I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation. In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know – -- George W. Bush May 31, 2005Since March of 2002, human rights organization Amnesty International has been pleading with the United States to treat those imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba fairly. Reports of indefinite detention, denial of access to legal counsel, lack of trials, and torture have flown in over the past three years, each time getting excused because those subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment are "terrorists". Even the Red Cross, a typically mild mannered organization that takes care of business and stays out of politics, has blasted the United States for the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Yet, now George Bush tells us that it cannot be true, for the people in Guantanamo Bay despise Old Glory and Lady Liberty; therefore, there is no way that they could possibly be harmed. This language of extreme nationalism urges Americans to pledge allegiance to countries, flags, or organizations over principles, even those as fundamental as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When a country is pushed to a frothing fervor of patriotism from watching tapes of Septemeber 11, 2001 replayed with every news story, and when we are forced to repeat "with us or against us" until our eyes see only the red white and blue or the evil dark skinned enemy, the judgment of a nation flies out the window. The individuals most exposed to this indoctrination of nationalism are the soldiers, those who handle the lives of their opponents after they have been instructed that they are dealing with terrorists, not humans. The greatest test of human rights is not only how a country treats those allied with them, but how they treat those they call "enemy".
May 2005 Archives
Today's edition: High Crimes.
UPDATE: what Daniel Pipes means by "tolerance."
Very interesting AP story this morning about Bob Beauprez's $21,000 trip to Israel that he "forgot" to file paperwork with the House Ethics Committee for (and of course DeGette screwed up to the tune of about $400: let's make sure that gets equal time).
It's no secret that we find the cozy relationship between Beauprez and Tom DeLay (R-TX), whether by direct financial cross-support, a practically identical voting record, or merely the same variety of ethical miscues, fairly questionable.
But I thought it would be interesting to do a little research into exactly what kind of "conference" Beauprez was attending in late November of 2004 in Jerusalem, being sufficiently out of his routine that he "never knew" to file a report with the Ethics Committee. The infamous neocon firebreather Daniel Pipes was also there, but Beauprez had the distinction of being the only American elected official to speak.
And then my little Tuesday morning diversion got interesting.
Rep. Robert Beauprez was one of those to address the Summit on Monday, with a topic entitled, "Assessing the UN: The Search for Alternative Approaches."
Beauprez spoke of the fabrication and untruths spread by Israel's enemies, adding, "When truths go unchallenged, peace is a casualty; when untruths are tolerated, good people die." Beauprez added that some 3,400 years ago, the current day's truths were established at Mount Sinai when G-d gave the Torah.
"If the United Nations continues to be dysfunctional," the Congressman said, "then other means must be sought" to bring an end to the ongoing conflict. Along these lines, the 2004 Jerusalem Summit features an innovative new concept called the Council of Civilizations - an international body intended to offer an alternative model to the United Nations.
Beauprez wasn't the only Jerusalem Summit speaker to call for the establishment of a new international body of democratic states to implement the charter of the United Nations. Many speakers claimed that the UN has neglected its original mandate...
Beauprez had been invited to speak at a summit on tolerance and anti-Semitism and America's relationship with Israel, [Beauprez spokesman] Stoick said.
This morning's Greeley Trib asks the question: "What's in it for me?"
Plenty, mister, plenty. C&D represent the second half of last November's mandate for change in Colorado. It's time for the voters to close the deal:
Whether you are a University of Northern Colorado student, a parent of a public school student or a Weld County resident who commutes to work, officials have some reasons why you should vote for Referendum C and Referendum D in November.
Greeley-Evans District 6 School Board member Bruce Broderius said people concerned about public education should know that the ballot questions would translate into more money for Colorado's public schools, which rank 48th in the nation for state funding.
"That's just unspeakable," said Broderius, a retired university professor. Referendum C requires that all extra revenue the state would collect is earmarked for health care, transportation and public schools, colleges and universities.
Some of the biggest supporters of referendums C and D are universities in the state, and that includes administrators at the University of Northern Colorado.
UNC has watched state funding dramatically decrease under Tax Payers Bill of Rights restrictions in recent years. The state has cut funding to the university by 25 percent since the 2003 fiscal year, from $44.8 million to $33.6 million.
UNC President Kay Norton said the cuts force the state's universities to depend more on tuition to cover costs, making Colorado's public schools more like private schools. This is troubling, because it allows for a backdoor move toward privatization without public input, Norton said.
"If we are going to de-invest or privatize our institutions, lets make it a debate," Norton said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Harpers dives deep on the Soldiers of Christ,the biggest megachurch in Colorado Springs and its pastor, who is the biggest political influence for the right wing in the country.
Every bit as whacked as you'd feared...
...In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation's most powerful religious lobbying group...
...(Pastor Ted) ... called the evil forces that dominated Colorado Springs-and every other metropolitan area in the country-"Control."
...Sometimes, he says, Control would call him late on Saturday night, threatening to kill him.
...He sent teams to pray in front of the homes of supposed witches-in one month, ten out of fifteen of his targets put their houses on the market.
...The old city core of Colorado Springs withers into irrelevance thirteen miles south; New Life leads the charge north, toward fusion with Denver and Boulder and a future of one giant front-range suburb, a muddy wave of big-box stores and beige tract houses eddying along roads so new they had yet to be added to the gas-station map I bought. Some Sundays traffic backs up from the church half a mile in all four directions.
...The Prayer Center-a joint effort of several fundamentalist organizations but located at and presided over by New Life-houses a bookstore that when I visited was called the Arsenal (its name has since been changed to Solomon's Porch), as well as "corporate" prayer rooms, personal "prayer closets," hotel rooms, and the headquarters of Global Harvest, a ministry dedicated to "spiritual warfare." (The Prayer Center's nickname in the fundamentalist world is "spiritual NORAD.")
...The Prayer Team screen, whether viewed at the center or on a monitor at home, is split between "Individual Focus Requests," such as the above, and "Worldwide Focus" requests, which are composed by the staff of the World Prayer Center. Sometimes these are domestic-USA: Pray for the Arlington Group, pastors working with Whitehouse to renew Marriage Amendm. Pray for appts. of new justices. Pray for Pastor meetings with Amb. of Israel, and President Bush. Lord, let them speak only your words, represent YOU! Bless! But more often they are international- N. KOREA: Pray God will crush demonic stronghold and communist regime of Kim Jung Il.
...Free-market economics is a "truth" Ted says he learned in his first job in professional Christendom, as a Bible smuggler in Eastern Europe. Globalization, he believes, is merely a vehicle for the spread of Christianity. He means Protestantism in particular; Catholics, he said, "constantly look back."
..."In America the descendants of the Protestants, the Puritan descendants, we want to create a better future, and our speakers say that sort of thing. But with the influx of people from Mexico, they don't tend to be the ones that go to universities and become our research-and-development people. And so in that way I see a little clash of civilizations."
So the Catholics are out, and the battle boils down to evangelicals versus Islam. "My fear," he says, "is that my children will grow up in an Islamic state."
And that is why he believes spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart. "I teach a strong ideology of the use of power," he says, "of military might, as a public service." He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible's exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because "the Bible's bloody. There's a lot about blood."
...Then they talked about the tsunami and wondered with concern whether any of the city's preachers would try to score points off it. When I mentioned that Pastor Ted already had, they cringed. I told them that at the previous Sunday's full-immersion baptism service, Pastor Ted had noted that the waves hit the "number-one exporter of radical Islam," Indonesia. "That's not a judgment," he'd announced. "It's an opportunity." I told them of similar analyses from Pastor Ted's congregation: one man said that he wished he could "get in there" among the survivors, since their souls were "ripe," and another told me he was "psyched" about what God was "doing with His ocean."
...Just as we conform ourselves to God's will, so, said Ted, must "the Woman." The Woman must take on her man's calling, her man's desire.
"Mmm-hmmm," murmured Linda, eyes closed.
In return, Pastor Ted continued, the Woman gets the Man's love; authority just wants to serve. "Total surrender!" he called. "True or false?"
"TRUE!" answered the 8,000 assembled.
Today: C&D, and what you get in the bargain.
Beauprez/DeLay is more than just ARMPAC money, busy Memorial Day for protesters, and Little John notes that respecting veterans requires more than yellow magnet-ribbons.
Plus: George W. Bush, more lame-duck than ever.
NOTE: some news sites require free registration in order to read their stories.
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UPDATE: Donkey Den sues for peace.
Nightclubs have always been the home of that lovely meat market genesequa creating a hostile and unfavorable environment for feminists. However, Denver's very own Donkey Den (11th and Lincoln) has taken this to a new level.
Taking its name from the famous Tijuana strip clubs and brothels housing sex slavery industries that pimp out girls as young as age 8 after they have been kidnapped from their homes in Mexico. (http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/296058p-253464c.html) There is also a famous rumor of "donkey dens" hosting "donkey shows" where women are said to be tied down only to be penetrated by barn yard animals. The Donkey Den in Denver proudly boasts this reference, calling themselves "Tijuana, Colorado" (www.donkeyden.com)
I first became aware of this establishment through the title of their recommended burger, the Donkey Punch Burger, accompanied by their logo of a boxing donkey. A "donkey punch" is an act of sexual assault and rape in which a man will punch his partner (generally a woman) in the back of the head as hard as he can prior to orgasm in order to 1) cause her body to clench up, or 2) for surprise penetration of the anus. Such a punch is also an illegal boxing move that can cause serious and permanent injury to the brain stem. (http://www.answers.com/donkey%20punch)
The Donkey Punch burger can be accompanied by a side of "Ho-made Fries".
While freedom of speech, even when applied to offensive speech must be upheld, we can add this business to our list of boycotts.
P.S. For those feeling abitious, here is the phone number to the Donkey Den. (303) 832-4100, I think you know what to do.
Fly Old Glory proudly on days like today, my liberal compañeros.
Washington fought for a country founded on the ideals of religious pluralism, political freedom, and economic opportunity. The hard-won additions of racial equality, universal suffrage, and safe workplaces gave millions more Americans a stake in her future. Waves of immigrants proudly claimed the American flag as their own.
Patriotism is justified for the majority of Americans because of the tireless work of progressive reformers throughout our history to include them in the Dream.
The American flag flew over civil rights marches fifty years ago, as the country moved closer to reconciling with the hypocritical sins of her past. Indeed it flew over both sides in that battle, though the eventual victor can claim the Founding Fathers' mandate today without argument.
They too were branded 'unpatriotic.' But Jefferson's own deep conflicts over racial inequality were answered: first in the Civil War, then by Martin Luther King. History has judged this one, though the struggle isn't over. Today, other victims of bigotry step forward to assert their equality -- and the Founding Fathers are with them, too.
The flag flies today over American dissidents, expressing through street protest outrage at the course their country has chosen in the last four years. Vilified as 'traitors,' 'communists,' and 'un-American,' they supply this country with the same conscience that proved our national salvation in 1776.
And the preponderance of fact is demonstrating their wisdom, yet again...
"My country, right or wrong" doesn't mean you ever stop trying to make it right. And despite what Bill O'Reilly says, patriotic Americans have a sacred duty to never, ever "shut up."
Happy Memorial Day.
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This Memorial Day, with half the country in denial and the other half accused of treason for daring to ask the question, it's a good time to love the sinner and hate the sin (like Dr. Dobson says).
God bless our brave troops in Iraq, losing their lives in a war they should have never been asked to fight.
God bless our troops at Guantanamo Bay, who like other famous jailers before them "know not what they do."
God bless all our men and women in uniform, even misguided apologists like Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers.
The human rights group Amnesty International released a report last week calling the prison camp "the gulag of our time."
Myers said that report was "absolutely irresponsible." He said the U.S. was doing its best to detain fighters who, if released, "would turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's throats."
"This is a different kind of struggle, a different kind of war," Myers said on "Fox News Sunday."
Edition 1: May 21-28, 2005
This is an update regarding the state of women in countries across the globe based on topics of health, violence, political power, and the overall status of women in this world in regards to progressive issues. The source of each news story can be found below the summary.
International News
"Exposed: how cigarette firms target women"
Recent documents obtained from "big tobacco" show that companies have done extensive sociological, scientific, and psychological research to determine the best way to target female consumers. Some ideas bounced off board meetings include adding appetite suppressants to cigarettes to act as a weight-loss aid. Companies have also performed strategic studies to reach women in countries with large numbers of female non-smokers.
By Sophie Goodchild, Home Affairs Correspondent
The Independent -- London -- Sunday May 29 2005
Canada
Rates of violence against women still astounding
Kevin Spurgaitis
"Canada's rates of male violence against women are still staggering, advocates say. Statistics Canada reports that 61 per cent of sexual assault victims are youths — mostly females — under the age of 17. And in the majority of reported cases, victims are familiar with the accused. According to the central statistical agency, physical, sexual and psychological violence remains a major factor in women's health and well-being. Their shared medical costs, which exceed $1.5 billion every year, include those for short-term therapy for injuries, long- term physical and psychological care, as well as the use of transition homes and crisis centres."
May 26, 2005
Catholic New Times
England
Though Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that the "Minister of Women" was a critical element of his government, he did not put the new minister, Meg Munn, on payroll for this position. Ms. Munn will receive payment for her normal parliamentary work, however, she must work her new appointment as a volunteer position.
Egypt
Calls for Reform Met With Brutality
During a democracy protest in Egypt, supporters of President Mubarak were reportedly encouraged by government officials, including riot police, to beat and sexually assault protesters. Police and these mobs are reported to have targeted women specifically.
India
"70-year-old Woman Commits Sati in Uttar Pradesh Village"
A 70 year old woman reportedly jumped into the flame of the funeral pyre of her husband following his May 6th death. Police are investigating this case to see if the woman was forced.
The Hindu -- Thursday May 26 2005
"Girl beheaded"
A 15 year old girl walking to school was beheaded by a 20 year old man and his accomplice beheaded her in broad daylight. The 20 year old reportedly had made sexual advances at this girl, all of which she reportedly scorned.
The Hindu -- Thursday May 26 2005
Kuwait
After 20 years of protest, the parliament of Kuwait approved measure to allow women to vote. In an effort to please conservatives, a phrase was added to election law stating "females abide by Islamic law", a clause that may interfere with future voting.
Pakistan
"15 Year Old Gang Raped by Police in Capital City"
After being pulled over in a car with her mother and three other adults (one other woman), a 15 year old girl was raped in Islamabad, Pakistan. The other woman in the vehicle also reported being raped numerous times.
Gang rape by police have been frequent occurrences in Pakistan as of late.
The News International - Pakistan
Tuesday May 24, 2005-- Rabi-us-Sani 15, 1426 A.H.
Turkey
A favored television show in Istanbul titled "Kadinin Sesi" (Women’s Voice), which covered issues of women in the home including violence was cancelled. The cancellation was prompted by a woman who had appeared as a guest on the show being shot by her 14 year old son. The woman had appeared on the show to speak about her experiences as an abused wife, and the shooting was allegedly ordered by the boy’s father.
"Kadinin Sesi" has frequently been criticized for not protecting female guests after they are broadcast sharing what is generally considered private information.
U.S.
"Army recruiter is charged with rape"
On the day that the Army called a "stand down" on recruiting nationally, a Gainesville, FL Army Recruiter was arrested for charges of sexual battery. The accused, George O. Kirkman is said to have told a 20 year old potential recruit that she was overweight. Offering to take her to a gym, Kirkman took the woman to his apartment, had her take a standard recruiting computer test, measured her body "for a uniform", and then raped her.
Since October 1, Army officials claimed to have investigated 480 charges of misconduct.
Article published May 21, 2005
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050521/LOCAL/5052005 3/1078/news
Courtesy of Feminist Peace Network
According to the World Economic Forum, the United States ranks 17th in a report on gender equity internationally. Issues covered are "economic participation, political empowerment, educational attainment, and access to health for women", though it does not cover abortion. Countries ranking the highest were Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. The US fell behind Canada, France, and the UK.
California’s Governor Schwarzenegger has placed a "parental consent" for abortion item as a referendum on the ballot for a potential special election. This state election will potentially be held in the fall. 33 other states require parental consent or notice for a woman under age 18 to have an abortion including Colorado.
