we are proud as a wallaby to have our name attached to the lefty letter to the national press club decrying the imbalance of a panel discussion about blogging which includes jeff “mandate” gannon but nobody who actually was involved in the blogging investigation of him.

but as glenn kenny points out in romenesko’s letter section …hey, it’s just a stupid panel:

we couldn’t have been snarkier ourselves!

addendum: americablog points out that the npc panel is now closed to the public. that’s right, the national press, whose dictate is to get information to the public, is limited a panel discussion on the changing definition of “journalist” to only people who fit into the old definition of “journalist,” thus denying the public access to information.

irony, thy name is media!

Sorry to blog out of order, but Jamison Foser posted this excellent piece on Media Matters yesterday, and it sheds further light on this post I did Tuesday about the growing number of “conscience clauses” and Pharmacists for Life’s involvement in that growth. (This has been an interest of mine for a bit.)

Not only does he explore the background of the group’s founder, Karen Brauer, he slams CNN, who interviewed her Tuesday, for their pitiful display of journalistic skills therein. (Is it any wonder National Press Club invites James Guckert to a panel on journalism?)

“…Bill Hemmer teased the segment as a report on the tension between “pharmacist beliefs” and “women’s rights,” (but) Pharmacists for Life president Karen Brauer appeared by herself to discuss the topic, with no one presenting an opposing view. Further, (interviewer Carol) Costello failed to point out the serious questions about Pharmacists for Life’s credibility, ask Brauer about her own credibility problems, or ask Brauer obvious questions about the appropriateness of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions. CNN’s treatment of Brauer, though, is consistent with several other news reports that have mentioned her or her organization without explaining their background or giving readers and viewers a full picture of them. “

There’s also an interesting tie-in to the Schiavo controversy (yes, PFL is in on that, too), and a revealing bit on Brauer’s refusal to fill, not only birth control prescriptions, but those for diet pills, too. And just in case you think they were satisfied with just withholding pills, he wraps it up with this:

“And a caption on a photo accompanying a February 2 Santa Fe New Mexican article suggests that Pharmacists for Life’s agenda may go well beyond pharmacies. The caption reads:

GRAPHIC: 1. Sen. Bill Sharer, left, R-Farmington, meets Tuesday with supporters of his bill defining marriage in New Mexico as only between a man and a woman. Meeting with Sharer are representatives of the Pharmacists for Life and Life League of New Mexico, Abran Gabaldon, former Sen. Tom Benavides of Albuquerque and Manuel Rodriguez. “

Go read!

PORTLAND - FBI agents used provisions of the USA Patriot Act during their investigation last year of a Portland attorney who was wrongly jailed for two weeks on suspicion of involvement in the Madrid train bombings, according to a Justice Department letter.
The Patriot Act allows for covert searches of homes, without conventional search war- rants.

Brandon Mayfield was jailed last May after his fingerprint was incorrectly matched to one found on a bag of detonators near the scene of the Madrid attack, which killed 191 people. He was released after the FBI admitted its mistake.

Mayfield has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, contending that his rights were violated by his arrest and by the investigation against him. He also contends the Patriot Act is unconstitutional.

As this is the first time the government’s admitted using the controversial ’sneak and peek’ provision of the Act, and they botched it good, it looks like full judicial review of it may be forthcoming.

I’m no lawyer but I think there’s an ample case that could be made that the previous search powers the government possesses would prove sufficient, if our intelligence agencies could discern the difference between shit and shinola. Covering up their ineptness with new intrusive laws leads to a complete breakdown of civil liberties in a democratic society.

It takes no especial genius to discern rather quickly that Brandon Mayfield as a terrorist can only be envisioned in the minds of idiots. I hope the courts will undo the damage caused by rash decisionmaking post-9/11. We’ve had time to think since then, and parts of the Patriot Act aren’t exactly shinola.

Question: The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (or CICUSRWMD) determined that the US was “dead wrong” about Iraq having WMD (duh). Was this the Bush administration’s biggest failure?

Answer: not by a long shot.

I’m delighted this presidentially-commissioned report smacks down the gross incompetence by the FBI, CIA, and subsequent incompetence by Bush. But let’s not get confused: the invasion wasn’t a blunder because it was predicated on WMD, it was a blunder because the rationale was ill-defined, the plan was rushed, the circumstances misunderstood, and the outcomes ignored. Iraq has grown into a quagmire not because of the WMD miscalculation, but because the administration was blind to the manifold clues that invasion was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Let’s review:

Iraq is not a historical country, and was birthed by a colonial power on its way out the door.

Saddam’s terrorism was directed at his own people; his aims for power were regional.

As demonstrated by the 9/11 bombings, our greatest threat is not by petty dictatorships, but by non-state-based terrorists.

Invading Iraq bled resources away from the fight against non-state-based terrorists.

Invading Iraq produced a mushroom cloud of new non-state-based terrorists who now threaten the US as well as the Iraqis Bush purported to “liberate.”

It’s the terrorism, stupid. WMD were never the issue.

Perhaps cable news media has been reduced to self-selecting choices based solely upon ideology. That would mean old-fashioned, balanced investigative journalism on cable networks is dead as a doornail and we are freely admitting it - and some of us have decided to laugh as long as we’re getting a bit of the type of cable “news” we think we want.

I recall Jimmy Buffet singing, “If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane”. If you ask me, I’m glad Jon Stewart is there to wrap the insanity into a veritable shitball of delight. I know a lot of young people out there agree with me. I don’t know what we’d do without Stewart, Colbert, Corddry and crew. Not only are they entertaining, they are informing and inspiring.

In an article about Stewart in the current Harvard Political Review (HPR), Harvard professor of government Barry Burden comments:

“..in the last few years, with things like Fox News rising on the right, people are self-selecting into media outlets that are merely reinforcing their preexisting ideas. People are looking for facts, arguments or even humor that agree with what they thought ahead of time.”

“It is ironic that satire offering criticism of politics has the power to get people politically involved. Perhaps there are some youth who are cynical about politics, not particularly informed, but still feeling some connection to what is going on, and are tuning into Comedy Central and are coming away a little less cynical and little more informed.”

Julie Hinds of the Detroit Free Press has written a feature (Entertainment) article about Stewart. In it, she writes:

Stewart insists he had nothing to do with the fact that CNN announced plans to drop “Crossfire,” the long-running show where conservatives yelled at liberals, from its schedule. (The show is still on the air.) In October, Stewart went on the show and told the co-hosts what he really thought: that scream fest political shows were hurting America. And he called co-host Tucker Carlson a, well, colorful name. Not too long afterward, the president of CNN told the press Stewart had a point.

“Look, as much as these guys talk, if Pol Pot’s talk show was doing really well in the ratings, he’d still have a talk show,” says Stewart.

Over 300,000 people die in the US every year, due to eating disorders. But that’s just the tip of it.

