Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Right-Wing Christians Support Assisted Suicide

Just posted this over at MyDD

Boy was I surprised when I got a letter today from the the conservative Christian wackos at the American Family Association that advocated for assisted suicide. But that's just what the letter advocates.

The title of the message was enough to really shock me:

Terri's Case: The Roe v. Wade of Euthanasia: Terri's father says the courts are in control of this country
You mean the courts have the control to say whether something is legal or not? My god! This madness has got to end.

But this is what really caught my eye:

they said Terri must die. Not in a humane manner, but by starvation.
I really had no idea that this was about letting termanally ill patients die with dignity, but if it is, I'm all about it. Don't let Terry die of starvation! Let her die humanely! Give her some pills or something less painful! (If a PVS patient has any feelings to begin with).

Ah, but the madness is just beginning. You see, this is just the first step that the evil cabal of Activist Judges are taking in their persuit to purify the American race. Like Hitler before them, these Judges are out to eliminate the impure elements of our society.
Now that the courts have ruled that a disabled person--Terri Schiavo--must die, who is the next disabled category to go? Those with Alzheimer's? Those with incurable cancer? Those who are paraplegic
Well, where else should these judges start? I doubt that killing a bunch of Mexicans, Jews or Chinese people would be received with as much fanfare and elation as killing a brain-dead woman. Every movement begins with one step.

Anyway, here's the rest of the article. And yes, they do say that they're against Euthenasia, but how can you really be for allowing someone suffering from a terminal desease to die humanely and against allowing them to humanely end their lives? We all know Right-Wing Christian Zealots are rational thinkers, so the only thing I can guess it that they truly are for assisted suicide.

Remember, Terri committed no crime. She signed no will stating her desire to be starved to death. How her injury occurred remains a mystery. She was on no ventilator. She was not brain dead. Her parents offered to take her home and care for her at no expense to anyone other than themselves.

But her husband--the man who years ago abandoned her and moved in with another woman and had two children with that woman but refused to divorce Terri--said he wanted her dead. Strange, but he said nothing about Terri wanting to die until seven years into her disability. For the past 14 years he has denied Terri any therapy. Thirty allegations of abuse, neglect or exploitation were filed in court by the Florida Department of Children and Families. But the judges disregarded all that.

Instead, they said Terri must die. Not in a humane manner, but by starvation.

TAKE ACTION BELOW!

Liberals have been salivating over a case like Terri Schiavo's to use in pushing euthanasia. The promoters for activist liberal judges are poised for major gains.

How arrogant and powerful have activist judges become? Here is what Robert Schindler, Terri's father, said about the judicial system that sentenced his daughter to a slow, agonizing death by starvation: "What I think you're seeing now is a display where the judicial system is...flexing their muscles. They're showing who's in command of this country. And we're not. The public is not, and the people you elect to Congress are not. The judges are. And woe to this country with those people in power. We've lost control."

And it only took conservatives 200+ years to figure it out. Well, nobody ever accused them of being quick witted.

But these brave Christian soldiers are not about to let something like the Constitution of the United States of America stand in their way of keeping a brain-dead woman on life-support. No, the sanctity of life is too precious to allow "activist judges" to determine who can live and who can die. That's the job of HMOs.

The only body that can stop liberal activist judges from controlling this country is the U.S. Senate. In a few days the Senate will vote on ending the liberals' filibuster of conservative judges who see their sole responsibility to be that of interpreting the Constitution. What the liberals want are activist judges who will create laws they cannot get passed through Congress. The Constitution requires a simple majority of 51 votes. The liberals want to require 60 votes to end their filibuster.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

This will be the most important vote taken in this session of Congress. Tell your two U.S. Senators to vote to change the rule to a simple majority as the Constitution requires. If the Senate fails to do that, then a minority of 40 Senators and their cohorts on the bench can, and will, force their agenda on every American.

For those who want to take action, you can find a link to e-mail your senators here.

This was the letter that I wrote:

There will soon be a vote in the Senate to end filibustering of judicial nominees. I expect you to vote to end a filibuster of a judicial nominee by a simple majority of votes. Afterwords- I expect you to take the constitution, light it on fire, and annoint yourselves as supreme dictators of the land! This is a one party state- it's high time we started acting like it!

