Sunday, July 16, 2006
Articles of Impeachment Teach-In
Learn about The Center for Constitutional Rights' case for impeachment: why it is necessary, what's at stake, and what you can do about it.
Come to a Teach-In about the:
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
WHERE: Beyond Latte, Center and San Augustine, Deer Park TX
WHEN: Wednesday, July 19th, 6:30pm
HOSTED BY: Gary Denton
Visit www.articlesofimpeachment.net to RSVP and find out more about ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH: A National Teach-In.
Please RSVP and also spread the word.
Tags: Bush, Cheney, impeachment, impeach, teach-in
The Hunting of the President
Above is movie website with timeline and trailer.
Here is the Amazon DVD on sale.
ADDED - Perry has pointed out there will be a showing of the movie with Susan McDougal as guest July 27th as a fundraiser for excellent Congressional candidate Jim Henley.
And I neglected to mention both the book and the hero of the story Susan MacDougal's book.
Tags: Clinton, history, DVD, VRWC, VRWNM, SCLM
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Mass Media denouncing angry liberal bloggers, ignores conservatives advocating murder
Media Matters's Jamison Foser has a roundup of the shrill media pointing in alarm at "angry liberal bloggers" while ignoring conservatives advocating the murder of journalists, politicians and judges. The recent examples are numerous and increasing. This is not new by either the media or the conservative bloggers or conservative media figures, as he points out.
This past weekend there were major posts by several right-wing prominent bloggers decrying the lack of civility on the left. Lawyer and writer Glen Greenwald chided them for their hypocrisy and pointed out their own recent murder advocates and incivility. The response was, you guessed it, a mass uncivil orgy of hate speech directed at him.
So that's the level of discourse that comes from right-wing bloggers, every one of whom cited here -- each and every one -- doled out solemn lectures this weekend about how terrible it is for people to write mean personal insults on the Internet, only to respond to my post today with the above-excerpted tantrums. And all of that leaves to the side the fact that they were unable to comprehend the actual arguments that were made in the post -- most of them responded to the opposite of the argument that was actually made....Right Wing Sparkle at the Houston Chronicle repeated the arguments denouncing a liberal commenter that sparked this on her conservative blog. A troll gets her attention but in her own comments she expressed admiration for Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter. I had covered this before but it bears repeating.
Which is worse - a troll or prominent political advocates with loud media voices engaging in hate speech?
UPDATE: Greenwald and Duncan Black are chastising the mainstream media for ignoring this story.
Tags: SCLM, Media Matters, Glenn Greenwald, Chron.com
Friday, July 14, 2006
As we slink toward the Apocalypse...
Digby on Conservative Progression and Conservative Progressives:
How a country like the US can support freedom and democracy, and what tools should be used, is a valid question. There has always been the problem of a mighty superpower seeming to throw its weight around having the effect of creating a certain human resistance to its influence. Nobody has an easy answer to that question, but most liberals believe that the best, if not perfect, hope lies in international law and institutions.Riverbend at Baghdad Burning has another friend killed as Baghdad splinters apart.
But, honestly, anybody who thought that it was a good idea to illegally (and virtually unilaterally) invade and occupy a middle eastern nation that had not attacked anyone, in the name of freedom and democracy was nuts. (To compound the error by thinking that you could use torture and humiliation in the process and still somehow be seen as a valiant liberator is simply mind-boggling.) If there is ever a case in human events in which you cannot adopt an "ends justify the means" philosophy it's in the realm of spreading liberal values. The minute you do it, you have defeated yourself.
This was not a difficult thing to understand for those who actually believe in liberal values. It seems, however, to still elude those who for the last decade, at least, have been swinging wildly from one position to the other without even pausing for breath.
War being pushed at GOPUSA: The world stands on the brink of world war and the battle lines could not be more evident....
GAO: Bush has still not developed a coherent plan for Iraq.
"God's Sugar Daddy" Religious school discount coupon proponent James Leininger has spent millions trying to buy political power in Texas.
Earth Heating Up? - Conservative think tanks raking in energy bucks - "Hell No"
David Neiwert loses Ranger Ron. Earlier he adds his voice to the warnings about neo-Nazis in the military as the Pentagon struggles with manpower goals.
Have you made the neo-fascist Target of Opportunity list yet? Meanwhile, has your local petting zoo or Sears made Homeland Security's terror target list?
Beirut in flamesBehind the Israel Crisis, A Push Toward War
The Neocon view - Bush is patiently giving Iran a chance before he attacks.
Israel Blockades, Bombs Lebanon While Hezbollah Rains Rocket Fire
"What do I think personally?" asked Munzir Baram, a 40-year-old Lebanese making his way across a partially repaired bridge spanning the green-tinted Damour River. "It's going to get a lot, lot worse."U.S. - Iran UN action following Iraq pattern. That would put strikes somewhere after Labor Day to early next year.