In the United States, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Approximately 25 million more are struggling with binge eating disorder (Crowther et al., 1992; Fairburn et al., 1993; Gordon, 1990; Hoek, 1995; Shisslak et al., 1995).

And then there’s several Basic Principles for the Prevention of Eating Disorders.

There’s a wealth of information like this at the National Eating Disorders Association. Some of it might save your life or the life of someone you know.

The causes for eating disorders are important to know as well as the fact that it takes professional help to overcome them. And it’s important to know that 45 million Americans have no healthcare coverage because, after 30 years or so of trying, our elected officials have failed to address our national healthcare needs.

The combination of this disorder and our government’s refusal to get real about healthcare continues to put millions of American lives in danger. This is how life can be cultured. And if it seems I take it personally that our Congress remains in the pocket of medical providers, pharmaceuticals and insurance providers, while it blathers on with bullshit about its support for life, that’s because it is personal.

You see, I have an eating disorder. I can’t afford treatment. I believe it will kill me unless I can find a way to overcome it myself. And I’m one of millions.

If people will consider Ms. Schiavo’s entire life, instead of its final 14 days, maybe we’ll finally make some life saving advances on eating disorders, and on access to affordable healthcare. If so, it’ll demonstrate that enough Americans care. If so, then she will not have died in vain.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has aid that, despite fervent and sincere action on the part of the family of Terri Schiavo and Congress, “the time has come for dispassionate discharge of duty.” The court has formally criticized certain politicians in Congress, saying they are “acting in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people our Constitution.”

It’s all over now. Terri is dead. Her body has died. I’m not sure what became of the fullness of spirit she once possessed. No one does.

Terri’s parents had wanted to care for Terri, as she existed after her heart failure which was brought on by an eating disorder. I believe, if they’d placed a great value upon the life she had left within her, quality notwithstanding, that Michael Schiavo should have agreed to somehow contract with the parents to let them take over all legal responsibility for their daughter’s care. She wouldn’t have lived forever, and she was not in any pain. The marriage vow that includes the contingencies “in sickness and in health” obviously didn’t mean as much to Michael as it might have to other spouses in his position. He wanted to move on with his life, and I’m certainly not going to judge him for that. When it comes to the life or death of his wife, however, we were thrust into the judge’s seat, weren’t we? All eyes were upon Michael Schiavo. Most people I speak with do not trust that his motives are based in love. No one knows what’s in a person’s heart, though. I will say that his respect for Terri’s family’s wishes is not what I would view as particularly healthy or postive. I suppose you could say the same thing about the parents’ respect for Schiavo’s wishes, if you believe his motives were based on his caring for his wife’s wishes.

The bottom line is this: You cannot expect that a court of law could force a family to agree with one another. That would eliminate our freedom to choose on family matters of life, death, and dignity, wouldn’t it? The government does not belong in our houses and in our hearts.

This has been a great interpersonal tragedy for the family, but it should never have been made into a political show.

Michael Schiavo has never budged on the issue. The standing law is what it is. You cannot blame a judge or a court or a law for what the family could not work out amongst themselves.

We must not lose respect for the rule of law, through all of this. We are a nation of laws - not men or women.

Read the rest of this entry »

The revolution is here…will anyone come?

It’s time to remake the Democratic Party in the progressive image. Here in Tennessee, a Convention for Reorganization is held in nearly every Tennessee County during April of odd-numbered years, as dictated by Tennessee Democratic Party bylaws.

These conventions are held for the following purposes:

* To re-adopt, or ammend if needed, by-laws for the County Democratic Executive Committee.
* To elect, or re-elect, representative members of the County Democratic Executive Committee as determined by the bylaws of the County Democratic Party Committee.
* To elect County Party Committee Officers such as Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer, according to the bylaws of the County Democratic Party Committee.

I put a lot of energy into electing the top ticket, and I’m still frustrated by the ability of the party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. That’s all I’ll say about ‘04–that the Dems were just not successful in exploiting the weaknesses of the Bush Cheney ticket. So many Dems I know want to play nice, and not even use oppo research when they’ve got it. I’ve witnessed this in local races too, where they also got resoundingly thumped.

The navel-gazing angst of “oh must we go negative?” and “can’t we just campaign on issues?” seems almost quaint in this day and age.

I am a Christian, a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal. I’m going to go to my county Democratic party convention in April, and I’m going to find out if they have a soul. The Democratic Party must decide it wants to win. Our Knox County Dem party didn’t even put up a candidate for Congress last year, about which I vociferously challenged the County Dem party chair, Jim Gray.

The excuses are endless. The candidates are few.

At this point, final appeals to federal courts have been rejected. Physical signs are indicating Ms. Schiavo’s body may not last 48 hours. Exploiting her, the grandstanding continues.

Jesse Jackson? The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, had a message for the Schindlers :

“My prayers go out to Terri and the Schindler family,” Peterson said. “I know they want to help their daughter, but they should be careful in praying with the devil in their hour of need.”

He added:

“Jesse Jackson is an opportunist and has no interest in helping Terri. He is exploiting her plight to push the liberal Democrat’s agenda for socialized health care.”

Elsewhere, conservative talking head Joe Scarborough says God won’t bless any country that permits people to starve. James Wolcott, quoting Steve Gilliard, handles Joe and the Schindlers.

Then there’s this from an ultra-conservative appeals court judge:

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Does anyone in the Democratic party have any brain cells to speak of? Stuff like this makes you wonder.

Kos details yet another example of peaceful dissenters being excluded from one of President Bush’s taxpayer funded, “public” events promoting Social Security privatization.

What was their offense this time? Having a “No blood for oil” bumper sticker on their car! Other than that, they wore nice suits, got tickets to the event from their Congressman, and didn’t do anything to disrupt the event before they were hauled out of there and questioned by Bush’s Praetorian guard…er…the Secret Service.

How does this make the Democrats idiots, you ask?

Because the Democrats could easily expose this sham for what it is by just a few simple creative maneuvers.

First, find out where Bush is going next with his “bamboozlepalooza” tour.

Next, publicly have Democratic activists try to get tickets to the event, promising to not disrupt it. The higher profile the activists the better.

When the Bushies refuse them tickets or deny them entry to the event, file a preemptive lawsuit against Bush, the local Republican party, and the Secret Service to obtain a court order from a judge forcing Bush to allow them into the event.

The grounds for the injunction would be, simply, that these events are taxpayer funded, and discuss a policy change of major public concern. Therefore, citizens cannot be excluded from these events simply because they have different political views from the President. It is a massive violation of the First amendment. And not just the free speech clause. It also violates the clauses guaranteeing our rights as citizens to peaceful assembly, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Now, it may be that some local judge would deny the request for an injunction. But, you could always appeal it. And, if necesary, you might actually be able to sue the President or the Secret Service for damages [no more than a symbolic $1, probably. But we aren’t interested in money here]. It would be great fun to to depose Karl Rove and George W. Bush in that case, wouldn’t it?

