. Get out, and take your friends and relatives with you."

"We fear your kind...car bombs, hijacked airplanes, bulking belts, beheadings, honor killings, all are associated with Islam and Muslims....so yeah...I'm gonna look twice and the second look ain't love."

"Thought just occurred to me - instead of sueing people because there is a finger in your chile - change your name to Osama benladen - then when some one makes a crack about your name sue them. That was you don't have to commit a crime to get the ball rolling."

"yeah, and since this is a free country I am free to not like someone by their nationality if we are at war with it! considering the names their countrymen are calling ours (include cutting off their heads!) I'd say SUCK IT UP ASSHOLES AND DON'T THINK WE'RE ABOUT PAYING MILLIONS FOR HURT FEELINGS and while we're at it....the american people have been about as pc as we're gonna be with you people, thank your lucky stars that we went so far as to NOT inter you in camps or ship you back to your homeland, or beat you sensless! Your lucky you can fly on planes or eat in our restaraunts since we are at war with your kind at the moment and you don't have to common sense to take the towel off your head and be understanding of the position we're in! I swear to god that if these guys get a dime I'm gonna sue the next towelhead i see for offending my sensibilities while we're at war with their dress."

"Calling them bin Ladens was uncalled for. Should have called them disciples of a mentally unbalanced bandit pedophile."

"Don't most eating establishments have a "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" sign?" [Is this knuckle-dragger kidding?]

Liberty students greet Soulforce with open arms, pissing off Falwell

by Pam

Rev. Tinkywinky was blown off by his own students at Liberty University when Mel White's Soulforce came to town. Last week I reported on the Blend that Mel White of the gay rights group Soulforce planned to meet with Liberty students -- some had written White to let him know that they are forced to live closeted lives at Falwell's fundamentalist school. The level of defiance against Falwell is pretty amazing. (The Advocate):

Fifty-five members of Soulforce, a Lynchburg, Va.-based gay rights group, met with Liberty students to discuss academic freedom issues at the campus and the treatment of gays and lesbians. Liberty students went out of their way to welcome the Soulforce members with cookies, bottled water, and lots of friendly dialogue. "I'm glad they're here, and I don't see anything wrong with them being here, getting to know each other and loving each other," said Natalie Bullock, a Liberty student from Cincinnati.

But the notoriously antigay reverend Falwell, who founded the Christian school in 1971, sternly condemned homosexuality during a regular Monday convocation attended by Liberty students, faculty, staff, and Soulforce members. "Contrary to rumors, this is not 'Gay Day' at Liberty University," said Falwell, urging Liberty students not to accept any literature from the group. The university had no comment beyond Falwell's message, and Falwell did not meet with Soulforce members.

Despite Falwell's admonishments, dozens of Liberty students gathered in small groups with members of Soulforce, which represents gay and lesbian student organizations at several Virginia colleges and universities. Members wore brightly colored shirts with the organization's Web site URL printed on the front, and many wore stickers reading "Stop spiritual violence."

Soulforce director Mel White wanted to deliver to Liberty's library copies of a book titled What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality and to give professors small rainbow stickers for their doors to designate their classrooms as safe havens for students with questions about their sexuality. However, after the group left for an afternoon news conference, campus police refused to allow them back on campus. There was heavy security from campus police and Lynchburg city police, but there were no incidents. "We're not here to change Jerry's mind," White said. "We're not here to convince his students that Jerry is wrong. We're here to establish relationships with Liberty's students, and we've done that. This has been a terrific day."

White said his group had dined with 20 gay Liberty students on Sunday evening. He estimated that of Liberty's 8,000 students, "300 to 400 are gay." Seth Croft of Yorktown, a sophomore at the University of Virginia and a member of Soulforce, said he was surprised by the reception from Liberty students. He said some female students brought the group muffins and cookies Monday morning. "We had been told they wouldn't speak or associate with us in any way," Croft said. "It was a great interaction. They wanted to talk to us, which was surprising." Benjamin Williams, a Liberty sophomore from Portsmouth, said Soulforce had a right to be on campus even if the group's views differ from many others' at Liberty. "We shouldn't be judgmental. We shouldn't go out there hating on them," Williams said. "They are still people too, and we need to love them just like Christ does."

Photo on a cell phone = 'honor killing' in Jordan

by Pam

Women's rights are in a sad state in much of the third world, from ritual genital mutilation in many African countries to legal 'honor killings' in Jordan, Morocco and Syria, one has to be thankful we live in the U.S. We have to be alarmed and angry that our rights are slowly being eroded or threatened because of religious extremism by the Am Taliban, but it's the practices like this killing that make your blood boil and your heart sink for women in these countries. (AFP):

A Jordanian man shot dead his divorced sister after seeing her photo on his friend's camera-equipped cellphone in the latest "honour" killing in the kingdom, hospital officials said Monday. The unidentified man shot the 31-year-old mother twice in the head Sunday night and then turned himself in to police saying he committed the murder to "cleanse his family's honour".

The incident is the fifth example of a so-called honour killing in Jordan this year. Those found guilty usually face sentences of a maximum of one year in jail under Jordanian law. Last month, a man stabbed his sister to death after finding out she had agreed an unofficial marriage with a man who subsequently disappeared.

At least 19 women lost their lives in honour killings in Jordan last year, according to the local press.

The link to the information on honor killing notes that while this is prevalent in Muslim-majority countries, the practice is actually pre-Islamic, based on "the patriarchal and patrilineal society's interest in keeping strict control over familial power structures."

Rent boy Gannon makes Advocate cover

by Pam

Almost too ballsy to be believed. And why didn't he assume the Bulldog position? Too bad he doesn't actually shed light on his undocumented "comings and goings" at the White House.

The redeeming feature of the May Advocate article is that writer Jen Christensen talks to a real new media journalist, John Aravosis of AMERICABlog:

On most mornings, over a cup of coffee, John Aravosis sits alone in his studio apartment in Washington, D.C., pushing through piles of computer printouts. He scans new e-mails from around the world, searching for content for his www.americablog.org, a blog, or Web log, that mixes commentary and news. Information comes from everywhere—influential newspapers, cable news, other blogs, average people. On one particular April morning the top headline comes from “Chris, in Paris,” who is reporting that a new Iraqi president has been appointed. Another headline reads that conservative congressman Tom DeLay’s approval rating is heading into the toilet, according to a survey conducted by the Houston Chronicle.

Aravosis, 41, is a pioneer among the media-savvy gays and lesbians devoted to the country’s blogs. In February he bolstered his reputation as a gay advocate by helping blow the cover of one Jeff Gannon, who had come under fire for his partisan questions as a reporter in the White House briefing room. Media outlets discovered that Gannon was actually James Guckert, who had been hired to write for a Web site run by a wealthy Republican activist from Texas. And if that wasn’t enough, Aravosis also soon learned that Guckert had apparently advertised himself as a male escort.

“For the Gannongate story, I just really got the discussion going,” Aravosis says. “We finally were asking the question, Should we be coddling a gay hooker who is working just steps away from the Oval Office promoting an antigay agenda?”

Eugenics in NC: forced sterilization of women

by Pam

I don't know how I missed this article in the March 28 Newsweek, "A Shameful Little Secret": North Carolina confronts its shameful history of forced sterilization. This practice was not stopped until 1974.



Elaine Riddick and Nial Ramirez were sterilized by the state of NC; access to formerly sealed records indicate reasons for sterilization were as flimsy as being considered lazy or promiscuous. By that standard, skanky, spoiled rich girl Paris Hilton would have been a prime candidate for the procedure.

We know the state didn't have wealthy white women like Hilton in mind when they took away Riddick's and Ramirez's ability to have children. Newsweek reports that ver the last 15 years of its operation, 99 percent of the victims were women; more than 60 percent were black.

Riddick found out what happened to her when she and her husband were having difficulty conceiving.

She soon learned that the operation had been performed by state order in North Carolina in 1968, when she was just 14, and had given birth to a baby after being raped. At the time, she'd assumed doctors were just performing a routine post-birth procedure. The sterilization-consent form had been signed by her neglectful father and her illiterate grandmother, who had marked her assent with an X.

...Nial Ramirez says she was sterilized at 18 after social workers threatened to cut off her mother's welfare benefits. "We had no way to fight back," says Ramirez, now 58.

The state offered a public apology two years ago, and reparations have been considered by Governor Mike Easley, though not one cent has been paid to a victim of this atrocity. At least the Tar Heel state is the first to appoint a panel to study on how to best handle the health care and counseling needs of these women, along with financial compensation -- it's small comfort to those that suffered under the knife of the state.

Over thirty states had eugenics programs like this one. You may want to do a little digging into your state's history. These procedures were ruled constitutional in Buck v. Bell, a 1924 Supreme Court decision that is still the law of the land.

the health of the patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives, under careful safeguard, &c.; that the sterilization may be effected in males by vasectomy and in females by salpingectomy, without serious pain or substantial danger to life; that the Commonwealth is supporting in various institutions many defective persons who if now discharged would become a menace but if incapable of procreating might be discharged with safety and become self-supporting with benefit to themselves and to society; and that experience has shown that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, imbecility, &c.

Do you have any doubt that the wild-eyed American Taliban would find a reason to return to these practices, in the name of the "welfare of society?" They have a clear sense of what they'd like America to be. They are already attempting to control women by restricting access to family planning, attacking abortion rights, and have made it clear that women have taken the notion of equal rights way too far.

And people wonder why minority populations are paranoid about government "science" projects? The whole AIDS-is-a-government-conspiracy rant is not too far-fetched a concept (though I don't buy that particular one) when you have stories like this and the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, there's enough evidence that a minority or devalued population is fair game for control and experimentation like lab rats.



Between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) experimented on 400 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These were mostly illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama. They were never told what disease they were suffering from or that it was life-threatening. [President Clinton's apologized to the eight remaining survivors on May 16, 1997.]

STILL Not Concerned??

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Three words:

K. Street. Project.



Google those three words for more.


Read, think, ACT!

Ms. Julien

Unbelievable

by Shakespeare's Sister

Ballooning deficits…the war in Iraq…unsecure borders…the ever-weakening separation between church and state…rampant ethics violations by congresscritters…the attack on civil rights…struggling social programs…Social Security…the healthcare crisis…unemployment…environmental concerns…dependency on foreign oil…

The list goes on and on.

And on what is Congress choosing to focus?

Steroid use in the NFL.

If McCain, Davis and the Government Reform Committee's ranking Democrat -- Henry Waxman of California -- do produce a bill, it wouldn't be the first on the topic. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., introduced the Drug Free Sports Act on Tuesday, and his House Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee scheduled a May 5 hearing.

''There is every reason to believe that most major sports have athletes using illegal steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs,'' Stearns said.

Get with the program, you plonkers. We’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Does liberalism equal a lack of accountability?

by STP

No!

However, that is partially the argument that conservatives enjoy making when blaming liberals for society's failings. Liberals are called permissive, irresponsible, indulgent, subversive, unethical, immoral, and holding to an "anything goes" philosophy. This image is false and misrepresents liberalism. It is also a strong case for the pot calling the kettle black.

Liberalism does not go hand in hand with the breaking down of societal structure. In fact, it represents the belief systems that should be part and parcel of a community beholden to a system of values, ethics and communal decency that has been stripped away by so-called conservatism.

Let's get something straight; there is nothing conservative about the overwhelming majority of conservatives in this country. There is also little that ties these people to ethics, morals, principle, and responsibility. I point to Enron, election fraud, tax cuts for the rich, growing deficits, and ample sexual dalliances on the part of so-called moral right wingers. Don't even get me started on loving thy neighbor and keeping government out of the lives of individuals!

So what then is liberalism?

Liberalism is accepting people for whatever they are as long as they abide by the laws governing society and do not harm others. Homosexuality is ok. Religious beliefs, or a lack of them, are fine. Liberalism is about allowing people the right to make their own choices; choices involving personal decisions on child-birth and contraception, displays of religiousity, who each person loves (Although this is not a choice. The choice is in being allowed to live the life that is naturally built into our being as we see fit.), or simply what matters to them in their daily lives.

If you are harming no one else, staying within the confines of the law and showing a respect for the world and all its inhabitants (that includes animals and the environment), liberals will let you be what you wish to be. This is not permissiveness in the worst sense, but rather in a best case scenario where people can be who or what they are in a responsible fashion. Liberals trust people enough to allow them their freedoms.

Liberals consider compassion and equality to be critical characteristics of the human spirit. They understand the need for people to take responsibility for themselves - try to work for a living, attempt to be a valued member of the community, obtain education as is necessary, be respectful of others - but liberals also recognize that many in any society need help. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, tax fairness, education reform, treatment as opposed to punishment, universal and affordable healthcare, and the ability to start over again when everything falls apart are simply some of the ways that liberals promote the concept of helping those in need, hand in hand with personal responsibility. The responsibility of individual self-reliance is a beginning. The responsibility of community, mutual interdependence, is the main body of the liberal form.

In large measure, our society is no longer responsible for itself. Much of this results from so-called conservatism and its emphasis on self over society.

Conservatism, as it is practiced in the United States, can be defined as societal indifference, resulting in the decay of communal connectivity. Some examples:

1. Big business interests do not believe they have a responsibility to the planet and all living things.
2. Politicians on the right believe they can whip ignorant, fools into a frenzy in the name of Jesus. 3. A president can lie to a nation about the causes for war, be proven wrong and then change the story to a whole new set of lies to justify his deception to the country.
4. Solutions to issues (ie. Social Security, prescription drugs) can be ignored, instead replaced with demoguagory, in the name of political expediency and gain.
5. Tax cuts can be enacted that destroy the future stability of our economy.
6. Alternative energy sources are ignored in the name of oil and auto companies.

There is no sense of responsibility inherent in conservative doctrine in this country, as its principles seem to revolve around individual greed and profit combined with a disinterest in the greater world and protecting those who cannot keep up. Conservatism masks itself in righteousness, but the holy image is a fraud that belies self-interest.

If any side in this country is representative of a lack of accountability and responsibility it is conservativism. While liberals attempt to provide a community of caring and sharing, conservatives selfishly "get what's theirs," doing so regardless of consequence and who they harm in the process. At the same time, conservatives demand adherence to their beliefs and images of the world. Sadly, those beliefs find their base in the demeaning of others, the pushing aside of the weak, the fleecing of the unaware, and the destruction of whatever stands in their way.

That is representative of not being responsible; for anyone or anything.

(Cross posted on Poetic Leanings)

Please, not the 'ex-gay' crap again

by Pam

Stephen Bennett of Stephen Bennett Ministries was a "practicing homosexual" for 11 years before becoming a Christian and "leaving the lifestyle."

Just plain deception and pathetic bullsh*t from American Family Association's wingnut propaganda organ Agape Press, Former Homosexual Reaches Out to Hurting Homosexual Community.

AFAJ: Do you think your own past as a homosexual makes you more compassionate?

No doubt about it. I've lived in a glass house, so I've learned not to throw stones. As a former homosexual, I believe I know what works and what doesn't work in approaching that community. Of course, I'm still in the learning process -- I haven't arrived, by any means.

AFAJ: How does the media handle your claim to be an "ex-gay"?

I very rarely get any respect from the media as an ex-gay man. Former homosexuals are made to look like clowns, like laughingstocks. I was on a CNN show and I was introduced as a 'self-described former homosexual,' and others have done the same thing. When they do that I correct them immediately. I am a former homosexual. Period.

...AFAJ: How do homosexuals respond when you say you've left the lifestyle?

Some will listen, and say they have never heard that before and are really intrigued by the message and are open to hearing about it. And on a regular basis we keep in contact with many of those active homosexuals who are curious.

But in most cases, they will tell me I was never "gay" in the first place. And I tell them, "Yeah, you go and ask my 100-plus partners how 'gay' I was not." I was "gay." Many homosexuals are in extreme denial, and I believe, again, that it's based upon all the rejection they've experienced. So when someone tells them, "I've come out of the lifestyle," they will just verbally attack you. One of my favorite analogies is that the thing a smoker hates the most is an ex-smoker. It's the same situation with homosexuals.

...Stephen Bennett Ministries has produced a brand new one-hour audio CD, "The 10 Most Effective Ways to Reach the Homosexual for Christ." This special CD not only contains Bennett's personal testimony of how he left the homosexual lifestyle, but also instruction about what to do and what not to do in ministering to members of the homosexual community.

..."The whole point of the CD is to develop a heart for the homosexual," said Bennett. "While it is critical for churches to resist the effort to normalize homosexuality in our society, it is equally important for the church to reach out to these hurting, broken people."

You must see this page from his Ministry web site, "Are You Struggling With Unwanted Homosexuality?" It's so over-the-top that you think it has to be a parody. Nope.

The Disappearing Wall

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Great "op-ed" piece in the NY Times (thanks, Holly!). This is a call for all of you who voted for Bush for "protection against terror" - he didn't fight the terror - it is still here.

THIS is the legacy of GW Bush. And do you know what?? It is the legacy of ALL OF THOSE WHO VOTED FOR HIM.

To the dismay of many mainstream religious leaders, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, participated in a weekend telecast organized by conservative Christian groups to smear Democrats as enemies of "people of faith." Besides listening to Senator Frist's videotaped speech, viewers heard a speaker call the Supreme Court a despotic oligarchy. Meanwhile, the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, has threatened the judiciary for not following the regressive social agenda he shares with the far-right fundamentalists controlling his party.

Apart from confirming an unwholesome disrespect for traditional American values like checks and balances, the assault on judges is part of a wide-ranging and successful Republican campaign to breach the wall between church and state to advance a particular brand of religion. No theoretical exercise, the program is having a corrosive effect on policymaking and the lives of Americans.

The centerpiece is President Bush's so-called faith-based initiative, which disregards decades of First Amendment law and civil rights protections. Mr. Bush promised that federal money would not be used to support religious activities directly, but it is. The program has channeled billions of taxpayers' dollars to churches and other religion-based providers of social services under legally questionable rules that allow plenty of room for proselytizing and imposing religious tests on hiring. The initiative even provides taxpayers' money to build and renovate houses of worship that are also used to offer social services.

Offices in the White House and federal departments pump public money to religious groups, but provide scant oversight or accountability to make sure that the money is spent on real services, not preaching. Indeed, Mr. Bush's goal is to finance programs that are explicitly religious.

A recent want ad posted by a taxpayer-financed vocational program of the Firm Foundation for inmates in a Pennsylvania jail stipulated that a job seeker must be "a believer in Christ and Christian Life today" and that the workday "will start with a short prayer." A major portion of inmates' time is spent on religious lectures and prayer, according to a lawsuit filed by two civil liberties groups.

The Bush administration and Congress have turned over issues bearing on women's reproductive rights to far-right religious groups opposed not just to abortion, but to expanded stem-cell research, effective birth control and AIDS prevention programs. The Food and Drug Administration continues to dawdle over approving over-the-counter access to emergency contraception for fear of inflaming members of the religious right who deem any interference with the implantation of a fertilized egg to be an abortion. This foot-dragging may be good politics from one narrow view, but it harms women and drives up the nation's abortion rate.

The result of this open espousal of one religious view is a censorious climate in which a growing number of pharmacists feel free to claim moral grounds for refusing to dispense emergency contraception and even birth control pills prescribed by a doctor. Public schools shy away from teaching about evolution, and science museums reject scientifically sound documentaries that may offend Christian fundamentalists. Public television stations were afraid to run a children's program in which a cartoon bunny met a lesbian couple.

In a recent Op-Ed article in The Times, John Danforth, the former Republican senator and U.N. ambassador who is also a minister, said his party was becoming a political arm of the religious right. He called it a formula for divisiveness that ultimately threatened the party's future. With the nation lurching toward the government sponsorship of religion, and the Senate nearing a showdown over Mr. Bush's egregious judicial nominees, it is a warning well worth heeding.

Yet another country gets it...New Zealand OKs civil unions

by Pam

Labour Party lawmaker Tim Barnett supported the bill.

What is f*cking wrong with our country? At this point, it's just plain embarrassing. (AP):

A law allowing same-sex partners to have nearly the same legal rights as married couples came into force in New Zealand on Tuesday, with the first of the newly defined civil unions expected this weekend.

The measure stops short of legalizing same-sex marriages, but it was fiercely opposed by religious groups who called it a "gay marriage law" and said it undermined the importance of traditional marriages.

The law makes civil union ceremonies available for both same-sex couples and heterosexual couples seeking a pact that's nominally less binding than marriage. Registration takes at least three days, and local media said the first ceremony was expected Saturday.

Labour Party lawmaker Tim Barnett, who lobbied for the bill, said he hoped that ceremonies over the weekend would cause opponents of civil unions to reconsider.

"They will see two people who are committed and want the world to know," Barnett said. "I would have thought it's hard for people to feel threatened by that."

Two men who led the fight for the new law, 18-year couple John Jolliff, 75, and Des Smith, 65, planned to tie the knot Sunday at Wellington Town Hall in the capital with Mayor Kerry Prendergast presiding.

Canada's marriage bill is in jeopardy

by Pam

Prime Minister Paul Martin's government may be tossed out because of scandals, jeopardizing the passage of the gay marriage bill. Conservative Stephen Harper smells blood -- if he's elected, he wants to annul gay marriages.

Reader Cat keeps me updated on the status of the marriage bill in Canada that would extend gay civil marriage country wide. The majority of the territories and provinces have legalized gay marriage, but this would solidify and endorse equal marriage as a nation. [In fact, four New Brunswick gay couples filed papers with the Court of Appeal this week, asking it to redefine the legal meaning of marriage in the province.]

There are enough supportive MPs to pass Bill C-38, but it's in trouble, due to the unrelated political scandals swirling around the Liberal government that may end up in an election call, with the Conservatives waiting in the wings.

If an election is called before the bill passes, then it will die. Equal marriage will then be a live issue in the campaign. The bottom line is that if Stephen Harper becomes Prime Minister, it's possible that he will do away civil marriage from same-sex couples -- and annul existing same-sex marriages and water them down to civil unions.

Kate and I were married in Vancouver last year, and this fight is important. The hate-filled forces here have been sending money and people there to prevent passage of this bill. They know if Canada "falls" and allows gay marriage country-wide, that it's very normality will give the US no reason to outlaw it. Stopping gay marriage in Canada for them is setting up a fire break to contain the spread of freedom and tolerance southward to the U.S.

Canadians for Equal Marriage is trying to combat the efforts of Focus on the Family, Defend Marriage and the other far-Reich marriage opponents that are mobilizing for an election and determined to turn back the clock on LGBT rights in Canada. They have an uphill battle -- the Right has money, and is using a phone campaign to target key areas to mobilize support and is funding a massive advertising campaign against equal marriage. Visit the site.

Bill Gates: "We didn't realize that one would get that level of scrutiny"

by Pam

Pious Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer -- kiss my lesbo rear-end and like it.

Microsoft may rethink position on gay-rights bill. The hot flames of the homo outrage have Bill Gates feeling some serious PR pain. House Blender Paul points to a Seattle Times article that shows there's serious backpeddling going on.

Microsoft may re-evaluate whether to support state legislation that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians, Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday.

Gates said Microsoft was surprised by the sharp reaction after it became known that the company took a neutral position on the perennial measure this year, after actively supporting it in previous years.

"Next time this one comes around, we'll see," he said. "We certainly have a lot of employees who sent us mail. Next time it comes around that'll be a major factor for us to take into consideration."

...Advocacy groups still feel betrayed. The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center demanded the return of an award it gave the company in 2001.

Gates welcomed the feedback.

"It's perfectly fair for us to be scrutinized on anything," he said. "We didn't realize that one would get that level of scrutiny, but there's people who care a lot. They care a lot about the issue."

Is he f*cking dumb? How could he not know that getting in bed with the Reich wasn't going to cause a sh*tstorm?!

Guess what Bill, it's not over till fundy Ralph Reed stops getting paid $20K a month by your company.

I think I may hurl...

by Pam

We already knew that Chimpy was in bed with the Saudis, but bleh...how about this display of man-love. Since CNN this AM reports the White House said that the Saudi hand-holding is a "sign of respect," then it should be A-OK with Chimpy when I hold Kate's hand while walking down the street. Especially if I give as loving a glance to her as he does here to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.

Let’s Make a Deal

by Shakespeare's Sister

[Please note - I wrote this originally for my blog, and not in response to TCF's post, below. It's definitely a different perspective, though, which is, of course, what Big Brass Blog is all about, so that's why I'm posting it.]

Senate Minority Leader Monty Hall Harry Reid is meeting with Bill Frist to try to hammer out a compromise over Bush’s judicial nominees, thereby avoiding the nuclear option:

Reid is quietly talking to the Senate's chief Republican about confirming at least two of President Bush's blocked judicial nominees but only as part of a compromise that would require the GOP to end its threat to eliminate judicial filibusters, officials say.

Reid also wants a concession from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, officials said speaking on condition of anonymity: the replacement of a third Michigan nominee with one approved by that state's two Democratic senators.

[…]

Senators would not confirm details Monday, but Reid said that he has had had numerous conversations with senators in both parties in hopes of avoiding a showdown. "As part of any resolution, the nuclear option must be off the table," Reid said in a statement referring to the GOP threat to change filibuster rules.

Pardon me, but after confirming 95% of Bush’s nominees, why should the Democrats even be considering a compromise with an abusive group of bullies who are creating this entire debacle out of a ridiculous notion that they somehow deserve 100% complicity on anything and everything they want? I’m extremely disappointed with the suggestion that the Dems would even entertain the notion of compromise at this point; such capitulation will not be remembered as a gallant move to the moral high ground as potential disaster was thwarted, but instead will likely not be remembered at all by the people who count—the American voters—even as the GOP will continue to push around their impotent opposition, emboldened with the knowledge that lunatic and shrill threats get them what they want.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if, in the end, the conventional wisdom ends up being that it was the GOP’s decision to not invoke the nuclear option which really won the day. The GOP will walk out of this as gracious heroes, and the Dems will carry the blame for forcing it to the brink in the first place.

Ezra notes:

So why compromise? … Neither the principled Republicans nor the opportunists are going to feel safe on the nuclear option bandwagon. So let him go ahead and try to force the issue. Let's say, hypothetically, he got the votes. Is this a fight he can win? The Senate comes to a screeching halt, the talk shows focus on the protection/dissolution of minority rights, and folks don't understand why Republicans have broken with years of tradition over 10 nutball judges. Public opinion, already against the GOP solidifies, and Senate Republicans begin to defect, handing the right a HUGE loss and effectively ending Frist's presidential aspirations.

Now, it's certainly true that the outcome isn't as preordained as all that, nothing's ever immutable in politics. But it seems that Reid and Co. could gamble, with reasonable certainty, on killing the nuclear option. And serving Republicans with a defeat on that, right after Social Security and Schiavo, would really solidify perceptions -- and thus the media storyline -- of the right as disorganized and on a downward trajectory, while adding significantly to Democratic momentum. So while I recognize that there's more risk in pushing forward, it seems that the potential rewards are much greater. It codifies GOP overreach, it'll empower Republican moderates, and it'll solidify the power and unity of the Democratic caucus. And I think that's worth the risk.

I think it’s worth the risk, too. It’s really too bad the Dems don’t feel the same way. It's not just that they don't know how to play hardball...they don't even know how to get in the game.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Justice Interrupted

by thatcoloredfella

There comes late word, of a possible compromised being hammered out between Bill Frist and Harry Reid, with the threat to the Senate filibuster being traded for the confirmation of two previously rejected nominees, and nothing more. As TCF sees it, the compromise allows Frist and the GOP to save face and further political damage, yet it effectively abandons the Evangelical Right at the alter (once again), who will undoubtedly respond with threats of retribution, pestilence and plagues upon the Party of Lincoln. However, having done their bidding on ‘Justice Sunday’, Frist should not sweat the expected threats to his 2008 Presidential aspirations either, because the Dobson Gang have nowhere to go politically.

Yet, significant credit should be given to Sen. Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership, who by managing their position in opposition to the threat of ‘the nuclear option’ effectively, will emerge as the clear political victors in this fight. But, more interesting, it looks like the Congressional Democrats headed off a clash by having even more leverage to bargain with.

First, to put this unfolding event in its proper perspective, you should read NYTimes’ Paul Krugman’s recent column, The Oblivious Right. Krugman pointedly explains how Americans can unequivocally express no confidence in Bush and the GOP’s handling of the economy, yet Treasury Secretary John Snow has it on good authority that globally we’re in a ‘sweet spot’ and other Conservatives are financially advising of a coming ‘Bush boom’. And, as an increasing number of Americans show objection to Bush’s Social Security plan, and now 50% percent believe they were deliberately deceived by the administration on the existence of WMDs’ in Iraq, an entitled Right trusts that given some self-restraint and patience, they will soon see success in accomplishing all of their second term agenda.

TCF had to look up the definition of comity (n: a state or atmosphere of harmony or mutual civility and respect), which is an unwritten rule of Senate decorum allowing the majority party to set the agenda. Yet, if Bill Frist and the GOP were to prevail on ‘the nuclear option’, the Dems are planning to set the agenda for them! TCF has it on good authority (meaning straight from the office of Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid), that the Democrats are planning to directly address the real concerns of Americans not consulted on the Republicans’ Bankruptcy Bill, or who fail to make the cut to share the stage at one of Bush’s Town Hall meetings.

Go read the list of proposed legislation the Senate Democrats have ready to introduce if they were forced to deliver on their threat of a shutdown, and you’ll find yet another strong incentive for Frist & Co. to capitulate.

If this is the final draft that concludes this averted political showdown, then it reads like a Frank Capra-esque ending to an updated retelling of ‘The Crusades’. And, it lends further credence to TCF’s previous assertions that this was merely a dress rehearsal/run through staged purposely for the Evangelical Right.

However, in light of the preview reviews, this production will not even see opening night.

We SURE support our troops - NOT

by Ms. Julien in Miami

In returning home, the leaders and Marine infantrymen have chosen to break an institutional code of silence and tell their story, one they say was punctuated not only by a lack of armor, but also by a shortage of men and planning that further hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale and ruined the careers of some of their fiercest warriors.

Read it all HERE - from Common Dreams....

Why in the HELL Did I Have to Read About This in The Guardian (UK paper)!?!?!?

by Ms. Julien in Miami

But gee, didn't Lou Dobbs say tonight that things were GREAT in Afghanistan??

The UN's top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons.

Cherif Bassiouni had needled the US military since his appointment a year ago, repeatedly trying, without success, to interview alleged Taliban and al-Qa'ida prisoners at the two biggest US bases in Afghanistan, Kandahar and Bagram.

Read it all HERE.

The Right To Impose Christianity

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Julien's List friend 'Bean sent this over, from Salon...does this scare ANYONE out there who considers him or herself moderate?

The religious right worked itself into a righteous fury at "Justice Sunday," using the stalemate over judges to tar Democrats as enemies of God.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Michelle Goldberg

April 25, 2005 | One of the most telling moments of Sunday night's Justice Sunday rally and telecast came right after Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, bellowed, "We will be disobedient altar boys! We won't be told to shut up and give it over to the secular left! Who are they to say that I don't have a right to freedom of speech?"

At the rally, held at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., the crowd jumped to its feet, whistling and clapping. In the small Long Island, N.Y., Christian youth center where I watched Justice Sunday with a dozen or so believers, people murmured their assent, as if Donohue had bravely spoken truth to power. Apparently, many ordinary Christians believe that some nefarious "they" is saying that believers don't have a right to freedom of speech.

Almost everything uttered at the rally stoked this deeply held feeling of persecution, giving a righteous cast to some of the speakers' vows of vengeance. "Those people on the secular left, they say, 'We think you're a threat,'" said Donohue. "You know what? They're right." This brought laughter, and more cheers.

The message of Justice Sunday was that the Senate's filibuster of some of Bush's judicial nominees constitutes discrimination against "people of faith." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who delivered a speech by video, tried to distance himself from this inflammatory assertion, but his participation spoke much louder than the wan caveats offered in his remarks. He lent his authority and credibility to the parade of right-wing celebrities who are using the parliamentary stalemate over judges as an excuse to tar Democrats as, essentially, enemies of God.

Thousands crowded the megachurch in Louisville, while others watched via satellite in hundreds of churches nationwide. Still more tuned in online and through Christian TV and radio. They heard from Focus on the Family's James Dobson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, Watergate felon turned evangelist Chuck Colson and a handful of others.

For an hour and a half, these right-wing eminences spun a political line that was blithely untethered from reality. Priscilla Owen, for example, one of Bush's blocked judges, was held out by Frist as a jurist admired across the partisan spectrum. No mention, of course, was made of the words of one of her colleagues on the Texas Supreme Court, who accused her of an "unconscionable act of judicial activism" in a case dealing with a minor seeking an abortion. The godless leftist who hurled this charge was none other than Alberto Gonzales, now the attorney general.

In one case in which Owen dissented from the majority of the court in an abortion case, her colleagues, Republicans all, wrote that opposition to abortion "does not excuse judges who impose their own personal convictions into what must be a strictly legal enquiry."

What's fascinating, then, is that Owen, a judge known to put her politics before the law, is being held up as the cure for a supposedly ideological judiciary. For the orators at Justice Sunday, judicial activism in defense of biblical literalism is no vice.

Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, angrily recalled something that Judge Charles Pickering, one of the appellate court nominees that Democrats blocked, was asked during his hearings. "He was asked about something he said as president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention. He said, of all things, that Christians ought to base their decision making on the Bible ... that is normative Christianity! There's what it means to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and to be a Christian incorporated into the body of Christ!"

Of course, the concern about Pickering's comment at the hearings had to do with the implication that when the law contradicts his reading of the Bible, he sets the law aside. In the rhetoric surrounding Justice Sunday, though, expecting judges to put the law before their personal theology constitutes discrimination that threatens all Christians. "If it's Judge Pickering now, it can be you tomorrow," Mohler warned.

The language on Sunday was consistently apocalyptic. Dobson, the avuncular culture warrior, declared, "I think this is one of the most significant issues we've ever faced as a nation, because the future of democracy and ordered liberty actually depends on the outcome of this struggle." After all, the Supreme Court is responsible for "the biggest holocaust in world history" -- the legalization of abortion. "For 44 years, the Supreme Court has been on a campaign to limit religious freedom," Dobson said. He continued, "We do have a right to participate in this great representative form of government." From the way the crowd cheered, you'd have thought someone had told them they didn't.

Conflating the right to participate with the right to evangelize, Mohler said, "We are not calling for people to be moral, we want them to be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ."

That's a valid position for a religious figure to take, perhaps, but since Mohler also argued that Christians can't separate their public responsibilities from their spiritual obligations, it seemed as if he was arguing for the right of judges to impose Christianity. If so, the real problem isn't discrimination against "people of faith." It's the claim that "people of faith" have the right to discriminate.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer Michelle Goldberg is a contributing writer to Salon. She is working on a book about America's culture war to be published next year by W.W. Norton.

Watching Wal-Mart

by Pam

Not that you need yet another reason to keep your tush out of Wal-Mart... You already know about:
* child labor violations
* keeping workers under 30 hours so they won't qualify for health care
* discrimination against women
* support of legislation that would have put truckers on 16-hour shifts
* using undocumented workers
* quashing attempts at union organizing

Now there's an organization that's uniting the laundry list of this corporation's evil practices. Wal-Mart Watch is a newly-formed nonprofit organization aimed at reforming the business practices of Sam Walton's baby. I heard about it on NPR this morning while driving to work.

Its first effort, an ad campaign focusing on the retailer's abandonment of its "Buy American" business model.

Sam Walton’s bestselling autobiography is titled "Made in America". And as recently as 1994, company literature titled "Bring It Home To The USA" touted Wal-Mart’s commitment to American manufacturers saying "The Buy American program is both a commitment and a partnership." That was then. This is now.

...Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director Andrew Grossman said, “Wal-Mart may say ‘low prices’ but we’re here to ask, ‘at what cost?’ At the cost of America’s manufacturing base? At the cost of well-paying American jobs and the families, communities, and futures they support? Wal-Mart does more than simply exploit and profit from the outsourcing of American industry to China. With its unprecedented leverage in the retail sector and its relentless pressure on suppliers to slash their prices, Wal-Mart has actively forced the shipping of American jobs to China and elsewhere."

You can listen to an NPR story on it here. You can learn more about Wal-Mart facts and figures here.

Phelps fag-haters greeted with a big wet one in Albuquerque

by Pam

In this story, he was picketing in Sante Fe and Albuquerque, NM against the "sodomite whorehouses masking as churches," and "godless Sante Fe promotes itself as a vacation spot for fags and a fag festival." You get the idea. It gives us to try when The Rotting Cryptkeeper comes to Durham on May 6-7. (365gay.com):

Stunned that protesters were flashing hateful anti-gay messages to traffic along a busy street on the weekend, Chris Lucas had to pull over to join a counter-protest. Then, just as spontaneously, Lucas found a way to stun the protesters. The 31-year-old massage therapist and a man he just met locked in a passionate kiss just feet from the protesters.

"I know the protesters were shouting things at me, but I couldn't hear what they were saying," said Lucas, who is gay. "I had my eyes closed. It was actually kind of liberating to do this." The kiss was one of several creative responses to a demonstration by 20 members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. The group travels the country to rally against homosexuality.

"These young adults need to know there is a hell and there is a judgment day on which they will be judged for their sins," said church member Deborah Hockenbarger, 51. "We are trying to warn them about their filthiness. It is not OK to be a fag. God almighty says so."

Hockenbarger waved a sign that read: "Fags are worthy of death." Other church members took shots at Catholicism with signs that read: "Pope in Hell" and "Your pastor is a whore." They view the church as a pro-gay institution.

About 40 gay rights supporters reacted by waving white cloths they called angel wings, dressing up their dogs with slogan T-shirts, chanting or simply quietly turning their backs on the protesters.

...Jacob Phelps, the 21-year-old grandson of Westboro's pastor Fred Phelps, said his church teaches that God hates homosexuals.

"We wouldn't be here doing this protest if we hated people absolutely," he said. "What we're expressing is not our hate, it's God's hate. That's a pure hate. It's the only kind of hate allowed. I feel this is my obligation to God."

The Westboro Church began its anti-gay demonstrations about 15 years ago. Targets include churches — even conservative ones — that the congregation deems too soft on homosexuality and labels "fag-enablers."

Jessica Bachicha, 35, repeated the words of Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez who said the Westboro protesters weren't welcomed in this city. "We don't need them coming to pollute our city or state with hate," said Bachicha, a lesbian.