Following Filibuster Compromise, Senate Prepares to Confirm Priscilla Owen to U.S. Appeals Court
After a long Senate battle in regards to court nominees, anti-choice activist and judge Priscilla Owen will be appointed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Owen has consistently been criticized by pro-choice organizations for allowing her own morality and personal alliances influence fair judgement.
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, stated Americans do not support the Senate giving a green light to [efforts] to stack the federal courts with nominees who would roll back individual freedoms and overturn Roe v. Wade."
Wednesday, May 25th, 2005
Democracy Now! Headlines
A majority of this update was made possible by Feminist Peace Network and their Atrocities mailing list.
As many expected, Governor Owens vetoed SB 28 yesterday, denying employment equality to gay and lesbian Coloradans.
Speaker Romanoff is "deeply, deeply disappointed." I can't say that I'm disappointed - I expected our Radical Right governor to do the bidding of James Dobson and Arch Bishop Chaput. Pissed off and resolute more accurately describes how I'm feeling.
One of my favorite playrights, Tony Kushner, said it best. At the end of Kushner's Angels in America, the play's protagonist has survived the panic and intolerance of the early years of AIDS. With optimism and determination he's looking toward a new decade and says "The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come."
Governor Owens, I am a citizen of this country, entitled to full equality under the law. The time for you and your bigoted, narrow-minded kind is passing. The power you feel to deny me or anyone else equality is fading.
Don't believe me? Have a conversation with my partner's father. He's a retired conservative evangelical pastor - a lifelong Republican. This past week, an RNC telemarketer called him asking for money, and he told her that he is no longer a Republican. When she asked why, he said "I don't like the way Republicans treat gays. My son is gay."
You see, Governor Owens, we're no longer willing to sit in the back of the bus. We're determined to be treated as citizens. And every day, in conversations over dinner tables, in the grocery line, and at the water cooler, we're helping our friends, families and co-workers understand the many ways that we are denied equality. When enough of those conversations have happened, the tide will turn.
When he declared his culture war on this country, James Dobson said that two "incompatible worldviews are locked in a bitter conflict" and that someday soon "a winner will emerge and the loser will fade from memory." I couldn't agree more.
UPDATE: Governor Owens now has the distinction of being only the second governor to veto a bill extending employment non-discrimination to include sexual orientation (joining Pete Wilson from CA).
"Don't you want to push the button?
The shiny red button? The candy-like button?"
I'm not overly enamored with the "Gang of 14" and this dubious compromise that got Priscilla Owen her lifetime pulpit appointment this week.
Then again, James Dobson is really upset about it.
This was just a rehearsal for the main event in a couple of months, so you can be assured the visions of Armageddon are still dancing in Dr. Dobson's head...
.. the ACLU, whose FOIA fight has unearthed this lovely DOD email (via TalkLeft, via democratic underground reader):
DETAINEES-2797B
E-mail (from CTD employee to Frankie Battle) noting that sender is forwarding this EC up the chain of command, concerning alleged impersonation of FBI Agents at GTMO
12/05/03
Same document as Detainee-2797 with the following unredacted: "Of concern, DOD interrogators impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI told a detainee that the FBI…" and "These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee." and "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done (by) the "FBI" interrogators. The FBI will (be) left holding the bag before the public."
I don't know about you, but I sense renewed threats of the "nuclear option" in just about everything that comes out of their mouths these days.
White House officials declined yesterday to give senators the extra documents they are seeking regarding John R. Bolton, President Bush's choice to become ambassador to the United Nations, setting up a major standoff with Senate Democrats over the long-troubled nomination.
"John Bolton enjoys majority [Senate] support, and it's a shame that Democrats are stopping a vote," said Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman. "This is about partisan politics, not documents."
Forty-one senators voted against closing off debate on Bolton -- enough to kill his nomination through indefinite delay, although some Democrats may be uncomfortable about mounting a filibuster amid Republican charges of obstructionism.
Path Cleared for Chief Justice's Retirement
"There's just no better time for Rehnquist to leave than now, from a political standpoint," said John McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University who worked in the administration of Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush.
There are few places more tightly closeted than the bastian of male athletics. ESPN.com has a great story about a gay All-American athlete. Not a story you hear very often.
But his story is important to tell and his story is my story as well. I too was a collegiate lacrosse goalie (alright, I'm female and I wasn't an All-American, but I still have a record or two on the books at Guilford College). I too came out to my team and endured the fear and support of that action. I too helped others see beyond the gay labels and reach a greater level of acceptance.
Please read the story of Andrew Goldstein, goalie for Dartmouth Men's Lacroose and a gay All-American.
"Here was one of our teammates, and he's been in the showers and locker room with us the whole time and we had no idea," said Brad Heritage, a junior midfielder. "And not that it makes a difference, but it was just kind of a new experience, like something none of us had ever faced before in any of the team sports we'd ever been a part of."
"I don't want to say we treated it as, almost like a disease at first, but it was just something we were unsure about," Nicholson said. "We didn't know how to approach it, and there was that awkward stage.
"I think Andrew felt that, as well. He wouldn't shower with us after practice. Initially, he wouldn't shower with us after games."
When the news had settled on the team, a number of Goldstein's teammates apologized. It occurred to them that, in the macho, testosterone-charged atmosphere of the lacrosse locker room, they had probably offended their teammate countless times over the seasons.
"You know, the inappropriate jokes. Just any homophobic reference," Nicholson said. "I know a lot of guys felt terrible. That's the first thing they all thought, too, was 'I hope, man, I hope I didn't piss him off. I hope I didn't make him upset for dumb things I might have said along the way that I really didn't mean.' "
Said Goldstein: "These kids aren't trying to be hurtful. Every male growing up in America right now uses the term 'gay' to mean stupid or lame. I mean, it's pretty tough to change that – that's the culture."
And yet Goldstein did change the culture around him – and not in the disastrous way he had envisioned.
"I'm here for you," he wrote. "I'm your teammate. I'm your defenseman, and you're my goalie."
Goldstein was touched.
"He wasn't literally patting me on the back, but I felt like there was, there was a hand on my back, pushing me forward and supporting me," Goldstein said. "There's really no feeling like that."
Sometimes, it makes people a little uncomfortable. The artist usually intends that.
An episode of NBC's headline-derived police show "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" got a bit too realistic for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) when a fictional detective quipped that the lawmaker may have inspired the murder of a judge.
The Wednesday night episode appeared to be loosely based on the recent killings of the husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow in Chicago. In one scene of the show, two detectives look into whether a white supremacist might be behind the crime. When they learn of a seemingly related crime, the murder of a black judge, one of the detectives wisecracks:
"Maybe we should put out an APB [all points bulletin] for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt."
The quip was an apparent reference to DeLay's remarks suggesting that judges who failed to prevent the removal of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo's feeding tube would have to "answer for their behavior."
The show's mention of DeLay prompted him to write NBC complaining about the "brazen lack of judgment." The show's creator, Dick Wolfe, said DeLay was "switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."
A little belated, but as seen on 9NEWS:
1. Wants less government everywhere, except for other people's bedrooms.
2. Can't decide whether they've gotten over Terri Schiavo enough to deal with the runaway bride.
3. Likes to do in private what he bashes in public.
4. Wardrobe consists entirely of ironed Dockers and button-down shirts.
5. Doesn't approve of his gay neighbor, but has never made an effort to get to know him.
6. Eats at Hooters, then calls the FCC over Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.
7. If Rush Limbaugh didn't say it, they haven't thought it.
8. Owns a purebred dog and has the papers to prove it.
9. Wants all Mexican's to return to Mexico, except for the ones cleaning his house and mowing his lawn.
10. Actually believes that Fox News Channel is really fair and balanced.
John Andrews served up the other side of the story.
Today: Owens signs some good bills for a change.
Plus: your Daily DeLay (TRMPAC-down edition), Pentagon admits to some Koran abuse at Guantanamo, and Big Brother wants your college transcript.
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Her name is unique and so are her actions.
Thanks be to Senfronia Thompson, a member the Texas State Legislature. Molly Ivins brought her actions to our attention this week with a wonderful column.
Ms. Thompson's words stand out in a time when so much hatred is being spewed. Please read these words carefully and then take the time to send her an email of thanks. Let her know how much we appreciate her.
In response to HJR6, a proposed amendment to the Texas state constitution to ban gay marriage:
Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination. . . . When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk about 'protecting the institution of marriage' as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum's color, you'd often find the people of my color hanging from a tree. . . . Fifty years ago, white folks thought interracial marriages were 'a threat to the institution of marriage.'
"Members, I'm a Christian and a proud Christian. I read the good book and do my best to live by it. I have never read the verse where it says, 'Gay people can't marry.' I have never read the verse where it says, 'Thou shalt discriminate against those not like me.' I have never read the verse where it says, 'Let's base our public policy on hate and fear and discrimination.' Christianity to me is love and hope and faith and forgiveness -- not hate and discrimination.
"I have served in this body a lot of years, and I have seen a lot of promises broken. . . . So . . . now that blacks and women have equal rights, you turn your hatred to homosexuals, and you still use your misguided reading of the Bible to justify your hatred. You want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you can go home and brag -- brag about what? Declare that you saved the people of Texas from what?
Corroboration, anyone?
Formerly secret FBI records cite Koran claims
Terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison told U.S. interrogators as early as April 2002, just three months after the first detainees arrived, that military guards abused them and desecrated the Koran, declassified FBI records say.
Documents Say Detainees Cited Koran Abuse
The agent reports that the detainee said the use of the Koran as a tool in interrogation had been a mistake. "Interrogators who had taken the Koran from individual detainees as a reprisal or incentive to cooperate had failed," the detainee said, adding that the only result would be "the damage caused to the reputation of the United States once what had occurred was released to the world."
The disclosures Wednesday did not support the specific assertions in the original Newsweek item that military investigators concluded that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet. They do, however, reinforce the contentions of human rights advocates and lawyers for detainees that accusations of purposeful mishandling of the Koran were common.
Mr. Jaffer of the A.C.L.U. said the errors in the Newsweek report had been improperly used to discredit other information about abusive practices at Guantanamo "that were not based on anonymous sources, but government documents, reports written by F.B.I. agents."
This is how you respond to intimidation from the theocrats. Via Kos:
From: Marc Firestone, Executive Vice President, Corporate Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Kraft Foods Inc.
Subject: Kraft's Contribution to 2006 Gay Games
The true test of any commitment is how you respond when challenged. Kraft is experiencing this to a degree right now, as a result of our decision to be one of several contributors to the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago. The games will bring together thousands of athletes in a competition that will take place in our corporate hometown.
In recent days, the company has received many e-mails, the majority of them generated through the America Family Association, which objects to our sponsorship. We also have received calls and e-mails - - not as many, but equally passionate - - thanking us for supporting this event. A member of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's team said, "We applaud the businesses that are sponsors of the Gay Games, including Kraft Foods."
. . . While Kraft certainly doesn't go looking for controversy, we have long been dedicated to support the concept and the reality of diversity. It's the right thing to do and it's good for our business and our work environment.
Diversity makes us a stronger company and connects us with the diversity that exists among the consumers who buy our products.
. . . It's easy to say you support a concept or a principle when nobody objects. The real test of commitment is how one reacts when there are those who disagree. I hope you share my view that our company has taken the right stand on diversity, including its contribution to the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago.
If you're like me, you're sick to death of the Righties pushing their narrow agenda that caters to a handful of theocrats and the corporate elite. Today, Harry Reid laid out an agenda for America much more to my liking:
Americans are coming to realize this Republican Congress is out of touch with the real problems of working families and that the agenda the Republicans are advancing is at odds with what people in this country really care about.
We Democrats have something better to offer. A reform agenda that will cleanse Washington, give power to the people - not special interests, and make sure that everyday Americans and their concerns get back on the Congressional calendar.
Strengthening our national defense. Rebuilding our economy. Providing families with affordable health care. Making America energy independent. Securing our retirement. That's our agenda. That's America's agenda. But the Republican Congress has put all this and more on hold. I hope that now we can finally turn to the people's business.
Continue reading The Use of Power: An Agenda for Reform.
Colorado Mountain College needs more space to meet the needs of thousands of students spread out over 12,000 square miles, 12 campuses and three national forests.
And no college in Colorado is exactly rolling in it at the moment.
As schools around the country (and particularly here in TABOR-choked Colorado) look to meet their growing budgets with less help from the state, there's a powerful temptation to "partner" with business to make ends meet.
As with all such deals with the devil, there's a price:
A $6 million capital campaign for a new Colorado Mountain College campus in Rifle is halfway to that goal after EnCana Oil and Gas presented college officials with a $3 million donation Wednesday...
EnCana President Roger Biemans said the new campus would help train natural-gas-industry workers, a critical need as the area's gas development continues to increase.
Today: get behind Referendum C, or (best Soup Nazi voice) "no college for you!"
Folks got involved in the 2004 elections in a big way (for good or ill), Governor on a 'give workers the shaft' spree, DeGette's triumph with an eye towards the battle ahead, and the Denver Post says that sanctuary begins in Tom Tancredo's basement.
Okay, they didn't mention the basement.
Plus: the Daily DeLay (getting exactly what he wants edition), more government-documented evidence of Koran abuse to Newsweek's rescue, and Amnesty International's stinging indictment of the "gulag of our time."
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No wonder Bush likes Putin! .. ... the Post actually has a clear article articulating the means by which a small cabal of right wing extremists have jerked American governance away from its representative roots!!
Bet it dies in the more general media.
Excerpts:
Bush created a top-down system in the White House much like the one his colleagues have in Congress. He has constructed what many scholars said amounts to a virtual oligarchy with Cheney, Karl Rove, Andrew H. Card Jr., Joshua Bolton, himself and only a few others setting policy, while he looks to Congress and the agencies mostly to promote and institute his policies...
...Light said Bush has essentially turned most of the agencies into political arms of the White House. "It's not just weakening agencies but strengthening political control of the agencies," he said.
Major policies such as Social Security are produced in the White House, while Cabinet heads and their staffs are tethered. After the 2004 election, the White House began requiring Cabinet members to spend as long as four hours a week working in an office near the West Wing...
...Bush has demanded similar loyalty from GOP lawmakers -- and received it. Republicans have voted with the president, on average, about nine out of 10 times. Critics and some scholars charge that the Congress now seldom performs its constitutional duty of providing oversight of the executive branch through tough investigations and hearings.
This has coincided with a dramatic increase in overall government secrecy. In 1995, the government created about 3.6 million secrets. In 2004, there more than 15.5 million, according to the government's Information Security Oversight Office. The White House attributes the rise in information the public cannot see to the security threats in a post-Sept. 11, 2001, world....
..."We have never had this kind of control over information," said Allan J. Lichtman, a professor of history at American University. "It means policy is being made by a small clique without much public scrutiny."
Now, the Republicans, with the support of the White House, are looking to reshape the courts in their image. The Senate's bipartisan compromise on judges will cost the president a few of his nominees to the appeals court but will require him to secure only 50 votes for future picks for the Supreme Court and other openings. If Democrats filibuster, Bush and Republican senators can move again to pull the trigger on the "nuclear option" and, if successful, prevent the minority party from ever again using the filibuster on judges. "I will not hesitate to use it if necessary," Frist said this week.
The NY Times has the goods on the new 5th Circuit Appellate Judge. Shorter version: Rove client; anti-any minority of any stripe; big-time oil and gas attorney; Ms. Divorced without Children Religious Dysfunction. Yikes:
She chose opinions overturning rulings in favor of a child born with birth defects, a worker injured on an oil rig, a nurse fired for blowing the whistle on a drug-dealing co-worker, a family with an interest in an oil field that had been drained by a nearby company, asbestos and breast-implant plaintiffs and a student whose school made him cut his hair.
"She represents a part of the Texas culture that is basically a frontier mentality," said Linda S. Eads, a law professor at Southern Methodist University and a former deputy attorney general of Texas who supports Ms. Owen's nomination...
... Mr. Rove managed Ms. Owen's Republican candidacy for the Texas Supreme Court in 1994, and she often campaigned with George W. Bush, another Rove client, who was running for governor. Ms. Owen, Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove became close friends. Each year, Ms. Owen cooked a dinner of quail. a Texas specialty, for Mr. Bush, Laura Bush and other judges on the court, usually at Mr. Rove's home, said Justice Nathan Hecht, a conservative ally of Ms. Owen on the bench.