At the very least, even if the local Dems lose at every level of the judicial system [which I very much doubt would happen], they would generate a lot of publicity that would damage the credibility of Bush’s so-called town hall Social Security forums.

Where are the creative thinkers in the Democratic party? Apparently they are AWOL.

No wonder they are in such dire straits.

UPDATE: The White House cover story for what is going on is to blame overzealous volunteers.

OK, fine. Then anyone who is confronted by one of these volunteers at any future event should calmly and rationally explain to them, preferably with a digital voice record turned on, that they are overzealous and are acting contrary to the public expressed wishes of the President.

“We welcome a diversity of views at the events”
–Scott McLellan
March 29, 2005.

In fact, you can print out a copy of the article linked to above, and show it to the assembled overzealous staffers who are telling you to leave. Then insist that you will only leave if you are asked to do so by the Secret Service or a member of law enforcement. [And, make sure they show you a valid ID!]

Do not initiate any physical stuff. Simply sit down and be completely passive. Also, make sure you insist that you will not “disrupt” the event by doing anything differenet than anyone else there. That means, of course, that simply asking a question Bush or Rove doesn’t like does NOT count as “disruption.”

ANOTEHR UPDATE: Via Josh Marshall, it appears that what Bush and his cromies are doing may well be illegal! As in explicitly violating not a generally worded constitutional amendment, but a specifically worded federal statute.

Recently I’ve been wondering about what makes an activist and what makes an effective protest. I’m the American Street writer who’s constantly agitating for a march on Washington to happen this summer so you can see that I set the bar a tiny bit high. Arvin Hill responded to one of those posts (bookmark his site immediately, you can thank me later) with a lot of compelling ideas. Why bother marching? was the first:

Read the rest of this entry »

via Suburban Guerrilla and Spanglemonkey.

Corporate profits leap 13.4%, biggest gain since Q2 1987.

And they won’t raise the minimum wage. And forget that healthcare plan. Pension? Ah-ha-ha-ha! You must be kidding, slave.

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

Many’s the time I’ve dropped the quote above into Internet flame threads dealing with church and state issues. It does no good, of course, because those who hold as a matter of faith that the United States was meant by the Founders to be a Christian nation cannot see evidence to the contrary. I mean that they literally cannot see it; it is quite remarkable. You can hold it under their noses; you can fan it in front of their faces; they cannot see it. They will blink at you and act as if the evidence did not exist. I wonder if some part of their brains is switched off.

In one of the few circumstances a Christian theocrat actually responded to the quote, he grabbed hold of the “Infidel” part and interpreted the passage to mean that governmental discrimination against “Mohammedans” and “Hindoos” was OK with Jefferson.

So, you see, we have a problem. Read the rest of this entry »

With a defense budget bigger than the next 8,743 countries and planets combined, this is the best job our team could do.

Apparently, closing the barn door after the horses have escaped, and losing $9 billion deserve high honors, so doesn’t Curveball deserve a medal, too?

… not a national carny is even noticing this.

That sure is some culture ya got there, friends.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that about 155 agents will be introduced to Arizona immediately and another 370 will be permanently assigned throughout the year. Two hundred more will be brought in this summer as temporary agents, to bolster the force of 2,170 agents assigned to the Tucson Sector, according to the AP.

“Five hundred additional agents is a very substantial infusion,” said the Migration Policy Institute’s Doris Meissner, who headed the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Clinton administration. But agents are only one step toward securing the border, she said.

“Our experience was that you needed a range of things, not only enforcement,” she said. “Agents are crucial but they’re only a support element.”

Border activists say the timing of the initiative is curious, coming just days before the Minuteman Project begins its monthlong “political assembly” along the banks of the San Pedro River southeast of Tucson. The volunteer effort is to begin Friday, and organizers say it will serve to demonstrate against the government’s inaction in sealing the border.

The additional agents will bring the number in the Tucson Sector close to the ideal target number of 2,700, said Joe N. Dassaro, president of the San Diego sector’s union, Local 1613. Nationally, the Border Patrol has about 10,000 agents, but the Tucson Sector accounts for about 51 percent of all arrests with only one-quarter of the agents.

As the article shows, in the last 1-year period measured, the agents apprehended 491,000 immigrants in the Tucson Sector. So why do the organizers of the Minuteman Project have any beef at all? Nearly half a million illegal immigrants stopped by 2700 agents? That’s an average of 181 people apprehended per agent, an amazing rate of effectiveness.

Of course, I’ve long been skeptical of the Minuteman Project as the first clue of their extremism is evident in their name. The original minutemen began a war against the imperialist oppression of the British monarchy. They didn’t muster to block poor peasants seeking work.

And the timing of the announcement is especially ironic. Between the announcement date today, and the kickoff of the poorly named militia effort Friday comes the 78th anniversary of the birth of this imperial oppressor.

Navy Secretary Gordon England, who is overseeing this and another related review of the detainee cases, told a Pentagon news conference that five of the 38 have been sent to their home countries. The 33 others are still at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay awaiting transportation.

In all, 558 cases were reviewed, although presently there are only 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay; some were released for other reasons during the six months it took to complete the reviews. Some have been there for more than three years; only four have been charged with crimes.

The Pentagon defines “enemy combatant” as “an individual who was part of or supporting the Taliban or al-Qaida forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” It includes “any person who committed a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.”

Asked if there was a common thread in the 38 cases in which detainees were said to no longer fit that definition, England said they had “thin files” - meaning there was insufficient supporting evidence.

We have no use for due process anymore. Thirty eight people, held for three years. Sorry dudes, that’s the breaks in the Communist Republic of the United States. You don’t even get an official “Sorry” from Comrade Rumsfeld.

Frank Rich gets it exactly right. Almost. He failed to mention a few.

Jeb Bush, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay, George Bush, Randall Terry, and Jesse Jackson may be the more visible carnys at the circus, but I’d willingly unplug the feeding tubes of half the Democrats in Congress, for their willingness to play God, too.

I didn’t vote for people to decide my religious beliefs or to lecture me about morality. My faith and morality are just fine, thankyewverymuch.

In fact, this case has convinced me to change my voter registration to independent again.

The words ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, ‘pro-life’, ‘Republican’ and ‘Democrat’ have all lost any meaning at all to me. Each is redefined to suit the topic du jour. I still think science provides more accurate answers to problems facing humans than so-called faith-based initiatives. I root for progress, not popular opinion. I’ll vote for progressives and ignore the meaningless labels.

Sure, I’ll be marginalized by doing so. But the margins have always been far more enjoyable to me because there’s far less hucksterism and fraud there. It’s gotten so bad watching so called party leaders pander while thousands die from their negligence that it becomes a chore running a political blog in a country where politicians are bought and sold to the highest bidder.

“But it’s better than most of the governments in the world” isn’t an argument of strength. If this is as good as it gets, I think we’d all be better off pulling the plug on every government and go back to better communal ventures.