Poem: Sisters and Brothers

by STP

This blog, and several others, has been correctly and relentlessly addressing the attacks on the GLBT Community by the religious right in this country. The fear that homosexuality will rub off on straight people and cause some sort of "Sudden Gay Syndrome," would be laughable if it were not what so many believe.

The fear of gay marriage and the dismissal of love in any form it may take is tragic. I have had the good fortune to see gay couples in beautiful relationships, some with adopted children, and there is absolutely no difference between their bonds and the bonds of heterosexual couples. Given these observations, I wrote the poem, "Sisters and Brothers," this weekend. I hope you will give it a look.

Analysis:
The 21^st Century: Opus Four

by Dark Wraith

While the attacks of September 11, 2001, constituted a national tragedy of historic proportion, they also presented the neo-conservatives with a strategic opportunity of no less historic importance. Although conspiracy theories abound that link certain Right-wing interests to the criminal acts, no such stretch is needed to argue that the outrage against the United States correlated with an opening that has allowed an agenda—an agenda that had already been set forth—to be operationalized in the social, legal, economic, political, and military spheres of the country.

That the neo-conservatives used a national tragedy to bring about change is unarguable. That their effort has been successful is beyond question: America today is a neo-conservative construct in many ways. The economy has been transformed through a diminishing presence of government in the social service of America at the same time it looms large in the domination of the agenda of nations. Even those places in the world that reject American leadership as it now poses cannot avoid the consequences of the new and aggressive manner in which the United States poses militarily.

In terms of economics, the progressive use of world capital markets in the service of American needs that exceed its revenues from domestic taxation have slowly and inexorably re-aligned the geography of interdependencies. China is the most striking example: although its long-standing policy of enforcing an undervaluation of its currency has, for more than a decade, drained liquidity from other nations, it has been only during the Bush Administration, which has run massive federal budget deficits, that the dollars being drained from the United States have found an open channel for return by providing the funds to finance those excesses of spending over revenues from taxation. Absent the magnet those Chinese reserves of dollars have in returning to America as lendable funds, and the impact of those domestic trade deficits would have been considerably less, particularly on the outflow of American jobs to overseas markets, although that process had been on-going for some years, simply because of the undervaluation of the yuan.

But while the neo-conservatives have been wildly successful in implementing their agenda, the long-term goals that agenda has been designed to promote are far less certain in outcome. In the first three parts of this series, the agenda was set forth, presenting it as a plan whose implementation literally forces the rest of the world to parallel American neo-conservative methods and policies or be left crippled by American dominance of global trade and the military might to enforce that dominance. Critical to the neo-conservative model is the United States military, which must fully and effectively cooperate. As noted in Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of this series, that key alliance between the policy implementers and the military enablers has gone so far as a full and comprehensive document at the Pentagon, reported by The Wall Street Journal, which sets forth the specifics of how the U.S. armed forces will participate in bringing about a 21^st Century that achieves the neo-conservative objectives.

It is insufficient for those shocked or otherwise opposed to the neo-conservative plan for American empire to claim that it will not work merely because such long-range and detailed plans never do. The ambition of the plan, as set forth in the previous parts of this series, poses to reshape the world, the alliance structure of the United States, and the course of social, political, and economic development in virtually every nation-state on Earth. If such a plan goes awry for one reason or another, the failure will be more than a passing phase in future American history; it will, instead, be the beginning of a world entirely different from the one for which the neo-conservatives planned, as well different from the one planned by those opposed to the neo-conservatives. As the neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama described it, the "end of history" might well be nigh.

Twilight Scenarios
The documentation produced by the Project for the New American Century, and particularly the Pentagon document that specifies both domestic military and geo-political economic structures arising from the neo-conservative agenda, provides a sense of certainty about how events will proceed over the coming years and decades. Consequences will necessarily proceed from actions taken by the United States, and responses of both allies and adversaries will follow predictable, even inevitable, paths. While the documents do not address irrational responses by others, the sense of what constitutes rational response is narrow, and the consequences of any given response are well understood and always within the model's scope of readiness. It is in this way that the plan may have its deepest flaw: by setting a course that is already beyond rectification, consequences gain magnitude in ways that neither the political nor the military spheres of influence may be able to predict, much less manage while still maintaining the underlying goal of progressive American empire. What follows are examples of speculative scenarios that could derail empire while preventing a reasonable alternative course from being available.

Iran
The Middle East is, and has been throughout history, a powder keg of rival interests vying for geographic, religious, economic, and resource-control position. Over the millennia, small and giant armies have clashed in the cradle of civilization, empires have come, stayed for a while, and been driven out. The land is harsh, even as some of it is enormously valuable for its reserves of oil, and this resource will become even more worthy of violence as the world reserves of petroleum are depleted over the next half-century.

Iran is in the later stages of becoming a nuclear state, the third in the region to seriously attempt this transformation. Israel came first, with a successful, secret program that has now yielded a respectable stockpile, the very existence of which the Jewish State denies even as every country on Earth knows better. The second nation to attempt to build nuclear weapons was Iraq, starting in the 1970s. That country's program ended when Israel obliterated its production facilities in an aerial bombing raid at the beginning of the 1980s. The third country is Iran, which learned from the destruction of the Iraqi Osirak facility to conduct its program in hardened, underground bunkers that can withstand even a robust aerial assault with sophisticated, highly destructive, conventional weapons.

Even as the United States postures with a hint of military threat, all eyes are on Israel to destroy the facility. Even the Europeans, trying as they are to broker a means by which Iran can provide verifiable assurance that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, knows at this stage that nothing short of a bombing raid can stop the Iranians from becoming an openly declared nuclear state, one with its own ambitions of empire, considerable leverage through its oil reserves, and a far-from-fledgling capability in intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

Unfortunately, Israel may not have the conventional weaponry to destroy the Iranian facility and thereby set Iran's nuclear ambitions back for the foreseeable future. In fact, despite the United States propaganda about its own conventional, so-called "bunker-buster" bombs, highly effective generations of such weapons—models that could go deep enough and deliver enough kinetic energy to massively breach Iran's underground complex—are probably not in the arsenal at this time.

That leaves Israel with only one viable option if it wants to ensure the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program. Although Israel can certainly use conventional weapons to deliver massive damage to surface and even much sub-surface infrastructure at the Iranian nuclear weapons production site, to deliver the program-stopping blow, it would have far higher probability of success by using at least one warhead from its own nuclear arsenal.

Should this happen, Israel would earn the condemnation of a grateful world, even as it sustained attacks from a humiliated but militarily rather capable Iran. Fortunately, Iran has few friends, although it has a considerable number of dependents for its oil, and the price shocks in global petroleum markets would far exceed any lasting military conflagration. The United States, Europe, and China have all been harmed economically by recent surges in oil prices, and these were not even comparable in real dollars to the sky-high levels oil attained in the last Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s. With national economies as fragile as they are right now, the price shocks resulting from Iran striking out economically would be devastating; and the American economy would be spared none of the recession-inducing damage, as both businesses and consumers, unable to rapidly re-assemble expenditures away from fossil fuel-dependent lifestyles and production methods, withered under the staggering oil prices.

China
China is not ruled by stupid men. Its saber-rattling at Taiwan is largely for both domestic consumption and for longer-term positioning with respect to influence in world affairs. Should Taiwan declare its independence, however, China would be presented with the problem of having to follow through with military action consistent with its belligerent words. Although no one knows for sure, Taiwan is part of a nuclear axis that encompasses Israel and other nuclear states, and China would attack Taiwan at the risk of profound destruction visited upon its own cities. This would be especially true if China were to use its overwhelming forces against Taiwan, the classic scenario in which an outgunned nation uses its ultimate force. This possibility leads to the interesting scenario of China choosing, instead of a massive assault, to institute a military blockade of Taiwan.

While the United States for several generations has posed as an ally of the break-away island, its political and economic support of Taiwan has waned in favor of closer ties with the mainland. As the neo-conservatives see it, this is entirely consistent with long-term interests of the United States in the 21^st Century, in that the relationship between America and the People's Republic of China will grow into a military alliance that parallels the deep economic alliance the two huge nations already have.

This would, however, run at odds with some hard-line interests in the United States that would see China's attempt to strangle Taiwan as a revival of the Cold War, with a Communist state trying to wreck a democracy. Few in the United States care in any event, and Taiwan's openly committed allies around the world are few. And that puts Taiwan essentially in the same position it would have been in had China attacked with the full force of its military.

If Taiwan does, indeed, have nuclear weapons, it will undoubtedly lay waste to Hong Kong, thereby crippling not just the financial nerve center of China, but arguably one of the critical nodes of global financial trade. While a bit of justice might be seen in the annihilation of the personal banking system of China's corrupt gerontocracy, the consequences on the world's financial markets would be staggering and would touch deep into the pockets of the United States, which has become wholly and almost irrevocably dependent upon the free-flowing loans from China to finance a significant portion of its year-over-year deficits that are funding the neo-conservative transformation of both America and the world outside of America. In that way, then, a small country like Taiwan, either by deliberate calculation or foolhardy bravado, could throttle the money wellspring of the neo-conservative agenda.

But if Taiwan were the only problem that could arise from Chinese ambitions, there would be little to worry about, since a rough stalemate may very well continue for years between the giant and its rebellious province. Perhaps more troubling has been the recent escalation of rhetoric between China and Japan, the heated words coming mostly from China, which is using the pretext of admittedly awful, but nevertheless long-ago, offenses against it by Japan to make for some political mileage at home and some further political leverage at the United Nations. China has no desire to see Japan end up securing a potential new seat at the U.N. Security Council, and it also does not want recent, tentative moves toward re-militarization in Japan to become too serious. However, Japan has considerable economic power, and China could end up suffering severe punishment should Japan elect to quiet the Communist state down with a lesson in how years of China’s printing extraordinary excesses of yuan to peg its exchange rate could come back to haunt it.

If Japan so chose, it could put China in a terrible position from which a military option might appear viable. The United States would then be in an awkward position: under the neo-conservatives, the U.S. has demonstrated consistent inability to achieve diplomatic solutions to crises; thus, it would be forced either to do nothing or to resort once again to its military. In the latter circumstance, it would have to choose between an old, reliable ally in Japan and a new, powerful ally in China. Either option would be highly undesirable. While the United States simply cannot function without the financial help of China, neither can it afford to abandon Japan, which provides no small percentage of the funds that both the public and private sectors in this country borrow every year.

Hence, a stable, if unfriendly, situation between China and Japan will depend upon forces beyond the United States, but the success of those stabilizing interests will impact the American economy to an untold magnitude.

Economic Collapse and a Military Coup
Disturbingly, several years ago a fictional piece about a coup d'état by the United States armed forces was written by a military officer, and that work earned an award conferred by other military personnel. That such a concept would be openly offered by a standing military officer is troubling in and of itself, given the high value placed upon loyalty to civilian commanders by the U.S. military. That the story was honored by other armed forces personnel is of even greater concern; but it comports with other surprising signs of erosion of fealty to civilian command. The 2004 Presidential Election saw a decidedly strong, anti-Bush Administration stance taken on occasion by the Army Times, an unofficial publication widely read by both rank-and-file as well as higher military personnel.

Even though some fringe groups on both the Right and the Left have long warned of an impending military take-over of the U.S. government, among people better grounded in reality, that prospect is far-fetched to the extent of being unimaginable: it has never happened before; in fact, it has never come even close to happening before; therefore, it will never happen.

But the world is different, now. The United States is in the precarious position of running massive federal budget deficits that are funded by a continuing flow of capital that is earned by foreign interests through their imports to the United States. On the surface, this use of foreign investment can be blamed on the low savings rate of Americans, but that is a simplistic and worthless perspective. Essentially, by purchase low-priced imports, Americans actually are saving money, and that money is being deposited in the foreign reserves of other nations, which then—like any bank—lend a sizeable proportion of those funds to borrowers, in this case the federal government of the United States. In lieu of interest on these savings accounts, Americans are realizing compensation through the lower prices they pay for the imports they purchase. They reclaim the principal in these accounts by living in a situation of permanent leverage, both as households and as a nation.

This is how a banking system works, but it does so through heavy, sustained, and highly effective regulation by a central bank, which oversees the solvency and integrity of each and every member bank in the system. On the global scale, no such regulatory mechanism exists either to regulate or to coordinate, so the global system is left to the geographically limited management of nation-states, the weak oversight of such bodies as the G-8, and—most importantly—to the self-interests for profitability and survival of the member central banks in the system.

If this enormously complex structure were unable to manage a destabilizing crisis like one of those summarized above, the U.S. economy would rapidly feel the effects; and to say that they would be dire would be an understatement of grand magnitude. The inability of the United States to secure its borrowing needs at a series of Treasury auctions is unlikely: the Treasury will simply continue as it has recently in forcing the debt instruments off into private hands to handle as they can; but that means of raising capital has its limits, anyway; and if the world capital markets are simply incapable of or unwilling to provide all of the money the government needs, the system will break. The federal government will be forced to slash its budget to an extent that even the neo-conservatives could not abide because of the political backlash against them. The only temporary out they would have is if the Federal Reserve were to start printing money far in excess of the real growth rate of the economy, but this would induce a swift hyperinflation, since the past four years of excess money supply growth has already begun to show up in rising price levels. Boxed in by economic events uncontrollable and by what could turn into wholesale loss of confidence in and possibly rebellious actions by certain political and activist segments within American society, the United States military might have to step in to restore order.

The problematic part of this scenario is not the coup, itself, but the fact that the Pentagon is fully engrossed in the neo-conservative plan for American empire. That would mean the temporary take-over would be marked by something less than unanimity in the domestic military posture, for on one side would be that faction of the military dedicated to operationalizing global plans of neo-conservatism, and on the other side would be the faction that seeks a return to a far more traditional, if less ambitious, American political/military culture. And even though the Pentagon's neo-conservative hawks would rule the day in the short-run, a smooth transition back to civilian control of government would be less than assured as schisms within the armed forces could begin to emerge and disrupt a monolithic posture that would be critical to social stabilization and swift re-establishment of constitutional bindings.

One way or the other, though, the neo-conservative agenda would be ruined as the world's nations unraveled from each other into alliances that did not include the politically crippled and militarily pre-occupied pretender to empire in the United States.

Epilogue
The United States might well be the great empire of the 21^st Century. Naysayers and doomsday merchants notwithstanding, the neo-conservative project for the new American century could work, and it could work according to plan. As the United States shifts away from a social services society with emphasis on the production of consumer goods and toward a global power society with emphasis on the production of military/industrial goods, the other nation-states of the Earth could very well assume their roles properly, with Europe following suit to engage a friendly but contentious arms race, with China fully allying itself with the United States to carve up the world into de facto economic colonies, and with none of the minor players having the resources or the wherewithal to commit some grave miscalculation based upon a self-interest that would cause collapse of the world economy and that of the United States.

Twilight scenarios could be just as improbable in reality as they appear in print; and the outcomes of the neo-conservative plans could be just as favorable in reality as they are presented in print.

It remains for the reader, then, to decide which way to believe the future will turn and in so deciding, find comfort or fear in contemplating what lies ahead.




In the gathering night of Empire, the Dark Wraith has spoken.

David Broder Gets It Wrong

by John

I think David Broder is wrong:

Democractic Senate leadership should agree voluntarily to set aside the continued threat of filibustering the seven Bush appointees to the federal appeals courts who were blocked in the last Congress and whose names have been resubmitted. In return, they should get a renewed promise from the president that he will not bypass the Senate by offering any more recess appointments to the bench and a pledge from Republican Senate leaders to consider each such nominee individually, carefully and with a guarantee of extensive debate in coming months.

First of all, any suggestion of compromise that hinges on the Democrats placing trust in the Republicans not to do something is dead on arrival, in my opinion. The list of instances where this has ended badly for the Democrats is too long to get into now, but it's important to note that the President previously promised he would not get involved in this matter. But it was just two days ago that Cheney entered the fray, saying he'd vote to end the filibuster.

Secondly, Broder's suggestion that the Republican Senate leaders should pledge to "consider nominees individually, carefully and with a guarantee of extensive debate" is silly, because that's precisely what they should have done in the first place. Asking them to do so again only provides them cover for the next time they try to appoint judges that are outside the mainstream.

But it's not just that Broder is wrong, it's that he just doesn't get it:

Instead of sending a message that they do not trust their Republican colleagues' judgment -- and therefore feel justified in preventing a vote -- the Democrats would be saying to their colleagues and the country: We trust you to take your "advise and consent" duties seriously.

To write such a sentence, a person would either have to have been living in a cave for the last five years, or be a dishonest hack. Considering I've seen Broder on the teevee a few times over the last few months, I think the answer is clear. Particularly after this:

And they should feel such trust. The balance of power in the Senate is not in a right-wing cabal; it is in the moderate center. You can see that in the careful way the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is weighing the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. You saw it also in Senate debate on the budget resolution.

This misses the point entirely. The battle over the Senate filibuster is not about Senators having trust in their across the aisle colleagues. Instead, it has everything to do with checking the power and agenda of the Executive Branch. The fact that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even has to weigh the possibility of John Bolton for UN Ambassador is the real problem. It's about making sure that people with an agenda don't get placed in a position where their agenda becomes our agenda.

(cross posted @ blogenlust)

Justice Sunday

by Pam

Were HIV Positive Foster Kids Used As Guinea Pigs?

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Holy crap -

by Joe Gandelman, author of The Moderate Voice

A potentially big scandal is unfolding in New York City that — if proven true — has serious implications on two fronts.

The two-pronged allegations entail powder-keg charges that the city tested AIDS drugs on foster children and that if a foster parent objected the children were then placed elsewhere.

The New York papers have started breaking this story and if it isn't proven incorrect it could prove to be quite explosive. First, some tidbits from The New York Times:

The city's Administration for Children's Services has hired an outside research firm to investigate allegations that the city inappropriately put foster children into medical trials for AIDS drugs in the 1980's and 1990's and that foster parents who objected to the trials lost custody of the children.

The agency also said it would form a panel of national health care experts to review the findings of the investigation, to be conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York-based nonprofit research group. The agency's commissioner, John B. Mattingly, said he thought that children's services had acted appropriately but that he has asked for the outside investigation to allay concerns raised by some reporters and by a minority advocacy group. Most of the children in the trials were African-American or Hispanic.

"We are taking this step because, while we believe that the policies in place at the time reflected good practice, we acknowledge the need for transparency in all of our dealings with the public," Mr. Mattingly said. "For us to be effective in our mission to protect New York City's children, we must have a sense of mutual trust with those families we seek to serve."

Accusations that the city had allowed babies in foster care who were not perilously ill to be used in medical testing of AIDS drugs were first reported in The New York Post in 2004.

At the time, officials from the agency and from the hospitals where the trials had taken place said they had been legitimately conducted on only foster children dying of AIDS who had no other medical options at the time.

The Times' story gives Mattingly's explanations that nothing untoward happened. Some facts he offers:

The review by the agency staff, he said, determined that about 465 children had taken part in the trials between 1988 and 2001, with most participating before current treatments for AIDS became commonly available. He said that according to the records only two children were removed from foster parents who refused to undergo the trials and that both of those children had serious medical conditions that required treatment.

But Vera Hassner Sharav, the president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection says the agency can't be trusted to in effect investigate itself:

She said that documents filed with the federal government showed that many of the foster children were only presumed to have AIDS. "It's a hell of a thing to give a child toxic drugs when they are only presumed to have AIDS," Ms. Sharav said.

And it doesn't end there.

News-Medical.Net focuses on the outrage and includes these questions raised by New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright:

--Who made the decision to administer the drugs?
--How old were the children, and where were they from?
--Given that this program began in an era when people had yet to fully comprehend the how and why people contracted HIV, were the children made aware of what medications they were taking, and for what they were taking them?
---Given that medical science was not nearly advanced at the time this program began, was sound medical science utilized in administration of these drugs?
--Were the foster or birth parents made aware, and was permission given?

Meanwhile, the AP has lots of info on the controversy and offers this on what comes next:

The review also will examine whether the children fit the medical criteria to be included in the tests and if the enrollments were appropriate given the medical knowledge of the time, according to the ACS.

Mattingly said he did not believe that any children had died from their participation in the research.

He said investigators will try to find as many of the participating children as possible to assess their current medical condition, and the agency will also be reviewing records to see if there were more children who participated.

If you ponder this case, you can see that the key questions (as from the ones Wright raised) are these:

1. If this indeed happened, what kinds of drugs were tested?
   
2. Who ordered them to be tested?
   
3. Who specifically got the drugs?
   
4. What, if anything, resulted from the drugs? Did the drugs help or hurt these children? If so, specifically, in what ways?
   
5. What are the specifics — even if it only occured with one case — regarding any foster parents whose kids were removed because they would not agree to it? What do these foster parents (if they are still around) have to say under oath to investigators? Every effort should be made to locate them.
   

On a case like this there seem to be several possible outcomes.

It could turn out that this is a case of a group and some elected officials making allegations that prove to be overblown. Credibility is like oil in a well. Once removed, you can't put more back in.

Or it could turn out that for some 20 years foster kids were used as human guinea pigs and pulled out of homes where their foster parents wouldn't agree. The argument will then be made that the intentions weren't bad and that if the drugs succeeded millions of lives could be saved. But if the allegations are proven true then those arguments, we are sure, will tested extensively by some lawyers who could become quite rich.

Gay news roundup and incredible sh*t over at DKos

by Pam

UPDATE (8 PM): I'm moving the DKos stuff up to the top, because it's getting to me. What on earth possessed him to do this?

I-don't-know-what-to-think-about-this...
There is an ad appearing in the classified section of Daily Kos that is unfortunately real...(I took a screenshot it case it "disappears"). I've just gotten confirmation that BlogAds classifieds are indeed reviewed by the site owner and approved to run. There is no reason than Kos could have "missed" this; he chose to accept the money and run the ad. The almighty dollar cannot be worth shilling for a wingnut outfit, this vendor is called ShopMetrospy:



Looking up this outfit, I found this information:

ABOUT METROSPY
METROSPY, based in San Bernardino, CA is a designer and marketer of politically conservative apparel, gifts and accessories. The company"s target consumers are the growing number of young Republican conservatives ages 18 - 35. MetroSpy markets t-shirts, jackets and caps printed with edgy, often controversial political slogans. The company has recently added posters, wristbands and key chains to its product mix. MetroSpy currently employs 7 full and part time employees with annual sales of $500,000.

There's plenty more garbage on its web site, but I'm not providing a link to it here. Someone over at DKos needs to explain this sh*t pronto.

[UPDATE]: Shakes Sis comments on her blog with the following:

I don’t know whether Kos has to approve the ads that go on his site or not, but surely by now he or one of his writers has seen it. Is Kos’ opinion that money from his ads is worth more than preventing homophobic sentiments from running on the biggest Lefty site? Does this have anything to do with Kos’ curious assertion that gays “might or might not qualify for ‘minority’ status”?

This is pretty discouraging, I have to say. Although there’s some satisfaction to be gained knowing that a company like this is helping pay for Daily Kos, that the content of its ad includes what can only be described as a thinly veiled threat against gays (or was that odd juxtaposition between killing bugs and the rights of gay men just coincidence?) surely warrants its deletion.

I certainly hope that the ad is removed from the site.

I wrote Kos a few minutes ago (like I expect a response, but whatever -- I fear the big lefty blogosphere will circle the wagons on this one):

Kos,

Why on earth are you running a classified ad for [Metrospy's link]?

The text is profoundly offensive: "We don't have a problem with gays. They should have all the same rights as heterosexual men. They should be allowed to marry the woman of their choice."

I understand you need to pay for the site, but damn, don't you have standards? It's painful to see something like that running on a progressive site.

--Pam
www.pamshouseblend.com

***

Back to the news roundup...

This has been a tough week for the homos. We've gotten good news and bad news, but we're still here and we won't be quiet.

The Good

* Connecticut passes civil unions. The state became the first to legalize civil unions for gay couples without the prodding of a court. The State Senate voted 26-8 in favor of establishing civil unions giving same-sex couples all of the rights afforded married couples under state law, such as inheritance and hospital visitation. The law takes effect on Oct. 1.


* Spain nears approval of gay marriage. The bill, which also will pave the way for gay couples to adopt children, will now go to the Senate — where the Socialists have ample support — for final approval. Belgium and the Netherlands are the only two other European countries that have legalized gay marriages. Representatives of gay and lesbian groups cheered and applauded from the chamber's public gallery when the vote result was read out. The bill passed by a 183-136 vote, with six abstentions. Pope Ratz went apeshit and delivered his response via one of his homophobe lackeys.

* Virginia ordered to honor gay adoptions.The Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state must provide new birth certificates for children born in Virginia and adopted by gay couples in other states. The 5-to-2 ruling overturned a lower court's decision that the state is not required to issue new birth certificates for such children. The case was brought by three same-sex couples denied birth certificates for their adoptive children. The issue is co-adoption legal in some states but illegal in Virginia. Although it permits single gays and lesbians to adopt, Virginia does not recognize same-sex unions.

* Equality Forum in Philly will make the wingnuts crazy. The huge celebration,will commemorate 40 years of the gay rights movement on May 1. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) has approved a historical marker recognizing the area around Independence Hall as the site of the first organized and annual gay and lesbian civil rights demonstration. Fred Phelps will be going to demonstrate and has challenged Barney Frank to a debate on homos.

* Colorado gay rights bill moves forward. Legislation to make discrimination against members of Colorado's LGBT community passed the first of two Senate votes Thursday night. Going into the session it was unclear if the bill would have enough votes to carry, but the clincher came when Sen. Abel Tapia made a personal appeal, telling the chamber about the bias experienced by his own gay son. "Until you have that in your family and it affects you directly, don't be talking about 'abomination,' because I don't believe that's true," Tapia said.

* L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center asked Microsoft to give back its civil rights award. "Because of Microsoft's apparent capitulation to the demands of anti-gay extremists and withdrawal of support for a bill that would do nothing more than protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination, we believe it's no longer worthy of our highest corporate honor" -- Darrel Cummings, chief of staff for the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center.


The Bad and the Ugly


* Microsoft tosses gays overboard by withdrawing support for an anti-discrimination bill in Washington state. It would have banned discrimination against gays and lesbians in housing, employment and insurance -- and it failed by one vote Thursday in the state Senate. "We have exposed bigotry and prejudice," said Rep. Ed Murray, an openly gay Democrat from Seattle. "We didn't win today, but we will win." AMERICABlog has had extensive coverage of the damnable behavior by the $30 billion + company, which you should read. Blend posts are here, here, here, and here. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, released a lame email to attempt some butt-covering, but it's pathetically bad: "Ballmer said that personally, both be and Chairman Bill Gates supported the gay-rights bill. "But that is my personal view, and I also know that many employees and shareholders would not agree with me." he wrote."

* GOP Threatens DC Mayor Over Gay Marriage. Republicans in Congress have issued a veiled threat to DC mayor Anthony Williams that if his administration recognizes same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts or Canada the District could face a battle over funding. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) issued the warning after D.C. Attorney General Robert J. Spagnoletti issued a legal yesterday that legally married gay couples could file joint city tax returns. Williams told the Post that the D.C government "will have a decision soon" but declined to say whether the District would recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts or Canada.

* Alabama wants to ban any texts that "promotes" homosexuality. Never mind this is a completely subjective measure, but the dumbasses lawmakers considered a bill aimed at keeping books tolerant of homosexuality out of public schools. A despondent lesbian activist, Patricia Todd, told a House committee: "I feel you all hate us."

* Navajo outlaw gay marriage. The Tribal Council voted unanimously in favor of legislation that restricts a recognized union to that between a man and a woman, and prohibits plural marriages as well as marriages between close relatives. Critics have said the measure's sponsor, Del. Larry Anderson, was attempting to rewrite cultural history to parallel the clash across the United States between conservative Christians and gay rights activists.


* Texas wants to bar gays from being foster parents. The Lone Star State could become the only state to bar gays from becoming foster parents under legislation passed by its House. It passed 135-6 with two abstentions and now heads to the Senate. "It is our responsibility to make sure that we protect our most vulnerable children, and I don't think we are doing that if we allow a foster parent that is homosexual or bisexual," said Republican Rep. Robert Talton, who introduced the amendment.

More on Microsoft

by Shakespeare's Sister

There’s a lot of discussion going on in the blogosphere right now (see here for a start) about the reaction to Microsoft’s decision to “remain neutral” on the gay rights bill in Washington state. There are those who believe that after Microsoft has done a lot of good things for the LGBT community, a backlash over their position on a single piece of legislation is unfounded.

They are, however, wrong. And here’s why.

First, quite simply, I believe that if there were a piece of legislation proposing the rescinding of protections for people of color, or women, or people with disabilities, and Microsoft remained neutral, there would be no criticism of those who reacted with horror.

Secondly, regarding Microsoft’s assertion that they must respect the views of their religious employees and shareholders, the legislation itself was an anti-discrimination bill, which should not be controversial by any stretch of the imagination. Irrespective of one’s views on whether homosexuality is right or wrong, there’s no religious precedent for this type of discrimination. (I don’t see a national movement for adulterers, compulsive gamblers, inveterate liars, etc. to be denied equal employment, housing, or other opportunities, and I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that such legislation would discriminate against the majority of the members of GOP’s top echelon.) A basic understanding of the tenets of every major religion will easily confirm this contention—allegedly religious justifications for the continuation of slavery and the prohibition of interracial relationships were similarly rejected.

Thirdly, in response to those who suggest that social activism isn’t the responsibility of corporations, I would remind them that any time a corporation (or group of corporations) lobbies Congress for something like deregulation on pollutants or stricter bankruptcy laws, or against family leave or universal healthcare, that is social activism. Corporations are collectively one of the primary social activists in this country; it's just that they tend to be pro-corporate and anti-society. The redistribution of taxation is a primary example of that of which I speak. A century ago, the vast majority of federal taxes were paid by corporations; now the vast majority is paid by individuals. That is a massive societal shift. We didn't lobby for that—corporations did. And, as a matter of fact, corporations are currently engaged in a comprehensive lobbying effort against the eradication of the filibuster:

The country's leading business lobbying associations, close GOP allies in recent legislative efforts and political campaigns, have told senior Republicans that they would not back the Frist initiative to force votes on President Bush's judicial nominees.

Business leaders say they fear the move would lead to a shutdown of Senate action on long-awaited priorities…

Even as the dominionists have their panties all in a bunch with excitement over the nuclear option, which is itself social activism of the highest order, Big Business is busily trying to thwart it because they believe it will be bad for business. Corporate America is constantly engaging in social activism; whether one agrees or disagrees with their involvement in our legislative process is another issue altogether. The point remains that suggesting social activism isn’t the obligation of corporations ignores their decidedly eager participation as social activists on a regular basis.

Finally, should a community whose support Microsoft used (rather effectively) as a marketing tool not have a reasonable expectation to receive continued support in return? Of course the LGBT employees of Microsoft were given great benefits by the company, but every member of the community was used in Microsoft’s not-so-subtle marketing campaign to position itself as a progressive company, which was used in no small manner to both attract the best and the brightest from that very community as employees and the LGBT community as consumers—not a small market share when you consider their disproportionate representation in creative fields utilizing cutting edge technology. One might fairly note that the relationship between Microsoft and the LGBT community has been a mutually beneficial one—Microsoft was able to promote its progressive ideals on social issues concerning the community, and in return, members of the community were offered benefits (if employed by Microsoft) and the hope that other corporations would follow the monolithic Microsoft’s leads (if employed elsewhere).

If the LGBT community and their supporters don't vociferously stand up to those who would throw gays to the wolves for political expediency, it's likely to happen with increasing frequency. Most corporations are not as gay-friendly as Microsoft. If they see Microsoft taking the lead on abandoning gay issues without any notable backlash, what hope does the LGBT community have that the good things Microsoft has done, in terms of partner benefits, etc., will ever be extended by companies who have not already started down that road?

When Microsoft first decided to use its progressive policies as a marketing tool, they took on a responsibility to the LGBT community and an obligation to protect them against discriminatory legislation. When the richest corporation in the world takes you dinner then sticks you with the bill, you have a right to get angry.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Note to Pope Ratz: it's all about the coverup

by Pam

More in common than we ever thought.

Pope Ratz had no problem covering up for the pedophile priests in the faithful flock's midst; didn't he learn anything from a famous former U.S. president that the coverup is as bad as the crime itself? Wait, in the Catholic church's case, the actual events in question -- the sexual abuse of countless minors at the hands of spiritual and moral leaders of houses of worship -- are beyond the pale. This particular obstruction of justice makes Tricky Dick and his partners in crime look like choirboys. (Guardian):

Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret. The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

...The letter, 'concerning very grave sins', was sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that once presided over the Inquisition and was overseen by Ratzinger. It spells out to bishops the church's position on a number of matters ranging from celebrating the eucharist with a non-Catholic to sexual abuse by a cleric 'with a minor below the age of 18 years'. Ratzinger's letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been 'perpetrated with a minor by a cleric'. The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years.

It orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'.

'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.

Does the Pope have someone to break arms and bash kneecaps too? Not only is this thinking diseased and immoral, it is incredibly arrogant. The desire to hide the crimes is indicative of the admission of the gravity of the situation. Why was this man elevated, and why is the broadcast media participating in the pageantry and image-making of this Pope when it should be doing its job of reporting?

***



A reader over at my blog noted in the comments that the above headline also applies to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. He has been rushing to paper over his company's cowardly, politically motivated withdrawal of support for an enti-discrimination bill in Washington state this week.

It's too late Steve, your company messed with the wrong crowd; the coverup is just pathetic mewling.

Happy Justice Sunday!

by Shakespeare's Sister

On June 14, 1954, President Eisenhower signed a bill that added two words to the US Pledge of Allegiance: under God. Ever since, there has been a debate about adding those two words to what was designed to be a secular oath to the country. Today, however, I’m not concerned with those two words; I’m concerned about the other two words that are slowly being erased from the Pledge by those who are, in part, the architects of Justice Sunday. On Justice Sunday, I would like to remind those involved that when we pledge our alliance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, we are pledging to fight for liberty and justice for all.

Link:

Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith, a live nationwide television simulcast hosted by FRC Action, the legislative arm of Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family Action, will make its way into 61 million households in 44 states today.

We have had an amazing response because people of faith are realizing that actions in Washington have a direct impact on their lives in the heartland," said Tony Perkins President of FRC Action.

[…]

"This is not about faith, but a debate and fairness for people of faith, any faith."

Except, of course, people of faith, any faith, who believe in a strict separation of church and state, who believe that God endowed humans with free will and the right to choose one’s own path, who believe in the equality of all people, who believe that homosexuality is not wrong, who believe that even if homosexuality is wrong homosexuals still deserve equal protection and rights under the law, who believe that women have the right for final decisions over their bodies, who believe that sex can have other purposes aside from procreation, who believe that victims of rape and incest should have legal solutions to end pregnancies that may result, who believe that we live in a country that is meant to protect the religious freedom of people who practice all religious and people who choose not to practice religion at all, and who disagree with the limited, oppressive viewpoints espoused by Perkins and his ilk.

For all.

Faithful liberals and secular people of any political persuasion are not of concern to the perpetrators of a cynical maneuver like Justice Sunday, who have conveniently ignored the 95% of Bush’s judicial appointments already approved. The remaining 5% are not interested in championing justice for all, which is exactly why the dominionists behind Justice Sunday are so keen to create a furor over their blocked appointments.

For all means nothing to them, and nothing to their supporters, but it does mean something to me. To that end, here is my protest, and my solemn vow:

On Justice Sunday, I vow to passionately pursue true justice for all. I will fight for the rights of the oppressed and minorities. I will fight for people of every race, creed, color, ability, sexuality, gender, religion or lack thereof, class, and political affiliation to have a voice and a place in our democratic process, guided by the principle my rights end where yours begin. I will fight for an honest national discourse. And I will not be deterred by those who claim to have cornered the market on faith. I acknowledge the potential for goodness and wickedness in all people, and I will not bow to those who seek to harm any of my fellow Americans for any reason, even if they come carrying a cross and wrapped in a flag. The stars and stripes represent us all, and my voice will be heard. For all.

That flag, and all it stands for, represents a struggle for freedom, for equality, for the rights of all, and I’m taking it back. It’s my fucking flag, too, and it doesn’t belong in the hands of those who would ignore the two most important words in the oath which we use to pledge our allegiance to that for which it stands. Liberty and justice for all.

I believe in those words. To those who support Justice Sunday: do you?

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Grave Sinner

by John

Caption this.

(via AP)

(x posted @ blogenlust)

Let's Answer John's Question...

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Great post from Julien's List guest contributor "'Bean" in response to the many, many excellent posts on AmericaBlog about the Microsoft betrayal (there are too many to post here - just follow the AmericaBlog link above and you can see them all).

John - to respond to your question . . . .

I think Ohio is their final goal.

Ohio seems to be their giant "test market" for their agenda: remember the discussions here regarding how Ohio is changing starting here over a year ago?

What does my theory mean? What if the nation is to become Ohio?

It means:

(1) No Darwin in the public schools - their Great Maker (even as they themselves made that maker bereft of it's Catholic and Jewish roots; they embrace a tradition of their own making) made the world.

Science "proves" it, or so they argue. So Ohio took science out of science class. Who needs science when Jeeeezzuzz tells ya?

(2) No gays welcome - their 2002 changes to the Ohio Revised Code and the 2004 changes to The Ohio Constitution (the most Draconian in the USA) prove this attitude.

(3) No Non-Christians welcome. In Ohio, the city, county, and state offices show overt expressions of Christianity; especially when Christmas and Easter come to pass. Nobody else gets to express their religious sentiments - just the Friends of Ken Blackwell and the Ohio Restoration Project. Jews, Buddhists, etc. need not apply: they have no rights.

(4) Massive tax breaks for business in the name of "job growth." Given Ohio has lost the most jobs under Bush, that means, in reality, massive tax breaks for business in the name of moving that business to China or India.

(4 1/2) Massive "relaxation" in environmental rules - more breaks for business in the name of "job growth." Given Ohio has STILL lost the most jobs under Bush, that means, in reality, massive tax breaks for business in the name of moving that business to Mexico - so the business owners can argue the regulations in Ohio are still not sufficiently "relaxed."

(5) Higher unemployment. See 4 and 4 1/2.

(6) Higher gas prices.

(7) "Job retraining" to work at McDonalds.

(8) Faith-based anything and everything. Faith-based urination will shortly be mandated in bars (just kidding - I hope).

Which leads me to the following conclusion: WE ARE SCREWED

As the economy and social fabric (that "social fabric" was, after all, once provided by the government) decline, we will become the source of the blame.

We want science in place of faith because we are immoral secularists - as dictated by our homosexual practices.