In more recent years, Ms. Owen also became much more religious, her sister said. Republicans have lauded her role as a founding member of St. Barnabas Church, a theologically conservative congregation in Austin
With everyone debating who won and who lost in the filibuster deal, one thing seems clear. Bill Frist definitely took a hit.
For the uninitiated in presidential primaries, Manchester's conservative Union Leader has a lot to say about who gets the nod in New Hampshire's all-important primary. And they're not impressed with Dr. Frist.
As Huttner has said to the press, we're proud of Senator Salazar for his work in preserving the filibuster, but it's a sad day when someone as extreme as Priscilla Owen gets a lifetime appointment to the Court of Appeals. Conservatives already dominate the federal bench. Now they're just piling on.
Too good:
Monday's surprise deal left two of the party's most prominent potential 2008 candidates, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), on opposite sides of an ideological and strategic divide that is likely to widen as the party begins in earnest to hunt for a successor to Bush. Perhaps mindful of the power of social and religious conservatives, other GOP senators with presidential aspirations, including George Allen (Va.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.), condemned the deal.
The compromise forged by 14 Democratic and Republican senators represented a rare, if temporary, rebuff to religious and social conservatives. Their condemnations, whether from James Dobson's Focus on the Family, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh or conservative bloggers, were quick and strong. Dobson labeled it a "complete bailout and betrayal," and Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, branded the GOP negotiators "seven dwarves" who had given Democrats the right to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee.
David Brock is definitely making up for The Real Anita Hill. Media Matters weighs in on the top 10 judicial filibuster falsehoods.
Thank you, Senator Salazar, for helping avert a nuclear meltdown in the Senate. But don't mind us if we aren't relaxing just yet.
Already there is noise from the Right of trying to kill the deal.
And the White House reminds us that all bets are off when it's time to replace Rehnquist:
Advisers said neither the deal brokered by Senate centrists nor Democratic opposition would change the president's calculus in picking the next justice. "He's not going to shy away," said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no vacancy has been announced. "The Democrats can throw high and tight fastballs if they want, but it's not going to work."
(g) ;
Activists in Kansas want to ban any reference to the 20th century from school textbooks.
And for some light in the darkness . . . I can't believe I missed this nugget from a diarist on Kos:
April '05 marks "the sixth consecutive month where FNC declined versus prior month in M-F, primetime P25-54 (every month since Nov '04)," CNN's press release says. The 25-54 demo is coveted by advertisers. One insider called it a "downward spiral." FNC still has more demo viewers than CNN, though (443k vs. 304k in April).
Here are FNC's month-by-month weekday primetime averages in the 25-54 demographic:
Oct. 04: 1,074,000 /
Nov. 04: 891,000 /
Dec. 04: 568,000 /
Jan. 05: 564,000 /
Feb. 05: 520,000 /
March 05: 498,000 /
April 05: 445,000
This is a 58% drop in 6 months
Also: In April 2005, FNC's weekday primetime demo average decreased 25% compared to the year-ago, while CNN increased 27%
Good to know we're safer... here are my Reuters headlines, unedited, in my RSS reader this morning:
Interpol says world should prepare for bioterrorism
NICOSIA (Reuters) -
5/25/2005 7:32:32 AM
U.S. leads global attack on human rights -Amnesty
LONDON (Reuters) - Four years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
5/25/2005 7:21:56 AM
Iran, EU in crisis talks on Tehran's nuclear plans
GENEVA (Reuters) -
5/25/2005 7:20:17 AM
Putin slams power monopoly after big Moscow outage
MOSCOW (Reuters) -
5/25/2005 7:19:14 AM
U.S. troops sweep western Iraqi town for militants
BAGHDAD (Reuters) -
5/25/2005 6:20:32 AM
N.Korea unmoved despite U.S. contact--Czech leader
SEOUL (Reuters) -
5/25/2005 6:16:36 AM
China dismisses apologies, Japan tries to cool row
BEIJING/TOKYO (Reuters) -
5/25/2005 4:56:35 AM
.. . that Rumsfeld gave the order to shoot down the Cessna, and the military was within 15 seconds of carrying that out...
Remember McClellan's response at the press briefing? Wasn't it; "As far as I know, we never came close to that sort of decision"..
And Bush himself, of course, never knew anything...
WMD, Tillman, Abu Ghraib, this forgotten factoid..
Demonize, deny, and divert truth and those who speak it, and you destroy democracy...
BTW, there is an effort now underway to transfer intercept authority from the military to the Coast Guard, which has authority to use lethal force without having to check with the chain of command.
Which would have meant the Cessna would certainly have been downed ... without even Rumsfeld giving the OK ....
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Now that the fight to save the filibuster is over, the next big battle is heating up over stem cell research. Colorado Representative Diana DeGette is sponsoring a bill along with Michael Castle, a Republican from Delaware, that would increase access to stem-cell lines.
From CNN.com:
The House Tuesday debated a controversial bill that would expand public funding for embryonic stem cell research, a measure President Bush last week threatened to veto.
The legislation would extend funding to research on embryonic stem cell lines that were nonexistent in 2001, when Bush limited funding to lines in existence at the time. According to scientists, many if not all of the previous lines are now contaminated and unusable.
Stem cell research has been touted by scientists as a possible step toward finding cures for diseases and afflictions including Alzheimer's, cancer and paralysis. Among its most vocal supporters is former first lady Nancy Reagan, whose husband, former President Ronald Reagan, died of Alzheimer's in June 2004.
But, Bush said Friday, "I made very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life, I'm against that. Therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it."
Bush claims the research destroys life because embryos are destroyed in the process. But supporters point out that there are embryos in fertility clinics that would never be used to create babies, but could be used for research purposes.
President Bush only thought he'd wrapped up the "values voters" for the Right. But people of faith are waking up and realizing that the values of Bush and the Righties are not theirs. More than 800 students and faculty at Calvin College - an evangelical school in the Republican stronghold of Grand Rapids, Michigan - recently signed a letter protesting Bush's visit and criticizing his conservative policies. Then they published it as a full-page ad in the local paper:
"Your deeds, Mr. President - neglecting the needy to coddle the rich, desecrating the environment and misleading the country into war - do not exemplify the faith we live by."
After the election in November, Dobson thought he saw a clear path to the theocratic goal line. And now? Not so much.
First, Dean Singleton took a big shot at him. Now the business community is starting to break away from their unholy alliance with the culture warrriors. If the business community breaks with the social conservatives, that's serious trouble for the theocratic movement as well as the Republican Party:
John M. Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan who now heads the National Association of Manufacturers, vowed before the November elections to use his trade association's might to back President Bush's judicial nominees. But as the Senate showdown approaches, the business group is delivering a different message: Judges are not its fight.
NAM's decision to sit out the brawl may be indicative of a broader trend. From Wall Street to Main Street, the small-government, pro-business mainstay of the Republican Party appears to be growing disaffected with a party it sees as focused on social issues at its expense.
New Gallup numbers are out. President Bush's approval rating is the lowest of his tenure on key issues like his handling of the economy and social security. And by 47% to 36% more Americans think that we'd be better off with Democrats in control of Congress.
Today: "This will mean peace in our times."
Neither side is so sure...
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We have a compromise. Majority Leader Frist isn't going to get the "nuclear option" after all, and his puppetmaster, Dr. Dobson, is fighting mad:
"This Senate agreement represents a complete bailout and betrayal by a cabal of Republicans and a great victory for united Democrats. Only three of President Bush’s nominees will be given the courtesy of an up-or-down vote, and it's business as usual for all the rest. The rules that blocked conservative nominees remain in effect, and nothing of significance has changed. Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist would never have served on the U. S. Supreme Court if this agreement had been in place during their confirmations. The unconstitutional filibuster survives in the arsenal of Senate liberals.
"We are grateful to Majority Leader Frist for courageously fighting to defend the vital principle of basic fairness. That principle has now gone down to defeat. We share the disappointment, outrage and sense of abandonment felt by millions of conservative Americans who helped put Republicans in power last November. I am certain that these voters will remember both Democrats and Republicans who betrayed their trust."
Age-old adages still apply. If you live in a glass house...
Bush administration accused of hypocrisy over Newsweek, Koran allegations
Some have criticized the Bush administration for trying to make political hay with the retraction, and suggest the administration has no good reason to be acting so virtuous.
"The pot is calling the kettle black," said Pete Stark, a Democratic Representative from California.
"The administration is chastising Newsweek magazine for a story containing a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war."
"For the White House and the Pentagon to come down on Newsweek for making a mistake is the height of hypocrisy," wrote Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.
"Where, just for starters, is the retraction from (US Vice President) Dick Cheney, who said that Iraq had 'reconstituted' its nuclear weapon program?"
For its part, New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that the row over the discredited story was serving to overshadow genuine incidents of religious humiliation.
Use of anonymous sources -- called firmly into question now after the Newsweek article -- is, meanwhile, still a practice broadly used by the Bush administration -- when it plays to the administration's interests.
From Greeley:
I am an evangelical Christian who does not feel represented by Focus on the Family and similar conservative organizations. Dobson's faith seems to be rooted more in elected officials, laws and judges, rather than the power of Christ. If God is big enough to save people from the violence and hatred of gang life and drug addiction, is he not big enough to reach people despite who holds a particular office?
God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and it's time politicians and Focus on the Family stop injecting their religious views in the political debate over Bush's federal appeals court picks, Burr said.
Those who don't share Dobson's assertion of a liberal grip on the nation's federal courts fear the religious right threatens democracy in a nation founded on the freedom to live and let live.
I refuse to buy into Dobson's faith of fear that scares Christians into believing that certain policies and officials are going to drive God out of this country with their evil agenda. Jesus never urged his followers to put their faith in politicians or public policy and neither should we.
Thornton resident Faye McCall knows just how absurd discrimination can be. She recently applied for a job with the Social Security Administration, where her lesbian partner, Karen Muller, works. She was told that she can't work there because they have a policy that prohibits hiring anyone who is "married" to a current employee. For the purposes of their nepotism policy, the Administration apparently considers gay partners to be married so that they can't hire them.
Of course, Faye and Karen aren't married because neither Colorado nor federal law allows that sort of thing. And the really ironic thing is that because they aren't married, they aren't entitled to any of the legal benefits of marriage, including social security survivor benefits.
We're all equal in this country, except for all the ways that we aren't.
Today: as C goes, so goes the Governor's Mansion.
Philadelphia's model for Denver's homeless, REAL ID to grind down your DMV, answering James Dobson, and Gail Schoettler with a salute to the longsuffering Joan Fitz-Gerald.
Plus: the Daily DeLay (extra meaty extended Norquist edition), and Paul Krugman on what most Americans really mean by 'security.'
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Despite autopsy findings of homicide and statements by soldiers that two prisoners died after being struck by guards at an American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, Army investigators initially recommended closing the case without bringing any criminal charges, documents and interviews show.
Whitaker said Pentagon officials raised no objection to the story for 11 days after it was published, until it was translated by some Arab media outlets and led to the rioting.
While the proposal to close the case was ultimately rejected by senior officials, documents show that the inquiry was at a virtual standstill when an article in The New York Times on March 4, 2003, reported that at least one of the prisoner's deaths had been ruled a homicide, contradicting the military's earlier assertions that both had died of natural causes. Activity in the case quickly resumed.
"No one blow could be determined to have caused the death," the former senior staff lawyer at Bagram, Col. David L. Hayden, said he had been told by the Army's lead investigator. "It was reasonable to conclude at the time that repetitive administration of legitimate force resulted in all the injuries we saw."
...investigators failed to interview some crucial witnesses, including the officer in charge of the interrogators, Captain Wood, and the commander of the military police company, Captain Beiring. They also neglected an interrogator who had been present for most of Mr. Dilawar's questioning. When he finally went to investigators at his own initiative, he described one of the worst episodes of abuse.
Many of the guards who later provided important testimony were also initially overlooked. Computer records and written logs that were supposed to record treatment of the detainees were not secured and later disappeared. Blood taken from Mr. Habibullah was stored in a butter dish in the agents' office refrigerator, from which it was only recovered - or "seized" as a report explains it - when the office was later moved.
While the Army's criminal inquiry continued, General McNeill ordered a senior officer, Col. Joseph G. Nesbitt, to conduct a separate, classified examination of procedures at the detention center. That led to changes including prohibitions against the shackling of prisoners for sleep deprivation and interrogators' making physical contact with detainees.
Documents from the criminal investigation suggested that Colonel Nesbitt was also dismissive of the notion that the two deaths pointed to wider wrongdoing. He concluded that military police guards at the detention center "knew, were following and strictly applying" proper rules on the use of force, documents showed, and he cited a "conflict between obtaining accurate, timely information and treating detainees humanely."
The President's overall approval rating stands at 43 percent, according to a new national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press...
DefCon 1:
The right hard-liners in the Senate are moving closer to "pushing the button," and forcing their judicial nominees to a simple floor vote that is already a foregone conclusion (more on that in a moment). The left is ready to bring the Senate to a halt if they do. Somewhere in the middle, there are these moderates trying desperately to hammer out one more Missouri Compromise: one more papering over the widening partisan breach that threatens to swallow their institution, and the whole country.
I'm thumbing through history books, looking for another instance of a battle over Senate procedure escalating into such a public bloodbath, with protesters in the streets and giant media spectacles. Of course, those megachurches haven't been around that long...
Faced with the certainty of infuriating one of two highly charged and organized factions, Ken Salazar and some other moderates are trying to negotiate an end to this -- but it's a trap.
Because Bush has an excellent overall rate of judicial nominee confirmations. And these appellate court nominees are objectionable, and they are being put up, explicitly, as future potential Surpreme Court justices.
Enter the rights of the minority.
"The Senate," he said, "is not a majoritarian institution, like the House of Representatives is. It is a deliberative body, and it's got a number of checks and balances built into our government. The filibuster is one of those checks in which a majority cannot just sheerly force its will, even if they have a majority of votes in some cases. That's why there are things like filibusters, and other things that give minorities in the Senate some power to slow things up, to hold things up, and let things be aired properly."
Steven Schwalm, Family Research Council
Referring to his attempt to filibuster the Paez nomination, Frist also said, "Cloture has been used in the past on this floor to postpone, to get more info, to ask further questions." When Frist voted to filibuster Paez's nomination, it had been pending for four years; that's plenty of time to ask questions and get more info...
... is Salazar caving? Couldn't disagree more with the incomparable Colorado Luis on this one.
Giving in to the mullahs means;
There is no question that President Bush will have the opportunity to appoint several justices to [the Supreme] Court during his second term. He has made his ideological preferences clear. Conservative justices aren’t enough. He wants jurists of a particular persuasion. They must satisfy the requirements of fundamentalist Christians, with a willingness to roll back the clock to a time where children prayed to Jesus in public school, gays were back in the closet and women were forced into back alleys.
I absolutely agree -- enough of this.
In the wake of a firestorm on the House floor over a Newsweek article about desecrating the Quran, a dozen members of Congress have planned a forum next Tuesday on media bias, RAW STORY has learned.
Among those scheduled to testify are Air America Radio host Al Franken, Media Matters chief David Brock, AmericaBLOG's John Aravosis, a Washington bureau BBC reporter, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Steve Rendell and Mark Lloyd, from the progressive thinktank Center for American Progress. Wonkette's Ana Marie Cox has also been invited.
The panel will be hosted by ranking House Judiciary Committee Democrat Rep. John Conyers, Jr (D-MI).
"I think a number of Democratic members have been disturbed about what is and what isn't being covered in the corporate news media," a House aide said, speaking of the event. "Specifically, there's been a great deal of disappointment of the media's coverage of the Iraq war and the Downing Street memo and great concern about the White House's efforts to intimidate media outlets such as they've done in the Newsweek matter."
A Newsweek asserted last week that the White House has capitalized on distrust of the media to turn errors into conflagrations.
"Unfortunately, a lot of news organizations are making mistakes that turn into massive news stories," the staffer said. "And that is in part because the Administration is very saavy at using public distrust of the media to its advantage."
It's all the rage these days.
Sen. Rick Santorum says he "meant no offense" by referring to Adolf Hitler while defending the GOP's right to ban judicial filibusters as Senate leaders prepared to start a countdown Friday to a vote over whether to stop minority senators from blocking President Bush's judicial nominees.