From Jeb to Jesse, to all of the leeches, here’s the quote of the day, from my mouth to your ears: “Fuck off and die.”

Having fought nuclear proliferation all my adult life, this is the biggest setback I’ve seen:

The White House says the F-16s are a reward to Islamabad for its help in disrupting terrorism networks, despite a decade of Pakistan’s strong support of Al Qaeda and the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Yet Pakistan’s ruling generals could be excused for believing that Washington is not seriously concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. How else to explain invading a country �€” Iraq �€” that didn’t possess nukes, didn’t sell nuclear technology to unstable nations and didn’t maintain an unholy alliance with Al Qaeda �€” and then turning around and giving the plum prizes of U.S. military ingenuity to the country that did?

For all its sabre-rattling, the Bush administration is capable of adding up numbers and assessing military strengths. Iraq - a country of 25-26 million with its military strength eroded by a decade of bombings by our country - was easy pickings in that assessment. Iran, with 69-70 million would not be. Despite all the rumbles and grumbles, taking on Iran would be the taking on the most populous foes we’ve faced since Vietnam, and before that, WWII. And remember, it took the combined efforts of the US, USSR and Great Britain, primarily, to succeed at that.

So how does Pakistan fit in our strategies? A look at its population helps define that. (Former enemies fought directly in the past century are bolded; majority Muslim countries are italicized, in the following list)

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The March 28 issue of the New Yorker features a fascinating profile of Antonin Scalia. It’s a sprawling, well-researched piece by Margaret Talbot that weaves the story of Scalia’s life around his judicial temperment. (It’s not online, but there is an interview with Talbot.) Talbot identifies Scalia as an “originalist,” which she describes as someone who ” reads the plain text of the Constitution and sticks to what he believes its meaning to have been at the time it was written.”

He loathes the idea of the so-called �€œliving Constitution,�€� the idea behind many of the Warren Court�€™s decisions, which essentially says that values evolve and change, and we have to interpret the great precepts of the Constitution in light of those changes. So, for example, the Court in recent years has interpreted the Eighth Amendment�€™s ban on �€œcruel and unusual�€� punishment to mean that the death penalty for juveniles or for the mentally retarded is unconstitutional, taking into account this phrase that Scalia just hates: �€œthe evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.�€� But Scalia says, Look, or as he says, �€œLookit�€�–that�€™s not what the Eighth Amendment says, and that�€™s all I care about. And, furthermore, the death penalty was allowed in the late eighteenth century–and it was allowed for juveniles and for mentally retarded people–so the framers couldn�€™t have had capital punishment in mind when they proscribed �€œcruel and unusual�€� punishment.

One of the particular facets of this view is that Scalia ignores the intent of legislature as it drew up particular laws. He is more likely to pull out a dictionary than look at the history of the law, according to the article (a move the judiciary has followed in recent years). The notion here is that context, history, and mores play no role in legal interpretation. We have only the text, so we must use it in a strictly literal interpretation.

If this sounds familiar to the English majors out there, I’m with you. Literary criticism has long been plagued by competing ideologies: literary “originalists” who refuse to look at anything but the text, and those who include the biography of the writer and the social and historical context of the time in which it was written. It is the kind of battle that led to the posthumous outing of Walt Whitman and the furor that it caused. Looking at Scalia’s orientation, one gets a strong hint of the superstructure supporting the culture wars.
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Tom “Kiled my Daddy” DeLay:

“The United States Constitution protects every citizen of America from having their life taken from them,” said Tom DeLay, the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. “If you did this to an animal, you would go to prison for a year and be fined $5,000.”

Reality:

“Gilda, the last remaining lion at the John Ball Zoo, has been euthanized after suffering from several ailments related to her old age, zoo officials said.

The 16-year-old African lion — who had arthritis, back pain and kidney failure — was put to death on Thursday, said Director Bert Vescolani.

“We don’t want her to suffer,” Vescolani told The Grand Rapids Press. “It’s just tough on the staff. You try to do the right thing for the animal.”

I wonder if Gilda left a living will?

Chris Woodhull is a Knoxville city councilman and executive director of Tribe One, an nonprofit ministry that empowers at-risk urban youth spiritually and economically. Tribe One is where I run an interactive studio, called Bounce, where I teach these youth how to design and build web sites, among other things.

Below is an excerpt from “God On Earth: the Church - a hard look at the real life of faith” by Doug Banister, 2005. The excerpt was written when Chris was first running for office. He’s now been a City Councilman for a little over a year.

“Politics is Building Community With Strangers.”

Chris Woodhull, a respected community leader in his early forties, is running for a seat on the Knoxville City Council. When he�€™s not campaigning, Chris is the executive director of TRIBE ONE, a faith-based nonprofit organization that works with teenagers affiliated with gangs. I�€™m interested in listening to Chris�€™s views on the church�€™s role in politics because I know he shares my ambivalence toward much of what has passed for church-based political action.

Just prior to our conversation, I pulled a book off the shelf, and a letter form a conservative Christian political group falls out. The letter is written in red, white and blue ink with whole paragraphs set in boldface type. It features lines such as �€œthe stakes are incredibly high�€� and �€œwe must fight.�€� The boldface words are underlined just to make sure I don�€™t miss them. The letter ends with an appeal for a �€œvictory gift�€� to support voter guides that will tell the faithful who the approved Christian candidates are. None of the �€œapproved�€� candidates is a Democrat, by the way. How did the gospel become connected with the Republican Party?

The posturing of the political left is just as annoying. The great sucking sound that so many church watchers heard in the last quarter of the past century was the sound of millions of spiritually famished Christians exiting their churches because they didn�€™t hear another sermon on global warming or nuclear disarmament.

At least liberals and conservatives have tried to relate their faith to their politics. Other Christians have opted out of the political process, retreating to Christian ghettos while they await the setting of the moral sun. That strikes me as gutless.

So what am I left with? I don�€™t want to be liberal, conservative, or gutless. I�€™ve been reading a book that calls for a �€œthird way�€� that arises �€œout of a deepening hunger among many to find a�€��€™spiritual politics�€™ beyond the old polarized options of Left and Right, liberal and conservative.�€� I share this hunger for a third way. I sense Chris does too.

�€œWhat has the campaign been like?�€� I ask Chris.

�€œFrightening,�€� he answers. �€œRunning for office is a spectacle. But it is a gift, too.�€�

�€œA gift?�€�

�€œIt has opened up rooms inside of me that have been locked. When we go through things like this, we see what�€™s inside us.�€� The grueling political campaign has become a means of spiritual formation for Chris �€“ a crucible that refines him. I had never before thought of the refining process as a reason for the church to enter the public square, but it�€™s a good one: We grow spiritually when we bring faith to bear on issues that are crucial to the well-being of society.

Chris and I talk about his calling into politics. He recalls a father who loved JFK, a year spent in Washington working for a think tank, an African American friend named Danny, now deceased, who ran for office as an act of worship. Chris senses that I am hoping for something a little more dramatic, but he doesn�€™t go there.