It is time for liberal activist judges to stop usurping the power given to the Congress and the Executive branch from God Almighty. God did not give these judges the right to "judge" right from wrong, let alone determine what is "legal". What's next- creating a balance of power in this government? How then would us good Christians force the rest of our nation to accept Jesus as their one true savior?

I look forward to hearing from you on this very important matter. And thank the lord that we have good Christians like you in congress ready to stand up "for the voiceless and powerless" like all of those huge Credit Card Companies you serve, or the Enrons whom you allow to to "free" the little people of all of their burdonsom money.

Signed,

Christion Idiot

Krugman: The Enemy Within

Paul Krugman has been pointing to the rise of the revolutionary Right since Bush was handed power by the Supreme Court. In his column today he takes a look at the Shiavo case and examines the threat that the Theo-Cons pose to our Democracy.

Democratic societies have a hard time dealing with extremists in their midst. The desire to show respect for other people's beliefs all too easily turns into denial: nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself.

We can see this failing clearly in other countries. In the Netherlands, for example, a culture of tolerance led the nation to ignore the growing influence of Islamic extremists until they turned murderous.

But it's also true of the United States, where dangerous extremists belong to the majority religion and the majority ethnic group, and wield great political influence.

...

One thing that's going on is a climate of fear for those who try to enforce laws that religious extremists oppose. Randall Terry, a spokesman for Terri Schiavo's parents, hasn't killed anyone, but one of his former close associates in the anti-abortion movement is serving time for murdering a doctor. George Greer, the judge in the Schiavo case, needs armed bodyguards.

Another thing that's going on is the rise of politicians willing to violate the spirit of the law, if not yet the letter, to cater to the religious right.
The rise of the ChristoFascists in this country should be seen as a direct threat to our liberal Democracy. If these people have their way more juries will be sentencing people to death based off of Biblical readings in the near future. And since this is clearly against the very nature of our government, the ChristoFascists will be attempting to place judges on the bench who have a blatant disregard for our nation's laws.
But the big step by extremists will be an attempt to eliminate the filibuster, so that the courts can be packed with judges less committed to upholding the law than Mr. Greer.

We can't count on restraint from people like Mr. DeLay, who believes that he's on a mission to bring a "biblical worldview" to American politics, and that God brought him a brain-damaged patient to help him with that mission.

What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats? But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association's statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it's hard to be sure.

The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.

America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here.
The simple fact that Sharon is now counted as moderate, and is targeted by the Religous Right of Israel, says a lot about how far that nation has moved to the right. Anyone who truly believes in and has love for freedom and democracy should be scared. The TheoFascists are on the march worldwide, and they threaten our values and our nation from both at home and abroad.

Friday, March 25, 2005

NY Times Takes A Look At The Real Estate Bubble

The New York times has an interesting series today on the replacement of the dot-com bubble with a real estate bubble.

eal estate-crazed Americans have started behaving in ways that eerily recall the stock market obsession of the late 1990's.

In Naples, Fla., some houses have been bought twice in a single day, an early-21st-century version of day trading. Buying stocks on margin has morphed into buying homes with no money down. The over-the-top parties of Internet start-ups have been replaced by flashy gatherings where developers pitch condos to eager buyers.

Five years ago, the cable channel CNBC sometimes seemed like a backdrop to daily American life. Its cheery analysis of the stock market played in offices, in barbershops, even in some bars. Today, "Dude Room," "Toolbelt Diva" and other home-improvement shows are the addictive fare that CNBC's exuberant stock shows once were.

"It just seems like everyone is doing it," Laurie Romano, a 26-year-old self-described real estate investor, said with a giggle as she explained why she was attending an open house this month for the Nexus, a 56-unit building going up in Brooklyn's chic Dumbo neighborhood. She and her fiancé, a dentist, had already put down a deposit on a Manhattan condo earlier in the week and had come to look at another at the Nexus.