"This is taking us back 20 years to the Lebanon war," said Rachel Ronen, 54, whose accounting firm was left a shambles by the morning rockets that hit 15 minutes before her secretary was due for work. Asked what Israel should do in return, Ronen, her eyes red from weeping, said, "Hit them."
Airstrikes on Lebanon kill more than 50
After spending the weekend urging more civility the right wing internet had an orgy of hate speech after being called hypocrites.
Parents lying to get their kids into church schools
And that is how the world is going to Hell the last few days, unless you are one of those few saying I'm so excited, the Rapture and the Bridegroom draws nigh. That's so gay....
How Conservatives Have Become Authoritarians and What it Means
John Dean has a new book out that echoes the theme of this web site. The GOP leadership has been captured by authoritarians and are shaping their party and this country to become more authoritarian. Conservatives Without Conscience is John Dean, a classicly conservative Republican, attempting to explain this takeover to America.
Frankly, when I started writing this book I had a difficult time accounting for what had become of conservatism or, for that matter, the Republican Party. I went down a number of dead-end streets looking for answers, before finally discovering a true explanation. My finding, simply stated, is the growing presence of conservative authoritarianism. Conservatism has noticeably evolved from its so-called modern phase (1950-94) into what might be called a postmodern period (1994 to the present), and in doing so it has regressed to its earliest authoritarian roots. Authoritarianism is not well understood and seldom discussed in the context of American government and politics, yet it now constitutes the prevailing thinking and behavior among conservatives. Regrettably, empirical studies reveal, however, that authoritarians are frequently enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian, and amoral. They are also often conservatives without conscience who are capable of plunging this nation into disasters the likes of which we have never known.From Amazon:
Although I have only recently learned the correct term for describing this type of behavior, and come to understand the implications of such authoritarian thinking, I was familiar with the personality type from my years in the Nixon White House. We had plenty of authoritarians in the Nixon administration, from the president on down. In fact, authoritarian thinking was the principal force behind almost everything that went wrong with Nixon's presidency.
Dean draws on five decades of social science research that details the personality traits of what are called "double high authoritarians": self-righteous, mean-spirited, amoral, manipulative, bullying. He concludes that Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, and Tom DeLay are all textbook examples. Dean calls Vice-President Cheney "the architect of Bush's authoritarian policies," and deems Bush "a mental lightweight with a strong right-wing authoritarian personality." Dean maintains that conservatives without conscience have produced such a hostile, noncollegial environment in Congress that threats of resistance through filibusters have been met with threats of a "nuclear option" and that conservatives have used fearmongering about terrorist attacks to the point where the nation faces a greater threat of relinquishing its ideals of democracy. Dean appeals to conservatives to find their consciences and to all Americans to take serious heed of what is going on in the nation. Readers of all political perspectives will find this book riveting. - Vanessa Bush.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
LAPD beats couple videotaping "police riot" - charges them with lynching
Man in white shirt on left walks towards police, is clubbed. Others are clubbed, person in wheelchair knocked over. Screams of “he’s mentally retarded.” Officer on bike deliberately smashes into two people standing there videoing. Other cops club them, even after they’re on the ground. After several seconds of them not moving, cop clubs them again and is pushed back by another cop.Video
LAPD knows they are in trouble, hence the grotesque charge of lynching because a man hugged his girl friend to protect her from thugs with badges who beat them both to the sidewalk and continued to assault them while they were motionless.Why the "lynching" charge? California has redefined it to mean taking from police custody anybody through means of a riot. When the person protected his girlfriend's body from being clubbed with his body, the LAPD is defining that as "lynching."
More - photo stills.
O'Reilly confesses he is not smart enough to grasp issue - then proves it
O'REILLY: I'm not smart enough to grasp this....Actually, the more I look at this, ignoring his ignorant xenophobia, this is one of the more intelligent things he's said. Why aren't we driving around in ethanol, and hybrid, and hydrogen and electric cars?
All, they have ethanol for all of their automobiles. Brazil. I mean, they still have people in Brazil running around with their little darts, hitting you in the head with the poisoned darts, with the loincloths. They still have 'em down there. And they're driving an ethanol vehicle. After they hit you with the poisoned dart, OK, they get into their ethanol vehicle and drive back into the Amazon to do whatever they do there. Eat tapioca, whatever.
But we can't have it here. We don't have it. What we have is oil that we have to pay $3.33 a gallon for. And where does that money go? It goes to Hugo Chavez, OK, who's sitting there in Venezuela figuring out how he can have crooked elections, funding communist insurgencies throughout Central and South America. It goes to oil sheikhs who are sitting there giving it to Al Qaeda so they can blow up babies in India, as they did today.
Judge Rules Voter ID Card Law in Georgia Is Still Illegal
Giving ID's away free still discriminates. Will be appealed.
Valarie Plame files suit against Cheney, Rove, Libby
We knew this was coming.