�€œModern Christianity is too utopian,�€� he says. �€œThe Christian life is really about the ordinary, not the ideal. Place is important. The land is important. Politics is putting morality into practice. It�€™s a pragmatic dealing with life in a particular place, a community, our community.�€�

�€œWhat is a community?�€�

�€œA community is a place that supports our growth and wholeness. A community holds us, helps us feel alive.�€�

�€œAnd the goal of Christian politics, then, is�€�?�€�

�€œTo build a place that works for everybody, a real place, a community with social equity, a community where everyone has economic access, a community that is economically sound and livable.�€�

The Hebrew prophets, when they dreamed of healthy communities, described their vision with the ancient word shalom. Shalom means �€œharmony, wholeness, completion, things as they should be.�€� Sometimes our bibles translate shalom as �€œpeace,�€� but it is a much fuller word than that. In fact, a vast project to restore shalom to the world unfolds across the pages of scripture. God creates the world. Initially it enjoys shalom. Then sin destroys shalom and introduces alienation. The Old Testament is the story of God�€™s attempt to restore the shalom of Eden. The angels at Christ�€™s birth sing that he has come to bring shalom. The apostle Paul tells us that Christ�€™s death recovered shalom. John�€™s Apocalypse foresees the restoration of shalom on all the earth as the goal of history.

Shalom is a real place that works for everybody. �€œSeek the peace and prosperity (shalom) of the city,�€� the prophet Jeremiah said. This is the purpose of politics. This is why Chris is running for a seat on the city council. This is why the church must be involved in politics. Politics is a tool for shalom making.

I find myself puzzling over the ramifications of what Chris has said. I hope he wins the election, partly because I can�€™t wait to see how reporters handle him and partly because I think we need people like him in office. I tell him this before we part.

Our conversation ends with glimpses of insight and invitations to hope, but no coherent theory of Christian political involvement. I am both moved and mildly frustrated. Perhaps politicians who are poets are uniquely qualified to serve as guides along the political road less traveled.

An hour later my phone rings. Chris wants to say one more thing. Perhaps now I�€™ll get a real sound bite to wrap this essay around.

�€œI�€™ve been reading a speech Vaclav Havel gave on politics at New York University. Listen to this,�€� he begins. Quoting the Czech poet and president, Chris continues: �€œPolitics should be principally the domain of people with a heightened sense of responsibility and a heightened sense of the mysterious complexity of being.�€�

I write frantically on my notepad.

�€œIsn�€™t that beautiful?�€� he asks.

Yes, I tell him. It is.

in an ongoing battle against the remaining tendrils of sixties values threading through our culture, the Bush family continues their quiet crusade to prove that money can, in fact, buy you love

or at least public displays of affection

At the same time one of Florida’s most visible television reporters brought news to viewers around the state, he earned nearly a million dollars from the government agencies he covered.

The reporter, Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state agencies.

His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than $100,000 over the last four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush’s office, the secretary of state, the Department of Education and other government entities that are routinely part of Mr. Vasilinda’s news reports. Mr. Vasilinda, a freelance journalist, was also paid to work on campaign advertisements for at least one politician and to create a promotional movie for Leon County. One of his biggest state contracts was a 1996 deal that paid nearly $900,000 to film the weekly drawing for the Florida Lottery. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometime ago, here at American Street, I noted the Conscience Clause trend amongst pharmacists. Withholding prescriptions most often because they assert birth control pills kill embryos, they have become a worriesome growth industry of the religious right. Legislatures across the states are working on ways to deal with it; some more interested in protecting the pharmacists, some the patients. As usual with this sort of thing, women are the victims, and especially women in sparsely-populated rural areas with few alternate options.

And here they come again:

“The American Pharmacists Association recently reaffirmed its policy that pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions as long as they make sure customers can get their medications some other way.
“We don’t have a profession of robots. We have a profession of humans. We have to acknowledge that individual pharmacists have individual beliefs,” said Susan C. Winckler, the association’s vice president for policy and communications. “What we suggest is that they identify those situations ahead of time and have an alternative system set up so the patient has access to their therapy.”
The alternative system can include making sure another pharmacist is on duty who can take over or making sure there is another pharmacy nearby willing to fill the prescription, Winckler said. “The key is that it should be seamless and avoids a conflict between the pharmacist’s right to step away and the patient’s right to obtain their medication,” she said.”

Sounds reasonable enough. Unless your transportation problems make it difficult to go to another pharmacy, or there is no other pharmacist on duty, or time is of the essence. But even that is not satisfactory for some:

“Brauer, of Pharmacists for Life, defends the right of pharmacists not only to decline to fill prescriptions themselves but also to refuse to refer customers elsewhere or transfer prescriptions. “That’s like saying, ‘I don’t kill people myself but let me tell you about the guy down the street who does.’ What’s that saying? ‘I will not off your husband, but I know a buddy who will?’ It’s the same thing,” said Brauer, who now works at a hospital pharmacy.”

It might be time to visit the pharmacists’ Code of Ethics . Here’s a few points:

I. A pharmacist respects the covenantal relationship between the patient and pharmacist.
…a pharmacist promises to help individuals achieve optimum benefit from their medications, to be committed to their welfare, and to maintain their trust.

II. A pharmacist promotes the good of every patient in a caring, compassionate, and confidential manner.
…A pharmacist is dedicated to protecting the dignity of the patient. With a caring attitude and a compassionate spirit, a pharmacist focuses on serving the patient in a private and confidential manner.

III. A pharmacist respects the autonomy and dignity of each patient.
…In all cases, a pharmacist respects personal and cultural differences among patients.

VI. A pharmacist respects the values and abilities of colleagues and other health professionals.When appropriate, a pharmacist…refers the patient. A pharmacist acknowledges that colleagues and other health professionals may differ in the beliefs and values they apply to the care of the patient.

VIII. A pharmacist seeks justice in the distribution of health resources.When health resources are allocated, a pharmacist is fair and equitable, balancing the needs of patients and society.

But obviously those things don’t apply to people on a first name basis with God.

Trust me on this: they will not rest until they own you.

via Pharyngula, by way of Stupid Evil Bastard, a pastor from Pennsylvania explains his fervent crusade to bring Intelligent Design (that’s the theory where God couldn’t have set up something as complicated as evolution because pastors in Pennsylvania don’t understand it) thus:

“We�€™ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture,”

and why, a few years after the Scopes trial, does Pastor Mummert feel emboldened to take on this battle?

“Christians are a lot more bold under Bush�€™s leadership, he speaks what a lot of us believe,�€� said Mummert.

Pastor Mummert, meet Father (later Abbot) Gregor Mendel of the Augustinian Order, who worked out the rules of genetic inheritance you’re trying to replace with your own smaller conception of what God is capable of.

Someone in your parish ought to.

If you live in Florida, you are not safe from sexual predators.