We are greedy, single yuppies wanting high returns on our investments (all gays are well-to-do: ever watch 'Will and Grace?'): it is our fault companies are divesting of better paying jobs here to feed our hungry, bottomless portfolios.

We are ridden with AIDS, syphilis, and other illnesses brought about by our practices. Even Andrew Sullivan (bare-backing studfucker he is) will take blame because it's our drain on Medicare/Medicaid that is putting our "system in crisis."

Sure - this is hyperbole: but my point is I am reflecting John's comment back.

We *WILL* be blamed for everything. We will be blamed for we already *ARE* being blamed for everything.

I've been pushing the idea (very, *VERY* hard) that those of us on the progressive side of things need to move to Blue States *PRONTO*. If needed, we need to get help from our friends already in blue states to get the "Red Refugees" among us to blue havens, too.

Why have I been arguing that the "Red Refugees" need to relocate Blue?

Because the Microsoft event proves what I have suspected all along.

What I have suspected is: (1) the red-states are utterly past redemption at this point.

(2) the Blue States are under heavy assault and need *ALL* the help they can get.

What more evidence do you want now that our own long-time supporter has turned-tail???

In the short term, I have an even greater concern for those in Red States.

That concern is overt violence against gay-lesbian folk from far-right Christian radicals; the types who used to burn crosses and hang blacks.

Given such people are only one step away from power in many Red States, I expect to see murder, in the "Name of Jeeeezuz and Christianity" go unpunished because the murderer's friends sit in government and the courts.

When?

Possibly as early as this summer; summer seems to be the time for that kind of behavior (think "race riots" of the 1960s - but this time, we're the targets).

Just my two cents worth . . . .

'Bean

Ken's new Barbie

by Pam

Another bit of political P'shop brilliance from Mike Tidmus...


Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Pastor Ken Hutcherson.

I love Mike's headline - "Looks like Papa’s gotta brand new hag!" It's the damn truth. Check it out, especially the link to Operation Rebirth, a site dedicated to monitoring black churches with hostile positions on gay rights.

From the essay "Has the Black Church Failed the Same Gender Loving Community?" by Tuan N' Gai of Biazo Ministries:

Instead of giving us an atmosphere of affirmation, we are more often than not treated with hostility. We need to know that the same God that loved and brought "Big Mama" thus far is the same God that loves us and is carrying us through our tough times. We need to know that the same Bible that's being used to beat and bash our heads in, has words of comfort, encouragement, and inspiration for us. The same Word of God that most of the preachers of today use to kill us speaks to our many dilemmas and gives us victory over our issues, just like it does for everyone else.

So, HAS the Black Church failed the Black Same Gender Loving Community? In the ways that really matter…YES. The purpose of the church is to show the love of God to ALL people. The church's JOB is to behave like the Bible says Jesus did. He walked and taught unconditional love, and received whoever would follow Him. Instead, the church has become this elitist religious social club that it's become. Some have gone so far as to start HIV/AIDS ministries that offer testing and counseling. And that's a very good thing…FOR THEM! They stand to get hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate these "ministries". But what good does it do when they preach and teach that God hates the ones they are testing?

What's the Same Gender Loving Christian to do? I suggest seeking more affirming spiritual homes of worship where the TRUE love of God is being taught and displayed. There are churches out there that are not prejudiced. Churches that provide a safe place of worship for EVERYONE. Seek them out. We need to start supporting those who support us. Lend our gifts and talents to those who will in return nurture and edify us spiritually. We must empower ourselves, and stop giving our all to organizations that in their ignorance have proven to have failed us.

The site is a great resource for locating affirming churches and has a feature called "Is This Your Pastor," featuring reviews of recent anti-gay sermons, articles and books from pastors throughout the U.S.

Just a sample homophobic quote from a sermon:

"That's why you can't even walk right when you doin' that stuff. You hurtin' 'cause it ain't natural."


Don't forget to grab and use Mike's great Microsoft "Powered by Bigotry" logo.

What makes a woman?

by Lanoire

According to the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2005 (Senate Bill 51 and House Bill 356, if you're curious), it's the ova and the uterus and nothing else. The Act, which has been criticized for its possible effects on abortion law, has been referred to committee in both the House and the Senate. It contains this excellent definition:

WOMAN- The term `woman' means a female human being who is capable of becoming pregnant, whether or not she has reached the age of majority.

This definition of 'woman' was considered appropriate by both House and Senate. There are several interesting implications to this:

A. A female human being who is not capable of becoming pregnant does not qualify as a woman under this definition.

B. This definition implies that a woman is not, as any dictionary will tell you, an 'adult female human.' A thirteen-year-old female child is a woman if she has reached puberty. Fertility is the sole measure of womanhood, not maturity and the capacity to make one's own decisions.

C. This definition could be used in other laws if this bill is passed and signed.

All of this reminds me of the definition of 'woman' in Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, wherein infertile women were considered Unwomen.

(crossposted to Looking at the Stars)

Sin Alert!

by John

Jeb Bush will be the head of the US delegation at Pope Benedict XVI's inauguration on Sunday, and by the standards of the new pope, I'd like to condemn Jeb's participation in the Holy Communion.

Afterall, a Catholic politician consistently campaigning for capital punishment and unjust wars is guilty of grave sins. Any priest, including the pope, that might be confronted with such a politician must refuse to distribute Holy Communion. And it should go without saying, that any Catholic who votes specifically for such a politician because he or she holds a pro-capital punishment or pro-war position would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion.

So, go ahead and contact the Most Reverend John H. Ricard, S.S.J, the Fourth Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee, and demand him to uphold the standards of the Holy Father by denying Jeb Bush Holy Communion until he eliminates the death penalty, and denounces the war in Iraq.

Better yet, email Pope Benedict XVI and kindly ask him to deny communion to Governor Bush until he stops participating in such grave sins.

(cross posted @ blogenlust)

Naming Names...

by Ms. Julien in Miami

The tone of our country does make one think about the McCarthy era - and I am so sorry to think that those young enough not to remember it personally (including myself, at age 37), will most likely see - sooner than we think - family members literally pitted against family members.

Remember, those of you who say what they are doing to the "gay community" doesn't affect you ... if they can get into our bedrooms and personal lives, they will come after YOURS next. Complacency and apathy will be your biggest enemies, moderates - NOT the gay community.

Ms. Julien

'Ex-gay' quack reinstated on health care advisory panel

by Pam

Throckmorton says his reinstatement at Magellan confirms support for his contention that gays and lesbians can become 'ex-gay' with recommended 'therapies.'

Lest anyone doubt the power of social activism, here's another case of the Religious Reich having an effect -- they've forced the reversal of a decision by the country's largest mental health management company, Magellan Health Services, to boot 'ex-gay' advocate Dr. Warren Throckmorton from its advisory board.

The AmTaliban marshalled its forces to make hundreds of phone calls and e-mail messages Magellan received from bible-beaters, employers, and 'ex-gays' to put pressure on the company. The end result, of course, is that now he feels vindicated and that his policies have merit in the eyes of the general public. From the wingnut propaganda organ AgapePress:

In February, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D., was dismissed from his advisory position with Magellan Health Services, the largest mental health management company in the United States. His dismissal came about due to his views concerning sexual orientation and change -- specifically, his belief that homosexuals have the ability to leave that lifestyle and the right to seek help in doing so.

...The upshot of all that has happened, the psychologist says, "is that a very positive statement has come out of this from the company -- that a person has a right to explore a variety of therapies when they're grappling with sexual orientation issues."

...He believes this change of heart sends a message to those the mental health organization exists to serve -- particularly those who struggle with unwanted sexual feelings.

"I do think that it's a great support for people who have changed," Throckmorton says, "and for people who have often been told that they don't exist. Here's a company saying that people in that position have a right to choose that kind of approach if that's what they desire." The professor is pleased with Magellan's decision to invite him back on its advisory panel and notes, "This is a good move to get the focus back on providing quality mental health management."

These are mental health professionals? This therapy is not about medical science.

The list of resources on Throckmorton's web site is a laughable one, containing the usual quack suspects -- fundamentalist/evangelical ministries: Exodus Youth, New Direction for Life, Regeneration, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays. 'Ex-Gay' mill Regeneration, for example, is religious program endorsed by James Dobson and Chuck Colson.

Wayne Besen's excellent Anything But Straight exposed the hypocrisy, scandal and lies perpetuated by these ministries, including details on a professed "cured" leader of the movement photographed by the author cruising in a gay bar. Two of the founders of Exodus, Gary Cooper and Michael Bussee, actually fell in love, divorced their wives, and eventually held a commitment ceremony.

Read earlier posts on this 'ex-gay' nonsense:

* "Ex-Gay" and in absolute denial. A post on two articles forwarded to the Blend published in Christianity Today that were deeply disturbing. Both involve people that have felt such self-loathing about their sexual orientation that they have created tortured arguments about what is to blame, and what is the solution. These folks have experienced dysfunction in their families or were in the grips of addictions that overwhelmed them, but they point the finger at their orientation as the root cause or an outgrowth of their negative emotional experiences.

* Head of Mormon church: "Gays have a problem". The Mormons don't want you to know that they have unfortunately played a role in practice of "reparative aversion therapy" to rid gay Mormons of their homosexual orientation.

* Crisis line refers gay youth to discredited Exodus "Ex-Gay" ministry. If you're a teen, scared and calling a hotline for support in coming out, here's where you don't want to call. The Right is now using subterfuge to reach out to vulnerable gay people with the "condemnation and conversion" approach, steering them to the discredited "ex-gay" ministry Exodus International

* An "ex-gay" ministry in my own back yard.... I had no idea about this local (Raleigh) crap ministry, Beyond Imagination. It's Exodus-affiliated as well.

* 'Ex-gay' leader expelled from counseling group. Richard Cohen, president of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (P-FOX), has been booted out of the American Counseling Association for unethical conduct.

* 'Ex-Gay' & 'Everstraight' Student Clubs promoted at schools. P-FOX is attempting to counter gay-straight alliances with this crap. "The purpose of an ex-gay & everstraight club is to provide a safe environment for all students to discuss alternatives to homosexuality and find ex-gay resources. Clubs can be started by students who have never been gay (everstraights), ex-gay students, and those struggling with unwanted same sex attraction."

The brass balls of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center

by Pam

"Because of Microsoft's apparent capitulation to the demands of anti-gay extremists and withdrawal of support for a bill that would do nothing more than protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination, we believe it's no longer worthy of our highest corporate honor,"


(via AMERICABlog): I want the Democratic Party to see what brass ones look like -- they need to grow some. This pair goes to the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, which asked Microsoft to give back its civil rights award. The $30+ billion company earned its award four years ago because it offered benefits to same-sex couples since the early 1990s. The goodwill was blasted away by the Redmond-based computer behemoth when it withdrew its support of a bill that would have outlawed discrimination against gays and lesbians in Washington State.

The bill failed by one freaking vote.

NOTE: The initial thought was that, as improbable as it may seem, an unknown outside WA wingnut preacher rolled MS with a threatened boycott. At this stage in the political game, wingnuttery has been known to roll more than a few politicians and companies. Another interesting and plausible theory, promoted by Chris Patil of Marching Orders, is that the company's a 2.2 million square foot expansion plans required support by senators, and MS bought off their support by going "neutral" on the rights bill:

It never seemed right that Microsoft, which has been decorated by LGBT organizations for its support of gay rights in the workplace and in society at large (link mine: Waveflux), would have reversed itself because of hassling by one ornery preacher - if that were how it worked, and individuals had that much power over the corporate giant, Bill would have fixed the security holes in Windows a long time ago.

What if the conservative preacher was a red herring, and instead, Microsoft bargained away its support for the gay rights bill in exchange for the future support of key Senators for the expansion project?

The bargaining could have occurred either actively on Microsoft's part (e.g., Microsoft approaches socially conservative opponents of the expansion and offers them a trade) or less voluntarily (i.e., social conservatives approach Microsoft and make them an offer they can't refuse, threatening opposition of the expansion project unless Microsoft pulls support for gay rights legislation).

This makes sense, but MS still has it's softies in a vise because Brad Smith, Microsoft's top attorney, admitted to Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, the bill's openly gay sponsor, that the company was feeling pressure from Rev. Hutcherson and was concerned about how Christian employees might react if it supported the bill.

In either case, the damage is done. I hope the Microsofties sleep well at night, knowing they just tossed gay rights overboard.

Why is Hugh Hewitt Taken Seriously?

by John

Do people actually take Hugh Hewitt seriously?

I see losses for Senators Chaffee and Snowe if they desert on the filibuster because I read my mail and get calls from across the country every day--mail and calls that are flowing in from serious supporters and contributors to the GOP and enthusiastic participants in the Bush-led victories of 2000, 2002, and 2004. Not only are they dismayed with the dithering of GOP senators, they are not willing to sidestep battles over first principles, especially when they understand that underlying the filibuster argument is an effort by the left to define "mainstream" to exclude the very center of American tradition and politics.

There's that all powerful Left I keep hearing about. It's amazing how much power they have when they don't control the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branch of the government. Imagine what they could do if they actually won elections!

Unfortunately, Hewitt keeps going:

Understand that Senate Democrats will certainly define every faithful adherent to Benedict XVI's teachings as "outside of the mainstream," just as they have defined Focus on the Family's James Dobson as "outside the mainstream," a laughable indeed risible assertion for anyone with even a surface knowledge of American religious practice or Focus' reach here and abroad. This amazing transformation of the party that once represented devout immigrant Catholics by the tens of millions is astonishing and troubling. It is not acceptable to most Americans to be defined as "outside of the mainstream," and the GOP is defending much more than its judicial nominees when it engages in this battle.

Interesting that Hewitt juxtaposes Pope Benedict XVI and Focus on the Family, particularly in light of this:

Salazar responded Thursday with a terse letter to Dobson. In it, he defended Senate colleagues of various faiths, and he called on Dobson to repudiate a Focus board member who once referred to Catholicism as "a false church."

The board member, R. Albert Mohler Jr., said Thursday he stands by the comments he made in March 2000 on the cable news show Larry King Live.

"I believe that the Roman church is a false church and it teaches a false gospel," Mohler said at the time. "And indeed, I believe that the pope himself holds a false and unbiblical office."

In other words, the world's 1.1 billion Catholics are fools, and a group of religious extremists in Colorado the Senate Democrats define the mainstream.

Again, do people really take Hewitt seriously?

Bolton will never be 'Boss of the Year'

by Pam

The Chimperor urged the Senate to 'put aside politics' and confirm "Massa" John Bolton to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bush opened a speech about his Social Security plans with a personal plea on behalf of the marginally sane Bolton, whose nomination is in doubt due to allegations of abusive behavior the White House says are being trumped up by Democrats. (Jason Reed/Reuters).

"Brusque, arrogant, abusive." One of the relevent reasons people think John Bolton isn't qualified to be an ambassador to the United Nations is that he's a freaking psycho embarrassment. Everyone at one time or another has worked for a bastard like him or knew someone equally unhinged in the workplace. It's good to see these type-A blowhards exposed for what they are. Results matter, but creating a culture of fear in the workplace is not the best motivator -- it certainly isn't on the international diplomatic stage. (USA Today) :

Carl Ford, the former chief of intelligence and research at the State Department, told the committee Bolton was a "serial abuser" of low-level employees and a "quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy." Melody Townsel, a businesswoman working on a government contract in Moscow in 1994, said Bolton, sent to persuade her to withdraw a complaint about lack of funds, threw a tape dispenser at her and made remarks about her weight and sexual orientation.

or how about these management techniques...

"Mr Bolton chased me through the halls of a Russian hotel, throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and genuinely behaving like a madman," she wrote.

"Mr Bolton then routinely visited me to pound on the door and shout threats."

I don't know what part of that is "trumped up," Chimpy, but then maybe you like it when Daddy Cheney gives you a little discipline.

Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar blasts Focus on the Family

by Pam

• "I think that the way Focus on the Family and the conservative right wing is attempting to take the country will threaten the basic cornerstone of our freedom."
- Sen. Ken Salazar, who says evangelical Christian leaders are trying to turn the U.S. into a theocracy

• "This is not about Catholicism. This is about an effort in the Senate to block people of faith and also people with conservative views. It's not just those with Christian views."
- R. Albert Mohler Jr., of James Dobson's Focus on the Family on Salazar's criticism of the group

Things are heating up as Justice Sunday approaches. It's getting really ugly; it's like something out of a bad movie at this point. (RockyMountainNews):

...it has escalated into a brawl in which the sides are trading shots over whether the U.S. Senate is anti-Christian and whether Focus on the Family is anti-Catholic.

A political arm of the Colorado Springs-based ministry has mounted an aggressive ad campaign against Salazar and senators from 15 states. It is pressuring them to scrap filibuster rules that have allowed Democrats to block a handful of controversial judicial nominations.

Salazar, a Democrat and lifelong Catholic, blasted the ads on Wednesday, saying Focus on the Family was "hijacking" Christianity and becoming an appendage of the Republican Party. The ministry reaches millions of evangelical Christians through the leadership of its founder, James Dobson.

"I think the kind of attack that is being used against (Democratic senators) and against me has the potential of moving our country to abandoning the freedom of worship which we enjoy in this country, and moving toward the creation of a theocracy," Salazar said.

After his first verbal barrage on Wednesday, a Focus on the Family spokesman said Salazar was aligning himself with Democratic senators who allegedly showed an anti-Catholic bias in rejecting one of the appeals court nominees, former Alabama attorney general William Pryor.

Salazar responded Thursday with a terse letter to Dobson. In it, he defended Senate colleagues of various faiths, and he called on Dobson to repudiate a Focus board member who once referred to Catholicism as "a false church."

The board member, R. Albert Mohler Jr., said Thursday he stands by the comments he made in March 2000 on the cable news show Larry King Live. "I believe that the Roman church is a false church and it teaches a false gospel," Mohler said at the time. "And indeed, I believe that the pope himself holds a false and unbiblical office."

Pope Ratz is right out of the gate slamming gays

by Pam

The Pope's family policy buttboy Cardinal Trujillo says the possibility of gay marriage in Spain is "profoundly iniquitous." For those Freepi and trolls out there, the word means "wicked because it is believed to be a sin." (Pope Ratz photo illustration by "evilgenius" Doug at Reality Stick).

Friends and colleagues said the world had yet to see the warmer side of a man who has been dubbed in the Italian press as the "panzer cardinal" and "God's Rottweiler." "You will see that his personality will surprise many, a great many people. It will surprise them because of this slightly caricature-like image that people have of the cardinal he was."
-- Spanish Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo

Just as the Vatican was spinning to the world that we would see his soft side, out comes this hotheaded gay-bashing commentary from Ratz's lackey, following Spain's move to legalize gay marriage. (BBC):

Pope Benedict XVI has responded firmly to the first challenge of his papacy by condemning a Spanish government bill allowing marriage between homosexuals. The bill, passed by parliament's Socialist-dominated lower house, also allows gay couples to adopt.

The head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council on the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, denounced the legislation as profoundly iniquitous.

Interviewed in the Italian newspaper, Corriere de la Serra, Cardinal Lopez Trujillo said the Church was making an urgent call for freedom of conscience for Roman Catholics and appealing to them to resist the law. He said every profession linked with implementing homosexual marriages should oppose it, even if it meant losing their jobs. The cardinal insisted that just because something was made law it did not make it right.

Let's see, might some of the following be described as iniquitous? A church that:
* covered up for pedophiles in the priesthood
* has a former member of the Hitler Youth as a Pope
* has a record of past coziness with Nazis -- Ratzinger's spiritual mentor, Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber dined with the Führer at Hitler's mountain retreat
* facilitates the death of millions in Africa from AIDS because of it cannot reconcile its stand against condom use with public health.
* thinks women have no place in the leadership of the church

And the list goes on and on. His words ring hollow.

Ready to Rumble

by Shakespeare's Sister

Normally, I don’t do this, but because this is an important issue, as it very well could be indicative of a very unsettling sea change, and because John Aravosis covers so many important issues here, including explaining what Microsoft’s role in similar situations has been in the past, I’m going to repost one of his posts in its entirety (his emphasis throughout). Some additional comments of my own follow at the end.

* * *
Microsoft caught lying to New York Times about abandoning gays
by John in DC - 4/22/2005 12:27:00 AM

What a bunch of pigs.

Here I am getting all sorts of tips that this was all a big misunderstanding and that Microsoft would issue some wonderful statement shortly, and then I look at tomorrow's New York Times, and what do I read? One big fat lie after another.

Per the NYT:

Microsoft officials said that the meetings with the [anti-gay religious right] minister did not persuade them to back away from supporting the bill, but that they had already decided to take a "neutral" position on it. They said they examined their legislative priorities and decided that because they already offer extensive benefits to gay employees and that King County, where Microsoft is based, already prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, with a law as stringent as what the state bill proposed, they were focusing on other legislative matters.

Excuse me? Well if that's your rationale, that you don't need to support gay rights legislation when your employees are already covered by your own company policy, then why did you support the state legislation LAST YEAR when your employees were ALREADY covered by your company policy back then? Or were you wrong all these years to support gay civil rights legislation?

And why do you NOW support the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that would protect gays nationwide from on-the-job discrimination, since your employees are already protected from anti-gay discrimination by your own company policy? Are you planning to pull your support from ENDA now too? Or are you going to stay on ENDA and prove that you just lied to the New York Times about not supporting civil rights bills when your employees are already covered?

And you got an award from the LA Gay & Lesbian Center a few years back for, among other things, fighting anti-gay ballot initiatives. Well, call me crazy, but those initiatives wouldn't have revoked any job protections YOUR employees get since your own company policy already covers them. So are you going to pull your opposition to the anti-gay ballot initiatives in the future too? And if so, when we do get our award back?

And by the way, what does the fact that your county has a gay rights law have to do with anything? Your employees are covered by your company policy regardless of the county law, so why does that factor into your opinion on the state law? Your response is simply bizarre.

There's more:

"Our government affairs team made a decision before this legislative session that we would focus our energy on a limited number of issues that are directly related to our business," said Mark Murray, a company spokesman. "That decision was not influenced by external factors. It was driven by our desire to focus on a smaller number of issues in this short legislative session. We obviously have not done a very good job of communicating about this issue."

Mr. Murray added that company officials had met twice with Dr. Hutcherson but that it was "long after our decision to focus on a tighter legislative agenda."

”We're disappointed that people are misinterpreting those meetings," he said.

Yes, well we're disappointed that you just confirmed what we've been saying for the past 24 hours. You used to support the gay rights legislation and now you don't. Spin that, Sherlock. And you're admitting that this is part of a larger change in strategy by which Microsoft will focus more closely on what matters. And clearly, we are not what matters any longer.

Then State Representative Ed Murray, an openly gay Democrat and sponsor of the bill, catches Microsoft in a bold-faced lie:

But Representative Murray said that in a conversation last month with Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel, Mr. Smith had made it clear to him that the company was under pressure from the church and the pastor and that he was also concerned about the reaction to company support of the bill among its Christian employees, the lawmaker said.

Excuse me? The reaction from the "Christian" employees? What kind of bigoted comment is that? Newsflash, Microsoft: The religious right doesn't represent all Christians, thank you very much. Speaking as a Christian myself, lots of your "Christian" employees are surely pro-gay and support the bill, and even some of those "Christians" are actually gay themselves. It is unbelievable this man has these Neanderthal views on religion and sexual orientation and he's the freakin' general counsel of Microsoft?

And more:

Mr. Smith [the general counsel] would not comment for this article.

Mr. Murray [the good gay state rep.] said that in a recent conversation with Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith said that the minister had demanded the company fire Microsoft employees who testified this year on behalf of the bill, but that Mr. Smith had refused. Mr. Smith also said, according to Mr. Murray, that the minister had threatened to boycott the company if it did not withdraw its support for the bill and that the company was going to take a "neutral" position on the bill this year.

According to Mr. Murray, Mr. Smith said "that while he did not do the many things that the minister had requested, including firing employees who had testified for the bill, he believed that Microsoft could not just respond to one group of employees, when there were other groups of employees who felt much different."

Oh really? Then I assume Microsoft is equally sensitive to its evangelical employees who believe that their Jewish employees killed Christ. Then there are those employees who hate blacks, of all the thousands of employees you must have a few - does Microsoft make policy decisions based on the opinions of employees who feel differently about "Negroes"? Or does Microsoft now have a double standard on prejudice? Jews and blacks good - gays, not so much, or at least open to debate.

And, last time I checked, the evangelical employees have federal civil rights protections based on religion, so in fact, the two groups are not equal - unless Microsoft now plans on coming down as "neutral" on the freedom of religion? That should be fun.

Here's more from the state rep:

"My refrain back to him was that this is a historic moment, that I only had a few weeks and I wanted Microsoft to do the right thing, to support an issue of justice, an issue of justice of concern to the huge number of his employees who happen to be lesbian and gay," Mr. Murray said. "Their concern, he said, was that obviously they were hearing from fairly conservative employees who were connected to this minister. They needed to sort out how they were going to deal with those problems."

Mr. Murray said the company's contention that the decision not to support the bill had nothing to do with the Christian church was "an absolute lie."

A Microsoft employee who said he attended a meeting this month with Mr. Smith and about 30 employees, most of them gay, said that Mr. Smith discussed his meetings with Dr. Hutcherson and left the impression that the company was changing its policy on the bill as a result of those meetings.

"Brad was very clear that the decision to be neutral on the bill was made subsequent to his meeting with Ken Hutcherson," said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the company. "My gut feeling is that the pastor and his threat of a boycott and the general sensitivity around this issue was a factor in this decision."

He added, "At the meeting, what Brad told us was that Microsoft made its decision on the bill between the first and second meetings he had with Hutcherson."

Yep, Microsoft lied. And continues to lie to spin and spin and spin this story rather than come clean and admit it. They screwed us, and it wasn't a mistake. It was a corporate decision reached at the highest levels and they stand by it. They threw us to the radical right dogs and now are risking every other company in America withdrawing its support for our civil rights legislation as well.

Thanks for nothing, Microsoft.

EPILOGUE

Gang, this is a big deal. There is no other way to cut it than Microsoft has decided to back off of its previously staunch defense of gay rights. NO other way to cut it.

Sure, they've been great on gay stuff in the past, and they're now signaling that those days are over. They're more concerned now with focusing on their business. Well what we're they doing before? Supporting gays just for the hell of it?

And the bigger impact, which remains to be seen, is whether Microsoft now chucks us overboard at the national level and if other companies start to follow suit, following the corporate leader, as it were.

Microsoft should be ashamed of itself. And we should consider this a warning. It is no longer safe in America to be gay - or liberal for that matter. We've taken our rights for granted. And now they're being taken away, and our friends are being taken away by an ever-growing climate of hostility fed by an extremist administration and their Sieg Heil friends in America's Taliban.

It's time we started fighting back, and fighting back hard. It's time we took the gloves off and stopped playing nice. You're either with us or you're against us, as our enemies like to say.

Microsoft has chosen its side.

Have you?

* * *
Yep. And it isn’t Microsoft I’ve got my sites set on. I’ve got bigger fish to fry. And I’m done dancing around. I’m calling it like I see it: There’s an entire network of sick fucks who want to legislate the oppression of gays and women under the guise of religion. They’ve hijacked the term “Christian” for their own, because it makes it harder to attack them, but there’s nothing Christian about what they’re doing, and there’s nothing American about what they’re doing, either. They stand under the cross and wrap themselves in the flag, and then they look at people like me and tell me I shouldn’t have control over my body or whether I procreate, and they look at people like Mr. Furious and tell him he shouldn’t have equal rights. I know plenty of Christians and plenty of patriots who disagree.

It’s on, motherfuckers.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Soulforce, Falwell, and the Rotting Cryptkeeper

by Pam

Rev. Mel White was a former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson that put himself through over $100K of therapy, electroshock treatment and even exorcism to "rid" himself of his homosexuality. It didn't work. When he reached peace with his orientation, he reached out to others struggling with their faith and identity by founding Soulforce.

The group plans an 'equality ride' to Falwell's Liberty University on Monday to speak with students at the conservative, religious institution and to meet with students that "are forced to live closeted lives."(DailyPress.com):

"We're concerned about the treatment of students at Liberty," Jake Reitan, director of youth programs for Soulforce, said Thursday. "We're going to bring Falwell letters from (gay and lesbian) students who are in the college and show him the problem that exists now."

Reitan said about 60 students from a dozen other Virginia colleges and universities will arrive at Liberty by bus at 9 a.m. to spend the day talking to Liberty students about sexual orientation and gender identity. Soulforce, also based in Lynchburg, plans a news conference at 1 p.m.

"Liberty's gay and lesbian students are forced to live closeted lives, always fearful that if found out they will be expelled with their transcripts locked and their tuition lost," Reitan said.

Liberty officials did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press, but said in a statement they were aware of Soulforce's plans to make an "uninvited visit."

Mel White also has some interesting things about our friend Fred Phelps. In another article at csindy.com, he gives a clearer picture of where the man is coming from (not that it helps any):

Indy: What about Fred Phelps, of "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for 9-11" fame, who is planning to come back to Colorado Springs while Soulforce is here? One of their announced stops is in front of Focus on the Family to protest the ministry's empathy for gays.

MW: I spent an hour and a half, two hours, with Fred in his office in Topeka and talked to him about his theology. He believes that God wants homosexuals dead. And any kind of tolerance, any kind of discussion less than that is not fulfilling the call. So [according to Phelps] anybody who says anything less than what the Bible says -- and the Bible makes it clear that a man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed -- is a traitor to the Bible and should be executed.

So Phelps is an extremist, but he gives this insight into the stealth of people like Dobson who say they're biblical literalists but then refuse to go all the way. Phelps says that while Mel White is obviously doomed to death, Dobson, just by being a selective literalist, is also dooming himself because he's not taking the stand that homosexuals should be killed.


Mel White of Soulforce is an "old fag preacher," according to Fred Phelps."

Indy: Why did you spend two hours with this man?

MW: Because nonviolence demands that we take our enemies seriously, that we hear them. Fred Phelps has an earned Ph.D., he has a major library in both Greek and Hebrew texts, he is a long-term biblical scholar who, like John Calvin, is consistent. He has gone all the way with those texts; he takes them literally. So I wanted to see really whether he was a nutcase or whether he had an analyzable theology, and he does. He's very articulate.

Indy: So how did the conversation go? I'm trying to envision it ...

MW: Oh man, he was concerned about my soul and I'm concerned about his. For me, the Bible is not inerrant, the Bible is inspired and trustworthy in all those areas to which it was called to speak -- but it's not trustworthy in terms of science.

[Phelps] and I debated all these issues that a literalist would debate with a person like myself, who loves and respects [the Bible] but isn't a literalist. So we had a great time, and then I went out and held up signs in front of his place saying, "God loves fags, God even loves Fred Phelps."

Special Announcement:
The Compleat Bloggrrrlz Gallery

by Dark Wraith

Big Brass Blog, in association with The Dark Wraith Forums, is proud to announce that the Bloggrrrlz Gallery slate of blogs has now been completed. That's right: the very best blogs by women can now be read at one meta-site portal where you can spend a minute, an hour, or an entire day working your way across the freshest, most dynamic, most interesting voices in the Blogosphere. If you haven't visited the Gallery yet, you have no idea what you've been missing. Creative coding architecture makes the Bloggrrrlz Gallery something unique on the Web. We think you'll agree.

Although every effort has been made to include all of the best of the women bloggers, if you know of one we've missed, send Shakespeare's Sister an e-mail message. Also, if your blog is already in the Gallery and you would prefer that it be removed, just drop us a message; we'll pull it immediately.

And finally, if you like the Bloggrrrlz Gallery, let us know; but more importantly, let other people know. In fact, you can put the Bloggrrrlz logo link on your own blog by copying one of the following two code snippets into your sidebar:

For a black background logo, use this snippet:
<a href="http://dark-wraith.com/bloggrrrlz.html" target="_blank" title="The Bloggrrrlz Gallery"><img src="http://dark-wraith.com/bloggrrrlz/images/bloggrrrlz3.png"></a>

For a white background logo, use this snippet:
<a href="http://dark-wraith.com/bloggrrrlz.html" target="_blank" title="The Bloggrrrlz Gallery"><img src="http://dark-wraith.com/bloggrrrlz/images/bloggrrrlz2.png"></a>

And be sure to visit the Gallery regularly.



The Dark Wraith insists.

Spain nears approval of gay marriage and adoption

by Pam

Gay rights campaigners cheers as the vote was read out.

Yes, while the American Taliban and its friends like Microsoft are supporting the cultural regression in the U.S., Spain is about to join other civilized countries that recognize gay relationships. (BBC):

Spain's lower house of parliament has approved the right of homosexual couples to marry and adopt children.

The government-backed bill now passes to the Senate, where it is expected to get final approval in the coming weeks. The opposition centre-right Popular Party voted against, saying that gay relationships fall outside the traditional institution of marriage.

...Under the proposed bill, Spanish Civil Law would include the phrase: "Matrimony shall have the same requisites and effects regardless of whether the persons involved are of the same or different sex."

Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar argued that the bill overcomes "the barriers of discrimination, many of them with deep historical or primitive roots, which affect rights and freedoms and, in a specific way, the extension of free choice in the search for happiness, an unwritten basic right".

The vote in parliament was passed by 183 votes, with 136 against and six abstentions.

Injudicious Rhetoric

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Thanks to Julien's List co-contributor Holly for sending this. We need to be very, very afraid at what is happening and what WILL happen if the last leg of our government becomes "free" of checks and balances...

The federal judiciary has an enormous impact in shaping life in America. The political debate over what kind of judges we want in these lifetime positions is legitimate and important.

Not so legitimate is the use of exaggerated, inflammatory rhetoric and religious invective by conservative groups that are waging all-out war on judicial independence — a dangerous trend that has alarmed a broad spectrum of Jewish leaders. And politicians who should know better are joining the chorus.

This week, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was scheduled to appear on a simulcast organized by conservative Christian groups to support Republican efforts to end filibusters on judicial nominees. The filibuster is a legitimate issue for debate. What is alarming is the claim by some of these groups that their opponents, as well as the judges they accuse of “judicial tyranny,” are waging war against people of faith.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) recently appeared at a forum on “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith” with activists who called for the wholesale impeachment of federal judges and at least one who suggested that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was driven by “satanic” principles. And in a Senate floor statement that may have set a new low for irresponsibility, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) seemed to suggest a possible connection between several recent courthouse attacks and public dissatisfaction with liberal judges.

Taken together, all of this points to an escalating assault by forces with little understanding of the separation of powers in the American system and a reckless willingness to use the most dangerous, inflammatory kind of rhetoric.

As Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman noted last week, the fight over the judiciary is a political one, not a religious struggle.

“Whatever one’s views may be on this or any other issue, playing the religious card is as unacceptable as playing the race card,” Foxman said.

We agree. It’s important to support judicial independence even when it produces unpopular results, and it’s critical to avoid escalating what has already become a bitter culture war with ugly religious overtones.

Silence becomes a lesson in isolation, tolerance of others

by STP

I am admittedly not familiar with the National Day of Silence that many high school kids apparently participated in on April 13th. I came across this piece published in today's Asbury Park Press by Patricia Miller, and I believe it speaks for itself. Patricia brings a unique view to the topic she covers, being a homosexual, young person (although she is heterosexual) and having to lead a secret and isolated life surrounded by fear, gossip and frustration. I have copied it in its entirety as I believe it is that good.

This was my second year participating in the National Day of Silence, described by the official flier as "a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies."

Last year, as a junior at Communications High School in Wall, I bore my silence like a badge of honor. I was making a difference. For nine hours, my mouth stayed stubbornly shut (a remarkable feat for me). I walked down the halls with my head held high, a proud little smile on my face. That's what the day is for, right? To show the world that you stand for something more than discrimination or complacency. You're making a difference.

This year, things went a little differently. April 13 dawned clear and pretty, and I walked out of my house tired but sure of myself. First period, I walked confidently into my class, showing my teacher the flier that explained why I was not speaking. Yet, some time between taking my seat in class and rising from it an hour and a half later, something changed.

I was no longer confident. I was no longer proud. I was frustrated. There were things to say, and I couldn't say them. They were only little things, like "What was the answer to No. 9?" But, with my mouth so tightly shut, I walked out of class not knowing the answer.

By the time lunch arrived, I felt only the heavy weight of this silence. My inability to speak was oppressive. It blocked all other thoughts. I sat silently while my friends jokingly began a discourse on the proper usage of words like "queer" and "gay." Despite being undeniably straight, I was (jokingly) referred to as both those terms. Normally, I shrug off any such reference. But when faced with the inability to defend myself, the jokes weren't as funny.

I felt myself isolated from my friends and peers. "This must be what it's like to be in the closet," I thought. "All I can think about is my silence, and all the reasons I shouldn't break it." Because, by that time, I was considering breaking it. I probably would have, but what would people say if I did? I couldn't spend half the day in protest, only to give up when the going got rough. It seemed that must be worse than not trying at all. I pursed my lips, closed my eyes and wished for the end of the day. I had only a few hours left. I would not break my silence.

When the clock struck 3:30, and my nine hours were up, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I was home from school by then, and I picked up the phone, to call someone (anyone) and talk. Yet, I hung the phone back up without dialing one number. What I realized was that all the things I wanted to say didn't matter. My frustration wasn't about question No. 9, any more than it was about reiterating the fact that I was not homosexual. It was about isolation. I feared judgment too much to break my silence, but I hated being ostracized for it.

I don't think that the National Day of Silence is about being miserable for a day. But it's not about pride either. Rather, I think it is a combination of the two. You should be proud of yourself and those around you. At the same time, you should endeavor to understand the trials fellow humans endure. The Day of Silence is a protest, but it is also a chance to better yourself through understanding of others. It is a day meant to further tolerance, not only in others but in yourself as well.

Microsoft officially screws gays over -- WA bill fails

by Pam

Thanks again to Mike Tidmus for the cool, subversive graphic.

Feel free to take this graphic and use it everywhere and anywhere; it's going on my sidebar. The bigots at Microsoft need to see our solidarity against its slimy suckup to the Religious Reich by withdrawing its support of an anti-gay-discrimination bill.

It failed by one freaking vote in Washington State's legislature today.

As AMERICABlog notes:

The gay rights bill just lost in the Washington state Senate minutes ago by a 24-25 vote, i.e., by one vote.

All the Republicans voted against the bill, and at least one Democrat. Apparently the forces of good did win a procedural vote to force the bill out of committee and onto the Senate floor, but then it was killed by the 24-25 vote. As an interesting aside, if you can call it that, one of the moderate Republicans voting against the bill was the guy representing Redmond, Microsoft's district.