[Democrat Robert] Byrd came under fire in March for comparing Hitler's Nazis and the Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering. Santorum, a Pennsylvanian, criticized Byrd's remarks at the time, saying the Nazi references "lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate."
But on Thursday, Santorum said that Democratic protests over Republican efforts to ensure confirmation votes would be like the Nazi dictator seizing Paris and then saying: "I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It's mine."
Santorum later said in a release that his remark "was a mistake and I meant no offense."
Today: Red Alert! Quakers at three o' clock! An agent will be coming by to collect your civil liberties.
Union holds together at ConAgra, Jesus in dress blues, and wind power works in Colorado.
Plus: your Daily DeLay, the war is on in the Senate, the British Memo is finally getting play, and the Newsweek fallout keeps on coming, much to Karl Rove's chagrin.
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We delivered a short statement in support of SB 05-028, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, signed by over 500 people, to the Governor's office today.
Thanks again to all of you who signed it; and here's hoping the Governor listens to his conscience, not the bigots on his speed-dial.
.. the rest of the world leapfrogs ahead;
South Korean scientists have created the first embryonic stem cells that genetically match sick or injured patients.
In what scientists say is a stunning leap forward, a team of South Korean researchers has developed a highly efficient recipe for producing human embryos by cloning and then extracting their stem cells.
... our Senate leadership...
The Senate chaplain started yesterday's judicial showdown with a prayer for "patience and peace" and "unity where there is division." Thirty-three minutes later, the majority leader just about accused the minority of attempted murder.
The timing could not have been more apt. On the eve of a titanic partisan clash in the Senate, eggheads of the left and right got together yesterday to warn both parties that they are ignoring the country's most pressing problem: that the United States is turning into Argentina.
There is debate going on in our US Congress these days over whether to keep women in all branches of the military out of combat.
From The Washington Post:
In a bid to keep women out of combat, a House committee passed an amendment late last night that would block the U.S. military from allowing female troops into any new jobs related to ground operations without congressional approval.
The Republican-led House Armed Services Committee approved the measure to give Congress more control over which units the military opens to women and to put into law a 1994 Pentagon policy barring women from serving in "direct ground combat" units below the brigade level.
The continuing saga of Lakewood City Manger Mike Rock hit a new low today.
The Lakewood City Council decided late Wednesday to require City Manager Mike Rock to buy his own vehicle and submit his expense account for review and approval by the mayor.
The city will no longer fuel, maintain, insure and repair Rock's vehicle. Instead, they will provide Rock with a $750 monthly car allowance.
We can do better by our kids.
While lawmakers debated a measure that would notify parents their children are due for vaccinations, a Colorado baby died of whooping cough last month.
Colorado ranks 50th in the nation in the percentage of children fully vaccinated, and that's one reason the state has had several recent outbreaks of pertussis, or whooping cough, pediatricians say.
Opponents of the bill said it's an invasion of privacy, and that parents who don't want their kids immunized would have to work too hard to keep their kids off the list...
The Newsweek debacle is proving a disaster for the White House as well.
First, in point of fact:
Red Cross told U.S. of Koran incidents
The International Committee of the Red Cross documented what it called credible information about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Korans at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and pointed it out to the Pentagon in confidential reports during 2002 and early 2003, an ICRC spokesman said Wednesday.
U.S. abuse of detainees caused riots
"Some Muslims had pork or alcohol forced down their throats; they had tape placed over their mouths for reciting the Koran; many Muslims were forced to be naked in front of each other, members of the opposite sex and sometimes their own families. It was routine for the abuses to be photographed in order to threaten the showing of the humiliating footage to family members."
The New York Times reported on May 1 on the same investigation Newsweek was writing about and interviewed a released Kuwaiti, who spoke of three major hunger strikes, one of them touched off by "guards' handling copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stomped on.
A senior officer delivered an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop. Interpreters, standing outside each prison block, translated the officer's apology. A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans."
So where does all this leave us? With a story that is not only true, but previously reported numerous times. So let's drop the "Lynch Newsweek" bull. Seventeen people have died in these riots. They didn't die because of anything Newsweek did--the riots were caused by what our government has done.
Get your minds around it. Our country is guilty of torture.
No peace in our times, then:
Frist Goes Nuclear Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist (R-TN) took another step towards detonating the
nuclear option – or blocking the 200-year-old practice of the filibuster –
yesterday, shoving the Senate closer to a showdown over President Bush's
radical judicial nominations. His reckless overreach has far-reaching
consequences; it will overturn
the basic system of checks and balances. The American public is not backing
this effort: The Pew Foundation recently asked the public if Frist and his allies should be able to eliminate the
filibuster in the case of judicial nominees. The poll found that 59 percent of Americans
oppose the nuclear option; not even a third support
it. Here's a look at Frist's dangerous power play: FRIST'S VIOLENT BOMBAST: Majority Leader Bill Frist announced yesterday that the opposition to Bush's
judicial picks wants to "kill, to
defeat, to assassinate these nominees." His choice of words was
recklessly incendiary in today's climate, where real
judges are facing real violence against them. There has been a rash of violence
against judges this year: In Chicago, the mother and husband of federal Judge
Joan Lefkow were murdered in February by a
disgruntled plaintiff. In THE TRUTH ABOUT
NOMINEES:
Yesterday, Frist also said those opposed to Bush's
nominees "had 'radically' altered the traditions of the Senate by blocking
votes." A helpful graph in today's New York Times handily
disproves that myth. In fact, "the current president's batting average
is roughly on par with Mr. Clinton's. Recent presidents have filled the federal
bench at
roughly the same rate over the past quarter-century – about 45 to 50 new
federal judges each year." The numbers match up. President Bush has
confirmed 50 judges per year, 87 percent of his district court judges and 53
percent of his appellate court. President Clinton had about 45 judges confirmed
each year, 81 percent of his district court and 59 percent of his appellate. HYPOCRISY ALERT: Frist
yesterday also intoned solemnly, "I rise for the principle that judicial
nominees with the support of a majority of senators deserve up-or-down votes on
this floor." This principle only stands when President Bush's nominees are
at stake; throughout the 1990s, conservatives used a slew of tactics to keep
nominees from receiving votes. In 1994, for example, Sen. Orrin Hatch added
language to the Senate rules for confirming nominees. Known as the "blue
slip" policy, it allowed a single senator
to secretly block nominations from leaving committee for a vote; compare that
to the 41 required to keep a filibuster going. Using this method, Senate
conservatives were able to block more than 60 judicial nominations. (After Bush
took office, Hatch abandoned this procedure.) FRIST FILI-BUSTED, PART
ONE: On the floor
of the Senate yesterday, Sen. Chuck Schumer asked Majority Leader Bill Frist: "Isn't it correct that on March 8, 2000, my
colleague [Sen. Frist] voted to uphold the filibuster
of Judge Richard Paez?" Frist,
caught, hemmed and hawed, finally replying, "The issue is we have
leadership-led partisan filibusters that have, um, obstructed, not one nominee,
but two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, in a routine
way." (You can watch the
video of the exchange here.) So Frist's
bottom line is one filibuster is fine, just not many filibusters? This deftly
undercuts his own argument that all judicial
filibusters are unconstitutional. FRIST'S FILI-BUSTED,
PART TWO: Referring
to his attempt to filibuster the Paez nomination, Frist also said,
"Cloture has been used in the past on this floor to postpone, to get more
info, to ask further questions." When Frist
voted to filibuster Paez's nomination, it had been
pending for four years; that's plenty of time to ask questions and get more
info. A press release issued March 9, 2000 - the day after the Paez filibuster attempt – shows the truth. Crafted by
former Sen. Bob Smith, who organized that filibuster effort, read "Smith
Leads Effort to Block Activist Judges." SHE'S NOT RUNNING FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL: The Fox News profile of Priscilla Owen, the judge who Frist will use to detonate the nuclear option, points out she's "a Sunday school teacher." Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) also used this tactic on the floor yesterday, "reciting a long list of achievements and civic works, including Justice Owen's serving as a Sunday school teacher to preschoolers." This would be relevant information if Owen were running for federal Sunday School. However, she has been nominated to the federal courts; it's her judicial record that needs scrutiny. As Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) pointed out: "This is not a debate about a lovely person. This is a debate about a record and judicial decisions, and about whether or not that record merits promoting someone to a lifetime appointment." As a judge, Owen is a judicial activist with a long record of extremist decisions; her own hometown paper, for example, described her as "all too willing to bend the law to fit her views, rather than the reverse."
Today: which rightie will take up Bill Owens' scepter in 2006 (no jokes, please)?
Protecting gays from discrimination does not lead to an avalanche of lawsuits -- remember that, and Metro State's Arts Center suffers from (wait for it) no money.
Plus: your Daily DeLay (brief respite for the Hammer edition), FEMA accused of dumping money into Florida right before last year's elections, and the Red Cross blows a giant hole in the White House's Newsweeksucks campaign.
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The two most activist, faith-based judges you'll ever see;
Janice Rogers Brown:
....it's the tone of dismissive arrogance that threads through her speeches, her writings, even her dealings with colleagues that is alarming. About three weeks ago, she told an audience of Catholic legal professionals that these are "perilous times for people of faith," that religious people are at "war" against secular humanists. When the country moves away from its religious traditions, she said, it alters the very concepts of freedom and liberty.
War, Madame Justice? I thought America's war was against Islamic terrorists, not one another. On these shores, dispute and disagreement aren't war — they're constitutional rights, democratic obligations. A justice who complains about a "nation of whiners" begins to sound a little whiny herself.
Brown has regaled audiences with her view that the New Deal is a triumph of the "socialist revolution," and she has spoken about "government" with a combative, zero-sum hostility that's a little surprising for someone who's spent most of her adult life working in it:
"Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies." We get "a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Office of Management and Budget is producing "Desperate Housewives.")
"I'm so afraid of what's happening."
A wonderful woman with whom I shared a plane ride yesterday said that to me. She was talking about her growing sense that corporations and extreme religious fundamentalists are taking over our country. She said her fear is that we're becoming a country she no longer recognizes.
She isn't alone. There's growing concern that the Extreme Right is pushing its agenda so fast and on so many fronts that we can't keep up. Stories that once would have been front page blockbusters are buried without notice on page 14.
But even more dangerous than the Extreme Right is our own resignation. My airplane buddy admitted that she feels hopeless, and that's terrifying. If we're going to protect what we love about this country, we all must engage in the battle.
Right now in Colorado, we have an important opportunity to do just that. Governor Owens has on his desk a bill, SB 05-028, that would expand our state's employment non-discrimination statute to include sexual orientation. Hundreds responded by adding their names to an open letter urging the Governor to sign this bill. If you haven't signed yet, you can right now. We're going to deliver the letter to Governor Owens tomorrow afternoon.
Governor Owens has said he may veto this bill to prevent runaway lawsuits, but the experience of the 13 states that already have such legislation shows his concern is unfounded. This really is about whether the Governor will bow to the pressure of extremist groups that oppose any legislation recognizing the existence of gay people.
They believe our country should reflect their extreme religious views. We believe in founding ideals like equality for all. The question is, are we willing to fight for that ideal? Urge Governor Owens to sign SB 05-028.
In today's Rocky, the payoff: why Colorado's national status as TABOR's birthplace means more to outside interest groups arriving in Colorado to attack Referendum C than allowing reforms already incorporated into TABOR proposals elsewhere to go forward.
Just like I predicted Monday and yesterday: it's their precious talking points they're worried about, not what's best for Colorado.
Colorado voters passed TABOR, which limits government growth, in 1992. It's considered the country's toughest spending limit.
States coast to coast are considering modified copies. The new TABORs aren't as strict. They return less money to taxpayers. They help bridge recessions, including minimizing the "ratchet effect," which slows government's rebound from economic downturns.
In Colorado, a coalition of lawmakers and business leaders is pushing a ballot measure this fall that would make the state's TABOR look a lot like these younger cousins.
If the new versions are good for everybody else, they ask, why can't we have one?
To which the activists respond: It's the symbolism, stupid.
"The tax-and-spending lobby wants to have a victory against TABOR," said Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute in Golden, who is leading the campaign against the ballot measure, "so they can run around the country and scare other states about the 'Colorado Experience.' "
Colorado lawmakers say TABOR's ratchet effect is about to choke the state's government. They estimate that they'll need to cut a cumulative $2 billion worth of state programs through 2010, while refunding $3.1 billion to taxpayers...
Legislators and Gov. Bill Owens agreed this spring to ask voters to balance the budget by lifting TABOR limits for five years and giving up the projected $3.1 billion in refunds. The plan, which hits the November ballot as Referendum C, also eliminates the ratchet in the future...if Referendum C fails, [Owens] said, government services will suffer and TABOR opponents will reform their ranks.
"The attacks will continue," he said, "until ultimately they break TABOR in Colorado."
A few days ago, we asked our network to sign their names to a short letter for Governor Owens, asking him to sign the ENDA sexual orientation discrimination protections (SB 05-028) into law.
Hundreds of citizens responded; their signatures are below.
Governor Owens,
We urge you to do the right thing for all Coloradans and sign into law SB 28. No Coloradan should fear for her job simply because of her sexual orientation. Our nation was founded on the ideal of equality, and expanding employment non-discrimination to include sexual orientation is another step toward that ideal.
Continue reading Support SB05-028 update.
Started out pretty well, but hoo-boy -- this one's getting away from 'em.
Newsweek Was Right
Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo such as those described by Newsweek on 9 May 2005 are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States.
Debate rages over retracted Quran report
The administration has been forced to face serious credibility questions of its own. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq tops the list, but the mistreatment of Muslim detainees was an issue long before Newsweek mentioned the Quran. News coverage of abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Guantánamo Bay and Afghanistan graphically contradicted official pronouncements about treatment of prisoners.
After retraction, questions multiply over Qur'an report
Former Guantanamo prisoners have charged that American interrogators defiled the Qur'an, and a freed detainee said this week that Islam's holy book was desecrated at the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
In Washington, the White House urged Newsweek to help undo the harm to American interests, and critics accused the administration of trying to deflect attention from its own deceptions.
Desecration of Koran Had Been Reported Before
"They tore the Koran to pieces in front of us, threw it into the toilet," former detainee Aryat Vahitov told Russian television in June 2004.
A gift for a White House set to pounce
After Abu Ghraib, after the naked Iraqi prisoners stacked in human pyramids, after "leash girl," after hoods and handcuffs in the midday sun, after the deluge of scathing reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, after the whole messy lot of it - here, at last, was something the Bush administration could unwrap with glee: An allegation of Islamic prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay that could not immediately be confirmed.
Today: strange messages from out of state on TABOR reform.
Abel Tapia's brave stand, Denver breaks its Spy File promises, Tancredo squelched again, college students ground down by debt, and the Boulder Daily Camera shines a light through Newsweek's fog of war.
Plus: Argentine freakout, American style, and the possibly-embalmed Alan Greenspan.
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This morning's Rocky discusses Ohio's TABOR proposal, which will probably be voted on this November. They want you to know that it's "not your daddy's TABOR."
The Ohio version includes a rainy-day fund that saves tax dollars for tough economic times. It minimizes the so-called ratchet effect that slows government's rebound from recession. It refunds less money to taxpayers in boom years. It voids itself - and its limits on government - if voters pass a spending mandate such as Colorado's Amendment 23. They aren't calling it "TABOR."
More than a dozen states are debating TABOR knock-offs, a national movement that Colorado voters started in 1992.
But the TABOR proposals sweeping the country now look less like Colorado's and more like Ohio's...
National TABOR advocates say the changes address opponents' concerns - and fix TABOR's perceived problems in Colorado.
That includes the ratchet effect, which has left the state in post-recession straits none of the next-generation TABOR states would have to face.
"Colorado is teaching us a lot," said Mary Adams, an antitax activist in Maine who is leading a petition drive to put a TABOR measure - complete with rainy-day fund and no ratchet - on the 2006 ballot.
Brandon Dutcher of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs calls a similar TABOR version he's pushing in that state "more fiscally prudent" than Colorado's - a TABOR without "some of the sharp edges."
"If you don't want Colorado's TABOR," Dutcher told an Oklahoma City reporter in February, "we agree - we don't want it either."