One month before a registered sexual offender allegedly kidnapped, raped and murdered 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, Florida law enforcement agencies had lost track of at least 1,800 other sexual offenders statewide, according to a review of Florida’s Sexual Offender/Predator Registry

.

Children in foster care aren’t safe in that state:

“The rate of maltreatment of children in Florida foster care is 2,000 times the maximum permissible rate set by the federal government,” stated Rose Firestein, an attorney at Children’s Rights, a national non-profit child advocacy group that is co-counsel on the Bonnie L. lawsuit. “In the fiscal year 1999-2000, a shockingly high 81 out of every thousand children in Florida’s foster care system were neglected or abused by their foster parents or by the staff at a foster care facility. In contrast, 18.9 out of every thousand children in Florida’s general population were the subjects of a confirmed report of neglect or abuse at the hands of their biological parents or custodians. Unlike the biological parents who maltreated their children, the foster caregivers were selected, trained, approved and paid by DCF (or its agents) to provide a safe place for children to live.”

Here’s a picture of Florida in 2000:

In the year 2000 Florida had an estimated population of 15,982,378 which ranked the state 4th in population. For that year the State of Florida had a total Crime Index of 5,694.7 reported incidents per 100,000 people. This ranked the state as having the 2nd highest total Crime Index. For Violent Crime Florida had a reported incident rate of 812.0 per 100,000 people. This ranked the state as having the 1st highest occurrence for Violent Crime among the states. For crimes against Property, the state had a reported incident rate of 4,882.7 per 100,000 people, which ranked as the state 3rd highest. Also in the year 2000 Florida had 5.6 Murders per 100,000 people, ranking the state as having the 21st highest rate for Murder. Florida�€™s 44.2 reported Forced Rapes per 100,000 people, ranked the state 7th highest. For Robbery, per 100,000 people, Florida�€™s rate was 199.0 which ranked the state as having the 5th highest for Robbery. The state also had 563.2 Aggravated Assaults for every 100,000 people, which indexed the state as having the 2nd highest position for this crime among the states. For every 100,000 people there were 1,081.8 Burglaries, which ranks Florida as having the 3rd highest standing among the states. Larceny - Theft were reported 3,242.9 times per hundred thousand people in Florida which standing is the 5th highest among the states. Vehicle Theft occurred 558.0 times per 100,000 people, which fixed the state as having the 5th highest for vehicle theft among the states.

Considering the repeated efforts Jeb Bush has made for the Schindler family, I think it’s fair to ask what he’s doing to protect the lives of the other 16 million people in the state.

This excellent post by Riggsveda about worker deregulation is spot on. And I believe that the less visible stuff that Bush advances is part of his modus operandi.

He delivers the front page issues like a magician waving his hand, but that’s pure distraction so we won’t notice what’s happening behind his back.

One only needs to look at this, at minimum wage legislation, at the lower pay of post-recession jobs, at oil-fuelled inflation (which his cronies get richer from), and declining healthcare insurance availability, to know how anti-working-American Bush is.

When will Democrats put together the pro-worker comprehensive platform? It is the winning agenda that hasn’t been sold as a package that could cut across ideological lines.

One of the Schiavo protesters in Florida seems to be a registered sex offender, who spent a couple years in jail for sexual battery:

“Heldreth declined to discuss the specifics of the incident that led to his jail time. Online research shows that Heldreth was arrested after an incident at Ohio University and charged with two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping. “

Fascinating, in’nt?

Why does the Right’s “Culture of Life” so often include a gun?

Paul Krugman says it’s time for moderates to take on religious extremists.

Michelle Malkin calls Michael Schiavo’s attorney a ‘ghoul’ for no apparent reason, and says BlogsforTerri is ‘also suspicious.’

And at the latter, the commenters have to be read to understand that their conspiracy theories have been formed less from the news and more from too many murder dramas. Several things come through loud and clear, though. These folks are terrified of death, incapable of understanding the difference between evidence and conjecture, and one - who presumably is claiming to be a nurse? or aide? who provided care for Terri for years - really seems ‘out there’ in her assessment of Terri.

The more I observe their ‘concern’ and their concepts of mercy, the more I feel like the next time I catch a cold, I’d just better shoot myself to be certain I never fall into the clutches of people like these.

I do not believe death by starvation is a hard way to cease living. I do believe that Terri’s brain and soul departed long ago. And I tire even of writing about her, because the only thing about this whole thing that is interesting to me is the reactions of people convinced that their beliefs about Terri are true, and anyone who disagrees is evil.

This isn’t a culture of life. It is an angry cult of madness.

Addendum: Someday, I hope to regain my past practices of blogreading, as I’d surely have remembered to visit Rivka, a doctor, to get her take about this case. She’s nailed it down in spades, from the medical, to the ethical, from very weak religious arguments to her handling by medical providers.

There’s nothing more to be said than what she’s covered, as well as Abstract Appeal (which she links to, with several other good links). So I’ll reserve all comments to new developments only, after her great summary.

Another sharp commenter unhooks her commenting tube and begins blogging without artificial means.

Say hello to Elaine Supkis’ Culture of Life News. (found via Angry Bear.)

Today, I read about one protestor outside the hospice in Florida who turned out to be a registered sex offender who had failed to live up to the judicially proscribed rules for his registered status.

Then Billmon comes up with this.

The private debacle of a private woman is drawing some of the most morally conflicted and corrupt people to it than almost anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. Randall Terry, Tom DeLay, a sex offender, a defender of torture…

The ethics levels of the protestors has almost fallen to the deadly perverse level of the Bush administration.

So I’m waiting for the new (to me) episode of Wire in the Blood to start and I’m surfing. Past CNN. Where I come face to face with a …woman…gorgon…basilisk. Her name is Nancy Grace.

The only writer who could do justice to this woman is Ambrose Bierce. She’s hectoring a reporter who dared to say that Terri Schiavo’s parents are simply seing what they want to see because they don’t want to lose their daughter. Before (or after) then she was hectoring a doctor for saying that people don’t come back from persistent vegetative states. Then she’s hectoring a woman who’s saying that all the court have acted correctly.

This woman is Maggie Thatcher on steroids and without facts.

Then on to, God help us, Larry King. He has on a woman who either survived or whose husband or another relative (I got there in rethorical mid-flight) a brain stem hemorraghe. There’s a hapless doctor trying to point out that it’s not the same thing…

Never mind Paula Zahn, OK?

Between all these stops I have a satori: these people get away with this crap because they know, and purely RELY ON, the fact that most decent people won’t go near them. Ms. Grace and Mr. King, and all the other so-called journalists know that the vast majority of the people they put through hell would rather be sent to Gitmo than have to deal with them face to face, even with the possibility of a nice slander settlement. At the end of the day, Michael Schiavo is going to just go home and try for a normal life, even if he has to move to Australia to get it. Pursuing the bloodsuckers who have been fattening on his wife’s blood is going to be the last thing in his mind. So they are never slapped across the mouth the way they should be. And they go on and on and on…

Me, I’m going back to Wire in the Blood. It’s just a well acted story about a vicious serial killer. Homey and old-fashioned in comparison for what passes for TV these days.