How many have to die?

by John

How many contractors have to die before we can have a serious public discussion about their use and purpose in Iraq? Moreover, when can we stop obfuscating their identity and mission?

From the most recent example:

BAGHDAD (Reuters)-- Guerrillas shot down a Bulgarian commercial helicopter in Iraq on Thursday, killing all 11 on board including six Americans, the aircraft's Bulgarian owner said.

The Russian built Mi-8 helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as it flew over a deserted area north of Baghdad, Bulgarian officials and the U.S. military said. It was believed to be the first downing of a civilian
aircraft in Iraq.

I don't know if this is because of Reuters' editorial policy, but clearly the helicopter was not commercial in the sense that a United airplane is a commercial airplane. The New York Times reports that the helicopter was contracted to the Defense Department, and the CBC notes that the six Americans were civilian defense contractors. Thus, reporting on the situation by saying a Bulgarian commercial helicopter was shot down killing six American civilians, while technically true, does not necessarily present a clear picture of why and how this happened.

I bring this up because I've written before about the use of private military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I've expressed concern about using them for jobs that in the past were the responsibility of the military. The rules of war these contractors operate under are not well-defined, which makes it hard to determine accountability and their responsibility. Furthermore, these contractors are often paid salaries that dwarf the standard military salary, creating yet another incentive for soldiers to leave the military. My point is that there are a lot of questions and consequences surrounding their role, and there hasn't been a lot of public discussion (or awareness) about it. This is a problem because, even though our military might distinguish between civilian contractors and regular soldiers, our adversaries and the people of Iraq don't.

Just to be clear, in the event that I'm flamed a la Kos, I have no idea what these contractors were doing when they were shot down, or even before. Their deaths are as horrible as all the others, and equally unnecessary. However, there needs to be more public transparency about who these people are, and what they are doing, especially since our tax dollars are paying them.

Update: Since writing this post, I notice that the original NY Times article has been amended, and now notes that the contractors were from Blackwater and were providing security detail.

(Cross posted at Blogenlust)

Microsoft f*cks over gays

by Pam

Here's the homo-bigot that Microshaft's newly-pious Bill Gates is cowing to.

Building on Ms. J's emergency post, John over at AMERICABlog has the scoop on the lying, filthy, lowdown corporate bigots at Microsoft that have decided to toss gays overboard after years of supporting the community...all because of pressure from ONE Religious Reich activist. From the Washington state publication, The Stranger:

The Stranger has learned that last month the $37-billion Redmond-based software behemoth quietly withdrew its support for House bill 1515, the anti-gay-discrimination bill currently under consideration by the Washington State legislature, after being pressured by the Evangelical Christian pastor of a suburban megachurch.

The pastor, Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, met with a senior Microsoft executive in February and threatened to organize a national boycott of the company's products if it did not change its stance on the legislation, according to gay rights activists and a Microsoft employee who attended a subsequent April 4 meeting where Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, told a group of gay staffers about Hutcherson's threat....

And what is worse, Bill's Money Machine planned to hide the fact that it was withdrawing support for the anti-discrimination legislation.

DeLee Shoemaker, an aide to former Governor Gary Locke who now handles state-level government relations for Microsoft, had issued a letter in support of the bill. "We are going to be providing copies of that letter to the committee," he said. McCurdy spoke too soon. Murray says that beginning on February 7 he began receiving calls from company employees informing him that Hutcherson was pressuring the company to change its position on the bill. Murray eventually contacted Shoemaker. She admitted to him that Microsoft was planning to change its position on the bill. "I told her, 'This is a crisis. It will kill the bill,'" he says. "She said no one will know."....

This company is so f*cking huge that it doesn't need to be the doormat of the Right. Is this company as ball-less as the Democratic Party?

John has several action items with Microsoft contact information; please go to AMERICABlog for the latest efforts and requests.

Onward, Christian Cadets

by Shakespeare's Sister

This is the story that has lots of people talking:

Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.

There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

[…]

More than 90 percent of the cadets identify themselves as Christian. A cadet survey in 2003 found that half had heard religious slurs and jokes, and that many non-Christians believed Christians get special treatment.

As I noted earlier today, I don’t have an intrinsic hatred for religion. What I have is a pretty stringent policy of intolerance once people start using religion (or anything else) as a justification for restricting the rights of others, which includes the right to be free from harassment and prejudice, and a shield against criticism. We’ve come to a point in this country where if someone can be described as “religious,” it is automatically presumed to mean “ethical.” This story is indicative of why such uncritical associations are fallacious.

Critics of the academy say the sometimes-public endorsement of Christianity by high-ranking staff has contributed to a climate of fear and violates the constitutional separation of church and state at a taxpayer-supported school whose mission is to produce Air Force leaders.

They also say academy leaders are desperate to avoid the sort of uproar that came with the 2003 scandal in which dozens of women said their complaints of sexual assault were ignored.

"They are deliberately trivializing the problem so that we don't have another situation the magnitude of the sex assault scandal. It is inextricably intertwined in every aspect of the academy," said Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, N.M., a 1977 graduate who has sent two sons to the school. He said the younger, Curtis, has been called a "filthy Jew" many times.

A filthy Jew?! Fucking hell. Like that “filthy Jew” Jesus Christ?

How is such behavior remotely defensible? There is nothing, nothing, in Christian doctrine that advocates such behavior.

[Lt. Gen. John Rosa] himself intervened when Christian cadets began promoting "The Passion," Mel Gibson's movie about the crucifixion of Christ. He told cadets they should not use government e-mail or other facilities to promote their personal agendas.

Two of the nation's most influential evangelical Christian groups, Focus on the Family and New Life Church, are headquartered in nearby Colorado Springs. Tom Minnery, an official at Focus on the Family, disputed claims that evangelical Christians are pushing an agenda at the academy, and complained that "there is an anti-Christian bigotry developing" at the school.

Incorrect. People would have to be acting like Christians for that to happen.

Those who refuse to excuse behavior that’s taking place at the Air Force Academy are not bigoted against Christians, or Christianity, or religion. They’re rightfully angry at the inappropriate actions of a select group of pricks who use a disfigured notion of Christianity as means to rationalize regular, old-fashioned hatred. That such repulsive behavior is associated with Christianity is their doing, not their critics’.

Indeed, those who seek to denounce these incidents for what they are—the shameful conduct of bigots using religion as a shield—without indicting the religion itself, are greater protectors of the true nature of the religion than men like Minnery, who would defend the actions of any adherent, no matter how repugnant.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Who Uses Microsoft More - the Educated or the Wingnuts??

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Will this ever stop? Please read this, and if your heart tells you to, take action. Please.

Ms. Julien

Guess Pope Ratz thinks he's going to kick it soon

by Pam

The official pic, so says Jesus General.

CNN says the new Pontiff knows he's not long for this world.

The 78-year-old cardinal, chosen on Tuesday to become the new pope, now "appears to be in basically good health," but also is aware that his pontificate may not last "very long," said [CNN Vatican analyst John] Allen, author of a 2000 biography of Ratzinger, "Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith."

"About two years ago he was experiencing fatigue, but appears to have picked up from that," Allen said.

Ratzinger's brother Georg Ratzinger has raised questions about whether someone of the pope's age is fit for the post. [I saw this clip on CNN this AM; Kate and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. He didn't mince words; read on.]

Before Benedict was elected pope, Georg Ratzinger said he was "convinced" that his brother would "be spared from this burden. At age 78, it's not good to take on such a job which challenges the entire person and the physical and mental existence," Allen said.

"At an age when you approach 80, it's no longer guaranteed that one is able to work and get up the next day."

...When Ratzinger told cardinals in the conclave why he wanted to take on the name Benedict XVI, "one of the things he alluded to was the fact that Benedict XV, the last pope to have that name, had one of the shortest pontificates of the 20th century," Allen said."

Absolute Power

by Shakespeare's Sister

So, it looks like the nuclear option will be voted on sooner rather than later. (I suppose it’s mere coincidence that Frist seems likely to push it immediately after Justice Sunday. Ahem.)

John Warner, R-VA, is one of the Republicans currently being courted by both sides—a swing voter:

"I just look at this institution as really the last bastion of protecting the rights of the minority," Mr. Warner said, "and we should be very careful before we try and make any changes."

[…]

At stake is the future of the filibuster, a two-century-old parliamentary tactic that has recently been used by Democrats to prevent 10 of President Bush's appeals court nominees from being confirmed. The filibuster can be broken with 60 votes. Republicans, who have 55 members in the Senate, want confirmations to depend on a simple majority of 51.

Normally, I tend to think Warner’s a pretty okay guy, but his statement is completely incomprehensible to me. He acknowledges the filibuster as “the last bastion of protecting the rights of the minority” yet remains willing to entertain the notion of eliminating it. That his position is considered moderate is illustrative of how extreme, how blind with control, the GOP has truly become.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I despair for our country’s future if this madness goes forth as I fear it will.

[Kudos to Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island for going on record in opposition to this insane and antidemocratic power-grab.]

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

More P'shop Coulter brilliance

by Pam

Mike Tidmus keeps them coming...since the bony-*ss, bedworn, b*tch of the Reich is so unhappy with the photography of her Time cover, I thought I'd share Mike's retouching so that it might soothe her raggedy ego:

Boxer Benny (Kid) Paret died because of homophobia

by Pam

Benny "Kid" Paret, wearing white trunks, met Emile Griffith, wearing black trunks, in a 1962 fight that would prove fatal to Paret. (Corbis)

Boxer Benny (Kid) Paret died because of homophobia.

Ten days after being savagely beaten to a pulp in a boxing match by Emile Griffith, Benny Paret died. The fight, televised back in March of 1962, was not the first or last tragedy of its kind, but the back story -- the homophobia that unleashed Griffith's fury -- is now revealed in a documentary by Dan Klores and partner Ron Berger. Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story airs tonight on USA at 9PM.



This story is really about the machismo of sports and the closet, something that has changed little since this tragedy.

Before the fateful fight, the Cuban Paret called Griffith "maricon" (the Spanish equivalent of "faggot") at their weigh-in, enraging Griffith. At the time there were rumors about Griffith's homosexuality floating around in the boxing world (he had been spotted in gay bars), so to have it called out was not just a slur but a perceived call to the defense of his manhood. The beating resulted in Paret being carried out on a stretcher, later falling into a coma and dying. In this case words did kill.

Certainly back in the 1960s, I can't imagine athlete being out of the closet, and for a black man at that time, well, the end result tells you how bad it was to be thought of as gay. [The situation hasn't gotten much better -- imagine what would happen if a hard-core rapper was exposed as a homo?]

The filmmakers interviewed Paret's wife and son, and Griffith himself, now 67 and still tormented by what happened to Paret and his own lifetime of struggle with his sexuality. Bob Herbert spoke with the boxer for his recent column, "The Haunting of Emile Griffith":

It still infuriates. At lunch, Mr. Griffith's smile faded as he recalled the taunts he took from Paret. "I got tired," he said, "of people calling me faggot."

He said again, as he has many times, that he was sorry Paret had died. But he added: "He called me a name. ... So I did what I had to do."

...I asked Mr. Griffith if he was gay, and he told me no. But he looked as if he wanted to say more. He told me he had struggled his entire life with his sexuality, and agonized over what he could say about it. He said he knew it was impossible in the early 1960's for an athlete in an ultramacho sport like boxing to say, "Oh, yeah, I'm gay."

But after all these years, he wanted to tell the truth. He'd had relations, he said, with men and women. He no longer wanted to hide. He hoped to ride this year in New York's Gay Pride Parade.

He said he hadn't meant to kill Benny Paret, "but what he said touched something inside."

Outsports published some seriously conflicted/confusing poll results about public attitudes about gays and sports gathered by NBC/USA Networks, conducted to coincide with the airing of the documentary.

The survey finds people either conflicted about their own views of gays in sports or certain their neighbor is more bigoted than they are.

* 68% thought it would hurt an athlete’s career to be openly gay.
* Half (49%) thought gay athletes could get the same endorsements as their straight counterparts
* But a few questions later, by a 64% to 11% margin, people said that “brands and products are unlikely to select athletes as endorsers if the athletes are gay or even have been accused of being gay.”
* 15% say it’s not appropriate for an umpire to be gay.
* 46% to 44% say it’s a sin to engage in homosexual behavior.
* But 61% said homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society.
* 78% says it is OK for gay athletes to participate in sports, even if they are open about their sexuality.
* By a 42% to 22% margin, people thought “if ESPN created a television special on the accomplishments of gay athletes, viewers would be enraged.”
* 79% agreed that Americans are more accepting of gays in sports than they were 20 years ago.

"I now understand why gay athletes would choose to stay in the closet," said Doug Schoen of Penn, Schoen & Berland. "The poll shows us that we still have a long way to go in this country before homosexuality is accepted in sports."

The only conclusion that one can draw from these findings is that the American public is f*cked up -- my scientific analysis. The allegedly powerful homo agenda is not making the huge inroads that the AmTaliban rails on about. The sheeple are being shaped and led by the Rovian Right, and the saddest aspect of this development is that there are way too many homophobic, intolerant black pastors willing and able to lead their parishioners even further down this path, driving gay men and women of color like Griffith even deeper into the down low closet.

Benny (Kid) Paret died because of homophobia and gay self-loathing that still exists today, make no mistake, in both Red and Blue states. It's still cultivated in way too many homes, schools, workplaces -- and especially in too many houses of worship.

It's why kids that are effeminate still get the sh*t kicked out of them in school and "fag" and "dyke" are easy epithets tossed around the classroom; it's why a Texas teacher can be fired from her job because people think she's a lesbian. It's why Martina Navratilova dominated the tennis scene in the 1980s, yet lost her endorsements when she came out. And for the guys, well, you all are sh*t out of luck if you're in a team sport; the number of out gay male athletes in active team competition is...are there any?

Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story airs commercial-free tonight at 9PM on USA.

Also: check out OutSports Anti-Gay Slur roundup. Homophobic comments by athletes are rated on a scale of 1-5 John Rockers, for the Atlanta Braves pitcher notorious for his bigoted comments, including:

"Imagine having to take the 7 train to (Shea Stadium in New York) looking like you’re (in) Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing."

(Cross-posted at Pam's House Blend)

Faith-Based Pandering

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Great article by Richard Cohen - ran in the Washington Post, re-run on Common Dreams.

Totally by mistake, I was summoned to meet Sen. Bill Frist shortly after he first arrived in Washington. This happened because someone in Frist's office confused me with the congressional affairs correspondent of the National Journal, Richard E. Cohen, but I stayed to meet Frist anyway and found him impressive. Time and tide have changed my view. He is now the Senate majority leader and an undeclared but neon-lit presidential candidate who is getting into shape for the long run to the White House by shedding anything that weighs him down. In his case it's principles.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Read, think, ACT!!

Ms. Julien

Gay-Bashin’ for God

by Shakespeare's Sister

Da New Pope (as Ezra would say) doesn’t like da faggots. As anyone who’s spent more than five seconds hanging around this joint knows, at Shakespeare’s Sister, we likes da faggots, and so we don’t likes da new pope.

In 1986, Pope Ratz (as by which he will heretofore be referred) wrote a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, in which he recommended that “appropriate forms of pastoral care for homosexual persons” be developed with “the assistance of the psychological, sociological and medical sciences, in full accord with the teaching of the Church,” even though homosexuality had been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) thirteen years earlier. By 1986, the psychological, sociological, and medical sciences didn’t regard homosexuality as a “disorder” in need of treatment, but clearly, Pope Ratz (and the rest of the church) did.

Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.

If it weren’t for the fact that this gay-hating bigot was just made head of the largest network of institutionalized homophobia in the universe, that would almost be laughable. A strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil, says the former member of the Hitler Youth. Whether he was compelled to join or joined voluntarily is a matter of debate, but regardless of the origins of Pope Ratz’s former Nazi associations, including serving in the German army, they surely gave him the opportunity to see intrinsic moral evil up close and personal. Those fuckers were marching the fags off to the gas chambers, not the other way around.

As many as a million gays and lesbians were killed in the concentration camps during the Holocaust, with particularly harsh treatments reserved for gay men, who were also widely recruited for bizarre scientific experimentation, in search of a cure for future Aryan homosexuals. Gay men also had the highest death rate (60%) of any other social group relegated to the camps by the Nazis. Lesbians and gays were viewed as a threat to the future of the Aryan race, because they did not procreate, and when the Nazis came into power, they facilitated a swift backlash against the progressiveness of Berlin which had fostered a vibrant and thriving gay community. The entire country was delivered a steady stream of anti-gay propaganda, and the Hitler Youth were indoctrinated with virulent homophobia, which may well explain Pope Ratz’s strange acceptance of violence against gays, even as he condemns it:

It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.

But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase.

A man like this has no business leading the church.

Using the same logic that instituting protections against lesbians and gays will incite violence against them, because they have no right to be protected, it is understandable why the church makes no exceptions for abortions when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. Clearly, the victims of crime deserve no remedy, if such remedy is anathema to church teaching. Once brutalized by an attacker, prepare to be victimized again by the church if you want anything more than prayer.

I reject this pope, I reject his church, and I reject its teachings. I reject the notion that people I love are evil for being gay, or that any expression of love between two consenting adults is somehow sinful. There’s nothing sinful about love, and there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the way I love Mr. Shakes, and the way Pam loves Kate, and Mr. Furious loves Mr. Curious; I reject all claims to the contrary. And if that consigns my eternal soul to the fires of hell, then off I go, tra la la. I never fucking liked harps, anyway.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Ooops. Chimpy didn't secure AbstinenceOnly.com

by Pam

Scarlet P. sent me this hysterical link -- AbstinenceOnly.com. As Scarlet aptly noted, "this is what happens when you spend $400 million on abstinence only education and neglect to secure the domain name."

It's essential to go to this site, especially in light of the ascension of the new Pope, and his hard line regarding sexual matters. Just brilliant. Get a load of this...

Congratulations! You and your faith partner have chosen a path of mutual love and adoration through physical respect. Resisting the temptations of sexual intercourse may not always be easy, but with the help of AbstinenceOnly.com, we guarantee you'll have a lot of fun!

... Here's some fun things that faith partners can do besides have sex.

1) Go out to a movie or watch TV! Make some popcorn and have a popcorn party!

2) Engage in wholesome sports activities or play board games like checkers, chess or Monopoly!

3) Rigorously rub your face, body and genitalia against those of your faith partner until orgasm. (Also known as 'faith-fucking')

Here's the section on Homosexual Abstinence...

The Bible states it plainly in Leviticus: "Man shall not lie with man as he does with woman.' So there you have it: Standard Missionary is right out. For the gals: you're off the hook. Anything goes. As far as the Lord's concerned, it's Beaver Season all year 'round.

In the interest of avoiding STDs, and believe me there are some doozies out there, you gents might want to keep it to blowjobs, and we mean this literally: Take your faith buddy's penis and blow on it from a distance. Or you can rub it against your face, neck, buttocks, etc. (see Anal Abstinence)

You can also get some abstinence advice from Dr. Frist.

Dear Doctor Frist, You recently implied it was possible to contract AIDS through tears and that simply touching another persons genitals could result in pregnancy. Is this true?
Signed, Young and Scared

Dear Young and Scared,
When I said that you could get AIDS from tears what I meant was that getting AIDS could make you cry. Also, you CAN get pregnant from simply touching another person's genitals, providing they're ejaculating and you're touching them with your cervix. I hope this clears things up for you. Remember also that whenever you masturbate, God kills a kitten.

Yours Truly, Senate Majority Leader, Dr. Bill Frist

There's plenty more to take in at the site. I couldn't stop laughing.

New Pope - Former Card-Carrying Member of the Hitler Youth

by Ms. Julien in Miami

You will hear all about the new Pope ad nauseum over the next days, so this will be my main post on the subject.

Lest you doubt about what the new pope has in store for gay people...

In 1986, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the infamous Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. Ratzinger wrote that a homosexual orientation, even if the person is totally celibate, is a "tendency" toward an "intrinsic moral evil". Moreover, a homosexual inclination is both an "objective disorder" and a "moral disorder", which is "contrary to the creative wisdom of God". "Special concern and pastoral attention should be directed towards those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not." Ratzinger's 1986 Letter concludes that pastoral care for homosexual persons should include "the assistance of the psychological, sociological and medical sciences", and that "all support should be withdrawn from any organisations which seek to undermine the teachings of the Church, which are ambiguous about it, or which ignore it entirely".

Thanks to pdxCraig for this.

Ms. Julien

Dennis Prager: College produces homos

by Pam

What a moron. Dennis Prager, wingnut columnist, has come to the conclusion, by interviewing a sexually confused college student, that homosexuality is culturally determined. It's all about the Homosexual Agenda steamrolling the influence of heterosexual "normality." (WingNutDaily):

Perhaps the most important argument against same-sex marriage is that once society honors same-sex sex as it does man-woman sex, there will inevitably be a major increase in same-sex sex. People do sexually (as in other areas) what society allows and especially what it honors.

One excellent example illustrating this is an article recently written in the McGill University newspaper by McGill student Anna Montrose. In it, she wrote:

It's hard to go through four years of a Humanities B.A. reading Foucault and Butler and watching 'The L Word' and keep your rigid heterosexuality intact. I don't know when it happened exactly, but it seems I no longer have the easy certainty of pinning my sexual desire to one gender and never the other.

Michel Foucault is a major French "postmodern" philosopher; Judith Butler is a prominent "gender theorist" at U.C. Berkeley; and "The L-Word" is a popular TV drama about glamorous lesbians.)

I interviewed Anna Montrose, a bright and articulate 22-year-old woman, on my syndicated radio show. She is a fine example of the type of thinking and behavior a homosexuality-celebrating culture -- such as that at our universities -- produces. "

DP: So you and I both believe that how people behave sexually, including which sex they will engage with sexually, is largely determined by society and not by nature.
AM: Yeah, I completely agree.
DP: Gay rights activists say the opposite. They say that whether you act homosexually or not is fixed; and I don't believe it's fixed necessarily at all and neither do you.
AM: But I think that [the activists'] argument has a political purpose, which is to counter the argument that heterosexuality is fixed.
DP: I agree with you. But we both think that they're not telling the truth for the sake of making a political argument. Since we both agree that largely whom we have sex with and sexual behavior generally are culturally determined, the only question is: Would we like culture to determine [these things] one way or the other? I think 'yes' and you think 'not'. I have a heterosexual preference because my values tell me that male-female love is the ideal. You don't think it's the ideal. Is that fair?
AM: I think that it's one of many options.
DP: It's not necessarily a good thing to teach heterosexual behavior as the ideal?
AM: Yeah.

Has it not occurred to either of these dimwits that sexuality is a continuum? If this woman feels her "fixed heterosexuality" is up in the air, perhaps it wasn't fixed to begin with, hmmm?

Heterosexual couples produce and raise children assuming they are straight. It's not surprising that many gay people take years to come out to themselves or to others, if ever. The social pressure to be het is enormous, despite my hard work on the homo agenda.

All the Foucault and "L Word" in the world can't make someone jump in the sack with a person of the same gender unless they want to. I guess the issue for Prager is that he has to make it clear the sheeple that are too stupid to think for themselves when it comes to fornicating.

Joseph Ratzinger of Germany - the ex-Nazi pontiff

by Pam

He's taken the name Pope Benedict XVI. Well, more of the same hard line. For those of you that are Catholic and progressive, you just got the finger.

The Vatican continues its descent into irrelevancy. More homophobia, more head-in-the-sand about contraception and AIDS prevention. No marriage for priests, no increased role for women in the church. I don't even want to guess how he's going to handle the church's utter failing regarding its child-molesting priests. Sad.

Major Headlines

by STP

Smoke from Vatican is pink! Could Carson ("Queer Eye for the Straight Guy") be the new Pope!? ** Sadly, it appears the Vatican went the Hitler Youth route instead.

Ultimate judge, God, rules: "American zealots are not representative of any belief system of virtue." Tom DeLay announces, "God better watch it because there could be repercussions!"

Senator Rick Santorum starts fetal, daycare center. Quits Senate. Promises cuddling sessions, games and snacks for all fetuses.

Florida sold on EBAY for $475. Buyer is an eighty-seven year old, Jewish woman transplanted from New York. She plans on increasing temperatures in the former-state, claiming "it's too damn cold here!"

Scientific analysis concludes: Ann Coulter not human. Ann Coulter not of this planet. Not sure what the hell she is!

President lies about threat posed by country to U.S. interests, creates false associations to terrorist groups, manufactures fake evidence, ignores threats where they legitimately exist, dismisses need for a post-war plan and viable exit strategy, alienates all U.S. allies, inflames Islamic world, increases world-wide terrorism, turns blind eye to war crimes, and promotes all members of staff who perform incompetently in their jobs. No, wait, that really did happen.

(Cross posted on Poetic Leanings)

What the F#@K?!

by Shakespeare's Sister

Sometimes I almost can’t believe what I’m reading:

The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.

Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."

But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

This is bloody outrageous! Such claims are patently specious; Bush’s foreign policy has made us less safe, not more so; there was no al-Qaida in Iraq before the war, only after we got there; terrorism is on the rise, not on the run; Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11 is still on the loose, no doubt planning his sequel. Eliminating a report that tracks the potential danger to our country and our allies does not erase these facts.

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.

"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."

And any news organization, any newspaper, any news show, any magazine, worth its salt should be covering this story, alarming the American people that this administration cares more about its ability to say they’re winning the war on terror (without any pesky reports proving otherwise getting in their way) than actually developing smart foreign and domestic policies that will keep Americans safe. The emperor has no fucking clothes, and every rag in the nation ought to show his shriveled little dick swinging in the breeze until every last person gets the goddamned picture.

According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.

That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.

The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."

Of course attacks on American troops in Iraq wouldn’t be counted, because it wouldn’t help their little report if they were. An odd decision, though, considering the administration’s insistence that the insurgency is comprised entirely of foreign Islamic extremists (that is, terrorists), despite the fact that even the Iraqi people aren’t totally sure from whence the attacks come, and whether they are possibly a combination of terror and resistance.

The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism.

Yeah, well, that’s a pretty fair interpretation, I think.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

A Letter from 'Bean

by Ms. Julien in Miami

This letter is from a guest contributor on Julien' List, affectionately known as 'Bean...the message is powerful, folks, and I hope you enjoy it.

Ms. J:

One thing really strikes me this morning.

What strikes me is that G.C. and some others of that ilk (a few right-wing Americablog posters come to mind) have a consistent, telling thought and behavior pattern. That pattern? It seems to boil down to a profound sense of “me, me, me-ism.”

My rights trump the greater society’s rights.

My opinions are more valid than yours.

My empirical knowledge is better than yours.

My views are more reasonable than yours.

My evidence is better than yours.

My achievement is more important than yours.

My family is better than yours.

I work harder than you do.

Etc, etc, etc . . .

It is this profound sense, not of Rugged Individualism but of Greedy Individualism, that is the self-serving appeal to both potential and current Republicans (“Moderate” or otherwise) . . . and is also the very core of (1) the right wing’s principles, (2) the right wing appeals to and winning-over of new members, leading to (3) the right-wing’s success, and (4) the subsequent, intentional obfuscation and outright denial we, the progressive folk, encounter with these self-proclaimed “Moderate” people who either (4a) overtly embrace or (4b) play off “centrist” roles from Right-of-Center positions.

Now, as I stated in an earlier exchange with Holly, I’m sick of “changing hearts and minds.” I grew up a stereotypical rich kid in a Republican neighborhood . . . and I’ll just say I learned my lessons (as-taught by my parents, peers, and teachers) well. I vividly remember my father cursing the unions, cheering the plant closings, expressing disappointment at the Left’s persecution of Nixon, and his utter adoration of Reagan. I was, at one time, very much my father’s son.

Then, one day, life kicked me in the ass and realized the problem was not the allegedly-overly-entitled blue-collar worker; the lazy unemployed; the unmotivated, underachieving working poor; or the welfare-mooch-mother. The problem was me and people like me: our greed was overtly pushing us to seek the oppression of fellow citizens – and these fellow citizens simply did not have the resources to fight back. The other side of my awakening is that it cost me an enormous sum of money. So, not only was there a lesson involved but also a choice. That choice was, “Do I keep being who I am and go back, hat-in-hand, for more? Or do I stand like a man and move on, realizing that I can never have quite what I did . . . but make the better, more moral choice?”

I chose the moral choice - but this is not about me: I am using my experience as a former right-wing apologist to make a point.

My point?

The true, serious-minded, unflinching, steady-eyed liberal seeks (1) a balance between individual rights and society’s rights, (2) the most open and productive society possible, (3) a anti-racist, anti-hatred society, (4) a society based on social, political, economic, and environmental justice FIRST and profit SECOND (but rewards the desire to strive and succeed), and (5) a secular, empirical, science-based society with respect for religious choice. Such a person with such views is willing to embrace change for the better, even if that change entails discomfort.

The Conservative resists that change at all costs.

If the change is one of those utterly-life-changing events that is completely unavoidable, the Conservative digs in and makes life hell for those around him.

Look at how Cultural Conservatives handled integration.

Look at how Conservatives handled The Great Society programs - which we needed because the Robber-Baron class had utterly bankrupted society.

Look at how Conservatives handle gay/lesbian folk now.

I find it profoundly ironic that the Conservatives have everything now, yet they still complain – more loudly than ever before. Personally, I think the complaints reek of the history I cite.

Conservatives have over 50% of the states, the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. They have their churches busy blurring the Constitutional lines of Church and State, they have their anti-gay amendments, bankruptcy bill, and the rest of the whole-damn-shtick.

They have it all - and yet we hear them bitch, whine, complain and shout – whether on a blog or on the Senate floor.

I am starting to suspect The Right has enough power and enough of a caustic agenda that some of their very own, like G.C. here, are growing uncomfortable openly declaring themselves conservative because they are (or soon may be), under attack by the right-wing juggernaut (e.g. gay Republicans, Republican end-of-life-care medical professionals, Republicans with “incorrect” faith views or alliances). I anticipate, on some visceral level, these self-same folk know they are next in the right-wing meat grinder. Or, perhaps, these “Moderate” right wing folk, if they are walking without elephant-guns pointed at their heads, someday suspect they may find they have lost all control of their beloved party and are being led down a merry path to hell by their very saviors – even worse as the elephant-gun’s new target.

I also suspect that some of these pretend-liberals and deluded right-wing moderates pose as “moderates” and “liberals” in a public setting to try and persuade true progressives we are flagrant Stalinist-Maoist-Authoritarian-Communists (and that, furthermore, we love copulating with forest animals, small children, and dine on feces, twigs and berries); that we are so out-of-touch (as news junkies, no less) with what we see, hear, and know about the world around us that we just need to follow that “Moderate Path” and keep our own mouths shut: the LIE-bruls really do not know what is going on, despite documented events.

Now, let me remind you, I am utterly disinterested in trying to change so much as one single mind. I have concluded doing so is a waste of my time. I do think, however, we need to know our enemy and therefore think an important question to address is: how do these deluded or deceptive folk do what they do, whether the perp is “right-wing-with-discomfort” or “deluded persuader?”

Whether here, on FOX Views, or in our communities, these conservative “moderates” and “apologists” sit and draw broad brushstrokes about “what is wrong with the Left” while painting themselves as Moderate and Reasonable: it’s the total sum of their word and actions that really shows who they are – which I would argue is “less than reasonable.”

What they themselves do not realize, despite their vigorous (and endless) attacks, dodges, manipulations, and parries is that, even in “Moderate Republican Circles,” there is a code word for them.

That word is “RINO.”

Republican In Name Only.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

It never once occurs to these alleged Moderates (RINOs) that, perhaps, the people they defend (or worse, fear offending) in order to keep their God, Guns, and My Tax Cut may just tolerate the RINO for present political gain, but will gladly push the RINO off the Runaway Republican Train when the RINO becomes a convenient victim.

As I have been telling Holly, I don’t think it’s worth screaming at the self-labeled Moderates (or overt RINOs) in either real-life or the blogs because, outside the rather cheap thrill one can get by really, thoroughly, making them angry-as-hell, these fools keep blindly following the path their party, their church, and their peers have laid at their feet. In truth, outside the nice, rewarding verbal jab, I ignore these nitwits.

Why?

I frankly think the Moderate-RINO crowd will learn MUCH more from that very first, painful bounce once pushed from the Runaway Republican Train than from anything I have to say - evidence, logic, reason and all: pain can be a most excellent teacher.
Given the Right (whether the RINOs or the DeLays) have over have over 50% of the states, the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate; given they have their churches busy blurring the lines of Church and State; given they have their anti-gay amendments, bankruptcy bill, and the rest of the whole-damn-shtick; I think we’d be wise in spending our time ensuring our own future . . . and looking on with glee when we finally hear that first “splat.”

After all, with our society and government as they are today, we only have each other – and, if you ask me, no RINOs allowed: we’re the opposition and it’s time we did our job.

Best regards,

‘Bean

Phelps challenges Barney Frank to debate in Philly

by Pam

He never ceases to amaze me. All you folks going to Philly for the big gay fest will get a treat. Fred Phelps will gas up his hate-mobile and trek over to Equality Forum, which will commemorate 40 years of the gay rights movement. Talk about being outnumbered; it's an excellent promotional activity for the Westboro Baptist Church, no? From his latest unhinged flier:

"God Hates Fags & Fag Enablers! Ergo, God hates America, now a vile homofascist regime irreversible cursed of God and doomed. And, this is a challenge to their fag champion [Massachusetts Dem Congressman -- and out gay man] Barney Frank to debate these issues with WBC Pastor Fred Phelps in Philadelphia May 1."

Don't forget folks, Phelps plans to make an appearance in my town, Durham, NC on May 6-7. He will be protesting "the fag-infested Durham School of the Arts and The Laramie Project fag propaganda play."

Great Post in Recognition of Mr. Dark Wraith

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Great post from Pissed On Politics about the darkly-ultra-intelligent Mr. Dark Wraith of the Dark Wraith Forums...

I am honored to be considered Mr. Dark Wraith's blogosphere-friend...and I thank the writer of Pissed On Politics for his recognition...

Ms. Julien

More rumblings from black homo-bigots

by Pam

Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church near DC, has a problem with homos; he's been courted by RNC head Ken Mehlman.

Anyone from the DNC reading? Our black pastors at Bush's faith-based taxpayer trough gathered to marshal forces for their "values" agenda. Jackson's been profiled on the Blend before ("GOP hijacking more black pastors into its bible-based Taliban takeover"). He's the man behind the The Black Contract With America, and has worked with our friend at the RNC, Ken Mehlman, to try to make inroads into the black community. His High Impact Leadership Coalition wants to "Protect America's Moral Compass." (AgapePress):

More than 125 Christian leaders from New York City and across the United States convened in the Big Apple last week to send a message about moral values to their political leaders.

Bishop Harry Jackson and the High Impact Leadership Coalition held a New York City summit and press conference on marriage and other moral issues, calling attention to the voice of the values voters. The New York City summit was one of several nationwide stops on the Coalition's tour schedule, during which the nonprofit Christian organization hopes to mobilize the ethnic Christian voters on behalf of biblically-based responses to the moral issues of the day, including homosexual "marriage" and abortion.

According to High Impact spokesman Mike Paul, the local and national Christian leaders wanted to emphasize their message again in strong terms well before the elections on tap between now and 2008. He says what they and their constituencies want their elected officials to know is, "if you are voting for gay marriage and against other moral values that we hold dear, then we will simply vote you out of office. And if you think that moral value issues were important in the 2004 election, you haven't seen anything yet."

Paul feels the message was particularly appropriate for the New York summit and press conference, considering the positions of many political leaders in the city and the state. He points out that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and some other New York State officials have recently made public statements indicating their willingness to honor same-sex marriages from other states.

"Every [New York City] candidate right now, including the city mayor, is in favor of same-sex marriage," the Coalition representative notes, "and as for the governor's race, Eliot Spitzer -- who has become a national figure going after big business -- is also for same-sex marriage."

Texas HS coach fired because she is a lesbian

by Pam

Merry Stephens was harassed by the superintendent of the district and others that tried to make her "confess" to being gay. Michael Shirk, Stephens' lawyer from the Texas State Teachers Association: "In my 15 years of representing workers throughout Texas, rarely have I seen such bigotry and flagrant discrimination."

In the rural East Texas town of Bloomburg, Merry Stephens didn't have a chance. Yes, all over the country, people can be fired if an employer even thinks they are gay, as in this case -- she didn't come out to the students or teachers. She actually lied about her orientation in order to keep her job.

When the rumors started to swirl, she was put under pressure to cop to being gay. This wasn't a "don't ask, don't tell" situation. They wanted her to tell - or else. Coach Stephens was honored as a "Teacher of the Year" in 2004 and named "Coach of the Year" in three of her five years, but she was dismissed for the unsubstantiated charge of "insubordination." (Duluth News Trib):

Though it was true, Stephens denied it for five years while she was a teacher and the coach of a championship girls basketball team at Bloomburg High School, afraid the truth would cost her a job.

..."They'd test me to try to figure out if I was a lesbian or not," she said. "They'd ask if I had a boyfriend or if I wanted one. I lied because I knew it would be career suicide to admit anything."

It makes you sick when you read the bible-beating sh*t below. None of this is surprising, since no one has a problem with being homophobic in Bloomburg. Queers aren't welcome and they don't mind letting them know it.

Some parents of Stephens' players wanted her gone. Craig Hale, who owns an oil company, said he doesn't want a lesbian teaching his children and possibly influencing the way they think. His daughter, Kaitlyn Cornelius, played for Stephens last season and said she felt uncomfortable around the coach, though she said Stephens never did anything inappropriate.

"I had nothing against her as a person," Hale said, but if he stood up for "one lesbian" that would mean he was "for them adopting kids, and my morals and the Bible doesn't allow that."

Stephens lives with the school's bus driver, Sheila Dunlap, a woman with two children and roots in Bloomburg that go back 100 years. That didn't stop the community from turning on Dunlap either.

Three days before Stephens was placed on administrative leave in December, Dunlap, 46, also was fired, and given no reason, she said, because she is not under contract. Then Stephens' case against the district began.

Michael Shirk, Stephens' lawyer from the Texas State Teachers Association, took depositions from community members, including the school-board president, Derous Byers, who was opposed to the effort to fire Stephens.

Byers said in the deposition that another board member, Ronnie Peacock, told him that Stephens "doesn't deserve to work here" because she is a lesbian.