Activists are plunging ahead with revised-TABOR drives nationwide. Meanwhile, back in Colorado, Owens and a bipartisan crew are preparing to ask voters to yank the ratchet from Colorado's TABOR.
It's an estimated $3.1 billion proposition - and the national pro-TABOR crowd is bent on stopping it...
The redoubtable David Sirota:
The Right Response to the Bush/Newsweeek Story
"It's puzzling that while Newsweek now acknowledges that they got the facts wrong, they refused to retract the story," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. "I think there's a certain journalistic standard that should be met and in this instance it was not...The report has had serious consequences. People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged."
The irony of this White House "outrage" in light of all the lies about Iraq the Bush administration has fed America is really incredible. A reader sent me a good response to this latest Bush administration rhetoric:
"It's puzzling that while the White House now acknowledged that they haven't found WMD or a link between Al Queda and Iraq, they have refused to retract their claims. I think there's a certain standard of governing that should be met and in this instance has not. The claims the administration used to send this nation to war has had serious consequences. People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged."
If you're the 800 pound gorilla in the room, it's best if you don't stink. People tend to notice you more than they would if you weren't so big, and focus on you in the hopes of encouraging others to bathe...
For years, Wal-Mart was seen as a sure-thing. With double-digit sales and profit growth and a seemingly smooth and unstoppable future, it was the poster child for American entrepreneurial spirit.
But lately, the world's biggest retailer has become a lightning rod for critics who contend that it mistreats workers and that the company's low wages force employees to seek government aid in the form of Medicaid health insurance for the poor, food stamps and housing assistance.
Wal-Mart also faces the largest ever U.S. class-action lawsuit on charges that it discriminates against women in pay and promotions.
Last month, Wal-Mart said it was cooperating with a grand jury investigating whether [former vice-chairman] Coughlin misused company funds. Wal-Mart in March said that Coughlin resigned at the company's request over its probe into unauthorized use of corporate gift cards and personal reimbursements.
The Wall Street Journal said Coughlin may have used undocumented expense payments to finance anti-union activities.
Wal-Mart's shares are trading at about 18 times 2006 earnings estimates -- a stock valuation measure known as price-to-earnings ratio. That's a 20 percent discount to Wal-Mart's historical valuation, according to analyst reports.
"While it may present a trading opportunity, too many question marks surround the business for us to be aggressive on the stock," said Emme Kozloff, retail analyst with Sanford Bernstein.
Newsweek's 'irresponsible' report on Koran desecration at Guantanamo Bay resulted in the deaths of 15 or more people during last week's riots; primarily in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. That's the deal-closer for the administration -- the thing that makes "what Newsweek did" so much worse than, say, what CBS did with the Bush National Guard memos.
Except that it's a bogus claim, according to the State Department. From a May 13th IIP bulletin:
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11 was not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else.
According to initial reports, the situation in Jalalabad began on May 10 with peaceful student protests reacting to a report in Newsweek magazine that U.S. military interrogators questioning Muslim detainees at the Guantanamo detention center "had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book." By the following day the protests in the city had turned violent with reports of several individuals killed, dozens wounded, and widespread looting of government, diplomatic and nongovernmental assets.
However, Myers said an after-action report provided by U.S. Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of the Combined Forces in Afghanistan, indicated that the political violence was not, in fact, connected to the magazine report...
UPDATE: White House Irony Watch: Newsweek Edition. Kos notes the hypocrisy.
Los Angeles Times this morning:
The more interesting question may not be how Newsweek goofed, but why the Muslim world is so ready to believe the story. For all the administration's huffing and puffing about Newsweek getting the story wrong, it has produced such a catalog of misdeeds at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo that almost any allegation is instantly credited abroad. The administration itself has said that 11 soldiers have been disciplined for abusing prisoners at Gitmo.
The United States has already been convicted in the court of world opinion for its treatment of its prisoners, and that's the administration's fault, not Newsweek's.
Today: Republicans supporting Referendum C fan out across the state.
Ken Salazar trying for a Third Way on filibusters, United making deals with its workers (with most of the damage already done), and Focus on the Family tries to remember what they did before putting the 'G' in 'GOP.'
Plus: the Daily DeLay (partisan Jesus edition), Defcon 1, the British memo is important and we're not going to shut up about it, and the LA Times offers some badly needed perspective on the 'Newsweak' smack-down.
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Another major media outlet in full retreat, Fox News devoting their whole prime time lineup to "Newsweak," and the folks at PowerLine Blog are basking in their lowest-common-denominator redemption. See, they're not the only ones.
Most of all, every American radio and television is screaming that we haven't desecrated the Koran during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay or anywhere else. Period. No daylight between any media on that. And it's important to make the point in short, easily translatable phrases.
It's not hard to understand why this is happening: the 'Koran desecration' scandal has caused the death of almost 20 Islamic protesters (most of them shot by police) in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and directly imperils the tenuous US/Muslim alliance in the War on Terror. That's kind of serious.
So never mind the widespread reports of, with specificity, "flushing the Koran down the toilet" that have been alleged at American-run prisons all over the world, from Gitmo to Kandahar. The message today is that even though we may arrest Muslims all over the world, and beat the holy hell out of them, and sexually humiliate them, and cart them off by the planeload to countries where they glady torture them to death without being all coy about it, Newsweek's source changed his story. That means that not only is Newsweek's story a lie, but everything you've ever heard about Americans treating detainees badly is also a lie.
And anybody who doesn't agree and change their tune right now is a liar. A straight-up Jayson Blair/Eason Jordan liar. Tomorrow on Rush Limbaugh, liar will become traitor. The lesson for reporters is, "you'll pay for this kind of thing."
Rummy is unequivocal:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the flap was a reminder that people "need to be very careful about what they say."
A breath of fresh mountain air flowing out of Vail today. The Vail Daily posted a nice little op/ed piece about the Colorado legislature nixing the proposed gay marriage ban amendment to the Colorado constitution.
State law is supposed to protect people from criminals; animals from extinction; landowners from not getting the most of their property; businesses from stifling regulation; everyone from drunken drivers.
But no one needs protection from gay couples. It's the gay couples who need protection. State law has banned same-sex marriage since Gov. Bill Owens signed a defense of marriage act in 2000.
In many parts of the state, homosexuals and lesbians aren't even protected from losing their jobs specifically because of their slandered lifestyles...
(And, later in the column)
...Religion rears its head in this debate, and the Dobsons and Lundbergs of the world will continue to dodge the real discussion by accusing opponents of marriage bans of being anti-Christian or against "people of faith."
Those who support the rights of lesbians and homosexuals are not against religion. Some of them are even rabbis and members of the clergy. What they are against is the shariah-zation of American law: The imposition, on a country that's more and more multicultural every few seconds, of a legal regime based rigidly on a single group's beliefs.
This is the type of regime our soldiers are fighting to drive out of the Middle East and Asia.
It's no secret that Colorado's efforts to curb the worst excesses of the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights are being closely watched around the country. I've said before that the outside organizations descending on Colorado to battle this out aren't concerned with our actual quality of life.
For the next few months, the fringe-right will try to remake Colorado into one big smiling Potemkin village. Then they're out of here on November 2, talking points safely in hand. Remember that the next time you drive over a pothole, or drop your kid off at a delapidated high school (and don't even start about college tuition), or stand in line for hours at the county clerk.
Enter this morning's Rocky Mountain News, and a special series they're running over the next three days: all eyes are on Colorado in this Summer of C, and it's time to either hide the dead babies or dirty them up for the camera (depending on your preference).
It's a Rocky Mountain debate raging from Maine to Oregon. More than a dozen states are considering legislative descendents to Colorado's landmark Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, and they're putting Coloradans' quality of life on trial in the process...
Everyone cherry-picks data to make the case; everyone claims Colorado expertise. Both are easy to come by.
Gotta pad that salary in this day and age, you know.
Some Colorado politicians don't look far to find their campaign committee staffs.
Former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis pays the woman who proved herself while handling the family checkbook - his wife, Lori. Her campaign manager's salary: more than $145,000 since 2001.
Sen. Ken Salazar, Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and Bob Beauprez, and former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell also have paid family members from their campaign accounts, though not to the same extent as McInnis, records show.
Sen. Wayne Allard paid a small amount to his brother's company for tax consulting...
The practice is legal as long as the compensation is for bona fide work and payments are in line with what outside consultants would cost, FEC rules say. Still, government watchdogs say it raises the specter that money from special-interest groups could end up in a politician's family bank account.
The practice has gotten added attention from an ongoing ethics flap surrounding Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the powerful House majority leader...
Today: Colorado, model for pulling back from the Norquista brink.
Ways to beat the high cost of living include giving your wife a campaign job, and other follies.
Plus: your Daily DeLay (bipartisan CYA edition), the finger's on the button, Rumsfeld makes reports he doesn't like disappear, and NPR is the next target in the public broadcasting culture war.
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Find the one that doesn't match -- or maybe just go [expletive] yourself.
Cheney's big-oil cronies probably won't approve:
Rebuffing Bush, 132 Mayors Embrace Kyoto Rules
Unsettled by a series of dry winters in this normally wet city, [Seattle] Mayor Greg Nickels has begun a nationwide effort to do something the Bush administration will not: carry out the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
Mr. Nickels, a Democrat, says 131 other likeminded mayors have joined a bipartisan coalition to fight global warming on the local level, in an implicit rejection of the administration's policy.
The mayors, from cities as liberal as Los Angeles and as conservative as Hurst, Tex., represent nearly 29 million citizens in 35 states, according to Mayor Nickels's office. They are pledging to have their cities meet what would have been a binding requirement for the nation had the Bush administration not rejected the Kyoto Protocol: a reduction in heat-trapping gas emissions to levels 7 percent below those of 1990, by 2012.
On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought New York City into the coalition, the latest Republican mayor to join...
It's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday that it would apologize for helping fund a full-page advertisement showing Nazi supporters burning books that was placed in an Arizona newspaper by a group that is fighting proposed restrictions on Wal-Mart Supercenters.
The advertisement, which ran May 6 and 8 in the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff, urges readers to protect their constitutional freedoms by rejecting a proposition that might limit the building of Supercenters.
The photo in the ad shows a group of Nazi supporters throwing books onto a fire. "Should we let government tell us what we can read?" says the text under the photo. "Of course not." The ad continues, "So why should we allow local government to limit where we can shop?"
The Nation has an interesting article about the abusive, and likely illegal, sexual habits of Dr. David Hager, OB/GYN. Yes, that's the same Dr. Hager that made sure the FDA did not approve the emergency contraception pill, called Plan B, for over the counter use.
Turns out, it appears evangelical Christian Dr. David Hager liked to anally rape his wife (now ex-wife), Laura Davis.
According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."
That's not really news: we've been headed down this road for a long time. Now, with the damage done, the easy remedies might do more harm than good. Better start using the term 'lone superpower' with a smile --
The Bush administration calls on China to allow its currency to rise and Congress talks of punishment if China does not do so.
Be careful what you wish for...
In Washington, the theory is that China's keeping the yuan low increases America's trade deficit. But the benefits to United States exporters from a modest rise in the Chinese currency would most likely be small, while the effect of higher interest rates could be larger if China cut back on its purchases, particularly if other Asian central banks decided that they, too, wanted to sell dollars.
If that were to happen, the impact could be acute in the housing market. Investors in housing stocks have been nervous for some time, happy to see ever-higher profits but worried that the good times must end someday and fearful that they could be left holding the bag when that happens.
Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, has less power over interest rates than he once did. Perhaps the real decision maker will be Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, as he weighs the pressures to free his currency and stop accumulating Treasury securities.
In the words of Robert J. Barbera, the chief economist of ITG/Hoenig, "Hu's in charge here."
Earlier this week when Governor Owens was asked about SB 28, the bill on his desk that would add sexual orientation to our state's employment non-discrimination law, he said:
"If you look at my record in terms of tort . . . I'm typically trying to narrow the framework for lawsuits because I think lawsuits cost us all." The president of the Human Rights Campaign said Colorado law already prohibits any type of discrimination lawsuit from being filed without first going through a "rigorous" screening process with a state or federal commission.
"Governor Owens can rest easy knowing that there will be no onslaught of lawsuits," HRC President Joe Solmonese said in a statement released Thursday.
He also noted that during the last 25 years, six Republican governors in other states have signed laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Owens is a Republican.
Editor's note: Representative Anne McGihon (D) represents House District 3, Denver.
One note on SB 28 is that we amended the bill in the House to include, immediately after "sexual orientation", a prohibition on discrimination based on religion. Amazingly, the Republicans argued against the amendment! Rep. Joe Stengel stated that it was already prohibited in the federal constitution so why was it needed in State statute? Obviously, a Coloradoan shouldn't have to go to federal court to get relief from discrimination in this State on any basis.
So, let Bill Owens know that you want him to sign SB 28 for two reasons -- discrimination based on sexual orientation AND religion!
More in the papers about the rampant religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy. The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, and New York Times all have similar stories about the firing of an Air Force chaplain who dared challenge the evangelical leaders at the school.
Proselytizing by evangelical Christian leaders is a systemic problem at the Air Force Academy, a chaplain who helped create the school's religious tolerance program said Thursday.
Capt. Melinda Morton, 48, a Lutheran minister, said she is speaking out because she believes strongly that the religious bias at the academy should be corrected.
A wonderful article in today's Denver Post tells the sad story of the 7 year old boy who is also the son of slain Denver Police Officer Donald Young.
There's another child grieving for a father gunned down at a Denver baptismal party on Sunday.
But unlike Donald "Donnie" Young's two daughters, 7-year- old Tanner Segura has not been mentioned in numerous news conferences the police have had since Young, 43, was killed.
His mother, Lisa Segura, 38, said she believes it's just another form of rejection for the boy born while Young was separated from his wife, Kelly Young.
The officials "were treating him like he was a disgrace," Tanner's mother said. "It has hurt a lot. He had no choice in this."
Tanner was in a small reading group in his first-grade class this week when the teacher asked what was the saddest thing that happened to them, Segura related.
"'My daddy died,"' Tanner told the class. "'He was the police officer who got shot at the baptism."'
Segura said she was glad he opened up, adding that his classmates comforted him.
Police officers brought Tanner a toy police car Wednesday and told him that Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman wants to meet him.
"I want him to feel proud," Segura said. "I think every boy wants to know his daddy was a hero. I don't want him to feel that no one cared about him. That's what I want out of this."
Encouraging news today from the Washington Post on legislation that would require federal agencies to disclose the origins of prepackaged news stories.
A key Senate committee chairman said yesterday that he would support a permanent requirement that federal agencies disclose to viewers the origin of prepackaged news stories they produce.
Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said there is widespread support in the Senate for ensuring that such video news releases, which are designed to resemble broadcast news stories, include a disclaimer in their scripts or audio revealing that they were prepared by a federal agency.
The Bush administration and the Government Accountability Office have been at odds over such prepackaged stories, which tout federal programs and have been aired without changes by some television stations. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, has contended that the government must reveal its role to avoid violating a federal ban on "covert propaganda." In the past year it has branded as illegal prepackaged news stories produced by the Department of Health and Human Services and by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Paul Krugman this morning on Wal-Martification: it's not just where you shop.
In 1968, when General Motors was a widely emulated icon of American business, many of its workers were lifetime employees. On average, they earned about $29,000 a year in today's dollars, a solidly middle-class income at the time. They also had generous health and retirement benefits.
Since then, America has grown much richer, but American workers have become far less secure.
Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation. Like G.M. in its prime, it has become a widely emulated business icon. But there the resemblance ends.
The average full-time Wal-Mart employee is paid only about $17,000 a year. The company's health care plan covers fewer than half of its workers.
True, not everyone is badly paid. In 1968, the head of General Motors received about $4 million in today's dollars - and that was considered extravagant. But last year Scott Lee Jr., Wal-Mart's chief executive, was paid $17.5 million. That is, every two weeks Mr. Lee was paid about as much as his average employee will earn in a lifetime...
Yesterday, we put out a call to our network to sign their names to a short letter for Governor Owens, asking him to please sign the ENDA sexual preference discrimination protections into law.