"As the CIA itself has officially confirmed, Valerie Wilson did not send Ambassador Wilson to Niger and she neither suggested him nor recommended him for the trip. Furthermore, the Ambassador agreed to travel to Niger pro bono with only his travel expenses being paid."More here plus a nice photo.
Those contentious 'facts' and myths
Right Wing Sparkle and I worked together to prevent an inhumane miscarriage of justice at a Houston hospital once. So it may not seem like it but I try to not to be too negative about her. That is sometimes not too difficult as this post demonstrates.
While she comes out for McCain it's OK. I will admit, and further undermine my liberal cred, that I could have voted for McCain in 2000. Her citing Michael Kinsley as either a Democrat or a moderate instead of a Democratic basher in moderate clothing sticks a little. The fact that McCain as a flip-flopper who has been pursuing the hard conservative vote for over six years never really comes up is a another minor quibble. I could ignore this and even think it reasonable for her.
As has happened before, her comments are more revealing and where she loses me.
In the comments she blasts as a liberal myth the campaign Rove ran against McCain in South Carolina in 2000. As I write in comments:
That "liberal myth" statement is fundamentally dishonest as well. It was McCain, and his staff, who gave the interviews denouncing the push polls which you just announced are lies. Are you calling the candidate you just endorsed a liar?Her response is classic:
"John Weaver, political director for McCain's 2000 campaign bid, "I believe I know where that decision was made; it was at the top of the [Bush] campaign.""
Show me where McCain said it. You cannot. Show me proof it came from Rove. You cannot.And it is true, search all you want there is no proof the personal attacks came from Rove. You can find a Bush debate point that McCain voted against breast cancer research funding even though his sister died of breast cancer. You can find it common knowledge that Rove is the master of political dirty tricks from the time he was 19. That all of his campaigns are characterized by these smear tactics and dirty politics. Common knowledge that the Bush campaign sponsored and coordinated the attacks on McCain. You can find proof that Rove did push-polling in other campaigns. You can find the Bush campaign admitting to two telephone polls in South Carolina that most would see are push-polls but they are not the truly vicious smears. McCain only implied that Rove was behind the attacks. One can only assume McCain had a four year feud with Rove over the personal attacks and not some other matter. That McCain's 2000 and current campaign director blames Rove does not mean he speaks for McCain. The demonization of Rove must truly be from the power of the evil liberals and one of those myths.
I am impressed. Can we assume she will apply the same scrupulousness in only sticking with the "facts" when she writes about the opposition? Well, in the next comments section of the very next post she confesses that Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, serial fabricators, speak for her.
I guess it is a "fact" if it is presented as such on any right wing blowhard's site but a liberal myth if presented in the mass media or a left site.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
RFK, Jr. Is Wrong About Exit Polls?
Part Four demolishing RFK Jr's Rolling Stone article by the great Mystery pollster.
To overstate and exagerate the evidence for fraud is irresponsible. There is the possibility of fraud especially in rural areas. There is the certainty and the evidence of racial voter suppresion that should have been the focus. Ironicly, this suppresion was lead by the black GOP official in charge of the election and who is their current candidate for governor.
More on polling - the Washington Post politics blog has a wishy-washy report on automated surveys. The first two comments are much better.
Alabama-Coushatta tribe sues Abramoff, Reed over casino shutdown
Yes, this hits two crooks where it hurts, in their pocketbooks.
A Texas Indian tribe filed a federal lawsuit today alleging ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and their associates engaged in fraud and racketeering to shut down the tribe's casino.Note - this is an AP story in the Houston's Chronicle own backyard. More evidence of why the Chronicle has never won a Pulitzer Prize.
Dan Rather to have "total, absolute control" on new news show
One of the right blogosphere's biggest victories seems reversed today as Dan Rather was introduced as host and producer of a HDNet Weekly News Magazine. The not creditable claims against Rather, covered extensively by the SCLM, and the continued insults from the Vast Right Wing Noise Machine led by critics with a grudge dating back to Nixon, had led to his resignation from CBS recently. Dan Rather Reports is opens in October on HDNet, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban's high definition cable channel.
"Yes, I have baggage -- I have the baggage of being a graduate of the journalism school of South Vietnam," he said.
He also acknowledged he was "biased -- I have a very strong bias toward independent journalism."
Tags: Dan Rather
Novak - lies and contradictions about Plame
His latest article lies about the 9/11 investigation report - it did not conclude Wilson lied. Novak's story has also repeatedly changed. This story has pretty much petered out except for the Libbey trial coming up.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
How Bush became President - the SCLM
The Daily Howler is writing a book about the terrible American mainstream media and how they threw the 2000 election to Bush.
Captain's Quarters made Atrios for his lack of math skills
The above is to the relevant link.
I used to read him because we have similar takes on entertaining movies and anime and I always read opposing opinions but I found nothing on his blog you could not get from any others in the Vast Right Wing Media Conspiracy.
The Immigration Equation - New York Times
Excellent article on the economics of immigration which is mysterious to economists.