Nobody can know whether the housing boom of the last decade will end as the dot-com frenzy did. But the parallels are raising alarms among many economists, even those who acknowledge that there are important differences between homes and stocks that significantly reduce the chances of another meltdown. For one thing, houses are not just paper wealth: you can live in them.

Still, perhaps the most troubling similarity, some analysts say, is the claim that the rules have somehow changed. In an echo of the blasé attitude that "new economy" investors took toward unprofitable companies, the growing ranks of real estate investors are buying houses they never expect to be able to rent at a profit. Instead, they think the prices of houses will just keep rising.

Indeed, the government reported yesterday that sales of new homes jumped sharply in February, in the biggest monthly increase in four years. A strong economy and an improving job market contributed to the gain. But many buyers were also trying to beat rising mortgage rates, which could eventually cool the market.
What happens if the dollar continues to fall, or if interest rates skyrocket for some other reason? I think we are in for a rude awakening.

*This is something Krugman has been talking about since 2002.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Reading My Mind: How to Turn Your Red State Blue

My man Outlandish Josh Koenig sent me
the following link today. If you want to know what schemes and conspiracies Minister Al-X has brewing (other than the usual world domination) give a look at the section Taking on creditors.

So what would a newly evangelical kind of progressive movement look like in 2005 and beyond?

Here’s an idea. One thing that nearly all Americans share is debt. Building a movement around credit reform—through the formation of local “debt clubs” that would be part of a national campaign, for example—would be one way for progressives to reach out to non-believers.

Almost one in seven households have declared bankruptcy. Many middle class families that took out second mortgages during the ’90s refi craze are now skating on thin ice. The average American family saw its credit card debt rise 53 percent during the ’90s. Credit card companies have dramatically raised late fees—revenue from which increased fourfold between 1996 and 2001—while reducing minimum payments.

The result is that people stay in debt longer and pay more. Using an industry standard 2 percent minimum payment, a $5,000 balance will now take 32 years to pay off, at an interest cost of almost $8,000. In the last decade, more than 14,000 payday lending establishments have sprung up across the country wherever there are working and poor people living paycheck to paycheck (including military bases). Their short-term, high-interest loans, which are easily rolled over, can approach annual rates of 450 percent.

Young people today are beginning their adult lives already buried in debt: The average college student now graduates with $18,900 in student loans, the bulk of it non-subsidized debt at commercial interest rates. The interest costs of these loans are likely to increase as Republicans seek to cut federally subsidized Stafford loans and Pell grants.
Yes I am an evangelical progressive, and yes I am going to be preaching credit and debt issues until we get some meaningful debt reform enacted, or until I'm assassinated by MBNA's thug brigade.

I've also been thinking of renaming myself Reverend Wedge- but I think it would lead to too many wedgie jokes...

NO LINK between lower taxes and higher growth

Over at Kos, Jerome a Paris has an article which shows, conclusively, that there is no link whatsoever between lower taxes and higher growth rates.



Republicans, when contacted for a comment, held their collective hands over their ears and chanted "free market good, Bush good, everything is good and right in the world, liberals are Satan" and other irrational gibirish.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Anthony Zinni, Chuck Pennachio, and the 2006 PA Senate Race

Just put up a post over at Young Philly Poltics about the PA race...

Here's a part:

I personally could care less what any of these polls say. PA is going to be hotly contested and anyone out there who found comfort in the polls where Casey was shown to be way ahead is fooling themselves. Underestimating Santorum and the Republicans is suicide.

That's why I really can't believe that the PA Dems are trying to anoint Bob Casey Jr. as the challenger to Santorum.

...