Governor Owens,
We urge you to do the right thing for all Coloradans and sign into law SB 28. No Coloradan should fear for her job simply because of her sexual orientation. Our nation was founded on the ideal of equality, and expanding employment non-discrimination to include sexual orientation is another step toward that ideal.
You can sign on, too: http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/letter
Hundreds already have, and we'll make sure he knows it. Thanks again for standing up, and being counted on the side of decency and tolerance.
It makes them go away, but do we really want to unleash Donetta Davidson on the rest of the country?
Secretary of State Donetta Davidson, who has been widely criticized for fumbling Colorado election rules, said Thursday that her successes - and her mistakes - help qualify her to become one of the nation's top election officials.
The Republican is awaiting word from the White House on a $140,300-a-year appointment to the four-member federal Election Assistance Commission.
Watchdogs are split on whether she is qualified...
She tagged felons as barred from voting. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that, unlike like Florida and a handful of other Deep South states, Colorado does not bar ex-cons from voting. Only those actually serving their sentence lose their rights.
There's no known, verified case of a Colorado convict voting illegally from the big house. Because previous purges have wiped away the rights of innocents, federal law now bars purges within 90 days of a presidential election to allow a voter to challenge their loss of civil rights.
To exempt her action from the federal rule, Secretary Davidson declared an "emergency." However, the only "emergency" in Colorado [seemed] to be President Bush's running dead even with John Kerry in the polls...
Colorado taxpayers should not be asked to pay the salary of a man with Mr. Durham's history of racism and ideological zealotry. These traits, inappropriate in any public agency, are especially troubling in his current post at the helm of the Help America Vote Act.
A very interesting, bipartisan proposal has been introduced in the Senate. It's the first candid look at the complexities of immigration law since President Bush (deep breath) bravely took a stand on the issue early last year. This proposal is much better, though, as it treats workers as members of families and contributory residents of our country as opposed to simply means to an economic end.
The bill would let immigrants, including undocumented workers already in the U.S., apply for three-year visas, which could be renewed for another three years. The foreign workers could apply only for jobs that first had been made available to U.S. citizens, but not filled.
"The status quo is unacceptable and we need to modernize our broken immigration system to meet the challenges of the 21st Century," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), the Senate co-sponsor with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz).
Already the bill has created an unlikely alliance between labor unions and corporate interests, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Industries say they need a temporary worker program for immigrants to fill jobs at hotels, restaurants and nursing homes.
Labor groups and immigrant advocates offered support for the proposal after being cool on Bush's blueprint, which would force temporary workers to return to their home countries when their visas expire.
"It's not going to be realistic to expect them all to leave, especially since many of them have lived in the United States on a long-term basis. They have raised families here," said Fred Tsao, policy director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "We think this bill provides a more realistic avenue."
In a testy exchange on talk radio, Denver City Attorney Cole Finegan Thursday accused Rep. Tom Tancredo of exploiting the killing of a Denver police officer to push an anti-immigration agenda.
Finegan told KHOW hosts on Wednesday and Thursday that he is "appalled and flabbergasted" that Tancredo would use the incident to press an anti-immigration agenda. He used sharper words in addressing Tancredo directly on the air.
"Frankly, sir, you are getting in the way of us catching the killer," Finegan said, explaining that some city attorneys who could be helping with the investigation are instead countering Tancredo's claims...
Finegan insists Denver has no so-called sanctuary policy - official or unofficial. Rather, the police operations manual says officers are not to arrest or detain people simply to determine whether they are legal residents.
Today: immigration reform -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Ritter running for Governor, take Donetta Davidson (please), Air Force Academy's 'systemic' evangelical bias, and the Boulder Daily Camera says it's time for Owens to stand up against discrimination.
Plus: the Daily DeLay, China becomes America's creditor, more on the British Memo, and the LA Times says "vote wrong, go to Hell."
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Kind of funny how the corporate interests who scream they want government "out of their lives" are same ones who leave taxpayers holding the bag when times get tough.
It's Silverado all over again, while the perps float away on their golden parachutes. Do you suppose the wildly-overpayed execs at United are sweating their retirement?
On Tuesday, when it received a federal bankruptcy court's permission to terminate its pension plans, United Airlines became the biggest pension defaulter in the history of corporate America. Analysts fear that Delta may also default, as well as other ailing airlines, followed by auto parts companies and perhaps even, in five years or so, the carmakers themselves...
If the pension agency itself was pushed toward bankruptcy, some 40 million Americans who are covered by traditional corporate pensions would be more vulnerable to catastrophic losses. In addition, taxpayers would be called upon to rescue another failing federal institution, as in the savings and loan bailout of the 1980's.
The United debacle also holds a broader lesson about retirement security. The level of risk that exists in pensions and other retirement savings plans has no place in the core tier of retirement savings, Social Security.
In 2001, right after taking office, Vice President Cheney convened a task force in Washington to create the President's "energy plan". Big Energy execs, like Enron's Ken Lay, rushed to Washington to sit on Santa Cheney's lap. That meeting resulted in a huge bundle energy sector giveaways, including the opening of ANWR for drilling, that soon will be enacted into law as the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
As the Daily Camera says, it is clear enough who butters the Bush/Cheney bread (to the tune of more than $50 Million in the '04 election cycle). But doesn't the public have the right to know who was sitting at the table when this Big Energy wellfare plan was crafted? The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals doesn't think so. The Sierra Club sued to get that information under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the Court of Appeals threw out the case on Monday.
I think it is the happiest an editorial has ever made me. Today the Denver Post called out Focus on the Family head James Dobson for his history of destructive political involvement. Oh happy day! It's about time Colorado's mainstream media took on the behemoth that is James Dobson.
Compromise, debate foreign to Dobson
The Focus on the Family founder has a history of attacking lawmakers who seek fair solutions to a divisive debate, such as the fight over the filibuster.
Many Americans, and not a few U.S. senators, have been hoping and expecting to see a compromise emerge in the showdown over President Bush's judicial appointments.
Such an agreement might allow for a vote on some of the nominees while retaining the filibuster, a practice that protects minority rights and often keeps the Senate a more deliberative institution than the House of Representatives.
But Focus on the Family founder James Dobson is having none of that...
... proving again that Focus on the Family's isn't concerned about good government, but mindless grandstanding and obedient loyalty.
It's one thing for Dobson to favor an end to filibusters, but he is out of line in threatening senators who are looking for a compromise solution to the impasse.
Compromise is how work often gets done in government, and properly so in such a diverse democracy. It gives a voice to all sides of a debate, not just one.
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (R), 1952
Do you remember Monica Lewinsky and her stained blue dress?
Do you remember the fellatio/Cohiba impeachment trial?
In your view, what exactly rises to the level of an impeachable offense?
Memo: Bush made intel fit Iraq policy
A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.
The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.
The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war...
Kos has the story on SD Dems fighting back. Reverend Wallis and the folks at Sojourners must be saying a big amen on that.
Must be a coincidence that Beltway Bob Beauprez's voting record is practically a clone of Tom DeLay's.
And the tens of thousands of questionable dollars he's taken from DeLay have nothing to do with it.
(whistles)
Rep. Bob Beauprez is cited as having the closest links to the Texas Republican in terms of campaign contributions and voting record.
Public Campaign Action Fund, which has run television ads criticizing DeLay, based its ranking on the $20,000 in campaign funds Republican Beauprez has gotten from DeLay, the $1,000 Beauprez has given to DeLay's legal defense fund and how their voting records match up.
"We are concerned that Beauprez is being bought and sold by Tom DeLay," said progressnowcolorado.org executive director Michael Huttner. "We are concerned by the ethical questions raised by the DeLay money Beauprez took and his votes supporting DeLay."
An illegal immigrant is alleged to have murdered an off-duty Denver police officer. You know about it. It's a tragedy. But for race-baiter Tom, it's also an opportunity.
Tancredo, a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, issued a release headlined: "Tancredo Asks Hickenlooper for Answers."
In it, the congressman said a Denver police policy "prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with federal officials on immigration matters . . ."
The purpose of the policy, which has been adopted in cities throughout the nation, first came as a response to domestic violence in the 1980s.
Women's rights advocates charged that if a victim feared going to police because of her immigration status, cases would go unreported, said Denver immigration attorney Ravi Kanwal.
[Tancredo] said if a woman's charge of domestic violence could result in her deportation, her husband or boyfriend might be less inclined to offend.
What he made all too clear is that there's no sanctuary from a politician willing to exploit even this tragedy.
Today: Beauprez/DeLay, cha-cha-cha.
Tancredo's at it again, the screwing of United's workers continues apace, major setback for "tenured" professors at Metro State, and Little John puts the brakes on (some) Western Slope gas drilling.
Plus: your Daily DeLay, slumber party at W's House (bring your checkbook), while the furor grows over the British Memo, increasingly referred to as a "smoking gun" in the hands of President George W. Bush.
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If the President used baseless terror alerts to manipulate public opinion, would that be impeachable? Howard Dean simply said what we all were thinking:
"I am concerned that every time something happens that is not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that, 'I can keep you safe (therefore in times of difficulty for America) stick with me.' And then out comes Tom Ridge."
Another story about our federal government using our taxpayer dollars to promote its agenda, whether you agree with that agenda or not.
In today's USA Today:
This news follows on the heels of the news a few days back where the US House of Reps rejected the Democrats efforts to keep the Dept. of Education from spending more money on progaganda. All is not lost, however. We still have hopes for the Truth in Broadcasting Act in the Senate that aims to protect us from those prepacked news stories passed off as real journalsim by our government. Keep your fingers crossed on that one.
I'm new to this blog, so let me do a quick introduction. I'm a former journalist, having worked for CNN not too long ago. While at CNN I learned the trade of journalsim from some of the most honorable, honest journalists around. These good folks taught me that you never use a piece of video or a sound bite from an outside source without identifing this source both with a graphic over the video as well as a mention in the voice over.
To see what has become of today's journalism, where a video news release produced by Microsoft is aired on the local news as if they produced it. Or to see a package produced by our government and sent out to air on local TV stations being passed off as the unbiased truth, with no identification, no qualification, no explanation, no "tion"s whatsover. Well, it just makes me angry. I know that this isn't what good journalists do. So, beware bad journalism. It seems the modus operandi of today's news outlets. It's cheap, it's quick, and it's dirty
Is there anything we can do about this? Well, I think we are doing it right here, right now. It's called blogging. So, bloggers out there, keep up the good work. And remember, cite your sources, give credit where it is due, attribute anything that is attributable, and always question...everything.
A third federal agency has admitted it paid a journalist to write favorable stories about its work. Documents released by the Agriculture Department show it paid a freelance writer $9,375 in 2003 to "research and write articles for hunting and fishing magazines describing the benefits of NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) programs."
Three articles by the writer, Dave Smith, appeared late last year in two magazines aimed at hunting and fishing enthusiasts: Outdoor Oklahoma, published by that state's Department of Wildlife Conservation, and Washington-Oregon Game & Fish, published by Primedia.
Neither identified Smith as having been paid by the government. The stories focused on how money from a 2002 agricultural subsidy bill had been used to help preserve wetlands that hunting and fishing enthusiasts enjoy in Oklahoma and the Northwest.
James Dobson and his Radical Right minions are, shall we say, truth-challenged. Focus on the Family calls the Democrats' fillibuster of a handful of President Bush's most radical judicial nominees "obstruction" that is "unprecedented in U.S. history". Maybe they should have checked their numbers. President Bush has the highest confirmation percentage of any president in the last 30 years:
Bush II: 96.6%
Reagan: 96.1%
Carter: 93.1%
Clinton: 87.9%
Bush I: 78.1%
Kudos to the Angry Liberal for picking this up.
So the pay for chief executives of the 500 largest US companies jumped a whopping 54 percent last year. But overall, real wages in the US are falling at their fastest rate in 14 years:
In the final three months of 2004, real wages fell by 0.9 per cent.
The last time salaries fell this steeply was at the start of 1991, when real wages declined by 1.1 per cent.
Stingy pay rises mean many Americans will have to work longer hours to keep up with the cost of living, and they could ultimately undermine consumer spending and economic growth.
Today: the Summer of C. And don't forget D.
Time for Owens to protect gays (or not), lots of sweetheart money for Metro State's new President, and the Durango Herald's thoughtful commentary on Francis and Bill.
Plus: the Daily DeLay, Halliburton gets a bonus from the Army (no pun intended), Tom Ridge defends his pretty colors, and $200 billion apparently isn't enough.
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How often can you say that you agree with George Will?
The state of America's political discourse is such that the president has felt it necessary to declare that unbelievers can be good Americans. In last week's prime-time news conference, he said: "If you choose not to worship, you're equally as patriotic as somebody who does worship."
So Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes and a long, luminous list of other skeptics can be spared the posthumous ignominy of being stricken from the rolls of exemplary Americans. And almost 30 million living Americans welcomed that presidential benediction.
According to the American Religious Identification Survey, Americans who answer "none" when asked to identify their religion numbered 29.4 million in 2001, more than double the 14.3 million in 1990. If unbelievers had their own state -- the state of None -- its population would be more than twice that of New England's six states, and None would be the nation's second-largest state:
California, 34.5 million.
None, 29.4 million.
Texas, 21.3 million.
The president, whose political instincts, at least, are no longer so misunderestimated by his despisers, may have hoped his remarks about unbelievers would undo some of the damage done by the Terri Schiavo case. During that Florida controversy, he made a late-night flight from his Texas ranch to Washington to dramatize his signing of imprudent legislation that his party was primarily responsible for passing. He and his party seemed to have subcontracted governance to certain especially fervid religious supporters.
And last Sunday Pat Robertson, who is fervid but also shrewd, seemed to understand that religious conservatives should be a bit more meek if they want to inherit the Earth. Robertson was asked on ABC's "This Week" whether religious conservatives would be seriously disaffected if in 2008 the Republicans' presidential nominee were to be someone like Rudy Giuliani.
Although Giuliani's eight years as New York's mayor, measured by such achievements as reduction of crime and welfare rolls, constitute perhaps America's most transformative conservative governance in the past half-century, he supports abortion rights, gay rights and gun control. Still, Robertson's relaxed reply to the question was, essentially: What's a little heresy among friends? "Rudy's a very good friend of mine and he did a super job running the city of New York and I think he'd make a good president."
Some Christians should practice the magnanimity of the strong rather than cultivate the grievances of the weak. But many Christians are joining today's scramble for the status of victims. There is much lamentation about various "assaults" on "people of faith." Christians are indeed experiencing some petty insults and indignities concerning things such as restrictions on school Christmas observances. But their persecution complex is unbecoming because it is unrealistic.
In just 15 months, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" has become one of the 10 highest-grossing movies in history, and it almost certainly will become the most-seen movie in history. The television networks, which can read election returns and the sales figures of "The Da Vinci Code," are getting religion, of sorts. The Associated Press reports that NBC is developing a show called "The Book of Daniel" about a minister who abuses prescription drugs and is visited by a "cool, contemporary Jesus." Fox is working on a pilot about "a priest teaming with a neurologist to examine unexplained events."
Christian book sales are booming. "The Rising" by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, the 13th in the astonishing 10-year sequence of Christian novels in the "Left Behind" series, was published two months ago and rocketed to the top of Amazon.com's bestseller list. Three years ago LaHaye and Jenkins, whose first dozen volumes have sold a combined 62 million copies, joined Tom Clancy, John Grisham and J.K. Rowling as the only authors whose novels have first printings of 2 million, partly because they are being sold in huge volumes in stores such as Wal-Mart and Costco. Today LaHaye and Jenkins are leaving Clancy, Grisham, et al. in the dust.
Religion is today banished from the public square? John Kennedy finished his first report to the nation on the Soviet missiles in Cuba with these words: "Thank you and good night." It would be a rash president who today did not conclude a major address by saying, as President Ronald Reagan began the custom of doing, something very like "God bless America."
Unbelievers should not cavil about this acknowledgment of majority sensibilities. But Republicans should not seem to require, de facto, what the Constitution forbids, de jure: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust."
The Radical Right seems to think so. Alan already blogged this, but it's so shocking that it's worth repeating. The Waynesboro Baptist Church in North Carolina recently expelled nine members over politics. For eight of them, the fight started in October when their pastor, Rev. Chan Chandler, told his congregants that if they voted for Kerry they would be committing a sin. The ninth member voted out was a registered Republican and church deacon who supported their right as citizens to vote for whomever they wish. Dozens more church members have left over the political flap.