In that deposition, Byers recalled Peacock saying: "We're bonded or insured for a million dollars apiece. We ought to fire her and see what happens."

...Shirk said: "It was the most blatant case of bigotry I've ever seen. Usually, they try to fire someone covertly, but I guess in East Texas they haven't learned that."

Since leaving their school jobs, Stephens and Dunlap, who live in a spacious log house on nine acres of land, have started a concession business and now sell fruit drinks at fairs. They are still the talk of the town, especially because the school board election is coming up, pitting candidates who were pro-coach Stephens against those who were against her.

In exchange for Coach Stephens' agreement not to pursue further legal action, the district agreed to pay her the full value of her two-year contract. Guess Mr. Peacock got his wish -- the district had to pay out, but it's a pittance in comparison to the grief and humiliation he and his cohorts heaped on Stephens and Dunlap.

Cross-posted on Pam's House Blend

Schmucks

by Shakespeare's Sister

Skippy writes a letter to Time. Not only did they put Ann Coulter on their cover; they published a picture of a satirical group as if its members were real protestors.

Sadly, even if Skippy’s excellent letter does get printed, the number of people who would read it and actually have it register versus the number of people who see it and assume it's real, are not even in the same ballpark. This is the problem with a media that refuses to do its most basic homework—the damage gets done, and unless all (three) of the Left’s media personalities collectively scream about how the mistake is part of a vast rightwing conspiracy, no one will be the wiser.

The thing is, I don’t think Time really is part of a conspiracy. I think this mistake is just typical of the assortment of lazy, complacent, imprecise, conscienceless, bottom-line driven, easily intimidated and manipulated twats that are collectively known as our mainstream media. Which, frankly, isn’t really any better.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

The cojones of Trent Lott: 'Chimpy defend DeLay'

by Pam

Lott urges Bush to give DeLay 'aggressive support'

What humongous cojones Lott has! [He's not allowed to have Brass ones.]

This from the man that stuck his well-polished shoe into his redneck mouth, publicly kissing the then-live-but-cadaver-like Strom Thurmond's ass at the SC Senator's 100th birthday. [He noted that if Old segregationist Strom had been elected president in 1948, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."] That bit of fun cost Trent his leadership post. He must still be smarting...

Guess he's also hoping Chimpy will provide cover for the massively corrupt Tom DeLay since Lott watched his colleagues scurry like roaches in a NYC apartment when the light is cut on. (WaTimes):

"I do think the White House needs to remember that people who fight hard for you as a candidate and for your issues as a president ... deserve your support, aggressive support," said Mr. Lott, who resigned his majority leadership post because of the furor over comments he made in 2002.

"Again, he may feel that he shouldn't get into the details of the workings of who the leaders are or how the leaders act in the House or the Senate. I read very carefully what he had to say last week. ... I wish it had been more, frankly. Frankly, he needs Tom DeLay," Mr. Lott told ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos.

...There is a tendency in Washington to "microanalyze every word, any inadvertent comment, and you need to be very, very careful," Mr. Lott said.

"This is not something that just applies to Republicans. I think it's unfortunate across the board, particularly on a personal and a human basis. ... I think the president would tell anybody privately or publicly that Tom DeLay has been a strong leader, aggressive leader, and that he hopes he'll stay in that leadership position," Mr. Lott said.

Wow

by Shakespeare's Sister

Someone seems to be auditioning for a space here, showing off some kind of outrageously large brass ones:

“It’s disturbing that Howard Dean would plot to use the life of Terri Schiavo for political gain,” [Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt] said Saturday. “This demonstrates a troubling lack of sensitivity and one would hope that Democrat leaders in Congress would reject such a strategy.

“The American people expect their leaders to provide solutions and principled leadership rather than overt partisan politicking.”

My god. Those are some serious, serious (delusional) cojones. (Hat tip: WTF Is It Now?)

Miserable Failure

by Shakespeare's Sister

Catching Osama bin Laden, securing our borders, and streamlining national intelligence aren’t the only things the administration has failed to accomplish since 9/11:

Security at American airports is no better under federal control than it was before the Sept. 11 attacks, a congressman says two government reports will conclude.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, and the Homeland Security Department's inspector general are expected to release their findings soon on the performance of Transportation Security Administration screeners.

[…]

"The common finding is that no set of screeners, private nor public, is performing anywhere near the level I think we need," [Representative Peter A. DeFazio, D-Oregon] said.

Awesome.

Four more years! Four more years!

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Lunatic cover-thing

by STP

The frightening Ann Coulter is on the cover of this week's Time Magazine. I am not linking to the cover and will not post the picture here. Why? Because Ann scares the shit out of me and I do not want to be held directly responsible for doing the same to anyone else.

Appearing this morning on Imus, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek described Coulter as "a boney Joe McCarthy," and I must admit, the comparison has merit.

I am torn between wanting to ask why such a piece of dreck deserves a cover on Time and wanting to rip into Coulter for what she brings to the table.

Time, what were you thinking for putting someone of such low standing on your cover?! Of course, they have put George Bush on their cover, so ...

There, that's done. Onto the more enjoyable topic of bashing the creature known as Ann Coulter.

Ok, Ann is a hideous visual offering. That goes without saying. Coulter goes on her share of anti-gay rants and I am drawn to a thought: if the zealots, of which Coulter is one, are correct about homosexuality being a learned trait (which they are not right about), then a large percentage of gay men would be those who have come in contact with Ann and been frightened to the other team. I kid, I kid.

More important to a discussion on Ann Coulter is what she represents. Coulter is a prime example of what the right has produced via their messages of intolerance, extremism, distortion, and fear. She espouses views baring venom and hatred that are symptomatic of the right's twisted image of the world.

The worst part of Coulter is her dismissal of the facts and her failure to bring any honest evidence to the fore in support of her many wild and outlandish claims. Herein lies the importance of discussing her because the lack of fact-checking by people such as Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh seem to be the greatest consistencies in their approaches to any of their arguments. Surely, such an extreme lack of truth behind their nastiness must be intentional, representing an approach that spreading lies of deception is the single most important goal of their fringe agenda.

The right would argue that their gang of psychopaths are no different then some of the folks on the left, such as Michael Moore and Al Franken. I would argue to the contrary by pointing out that both of those men appear to make strong efforts of offering independently existing facts to support their cases. Yes, they can take those facts to back up claims in unusual fashion, but the truth is closely connected to their arguments. The right wingnuts, on the other hand, lie so blatantly and consistently that one almost feels they should have to be labeled as fictional characters.

I do not know what Time Magazine has to say about Ann Coulter. Not being desirous of feeling sick to my stomach if they in any way lend credence to what she represents could lead to passing on the piece. Hopefully, the story will spend a great deal of time focusing in on how successful Coulter is in lying to her large following with a slight of hand that is the only impressive thing about her. She is able to fool so many people in this country because societally too many of our citizens are excessively lazy and uninformed. These traits allow for President Bush, Congressman DeLay and the likes of Randall Terry. They also go a long way in explaining the sickness that is Ann Coulter.

(Cross posted on Poetic Leanings)

Animals in Combat

by Ms. Julien in Miami

This makes me sick...

Judicial Activism

by John

If you haven't read Jeffrey Rosen's "The Unregulated Offensive" in the New York Times Magazine, I highly recommend that you do. It's especially timely because it details a lot of what is at stake over the next few weeks and months as the filibuster issue plays out, and the imminent Supreme Court vacancies are filled.

The article examines the Constitution in Exile movement, which is a collection of socially conservative libertarian academics and judges whose dream is to undo the New Deal (i.e., the social welfare state) and deregulate the federal government (i.e. EPA? Unconstitutional. Minimum wage? Ditto.) The philosophical basis for this dream is the notion that individuals have "an inherent right of autonomy, which entitles them to acquire property by dint of their labor and to dispose of it only as they see fit through voluntary transfer of goods." Given this autonomous right, they believe the government can only force individuals to do something (e.g. taxation, distribution of wealth) if it "makes individuals at least as well of as before the taxation or regulation was imposed." The problem for them is that they believe indivduals and companies are worse off when taxed and regulated, and thus their mission is to rectify this state of affairs.

In order to achieve this agenda, adherents believe they have to take an activist approach, both in litigation and in judical decisions. So in other words, when you hear conservatives decry activist judges they're only decrying liberal activist judges, and what they really mean is that they want to install conservative activist judges. It's sort of like attacking Kerry's war record while defending the merits of a man with a questionable (at best) service record. It's all about creating the perception that the other side is really bad so that your own record is ignored. Conservatives have won on this in the past, so it makes sense that they'd use it in this battle, too.

So why is this stuff important? Should we really be concerned that our minimum wage laws will be ruled unconstitutional, or that everything will be deregulated? Well, yes and no. No, because the movement is not yet in a position from a judicial standpoint to really start enforcing their dream. On the other hand, and this is where it gets really important, according to Rosen's piece, at least three of the seven judges Bush has renominated for the appellate courts are sympathetic to this movement. The three are William Pryor, Janice Rogers Brown, and William G. Myers III, who among other things, "has denounced the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act as 'regulatory excess.'" Put in these terms, it's really not a surprise that the Democrats have been resisting these nominations, particularly, as Rosen notes, since "the battle over the ideologies and allegiances of appellate judges is, of course, something of a dress rehearsal for the Supreme Court nomination to come."

It's also important to note that while this constitutional interpretation might sound great on paper, or in the halls of the American Enterprise Institute, it's been done before (pre-New Deal) and it didn't work. More worrisome, is that they don't seem to realize this:

If they win -- if, years from now, the Constitution is brought back from its decades of arguable exile -- and federal environmental laws are struck down, the movement's loyalists do not expect the levels of air and water pollution to rise catastrophically. They are confident that local regulations and private contracts between businesses and neighbors will determine the pollution levels that each region demands. Nor do they expect vulnerable workers to be exploited in sweatshops if labor unions are weakened: they anticipate that entrepreneurial workers in a mobile economy will bargain for the working conditions that their talents deserve. Historic districts, as they see it, will not be eviscerated if zoning laws are scaled back, but they do imagine there will be fewer brownstones and more McMansions. In exchange for these trade-offs, they insist, individual liberty -- the indispensable guarantee of self-fulfillment and happiness -- would flourish far more extensively than it does today.

What they seem to forget is that environmental and labor regulations were constructed for a reason. That reason (among others) was to prevent people from releasing dangerous pollutants into the environment , and to prevent companies from exploiting their workers. It's not like people decided to regulate for the sake of regulation. There are very real and important reasons for it, and there are very real and important consequences of striking it down.

My point is that there are good reasons for the Democrats to filibuster. Even if it is true, as W.C. notes in comments to this post, that "filibustering judicial nominees was, before this term very, very rare," it is also very, very rare that a President would twice nominate judges that not only have such an extreme interpretation of the Constitution, but also have so much animosity towards some of the most popular political policies in the nation's history.

And that is what this is really all about. It is not about how the Democrats have obstructed the President's nominations, and it's not about how the Republican's are just trying to get "a simple yes or no vote." The issue is about advancing an agenda that could otherwise not be advanced without subterfuge in the form of liberal activist judges, Terri Schiavo, or gay marriage.

I hate to put it in partisan terms, because I think this is an issue that should unite most Americans, but if the Democrats don't win this battle, it could take a few decades to reverse the consequences.

(cross posted at Blogenlust)

Analysis:
The 21^st Century: Opus Three

by Dark Wraith

The modern, neo-conservative view of politics embraces the philosophy of the 20^th Century philospher Leo Strauss, who drew upon writings of Plato to justify using the "noble lie" to obtain approval from the governed under less than totalitarian conditions. Plato endorsed the use of prevarication because of his belief that the world was divided into classes of men who, by their very nature, differed in their abilities: the men of gold were born to lead and to govern, whereas men of lesser metals simply could not and, by extension, would not be able even to understand what was required of leaders. Hence, from Plato to Strauss, and finally to the neo-conservatives of today, descends a philosophy of governance that designs policy that is, in both motivation and architecture, beyond the grasp of the body politic. Under these conditions, a lie is noble if it is to the end of a better world, even if the means would be reprehensible and unacceptable if presented unvarnished for the democratic process.

The first part of this series surveyed the working document, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, now being used by the Pentagon to build the military readiness for this new century. In that first part, nations and coalitions of nations were glossed in their responses to the emerging conditions of this world and the presence of the United States as the dominant force in it. That working document—a product cut from the whole cloth of neo-conservative work embodied in the Project for the New American Century—envisions a somewhat friendly but competitive tension between the United States and Europe, with the latter following the former into an economy based upon military/industrial production that moves the manufacture of consumer goods fully into the Third World, leaving both the U.S. and Europe to focus on their assumed, shared comparative advantage in the production of weaponry, security, and projection of political power through military and economic force. Certain emergent alliance structures were set forth that will shape the global balance of power for the coming decades. In the second part of this series, details of the four-part mission of the United States armed forces were set forth, in their broad scope rendering evidence of ambition of global empire that provides permanent security for and domination of nation-states around the world, while pinning down and boxing in potential economic competitors like Europe.

The Doctrine of Overwhelming Expenditures
The neo-conservative plan holds to the largely unquestioned myth that the Soviet Union collapsed because it tried to match the build-up of the United States armed forces during the Reagan Administration. To this day, it is widely believed that the Soviet Union drove itself into financial ruin trying to match and even exceed the huge military expenditures of the U.S. during the 1980s.

That the Reagan Administration attempted to re-align domestic spending away from social programs and toward defense is without doubt. That it failed miserably to do so is also not in question. The result was a string of huge budget deficits the likes of which were not seen again until the current Bush Administration. Ambitious and largely derided military initiatives of the Reagan Administration—plans like the so-called "Star Wars" all-sky umbrella against intercontinental ballistic missiles—did indeed garner the attention of the Warsaw Pact, but little evidence exists that the dire financial condition of the Soviet Union was made materially and consequentially worse by reactive escalation in defense spending.

Nevertheless, armed with the belief that potential adversaries will have to make the choice of spending themselves into bankruptcy or submitting to American dominance, aggressively increasing the amount of domestic spending on the military is very high on the neo-conservative agenda. The dismantling of the so-called "welfare state" is merely a convenient philosophical argument for what is more aptly described as a re-assignment of priorities away from inward looking care of the citizenry to outward looking reach of empire.

But expenditures alone are not enough. Four parts of the deterrent effect must all be in place:

Overwhelming Extent
Even though other factors do come into play mightily, there is no substitute for sheer amount of hardware. Even though Defense Secretary Rumsfeld envisions a force structure comprising small, rapidly deployable units, the number of those units and the equipment they can field in totality must be quite large in scale so that operations can be conducted not just in multiple theatres of operation, but also simultaneously within any given theatre. This ensures a pervasiveness of presence that prevents pockets of resistance from festering for any period of time long enough for insurgency to establish a staging area for operations. In this regard, the lesson of Falluja has not been lost on the neo-conservatives.

Technological Sophistication
The weapons systems must be irreproducible by adversaries and friends alike. Complexity of design must dovetail with subtlety and nuance of capability to construct an overwhelming imposition of power through design and implementation. Many are the stories throughout history of brute force overwhelming far greater sophistication in technology, but such examples are the exception, not the rule. The Roman Empire literally obliterated resistance from one side of its empire to the other with weapons systems that enemies had never seen and for which no effective countermeasures could be developed and deployed quickly enough to avoid defeat.

Variety of Means and Tools
An enormous force using only one strategy and one weapons system is weak, even if its weapons system and strategy of choice are highly sophisticated. By building many different systems pressing into service a variety of technological innovations, the task of any putative competitor is increased many fold, since responsive development and useful implementation of any one or several American war machine weapons programs does nothing to counteract the extensive variety of possible machines of war that the empire could employ in any theatre or on any given battlefield.

Human Combatants Management
Here is where the picture becomes somewhat bifurcated. The traditional battlefield has at least two broad categories of combatants: those who are to be preserved and those who are to be neutralized. Traditionally, these matters were black and white: keep the friendlies alive so they can fight another day and then go home, and kill or maim the enemy soldiers so that, not only are they no longer effective combatants, but they might also present a logistical drain on battlefield and peri-battlefield resources before becoming a social burden to the enemy that dared to field them. Those almost obvious guidelines are not quite so clear for the Pentagon of this century, however.

First, with respect to American soldiers, the Pentagon is working quietly and quite seriously on programs with names like "Persistence in Combat," which contemplate pharmacological and biomechanical enhancements to soldiers that will allow them to continue fighting even when they are severely—possibly mortally—wounded. Such technology is not revolutionary; it is the logical extension of centuries of efforts to maintain effectiveness of soldiers long after exhaustion and other factors would set aside civilians.

With respect to enemy combatants, a number of programs are now in development or field tests to the goal not of killing enemy soldiers and insurgents, but rather of rendering them entirely ineffective as threats. This has two purposes: it reduces the cost of managing the dead and wounded of defeated enemy states; and far more importantly, it evicerates the enemy of its will to fight. The humiliation of surrendering a fight because he is writhing in temporary pain depletes an enemy of the ancient bravado and martyrdom of honorable death in battle. Ultimately, such people who were once violent and dangerous become nothing more than seething, castrated, and docile.

The Economics of Response
Although a competing sphere of influence may engage a tactical approach of either ignoring or condemning the United States for its plans, no prudent nation-state can long decline to react fiscally to the threat the United States will present. This is precisely what the neo-conservatives envision: nations that wish to compete must do so at the same or greater financial level, and only a few of the world's states can do so for any length of time and to any meaningful extent. Sweeping alliances of nations will be difficult to construct, given that the U.S. will have already selected its alliance structure. It is no coincidence last week that news media reported talks between China and India, two countries that were not long ago rather bitter rivals. The United States has actively engaged both of these partners, with India being a pivot in an axis that includes Israel, Taiwan, and Brazil. With China in the grouping, the United States will have a coalition that literally girds the Northern Hemisphere of the globe, with Southern Hemisphere spurs in both South America and Australia. It is unlikely, then, that any meaningful economic collaboration of competing nations can build a financially competitive franchise that would closely resemble the muscle in the American cauldron. Europe, then, will be left with scraps in the Middle East and possibly Africa with which to work as a countervailing force, and this will not be enough, particularly if Europe is unwilling to use military force to secure oil fields, transport routes, and telecommunications linkages.

As far as space is concerned, the Europeans are easily decades behind the U.S. in the weaponization of near-Earth orbit. This obviously makes the U.S. all the more attractive to China, whose nascent space program is even further behind than Europe's. By the time the Europeans grasp the danger that space-based weapons pose to its safety and security, it will be far too late: the U.S. will not hesitate to develop predatory patrol vehicles whose express purpose will be to "keep space safe" from other nations' weaponry being deployed up there.

It is unlikely, though, that the Europeans and such Arab and Persian nations as will oppose U.S. hegemony will simply surrender. This is where the Reagan myth returns to be tested. As the Europeans and such other nations as might wish to engage in the arms race begin to re-align their economies toward military/industrial production and away from consumer goods and social programs, the neo-conservative model comes to infect the entire planet. But as the Europeans lose this race and watch their economies rapidly collapse as did the Soviet Union's, they will already have put in place the neo-conservative political doctrines that will make them compatible as subordinates to the American version of empire that has finally completed the process begun fitfully in the last half of the 20^th Century. And with that capitulation of the last resistance to American empire, the thousand year reign can begin.

The Final Look
In the closing part of this series, attention will turn to what can go wrong. Necessarily, this will entail surveying twilight scenarios, any one of which is of extraordinarily low probability, but the body of which, taken in aggregation, becomes almost certainty. And it will be on this note that the series closes, as it may very well be on the note of a known but discounted catastrophic error in calculation that the American Empire ends before it has truly begun.

Top Papal candidate was a former Hitler Youth

by Pam

It's no surprise that this little factoid popped up. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gets bonus points for his nicknames "the enforcer", "the panzer cardinal" and "God's rottweiler." Is "Hitler's hot young thing" a new one we should know? [BTW, he believes gays suffer from an "objective disorder," and of course is opposed to women priests and married priests.] (TimesOnline):

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets - including "the enforcer", "the panzer cardinal" and "God's rottweiler" - is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

...Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger's past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit.

The pathetic defense put up for Ratzinger's choice to enlist is laughable.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot - adding that his gun was not even loaded - because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile - comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.

Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. "It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others," she said. "The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice." In 1937 another family a few hundred yards away in Traunstein hid Hans Braxenthaler, a local resistance fighter. SS troops repeatedly searched homes in the area looking for the fugitive and his fellow conspirators. "When he was betrayed and the Nazis came for him, Braxenthaler shot himself because he knew he couldn't escape," said Frieda Meyer, 82, Ratzinger's neighbour and childhood friend. "Even though they had tortured him in Dachau concentration camp he refused to give up his resistance efforts."

Top Papal candidate was a former Hitler Youth

by Pam

It's no surprise that this little factoid popped up. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gets bonus points for his nicknames "the enforcer", "the panzer cardinal" and "God's rottweiler." Is "Hitler's hot young thing" a new one we should know? [BTW, he believes gays suffer from an "objective disorder," and of course is opposed to women priests and married priests.] (TimesOnline):

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets - including "the enforcer", "the panzer cardinal" and "God's rottweiler" - is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

...Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger's past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit.

The pathetic defense put up for Ratzinger's choice to enlist is laughable.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot - adding that his gun was not even loaded - because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile - comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.

Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. "It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others," she said. "The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice." In 1937 another family a few hundred yards away in Traunstein hid Hans Braxenthaler, a local resistance fighter. SS troops repeatedly searched homes in the area looking for the fugitive and his fellow conspirators. "When he was betrayed and the Nazis came for him, Braxenthaler shot himself because he knew he couldn't escape," said Frieda Meyer, 82, Ratzinger's neighbour and childhood friend. "Even though they had tortured him in Dachau concentration camp he refused to give up his resistance efforts."

Matt Drudge tells Brit paper that he's not gay

by Pam

From the man himself -- not particularly convincing. This is mostly a puff piece, but it's a look at how the muckracker GOP shill views himself. Interesting that he never gets cornered by our lazy American media. (Times Online):

What does Drudge do when he is not plugged into cyberspace? “That’s a very good question and I’m not going to discuss it,” he replies.

“Hold on, Matt,” I say, “you’re always exposing the private lives of public figures. You can’t go all coy now.”

“I’m not very social. I live on an island in Miami, Florida, and I do my own shopping and pay my taxes,” he says. “And I’m not mean.”

That is not the way that Drudge’s critics see it. David Brock, a former right-wing journalist, claimed in his book Blinded by the Right that Drudge was gay, yet supported a party that these critics see as “homophobic”.

“So are you a gay right-wing Republican?” I ask.

“No, I’m not gay. I was nearly married a few years ago. And no, I’m not a right-wing Republican,” he replies without batting an eye. “I’m a conservative and want to pay less taxes. And I did vote Republican at the last election. But I’m more of a populist.”

You can read more about Drudge and judge for yourself about his queer quotient....

* David Brock: "Brock's description of a night out with notorious cybersleaze Matt Drudge, from page 283: "Drudge picked me up at a friend's house in the Hollywood Hills in his red Geo Metro, arriving with an impressive bouquet of yellow roses. Jesus, I thought, Drudge thinks we're going on a date. After dinner at the famed West Hollywood restaurant Dan Tana's, he suggested we go bar hopping along the gay strip on Santa Monica Boulevard, which Drudge navigated like a pro. ... (Six months hence, I received the following e-mail message from Drudge, under the subject heading "XXX." Drudge wrote: "Laura [Ingraham] spreading stuff about you and me being fuck buddies. I should only be so lucky. ") "

* Michelangelo Signorile: "Cybergossip Matt Drudge may say that he is not gay, but one thing is clear, no matter his sexual orientation: he’s a nasty faggot."

* Raw Story: And then there’s Matt Drudge. Drudge, who outed Jeffrey Koffman and has made a mission of exposing the lurid details of other people’s sex lives, is widely reported to be gay (and — watch out boys — an incredibly uptight lay). He seemed to confirm both rumors at once by saying that a biographer “never said there was sex [with men]; she said there was dating." Always a writer first, (and apparently to make up for the chill in the bedroom) Drudge allegedly left a trail of love letters to old suitors. Even more shocking is that none are said to have contained false allegations that they had an affair with an intern. Then again, the book could be wrong. David Cohen, who claims to be Drudge’s former beau, said that an attention-starved Drudge, “Loved to do wild, provocative things to draw attention to himself.” Now, that doesn’t sound like the Matt Drudge we know …

* AMERICABlog: John's pulled together quite a few links worth reading...
Datalounge names Drudge's alleged 'ex'
Drudge a fan of gay dance DJs
Man claims to be Drudge ex-boyfriend
Drudge denies being gay, reporter offers to get affidavit of his alleged "ex"
So, he dated men but didn't have sex with them?

Frist and his unholy halo

by Pam

Love this pic from the latest issue of Newsweek. The Howard Fineman piece reports that 31 of the 165 members of Frist's medical-school class accused him of using his medical degree improperly.

Lewis Rose, an oncologist who said he voted for Bush last year, insisted Frist had overstepped in the Schiavo case. "He had no right to use the cloak of the Hippocratic oath, no matter who was right," Rose told NEWSWEEK. "He's got medical training and a medical perspective, but he is not a practicing physician and has no business using that in politics. Period. If he does, he won't get any of his classmates' votes who signed this."

Slaughterhouse Week on Wall Street

by Dark Wraith

The week just ended will be remembered among investors for the Wednesday to Friday sprint stocks took on the road to recession. On Friday alone, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 191 points, shaving 1.86 percent off the index of the 30 industrials. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost one and two-thirds percent of its value; and the NASDAQ composite index lost just shy of two full percentage points of its value. For the week, the Dow took a 3.6% loss on its value; the Standard & Poor's 500 got whacked for 3.3% of its value; and the NASDAQ got its clock cleaned to the tune of a 4.6% smack-down.

In the case of the Dow blue chips, the index is now just north of 88 points above the 10,000 point level that some technical analysts see as a major psychological neckline. With the Dow Industrial Average having lost more than a hundred points on both Thursday and Friday, that break point is well within this market's striking range this coming Monday. Other analysts might argue, however, that the market is due for a breather, as bargain-hunting investors begin to buy up stocks that were dragged down too far in the hurricane downdraft this week. Older investors used to call such turns to the upside "rallies in the bear market," and the stage may be set for a return of bulls next week ready to fight for lost turf. It is not likely, however, that the bears will simply walk away from another try at beating up the market.

Much of the action will pivot on macroeconomic data pouring out next week. Even though quite a few corporate earnings statements will be released, investors seem to be keen on the big picture, right now; and there will be plenty for them to chew on: Tuesday, the March producer price index will be published, and the consumer price index will follow on Wednesday. Investors will be paying close attention to these numbers to get some idea of how long and how aggressively the Federal Reserve plans to push interest rates up in its fight against the inflationary pressures that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has said are under control, even as he has shepherded the Federal Open Market Committee through a record run of rate increases.

The New York Fed released its Empire Manufacturing Report on Friday, and the news wasn't good for the state's manufacturing sector, which is seen as one of many important guages of regional—and at least to some extent, national—business activity. While analysts who follow the index had predicted that the April value would fall modestly to 19 from its March figure of just over 20, the survey index actually fell to 3.1. That's right, the index was expected to drop from 20.2 to 19, but instead, it dropped from 20.2 all the way down to 3.1. This alone would have been enough to make grown institutional investors have bladder problems, but it was only the latest in a growing drumbeat of bad numbers, including the Johnson Redbook survey released earlier this week that showed retail sales at department stores were drying up, even for some basic items like clothing.

Although of little comfort to stock investors who've just seen the values of their portfolios slashed mightily, the sell-off in stocks freed up money that went straight to bonds in a "flight to quality" scenario reminiscent of previous pre-recessionary portfolio re-alignments by the big players on Wall Street. With buy orders for bonds surging, bond prices have been moving up smartly, pushing yields down, if only temporarily. Over the longer term, continued rate increases by the Federal Reserve, coupled with massive borrowing by the federal government to fund record-breaking deficit spending, is expected to keep the overall pressure upward on bonds, meaning that business and consumer borrowing will still be under seige for some time to come, which will add to recessionary forces acting on the U.S. economy.

The White House and Congress have yet to move in a unified fashion to try to stave off the looming recession, choosing instead to address matters such as a highly controversial bankruptcy reform bill and a bill to end estate taxes. The former bill, which makes declaring bankruptcy far more financially catastrophic for individuals, will go into effect quite quickly, just in time to have impact on the millions of people who will be adversely affected by the downturn in the economy. The repeal of estate taxation will go into effect at the beginning of the next decade, so any impact it might have will occur substantially after the impending difficult times have long passed... unless, that is, the Republicans who are responsible for the current fiscal, financial, and economic disasters are still in power at that time, in which case, some might argue, many people will have little remaining to pass on in estate, anyway, particularly if their money was invested in the stock market.

Big Blogger Saturday funnies

by Pam

One of the readers of House Blend, Mike Tidmus, sent in a great one that I had to post over here on B3:



Better Photoshop skills too! I'd like to see Frist in the ruby slippers at the event.

And here's one from Paul, another reader:

George & Condi - The Gifts that Keep On Giving...

by Ms. Julien in Miami

from Mario:

Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report

The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.



"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.

"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."

More...

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm

Bush has screwed up everything he has ever touched......from the Texas school system ( ranked 50th in the nation ), to the American economy, to his drunken daughters, to several oil companies ( the Monkey couldn’t find oil in Texas! )...............why should the war on terror be any different?

"Well, I really think that he shatters the myth of white supremacy once and for all...

-- Charlie Rangel (D-NY) on Bush

Changing Times?

by STP

When a person today says they were wrong fifty years ago for calling blacks inferior, referring to inter-racial marriage as the mongrelization of the races and for stating that allowing blacks in the military would ruin the armed services, that person is not noble today for changing positions. That person is merely among the last to climb on board the train of enlightenment.

When a person today calls homosexuals sinners, refers to gay marriage as harming the sanctity of marriage and states that allowing gays to serve openly in the military will ruin the armed services, that person is simply acknowledging that they wish to be among the last to climb on board the same train of enlightenment.

(Cross posted on Poetic Leanings)

At least they could have hired someone that knows Photoshop

by Pam

Get a load of this ad for the upcoming Cat Killer Frist revival. First you're horrified at sledgehammer Taliban title of the wingnuttery, "The Filibuster Against People of Faith," but then your eyes are drawn to the truly amateurish photo-editing. This kid was clearly not holding a gavel or a bible.



I'm waiting for the program to see when Frist is going to be snake handling. Let the f*cking holy rolling begin.


And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. —Mark 16:17-18

(via DKos)

Orange Alert! Danger!

by John

A terrorist has issued a manifesto advocating the use of force against Americans!

ATLANTA - Abortion clinics around the country are bracing for attacks after Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph issued his manifesto justifying the use of violence to stop “the worst massacre in human history.
[...]

In an 11-page manifesto handed out by his attorneys, Rudolph said the Olympic bombing was an attempt to embarrass the United States in front of the world for allowing abortion.

“Because I believe that abortion is murder, I also believe that force is justified ... in an attempt to stop it,” Rudolph wrote.

Abortion clinics and federal agents are on a heightened state of alert.

Please remain vigilant this weekend, and be wary of clean-cut white guys congregating near churches.

Liberals Are (Still) Right

by Shakespeare's Sister

In a spectacularly shitty bit of reporting that fails to mention Democrats had confirmed 95% of Bush’s nominees as of October, (well beyond the 81% approval rating granted Clinton, 77% granted G.H.W. Bush, and 88% granted Reagan), which is the single most pertinent fact required to properly contextualize how astonishingly disproportionate and inappropriate is the behavior of the GOP on any issue surrounding the judiciary, the NY Times brings us the story of the Republicans’ next charge: that Democrats are anti-faith for blocking 10 of Bush’s judicial nominees.

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.

[…]

Dr. Frist has threatened that the Republican majority might change the rules to require only a majority vote on nominees, and Democrats have vowed to bring Senate business to a standstill if he does.

As well they should. What a bunch of pouty, insolent babies the GOP are. Not to mention illogical and disingenuous, as per usual: another little tidbit ignored by the Times is that these are the same judicial nominees previously rejected by the Dems, but instead of finding more adequate nominees, the GOP has decided to try to ramrod through the only nominees blocked by the Dems, threatening to eradicate the filibuster and demonizing the Dems in the process.

The nominees the Dems have blocked hold some of the most conservative views found among the judiciary on abortion rights, prayer, and public religious expressions including religious displays. Hence, the Dems are now being tagged anti-faith, despite concerns that the nominees positions lend themselves to possible decisions would likely infringe upon the rights of those practicing faiths other than Christianity, in addition to separation of church and state issues. Of course, Frist and his band of Christian soldiers won’t be deterred by a little technicality like the truth, so on they plow, unconcerned for and undeterred by the lies they must tell to be “good Christians.”

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

[…]

Some of the nation's most influential evangelical Protestants are participating in the teleconference in Louisville, including Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

[…]

The telecast also signals an escalation of the campaign for the rule change by Christian conservatives who see the current court battle as the climax of a 30-year culture war, a chance to reverse decades of legal decisions about abortion, religion in public life, gay rights and marriage.

"As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group's Web site. "For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms."

This is, of course, bullshit. Mr. Perkins has as much freedom to practice his religion whether abortion is legal or not, whether gays can marry or not. What he deems restricting his religious freedom is more accurately described as restricting his ability to impose his religious beliefs on others. I’ve never heard a Jew or a Muslim complaining that they were being robbed of their religious freedom because bacon’s for sale at the grocer. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean you have to buy it. As I’ve said before:

Liberals do not want Christians to be unable to practice their religion; in fact, we want them to be able to practice their religion in any way they see fit…until, that is, it infringes on the rights of non-Christians to practice their religion, or non-believers to not practice religion at all. It is possible for all to coexist, so long as each is respectful of the others’ rights.

My rights end where yours begin. It’s such a simple but powerful concept, yet it is anathema to Conservatives, because it necessarily excludes their desire to control and force their dissenters to succumb to their will. It isn’t enough that they can change the channel when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy comes on; the show must be taken off the air altogether. It isn’t enough that they can put up Nativity scenes in their churches and in their homes and on their lawns; there must be one at City Hall, too. It isn’t enough that their children can pray and learn about creationism at home and at church; they have to be able to do it at school, too, and so must all the other kids, irrespective of their families’ views. It just isn’t ever enough.

[…]

Only having rid the country of minorities, gays, feminists, evolutionists, atheists, pacifists, abortionists, stem cell researchers, the poor, the needy, the infirm, immigrants, environmentalists, animal rights activists, non-Christians, and anyone else who disagrees with them could they be happy. Or such is their claim. But without anyone upon whom to pass judgment, I wonder how long such contentment could possibly last.

It comes down, of course, to Choice: The power, right, or liberty to choose from a number of possible alternatives. What, I wonder, is so difficult about the definition of choice as to render it incomprehensible to the religious Right? Or, is it that they understand the concept, but seek to limit choices, lest their wretched mortal souls be tempted to make the wrong ones?

Liberals are right on this issue. The judiciary should not be allowed to be stacked with those who seek to limit rights on the basis of a moral code that the entire country does not share—and more importantly, that the entire country is not compelled to share. That’s exactly what freedom of religion is all about. It’s about choice, and the attempts to limit choices only to those deemed acceptable by a single religion (and, specifically, certain denominations of a single religion) are not only outrageous—they’re un-American.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

One of those satisfying stories of marriage amendment hypocrisy

by Pam

Tennessee State Senator Jeff Miller (R) represents District 9. He's been boinking some chick on the side even as he's pushing a marriage amendment. He stopped an effort to add an adultery ban to the proposal. Hmmmm...

Read and weep from laughing. (WSMV):

State Sen. Jeff Miller, a Republican from Cleveland, is accused of "inappropriate marital conduct" in a divorce complaint filed Feb. 25 in Bradley County. The senator's March 2 answer to the complaint "vehemently denies" any inappropriate marital conduct.

"He is very hypocritical, fighting for the sanctity of marriage and not keeping his own," the senator's wife of 15 years, Bridgitte Suzanne Miller, said in a report in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Jeff Miller, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, acknowledged the divorce in a statement Thursday.

"Divorce is a very difficult time for everyone," he said. "It is a very private matter which is played out in public proceedings. My chief concern right now is the best interest of our children."

The senator's wife said Wednesday her husband was involved with a woman in Nashville. She said family members saw him with the woman at a Martina McBride concert. "He told them that she was just a friend," Ms. Miller said. "That really bothered me."

The state Senate approved Miller's marriage protection amendment Feb. 22. In addition to defining marriage as "the historical institutional and legal contract solemnizing the relationship of one man and one woman," it would also forbid state recognition of same-sex marriages.

Miller stopped an attempt to include a constitutional ban on adultery in the amendment.

Bush putting the kibosh on the Armstrong Williams investigation

by Pam

What a pathetic pair: Armstrong and Margaret Spellings.

Holy crap. Chimpy's circling the wagons on the matter of pundit pigs-at-the-taxpayers' trough Armstrong Williams. (NYT):

he Bush administration is impeding an investigation into the Education Department's hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams by refusing to allow key White House officials to be interviewed, a Democratic lawmaker briefed on the review said Thursday.

In addition, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is considering invoking a privilege that he said would require information to be deleted when the final version is publicly released, which is expected within days.

Miller called for Jack Higgins, the inspector general at the Education Department, to delay the report until Spellings agrees not to invoke ''deliberative process privilege'' and the White House grants interviews with current or former officials familiar with the deal.

''The public's right to know is absolutely more important than any claim of privilege that the White House or the Department of Education might make,'' Miller said. ''The public has a right to all the facts about possible misconduct.''

...The department has shut down its contract with Ketchum, the public relations firm hired primarily to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind education law. Of the $1.3 million contract, about $240,000 went to Williams, a prominent, conservative media personality.

The money went toward the production of ads, the department says, although Williams was also hired to provide air time to Paige and to influence other black commentators to talk about the law, records show.

Earler posts on the whore for No Child Left Behind are here and here.

Operation FALCON

by John

This might be a stupid question, but why does it take a week long dragnet (aka publicity stunt) to round up 10,000 fugitives?

You don't just find and capture 10,000 fugitives in a week, because if it was that easy, we probably wouldn't have had 10,000 to catch, right? What am I missing? Bueller?

Oh, and wouldn't it be great if we could set up a week long dragnet called Operation FIND OBL. Imagine how successful that would be!

(cross posted @ blogenlust)

I don't know how I got on this mailing list...

by Pam

...but it scares me when I see an image like this in an email.