I can't think of a worse strategy than the one the Dems are currently employing in Pennsylvania. Hopefully the party, and maybe more importantly the party's financial backers, will look at these numbers, realize that their course of action is in err and make the necessary changes to insure a Dem victory in '06. Maybe a lightbulb will go off in Rendell's head and he'll realize "hey- bringing in outside candidates like Chuck Pennachio, and reaching out to potential candidates like Anthony Zinni would be great strategic moves for Democrats in the '06 races." More than likely they'll be blinded by their own confidence and their personal/political/business ties to each other. Which is why it's up to us in the activist and blogger world to make sure that we make this primary competitive- victory depends upon it.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Get Sick, Go Broke

This site has stories from people who have gone through bankruptcy due to Medical Bills. If you want to know the real effects that this bankruptcy law is going to have, give it a read. These damned deadbeats, with all their lavish spending on medications and emergency treatments! When will they learn that only the strong survive in life?
Get Sick, Go Broke

Friday, March 18, 2005

John Stewart Pokes Wolfowitz

Crooks and Liars has John Stewart's take on Wolfowitz's nomination up on their blog.

Yes, never mind the fact that Paul Wolfowitz doesn't have an economics backgroud, he should run the World Bank because it's a similar sized organization.

Too bad they nixed the part of the video about Bush's big balls....

Ah, you can find it here at Comedy Central. I'm pretty sure Bush only has one ball but it's still a funny clip.

Paul Wolfowitz: He's "Special"

Michael Lind takes Wolfowitz to task a little harder at Salon

Wolfowitz is the Mr. Magoo of American foreign policy. Like the myopic cartoon character, Wolfowitz stumbles onward blindly and serenely, leaving wreckage and confusion behind.

Critics are wrong to portray Wolfowitz as a malevolent genius. In fact, he's friendly, soft-spoken, well meaning and thoughtful. He would be the model of a scholar and a statesman but for one fact: He is completely inept. His three-decade career in U.S. foreign policy can be summed up by the term that President Bush coined to describe the war in Iraq that Wolfowitz promoted and helped to oversee: a "catastrophic success."

Even the greatest statesman makes some mistakes. But Wolfowitz is perfectly incompetent. He is the Mozart of ineptitude, the Einstein of incapacity. To be sure, he has his virtues, the foremost of which is consistency. He has been consistently wrong about foreign policy for 30 years.
But at least the world loves the guy!

I swear, it's easier to get fired from McDonalds than from the Bush Admistration.

Krugman On Wolfowitz's Nomination To Head World Bank

Krugman takes a look today at the nomination of
Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank. Krugman chooses not to focus on the numerous failures of Wolfowitz and his neo-Con(artist) ilk in securing Iraq, and instead looks at the free-market ideology behind some of the screw-ups.

Before the Iraq war, Pentagon hawks shut the State Department out of planning. This excluded anyone with development experience. As a result, the administration went into Iraq determined to demonstrate the virtues of radical free-market economics, with nobody warning about the likely problems.

Journalists who spoke to Paul Bremer when he was running Iraq remarked on his passion when he spoke about privatizing state enterprises. They didn't note a comparable passion for a rapid democratization.

In fact, economic ideology may explain why U.S. officials didn't move quickly after the fall of Baghdad to hold elections - even though assuring Iraqis that we didn't intend to install a puppet regime might have headed off the insurgency. Jay Garner, the first Iraq administrator, wanted elections as quickly as possible, but the White House wanted to put a "template" in place by privatizing oil and other industries before handing over control.
Imagine that- the Bush Administration is guided by radical ideologues who scorn the advice of experts. The hell you say!

But, Kurgman notes that the rest of the world, and especially those parts of the developing world that might need help from the World Bank, have soured on Free Market thinking.
Latin Americans are the most disillusioned. Through much of the 1990's, they bought into the "Washington consensus" - which we should note came from Clinton administration officials as well as from Wall Street economists and conservative think tanks - which said that privatization, deregulation and free trade would lead to economic takeoff. Instead, growth remained sluggish, inequality increased, and the region was struck by a series of economic crises.

The result has been the rise of governments that, to varying degrees, reject policies they perceive as made in America. Venezuela's leader is the most obstreperous. But the most dramatic example of the backlash is Argentina, once the darling of Wall Street and the think tanks. Today, after a devastating recession, the country is run by a populist who often blames foreigners for the country's economic problems, and has forced Argentina's foreign creditors to accept a settlement that gives them only 32 cents on the dollar.