The sad part is that this isn't an exceptional case. I have friends and family members from other parts of the country who also have left churches because of non-stop conservative political sermonizing.
People of faith have as much right as anyone to advocate policy based on their beliefs. But when churches become an extension of a political party, and vice versa, both have been corrupted.
Governor has it, it's the right thing to do, and it's time to make the call.
A reader writes:
The Honorable Bill Owens
Governor
State of Colorado
Dear Governor Owens:
As you weigh your decision on SB05-28, please consider the following points in SUPPORT of this legislation.
• Status-based employment discrimination is inherently unfair, whether it is due to race, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, or transgender status.
• SB05-28 will put the focus of employment policies where it should be – on job performance.
• SB05-28 will provide the same legal protections that are now available to other classes of individuals that have historically been victims of employment discrimination.
• The amendment includes groups who are NOT covered under federal law. Currently, it is perfectly legal for any employer in Colorado to discriminate against these groups.
• Polling shows that the vast majority (76%) of Coloradans and Americans support a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Let us all come together as Coloradoans and stand up for those who may not otherwise have a voice. There is enough discrimination in our society without endorsing it by default.
As a Christian, I believe in loving one another as Christ loved us. Without discrimination. Let us lift one another up and each reach our full potential -- and not support a hypocrisy that is without merit.
In the eyes of God, we are all imperfect, how then can we take it on ourselves to stand in judgment?
Please, support this legislation as a leader for all of Colorado.
Respectfully,
Jan Dowker
progressnowcolorado.org press release 5/10/05: Call for Congressman Beauprez to return DeLay's money
STATEWIDE AND NATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
Call for Congressman Beauprez to return DeLay's money
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Michael Huttner
(303) 931-4547
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Denver: "We call on Congressman Bob Beauprez to immediately return the money he took from Tom DeLay's Political Action Committee," stated progressnowcolorado.org Executive Director Michael Huttner.
According to an independent campaign finance website, www.tray.com, Rep. Beauprez has taken $29,901 from embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's PAC, Americans for a Republican Majority or "ARMPAC".
"We are concerned that Beauprez is being bought and sold by Tom DeLay," added Huttner. "We are concerned by the ethical questions raised by the DeLay money Beauprez took and his votes supporting DeLay," noted Huttner.
According to Congressional Quarterly, www.cq.com, Beauprez voted with DeLay 94% of the time between January 1, 2004 and March 31, 2005.
DeLay is currently besieged by scandals: three of his former aides have been indicted as part of a campaign fund-raising investigation and the House Ethics Committee is re-examining travel rule violation allegations against DeLay.
This year, Beauprez voted to weaken the ethics rules in a move that served only to protect DeLay. (H Res. 5, Roll Call #6, 1/4/05)
When a solution was offered to clean up the ethics rules, Beauprez voted for a procedural motion to ensure that the solution never came up to a final vote. (H. Res. 153, Roll Call #70, 3/15/05)
Beauprez even voted to allow DeLay to continue serving as Majority Leader even if he is indicted. (http://www.pcactionfund.org/votecount/dr.htm)
"Instead of reprimanding Delay, who has been admonished three times for unethical behavior, Beauprez is giving money to defend DeLay," stated Huttner.
Beauprez gave DeLay's legal fund $1,000 to help defend the majority leader. (www.citizen.org, www.tray.com)
# # #
progressnowcolorado.org is a nonpartisan, national grassroots organization whose mission is to be a strong credible voice in advancing progressive solutions to critical community problems.
For more information, quotes or sources, please call Michael Huttner at 303-931-4547.
Like everything in this life, it just depends on who you are.
For example, if you're an energy company fat-cat, and you want to talk to (let's say) the former CEO of Halliburton, who also happens to be the Vice President, about energy policy? No problem. Come on over.
If you're an ordinary citizen, and would like to find out what those energy fat-cats were talking to Cheney about? Seeing as how a larger percentage of your income than ever is being spent on, you know, energy? Fuggedaboutit.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to force Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal details about the energy policy task force he headed and the pro-industry recommendations it made.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously found that two private groups that sued Cheney failed to establish that the federal government had a legal duty to produce documents detailing the White House's contacts with business executives and lobbyists...
This is not getting any more excusable, folks:
The turmoil embroiling East Waynesville Baptist Church and Pastor Chan Chandler is drawing national attention from religious and political groups.
Last October Chandler told those in his congregation "the question then comes in the Baptist Church how do I vote, let me just say this right now if you vote for John Kerry this year you need to repent or resign. You have been holding back God's church way too long. And I know I may get in trouble for saying that, but just pour it on."
Nine members of East Waynesville say they had their membership revoked last week and 40 others left in protest after tension over political views came to a head, church members say. "Our memberships were terminated because we did not agree to have a political church," said Thelma Lowe, the lone Republican voted out. "I did not vote for Kerry."
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said religious right groups have been pressing evangelical churches to get deeply involved in partisan politics and this kind of controversy is the natural outcome.
We should be having Congressional hearings on this:
How would you like a 54 percent pay raise? That's how much pay jumped last year for the chief executives of the 500 largest U.S. companies, reports Forbes magazine.
Worker pay is shrinking, the economy is stalling, the trade deficit is growing and the stock market is below 1999 levels, but CEO pay is still on steroids. The highest paid CEO in 2004 was Yahoo's Terry Semel, who hauled in $230.6 million. That's more than $4 million a week.
Yahoo is on the "Lou Dobbs Tonight" list of companies "sending American jobs overseas, or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor, instead of American workers." It would take the pay of 7,075 average American workers to match the pay of Yahoo's CEO.
William McGuire of UnitedHealth Group, the nation's leading insurer, was the third-highest paid CEO on the Forbes list. His pay of $124.8 million could cover the average health insurance premiums of nearly 34,000 people.
"While executives are richly compensated, patients are tightening their belts," Dr. Isaac Wornom, chairman of the Richmond Academy of Medicine, wrote last year. "Premiums, deductibles and co-pays are up, while benefits continue to shrink. One million Virginians - that's one out of seven - have no health insurance at all, and this number is increasing. ... Half of the uninsured work full time for small businesses that simply can't afford the inflated rates."
CEOs can win big even when the company loses. Merck, for example, had to pull its Vioxx pain medication off the market because it increases stroke and heart attack risk, and Merck stock was down 28 percent last year, but CEO Ray Gilmartin got a supposedly performance-based bonus. His total 2004 compensation was $37.8 million and he received a new grant of 250,000 stock options.
CEO pay averaged $10.2 million in 2004, counting salary, bonus and other compensation such as exercised stock options and vested stock grants. Full-time worker pay averaged just $32,594. That's 11 percent less than 1973's average worker pay of $36,629, adjusting for inflation, although worker productivity rose 78 percent between 1973 and 2004.
In 1973, CEOs made 45 times as much as workers, according to pay expert Graef Crystal. In 1991, when Crystal said the imperial CEO "is paid so much more than ordinary workers that he hasn't got the slightest clue as to how the rest of the country lives," CEOs made 140 times as much as workers. Last year, CEOs made more than 300 times as much.
Executive pay now takes more than double the bite out of company earnings it did a decade ago, report Lucian Bebchuk, Harvard Professor of Law, Economics and Finance, and Yaniv Grinstein of Cornell University's School of Management in a recent study. Looking at data for thousands of publicly traded companies, Bebchuk and Grinstein found that pay for the top five company executives rose from 4.8 percent of aggregate net company income during 1993-1995 to 10.3 percent of aggregate net income during 2001-2003.
While workers are having a tougher time making ends meet, CEOs are getting perks worth more than worker paychecks. CEO freeloaders expect perks such as lifetime use of company jets, chauffeured cars, company apartments, club memberships, sports tickets, financial planning, personal assistants and more.
In CEO World, the more money you make, the less you should have to pay for. While worker pensions are increasingly unavailable or unreliable, CEO retirement gives new meaning to the golden years.
Today: 2005 session in the books, and there's plenty to cheer.
Cheney raises big bucks for Musgrave, homelessness spiking in Denver, and nuclear test site natural gas gets three thumbs up from GarCo.
Plus: the Daily DeLay, offshore secretaries, and W shakes his money maker in Tbilisi.
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Washington Times, cultural ambassador:
A Washington Times cartoon has led to calls for President Pervez Musharraf's resignation in Pakistan, while the opposition has called for a nationwide protest on Friday.
"Gen. Musharraf's friendship with America has only brought shame and suffering to the people of Pakistan," said Liaquat Baloch, a spokesman for the opposition religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.
...even liberal politicians, like former cricket legend Imran Khan, have reacted angrily against the cartoon and urged Musharraf to "apologize to the entire nation for bringing disgrace to them."
Another opposition group, Pakistan Muslim League (N) has demanded an apology from the U.S. administration.
But the cartoonist - Bill Garner - says the reaction is an "unfortunate cultural misunderstanding."
"The symbol to me was that of friendship ... there's a saying in English that a dog is the man's best friend," said Garner while explaining why he used a dog to depict Pakistan's role in the war against terror.
North Korea, that is.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was asked on CNN's "Late Edition" whether the agency's assessment was that North Korea now possesses as many as six nuclear bombs.
"I think that would be close to our estimation," ElBaradei said.
"We knew they had the plutonium that could be converted into five or six North Korea weapons," he said.
"We know that they had the industrial infrastructure to weaponize this plutonium. We have read also that they have the delivery system."
North Korea has not tested a nuclear device, but recent satellite images indicate Pyongyang may be making preparations for one, a Defense Department official said Friday...
Denver has the 9th worst traffic in the nation overall, according to figures released today by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University.
That's down just a bit from our 7th-place ranking last year, though, and our average time spent stuck in traffic has decreased slightly. Denver drivers spend an average of 51 hours idling on our gridlocked freeways. Last year it was 52.
Since our population is on the rise, where do you suppose that relief, however marginal, is coming from? That would be our improving public transportation system, ranked #1 in the nation (in case you haven't seen the ads). And thanks to you, it's set to expand greatly, and do more than ever to relieve the pressure on our TABOR-starved, underdeveloped freeways.
Good on ya, Colorado.
How bad would you want to visit, seriously? Especially if you're "easy to profile," meaning non-white, or (God help you) have an Arab sounding name?
The US is losing billions of dollars as international tourists are deterred from visiting the US because of a tarnished image overseas and more bureaucratic visa policies, travel industry leaders have warned.
"It's an economic imperative to address these problems," said Roger Dow, chief executive of the Travel Industry Association of America, tourism's main trade body, which concluded its annual convention this weekend in New York.
Mr Dow stressed that tourism contributed to a positive perception of the US, which spread across to business. "If we don't address these issues in tourism, the long-term impact for American brands Coca-Cola, General Motors, McDonald's could be very damaging," he said...
Today: home stretch under the Gold Dome.
Allard says that tort "reform" and bankruptcy restrictions are good things. He's just not talking to you, that's all.
Plus: your Daily DeLay (humble pie edition), and the kinder, gentler Justice Department -- or maybe anybody besides John Ashcroft seems that way...
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Because, Uncle Sam says, "Mohammed was a false prophet, The Koran is blasphemy, and that really seems to upset those Islamaic detainees."
Pakistani officials say they are "deeply dismayed" over reports that the Koran was desecrated at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.
The latest edition of the American Newsweek magazine said such tactics were used to rattle suspects.
It says that US personnel on one occasion flushed a copy of Islam's most holy book "down the toilet".
Pakistani foreign office spokesman, Jalil Abbas Jilani, told the AFP news agency Pakistan was also concerned about "the highly objectionable and regrettable treatment meted out to the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre".
Mr Jilani said the reported act of sacrilege had shocked people of every faith around the world...
Sunday Times, via Kos:
THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as "a critical victory in the war on terror". According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists' third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as "among the flotsam and jetsam" of the organisation.
Bush called him a "top general" and "a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al- Qaeda network". Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, said he was "a very important figure". Yet the backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI's most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department "rewards for justice" programme...
The only operations in which he is known to have been involved are two attempts to assassinate Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, in 2003. Last year he was named Pakistan’s most wanted man with a $350,000 (£185,000) price on his head.
Another Libyan is on the FBI list -- Anas al-Liby, who is wanted over the 1998 East African embassy bombings -- and some believe the Americans may have initially confused the two. When The Sunday Times contacted a senior FBI counter-terrorism official for information about the importance of the detained man, he sent material on al-Liby, the wrong man...
Can't be wrong:
Dear Mr. President:
We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.
If case you don't think they're serious:
According to news media reports, the Rev. Chan Chandler of East Waynesville Baptist Church in Haywood County told members that they must vote for President George W. Bush. Nine members who did not do so have since been told to leave the congregation. An additional 40 members have reportedly left in protest.
"This is an outrage," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United [for Separation of Church and State]. "Houses of worship exist to bring people together for worship, not split them apart over partisan politics."
Lynn said matters will become even worse if a bill now pending in Congress becomes federal law.
H.R. 235, a measure introduced by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), would allow clergy to endorse candidates from the pulpit and still retain a tax exemption of their house of worship.
"Introducing partisan politics into our churches is a terrible idea," said AU's Lynn. "I hope this incident in North Carolina will cause our members of Congress to reject Rep. Jones' bill."
Exit. Strategy?
U.S. and Iraqi troops said challenges included having to pull soldiers out of action for even a few weeks of training, a shortage of Iraqi non-commissioned officers, fostering initiative and equipping soldiers who often lack even boots.
"Our mantra has got to be transition," said Colonel Steven Salazar, head of the 3rd Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade, which oversees the western part of Diyala province.
Iraqi troops, many of them veterans left jobless when Saddam's regiments were dissolved but later rehired by the new army, badly lack equipment including ammunition, body armor, helmets, weapons, uniforms and radios, soldiers say.
Several of the troops in training wore tennis shoes. None had helmets. Few had the same uniforms and equipment.
U.S. and Iraqi officers said the shortage was due to the lack of supply from the Defense Ministry.
During the Buhriz raid, officers with the Iraqi 205th Brigade, whose performance has been praised by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, lacked GPS equipment and compasses and relied on hand-held radios.
Troops did not have bolt cutters or shovels and used discarded iron bars and rusty axes to smash open doors and gates...
You pesky Dems can't take away their fake news -- they need it.
House Republicans Wednesday soundly rejected an effort by Democrats to ban the Department of Education from spending money on "covert propaganda."
The House voted 224 to 197 against a measure, championed by Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, and George Miller, D-Calif., aimed at blocking the department from creating sham news stories or hiring columnists to promote policies.
The Bush administration has also hired actors to pose as journalists in videos promoting its Medicare and drug-control policies.
The videos aired on television stations across the country, and viewers at home were never told that what they were seeing was paid for with their own tax dollars, Miller said.
The House vote fell largely along party lines...
It's okay: Microsoft BOB was a huge mistake, too. But they come around eventually. Must be a focus group thing. CEO Steve Ballmer addresses the troops this morning:
I don't want to rehash the events that resulted in Microsoft taking a neutral position on the anti-discrimination bill in Washington State. There was a lot of confusion and miscommunication, and we are taking steps to improve our processes going forward...
After looking at the question from all sides, I've concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda. Since our beginning nearly 30 years ago, Microsoft has had a strong business interest in recruiting and retaining the best and brightest and most diverse workforce possible. I'm proud of Microsoft's commitment to non-discrimination in our internal policies and benefits, but our policies can't cover the range of housing, education, financial and similar services that our people and their partners and families need. Therefore, it's appropriate for the company to support legislation that will promote and protect diversity in the workplace.
Accordingly, Microsoft will continue to join other leading companies in supporting federal legislation that would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation -- adding sexual orientation to the existing law that already covers race, sex, national origin, religion, age and disability. Given the importance of diversity to our business, it is appropriate for the company to endorse legislation that prohibits employment discrimination on all of these grounds. Obviously, the Washington State legislative session has concluded for this year, but if legislation similar to HB 1515 is introduced in future sessions, we will support it.
This morning's Rocky (God Bless our two-paper town):
This morning's Denver Post with the first volley:
Today's highlights: a couple of questions, Dr. Dobson?
Cheney and Musgrave (add in a little hypocrisy), United eats its own, and the Vail Daily nicely deconstructs Tom DeLay.