Tags: immigration, economics
Brad DeLong's on Deficit Games
This is Brad Delong's expanded Salon.com article on how each year the Bush administration quietly wildly overestimates the deficit so later in the year they can loudly claim credit for reducing it. The deficit doesn't reduce much or any except against their erroneous estimates.
MORE - Bush brags about the Fourth Largest Deficit in History
Knowledgeable Republicans versus Kool-aid drinkers.
More nonsense on the right.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Dana Blankenhorn: Washington vs. The Roots
One reason generational patterns repeat is that Washington ignores history.
Reporters "go native" on their Washington sources, internalize the assumptions of the people they cover, and treat new movements with the cynical contempt of castle lords facing a plebeian rabble.
Some 40 years ago conservative Republicans were being lectured to by their Washington party that they were too doctrinnaire, that they were too extreme, that they should follow their leaders if they wanted power, and would never win if they demanded orthodoxy.
So the parting on the right is now a parting on the left, and it's the Netroots who are being lectured in the same way. The response to that lecture should be clear.
Netroots to Blogometer: We're not your monkey.
Technorati Tags: Washington, DC, Democrats, history, netroots
LIPTON Green Teas - 100% Natural with Flavonoid Antioxidants
AAahhhh! It's all in the blend. Great tasting Green Tea with Citrus in convenient plastic bottles. Full of flavor and powerful protective anti-oxidants. Also available in Peach flavor. The citrus is very good and the diet doesn't taste much like a diet drink. Order online dry teas or find a local store for all products. Wouldn't refreshing Green Tea with Citrus taste good right now? Find a store or order some today.
Tags: advertisement, Lipton Tea
Trapped in the Wrong Paradigm: Three Handy Rules
Once Upon a Time.... Liberals keep falling for arguing within the wrong frames of an issue.
When you argue within the framework and using the terms selected by your opponent, you will always lose in the end. Even if you make a stronger case about one particular issue, your opponent still wins the larger battle -- because you have permitted the underlying assumptions and the general perspective to remain unchallenged.Arthur updates on the Iraqi War wrong frames and shows examples from SCLM spokesperson Frank Rich.
One: The war in Iraq has been "bungled" and executed "incompetently."
The wrong illegal war was executed brilliantly against the wrong target. The unwinable occupation is bungled, corrupt, immoral, wrong and a mistake.
Two: It's important to "get the intelligence right" the next time.
Intelligence didn't matter, it was poor judgment that got us into Iraq and then intelligence cherry-picked to justify the decision.
Intelligence is completely irrelevant to major policy decisions. Such decisions are matters of judgment, and knowledgeable, ordinary citizens are just as capable of making these determinations as political leaders allegedly in possession of "secret information." Such "secret information" is almost always wrong -- and major decisions, including those pertaining to war and peace, are made entirely apart from such information in any case.Three: The press will always transmit and amplify government propaganda, and this is especially true with regard to war propaganda.
The media, no matter how the cranky right shouts otherwise, is the friend to the powerful and rich. The American media was totally clueless leading up to the Iraq war as anyone with access to the internet and the knowledge and inclination to search foreign and non-mainstream news sources knows. The media has a flocking conventional wisdom behavioral frame and will always report what the government puts out and rarely do more than minimal fact-checking. The media does not seek counters to a government released story but will do he-said, she-said pieces if a spokesperson in opposition actively pursues this.
This was how the American people were played on Iraq and are about to be played on Iran. As Arthur also writes:
Let us state the final conclusion boldly and unmistakably, so we may appreciate its full horror: the Bush administration has already decided, and probably decided some time ago, that it will attack Iran. They want a wider war. Everything that is now going on is simply the cover for the moment when the bombing begins, intended to provide what will be accepted as "justification" for the attack by the American public and the world.This looks probably related to the incredible FEAR!!! news stories the right-wing sources are trying to play up. North Korea just recently demonstrated it has not mastered technology the US demonstrated 50 years ago. Headlines - North Korea fires missiles at Hawaii!!!
Two Terrorist!!! plots were reportedly broken up. Neither group had any money, actual plans, ties to al-Qaeda, or weapons. The latest group hadn't even met each other but were in seperate countries chatting in a public chat room. This is a terrorist group? The bragged about what they wish they could do to the United States.
The New York Times are TRAITORS!!! The reason - for revealing information the administration had openly bragged about numerous times.
If they get enough FEAR!!! out there they know it helps justify anything the government does. This is an election ploy, a sweeping government powers justification, and a ploy to create the proper supported atmosphere for their next outrage.
Tags: fear, framing, SCLM, stories, news, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, lies, intelligence
Two GOP Senators Tried to Scam the Supreme Court
John Dean: Senators Kyl and Graham's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Scam - The Deceptive Amicus Brief They Filed in the Guantanamo Detainee Case
The Bush/Cheney Administration has been doing everything possible to keep its treatment of purported terrorist detainees out of the federal courts, particularly the Supreme Court. To assist the Administration, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona engaged in a blatant scam that was revealed during the briefing of Hamdan.