And the backlash has reached our closest neighbor. Mexico's current president, Vicente Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive, is a firm believer in free markets. But his administration is widely considered a failure. Meanwhile, Mexico City's leftist mayor, Manuel López Obrador, has become immensely popular. And his populist rhetoric has raised fears that if he becomes president he will roll back the free-market and free-trade policies of the past two decades.
How dare he even suggest that the ideologies of these friggin wingnut economist "thinkers" might be far from reality. Doesn't this Mayor know that free market dreamers have thin skin?
Not long ago, the growing alienation of Latin America from the United States would have been considered a major foreign policy setback. So much has gone wrong lately that we've defined disaster down, but it's still not a good thing.

Where does Mr. Wolfowitz fit into all this? The advice that the World Bank gives is as important as the money it lends - but only if governments take that advice. And given the ideological rigidity the Pentagon showed in Iraq, they probably won't. If Mr. Wolfowitz says that some free-market policy will help economic growth, he'll be greeted with as much skepticism as if he declared that some country has weapons of mass destruction.

Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy, says that the Wolfowitz nomination turns the World Bank into the American Bank. Make that ugly American bank: rightly or not, developing countries will see Mr. Wolfowitz's selection as a sign that we're still trying to impose policies they believe have failed.
They believe have failed? C'mon Paul, I know you can hit harder than that. Maybe it's a bit of Krugman's own ideology getting in the way of his usually dead-on criticism? The policies of the IMF (often confused with the World Bank) have been almost universally horrid to the countries who had their free market snake-oil sold to them at the tip of a bond-market gun barrel, why not just come out and say it?

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The Drug War is a Gender Issue

Apparently the drug war isn't just racist and classist, it's sexist as well.

America's war on drugs is inflicting deep and disproportionate harm on women — most of them mothers — who are filling prisons in ever-rising numbers despite their typically minor roles in drug rings, the American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups contend in a major new report.

The report, "Caught in the Net," is being released Thursday as the focus of a two-day national conference in New York, bringing together criminal justice officials, sentence-reform activists and other experts to consider its package of proposed legislative and policy changes. The report recommends expansion of treatment programs geared toward women, says incarceration should be a last resort, and urges more vigorous efforts to maintain ties between imprisoned mothers and their children.

"Drug convictions have caused the number of women behind bars to explode, leaving in the rubble displaced children and overburdened families," the document says.

The number of imprisoned women is increasing at a much faster rate than the number of men, mostly because of tougher drug laws. There were 101,000 women in state and federal prisons in 2003, an eight-fold increase since 1980; roughly one-third were drug offenders, compared to about one-fifth of male inmates.

"Many of the drug conspiracy and accomplice laws were created to go after the kingpins," said the ACLU women's rights project director, Lenora Lapidus, a lead author of the report. "But women who may simply be a girlfriend or wife are getting caught in the web as well, and sent to prison for very long times when all they may have done is answer the telephone."

The Rude Pundit's Take On Bush's Fake News

The Rude Pundit has another take on the fake news that the Bush Administration has been spewing out. And I think I have a new favorite blogger! We have located the anti-Coulter, now somebody get this man a TV show!!!

What's been lost in the big, mighty hullabaloo over the Bush administration's massive use of fake TV news packages to promote its policies as if poll numbers were Nielsens is this: the video news releases (or VNRs) suck. They're shitty, even by local news standards. Fuck, the Rude Pundit would rather watch Sinclair Broadcasting's insane Mark Hyman rant like a diseased jackal for a minute or two every night on each and every pathetic excuse for a 'news' broadcast that Sinclair runs. Sure, it's annoying to hear the pathetic jackal yelp, but at least you know you're not directly paying for the privilege of seeing it.
Ah, but don't mince words Rude One, how do these broadcasts really make your feel?
The sight of these videos, from Colin Powell speaking about the "rights" of women in Iraq to reports about reconstruction efforts, is like being brought to a room to watch a group of old men jack each other off. Fat bellies bobble as their johnsons are jostled and joints are jerked, desperately trying to concentrate on both the cock in their hands and their own cocks being yanked, the smell of sweat and cigars and semen, and someone glances at you and says, "Look at this - aren't we somethin' else?"
C'mon- how many people out there use geriatric circle jerks to make their points? Classic!
Sure, sure, the GAO tried to smack down the broadcasts, and it was looking at Bush propaganda on drug policy. But the Department of Justice ruled that the GAO can go fuck itself and the Bush adminstration can do whatever it wants. But, really, seriously, they've spent a quarter of a billion dollars on these things. And the quality is that of a group of nerdy high school kids who got a camera and free period and wanna make a show.