She's looking more like The Joker each time she gets pulled.

Why Minnesota GOP State Senator Paul Koering came out

by Pam

Sen. Paul Koering, R-Fort Ripley, teared up when he recalled breaking the news that he was gay to his mother years ago. His mother, whom he described as his "best friend," died two years ago this month. Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls

Long post alert...

You must read the Raw Story piece on how Minnesota Republican State Senator Paul Koering decided to publicly come out, first to Mike Rogers of BlogActive, then to his colleagues, and bravely the rest of the world yesterday. He's already heard squawking from party leaders about it. Rogers confronted Koering about the rumors that he was gay, and he knew he had to make a choice.

“I thought about hanging up,” the Minnesotan says. “And so I put him on hold because I didn’t know what to do, and so I went over to our chief of staff’s office a couple of doors down from me, and he was not there. It gave me a minute and a half to cool off, so I got back on my phone, and I said, ‘Mike, yeah, I’m gay, ask me whatever you want to ask me. If that’s what you want to do, it’s fine with me.’”

After admitting he was gay, the senator says he and Rogers had an amicable conversation.

“We actually had at that point I think a very civil conversation,” Koering recalls. “I actually could see that once I opened up my heart like I normally do I could see that I felt that he thought” similar things.

An important thing to mention is that Rogers did not out Koering at that time. Rogers:

I was speaking with goes to gay bars, knows a lot of gay people, and -- after thirty minutes chat with me – told me he was gay, despite his evasiveness earlier in the call. This individual is certainly not what anyone would describe as "out." This politician's colleagues are not aware of the private life and not every vote this legislator has taken has been in the best interest of the gay and lesbian community.

Like every other story, I review the totality of the matter and decide with my advisors if the story is worth reporting. In this case, like so many others, the file is closed and a no story is written. Why? Because blogACTIVE.com does not report on every closeted politician from one party or the other.

There is also an excellent profile of Koering, who plans to run for re-election, in the local paper, The Brainerd Dispatch. The man's politics are conservative, but you can tell he knows that his electability may hinge completely on his decision to try to serve his district as an out gay man.

"The Republican Party I know is a big tent," he said, but then posed a rhetorical question. "Is the Republican big tent in Senate District 12 big enough to have them endorse me?

"I'm going to put up a vigorous campaign," he said.

Koering said he hoped voters would look at his performance during the last two years and conclude that he was a good guy with a good heart. Although he was the only Republican senator to cast a vote against the unsuccessful measure to force a floor vote on the Defense of Marriage Act, he said he continues to staunchly support other core issues he has emphasized in the past.

Koering endorses Rogers' campaign to "out" the homo hypocrites.

Koering, unlike many in his party—and those at gay and lesbian rights lobby groups in Washington—told RAW STORY he supports Rogers’ efforts to report on gay politicians who use their positions of power to thwart gay rights.

“I do believe it is appropriate when you have a politician who is a hypocrite,” the senator says. “Somebody who is possibly in the closet and uses their bully pulpit or their position to bash gay people or to make gay people’s lives difficult in their position and are in essence leading a double life—people like that need to be exposed for the hypocrite that they are.

“Those people need to be exposed for who they are because they are a very poor excuse for a public official, as far as I’m concerned,” he adds. “We don’t need hypocrites in government. Government is too screwed up as it is.”

Another issue addressed in the Raw Story article is the sad, gawdawful position of the Human Rights Campaign ("HRC continues to maintain a policy that politicians who maintain gay private lives should not forced out of the closet based on their public positions on gay issues") and the Log Cabin Repugs ("We oppose outing, period.").

We can't look to these organizations to really fight the fight (well, anyone that thinks the LCRs are effective at anything are smoking something anyway -- LCR is back, begging to be Bush's butt boy again). These organizations are too concerned about mainstreaming that they are selling gay folks out. Period.

HRC's effectiveness is pretty much summed up by the decision to roll a billboard truck around NYC during the GOP convention with "George W. Bush: ‘You’re Fired" emblazoned on it.

***

The word "outing" when referring to the these hypocrites needs to be in quotes. These losers are people that are otherwise publicly out among friends and co-workers -- cruising and socializing as a homo at night. By day, they re-closet themselves to right-wing constituents and organizations that you know would hate their guts (or your Repug candidate that you work for) -- it's bullsh*t.



Look at Mike Rogers' "outing" of ex-Congressman Ed Schrock. What a head case that man is. A >90% Christian Coalition rating, homophobe supreme, exposed by Mike on tape, soliciting sex from men on a dating service. This sick f*cker had no business in Congress. He needed a shrink.

These are people that actively work for and support anti-gay legislation, court the Christian Coalition's hate agenda -- you have to wonder how they can sleep at night. Most do very well thank you. They only get restless when sites like BlogActive are willing to point out the hypocrisy.

I hope the LCR crowd, at least, can look to Koering as a model of what gay Republicans need to do. I certainly cannot agree with most Republican positions, but coming out is the single most important thing any gay person can do of any political stripe.

The Importance of Governing

by STP

Appearing in the Kos diaries, Senator Corzine (D-NJ) talks about the "Importance of Governing." One section caught my attention as the Senator discussed the DLC:

"The answer to 'compassionate conservatism' isn't timid progressivism. It's a real commitment to equal opportunity, to fiscal responsibility and a fair society. We can and must be a party with the courage to stand tall for our beliefs because that's how we will be able to win as the party of the people."

Well said, Senator (my guy!). He should sit down with Senators Lieberman and Nelson (Nebraska), among others.

(Cross posted at Poetic Leanings)

About Time

by John

It's nice to see that four years later, we're finally getting around to keeping lighters off of airplanes.

We're lucky nobody ever tried to ignite a shoe bomb with a lighter!

Screwed Again

by Shakespeare's Sister

Thanks.

The House voted 272 to 162 yesterday to permanently repeal the estate tax, throwing the issue to the Senate where negotiations have begun on a deep and permanent estate tax cut that can pass this year, even if it falls short of full repeal.

The House vote pitted repeal proponents, who held that a tax on inheritances is fundamentally unfair, against Democrats, who questioned how Congress could support a tax cut largely for the affluent that would cost $290 billion over 10 years, in the face of record budget deficits.

"This is reverse Robin Hood," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "We're taking money from the middle class and giving it to the super-rich."

Am I the only one who’s pissed that the totally rich motherfuckers who voted in this revolting administration aren’t the ones required to pay for its follies? I didn’t vote for ’em, but I’m the one stuck with the bill. Stinks.

Scalia, I need your final answer...

by Pam

"State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers' validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding."
--Antonin Scalia, on the Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court ruling

Since he wants to get into everyone's bedroom and return domain over the prohibition of sodomy (and masturbation!?) back to the states, it seems like Scalia would like to weigh in on whether he'd be breaking the law if he could wind back the clock. (NYP):

Antonin Scalia spoke Tuesday night at NYU's Vanderbilt Hall, "The room was packed with some 300 students and there were many protesters outside because of Scalia's vitriolic dissent last year in the case that overturned the Texas law against gay sex," our source reports. "One gay student asked whether government had any business enacting and enforcing laws against consensual sodomy. Following Scalia's answer, the student asked a follow-up: 'Do you sodomize your wife?' The audience was shocked, especially since Mrs. Scalia [Maureen] was in attendance. The justice replied that the question was unworthy of an answer."

DeLay Apologizes (Or So the Headlines Would Have Us Believe)

by Shakespeare's Sister

This was the headline: DeLay apologizes for rhetoric in Schiavo case

Any of the following, however, would have been more accurate:

DeLay apologizes for inflammatory language; still advocates undermining judiciary

DeLay apologizes for tone of previous statement without changing position

DeLay apologizes for rhetoric appearing to threaten judges with violence; continues to threaten their jobs

DeLay backed into a corner; whimpers, then attacks

DeLay babbles incoherent non-apology; still a total douchebag

DeLay did express regret for saying, after the death of Schiavo, that the judges who refused to reinsert the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube would one day "answer for their behavior."

[…]

"I said something in an inartful way. I am sorry I said it that way," DeLay said.

He said he favors an independent judiciary but made it plain that he does not intend to give up congressional efforts to rein in "activist" judges.

"We've got jurisdiction over the courts. We set up the courts, and we can unset the courts," DeLay said. "We have the power of the purse."

So, in fact, DeLay was making an apology for the actual words he used, not for the underlying rhetoric—not for the Right’s continued attack on the judiciary.

And, regardless of the nature of his apology, isn’t the bigger (by a fucking long shot) issue in this story that the House Majority Leader continues to espouse the idea that the courts are meant to act at the behest of the legislature?!

DeLay leads charge to permanently undermine system of checks and balances; electorate waves goodbye to democracy

How’s that for a headline?

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

National Guardsman are f*cked again by Uncle Sam

by Pam

Does the complete and utter immorality ever stop? (Florida Sun-Sentinel):

Amid the chaos of war, Sgt. Roberto Orozco and about 35 other members of the Florida National Guard sent to Iraq relied on what they knew for certain: their military training, the love of their families and their government jobs back home.

Then one day in the combat zone, the men got a letter. When they returned home, the letter read, their jobs as full-time members of the Guard assigned to a federal drug interdiction program would be gone.

"We got shafted," said Orozco, 43, a Miami father of three. "We come home from war, and this is what we get."

Of course, you're probably thinking, what about that law that protects people on active duty from losing their jobs?

...had the soldiers worked for a civilian firm, and not for the federal government, they might have been covered by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which protects reservists from discrimination and job loss when called to active duty.

The letters, dated Jan. 12, 2004, informed the guardsmen that their jobs "are not militarily unique and are therefore better performed by other agencies."

The letter then referred them to several job placement Web sites before concluding, "You are constantly in our thoughts; rest assured that every decision we make is with our Counterdrug deployed soldiers and airmen in mind."

...For some, unemployment is not the biggest problem. Thirteen-year Operation Guardian veteran Sgt. Arthur Wells is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and waiting for a second surgery on a shoulder injured in Ramadi, Iraq, when he broke down the door of an insurgent's house.

"It is horrible to go and fight for your country, and then get treated like this," said Wells, 34, a Miamian who collects disability pay while studying to become an automotive technician. "I'm almost thankful I got hurt, or I'd be in a worse situation."

In other words, bend over once more and smile when you go serve your country. Think this story will be in recruitment ads for the Guard?

A New Link to Daniel of Atwood's Letter

by Ms. Julien in Miami

The lovely and tolerant City of Atwood, KS, has taken down one of the most poignant and comprehensive letters ever written for the same-sex union cause, causing many readers to inquire about getting a copy. I wrote Daniel (the author of the letter), and he has supplied a new link to his letter. I have now downloaded and saved it, but since it is long, I shall post the new link: HERE.

As always: Read, Think, ACT!!!!!

Ms. Julien

Fiscal Responsibility Is So Passe

by John

According to Reuters, the Pentagon is spending millions and millions of our tax dollars on something, they just don't know what:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Defense Department is unable to track how it spent tens of millions of dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the U.S. war on terrorism, Congress's top investigator said on Wednesday.

The department "doesn't have a system to be able to determine with any degree of reliability and specificity how we spent" tens of millions in war-related emergency funds set aside by Congress, Comptroller General David Walker told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee.
[...]
Congress approved $25 billion in extra defense spending for fiscal 2005, which ends on Sept. 30. Lawmakers were moving to approve $81 billion more this week outside the normal budget process, including about $75 billion for war-related Defense Department operations.
[...]
Overall, Walker said the Defense Department, which is seeking $419.3 billion for its fiscal 2006 budget, was wasting billions of dollars a year because of ineffective management of its business operations.

Most disheartening about this is that we continue to spend billions of dollars in addition to what has already been budgeted. While I understand that this is often necessary in war, I don't understand why it's so hard to determine how the government is spending the money. In any other instance, the investors--we, the US taxpayers--would demand more accountability and oversight over how our money is being spent.

In the end, it's emblematic of our current national mood that we're so apathetic to the fact that we're embroiled in a never ending war with a limitless price tag. Has there ever been a time when apathy and unaccountability permeated our society and government as much as they do now?

I'm All Worked Up, Uh-Huh

by Shakespeare's Sister

Oh, I love this (via the Daou Report—emphasis mine):

Over the years, media owners and editors have come up with different explanations for the lack of left or progressive voices across the media landscape. We're told those ideas are unpopular with the public, for example, or that leftists aren't as engaging or likeable as, say, Sean Hannity.

The new CNN President Jonathan Klein offered another theory during an appearance on PBS's Charlie Rose Show on March 25: Progressives aren't angry enough. When Rose asked if there could ever be a successful progressive version of Fox News Channel, Klein thought not. He explained that while Fox was tapping into a brand of "mostly angry white men" conservatism, "a quote/unquote, 'progressive' or liberal network probably couldn't reach the same sort of an audience, because liberals tend to like to sample a lot of opinions. They pride themselves on that. And you know, they don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic. And so, you know, they allow for a lot of that stuff."

First of all, let’s get the easy one out of the way. Morally relativistic? I’ve got three words for you, Mr. Klein: Culture of Life. It isn’t the Left in this country that’s morally relativistic. Here’s my moral code: my rights end where yours begin. It’s flexible, as to accommodate multiple parties, but it is not relative.

As for the assertion that progressives don’t “get too worked up about anything,” well, Mr. Klein—you need look no further than this blog to find evidence contradicting that faulty assumption. I am worked up, sir. I am worked up about what’s being done to my country, to our democracy, to our elections, to our system of checks and balances, to our reputation with our allies, to our national security. I am worked up about the hypocrisy of this administration, who seek to exploit the social conservatism of the voters their corporatist policies will most disadvantage in the not-so-long run. I am worked up about the erosion of women’s rights and the denial of the rights of gays and lesbians. I am worked up about the attack on our judiciary. I am worked up about a lot of shit, and so are the people who visit my blog, and so are my follow Lefty bloggers. We are the definition of worked up, and we’re going to stay that way.

The difference between the allegedly engaging and likeable Sean Hannity and me is, aside from a significant variance in head girth, that Hannity has to make shit up about which to be outraged, to keep his fans—the GOP base—panting and foaming at the mouth every day, despite their ideological leaders having complete control over two branches of government and ergo having little fodder from the crippled opposition with which to stir their ire, whereas there’s plenty of real news for me to be angry about every damn day, which doesn’t require my deliberately misconstruing, disingenuously decontextualizing, or outright lying about my opposition’s positions.

Give me a show, Mr. Klein, and I’ll be happy to prove to you that there are plenty of progressives who get worked up—and manage to do it without the moral relativism or shady bullshit upon which the Fox Schmooze Channel depends.

If you’d like to contact Mr. Klein and suggest he put his finest production team to work developing the Shakespeare’s Sister Show ASAP, or to tell him he’s a plonker, you can find him here:

CNN President
Jonathan Klein
Phone: (404) 827-1500
Prick.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Another One Bites the Dust!

by STP

Thought the gang reading Big Brass Blog might enjoy a bit of the fun and games of New Jersey, and more specifically, Monmouth County, politics. I am from the area. Anyway ...

Yes, queue up the Queen song, folks, New Jersey has another arrested politician. This time it is former Marlboro Township Mayor Matthew Scannapieco(Republican). It comes as no surprise as Scannapieco was in cahoots with former state Senator and Township Attorney-for-hire, John Bennett. Bennett had previously been washed away in disgrace for his crimes and lack of ethics. Now Scannapieco is going down.

Anyone who has driven through Marlboro over the years has seen it altered from a pleasant town with a fair amount of open space to a congested, over-developed sardine can of a community. Besides holding the powerful mayor's position, Scannapieco also sat on the Planning Board, and it was in these dual roles that he accepted $245,000 from a developer to support commercial building in the town despite the opposition of many residents.

Scannapieco joins an ever-growing list of Monmouth County slime in the political arena who are facing jail time. Only two months ago, eleven officials from both political parties were carted away. A few years ago, we had a slew of arrests in Asbury Park.

One wakes up in the morning uncertain as to who will be on the front page in handcuffs. The Asbury Park Press ranks Scannapieco has the top public official as far as bribes taken to date. His $245,000 haul is quite the sum. But wait sports fans! The game is far from over and there are plenty more greedy and corrupt bastards sitting in Trenton, municipal daises or in cushy government jobs who still have time to eclipse Scannapieco's mark.

Marlboro, Middletown, Asbury Park, the county seat ... who's next?!


(Cross posted on Poetic Leanings)

Serial Bomber?

by John

Nope, no double standard here.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Reuters) - Former U.S. fugitive and accused serial bomber Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the 1998 bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic that killed a police officer and maimed a nurse.

When asked by a federal judge in Birmingham whether he had planted the bomb that exploded outside the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham on Jan. 29, 1998, Rudolph calmly replied, "I certainly did, your honor."

The 38-year-old survivalist and suspected white supremacist agreed to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the blast as part of a plea bargain with federal prosecutors that spared him the death penalty.

I guess Americans aren't terrorists unless they disagree with the Administration or its foreign policy.

Does anyone really think that Reuters would have hesitated to use the word "terrorist" if we were talking about Ali bin Rudolph, the bus bomber? If you don't think so, I've got this bridge...

P.S. Suspected white supremacist? He was a member of Christian Identity for godssake! What do followers of Christian Identity believe?

They believe that the white race (or the "Aryan peoples" or "White Anglo Saxon Protestants", or the "British Peoples", or "White Americans") represent God's chosen people, as mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). They have taken these beliefs in an extreme direction to justify their hatred of Blacks, Jews, homosexuals and communists.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

(cross posted at blogenlust)

Compassionate Conservatism

by John

(via Reuters)

"It’s important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence." (link)

"We don't have an exit strategy, we have a victory strategy." (link)

"Democracy is a messy thing." (link)

"As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." (link)

(via blogenlust)

Begala: sometimes, don't you just want to give him a big, wet kiss on the lips!

by STP

From Crossfire, Paul Begala was in fine form:

"Another day, another Tom DeLay scandal. The House Republican leader has already been admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee. That is, if you are keeping score, more than any other current member of Congress. More recently we learned that Mr. Delay has been taking luxury junkets that may well have been paid for by gambling interests instead of a think tank as DeLay claimed.

And now, the Associated Press reports, "fund-raisers for a political committee, founded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, routinely solicited donations by identifying legislative action that prospective givers wanted, from video gambling to law suit limits." The AP's documents offer a behind the scene look at DeLay, Inc., where legislation is sold to the highest bidder. I wonder what Republicans' devout Christian supporters are thinking about documents that show Mr. DeLay in bed with gambling interests. I wonder how Republicans across America are going to explain to their constituents why they've chose as their leader a gold plated Washington sleazebag."

Is any further comment even needed? I think not.

(Cross posted on Poetic Leanings)

Nuclear Showdown

by John

The Senate showdown on the filibuster could come as early as the next two weeks, at least according to this article in the New York Times. My feelings on this have already been noted, but I'd just like to note the blatant hypocrisy of Sen. Rick Santorum's position, particularly since he is one of the higher ranking Senators calling for the "nuclear option."

"I am concerned that a partisan minority of Democrats are threatening to shut down the Senate if Republicans act to restore Senate tradition for simple majority votes" on nominations to the bench, Mr. Santorum said. "Their rhetoric is out of control and counterproductive."

Please. Sadly, he's not talking about DeLay, Cornyn, Sensenbrenner, or Coburn. They don't call him Santorum for nothing!

Thankfully, though, the Democrats seem to be on message.

"The Republican abuse of power," Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said, "has been pushed by extremists who want to punish an independent judiciary and simultaneously obliterate checks and balances, effectively making the U.S. Senate a rubber stamp for judicial nominees."

I would only suggest to my future Senator that next time he harp on the fact that 95% of Bush's nominees have already been confirmed with Democratic support, and that we're talking about destroying long-standing Senate rules over just 10 people.

Homo-bigot Minnesota State Senator Michele Bachmann has a screw loose

by Pam

[This is via Matt at Paradise Is Where I Am, Eleventh Avenue South and Lloydletta at aptly-named Dump Michele Bachmann.]

The blogging locals are ragging on the completely unhinged behavior of the Minnesota State Senator. As the DMB misson statement says:

"Michele Bachmann is Minnesota's Answer to Colorado's Marilyn Musgrave. She is obsessed with gays at the expense of representing her district. This blog is here to chronicle why Sen Michele Bachmann needs to be retired from the legislature - and stopped from any future political career."

Well we have the proof now...She was caught on film watching queer folks at OutFront Minnesota's 2005 JustFair Lobby Day. From EAS:

Today Minnesota Senator Michele Bachmann thought it would be fun to circumvent the Senate Committee process and force a floor vote of the amendment to end domestic partnerships, and ban civil unions and same-sex marriage while we were outside rallying for our rights. Even Senate Republicans thought it was in poor taste to try to go around Senate rules on the same day GLBT citizens were making their voice heard. Her move was overwhelmingly defeated:

"The state Senate on Thursday rejected an effort to force a floor vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage as thousands of ban opponents rallied outside the Capitol. Sen. Michele Bachmann, the Stillwater Republican who's led the push for the ban, said Senate Democrats have denied her repeated efforts to get the bill heard. Senate leaders countered that Bachmann, a candidate for the U.S. House, is flouting Senate rules to advance her own political career. At the same time, about 2,500 gays, lesbians and their supporters attended a rally on the Capitol grounds just a few hundred yards away, organized by OutFront Minnesota." [Star Tribune]

Bachmann crouched behind a bush, watching the homos; you'd think she was watching some dirty peep show. This is truly demented. See more photos in the sequence here. Here's Matt's description:

I was walking into the capitol building to get an elevated view of the rally for a pic when I was approached by a capitol staff person and asked "wanna really piss someone off?" I was directed to search the bushes at the far end of the rally where I was told none other than Senator Bachmann, chief advocate of the anti-gay amendment, was watching the rally.

I love Bachmann's response to being busted: "I had high heels on and I just couldn't stand anymore," Bachmann said. "I was not in the bushes."

Michiganers: homo-bigot Keith Butler is running for the Senate

by Pam

Keith Butler represents religious black voters that are slipping away to the GOP; is Stabenow vulnerable?

I came across this article and couldn't place this guy's name for a moment. Then I recalled why it is familiar. Keith Butler was one of the black folks trotted out by the GOP at the NY convention in 2004 to add a dash of color. Now, the Grand Rapids station WOOD-TV reports Butler has announced that he will run for the Republican slot to face off against Senator Debbie Stabenow.

He's a world-class homophobe that subscribes to the belief that being gay is a sin and that any comparison of any kind between the struggle for gay rights and the black civil rights movement is an insult. He (along with possible Alabama gubanatorial candidate Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore) have been praying on the decision to run. Guess Butler got the thumbs up.

I'm sure the GOP will throw money at this race. Butler may not be well-known now, but I hope queer folks and allies in get to know more about Butler by reading the following; he's written some insane editorials in the Detroit News that will raise the hair on the back of your neck. (Michigan is one of the states that passed a marriage amendment). From 10/25/2003, "Keep defining marriage as between man, woman":

Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes -- and for securing the maintenance and education of children." Recent legal and cultural trends seek to redefine Webster's definition of marriage.

...First, traditional marriage must be protected for the proliferation of our generations. Regardless of how you slice it, you cannot get around the fact that a woman is the one who carries the egg and the man is the one who carries the sperm. The natural union of the egg and the sperm is how you and I came into being.

A man-man or a woman-woman relationship cannot produce or bear children. The longevity of our familial generations throughout the years is based on the procreation of children.

[Geez -- the whole "parts fit"/procreation argument again -- Pam]

Furthermore, depicting marriage as something other than that relationship between one man and one woman is not good for children. Homosexuality is a lifestyle that is neither normal nor natural. It is a decision, a choice. This lifestyle should not be illustrated to our children as normal.

Classes such as the one being taught at the University of Michigan should be banned. If you were to look at your college student's class schedule, you would see English 317. Look further. The course title for English 317 is "How To Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation." The course description reads as follows: "Students in class examine the general topic of the role that initiation plays in the formation of gay male identity and will examine a number of cultural artifacts and activities that seem to play a prominent role in learning how to be gay including Broadway musicals, diva-worship, drag, muscle culture, taste and political activism."

[Unhinged, Freeper-esque comments follow - beware. -- Pam]

This course is outright recruitment of young people into this decadent lifestyle. Common sense tells us that if this lifestyle were to become the dominant choice of our culture, our culture would soon be extinct.

Second, supporters of same-sex marriage tout their cause as a civil rights issue. The gay community's attempt to tie their pursuit of special rights based on their behavior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s is abhorrent.

Being black is not a lifestyle choice. You can physically see and determine our heritage. The civil rights struggle found its purpose from depriving human beings of the most basic human rights simply because of the color of their skin. A popular black magazine, in almost every edition, proudly presents the "first black" in various professions. Why so long to become the "first black"? This is the wrong the civil rights movement seeks to correct.

The gay lifestyle is based on a behavior choice that endangers family, children, and the core of society. The attempt to push this decadent lifestyle into mainstream society and to brand those who oppose it as "homophobic" is simply wrong. The suffix, "phobic" implies, by nature, a fear. There is no fear; opponents simply oppose the gay lifestyle as the norm and refuse to accept that such a lifestyle is good for society.

Oh, DeLay—You Scamp

by Shakespeare's Sister

Sometimes you just don’t know whether to laugh or put your fist through the wall.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, hoping to hold support among fellow Republicans, urged GOP senators Tuesday to blame Democrats if asked about his ethics controversy and accused the news media of twisting supportive comments so they sounded like criticism.

Officials said DeLay recommended that senators respond to questions by saying Democrats have no agenda other than partisanship, and are attacking him to prevent Republicans from accomplishing their legislative program. One Republican said the Texan referred to a "mammoth operation" funded by Democratic supporters and designed to destroy him as a symbol of the Republican majority.

[…]

One senior Republican spoke sympathetically of DeLay after the closed-door meeting.

"I hope he survives, and I hope he will stay in there and do his job," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

"The power of prayer is the only thing that will sustain you" in the circumstance DeLay is in, Lott added, and he spoke disparagingly of any Republicans who fail to stand by the Texan.

It’s totally obscene that a man who was forced to step down for making hateful, racist remarks would be waxing rhapsodic about using the power of prayer in talking about a peer who is facing a similar fate for ethical violations. These two are really a matched set of nincompoops. Meanwhile, not to get too technical on you, Lottie, but prayer isn’t meant to be used to request deliverance through troubled waters into which one willingly dumped oneself. And something tells me that, since the game plan is to shift blame onto the Democrats, the prayers of which he speaks aren’t of the asking-for-forgiveness-to-find-redemption type. That would, of course, necessitate admitting wrongdoing, instead of disingenuously trying to project responsibility for your sins onto others.

DeLay has consistently denied any violation of either law or House rules.

His private remarks to Senate Republicans were in keeping with the response frequently offered on his behalf by House Republicans: Blame the Democrats and occasionally the news media for the scrutiny he faces. House Republicans intend to follow the script later in the week, hoping to showcase passage of bankruptcy legislation and estate tax repeal as a counterpoint to Democratic charges that they are merely power-hungry.

No, not merely power-hungry, of course not. The bankruptcy legislation and estate tax repeal clearly indicate that are greedy, money-hungry classists, too.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

A Letter from Ms. Julien's Dad

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Very late last night, I sent my mom and dad (who live in Indiana) the post of Daniel's Letter.

This is what I said in my note:
I got the reply below very early this morning from my father...

Dear Julien,

I would like to see your community win the right to civil unions. The following is my opinion why that battle is being lost across the country.

I read the article and felt badly for the people involved. As you know, I favor civil unions for gays and lesbians.

Unfortunately, the battle lines were drawn so poorly that the religious communities were handed tons of ammo. In life you must pick your battles and develop a winning strategy. The community could have won civil unions quietly and through the back door.

Unfortunately, principle got in the way. The word "Marriage" should have been left entirely out of the battle. "Marriage" was the gasoline thrown on the fire. The community will lose always when "sacred ground" is trampled.

Can the community redirect its activities to affect the desired results without inflaming the religious? Is it too late to use a more productive strategy? I hope the answers are yes and no respectively.

I would have written to my state legislatures on behalf of civil union legislation. And still will write these letters if it will help. But I have my own political battles to fight against the left in this country who would restrict my freedoms and rights as guaranteed by the constitution and, therefore, must not lose focus on the battles I must win.

Unfortunately the right opposes your goals and the left opposes mine.

I hope your efforts to cause change are effective and achieve the desired results. It would be better, in my opinion, if the word "marriage" was left out entirely to prevent the religious from fanning flames with it.

One last thought, I suspect there are many legislators who in their hearts support your efforts but getting re-elected mandates that the move with the religious. Maybe a quiet campaign would be effective in reaching these people. It is the constitutional amendments that will be the problem. It will be a tough battle.

I believe it is not ours to judge. If there is a God, that God will judge at the right time. If no hurt is being done, I'd like to live and let live. I do not know where the religious got the idea that they are the judges of how people should live. Pretty egotistical to take over one of God's duties!

Love,
Dad

I think this is as close as two people at opposite ends of the political spectrum could meet, and I sure wish the majority of people could do this; there would be a lot less hate in our country right now.

Your thoughts?

Remedial Math, Perhaps?

by Shakespeare's Sister

More hurricane-related collusion between D.C. and Florida care of FEMA (emphasis mine):

Florida officially recorded 123 fatalities from last year's hurricanes, but the federal government has paid funeral expenses for at least 315 deaths, including those of a man who shot himself and a stroke victim hospitalized more than a week before the last storm hit.

In one case, a Federal Emergency Management Agency worker tried unsuccessfully to persuade a coroner to count among the hurricane casualties a "morbidly obese" heart patient who purportedly was "scared to death."

"If you were to call around to all the medical examiner offices, people would say, `No way did we have as many deaths as FEMA is saying,'" said Dr. Stephen Nelson, head of Florida's Medical Examiners Commission. "It's just an incredible number -- a difference of 192. This is the Free Funeral Payment Act."

The discrepancy is even greater because the families of some victims counted as storm casualties by the medical examiner said they received no help from FEMA, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found in its continuing investigation of hurricane aid.

FEMA officials declined requests for an interview, instead releasing a statement: "FEMA is in Florida to help the victims of the worst series of hurricane disasters in over 100 years, including helping those families who have suffered the loss of loved ones to this disaster."

Where have I heard before the claim that supporting victims of a terrible tragedy drapes one in a cloak of immunity from criticism?



Oh. Right.

In Palm Beach County, where FEMA paid 39 funeral claims from hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, the medical examiner recorded a total of eight storm-related deaths, the biggest gap in the state.

"I don't know where [FEMA] came up with those numbers," said Dr. Michael Bell, the county's medical examiner. Applicants are "probably inflating it so they get more money."

In Miami-Dade County, where FEMA's payment for a funeral last fall fueled suspicions of fraud, the agency has since approved four more funerals from Frances. The Labor Day weekend storm made landfall 100 miles to the north, and the county medical examiner recorded no Frances-related deaths.

The entire story is worth your time to read; it’s quite interesting to see exactly where the money went…and where it didn’t.

Regular readers will also recall that I posted just a couple of weeks ago on another story (also in the Sun-Sentinel) tracing FEMA’s role in funneling federal funds to Florida just before the election, using hurricane relief as the cover.

I’m sure, as with the former story, it’s just a coincidence that a federal agency exploited a natural disaster just before the election to give undeserved payments to the constituents of a hotly contested swing state which just happens to be governed by the president’s brother.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Solving the Israeli - Palestinian crisis

by STP

With Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meeting with President George Bush over the West Bank settlement issue, it seemed like a good time to write something about the Israel-Palestine situation. I know, I know, I should pick a topic a bit more challenging, right? Let’s talk in general terms with a somewhat broad brush so this does not become unmanageable within the context of this post.

First, both sides are right; both sides are wrong.

Duh you say?! Ok, well let me go out on a limb a little now and say that the Palestinians have to come a lot further to bring about peace, as theirs is the more unreasonable position.

Where Israel has hindered the peace process the most is the settlement issue. Leaving Gaza was only a beginning, but it was a good one. The four small settlements in the West Bank that Israel is abandoning are nowhere near enough, but these things take time, especially given Israel’s very real security concerns.

Until the death of Yasser Arafat, peace had no chance at all. Arafat did nothing to reign in violence and terrorism. Why would he; he was a terrorist. At a minimum he sanctioned many of the attacks propagated against Israel and likely played an even greater role then that. He was a criminal, too, against the best interests of his own people who he stole from with complete disregard for their plight. Worst of all, Arafat was a coward. When former Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Barak offered a legitimate peace deal to him at Camp David, Arafat rejected it because he feared bringing a less than perfect plan back to his people. His concern centered around risking his own neck.

Now with Mahmoud Abbas running the Palestinian Authority, the opportunity to reign in terrorist organizations is real. Abbas has shown some willingness to do so, but seems more inclined to talk to radicals rather then trying to break them. That won’t work. Many of them have not altered their belief that Israel cannot exist. For this reason, Israel must proceed with caution. It cannot relinquish too much from its negotiating position considering how the Palestinians have not given a substantial guarantee of security in return. Abbas must crack down on terrorism in the occupied regions.

It is hard to argue against the dividing wall Israel is constructing. It is also hard to argue against the Arabs's views of it. It has shown results, and, though of questionable standing in international law, Israel was forced into the wall by large scale terrorism. Israel, however, should not be building the wall on land that is still open to negotiation.

Israel must realize that a large portion of the West Bank will need to be returned to Palestine at some point. The Camp David offer of over 90% of the territory was quite equitable, but was rejected out of hand. While Israel cannot be permitted to continue its expansion of settlements in the West Bank, there are communities within the region that are too large to eliminate. Some form of compensation will be in order, either other lands within Israel proper along the West Bank border or fair, financial pay outs, but to expect Israel to uproot that many people seems unrealistic.

There are other critical issues, too, of course. Israel must treat Arabs with respect within the Israeli community. Israeli-Arabs are looked upon as second class citizens in large measure. Arabs must be afforded the same legal and social rights as Jews within Israel.

On the other hand, Israel cannot be forced to give up its nature. The right of return for Palestinians is untenable. Israel would cease to exist if every Palestinian with a claim to land within the country were allowed to return. The United Nations came to a decision about what would constitute Israel and what Palestine would be when both were effectively created in 1948. The right of return is an area where Israel cannot be expected to negotiate in absolute terms.

Further, if the other Arab countries are so concerned with the plight of the Palestinians, they can help out. In the last half century, Israel has treated the Arabs within its country far better than Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or Saudi Arabia have. Let these Arab countries step up to the plate with large financial assistance to Palestine.

Jerusalem. It would seem that even if both sides would agree on every other issue, this one would still remain. Jerusalem, or more accurately East Jerusalem, represents the closest thing to an unsolveable problem. Maybe it is. For Jews, the Temple Mount is the place where the first and second temples were built. For Muslims, Haram al-Sarif is the site where Mohammed ascended to heaven. Both sides appear to be locked into a battle to defend their religious traditions.

What to do?

It is improbable that a solution will come to the Jerusalem matter in this or the next generation. Given that, I say why try to solve it? The only chance of getting past the Jerusalem stand off is for neither side to own it. Allowing East Jerusalem to fall under the auspices of an independent body, say the United Nations with strong United States’ leadership, would enable both sides to continue to hold unfettered access to their religious shrines. Neither side would have lost on the issue. The closest thing to a fair deal is one where no absolute winner exists, and that can only happen with some form of what I suggest.

Now that I have disposed of the Israel-Palestine problem, what say we solve China-Taiwan over dinner?

RIP Dr. Jeanne Petrek

by Shakespeare's Sister

Dr. Jeanne Petrek, 57, has died after being struck by an ambulance whose driver was blinded by the sun and failed to yield (the ambulance was not on emergency run).

A surgeon and researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC, Dr. Petrek directly or indirectly touched the lives of millions of women stricken with breast cancer.

Petrek, the surgical director at the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center on E. 64th St., had nearly 200 published articles and was one of the nation's most sought-after speakers on breast cancer.

A high-energy, no-nonsense surgeon, Petrek, of Bronxville, Westchester County, was spearheading an innovative, 10-year federally funded study of premature menopause in breast cancer survivors. She became one of the first doctors to take an interest in cancer patients' long-term quality of life - now a hot research topic.

"She was interested in it way before it was popular to talk about," said Lindsay Beck, founder of New York's patient advocacy group Fertile Hope.

For any of us who will at some time have to face difficult decisions between quantity and quality of life, the choices we must make will be ever that much easier because of Dr. Petrek’s contributions to facilitating that dialogue between doctors and patients.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Don’t Forget Poland!

by Shakespeare's Sister

Oops. Go ahead and forget them after all. They’re pulling out of Iraq (the entirety of their 1,700-strong contingent of soldiers) by the end of the year.

So where, exactly, does that leave Bush’s stellar Coalition of the Willing? Well, Poland was the fourth highest coalition contributor with their 1,700 troops, behind Italy’s 3,200, who will also be gone by the end of the year, South Korea’s 3,600, and Britain’s 12, 500 (which is soon to be reduced by 2,000). Every other country remaining in the coalition is contributing fewer troops than we’ve lost.

Funny Rummy

by John

So Rumsfeld's in Iraq, and this is how the Times of London reports on his visit--"Rumsfeld Warns Iraqis Against Cronyism":

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, warned Iraqi politicians today not to purge the security forces and stack the ranks with their own men.

Lack of confidence or corruption in government would be "unfortunate", Mr Rumsfeld said in Baghdad today on a short and unannounced visit to Iraq.

"It’s important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence," Mr Rumsfeld said.

This is sort of like having Ayatollah Ali Khamenei come to the United States and warn us on the perils of allowing religion to become too much a part of our political system.

(crossposted @ blogenlust)

Daniel, from Kansas, Speaks...

by Ms. Julien in Miami

One of the best emails I have ever received...

A letter written by Daniel after the hate amendment passed in Kansas recently......

http://www.atwoodkansas.com/

Read, think, ACT!

Ms. Julien

A Late-Night Post to the Indianapolis Star

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Dear Opinion Editor,

Tonight I was working late at home, and switched on the TV. I watched the last 20 minutes of "Breaking Away," the 1979 movie filmed entirely in Bloomington, Indiana. I graduated from IU in 1989 from the School of Business. As I watched the movie (not for the first time), I felt such a sense of pride for my alma mater, and all that it stands for.

My pride is tinged with sadness, however. I know that soon, it is possible that many wonderful professors and staff of IU will wake up one day and find their health insurance benefits gone. Those people with pre-existing conditions will be virtually uninsured. Why? Because they have been insured as a domestic partner of an IU employee or faculty member. The upcoming marriage amendment (there is little doubt that it will pass) will most likely obliterate their benefits.