Senators Graham and Kyl not only misled their Senate colleagues, but also shamed their high offices by trying to deliberately mislead the U.S. Supreme Court. Their effort failed. I have not seen so blatant a ploy, or abuse of power, since Nixon's reign.
Tags: Supreme Court, GitMo, crooks, liars, Senators
The Politics of Paranoia and Intimidation
Bush's NSA mass wiretapping program statistically can't work. Finding a few terrorists by mass surveillance of the phone calls and email messages of 300 million Americans is mathematically impossible, and NSA certainly knows that. The question is what idiot convinced them to do this anyway. I had linked to an earlier study that proved the same thing with the same methodology. This link was emailed from Jim.
Tags: NSA, statistics, domestic spying
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Total failure in training Iraqi police force
Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.
A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors underscores the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.
Officers have beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports and passed along vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Mexican Election not over yet
In brief, I cannot rule out that a “centrally machinated fraud” is being attempted in Mexico. I think there is strong evidence pointing to that possibility.More:
Not only López Obrador, as a candidate, is entitled to demand a recount. The people who voted for him have an even more fundamental right to defend their vote.Calls for Unity and Protest
Border-wall plan angers Mexico's president-elect
Calderón's apparent victory ends the streak of Latin American elections that put left-leaning governments in office. Mexico joins Colombia as the only other Latin nation with a conservative government.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Learning History on the Road
The major problem I have with conservatives is that most don't know real history. This WP article shows some great teachers which is where education really starts.
More on Rafe Esquith, one of the nation's best teachers.
Two other great teachers.
The Knowledge Is Power Program.
KIPP was started in Houston and here are the Houston schools now.
Crooks and Liars
No right outrage when the Daily News leaks an ongoing investigation.
Bush says he solving global warming
Fake e-mail publisher defended in Boston Globe
Brad DeLong trys to calm a college Dean starting to panic about the economy. I am not as optimistic, neither are many of his readers.
The Democrat's Tom DeLay
South Jersey's George Norcross has learned from the new GOP - including his own K-Street project.
The recent New Jersey government shut-down may have been a power struggle between the two most powerful Democrats in the state.
George W. Bush Is Dead To Me
Nation cringes as the worst president ever continues long, painful slog to the end - Mark Morford
This is where it stands: Bush can in no way risk alienating the ultra-right-wing bonk-job contingent that put him in office (they are, considering Bush's 32-percent approval rating, the only ones left even remotely supporting him -- even though, according to many estimates, they're starting to abandon him, too), and hence all policy and all agenda items from here on out will be even more vicious and desperate in an attempt to shore up the base. Hence trying to mutilate the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Hence attacking the New York Times and claiming newspapers are endangering American lives.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Ben Barnes
When he is good.
When he isn't. Not supporting any statewide Democrats in Texas this election because they don't have the money and even if they did the pendulum hasn't swung back yet.
Tags: Texas, Ben Barnes
Religious Left
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." - Dom Helder Camara
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Gandhi
God Bless Everyone, No Exceptions!
God wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts
Do Justice, Love Kindness, Walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
The Death Penalty is a Hate Crime
I support the separation of Church and Hate
Lord, help me be the person my dog thinks I am.
Will Work for Peace
"Yee-Ha!" is not a foreign policy
Jesus is a Liberal
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Gandhi
God Bless Everyone, No Exceptions!
God wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts
Do Justice, Love Kindness, Walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
The Death Penalty is a Hate Crime
I support the separation of Church and Hate
Lord, help me be the person my dog thinks I am.
Will Work for Peace
"Yee-Ha!" is not a foreign policy
Jesus is a Liberal
Fires today, fireworks before
Thank God and Bush we're protected from those Islamic/Buddhist/Christian/Freemason/Gnostic/Taoist home-grown would be broke terrorists.
EFF - The high-tech ACLU.
VF - The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed
The despicable and dangerous thug and intimidation tactics of the Far Right go Right Internet Mainstream .
The Christian Bible and the Homosexual - It speaks of homosexual acts only when they are part of sacred prostitution, idolatry, promiscuity, seducing children, rape, or violating hospitality.
One More Article Explaining That The Bible Does Not Condemn Homosexuality
I was reading Thinking Christian on the Houston Chronicle reader blogs until it was clear he was not a good thinker but was more unthinking and literalist.
19 Republican senators voted for amnesty for killers and torturers of Americans including Texas Senator John Cornyn.
VIDEO: Expert calls passages in Coulter's 'Godless' book 'textbook plagiarism'
Report by 142 U.S. non-governmental organizations alleges serious human rights violations by the United States
Mexico Presidential Election Ballots Found in Dump
Death could clear Lay's record and stop penalties.
Olbermann beats O'Reilly in Friday ratings
Big debate tonight and someone not part of the losing democratic consultantocracy gets profiled.
"Big Oil, I'm coming after you" and at the bottom of the page, "What I mean by consultantocracy."