And anyone paying attention would know that they're made by people with only one goal: make people think, "Must love Bush." The problem is, of course, no one cares, now, do they? When you can turn on the TV and see half-hour advertisements about a food chopper, penis enlargement, and college girl tits, do you think anyone really gives a fuck if the news is coming from the government (even if they should)? If more and more people are gettin' their "truth" from Fox "news," does it really matter anyways?
So, not only is our Government now officialy a propoganda machine, but they have terrible production values. Now, I'm really pissed (it's from laughing- I just pissed myself...)

John Stewart and George Bush

This would be funny if it wasn't so fucking scary. Viewer Beware

"WHAT DOES Jon Stewart of 'The Daily Show' have in common with the Bush administration? They're both unabashed about putting out fake news. The Bush administration's version consists of video news releases -- government-produced, government-funded spots packaged to look and sound like regular television reports, complete with fake news reporters signing off from Washington. These are intended to be, and often are, aired by local television stations without any indication that the government is behind them. The Government Accountability Office found this kind of phony news to be impermissible 'covert propaganda.' It warned the government last month that such prepackaged news stories must be accompanied by a 'clear disclosure to the television viewing audience' of the government's involvement. The Bush administration is now instructing its officials to ignore the GAO -- which is where (in addition to the question of comedic content) the administration and Mr. Stewart diverge. He wants you to know his news is phony."

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Tom DeLay: Like a big pile of dog shit without the warmth

The blogstorm over Tom DeLay is growing. Here are some links to some good posts on the issue.
Daily DeLay is a one-stop shop for DeLay news. Jolly Buddha, my favorite non-frontpage MyDD writer, has a good diary about the heat DeLay's taking. Burnt Orange has a roundup of other blogs posting on the subject, while CommonBlog has a roundup of the major news outlets coverage of DeLay's mounting problems.

But, the funniest entry goes to The Rude Pundit, If Tom DeLay Were Your Dog...

If Tom DeLay were your dog, you'd've put that fucker down a long, long time ago. When your old dog gets so lousy with disease, stinking of open sores, shaking when it walks, crazed with dementia, snapping at children, strangers, even you sometimes, shitting in its bed more than it shits outside, then you really have no choice but to load that dog into the family car and take the long ride to the vet. Sure, sure, it's understandable that you and the family would wanna cling to your dog as long as possible, no matter how disgusting and vile and flea-ridden it's become, no matter how much it befouls the carpets, and it's because you remember your dog in its prime, so loving, giving, obeying its masters, gladly licking its own ass.

But when you know when it's time, it's time, and that sometimes it's best for everyone, including the dog, to put it out of its misery.

Yeah, if Tom DeLay were a dog, it'd be easy. You'd say, "Here, Tom, here, Tom," and hug him and promise him treats to get in the car, and it'd be so sweet, because Tom DeLay would lick you, thinking you were taking him to meet with more cash-stuffed corporate lobbyists. Instead, of course, you'd take Tom DeLay to the kind, gentle veterinarian and the caring nurses, and surely you'd shed a tear as Tom DeLay was put to sleep, going to that big K Street in the sky where there's endless Lockheed-sponsored fire hydrants to piss on. You'd be sad, but at the same time, there's the sweet relief in knowing that Tom DeLay will no longer make you have to send the rugs out to be cleaned every week.
The piece ends with this classic line:
But, alas, alas, Tom DeLay is not a dog. He is the Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, very nearly a human being. And, like the last roach after the apocalypse, he will cling to his political life, assisted by those who cower in his shadow, until he has polluted the entire house with his stench.
Ah, if only Delay were a Dog...