Many of my colleagues are systematically updating their resumes, some of them even willing to give up their coveted tenure to relocate to a more tolerant state...I did.

It is sad, and it is preventable.

Think before you vote, citizens of Indiana.

Julien A. Sharp, M.S.
Adjunct Professor, Psychology Department
Miami-Dade College
Miami, Florida

F*ck that, Bill Clinton

by Pam

Well isn't this special? NYT:

Former President Bill Clinton unleashed an attack yesterday against a gay Republican strategist who has plans to work against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election, suggesting that the man may be "self-loathing" to work on behalf of the Republican Party.

...The former president noted that an earlier article over the weekend reported that Mr. Finkelstein had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts, then he alluded to the Republican Party's use of the same-sex marriage issue to mobilize conservative voters.

"Either this guy believes his party is not serious and he's totally Machiavellian," Mr. Clinton said, or "he may be blinded by self-loathing." Mr. Finkelstein, a reclusive former adviser to Gov. George E. Pataki, did not respond to a message left at his office seeking a comment on Mr. Clinton's remarks. But his allies quickly did.

...The spectacle of the former president coming to the defense of his wife, a tough politician in her own right, generated considerable buzz in political circles, particularly since Mr. Clinton has tried to keep a low profile and stay out of Mrs. Clinton's way since she took office.

He can talk tough when defending his wife, but when it came to defend the right of gay people, even self-loathing Finklestein, to marry -- he threw us under the bus for political expediency. He's the man that gave us "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act, empowering the Repugs to take gay-bashing to the next level.

...And then he told Kerry in 2004 to support the state marriage amendments in order to gain votes.

And as the clock is ticking...

* gays can still legally be fired from a job
* a transgender person can most certainly get the crap beaten out of them or worse in many parts of the country
* gays cannot adopt in many places
* gay couples in several states now cannot form private legal agreements and health care POA because of state amendments

And look at the state of the bigoted marriage amendments.

For all the gains that have been made, city by city, state by state, there are thousands of gay people that have lost rights in those states that passed amendments. Those laws have jeopardized partner benefits and legal arrangements to protect gay relationships that married people take for granted.

Bill Clinton and his DLC legacy resulted in a Democratic Party with lack of desire/inability to reframe any issues regarding gay rights, save a few brave souls, like Mel Watt. The silence is deafening. His 2004 advice to Kerry was telling.

Clinton's actions gave the Right permission to make gays the whipping boy for electoral success. It only served him to call out gay-baiting when his wife was involved.

Sorry, Bill, f*ck that. You and Finkelstein just have more in common on this front than you're copping to.

***

I'm not letting Finkelstein off the hook; he is about as nasty and right wing as they come on the campaign trail. Finkelstein has a history of hardball politics, working with Jesse Helms on his Senate run against Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt.

I was living in NC during this time period, and it was the nastiest, most racist campaign the GOP has seen in a lifetime. It was a close race (Gantt leading 47-45 percent), until Finkelstein ran the infamous "white hands commercial" showing a close up pair of a flannel-shirtsleeved hands crumpling a job pair of white hands crumpling a termination notice, with an ominous voiceover explaining that a well-deserved job went to someone else because of affirmative action. This appealed to the blue collar, textile working folks in the rural areas, and Helms won handily. Here's a quote from local gay activist Mandy Carter from 1996:

All this from a politician whose main strategist during his first run for Senate - as well as last time - was Arthur Finkelstein. Who? You know, the guy who lives with his male partner and their two adopted children. It's not a secret or anything. "The height of hypocrisy," snaps Mandy Carter, campaign coordinator of NC Mobe. "I just don't get Finkelstein, but Helms? This is the one who claims not to know anyone gay, swears he'd never hire anyone who is and opposes gays adopting children. And yet he retains a gay advisor. What does that tell us?"

BTW, it tells us today is that Jesse does know someone gay -- his own granddaughter, Jennifer Helms Knox, a district court judge here in NC.

My dream come true -- Fred Phelps is coming to Durham!

by Pam

Durham School of the Arts photo by James Jirtle & Elizabeth Tencer

I will be marking May 6 and 7 on my calendar because on these days our friend, The Rotting Cryptkeeper^TM Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, will be picketing "the fag-infested Durham School of the Arts and The Laramie Project fag propaganda play" at 7:30 PM. Click to see the fun homo-bashing of Matthew Shepard on the handout. My only disappointment is he didn't damn our city enough in the document. As Durham is full of queer folks, he will have quite a welcome wagon out there.

Kate and I will ride over to the school in our rainbow-stickered Subaru "lesbian vehicle of choice" Outback and get pictures of the cretin of hate.

Priorities

by Shakespeare's Sister

The newest addition on my ever-growing list of favorite bloggrrls, erinberry, who is also married to a Scotsman and runs the amusingly blunt-titled Jesus Was Not a Republican blog, comes out with this little tidbit which she found in yesterday’s Parade Magazine:

The government spent more than $40 million for the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations but only $15 million for the 9/11 Commission to examine the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.

By way of further comparison, $50 million was provided to investigate the Columbia shuttle crash which killed seven people.

And, lest we forget, the original funding earmarked for the commission, the creation of which the administration fought until they were backed into a corner by victims’ families, was a measly $3 million, with the victims’ families forced to make more noise before the administration granted additional funding, even after it had been repeatedly requested by Commission Chairman Tom Kean.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Raucous Freeper attack on Chris Shays and Man-on-Dog Santorum

by Pam

As the DeLay ship of ethics takes on water, with the recent criticism from Connecticut's Chris Shays and our friend Rick Santorum, the Freepers are pissed -- but it's unclear that they know how to direct their anger. It's hysterical. Oh, and they appear to be outing Shays. I didn't know he was queer...

Actual Freeper Quotes™



First Chris Shays gets a pummeling...

"Republicans eat their own. Look - if Tom DeLay isn't doing a good job, let the Democrats recruit a candidate to run against him in Sugar Land. But Republicans shouldn't help them get rid of a party leader based on what after all are questionable allegations from the partisan media. No proof of wrong-doing by the Majority Leader has been offered into evidence. In the minds of Chris Shays and Rick Santorum he's guilty because our adversaries make that assumption - and they buy into the liberal line that its the seriousness of the charge mantra that matters. Forget the evidence."

"Hey Chris .. you have done more damage to the Republican Party then anything Delay has done"

"Who is Chris Shays?"

"DeLay should step down. Shays should shut-up."

"Chris Shays is a RINO. He ain't no conservative. Hurting the Republican majority, my ass."

"Ignore this lying liberal POS with an R next to his name."

"I will be about at the bottom of support I have ever had for the GOP. I've watched folks here get disgruntled with the GOP over the years and thought they were off the wall. That is why even though we seem in power we are not. The Dems have more of a reliable base which they respect. The GOP uses the base to win (broken glass) and then abandons them and even ridicules us a bit. We would not have won without the WOT last November. The right wing in this country is still too weak. We are not there yet."

"It's Monday, that means Republicans need to cave in on something...."

"Republican leaders want the admiration of liberals. We need such "leaders" like we need enemies."

"The Republican Party is disintegrating. I guess they just didn't know what to do with the power once they got it."

"[Is this really a Freeper?] I'm no attorney, so I can't address (with any authority) whatever criminal culpability DeLay might've had by unknowingly using questionable money sources for traveling, etc. Ethics, though, are the domain of anyone who can discern right from wrong with any clarity. If he was truly unaware of any impropriety, and this lack of knowledge can be proved with any reasonable certainty, then I would say no breach of ethics are involved. It's true that highly placed public officials should be held to a higher standard than, say, a local school board member. It's also true that I'm no expert on House or Senate ethics rules (or an expert on pretty much anything outside my profession). But I do know that intent is a mitigating factor in both criminal cases and ethics disputes. Ignorance is no defense for bad judgment, certainly, but 'unethical' denotes behavior acted out willfully and knowingly. The attorneys out there can shoot me if I'm wrong."

"Who is Chris Shays?" He's that liberal homosexual congressman from some yankee New England state that voted against impeaching Clinton."

"Since when does a democrat or in Shays case, a stinking low life rat in disguise RINO, need actual evidence to bring down a fellow party member?"

"Only the Houston Comical would take seriously a Connecticut homosexual's views on who should represent Texans in D.C."

"He's a liberal. If the GOP had guts, they'd expel Shays from the party for disloyalty. Conduct carries consequences. Shays shouldn't be able to sit there as a Republican, attack his leader in the press and pay no price for it. Then again, its not for nothing the GOP is called the Stupid Party."

"I ignore complaints from any politician, Republican or Democrat, from New England. If someone south of the Mason-Dixon complains, I'll take notice."

"Shays is a bitter homosexual. He was "outed" on the House floor several times--once by Rep Dornan."

"He represents a wealthy-but-liberal NYC suburban area of Connecticut, Fairfield County. I have seen him listed as one of the most vulnerable Republicans in 2006. So this is all about appealing to his liberal constituents by very publicly bashing Liberal Public Enemy #1."

"Considering that his district includes the limousine liberals in Westport (hello Paul Newman) and Stamford, along with the sh-thole that is Bridgeport, its amazing that there is a Republican in that district. At least Greenwich and New Canaan voted for Bush..."

"Once again a "moderate" that Republicans voted for in the primary "because he can win in November" does more damage to the party than a Democrat could."

"Shays should be pulled away from the GOP teat and made to become either an "Independent" or a 'rat. The former would make him Bernie Sanders' counterpart, and the latter would make him virtually invisible. My guess is that he would become an indy, as it would give him the opportunity to continue being a self-important pain in the butt. That aside, his "moderate" moniker is not something that should remain unchallenged. And if he isn't gay, he ought to play one on TV."

"GOP modrate? Shays is an outright leftist."



Then it's Santorum's turn...

"Wow, we're going to trash a good conservative because he wants DeLay to answer the charges and come clean? Santorum is a decent, moral man. If he believes DeLay, I appreciate that. But something smells here. We have to get over the knee-jerk reaction that all of our guys do the right thing all the time and all their guys are evil."

"He is going to wind up in the unfortunate position of having the deathrats and the immoral media hate him for things he has said in the past, and the conservatives hate him for the pandering he is doing in the present. Of course, the will accept the pandering to get at us, Delay in this case, but they will laughingly slip in the shiv when he wants something from them."

"Sen. Santorum has taken every opportunity of late to portray himself as anything but a conservative. I am disappointed by this change and doubt he will find long term support with his new constituency."

"How soon they begin to eat their own. Democrats are rotten to the core but at least they know how to be loyal."

"I think its time to hang DeLay out to dry. Otherwise The Hammer's just going to stay in the news, stinking to heaven and hurting Republicans. Loyalty is well and good, but winning elections is more important. He's becoming an embarassment and a liability."

"So does Santorum. I have a few questions myself for Specter's hand puppet."

"Why should Santorum let DeLay drag him down? DeLay is the one that plays at the edge of legality and house ethics (what an oxymoron). He should explain his behavior and if voters in his district approve, they will continue to vote him in. Why should Santorum accept DeLays morality? What if DeLay had come out in favor of euthanasia or abortion, would you have wanted Santorum keep his mouth shut just because the guy is a Republican leader? I dont think so. DeLay built his bed through his take no prisoners style of politics. Let him live in it."

"It's called tacking toward the center. It's what people that dont live in Heavily Red states have to do get elected. It's also why Dems in red states are shown hunting and are constantly talking about God. What do you want, a constant conservative vote in the Senate or someone that throws red meat to the base until they get voted out. Pennsylvania is not Texas or Wyoming."

"If this report is true, Santorum's stock has experienced a sharp fall in this voter's portfolio."

"I think he will be a WRINO. He used to be a conservatives conservative. Now, I think he's just as slimy as the rest of them and will do or say anything to be re-elected."

"First off delay was payign his wife and daughter 50k each over 5 years which totals a 100k. Hardly alot of money considering what other people in the beltway do. Hell look at harry reid doling out contracts to his relatives in the millions, or pelosi giving nice lucrative contracts back to campaign contributions. While what delay did isnt illegal it does smell of beltway and most of us here are dissapointed in him for acting this way but he by no means did anything illegal or anything out of the ordinary. Who the hell is santorum to bitch about anything when he has his own little incident with tax payers paying for his kids school. The problem is that our republican leaders in washington live there far too long and become spineless wonders. They try so hard to be accepted by the beltway establishment since its overwhelmingly liberal and as such they pander and try to please them. The problem with that is nothing they do is ever going to get the liberals to like them and thats why democrats and the media hate Delay so much. He makes no bones about who he is or his political views, ie "The Hammer". If more republicans were like him and didn't give a rats ass about the media establishemnt or the democrats in washington maybye we'd actually get some things done. I mean look at what democrats did to us back in the 80s when they were in charge? When they were in charge they threw us out of commitees and the moderate RINO weenies just tried to get along with them in hopes of a few benefits of political office. The problem is alot of those RINO's are still around and in positions of leadership and as such they still act like their a minority in washington. For god's sake we are the MAJORITY start acting like it and just ignore these whiny little liberals adn let them piss and moan and nip at our heels."

"It is a sad argument, but I will not sit back and allow DeLay to be dragged through slime by the very folks that have slime all over them. No, Its not ok to selectively persecute selected republicans for selected ethnic violation suspicions and never aim those same suspicions at those doing the selecting. Holding ourselves to a higher standard is the biggest sucker game in Washington. Is it done to enable us to sleep better at night? Is it done to set an example that others will start following tomorrow? Or is it a crappy-ass way of letting the filthy democrats run the show? This is a tug-o-war of sorts, and I don't mind a bit if the republicans show a little mud while pulling the democrats into the stink hole."

"Too bad Santorum didn't have the huevos to call for the same for Pelosi. What Pelosi has or has not done has nothing to do with DeLay. This "they are doing it too" garbage does not wash. If DeLay is dirty, Republicans should be the first to kick his ass out the door."

"Santorum should be calling for some judges to answer some questions. DeLay has not disobeyed the law, the judges have. Santorum's should be focused on them, not Tom DeLay."

A Corporation with a Heart

by Shakespeare's Sister

So, American Airlines has given DeLay $5,000 toward his legal defense, because:

We were told that Mr. DeLay, a member of Congress from our headquarters state was facing substantial legal bills that he was unable to pay personally because of their size and his limited resources.

Cool.

Dear American Airlines,

I’m not from your “headquarters state,” but I have given you significant amounts of money in the form of international airfares in the past. Currently, however, I’m unable to pay personally for an overseas ticket, because of its size and my limited resources.

Knowing that you generously contribute $5,000 to people with such problems is awesome. I’m really looking forward to traveling to Edinburgh business class for a change! It’s nice to know you see my ass is too precious for coach, too.

Love,
Shakespeare’s Sister

Now if only I can find someone who will pay for a round of golf at St. Andrews while I’m there…

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Must-read DKos diary: 'Bending over to win elections'

by Pam

You must surf over to DKos and read the diary, "Bending over to win elections" by Bob Johnson. It hits the nail on the head regarding the absolute ball-lessness of the Democratic Party. In its zeal to win elections, the party has time and again, decided the only way to do this is to become Repug lite. They think back dreamily to Bill Clinton, who may have been less onerous than Chimpy, but he's the guy responsible for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and DOMA, not the GOP.

The Dems don't even try to reshape or reframe the issues; they are too damn scared. No, they'd rather tell women, gays and other minorities to sit back and wait -- when they win, they'll come back to "our issues." It's bullsh*t, and this diary calls them on it.

Give up on abortion. Make Tim Roemer our point man. We have to return to back alley, coat hanger abortions in order to regain seats in the House and the Senate and take back the presidency. Sorry to you women out there who will suffer. Just understand that we will give you back your rights... someday. Can't say when because we need to shift to the right on this one. Thanks for understanding. Our sympathies in advance to those who die in the process.

Oh, and teach creationism and/or intelligent design in our public schools. Even though our citizenry is arguably less informed than at any time in our recent history, and most Americans know more about the contestants on American Idol than they know about the beginnings of our solar system or the origin of species on Earth, let's give in and make our kids even more ignorant than they already are. Eye on the prize and all that. We need to win elections.

And to our gay and lesbian friends out there, sorry, but you're all just homos now. Just fags. Queers. Lesbos. We'll come back around for you in a little while once we start winning again. Really. We will. Just lay low for a bit. And be alert. It could get a little nasty out there in the meantime.

Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans? You're fucked. Sorry. There's not much we can do for you at present. At some point in the next 20 years, this whole terror thing may or may not blow over. We'll get back to you. For sure. Keep a stiff upper lip, to quote your old colonial opressors. Meet you new oppressors. That's us. But you'll know we'll be on your team once we get back in power. It just may take a while.

Go read the rest, and see those comments full of high-fives.

Longer version cross-posted at Pam's House Blend

Sirota Nails It

by Shakespeare's Sister

David Sirota has found my intellectual g-spot. Go on, talk dirty to me, baby:

The Washington Post reports that Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) needs to "lay out what he did and why he did it" if "he is going to put an end to questions about his travel and dealings with lobbyists."

It's true, DeLay needs to answer these questions. But then again, these very same questions should be swirling around Santorum as well. Santorum has run the so-called K Street project in which he "vets the hiring decisions of major lobbyists" at weekly breakfasts in the Capitol, despite the Senate Ethics Committee questioning Santorum's behavior. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on 8/12/02 that contributions to Santorum's campaign and political action committee "have come from some of the same lobbying firms that attend his breakfasts." That same campaign and PAC, according to a very recent Newhouse News Service story, is funding charter planes for Santorum's own personal travel "to the tune of nearly $83,000 in two years."

Is Santorum shaking down lobbyists to make them pay for his jet setting and lavish lifestyle? And what favors are those lobbyists getting from Santorum in return?

YES! That response to Santorum’s posturing is so right it makes my spine tingle and my toes curl.

One of the frequent moans I’ve seen in the Lefty blogosphere about the Tom DeLay debacle is that it isn’t happening closer to the ’o6 midterms. It’s a fair concern; the only thing with a shorter attention span than a goldfish is the American electorate. But such resignation is predicated on the assumption that DeLay is a one-off, and anyone who believes he’s the only member of the GOP who can be legitimately called on the carpet for corruption is probably the regretful owner of a couple of bridges and a swamp in Florida.

Instead, DeLay should be seen as the first in a series, keeping this story in the news for as long as it needs to be there, as the Hammer’s shady cohorts are outed one by one for their own sleazy dealings (and prevented from hiding their own complicity in the administration’s far-reaching radical agenda, scapegoating DeLay to protect their own deplorable skins).

If the Dems had any sense, they’d be saying the same thing Sirota is. Or, have they, too, succumbed to the same temptations of the ruling party, leaving them too vulnerable to deliver a proper attack anymore?

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Bishop Gene Robinson talks to Planned Parenthood, gets Freeped

by Pam

Openly gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson was recently interviewed by Planned Parenthood and spoke on several topics, including his views on homosexuality and tolerance, abstinence education and reproductive freedom.

Considering the controversy that Robinson has been embroiled in since his election, you'd think he'd play it safe. On the contrary, he speaks out strongly for progressive views at a time where most religious leaders on the left are silent.

With so much strife around issues like abortion and gay marriage, including within the Episcopal Church, how do you create common ground?

I'm doing everything I can to emphasize the ways in which we all share the same reality, though we live in a culture that thrives on polarization.

Little has been written about your stance on reproductive rights. Are you pro-choice?

Absolutely. The reason I love the Episcopal Church is that it actually trusts us to be adults. In a world where everyone tries to paint things as black or white, Episcopalians feel pretty comfortable in the gray areas. I'm sure there must be individual congregations, and certainly individuals, who are off the deep end about this issue, but for the most part, the stance that we have taken speaks to our people as a mature and adult way of dealing with this — that we protect a woman's right to choose but also say that obviously there are very deep things involved here.

So we encourage our folks to take this very private issue seriously. We urge them to talk to their priests about it and to think through all the questions they might have. And then we absolutely stand behind a woman's right to choose. I think that's a responsible place to be.

Has abortion been a divisive issue in your church?

Not really — surprisingly. From time to time it has come up, but the church has steadfastly resisted efforts to retract in any way our support for a woman's choice.

You've said, "We have allowed the conservative religious right to take our Bible hostage, and I think it's time we took it back." How can people who are both religious and progressive reclaim religion?

It's time that we re-familiarize ourselves with our sacred text, so that we can interpret it for the world, and not let the only voice that Americans hear from a Christian standpoint be those wildly conservative voices. As a gay man, I find stories in both Hebrew and Christian scripture that have literally called me out. For instance, in the Passover story, I know what it's like to leave Egypt, or leave the closet. The ancient Israelites, instead of finding the Promised Land immediately, wandered the desert, and I know, too, that life doesn't immediately get better for you. At the same time, as a whole community, we're getting closer to the Promised Land all the time.

I think it's time we learn to tell those stories out of our own context again, so that people speaking biblically and from a place of faith are not just wild-eyed conservatives.

There is an alarming trend toward enforcing abstinence-only sex education, encouraging the teaching of creationism, discouraging stem cell research — all in an attempt to put ideology over science. How do you think religion and science intersect?

I don't find any disconnect between science and faith. There are ways of incorporating all of faith with all of what we know about science. [Right-wing politicians] and the so-called "pro-life" movement focus on all this as a great way to raise money, solidify their base, and get people all whipped up. If they can keep people whipped up about abortion, stem cell research, and gay marriage, then we don't have to talk about the things that really matter, like this illegal and immoral war in Iraq, the economy, the some 45 million people without health insurance in this country, and balancing the budget so that those least able to take care of themselves don't lose Medicaid. I think it was Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who called all of the folderol about gay marriage a "weapon of mass distraction." That's what I think is going on here. I don't find anything in scripture that says we shouldn't be doing these things.

I've been involved in AIDS education for both young people and adults for a long, long time, and I think it's cruel beyond belief to be advocating abstinence-only sex education.

This is the real disconnect — if you are against abortion, how can you not be for full and sufficient education about birth control? It's something that would stop unintended pregnancies to begin with. It also exhibits a very low opinion of humankind. It says we can't make appropriate choices for ourselves, so somebody has to make those choices for us.

These views, of course set the fetid residents of Freeperland off to their keyboards to pump out their usual ignorant bullsh*t.

Actual Freeper Quotes™

"The bishop is a piece of . . . work. He most certainly is a piece of something."

"I get it. He wants to interpret the Bible like judges interpret the law... in essence, to justify whatever he wants to do."

"To paraphase the UCC's gay-friendly slogan: "Never place an intake where God placed an exhaust.""

"The church — or any organization — can't speak for the world unless all voices are represented. Well then Gene, let's not leave out the devil worshippers."

"I OFTEN DO NOT COMMENT,HOWEVER I WANT TO GO VOMIT AT THIS TRASH. GODSPEED!!!!!!!!!!"

"I wonder if there is anything he would define as a sin. What would it be? I wonder what Christ died on the cross for since everything is ok if it feels good. Who are we to judge after all. Would he hold group marriages for people that want it? Would he allow incest? What exactly are his standards? What does this say about his denomination that supports him? Is the greater church doing anything about this or is the whole Religion fallen away from Christ?"

""The reason I love the Episcopal Church is that it actually trusts us to be adults"...."

"What an absolute lie!... the Episcopal church bishops changed the liturgy of the people when they elected him . They did not ask the people , they told them , no discussion, no vote, no input at all from the people. How is that treating them as adults? And when the majority of the people in the churches said no , these same demonic bishops continue with their agenda. He and his ilk are NOT treating the congregations as adults, and in the slimy secretive way the decision came to the congregations , the bishops have also NOT shown any sign of Christianity."

"The rump ridin' bishop talks to racist baby-killers. That's sure to produce sound theological thinking."

"You're not supposed to be speaking for the world. You're supposed to be no part of the world. Satan is the god of this system of things."

"My thoughts exactly. Let's equate the liberation of God's chosen people from slavery with a gay coming out of the closet. How histrionic--but that would be perfectly within character, I'm sure."

"Bishop V. Gene Robinson ECUSA... is sadly preaching a man-centered and culture-centered political message that is diametrically opposed to the eternal Gospel. I would not want to be in his shoes when the day of the Lord's reckoning comes to him...."

"What has Planned P{arenthood got to do with Homosexuals anyway. THEY CANT BREED. at least not naturally. Oh They can use turkey basters and substitutes but I dont think there are enough of them doing that whereby Planned Parenthood has to get into the act.No this isnt about Planned parenthood in the parenthood stage, its about shoving the liberal agenda down our throats, up our butts or wherever else the Homo's and the Socialists of Planned Parenthood shove things."

"As a Catholic I can no longer respect the Episcopal Church if they choose to stand behind this man."

"Of course the issue of human life never enters into the issue of abortion. It's all just a matter of a woman's "choice". This tripe makes me sick! And embracing a life of open homosexual activity, i.e., a life dedicated to elevating a specific sin to the center of one's life, is supposed to be the equivalent of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt?????"

"As a former Episcopalian, I hope the Cardinals choose a pope who will stay the course laid out for him. For your sake and for everyones sake. If not, this is what can and will happen. Behold the freakshow and learn from it."

"It's stuff like this that re-re-re-re-re-re-confirms my decision to leave the ECUSA. At this very moment, I couldn't be any happier to be Catholic."

"If this man was a pastor or bishop in my church I would physically throw him out."

Cross-posted at Pam's House Blend

You have the right ... to shut the fuck up!

by STP

I posted this on Poetic Leanings last week, but it fell somewhat through the cracks. Figured I would bring over to Big Brass Blog, too.

If you are anti-choice with regards to abortion, fine, don't have one. Leave others alone to make their own choices. You are not saving a life. A fetus is not a person until it can viably exist as a child.

If you do not believe in birth control, buy a candy bar at CVS instead of a condom. Let the rest of us decide to purchase a box of Trojans or to get a birth control prescription filled.

If you do not believe in harvesting stem cells from fetuses for research purposes, sit and explain to someone who has lost a family member to a disease that stem cells might someday cure how it is unacceptable to use something that would get thrown in the trash otherwise.

If you find a movie, tv show or book offensive, don't watch or read the material in question.

If you want to be a Christian to whatever level of belief you feel is appropriate, do so. Go to church, avoid certain activities and behaviors, subscribe to a particular way of life. Do not force anyone else to be like you.

If you do not believe gays should marry and you are a man, do not marry another man. If you do not believe gays should marry and you are a woman, do not marry another woman. If you are Rick Santorum, don't marry your pet. Leave everyone else alone to marry whoever they damn well please.

If you do not support the right to die or euthanasia, leave yourself plugged in as long as you wish. Let the rest of us die with dignity when all hope is lost.

If you feel the need to impose your beliefs on me, or anyone else ... shut the fuck up!

Julien's List Reader Will on the Hypocrisy of "Pro-Life" Culture

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Will is a wonderful new addition to the contributors on Julien's List. He sent me a great email letter yesterday...well worth sharing with those who visit here:

Hey Ms. Julien:

I was just over on your blog and read the Culture of Life post. It seems it is a couple of days old, so I didn’t comment on it regarding this. I got the paper this morning, and [the article below] was in the Metro Section. It was way in the back and such a tiny article, yet it just hit me so hard. You and I, and most enlightened people in America, know what the entire Schiavo media circus was about. Still, I read this and re-read this and just thought to myself, how could all of our elected representatives put on such a big show and create an unconstitutional law, which the President rushes back from the ranch to sign, and yet allow [what is in the article] to happen in America? I don’t know if you got a chance to hear Sean Hannity’s colorful remarks when he thought he wasn’t being taped, but he was swearing about the Congressman he was interviewing about the Schiavo case because the Congressman actually had the nerve to bring up Medicaid cuts. Imagine! Medicaid! That congressman should be ashamed.

I wonder if the right wing is so ignorant of what is going on in America, just doesn’t care unless it promotes their agenda, or just feels like one white woman in a Southern State, even though she is in a “Persistent Vegetative State,” is more worthy of their hypocritical moral indignation than the hundreds of poor Hispanic and African American BABIES that are dying every day? [Note from Ms. Julien – actually many “Anglo” babies are starving in this country also…] Do they think that if they show concern for or report on poor people that poverty is contagious? The right wing in this Country needs to let the rest of us know who is important and counts in their Culture of Life, because I am confused. Or, they could simply say, Culture Of Life – for some of us, so it wouldn’t be so confusing.

Anyway, just thought I’d send this to you as I know you love a good right wing hypocrisy in action story as much as the rest of us.

Take Care,

Will

Regional News Briefs

Posted: April 7, 2005

Infant mortality rate remains high

Based on 2003 statistics, Milwaukee's infant mortality remains high, according to the Milwaukee Health Department.

For every 1,000 live births in Milwaukee, 11.3 infants died, compared with a national average of 6.9. The department's data also show that African-American babies were 2.7 times more likely to die than white babies, and Hispanic infants were 1.6 times more likely to die than non-Hispanic white infants.

And while infant mortality rates have improved for white babies since 1995, they have remained static for black and Hispanic infants.

Of the 16 largest cities in the country, the infant mortality racial disparity between blacks and whites in Milwaukee is the fourth worst, according to 2000 data.

Four times as many premature African-American babies die as white babies, and premature birth is the leading cause of death among black infants. Common risk factors for premature births include smoking, lack of family planning, teen pregnancy and inadequate prenatal care.

Greetings and Salutations

by STP

Some of you know me from Poetic Leanings, where I try to mix progressive politics, general rants and my own brand of poetic scribblings. Poetry and politics make for interesting bedfellows.

I thought as a semi-introduction to the many readers at Big Brass Blog who are unfamiliar with my writings, that I might suggest a few poems for your perusal.

Political:
The Bush Doctrine
Country ‘Tis of Thee
Dear John
Lies Behind the Smirk

Non-Political:
Boardwalks to Walk No More
The Hours
Mind the Eagle
Winter

That’s a brief sampling of the poetry. And of course, check out my work in general, if you’d like. I intend to discuss whatever crosses my mind on Big Brass Blog, with a reasonable dosage of my own state’s (New Jersey) goings-on.

I am so appreciative of being asked to post on this site. The level of work put forth here is of the highest quality and I can only hope that my intermittent appearances on Big Brass Blog will measure up to the other writers.

Thanks and we will talk again soon.

New Feature Announcement
The Bloggrrrlz Gallery

by Dark Wraith

Big Brass Blog, in association with The Dark Wraith Forums, is proud to announce The Bloggrrrlz Gallery, a portal meta-site featuring some of the best bloggrrrlz blogs on the Web. A graphical permanent link can be found in the far right-hand column of our blog.

Click on the link, and you'll find yourself at a Website that has a string of bloggrrrlz blogs listed across the top. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Ah, this is just a list of links"; but you'd be missing the big feature. Notice that below the listings is a giant window. Watch what happens when you click on a blog link. After what happens has perhaps impressed you, click on another link; click on a third. Go through the whole list if you like.

That's right: one site, The Bloggrrrlz Gallery, from which you can look into a portal window and see the world of feminist blogs. The Bloggrrrlz Gallery is a one-stop meta-site where you can park every day to watch the Blogosphere unfold through the words and images on the hottest, fastest-growing, most dynamic part of the Blogosphere today.

By providing this new service, the Big Brass Blog continues its tradition of giving voice, forum, and opportunity to those who have been ignored, turned away, turned down, and set aside for too long. Perhaps one day, the extremists of the Right will have the world of violent men and cowering women they want. Perhaps one day, the fascists of religions across the world will return the wrath of their angry and false gods to those who would dare to question. And perhaps one day, the mainstream news media and the giant graffiti blogs will be able to once again decide who matters and for how long.

But we here at Big Brass Blog don't think so. In fact, we here at the Big Brass Blog intend to make sure the past stays buried.

It's one thing to talk the talk;
it's quite another to blog the blogs.

The Big Brass Blog most definitely blogs the blogs.

Now, go have a look at the future.




The Dark Wraith has said his peace.

What does 'Bandar Bush' have to say about the Saudi human rights record?

by Pam

Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the U.S., Prince Bandar. I'm sure floggings and beheadings occurring in the Kingdom are not a topic of conversation at family gatherings.

As I recall, one of reasons for overthrowing Saddam (aside from the non-existent WMDs) was to return Iraq to the people, to encourage democracy and human rights. Isn't if funny how one of our closest allies (one that pumps an awful lot of oil, by the way) won't allow women to vote or drive, and subjects people suspected of being gay to unspeakable torture.

I wonder if the topic of human rights ever comes up when Chimpy and his family friend Saudi Prince Bandar, or Bandar Bush (his pet name), sit down for a chat in Crawford or at the White House. Better yet, what does Darth Cheney think about this cozy relationship with a country that would physically punish his queer daughter for being openly gay. (Guardian):

Dozens of Saudi men caught dancing and "behaving like women" at a party have been sentenced to a total of 14,200 lashes, after a trial held behind closed doors and without defence lawyers.

The men were also given jail sentences of up to two years. They were arrested last month when the police in Jeddah raided a party which was described by a Saudi newspaper as a "gay wedding".

"Prosecuting and imprisoning people for homosexual conduct are flagrant human rights violations," Scott Long, of the US organisation Human Rights Watch said. "Subjecting the victims to floggings is torture, pure and simple."

HRW said it had established that 31 of the men received prison sentences of six months to one year, plus 200 lashes each. Four were jailed for two years with 2,000 lashes.

A further 70 men were released after the raid but summoned to a police station on April 3, where they were told they had been sentenced to one year's imprisonment. HRW said that according to a friend of one of the arrested men the gathering was a birthday party.

According to the Kingdom's National Organization for Human Rights (NOHR) -- there's an oxymoron of epic proportions -- amputations and floggings are not violations of human rights.

"There are those who consider certain issues a violation of human rights, while we consider them a safeguard to human rights – for example, executions, amputating the hand of a thief, or flogging an adulterer. There are those who think that all Qur'anic punishments violate human rights. Therefore, the position of the Saudi foreign ministry, and the position of many Islamic countries and even some of the Western countries, is that international proclamations of human rights and their related protocols are [considered only] general principles, and that their implementation is subject to the laws [of each country]"

When asked about the scope of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, Turki Bin Muhammad answered: "Based on my work, and my involvement in this issue for over eight years, I can say that there are no significant human rights violations, as alleged falsely by suspicious parties. There may be some transgressions by individuals [or institutions], but they do not rise to the level that could be described as human rights violations. I think these cases can be managed when they arise."

Women and the Kingdom. A Saudi woman not only cannot drive or vote, she also needs written permission from a man to get an education, a job, or even purchase a plane ticket. There is an excellent Ed Bradley piece that aired on 60 Minutes (it's up on the CBS web site), which featured an interview with Rania al-Baz, a well-known Saudi television personality, who was the first woman to speak out on the issue of domestic violence and women.

"He grabbed me and threw me on the ground. Then he choked me, and told me to declare my faith, this is what someone says just before dying," says al-Baz. "Then he choked me so hard that I woke up in the hospital four days later." But instead of keeping what happened to her a secret, al-Baz caused a sensation, when a television show broadcast pictures of her injuries and she became the first Saudi woman to break the taboo against publicly discussing domestic violence.

"I am trying, as a Saudi woman, to raise the awareness of unstable men, who sees women as inferior, who resort to violence, and who are abusive to women," says al-Baz.

This is a country where half of the college graduates are women and only five percent are in the work force -- the educated women are restless and stirring for change. Without the physical and legal threats imposed by Sharia law, it's likely that there would have been more progress by women's rights efforts by now.

The Fink and the Turd Blossom

by Shakespeare's Sister

Yesterday, I wrote about a prominent Republican consultant, Arthur J. Finkelstein, who, after spending a lifetime driving the careers of conservatives, demonizing liberals, and supporting anti-gay candidates, recently married another man in Massachusetts, with whom he has adopted two children. Although he was defended by other Republicans as having distanced himself from social conservatives as their anti-gay rhetoric has amplified, he’s still actively engaged in trying to destroy liberals, even as he takes advantage of the progressive laws they alone champion.

Mr. Finkelstein, a longtime adviser to Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, is setting up a political action committee to mount a campaign offensive against Mrs. Clinton in 2006, when she is up for re-election, according to Republicans familiar with his plans.

Mr. Finkelstein, who is known to be reclusive, would not comment for this article. But Republicans who know of his intentions say he is moving behind the scenes to line up donors to help the committee, called Stop Her Now, reach its goal of raising as much as $10 million to finance an independent campaign against her.

His plan includes financing an advertising assault against her similar to the one orchestrated by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked Senator John Kerry's Vietnam service during the presidential election, according to the Republican officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

[…]

Republicans are warning that Mrs. Clinton will be in a position to run for president in 2008 if she is not defeated in New York next year.

[…]

Republicans familiar with the project said that Mr. Finkelstein is just weeks away from publicly launching the committee, having established a Web site and put a direct-mail operation in place.

Republican officials say Mr. Finkelstein is hoping to model his committee after the National Conservative Political Action Committee, a group he helped lead in the early 1980's in its campaign to, among other things, unseat liberal senators.

What possesses a man, the legal structure of whose family is only possible because of liberal policies, to dedicate his time, energy, treasure, and talents to attacking those who would fight for his right for full equality? It can’t possibly be an unyielding support of other conservative principles, such as fiscal conservatism or environmental protection; the GOP has left these ideals behind, and they have become the property of progressives.

As inexplicable as the Fink is, he is only one of many GOP operatives who reap the benefits of liberal policies while simultaneously making their livings trying to undermine the liberals who dedicate their lives to expanding them. It is a peculiar feeling I have about these people. They anger and perplex me, but more than anything else, I feel a sense of betrayal, strangely similar to a broken heart.

Tangentially, last night, I watched the documentary Bush’s Brain, based on the book of the same name, about Karl Rove, in which he is often cited as co-president. (You’ll recall, in February, Rove was appointed as deputy White House chief of staff, and put in charge of coordinating policy between the White House Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, National Security Council, and Homeland Security Council, in addition to continuing to advance Bush’s agenda, making him, in fact, closer to an official co-presidency than ever before.) The term limits imposed upon Bush, however, don’t mean we have seen the end of Rove; a man whose life has been darkly dedicated to the pursuit of power is unlikely to rest after reaching such a startling level of influence. The depths to which he has stooped in this endeavor are nothing less than jaw-dropping, and yet, many of those over whom he has trampled, pick themselves up and dust themselves off only to drop back to their knees to service him like ten-dollar whores (see: John McCain).