There were good fireworks in Pasadena and we could also barely see the Deer Park longer show a bit later from where we watched. Lots of mosquitoes out, it was good Bill gave us a can of Deep Woods Off before going out. I would have liked to have seen patriotic or political speeches in the 3 hours we spent at the convention center. Saw Leroy Stanley and I talked about how the Texas Attorney General is now going after those who "assist" voters with mail-in ballots (hint, hint). Also saw the head of Habitat for Humanity Pasadena. Could have talked with more of the local Pasadena politicians and big-wigs but they were in a "reserved seating section" which Pat refused to go in. I would have walked right in and talked to people I knew but Pat indicated she wasn't invited so should stand outside in solidarity with the riff-raff.
I Don't Hate James Lileks
But I think he is usually too self-absorbed, conservative and elitist to be interesting but at least he recognizes Hugh Hewitt as a right-wing shock jock and Powerline as unhinged partisan lunatics.
Tags: blogs, James+Lileks
Life and Death in Iraq Today
A Story I Never Wanted to Tell - by Aaron Glantz.
Reading the pro-American Iraqi blogs this week you can tell Iraq has become one of the world's nastiest, hopeless hellholes.
This is part of why Bush no longer has a foreign policy. His past actions have been disasters, he has lost all of the US allies, the administration has no plans except a strong desire, that the US military opposes, to attack Iran - with nukes not off the table.
Even though it is nearly hopeless and even bad politics I am going to a Impeach Bush teach-in July 19th in Deer Park.
Tied Election In Mexico
NYT: In Close Mexico Race, Tabulation Is Under WayThe boxes that have been manually recounted show numerous errors, usually in favor of the conservative candidate. This recount is only retallies of boxes of ballots and only recounting ballots inside of boxes where the tally on the box showed an error.
With tallies taken from about 93 percent of the polling places, the electoral authorities reported that the count had tilted toward the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had 36 percent of the vote, while the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón, had 35 percent....
Still, for most of the day the official tallies indicated a shift from the preliminary count, which had shown Mr. Calderón in the lead from the beginning, and had ended giving him a feather-thin margin, 0.6 percent.
The official count began amid a volatile political storm kicked up Tuesday by the announcement by federal electoral authorities that some three million votes went untabulated in the preliminary count; by demands from Mr. López Obrador for a vote-by-vote recount; and by objections to those demands from the government.
Mr. Calderón, backed by big business and President Vicente Fox, appeared before the news media to repeat his claims of victory. Mr. López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City who has the support of the poor, held his own news conference to restate his case that the election had been rigged.
New report - With nearly 98 percent of the vote tallies recounted, Calderon had 35.62 percent of the vote, while Lopez Obrador had 35.57. It was the first time since counting began early Wednesday that Calderon held the lead.
Polarized America and solutions
An important and highly significant study by Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal demonstrates how American politics has become more polarized and finds some of the causes.
The major cause is the rising income inequality which is also related to rising immigration. The evidence for polarization is the voting records of the House and Senate. The average position of Democrats and Republicans have diverged markedly since the mid 70's. That followed a 50-year trend of diminished polarization. The turning point occurs at the same time as income inequality grows after a long decline and the percentage of foreign born begins to rise. Other related factors increase ideological polarization while some traditional explanations, i.e. redistricting,primary elections; can be ruled out. This increase in a class-based, two-party system has benefited the Republicans and mirrored the patterns of economic polarization of parties found in other areas of the world. More information on Senate and House vote analysis is here.
In analyzing what the Democratic party can do about a class war which they are losing Richard Florida argues for Democratic positions that benefit the creative class as well as the working class and poor.
Stephen Rose demonstrates that populism, in terms of only social safety-net programs and strict business regulation, directly benefit less than a quarter of American workers.
Jared Bernstein advocates policy positions based on community interests or full-employment as the shift to individual-incentive economic policies have demonstratively failed under the Bush administration. This is shown by rising profits and GDP but falling employee incomes and rising poverty. His response to criticism of this policy frame-work as not politically fruitful.
An evolving experiment in radical solutions to inequality - Venezuela.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
It's starting
The Stop the ACLU Coalition publishes Jewish family's personal information: They are forced to move.
One school district had begun promoting Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family filed an ACLU lawsuit. The Stop the ACLU then nationalized the hate speech against Jews and published the names, phone numbers and addresses. Will Stop the ACLU be exposing personal information about reporters, editors and photographers they disagree with as part of their campaign accusing The New York Times of treason?
The complaint recounts a raucous crowd that applauded the board’s opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him "take your yarmulke off!" His statement, read by Samantha, confided "I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy."More here, and here, and (very informative) here. Jesus General gets a response. Daily Kos diary includes similar actions elsewhere and a possible action against right bloggers supporting this. Another Jewish family forced to flee Indian River School district.
…A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. She disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to "go back up north."
In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby.