Monday, March 14, 2005

Bush to the World- Go Fuck Yourself - Music For America

I just started a forum discussion over at MfA regarding John Bolton's nomination for UN Ambassador...

Sorry for the profanity, but it pails in comparison to the one finger salute the Bush Administration is giving to the world by nominating John Bolton for the post of UN Ambassador.

Check out this video of Bolton slamming the UN at some conference. In it he claims that "there is no U.N.", that the U.N. only works when the U.S. feels like letting it work, and he states that nobody would notice if you chopped 10 floors off of the UN building. And that's before he starts screaming about "the big D" of the U.S. (sorry, inside joke).

Does this seem like the type of man who can help us win some badly needed allies in the War on Terror, or with our debacle in Mes O'Potamia? Do we really want to send a guy to the UN who likes to scream about how tough the U.S. is, and who reminds the world that "your either with us or against us"? Shit, pretty soon the whole world is going to be against us.

Meet the 44th President of the United States

I have seen the future of the Democratic Party, and his name is
Montana Governor Brain Schweitzer.



Here's Gov. Schweitzer reopening the famous M&M Bar and Cigar Shop (via Kos).



A Democrat who likes guns, throwin em back, and kicking Republican ass. Just my kind of guy.

Friday, March 11, 2005

Matthew Yglesias: Why No One Reads The Bills

Yglesias today offers a frightening look at the amount of time that Congress takes to read a bill before voting on it

He notes:

Clearly, at times it's necessary to put a premium on speed and it may not be possible to discuss everything in as leisurely a fashion as one might like. Looking at the legislation in question, however, it's clear that such pressing emergencies rarely account for the extraordinarily short intervals that are being permitted. Instead, the basic intention here is to shield legislative activity from public scrutiny so that influential members can get away with various misdeeds motivated by self-interest or narrow interest group politics that might be extremely unpopular if they saw the light of day. It's not a practice that can be said to advance conservatism, as such, in any substantial way. Rather, it is designed merely to facilitate corruption and abuse of power, along with providing a certain level of partisan advantage while enhancing the power of the congressional leadership to discipline members of the Republican caucus by making them increasingly dependent on the whims of conferees.

Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming

I'm always a bit perplexed and amazed by the causes that evangelicals and right wing Christians take up.

I'm no expert in the Christian Bible, but I don't think that Jesus ever mentioned either abortion or homosexuality. I do know that he defended one sexual deviant (Mary), and he scolded the moral hypocrites who were about to murder her that "he who has no sin should cast the first stone." I also know that he spent his time healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and blasting the money-grubbing and extremely corrupt "Church" (Temple really) of his day. And while I'm not a Christian, I do believe that Jesus was the last great profit of the Jewish nation, and on the few occasions when I have read the Christian gospels I have always felt a kinship with the man whom Christians worship as an embodiment of the One (I feel the same kinship with many of the older Jewish profits as well, as well as with more recent Jews whom I would still place in this category, including Freud, Marx, and Einstein- and I know that the first two didn't believe in a God. It doesn't change my view).

So I have to admit that I almost wanted to cry (in a hopeful- maybe they really can find the Creator kind of way) when I read this article today about a group of Evangelicals trying to address causes that I believe Jesus would have actually talked about, i.e. taking care of those who cannot care for themselves(the poor, elderly, the environment, and many others), speaking out against injustice and working towards bringing more love and less discriminatory hate into the world, etc.

"A core group of influential evangelical leaders has put its considerable political power behind a cause that has barely registered on the evangelical agenda, fighting global warming.

These church leaders, scientists, writers and heads of international aid agencies argue that global warming is an urgent threat, a cause of poverty and a Christian issue because the Bible mandates stewardship of God's creation.

The Rev. Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals and a significant voice in the debate, said, 'I don't think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created.'"

The association has scheduled two meetings on Capitol Hill and in the Washington suburbs on Thursday and Friday, where more than 100 leaders will discuss issuing a statement on global warming. The meetings are considered so pivotal that Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and officials of the Bush administration, who are on opposite sides on how to address global warming, will speak.