That Rove’s career does not necessarily end with Bush’s presidency, coupled with the seemingly interminable number of men and women like the Fink, who are unapologetically willing to sell their souls to the GOP machine, is truly depressing. Meanwhile, our strategists are writing love notes to them. I despair for our future.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Chris Shays Runs for the Hills

by Shakespeare's Sister

Or, more accurately, runs away from the lunatic on the Hill.

"[Tom DeLay] is an absolute embarrassment to me and to the Republican Party," U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Bridgeport, told more than 50 Greenwich residents yesterday morning at Town Hall. He was in Greenwich to host a public forum, open to all political parties, on whatever pressing issues attendees were interested in discussing.

[…]

"He knows that . . . if he ever runs for speaker, I get to vote on the House floor, and my 'No' vote combined with the Democrats means he will never be speaker," Shays said, drawing applause from the room. "One of the things I want to say here is that Tom DeLay will never be speaker in Congress."

"With all due respect, I can be accused of a lot of things, but supporting Tom DeLay is not one of them," Shays added.

Amusing. However, I’m not convinced that DeLay is somehow more uniquely corrupt, radical, bad for the Republican Party, or deserving of rebuke than a number of other current GOP officeholders, right to the top. DeLay is, perhaps, exceptional in his bravado, making him, well, ripe for the picking. But I’d be more impressed if Shays would denounce the entire cancer of extremism that is crippling the GOP and the country, rather than focusing his ire on a single, easily removed tumor.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Look who's on the Time 100 list

by Pam

"Warriors and peacemakers, dictators and democrats, terrorists and holy men—these are the men and women with the clout and power to change our world."

Check out this list, feel free to comment....

George Bush
Condoleezza Rice
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama
Bill Frist
Donald Rumsfeld
Mark Malloch Brown
Gordon Brown
Ali Husaini Sistani
Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi
Hu Jintao
Kim Jong Il
Manmohan Singh
Thabo Mbeki
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Mahmoud Abbas
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ariel Sharon
Javier Solana
John Howard
Chen Shui-bian
Hugo Chavez

Oh, and in the Scientists and Thinkers? Karl Rove. Time had James Carville write the profile...

A Brilliant (Ouch!) Political Strategist
Sometimes the truth hurts, and it pains me to say this, but Karl Rove is the pre-eminent political strategist in the U.S. today. Last August I went on the record as saying that if Rove managed to help George W. Bush win a second term in office, it would constitute the signature political achievement of my lifetime. Well, he did. And it is.

Every political consultant has an abiding insecurity, and it's not about losing. It's about not knowing whether a winning candidate would have won without them. The question I asked myself after every winning campaign: "Was my guy just gonna win it anyway?" Bush winning the presidency in 2004 was not one that he was just going to win anyway, and that is why I have to tip my hat to Rove.

Rove mobilized the base. And he formulated a message that avoided the fact that his candidate had positions and a record that the majority of the American people disagreed with. He made the last election one not about policies or positions or even about values or national security— he made it about decisiveness. Who else ever won the presidency on a message that basically says, "You may not like what I stand for, but I stand for something." President Bush won not because he was a better candidate but because he had a better campaign. If Rove wanted to switch parties, I'd take him up on it in a second.

He's on the money. The demon that is Karl Rove knows how to target and land his prey -- the average sheeple. The Dems just haven't figured out how to match him, in strategy or ruthlessness. They are too busy trying to ride on the high horse, failing to admit that the lowest common denominator in politics has evolved into the mainstream, and it's killing them.

Attack on the Judiciary Continues (and Escalates)

by Shakespeare's Sister

This is simply unbelievable. I actually can’t remember the last time my stomach turned quite so thoroughly when reading a news story, and considering the amount of crap I read every day, that’s really saying something.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer -- and perhaps a few more bodyguards.

Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy…should be impeached, or worse.

Matriarch of Professional Wingnuts, Phyllis Schlafly, led the charge against Kennedy (an appointee of that world-renowned zany liberal Ronald Reagan), by saying that his refusal to support the death penalty for juveniles “is a good ground of impeachment.” So much for the culture of life, eh, Phyllis?

Not to be outdone by the Duchess of Delirium, Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said:

Kennedy "should be the poster boy for impeachment" for citing international norms in his opinions. "If our congressmen and senators do not have the courage to impeach and remove from office Justice Kennedy, they ought to be impeached as well."

What a superb idea. Let’s just impeach the whole of the House, the Senate, and the judiciary, and then Bush’s ascension to dictator will be complete.

The competition for Grand Minister of Inflammatory Vitriol continued with a statement from “lawyer-author” Edwin Vieira, who:

told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem."

[…]

Vieira, a constitutional lawyer who wrote "How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary," escalated the charges, saying a Politburo of "five people on the Supreme Court" has a "revolutionary agenda" rooted in foreign law and situational ethics. Vieira, his eyeglasses strapped to his head with black elastic, decried the "primordial illogic" of the courts.

Invoking Stalin, Vieira delivered the "no man, no problem" line twice for emphasis. "This is not a structural problem we have; this is a problem of personnel," he said. "We are in this mess because we have the wrong people as judges."

I doubt this is the only issue on which Vieira and I disagree, but I’m kinda thinking that a bunch of fucknuts congregating to declare war on the judiciary is a bigger mess than the judiciary itself. One wonders how many judges (or judges’ families) will be killed as a result of this increasingly aggressive rhetoric before something is done to curb this mania.

"The people who have been speaking out on this, like Tom DeLay and Senator Cornyn, need to be backed up," Schlafly said to applause yesterday. One worker at the event wore a sticker declaring "Hooray for DeLay."

Backed up against a wall maybe, where they’ll be frisked (with any luck by a huge, mustachioed leather daddy wearing nothing but a thong and a dog collar) and then handcuffed and carted off to jail where they belong.

The conference was organized during the height of the Schiavo controversy by a new group, the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. This was no collection of fringe characters. The two-day program listed two House members; aides to two senators; representatives from the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America; conservative activists Alan Keyes and Morton C. Blackwell; the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents; Alabama's "Ten Commandments" judge, Roy Moore; and DeLay, who canceled to attend the pope's funeral.

Got that?

Unethical, corrupt, morally bankrupt douchebag:



Brought with official delegation to Pope’s funeral.

Honorable, altruistic, Nobel Peace Prize winner:



Excluded from official delegation to Pope’s funeral.

Anyway, back to the story.

The Schlafly session's moderator, Richard Lessner of the American Conservative Union, opened the discussion by decrying a "radical secularist relativist judiciary." It turned more harsh from there.

Schlafly called for passage of a quartet of bills in Congress that would remove courts' power to review religious displays, the Pledge of Allegiance, same-sex marriage and the Boy Scouts. Her speech brought a subtle change in the argument against the courts from emphasizing "activist" judges -- it was, after all, inaction by federal judges that doomed Schiavo -- to "supremacist" judges. "The Constitution is not what the Supreme Court says it is," Schlafly asserted.

Former representative William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) followed Schlafly, saying the country's "principal problem" is not Iraq or the federal budget but whether "we as a people acknowledge that God exists."

Farris then told the crowd he is "sick and tired of having to lobby people I helped get elected." A better-educated citizenry, he said, would know that "Medicare is a bad idea" and that "Social Security is a horrible idea when run by the government." Farris said he would block judicial power by abolishing the concept of binding judicial precedents, by allowing Congress to vacate court decisions, and by impeaching judges such as Kennedy, who seems to have replaced Justice David H. Souter as the target of conservative ire. "If about 40 of them get impeached, suddenly a lot of these guys would be retiring," he said.

These people are the faces of the conservative movement in America. This was no collection of fringe characters. As we as a country become increasingly tolerant of this radical agenda, in no small part due to its proponents’ using religion as a defense shield and our willingness to defer to such madness despite the conspicuous and resoundingly hateful motivations behind their actions, this extremism continues to gain legitimacy. Where are the Dems, who ought to be demanding the president denounce such rubbish? Where is the media, who ought to be drawing the obvious comparisons between the rise of this radical movement and its historical counterparts, which have been the undoing of other nations?

It feels as though I am screaming into the darkness, but, of course, if this antidemocratic element is left to fester unchecked, as I fear it will be, the real darkness is yet to come.

I wonder if the Supreme Court might be regretting that Bush v. Gore decision at all—including Justice Kennedy, who was one of the seven finding equal protection violations and one of the five voting to cease all recounts. Complicit in handing the election to Bush, he now discovers firsthand what a dreadful decision that was, and the depth of the wickedness it unleashed.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Stock Markets End Week Down

by Dark Wraith

After a string of days going up, the major stock indices ended Friday off, with both the narrow and broad blue chip indices losing more than four-fifths of a percent of their value, and the huge NASDAQ composite index of mostly smaller corporations' stocks dropping almost a full percent.

For the benefit of those who are interested in the performance of the stock markets, the following calculations are herewith provided. If you had formed a stock portfolio based upon one of the indicated, major stock market indices, and you had done this on the first trading day after the inauguration of George W. Bush in January of 2001, your portfolio would have earned you the following nominal, annualized rates of return:

Total Nominal Return on Investment
Dow Jones Industrial Average:
—1.12%
Standard & Poor's 500:
—12.04%
NASDAQ Composite:
—27.50%

In all three of these portfolios, your total return on investment would have been negative, meaning that the value of your portfolio would be lower today than it was the day before President Bush was sworn into office.

To see what the effect of this portfolio value erosion has been on a more standardized basis, the next two sets of figures put these numbers in terms of annualized rates of return.

Annualized Nominal Rate of Return on Investment
Dow Jones Industrial Average:
—0.27%
Standard & Poor's 500:
—3.00%
NASDAQ Composite:
—7.35%

The above figures merely present the first set in the more traditional way that most interest rates, rates of return, and other rates are expressed.

The final set of figures adjusts the stock market data for the effect of inflation over the holding period of the portfolio.

Annualized Real Rate of Return on Investment
Dow Jones Industrial Average:
—4.33%
Standard & Poor's 500:
—6.95%
NASDAQ Composite:
—11.13%

In other words, taking into account the erosion caused by inflation in purchasing power of the money put into the index portfolio, you would have lost, in the case of the Dow portfolio, about four-and-a-third percent of your invested money's purchasing power every year. In the case of the broader index of 500 large company stocks in the Standard & Poor's index, about seven percent of your invested money's purchasing power would have been lost every year. And in the case of the NASDAQ Composite index portfolio, more than eleven percent of your invested money's purchasing power would have been lost every year during the holding period.

This is the financial legacy, at the personal and very real level, of the Bush Administration.



The Dark Wraith leaves it to the readers to assess the meaning and importance of this information.

Get a Load of this Guy

by Shakespeare's Sister

The NY Times reports that prominent Republican consultant Arthur J. Finkelstein just took advantage of the beautiful blue in Massachusetts—to marry his male partner.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners," he said.

…after spending a lifetime helping foster the political careers of people like Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Don Nickels (R-OK), both of whom were such virulent homobigots that they even voted against bills proposed to protect the LGBT community against discrimination.

One of Mr. Finkelstein's associates, who declined to speak on the record, citing Mr. Finkelstein's desire for privacy, said Mr. Finkelstein did not view his marriage as a political statement and had specifically decided to have a civil ceremony rather than a religious one. This associate argued that over the past 20 years, Mr. Finkelstein had identified himself as a libertarian and an opponent of big government, distancing himself from social conservatives as they have gained political muscle and dominance in the party.

[…]

Mr. Finkelstein has frequently come under criticism by gay rights groups for representing politicians who have been ardent foes of gay rights. He helped create the template for a line of attack he repeatedly invoked against Democrats, including Mario M. Cuomo of New York, describing them as liberal.

And yet, he was perfectly willing to reap the benefits of liberal policies, marrying his longtime partner, and, what the NY Times article doesn’t mention but this article does, adopting two children.

Finkelstein has made millions demonizing liberals and liberal policies, running attack campaigns against Mario Cuomo, Jack Reed, and Paul Wellstone, yet depends on the spirit of full equality championed by liberals, who have fought for the rights of the gay community to have equal marriage and parenting rights, to create the family he wanted, the family his clients would never allow.

I’m glad Mr. Finkelstein and his husband have that family. I wish he and other disingenuous pricks like him wouldn’t make their names and fortunes trying to prevent others from having the same.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

They Like Us, They Really, Really Like Us!

by John

Democracy kicks ass!

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Tens of thousands of Shiites marked the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with a protest against the American military presence at the square where Iraqis and U.S. troops toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein two years ago.

The protesters back Muqtada Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose militia led uprisings against U.S. troops last year, and their large numbers reflected frustration both with the U.S. government and anger toward the Sunni Arab-led insurgency.

"This huge gathering shows that the Iraqi people have the strength and faith to protect their country and liberate it from the occupiers," said Ahmed Abed, a 26-year-old who sells spare car parts.
[...]
Demonstrators swung from a statue said to represent freedom and constructed on the pedestal where Saddam's statue once stood. They also acted out examples of prison abuse widely reported after photos were released showing U.S. soldiers piling naked inmates in a pyramid at Abu Ghraib prison.
[...]
During his Friday morning sermon in the capital, the head of an influential Sunni group accused coalition forces of "killing the Iraqi people daily."

"We demand that the occupation troops withdraw from Iraq. We don't want them to do it immediately, but we want them to set a timetable for their withdrawal," said Sheik Harith al-Dahri, whose Association of Muslim Scholars is believed to have ties to Iraq's insurgents.

Other marches were held across the country to demand that the United States set a timetable for its withdrawal. In the central city of Ramadi, thousands of protestors demonstrated in the al-Sufayaa neighborhood and at Anbar University, demanding that U.S.-led coalition forces set a withdrawal date.

Meanwhile, CNN seems to be more concerned about whether the British people will accept Camille, as though that has any fucking impact on our lives.

Ms. Julien has some illustrative pictures below.

Culture of Life: Spraying the Kids with Pesticides Edition

by John

I know this has already been floating around the blogosphere a bit, but today's New York Times has an amazing article on the EPA's insane plan to test pesticides on children. Fortunately, the plan was eliminated, but here's how they intended to lure families in:

A recruiting flier for the program, called the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or Cheers [ed note: WTF?], offered $970, a free camcorder, a bib and a T-shirt to parents whose infants or babies were exposed to pesticides if the parents completed the two-year study. The requirements for participation were living in Duval County, Fla., having a baby under 3 months old or 9 to 12 months old, and "spraying pesticides inside your home routinely."

Unbelievable. The scary thing is that they'll probably continue the study, and just not let people know they're being studied.

It's really sad when you can't tell if The Onion is satire anymore-- "EPA To Drop 'E,' 'P' From Name":

WASHINGTON, DC—Days after unveiling new power-plant pollution regulations that rely on an industry-favored market-trading approach to cutting mercury emissions, EPA Acting Administrator Stephen Johnson announced that the agency will remove the "E" and "P" from its name. "We're not really 'environmental' anymore, and we certainly aren't 'protecting' anything," Johnson said.

Iraqis Love Bush...NOT (Part (II)

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Iraqi men strike their boots against a cut out of U.S. President George W. Bush during a rally in Baghdad, Iraq Saturday, April 9, 2005. Tens of thousands of supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings last year against U.S. troops, called Saturday for American forces to withdraw from Iraq.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

Iraqis Love Bush...NOT (Part (I)

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Tens of thousands of Iraqis rally in Baghdad, Iraq Saturday, April 9, 2005. The supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings last year against U.S. troops, called Saturday for American forces to withdraw from Iraq. The demonstration overflowed Firdos Square, where protesters pulled down a towering statue of Saddam Hussein two years ago to the day.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

Now THIS Guy ...

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Clinton in Rome during the PPP's (Pedophile-Protecting-Pope's) funeral. Article and picture from www.dailykos.com.

Well, they jeered and sneered Dubya over there in Rome - quite the opposite for the pilgrims' reception of Bill Clinton - from Daily Kos (thanks to Julien's List member Will for tipping me off to this!)

Clinton Mobbed U.S.A! U.S.A. ! U.S.A.!

by Al Rodgers
Fri Apr 8th, 2005 at 14:18:05 PDT

Perhaps, this will bring a tear to your eye. In contrast to the waves of Booooing that hit Bush today at the Pope's funeral, Bill Clinton was Mobbed and greeted with adoring chants of U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

As Mr. Clinton went for a walk, ...shoppers, tourists having lunch at outdoor cafes and Italian business people going to meetings all stopped to greet him.

Along the streets, people starting yelling "Bill, Bill, Bill," and a few shouted "U.S.A.!" One shopkeeper raced out with a photograph of Mr. Clinton on a past visit.

"You go around the world and you see a lot of affection for Americans," he said.

[can you imagine, a plain shopkeeper has Clinton’s photo hanging on his wall]

..by the time Mr. Clinton made it out of the back streets and into the open square, a mob of hundreds developed. Mr. Clinton's nervous Italian bodyguards put him in a car and sped him away.

After the dinner with the Italian leader, he went out with President Viktor Yuschenko and stayed out with him until after midnight.

Gee, Ya Mean They Didn't Greet Him with Flowers & Cheers?

by Ms. Julien in Miami

....nope, rather with Boos and Jeers.

So, Dubya went to the funeral for the PPP (pedophile-protecting pope), and while the mouners were respectful in their grief, they did have time to make sure that the world knew how LITTLE the appointed president is thought of in the world:

From My Way News, and thanks to Julien's List reader Mario for the tip:

President Bush sat on the aisle in the second row, next to his wife, Laura...

When Bush's face appeared on giant screen TVs showing the ceremony, many in the crowds outside St. Peter's Square booed and whistled.

So much for the Great Uniter...

One last Pope-o-matic post, featuring Fred Phelps

by Pam

I can't help it, this man just puts me over the edge. The Rotting Cryptkeeper^TM doesn't hold back on the now-encrypted JPII. From the family-friendly Phelps web site:

Catholics are the meanest, most violent peaple on earth, and their churches are filled with filthy fag priests. On John Paul II's watch, the Catholic Church became the

Church of the Holy Pedophiles

Where the Mass is celebrated not with bread & wine but with vile sodomite feces ("scat") & semen. Vatican Intelligence surpasses the CIA + FBI + ad infinitum. The Pope appoints all bishops, archbishops, cardinals, etc., and he does so knowing most are fags or enablers. As the final and absolute ruler of all things Catholic, he is solely responsible for every raped child and every sinful, pervert priest. "And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments." Lk. 16:23.

"W" Stands for What in the HELL Did He Say?!?

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Fresh Dubya
(The 15 most recent Dubya declarations)
We're talking about a part of the world in which, uhh, you know, our foreign policy was, let's just hope for the best and tolerate the fact there's no free societies. And -- what ended up happening was, there was a -- tyrants have emerged, tyrants that threatened our security. And so not only was the action worth it, the action is worth it to make sure that democracy exists, and, uhh, because democracies will yield peace, and that's what we want.
-- Dubya making the case (?) for the invasion of Iraq, Washington, D.C., Apr. 4, 2005

Government should be an advocate of faith-based and community-based programs, not an impedent to faith-based programs. Government ought to be not a road block.
-- We have a nonexistent word coupled with some confused grammar, Washington, D.C., Apr. 1, 2005

Vinnie Thomas left home when he was 16, ended up in California struggling with drugs. And guess where he ended up? In prison. He was there for three-and-a-half years. And while he was there, a mentor -- I think he said two mentors, but one sticks out in my mind in particular as a mentor. That was a business person, came and mentored Vinnie and gave him an airplane ticket to fly back home, said if you need a problem, here's a house, here's a bed.
-- That can't be what he meant to say, Washington, D.C., Apr. 1, 2005

1983, uh, Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole said, we've got a problem, let's, stret, see if we can't fix it. And they put together a 75-year fix, they said. First of all, I appreciate the spirit of Republicans and Democrats comin' together. But it wasn't a 70-yah, 5-year fix. This was 1953. We're only in 2005.
-- Dubya speaks of shortsighted government fixes, while doing a sterling job of messing up the point his argument, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mar. 30, 2005

I was impressed by the people of Iraq, who, in the face of car bombings and suiciders, said, we're going to defy these folks because we want to be free.
-- Dubya does it again, tossing out one of his favorite made-up words, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mar. 30, 2005

I don't think there's a Democrat idea, I don't think it's a Republican idea, I think these are just ideas that need to be on the table. I think I'm the first President ever to have stood up and said, bring all your ideas forward.
-- Delusions of grandeur, anyone? Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mar. 30, 2005

I want to wish all the fellow citizens and their families a happy Easter.
-- Adding "families" seems problematic in this instance, since it makes it seem as if the families aren't citizens themselves, Fort Hood, Texas, Mar. 27, 2005

The math has changed. The math has changed this way. Baby boomers like me are getting ready to retire, and there's a lot of us. I turn 62 in 2008 -- it's a convenient date for me to retire.
-- Dubya's math seems to indicate he will retire before the end of his term in 2009, Tucson, Arizona, Mar. 21, 2005

DAVID GREGORY: Do you feel that this is a point in the debate where it's incumbent upon you, and nobody else, to lay out a plan to the American people for how you actually keep Social Security solvent for the long-term?
DUBYA: First of all, Dave, let me, if I might correct you, be so bold as to correct you, I have not laid out a plan yet, intentionally.
-- Unless, of course you count the section linked on the White House website under the title "The President's Plan" (screen shot), White House, Mar. 16, 2005

I'm lookin' forward to meeting these uhh -- very brave souls. They've, uhh, committed themselves to a peaceful solution, and hopefully, their loved one'd will not have died in vain. I mean, out of this -- hopefully, some good will come out of the evil perpetuated on this family.
-- Making it sound as if the evil perpetrated on the family is ongoing, Washington, D.C., Mar. 16, 2005

I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But it's -- I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.
-- We have a real mixed bag here, as he brings us his favorite local political issue (potholes) in extolling the virtues of representative government, and tosses in a mention of blowing up America while he's at it, Washington, D.C., Mar. 16, 2005

I repeat, personal accounts do not permanently fix the solution. They make the solution more attractive for the individual worker. And that's important for people for understand, John, and that's why it's very important for Congress to discuss this issue.
-- I'm glad he's willing to admit they don't fix the solution, Washington, D.C., Mar. 16, 2005

REPORTER: Mr. President, can you explain why you've approved of and expanded the practice of what's called rendition, of transferring individuals out of U.S. custody to countries where human rights groups and your own State Department say torture is common for people under custody?
DUBYA: The post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack. That was the charge we have been given. And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured. That's the promise we receive. This country does not believe in torture. We do believe in protecting ourselves. We don't believe in torture.
-- Dubya denies the existence of a torture-driven intelligence windfall resulting from rendition, without providing an alternate explanation for the policy. Hmmm... Washington, D.C., Mar. 16, 2005

That's how interest works. It compounds. It grows. Now, people say, what does that mean, a personal savings account? Can I take the money and go right down to the road where I was staying in this part of the world and put it in the slots?
-- Dubya manages to slip in another mention of "this part of the world", this time in reference to the state of Louisiana. Shreveport, Louisiana, Mar. 11, 2005

There is a baby boomer generation getting ready to retire. I'm pretty aware of that. I am one.
-- Dubya is a baby boomer generation, Louisville, Kentucky, Mar. 10, 2005

Thanks to Julien's List reader Mario for finding this!!

Et Tu Karl Rove? Denny Hastert?

by thatcoloredfella

The last thing the Republican majority in Congress (oh, what the hell…the whole damn Party!) needed, were more damning ethics revelations concerning Tom DeLay. 'GOP Fleet Commander to RNC Chair Ken Mehlman: Please take us to Def Con Bernie Kerik!'

Raw Story got the Washington Post scoop on DeLay’s dining with a Russian mobster, and apparently, they practice a form of old style Chicago Machine patronage down in the Lone Star state, I reckon.

MoveOn.org might be able to save some money by not having to run their DeLay TV ad possibly, but TCF is looking ahead, honing in on a question that has not been answered to my satisfaction – who’s gonna tell his Evil Incarnate it’s time to go, and when?

Starting with Karl Rove, his relationship with DeLay (if any) has not been firmly established, let alone corroborated. Forget RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, who, if he isn’t yet, will be hold up in his D.C. condo with his schnauzer Diva, phone unplugged, whimpering to reruns of The Nanny and The Golden Girls.

Whoever delivered the ultimatum to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott gets my vote, which for House Speaker Denny Hastert, might feel like passing one more Kidney stone. If there is anyone in the Republican Party who could do all us Democrats a favor by not going quietly, it’s Tom DeLay. He recently reached out to the Christian Conservative groups for political protection, casting himself as being persecuted for his ideological and religious beliefs. He could not have picked a better ally, if he were to defy his party and tempt martyrdom.

Publicly, DeLay can only be helped by a Fox News looking to spin the blame in the direction of the Democrats, and don’t expect the Conservative media to get more indignant than this Mark McGwire copout from the Wall Street Journal. I mean really, in a fight to the death cage match between Tom DeLay versus Michael Barone, John Fund, Fred Barnes and Jonah Goldberg, there’s no doubt - ‘The Terminator’ would prevail!

Yet till now, no one has seriously threatened the arrogant power that, no doubt, fueled such reckless disregard for campaign contribution regulations. Being in power, did not set off such greed and fraud. It flourished back when the minority Republicans were indicting the Democrats, even bringing down fellow Texan Speaker Jim Wright.

TCF will not get into the outrage over how the Sandy Berger pants stuffing episode made for a top story on the cable news networks, while the evidence against DeLay would get the Warren Commission it’s own basic cable channel. However, the longer the MSM ignores this story, the deeper the Right settles into denial over the damage being done.

Times like these, I enjoy watching Fox.

UPDATE: Since posting this entry, TCF went slumming the CEC expecting few (if any) Right bloggers to be addressing the bounty of Tom DeLay revelations of the day. Predictably, many were still spinning the AP photo outrage, while simultaneously backpedaling from the Schiavo/GOP memo 'smoking gun', with a Republican Senator's legal counsel's prints all over it.

There was no palpable outrage concerning DeLay, just partisan resignation and 'predictions' of his impending demise. Whereby, TCF asserted that the absence of a 'demand' for his ouster or ground swell of pressure upon Party leaders will only exacerbate the damage to the Party and embolden DeLay.

TCF believes, that only a scenario such as this could possibly produce such defiance in this response from Tom DeLay.

A Quick History Lesson

by John

A quick history lesson. No matter what Tom DeLay thinks, the judicial branch was not created to fulfill the will of the people.

House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay, under fire for his use of campaign dollars and other ethical problems, addressed the conference in a videotaped message on Thursday in which he denounced a "judiciary run amok."

"Our next step, whatever it is, must be more than rhetoric," the Texas Republican told the conference, entitled "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith."

Conservatives including DeLay have intensified their criticism of judges in the aftermath of the Schiavo case. Several at the conference said the Florida woman who died last week, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed, was a victim of "judicial murder."

"I believe the judicial branch of our government has overstepped its authority on countless occasions, overturning and, in some cases, ignoring the legitimate will of the people," said DeLay, who was unable to attend the conference because he was in Rome for Pope John Paul II's funeral.

You see, the whole point of the judiciary branch is to protect the Constitution from people like DeLay and his Republican Congressional colleagues who want to abuse their power. If the founding fathers wanted Tom DeLay to come along and interpret the Constitution for his own political and religious benefits, they wouldn't have instituted a system of checks and balances. Fortunately for us, they had enough foresight to know that power attracts assholes, and assholes in power (a.ka. tyrants) are, as a general rule, not for the good of the people.

Perhaps the most appalling thing about Delay's latest delusional diatribe is that it was given at a conference organized by the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration.

Constitutional Restoration? Right.

(crossposted @ blogenlust)

Moscow on the State of Our Union

by Shakespeare's Sister

Recently I highlighted some of the incredible investigative work Brad at BradBlog has done regarding possible election fraud and related ongoing irregularities, including the suspicious death of an investigator from the Florida Inspector General's office. (If you haven’t read the original post, I highly recommend doing so—and if you happen to have a blog of your own, make some noise about it.)

Now, Brad reports:

[T]oday, it's The Moscow Times who joins the World's America Hating Party in a damning article suggesting the game is over and the forces of Democracy in the previously-Free World have lost.

So just what did this Moscow Times article have to say? Well, in addition to some fine reporting on Brad’s Clint Curtis coverage (summarized in my aforementioned earlier post), it said exactly what the American press has avoided saying, much to the detriment of our democratic process.

The re-election of President George W. Bush last November was a deliberately shambolic process that saw massive lockouts of opposition voters; unverifiable returns compiled by easily hackable machines operated by avowed corporate partisans of the ruling party; and vast discrepancies between exit polls and final results – gaps much larger than those that led elections in Ukraine and Georgia to be condemned as manipulated frauds. Indeed, a panel of statisticians said last week that the odds of such a discrepancy occurring naturally were 959,000 to 1, the Akron Beacon-Journal reported.

The copious documentation of the Bush fraud keeps growing. Last month, experts using actual machines and returns from the 2004 election showed Congress how a lone hacker could skew a precinct's results by 100,000 votes without leaving a trace.

So Congress was shown how the election could have been stolen, and not only do we hear nothing about it from Congress, but we have to go to Moscow to find out about it from the press. The article also notes that no significant moves have been made to rectify

the highly profitable degradation of the American electoral process -- beyond the appointment of yet another "blue-ribbon panel" of Establishment worthies to oversee "election reform." The seriousness of this endeavor can be seen in the man appointed to co-chair the effort: James Baker, the notorious Bush family fixer (and Saudi bagman) who spearheaded the sabotage of the 2000 vote in Florida. Baker's presence on the panel ensures that nothing will be done to lessen the ruling clique's chokehold on power.

Good night. (See Velvet Revolution’s press release calling for Baker’s resignation here.)

The last three paragraphs of the article are perhaps the most chilling, in no small part because they would never, ever, be found in an American newspaper—another reminder of the media’s complicity in the slow, downward spiral of the once-great American democracy.

So let's have no illusions about where we are. Gangsters are in charge, and nothing and no one will be allowed to challenge their dominion. They are waging aggressive war to cement their position and that of their allies: the energy barons, the arms merchants, the construction and services cartels, the investment bankers. These power blocs now command monstrous resources and unfathomable profits; they can buy out, buy off or bury any force that opposes them. Meanwhile, they use the loot of the stolen Republic -- its blood and treasure -- as fuel for their ever-expanding war machine: Bush now has a "secret watch-list" of 25 more countries ripe for military intervention, the Financial Times reported.

With more war crimes afoot, last month Bush issued an official "National Defense Strategy" that openly declares "judicial processes" as one of the enemies confronting the United States, actually equating them with terrorism, The Associated Press reported. Law is "a strategy of the weak," says the Bush Doctrine, in a chilling echo of Hitlerian machtpolitik: Might makes right. The judicial process must not be allowed to "constrain or shape" American behavior in any way, the gangsters declared.

Think of it: Law is now the enemy. Democracy, as we've seen above, is the enemy. This, the demented code of criminals and tyrants, has become the ruling doctrine of the United States -- replacing the Constitution, replacing the noble struggle for liberty and enlightenment with the howl of the beast, with a freak show of avarice and death.

Fuck.

(Crossposted at Shakespeare’s Sister.)

Blogger Be Damned

by Ms. Julien in Miami

Hello folks...I don't know how Blogger works as far as who accesses it from where, geographically, etc. - but I have not been able to get on Blogger from my home since yesterday afternoon. I am at a hotel now on its wireless access with my laptop and it works (so far). Anyone know why this would be the case? Anyway I am going to post at least one thing I was trying to do last night - bear with me this weekend - I'll keep trying from home!

Ms. Julien in Miami

To return to the pews, men need an ass-kicking Jesus

by Pam

This week's "I'm not sh*tting you" post. You'll have to be patient with me, as I am still reeling in disbelief at recent cultural rollback posts recently -- from the Dallas Claymore piece on Male Pride ("Maybe it is a woman's world, but when they f-ck it up it will be ours again," to Betty Miller's wingnuttery in "What Does The Bible Say About The Duties of a Christian Wife?" As you will read below, the Right's march back to the days of the caveman is nearly complete.

Author David Murrow, a Presbyterian elder, has a seriously warped concept of what makes a man. In fact, he has filled a book with enough laughable insanity that when I read this article about it, Author Tells Women-Oriented Churches How to Get Their Men Back, I thought the tome belonged in the Humor section of the bookstore.

More than 20 percent of married women attend church without their husbands, and represent 60 percent of church membership, so Murrow attempts to explain the disparity. The premise of this particular work is that men aren't going to church because today's houses of worship are too feminized, too concerned with childcare, teaching, singing, cooking, planning for gatherings -- woman's work, in other words -- so men have nothing to do that they are interested in.

Murrow says men need a brawny, muscular, brass balls church -- saving souls with a blow-sh*t-up attitude. Let's listen to the voice of the Taliban Testosteroni...

He believes a major reason is that many churches have a concept of Christianity that is based on a feminine model. For instance, he notes, "The ideal values of a Christian are often identified as nurturing, verbal expression, tenderness, gentleness. If that's the definition of a Christian, it's going to be a lot harder for a man to achieve that than for a woman to, in most cases."

Still, the Christian writer cites studies indicating that men want an authentic faith experience but find churches boring and irrelevant. In Why Men Hate Going to Church, he suggests ways to address this problem.

"We have to give men opportunities to use their strengths and their gifts in the service of God instead of trying to squeeze them into roles that they feel are feminine or emasculating," Murrow says. "We need to start valuing masculine traits such as aggression, boldness, and competitiveness and figuring out ways that we can integrate that into every area of church life."

Also, Murrow asserts that churches need to "recover the masculinity of Jesus." The author says Jesus as described in scripture was and is "a very bold, aggressive character, but we [in the modern Church] have turned him into a wimp -- and men don't follow wimps. They follow leaders."

Is this not the most remarkable window into the author's psyche? The editor of this book had to be in stitches (unless he believes this crap too). Oh, and I love this description of the book at the web bookstore christianbook.com:

"Church is . . . boring, full of hypocrites, greedy, etc." You've heard the excuses, now read the reasons why institutional Christianity leaves countless men cold. Arguing that many churches create a man-hostile environment, Murrow offers detailed explanations of resulting male/female imbalances. Discover how to meet the real needs of men---and close your congregational gender gap!

In an article about this book in the Philly Inquirer, a clearer picture of his thinking emerges -- men have been given too many rules in church, aimed at taming the urges of the "other brain", chasing guys out the door. He places the blame squarely on women's shoulders.

Murrow cited writer Leon J. Podles, who asserts that the feminization began in the 13th century with the popularity of "bridal mysticism," which invites believers to think of the church as the bride of Christ.

Over time, the church's voice became softer and more "passive." The trend continued as the Industrial Revolution gave men other places to be besides church, and as the temperance movement saw women and pastors teaming up to curb what some consider male pleasures...Murrow urges churches to offer men-only activities and engage men's propensity to be risk-takers and task-oriented.

You can't say Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart and a Basilica-filled bunch of priests had any trouble taking risks, that's for damn sure -- and they were thinking quite clearly with the "other brain."

Iraq soldier with Purple Heart is eager to serve - out of the closet

by Pam

Sgt. Robert Stout: "I know a ton of gay men that would be more than willing to stay in the Army if they could just be open."

This is amazing news and an opportunity for the Dems to stick it to the White House if they have the freaking balls to do it.

With military recruitment numbers falling through the floor, relaxing educational standards for the National Guard, and a President constantly talking about rewarding service and commitment, what are they going to do with Sgt. Robert Stout and its "don't ask, don't tell" policy? (RedNova):

An Army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq wants a chance to remain in the military as an openly gay soldier, a desire that's bringing him into conflict with the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Sgt. Robert Stout, 23, says he has not encountered trouble from fellow soldiers and would like to stay if not for the policy that permits gay men and women to serve only if they keep their sexual orientation a secret.

...Stout, of Utica, Ohio, was awarded the Purple Heart after a grenade sent pieces of shrapnel into his arm, face and legs while he was operating a machine gun on an armored Humvee last May.

He is believed to be the first gay soldier wounded in Iraq to publicly discuss his sexuality, said Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

"We can't keep hiding the fact that there's gay people in the military and they aren't causing any harm," said Stout, who says he is openly gay among most of his 26-member platoon, which is part of the 9th Engineer Battalion based in Schweinfurt, Germany.

This is an easy slam-dunk for Dems, and I am confident that they will do absolutely nothing with it. They have been so frightened of anything to do with G-A-Y because of the Right's ability to smear support for gay Americans as unpatriotic and immoral, even as we see the clear evidence -- Halliburton, Tom DeLay, goodness knows a laundry list of Repugs and their projects -- that being gay has nothing to do with patriotism or immorality.

Let Chimpy, and Rumsfeld try to spin how Robert Stout, a man that wants to continue to serve, has to be discharged while the coffins keep flying home.

Papal Bullshit

by John

This is unbelievable: "Vatican Gives Cardinal Law Role of Honor":

Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace as archbishop of Boston over his role in the clergy sex abuse crisis, has been given a role of honor in the mourning for Pope John Paul II.

The Vatican announced Thursday he will lead one of the daily Masses celebrated in the pope's memory during the nine-day period that follows the funeral, called Novemdiales. The service will be held Monday at Rome's St. Mary Major Basilica, where Law was appointed archpriest after leaving Boston.

The Vatican seems to have the same promotion policy as the Bush Administration.

Some Roman Catholics in his former archdiocese immediately protested.

No, shit?

Suzanne Morse, spokeswoman for Voice of the Faithful, a Massachusetts-based reform group that emerged from the scandal, said Law's visibility since the pope's death has been "extremely painful" both for abuse survivors and rank-and-file Catholics.

"It certainly shows and puts a spotlight on the lack of accountability in the Catholic Church, that the most visible bishop in the clergy sexual abuse crisis has been given these honorary opportunities," she said.

David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called it "terribly insensitive."

"It rubs salt into the already deep wounds of victims and it allows the best-documented complicit bishop to exploit the pope's death for his own selfish purposes," Clohessy said.

Way to remind everyone why they hate the Catholic Church! The Cardinal used to be my neighbor when I lived in Boston. However, because he didn't do anything about the pederast problem, the archdiocese had to sell off their multi-million dollar property in order to pay off all the legal settlements.

Cardinal Law represents everything that is despicable about the Church. He's arrogant, unethical, and insensitive. Why the Church wants to showcase that is beyond me.

'Healed' Rev. Teletubby Checks Out Of Hospital

by Pam

Too evil to kick it. Guess Fred Phelps won't have to gas up his caravan of hate for the trip to Lynchburg just yet.