Domestic Mass wiretapping started well before 9/11
Seems to negate Bush's entire argument that the spying was needed to fight the war on terror and the legal defense that it was the "Authorization to Use Military Force" that authorized the program.
North Korea Missile tests
US interceptors were ready for North Korean missile. No word if upgraded Aegis cruisers were ready to intercept short range missiles.
UN considers sanctions on North Korea
Tests expose North Korea technology shortcomings. Reason for multiple short range missile tests unclear - redesign for nuclear warheads, confusion of American intelligence, political statement?
South Korea wrong on assuming non-provocative nature on North Korean missile test - although it is not clear the Taepodong-2 was not an attempted satellite launch.
Tags: North Korea, missiles
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
'He doesn’t care about the Constitution'
- Former Secretary of State Powell speaking about VP Cheney's chief of staff David S. Addington. Addington is the one who provided legal justifications advocating torture and the unilateral and unchecked power of the President. He is the most powerful man you never heard of.
According to the Boston Globe, Addington has been the “leading architect” of these signing statements, which have been added to more than seven hundred and fifty laws. He reportedly scrutinizes every bill before President Bush signs it, searching for any language that might impinge on Presidential power.
Give-em Hell David
With all the fire of a "come to Jesus" revival, two Democratic candidates for state office presented their gospel of how they will change things during a whistle stop tour appearance at the Montgomery County Courthouse Wednesday afternoon.Nice write-up of the Democratic campaign for the other state offices. David Van Os is getting good at getting publicity.
David Van Os, candidate for Texas Attorney General, and Hank Gilbert, running for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, gave their views to a like-minded audience of close to 70 people during the event, the 70th in a planned series of stops at all 254 county courthouses in Texas by Van Os.
His campaign slogan is "Notice to Big Oil: I'm Coming After You," and Van Os emphasized that's exactly what he will do if he wins the election against incumbent Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican.
"Texas is entitled to an attorney general who will use the tools of the office to make sure government understands the first three words of the Constitution - 'We the people,'" he said to cheers. "Help me take it back."
Gilbert, a rancher and former agriculture teacher, is running against state Sen. Todd Staples, whose district includes the northern half of Montgomery County.
"My opponent is being groomed by his party to be the next state leader and a national leader," he said. "It's important we beat him and beat him soundly. You'll see this state go from red to blue in November.
"God sent his son here to cover all our sins, and right now he's having a hard time covering all the sins of the Republicans."
Slow and No Far-Right Corrections
This has truly become hysterical.
Greenwald takes notice, and covers the huge, huge, I tell you, conservative protest at the Times.
Middle-of-the-Roader Polimom has an excellent article on the overblown hysterics and paranoia.
Atrios: The NYT defending itself.
For a Declaration of War they seem to lack supporters, but have they cowed the press?
Van Os: Texas Observer article "beyond clueless"
Challenging the Pundit Elite
David blasts pundits and Democratic consultant elites for ignoring the populist revolt in the rural areas. Dave Mann comes in for some deserved criticism.
A Party Inverted by Bill Bradley
What is right about the GOP and wrong about the Democrats. Classic, March 30, 2005, and true. People are working to change this.
Bush Directed Cheney To Smear Ambassador Wilson!
Bush directed Cheney to disclose highly classified information to discredit Wilson.
Wouldn't the leaker-in-chief be the head traitor the right is looking for?
Gore's Biggest Mistake shows his arrogance
Lamont Response to Lieberman's Independent candidate bid.
Why did he do it? - Connecticut Internet poll shows 6% support for Lieberman as Democratic.
Cut and Run Joe.
Monday, July 03, 2006
FEAR!!!
Looking around the right side of the internet world right now most sites are pushing FEAR at their frightened readers. Iran, North Korea, Mexico, terrorists, immigrants, the media(?), homosexuals(?), the anti-Christians in the United States(?), Judgement Day, all these topics and more have nearly all conservative sites screaming "look what is happening!"
Is it going to be this way until November? Or until November 2008? Is it the phase of the moon, the positions of the planets? Last March and April I could see the big push to demonize Iran but with the revolt of the generals in April that had subsided but not vanished. Now it is a shotgun approach. Is this the Karl Rove plan to motivate the base? I am serious. I always saw the cowardliness behind most conservative positions but their big sites now are all trying to fan embers into flames and panic.
Hersh: The war taking place about the next war
The pentagon military side has only slowed down the push for an attack. Learning lessons from Iraq they are asking "where is the clear and present danger?"
In late April, the military leadership, headed by General Pace, achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran’s uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. The huge complex includes large underground facilities built into seventy-five-foot-deep holes in the ground and designed to hold as many as fifty thousand centrifuges. “Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “And Pace stood up to them. Then the world came back: ‘O.K., the nuclear option is politically unacceptable.’ ” At the time, a number of retired officers, including two Army major generals who served in Iraq, Paul Eaton and Charles Swannack, Jr., had begun speaking out against the Administration’s handling of the Iraq war. This period is known to many in the Pentagon as “the April Revolution.”