People on all sides of the debate say that if evangelical leaders take a stand, they could change the political dynamics on global warming.

The administration has refused to join the international Kyoto treaty and opposes mandatory emission controls.

The issue has failed to gain much traction in the Republican-controlled Congress. An overwhelming majority of evangelicals are Republicans, and about four out of five evangelicals voted for President Bush last year, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group of 51 church denominations, said he had become passionate about global warming because of his experience scuba diving and observing the effects of rising ocean temperatures and pollution on coral reefs.

"The question is, Will evangelicals make a difference, and the answer is, The Senate thinks so," Mr. Haggard said. "We do represent 30 million people, and we can mobilize them if we have to."

In October the association paved the way for broad-based advocacy on the environment when it adopted "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," a platform that included a plank on "creation care" that many evangelical leaders say was unprecedented.

"Because clean air, pure water and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order," the statement said, "government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."
Chris at MyDD has a post on some of the proceedings, and the brewing conflicts, from the first day:
The Nat'l Assn of Evangelicals (NAE) opened debate "on an ambitious plan" to influence policy by developing a new platform, which 87 Christian leaders signed on 3/10 (Duin, Washington Times, 3/11). The proposed platform, "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," contains policy goals that go "beyond the fight against abortion and same-sex marriage" and urge "evangelicals to address issues like racial injustice, religious freedom," and poverty. At the NAE's 3/10 luncheon many speakers said the new platform was "necessary" because the NAE risked being seen as "merely" a GOP "voting bloc." Speaker Barbara Williams-Skinner drew "a standing ovation" when she "criticized evangelicals who decide their votes using abortion and same-sex marriage as a litmus test." Williams-Skinner: "The litmus test is the Gospel, the whole of it."

But other "evangelical leaders voiced concern that the new platform could dilute the focus of the evangelical movement." Focus on the Family VP Tom Minnery warned other evangelical leaders against taking a "smorgasbord approach." Minnery: "Do not make this about global warming...the issues of marriage, the issues of pro-life are the issues that define us to this day." Sen Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) were among the "prominent figures" who attended the luncheon (Goodstein, New York Times, 3/11).
Remember that the importance of a swing group is not defined by how evenly it is split in preference between the two parties, as is commonly believed. Instead, the importance of a swing group is defined how much its voting preferences change from election to election. The greater the average change a group displays from election to election, the more important the group becomes to winning elections. In 2004, white evangelicals, already strongly pro-Republican, were actually the group with the greatest swing of any demographic. Because they swung to Bush by such a great amount compared to 2000, Kerry lost the election. Considering both the size and swinging nature of this demographic, it is essential for Democrats to find a way to improve their standing among white evangelicals. This does not mean that we have to win the group, just that we have to close the gap.

Stories like this one should give us hope.
It definitely raised my hope quotient for the day.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Pandagon rips Annenberg a new one

I find this very interesting given that I seriously dreamed about studying at Annenberg for a few years. Man, good thing I chose to get into Politics instead, it's so much more honest than what Anneberg is doing...

Pandagon: Woo-Hah!:

I stopped reading Factcheck.org near the end of the 2004 election cycle because of this article. It was the sort of blatant hackery that they should have either apologized for or retracted after it became obvious that Kerry told the absolute truth, and their only arguments were a semantic disagreement over whether or not a 30-45% cut was a cut, and whether or not the exact plan Bush proposed shortly after the election was 'known'. Long story short, it was a complete whitewash of the Bush plan, pushing everything Kerry said (which was actually 100% accurate) to the side because Bush hadn't made a formal annoucement yet. Factcheck, predictably, didn't recant a single allegation they made.


Whew, looks like I dodged a bullet. I'd hate to have to sit in a class with a bunch of Tucker Carlson wannabees for the next four years.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

A Dark Day

Joe Biden, along with all of the Republicans in the Senate and a few other DINO credit-company sluts, just sold out our soldiers, the elderly, and the downtrodden, by voting for cloture on the bankruptcy debate. This is a dark day for the working-class and poor people of this nation and a great day for slave labor.

out for lunch

Actually, I'm just over at the new Draft Zinni blog I started.