Tom DeLay - March 18th, 2005:

This is a critical issue for people in this position, and it is also a critical issue to fight that fight for life, whether it be euthanasia or abortion. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, one thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what’s going on in America. That Americans would be so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks. I mean, in America that’s going to happen if we don’t win this fight.

LA Times - today:

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

“There was no point to even really talking about it,” Maxine DeLay, the congressman’s 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. “There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew �€” we all knew �€” his father wouldn’t have wanted to live that way.”

Doctors advised that he would “basically be a vegetable,” said the congressman’s aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

When his father’s kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. “Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated,” said his medical report, citing “agreement with the family’s wishes.” His bedside chart carried the instruction: “Do not resuscitate.”

On Dec. 14, 1988, the DeLay patriarch “expired with his family in attendance.”

And there’s more (from the same LAT article):

The family then turned to lawyers. In 1990, the DeLays filed suit against Midcap Bearing Corp. of San Antonio and Lovejoy Inc. of Illinois, the distributor and maker of a coupling that the family said had failed and caused the tram to hurtle out of control.

The family’s wrongful death lawsuit accused the companies of negligence and sought actual and punitive damages. Lawyers for the companies denied the allegations and countersued the surviving designer of the tram system, Jerry DeLay.

The case thrust Rep. DeLay into unfamiliar territory �€” the front page of a civil complaint as a plaintiff. He is an outspoken defender of business against what he calls the crippling effects of “predatory, self-serving litigation.”

The DeLay family litigation sought unspecified compensation for, among other things, the dead father’s “physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and trauma,” and the mother’s grief, sorrow and loss of companionship. Their lawsuit also alleged violations of the Texas product liability law.

. . .

Rep. DeLay, who since has taken a leading role promoting tort reform, wants to rein in trial lawyers to protect American businesses from what he calls “frivolous, parasitic lawsuits” that raise insurance premiums and “kill jobs.”

Now he’s gonna be an expert invited to speak at a National OldWhore’s Club luncheon.

Gannon & Cox.

Besides the punny possibilities, it’s clear, at least, that the modern mass media at least recognizes that it’s no longer in the news business. I hope, for public safety, that their place settings include condoms for the ears.

A little back-story for all you non-Cheeseheads out there:

Former Wisconsin Governor turned Health and Human Services Secretary, Tommy G. Thompson has a little brother. His name is Ed. Ed owns a bar in Tomah, WI called “Mr. Ed’s Tee-Pee.” No joke.

Ed is a little bit nutty.

And in 2002, Ed ran for Governor of Wisconsin himself, on the Libertarian ticket.

He lost.

Since then, he has been the Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin. But, alas, he has stepped down from that position as well.

Ed Thompson did cite a reason for his decision, saying:

(drumroll please….)

“Herding cats from Wisconsin to Texas would be easier” than being a chairman in the Libertarian Party.

That statement alone almost makes me wish I’d voted for the old codger when I had the chance.

It looks like things are really getting interesting in Mexico now, as they prepare for their upcoming Presidential election in 2006.

Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is the far leftist front-runner to take over President Fox’s top spot.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. That’s gonna be one helluva big-ass yard sign.

Seriously though, the events that are unfolding are worth looking into. We’ve got the Fox administration decrying Lopez Obrador’s “populist” stance. We’ve got Mexico’s Congress contemplating doing some legal mumbo jumbo to keep Lopez Obrador out of the race. And we’ve got some pretty radical Lefties who are gonna be mighty pissed off if Congress decides to do that.

That’s even better than Telemundo!

Keep an eye to the South. Things might really start to heat up soon.

An exceptional group investigative effort at DKos provides the fullest background ever on the planted White Houseboy, Gannon/Guckert. I extend my kudos to all participants for what they’ve dug up so far.

As an aside to that, as SusanG noted “Admittedly, few of us could withstand this, such targeted scrutiny, and come up clean. To handle such an onslaught with grace or dignity would be a trial to anyone.”

I suppose that’s true for some. Like myself.

Such a research job into my life would find plenty of places where my judgment could be questioned. Yet I think some distinctions would be in order. For me - and I suspect for many others - the greater errors in judgment occurred when I was young, inexperienced and openly experimenting with life, with idealism and naivete.

In Gannon’s life, his questionable activities - tax debt, advertising on porn sites and a probable career selling sex - occurred at about age 34 for the first, 42 for the porn site and the rest shortly after. The sale of sex is the only one known to be illegal and one would presume few forty-somethings would launch a midlife change into illegal activities.

Most importantly, his journey from those past activities into conservative politics in less than a year, with GOP bigwigs - at state level and White House level - seemingly covering for him is where the red flags are clearly raised. The vetting and clearance processes cannot be so lax, and I think it’s ludicrous to maintain - as the White House has - that he simply escaped detection in their screening. If they stand by that, they’re admitting to gross negligence. But compared to the other alternatives, it remains the best cover story they can put forth.

Maybe the answers will never be known. But they deserve to be pursued. And the researchers to date are clearly putting to shame the national media in pursuit of the truth.

Why was a likely male prostitute granted such access and privilege in such a short period of time when he lacked any reasonable credentials as a journalist? It’s a legitimate question for citizens to ask - especially when a self-proclaimed military officer has posted a review of his sexual performance-for-hire on the internet. How high up was that officer? Was it someone with White House connections?

It’s not Gannon’s sex preferences that provoke these questions. It’s the possibility that Gannon’s escapades could compromise national security if people in our military and government are bending rules out of fears of being outed.

Since privatizing the the theft of billions of dollars stolen from US taxpayers is continuing to succeed, let’s go ahead and let them privatize Social Security.

Clearly, corruption on this grand scale is a moral value the Bush adminisration wants to uphold, so it only makes sense to legalize more stealing while people die. It’s the only patriotic thing to do.

At MyDD, Chris Bowers leads us to a Matt Taibbi piece where he is upset with Taibbi for insinuating that the Democrats might abandon Social Security as a trade-off for National Security credibility. Chris Bowers believes there are unnecessary divisions being created in the Democratic party by some giving themselves the unofficial moniker, “National Security Democrats”. Beating the drums about a national security and foreign affairs gap, Democrats are falling into the frame-trap set by the GOP, which too often shows Democrats as soft on National Security. He claims that the press only gives the big megaphone - the interviews - to those Democrats.

Bowers says:

“….the uniting feature about the big names who joined this group seems to be that they were wrong when it came to Iraq, and that they took a position that was in contradiction to the vast majority of those people who they claim to represent.”