Tags: Iran, Seymour Hersh
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Orcinus has been on fire with many recent posts
One not to miss is David Neiwert's letter to his fellow journalists as well as those before and after.
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm
Clinton era program to phase out farm subsidies is expanded to become welfare for millioniare's system.
Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.
Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.
The checks... were intended 10 years ago as a first step toward eventually eliminating costly, decades-old farm subsidies. Instead, the payments have grown into an even larger subsidy that benefits millionaire landowners, foreign speculators and absentee landlords, as well as farmers.
The cash comes with so few restrictions that subdivision developers who buy farmland advertise that homeowners can collect farm subsidies on their new back yards.
The payments now account for nearly half of the nation's expanding agricultural subsidy system, a complex web that has little basis in fairness or efficiency. What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade. In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.
...Congress ended up expanding the program, now known as direct and countercyclical payments. A program intended to cost $36 billion over seven years instead topped $54 billion.
In some Texas counties, the federal payments open the door to another benefit: property tax reductions.
Among the most fervent critics of the annual payments are hundreds of Texas farmers who rent land on which they grow rice. Under the rules, tenants receive the money if they operate the farms. But landlords can simply increase rents to capture those payments.
Other landlords have evicted the tenants from land they had farmed for years. Then the landowners can collect the checks themselves, even if they do not farm.
Houston heart surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell has received $490,709 since 1996 in payments tied to old rice tracts on a vast ranch near Raywood in Liberty County where he now raises cattle, USDA records show. The last rice produced on the 10,000-acre property was "probably over 10 years ago," according to Susan Cotton, Howell's business manager. "We're not rice producers anymore."
The New Class Warfare and Ethics (mp3)
On 13 June 2006 in New York City, Paul Krugman, op-ed columnist of the New York Times, Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now!, Randi Rhodes, from Air America Radio and BBC investigative reporter and bestselling author Greg Palast appeared on an Ethical Culture Society panel to discuss the state of affairs in this country. It's very telling and informative discussion. I hope you take a listen.
Dar on Auld's list.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Conservative pundits reveal murderous plot by the Travel Section of the NYT!
Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald:
"So, to recap - America is currently at war and its enemies are domestic liberals and The New York Times. This war was started by Al Gore and Jimmy Carter when they opposed the invasion of Iraq. The New York Times is allied with Al Qaeda and their latest plot against America is to provide their terrorist friends with a roadmap to the vacation homes of Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld so that they can be assassinated. That is what is being reported today by three of the largest 'conservative' blogs on the Internet, along with Horowitz, the leader of the conservative effort to wipe out anti-conservative bias on college campuses."Publicly available information, there is much more on the Clinton's and Gore's and much of this was previously published, is now enough to accuse the New York Times of treason.
Tags: wingnut fantasies
Reclaim the Issues - "Occupation, Not War"
Every time the media - or a Democrat - uses the phrase "War in Iraq" they are promoting one of Karl Rove's most potent Republican Party frames.We won, time to go home.
There is no longer a war against Iraq.
It ended in May of 2003, when George W. Bush stood below a "Mission Accomplished" sign aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and correctly declared that we had "victoriously" defeated the Iraqi army and overthrown their government.
What's the Matter With Barack Obama?
In the last two decades, Haynes said, "religion has come into the public schools in all kinds of ways ... many schools now understand that students have religious liberty rights in a public school, so you can go to many public schools today and kids will be giving each other religious literature, they will be sharing their faith. You go to most public schools now and see kids praying around the flagpole before school." In this evangelical climate, I suspect many students who practice minority religions, or no religion at all, are made to feel far more alienated than when I was in school during the 80s and 90s. Nevertheless, when schools have stopped kids from engaging in religious speech -- say, not letting them hand out religious tracts at lunch -- the ACLU has stepped in to defend them, and they've been correct to do so. Liberalism, at its best, stands for free speech, even when that speech is annoying.
Enough is Enough: Texas religious group wants politics away from church
Unfortunately Clay Robison went with the politician's spin on this story. This religious group aims not to stop politics in churches but to provide balance and non-divisive politics. A better story is a diary here at Burnt Orange:
"Dragging churches into partisan politics endangers the integrity of our houses of worship and is disrespectful of the faith and beliefs of all congregants,"said Father Samuel Hose, pastor of St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Round Rock.
Hose and more than 100 other Texas clergy have already signed on to the Respect Our Faith campaign. The Texas Faith Network, a project of the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, is sponsoring the campaign.
The campaign calls on clergy and laypeople to pledge to promote civic engagement in congregations while still protecting sacred spaces from partisan politics. These pledge signers will also work to educate congregants about the campaign.
"This campaign is not intended to make houses of worship 'politics-free' zones," said Rabbi Neal Katz of Congregation Beth El in Tyler. "The goal is to stop politicians from using our sacred spaces to divide people of faith for partisan political gain."
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