What is the answer to this problem? If I were a Congressional Democrat who’d voted “Yes” to the 2002 Iraq resolution and I was thinking about running for President, I would cautiously watch how I chose to proceed. I believe there is a faction within the Bush administration of whom an overwhleming majority of (left-to-moderate) Democrats not only distrust, but deplore. It is the faction Sy Hersh called “a cult” and it has taken over our nation’s foreign policy. The Iraq War that was promoted by this faction - known as the NeoConservatives - has caused those millions of Democratic voters to deeply distrust any Congressional Democrat who failed to adequately question the merits of the Iraq resolution and raise concerns about the people who were manipulating and interpreting the related intelligence. We now know that MI6 chief Richard Dearlove said that he had briefed Tony Blair, well before the war, that America’s Iraq intelligence was “fixed” to meet the administration’s goal of invading Iraq at all costs.

What any Democrat serious about running for President in 2008 should think about is to start talking about this up-front. It’s their political funeral if they don’t. The mainstream media does not hold the same sway that it once did with informed Democratic voters. The blogs and the internet are a new tour de force in campaigns. Grassroots Democrats are entering the political scene with a force never before witnessed in American politics.

If any Democratic presidential hopeful thinks we want to hear our candidates competing with the NeoConservatives for who’s the tougher cookie, the cookie’s going to crumble. The Democrats should be highly criticizing the NeoConservatives and exposing the part they played in taking our country into the most unwise elective war since Viet Nam.

It’s time we heard something realistic from our Democratic presidential-hopefuls. We aren’t willing to play into any fantasy when it comes to our troops and how we decide to use them. I’m sick and tired of being labeled “a fanatic” for only wanting the truth and openness from our government. Truthfulness and openness are moral values and no one - especially a Republican government of free people - should be exempt from following them.

If Congressional Democrats want our trust back, and if they want our unwavering support, they need to:

- Start talking from a new frame of reference. Stop falling into GOP-frame traps.

- Talk about the process by which we eventually went to pre-emptive war in 2003, and how that process failed miserably…and why. Name the players who deceived the American people - and how they did it. Don’t be shy about it.

- Tell us it’s not going to happen that way - ever again. Make that promise. Our trust in American leadership has been breached. Tell us how your plan is superior to theirs. It will sound more honest and convincing than telling us how tough you wish you were. Why are you afraid? The majority of Americans polled recently agree that this war was not worth the lives it’s taken. Most want our troops home - yesterday.

Another ‘great’ quake has occurred in Indonesia, the highest magnitude level on the scale of definition. Tsunami warnings have been sounded, though scientists aren’t sure if any will occur.

Evacuations were not ordered, but let’s keep our fingers crossed that folks in the region will be spared more devastation, as further reports come in.

From the Washington Post:

An increasing number of pharmacists around the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth-control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

The trend has opened a new front in the nation’s battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over a pharmacist’s right to refuse to participate in something he or she considers repugnant, versus a woman’s right to get medications her doctor has prescribed.

It has triggered pitched political battles in in state legislatures across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized or to force them to carry out their professional duties.

“This is a very big issue that’s just beginning to surface,” said Steven Aden of the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom in Annandale, Va., which defends pharmacists.

“More and more pharmacists are becoming aware of their right to conscientiously refuse to pass objectionable medications across the counter. We are on the very front edge of a wave that’s going to break not too far down the line.”

An increasing number of clashes are occurring. Pharmacists often risk dismissal or other disciplinary action to stand up for their beliefs, while shaken teenage girls and women desperately call their doctors, frequently late at night, after being turned away by sometimes-lecturing men and women in white coats.

“There are pharmacists who will only give birth-control pills to a woman if she’s married. There are pharmacists who mistakenly believe contraception is a form of abortion and refuse to [dispense] it to anyone,” said Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, which tracks reproductive issues. “There are even cases of pharmacists holding prescriptions hostage, where they won’t even transfer it to another pharmacy when time is of the essence.”

One would hope that people in a profession requiring significant amounts of science training would be less prone to surrender their professional judgments to what many consider to be medeivalism. However, I think the first step in determining how to resolve this issue is to conduct a poll to get a clear picture how big the problem is.

I have no doubts that I’ll hear many people disagree with my approach - as the most obvious assessment is that use of birth control and abortion are legals, so any impediment to access to legal medications is interference not only with women’s rights, but patients’ rights, as well.

Yet I think there is a case for the right of pharmacists to live their lives according to their religious beliefs, too.

Read the rest of this entry »

One sign of a disfunctional society is when one’s automatic reaction to official pronouncements is to disbelieve them from the start. As Chris Albritton said about the paranoia of Iraiqis today, they have a reason to be so: For years, Iraqis have had to eat and breathe conspiracy theories because so often there were conspiracies to contend with. Today, the paranoia that the Iraqis display is rooting itself deep in our country, because the lying of our government is ubiquitous and unabashed. It is not hard to believe the worst about our government because those in charge seem incapable of honesty or being ashamed of their duplicity.

But then, what can you expect from an administration that subverted evidence to take the country to war? And then lies to say they care about the soldiers they sent to war when they can’t even equip them adequately so they can give tax cuts to the wealthy? An administration that claims Social Security is doomed if nothing is done. (And, of course, if Bush touches it, it will be doomed to wither and die in a stench of corruption, just like everything else he has touched).

The Bush administration is enamored of propaganda (telling people about the “good news”) without any corresponding action to back up their claims. In their world, the reality is “watch what I say, not what I do.” They believe that Karen Hughes will produce propaganda that will make Iraqis and the Arabic world believe that George Bush really has their interests at heart when he invaded Iraq and when he threatens those who don’t line up behind him.

They have no shame in using our tax dollars to “sell their story” about how wonderful their policies are and even going so far as to produce scores of Video News Releases. Those news reports that the GAO calls covert propaganda and that the President sees no reason to change because it is clearly governmental policy today. Our tax dollars are also used to tell us that Social Security is in dire straits when you call into the Social Security offices and only Bush has the (yet undefined) plan to save it. Our tax dollars go to defang the checks and constaints that once made sure the Congress would have a real oversight function over the workings of the government.

Government employees that once believed their job was to do the people’s business have been told that they are to get with the program or get out. And those who report their concerns to the Office of the Special Counsel in charge of whistle-blowing have now found their concerns and charges dismissed without even a cursory review.

On this week’s OnTheMedia, Jeff Ruch, the spokesperson for PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), discussed a problem about the Office of the Special Counsel which finds no waste, fraud or abuse in the thousand reports that had been sent in that are worthy of investigation.

Scott Bloch, the US Special Counsel, said that since he came in, they doubled the number of cases referred for investigation over last year. And he admitted to Bob Garfield that it was “greater than three cases but less than fifty.” Yet they reviewed over 1000 reports. Bloch has also been hiring people straight from an obscure conservative Catholic college and not following the competitive hiring process, yet he insists that this is nothing to worry about because he is just hiring people that have been recommended to him as highly qualified. And to question his motives or ask what is going on is an attack on the integrity of the people who are just trying to help whistle blowers by responding to their cases in a timely manner.

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