Plus: your Daily DeLay (plus one), public rejects Bush's Social Security schemes, and GM achieves a new milestone: junk bond status.
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July 23, 2002. Head of British Intelligence ('C') reports:
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route ... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Anybody still buying it?
During the May 2 season finale of the ABC reality series Supernanny, James C. Dobson's Christian ministry Focus on the Family plans to air a nationwide commercial promoting the organization's toll-free phone number and its Focus On Your Child parenting website. In December 2004, ABC reportedly refused to air a commercial on its broadcast network from the United Church of Christ promoting its inclusive policy towards gays, racial minorities, and people with disabilities. While the ABC Family cable channel ran the commercial, according to a United Methodist Church press release, ABC's broadcast network (which airs Supernanny) joined broadcasters such as CBS, NBC, and UPN in rejecting the ad as "too controversial." Focus on the Family was a co-sponsor of "Justice Sunday," the April 24 event designed to rally support for President Bush's contentious judicial nominees to which Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) gave a videotaped address and Dobson declared that "the biggest holocaust in world history came out of the Supreme Court" in its Roe v. Wade decision. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Dobson endorsed Bush while Focus on the Family organized a massive voter drive urging Americans to vote for candidates who oppose abortion rights and who support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. At a political rally on October 22, 2004, Dobson stated his belief that homosexuals "want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth." Focus on the Family's ad features young children issuing such warnings as "I'm going to make a scene in the supermarket today" and "At bedtime tonight, it could get ugly." Viewers are then instructed to visit the Focus on Your Child website, where they can receive "parenting advice from a faith-based perspective that could make all the difference." The website sells audiotapes like "To Spank or Not To Spank," which explains "the rationale behind the use of corporal punishment and how to administer it with love," as well as a revised and updated version of Dobson's parenting book Dare to Discipline (Tyndale House, 1996). The original version of Dare to Discipline informs parents:
Call for Dobson to Release Campaign Visit Records:
Questions Arise Regarding possible Misuse of his Non-Profit Taxpayer Dollars for Political Purposes
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 5, 2005
CONTACT: Michael Huttner
(303) 931-4547
Denver: "We call on James Dobson to release his 2004 campaign visit records to demonstrate that he did not use his tax-exempt organization, Focus on the Family, to help organize support for any political candidates," stated progressnowcolorado.org Executive Director Michael Huttner.
According to a recent report, in 2004 Dobson endorsed approximately 25 Republican candidates (including President Bush) and campaigned for Senate candidates.1
"Such a call for disclosure is especially timely: Dobson has the 1st Amendment right to comment on issues, but it would be illegal if he in any way used the resources of Focus on the Family to help organize support for any 2004 political candidates, including any of those he is now leaning on to push his agenda," noted Huttner.2
Under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, a charity may not "participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf (or in opposition to) of candidates for public office."3
"In 2004, Dobson created a 501(c)(4) Focus on the Family Action to get around political restrictions imposed on Focus on the Family which is a 501(c)(3); we are questioning whether Dobson crossed the line separating Focus on the Family and Focus on the Family Action," noted Huttner.
"Specifically, taxpayers and the media have the right to see his e-mail and all other correspondence related to each of his campaign visits to ensure that Dobson in no way used Focus on the Family to help organize or support any of these visits," stated Huttner.
Dobson also gave support to several GOP Senatorial candidates in Louisiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and South Dakota.4
"It is perhaps unsurprising that many of the same states that were targeted by Republicans were targeted by the Stand for Family rallies and Focus Action mailings," noted Huttner.
A formal complaint has already been filed against Focus on the Family as its Citizen publication published an article denouncing Presidential Candidate John Kerry.5 In addition there remains a direct link on the (c)(3) website under 'Public Policy' to 'Focus Action' which had a lead role in these targeted states.6
While Focus on the Family Action, being a 501(c)(4), can conduct limited political activity, it can in no way coordinate such activity with Focus on the Family which is a 501(c)(3).7 Under the Internal Revenue Code even an "insubstantial" degree of political intervention by a (c)(3) is a violation of law.
"While Dobson claims all political activity is paid for by Focus on the Family Action, we're asking him to disclose his campaign visit records to the taxpayers and media so they can feel certain that they are not subsidizing any political activities in violation of the law," added Huttner.
# # #
progressnowcolorado.org is a nonpartisan, national grassroots organization whose mission is to be a strong credible voice in advancing progressive solutions to critical community problems.
For more information, quotes or sources, please call Michael Huttner at 303-931-4547.
1 "Dobson's Choice", People for the American Way Foundation, 2/24/05
2 Huttner also teaches Non-profit Political Restrictions as an adjunct Professor of law.
3 Internal Revenue Code, Section 501(C)(3)
4 "Dobson Shifts Power to Focus on the Politics," Denver Post, 11/4/04
5 For Full IRS Complaint, go to http://www.citizensproject.org
6 See www.family.org
7 Internal Revenue Code, Section 501(c)(3) and (4)
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Lots of stories today about lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his many tentacles.
Lots of Dems freaking out today, particularly those (it seems) with similar ethical miscues in their closet as Tom DeLay.
Here at ProgressNow, we are frequently accused of "shilling for the Dems," "close ties to the Democratic Party," et cetera, ad nauseum.
So let me take this opportunity to state, unequivocally and for the record, that every politician who is discovered to have violated the public trust in this manner should (metaphorically) burn, regardless of party affiliation.
That's right, sellout Republicrats. You know who you are. And you should be nervous.
Making the world safe for democracy, human rights, the rule of law...or not.
[Amena] Bibi was sentenced to death by local religious leaders in the Spingul valley in the isolated northeastern province of Badakhshan.
Her crime was to be found in the company of a man she was not married to.
"After two days of investigation and community gatherings the Shura [community council] passed the verdict. The boy [she was found with] was given 40 lashes and the woman killed," Mohammad Azim, one of Amena's paternal uncles, told IRIN...
But Amena's tragic end, battered to death by rocks and her body rolled unceremoniously into a shallow grave, has not even raised eyebrows in a community that has witnessed at least one other recent execution of a woman accused of adultery.
"Seyahmoi [a 30-year-old woman] was shot dead in front of the community because she was a prostitute," a resident who declined to be named, told IRIN.
The new Afghanistan, which professes respect for the rule of law and women's rights are acknowledged, seems a long way from this village...
Today: Salazar says it -- the madrasa right is dangerous for our country.
Woodland Park Wal-Mart, after all, wrecking Section 8, a good day for the GLBT community, and Jim Spencer is still trying to figure out what happened at the Bushprez road show.
Plus: the Daily DeLay (and all his friends, too), Bush invokes FDR with a straight face, and why the Feds are resurrecting Reefer Madness (keeps 'em busy, after all).
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You read recently that terror threats against the US proper are down, because the terrorists are focused on Iraq.
Sounds good, but there's a flip side...
Iraq is now the new Afghanistan used by jehadi groups to train Islamic terrorists, the US State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism for 2004 has said.
Titled "Global Jihad: Evolving and Adapting", the report said: "Foreign fighters appear to be working to make the insurgency in Iraq what Afghanistan was to the earlier generation of jehadists - a melting pot for jehadists from around the world, a training ground, and an indoctrination centre.
"In the months and years ahead, a significant number of fighters who have travelled to Iraq could return to their home countries, exacerbating domestic conflicts or augmenting with new skills and experience existing extremist networks in the communities to which they return."
The report unwittingly seems to confirm the claims by many critics of the US invasion of Iraq who say the country has become a fertile recruiting and training ground for Al-Qaeda...
Arming students for spirited debate, or undermining their teachers with loaded, nonsensical questions?
The Seattle-based Discovery Institute distributes a DVD, "Icons of Evolution," that encourages viewers to doubt Darwinian theory.
One example from related promotional literature: "Why don't textbooks discuss the 'Cambrian explosion,' in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?"
Such questions too often get routinely dismissed from the classroom, says senior fellow John West, adding that teachers who advance such questions can be rebuked - or worse.
"Teachers should not be pressured or intimidated," says Mr. West, "but what about all the teachers who are being intimidated and in some cases losing their jobs because they simply want to present a few scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory?"
But Mr. Wheeler says the criticisms West raises lack empirical evidence and don't belong in the science classroom.
"The questions scientists are wrestling with are not the same ones these people are claiming to be wrestling with," Wheeler says. "It's an effort to sabotage quality science education. There is a well-funded effort to get religion into the science classroom [through strategic questioning], and that's not fair to our students."
Leading the world by example, you see. Today's lesson: "tort reform," war zone style.
Iraqi civilians who have suffered from U.S. military operations face steep obstacles in obtaining compensation for the deaths of their loved ones or material damage, human rights analysts say.
The case of Italian agent Nicola Calipari, gunned down at a U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad on March 4 as he was escorting an Italian hostage to freedom, shows how reluctant the United States is to admit culpability, even in high-profile cases.
The United States exonerated American forces in the incident, but Rome on Monday blamed nervous U.S. troops.
"There is no reason to think that when a nameless Iraqi without international connections is the victim, the U.S. military would take it even remotely seriously," said Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank that opposes the U.S. military involvement in Iraq.
Statistics on civilian deaths in cross fire or at checkpoints in Iraq are scarce. Any released figures usually refer only to Baghdad and cover limited periods...
An investigation by the Dayton Daily News in October analyzed 4,611 civil claims in Iraq against the U.S. military and found that three out of four were denied.
The claims process is "Kafkaesque" in complexity and designed to frustrate most Iraqis, said a joint report in early 2004 by Occupation Watch and the Defense of Human Rights in Iraq, two groups monitoring U.S. military operations.
"Because of the way the compensation system is structured and managed, the American troops have adopted an atmosphere of impunity. Arrogant and violent behavior goes unpunished and continues," they said.
While the MSM has been obsessed with a runaway bride, new evidence of a runaway presidency was ignored. Seems as though there is new evidence that the US and Great Britain had a secret agreement before 9/11 to attack Iraq. Raw Story is on it.
Apparently, threatening judges, callously using woman's death for political gain, and blatantly violating ethics rules does't play well at home either:
SurveyUSA asked 548 registered voters in the 22nd congressional district several questions about the embattled republican's performance.
In general, do you approve or disapprove of the job Tom DeLay is doing as Congressman?
- 51 percent disapproved
- 42 percent approved
- 7 percent were not sure
What letter grade would you give Tom DeLay for his job as congressman? An A, B, C, D, or an F?
- A: 23 percent
- B: 19 percent
- C: 18 percent
- D: 16 percent
- F: 22 percent
- Not Sure: 1 percent
Based on what you know right now, do you think Tom DeLay should remain in his position as House Majority Leader, he should resign as House Majority Leader but remain a member of Congress, or do you think he should completely resign from Congress?
- 39 percent: Remain House Majority Leader
- 21 percent: Resign Leadership
- 36 percent: Resign From Congress
- 4 percent: Not Sure
Today's highlights: Colorado's rock-bottom tax burden: a kiss and a curse.
Election Day in Denver, 80995 Day Two, no override of HB-1042 (party line, naturally), and the Denver Post says yes to gerrymandering reform.
Plus: the Daily DeLay (hope he gets a friendly cellmate), and Howard Dean's high-calibers giving a last-minute boost to the British Labour Party.
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I'm stumped. "Crazy"? "Whacked"? "Insane"? "Dangerously deranged"? Seriously, what do you call this?
Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday.
"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."
"I think we have controlled Al Qaeda," the 700 Club host said, but warned of "erosion at home" and said judges were creating a "tyranny of oligarchy."
Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down.
"Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together."
Robertson's comments came with a showdown looming in the Senate over seven of President Bush's conservative judicial nominees who have been blocked by Democrat filibusters. Republicans have threatened a "nuclear option" to pass the judges by rewriting Senate rules to stop the filibusters.
Sources told the Daily News that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist lacks the 50 votes he needs, which could be a blow to his presidential hopes. "I don't think Frist has the votes," a GOP aide said. "He's now in his own corner. If he doesn't have the votes, he's really screwed."
Robertson echoed that sentiment. "I just don't see him as a future President," Robertson said.
... isn't that the logical implication of this?
AP - The Republicans won an important victory Monday in their legal challenge to the election of Gov. Christine Gregoire when a judge allowed them to use a type of statistical analysis to try to prove illegal votes swayed the race.
Rep. Conyers needs to stay away from light planes, and out of Dealey Plaza.
Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.
The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British Government. Among other things, the document revealed:
* Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.
* British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."
* A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.
* A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:
1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the invasion as well.
Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond to this inquiry as promptly as possible. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Congressman John Conyers
Didn't we settle this in 1925? Oh, that's right, we didn't.
It's just a jump to left -- and then a step to the right...
The Kansas Board of Education has scheduled six days of courtroom-style hearings to begin on Thursday in the capitol Topeka. More than two dozen witnesses will give testimony and be subject to cross-examination, with the majority expected to argue against teaching evolution.
Many prominent U.S. scientific groups have denounced the debate as founded on fallacy and have promised to boycott the hearings, which opponents say are part of a larger nationwide effort by religious interests to gain control over government.
"I feel like I'm in a time warp here," said Topeka attorney Pedro Irigonegaray who has agreed to defend evolution as valid science. "To debate evolution is similar to debating whether the Earth is round. It is an absurd proposition."
Debates over evolution are currently being waged in more than a dozen states, including Texas where one bill would allowing for creationism to be taught alongside evolution...
oh wait, wrong Orwell reference - this is '1984', not 'Animal Farm'....
At any rate, here's the Limbaugh little brother GOP op running the CPB who wants to turn PBS into Fox Lite;
"Competition" is one of those words conservatives love to throw around. It sounds good, like "ownership society" or "personal accounts". And I'm sure some of them actually believe that market forces can fix everything, including problems in public education. But, just like "personal accounts" is a not-so-veiled attempt to hide the real agenda - to destroy social security - "competition" obscures the real agenda of big segment of school choice advocates - to destroy public education.
And, big surprise, it's the Theocrats leading the attack on yet another of our public institutions. No one should be surprised. It's not like they're hiding it:
Years ago Jerry Falwell said, "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, there won't be any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them." This spirit still persists in Religious Right leaders like Focus on the Family's James Dobson, who has supported a growing movement to convince Christian parents to pull their children out of public schools altogether. In recent years, two other Religious Right leaders, Robert Simonds of Citizens for Excellence in Education and D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, have promoted initiatives to encourage all Christian parents to withdraw their students (and their support) from public schools nationwide. Politicians like Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) - who proudly touts that he has "been calling for an end to the government monopoly school system" for over 20 years - and radio personalities like Dr. Laura Schlessinger have also played high-profile roles in this movement. In her April 9, 2002 broadcast, Dr. Laura said, "I stand with Dr. James Dobson. Take your kids out of public schools."
Opening a new front in the right's propaganda Kulturkampf. Armstrong Williams has got nothing on this:
The Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence.
Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."
Shortly after, Mr. Tomlinson hired a consultant to review Mr. Moyers's program; one three-month contract cost $10,000. The reports Mr. Tomlinson saw placed the program's guests in categories like "anti-Bush," "anti-business" and "anti-Tom DeLay," referring to the House majority leader, corporation officials said. The reports found the guests were overwhelmingly anti-Bush, a conclusion Mr. Moyers disputed.
Mr. Moyers said on Friday that he did not know a content review was undertaken but that he was not surprised. "Tomlinson has waged a surreptitious and relentless campaign against 'Now' and me," he said, dismissing complaints that he is biased...
No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
No stability after two years of war.
And we can't even get the oil pumping?
As recently as this April, a senior Iraqi leader evoked the eternal dream that Iraq could produce 10 million barrels a day - close to the Saudi levels - within 10 to 15 years.
Far less progress than that could alter the global oil market and aid consumers everywhere.
But two years after Saddam Hussein was toppled production is limping along at about two million barrels a day, less than before the war, and even at that rate it may be causing long-term damage to poorly maintained fields.
American officials had hoped that output at this stage would be at three million barrels a day, generating badly needed funds for reconstruction. That level of production could also reduce oil prices, which are now around $50 a barrel and a global source of inflationary pressure. But close to $2 billion worth of American technical aid to the oil sector has brought only limited gains...
Paul Krugman should be required reading. He can expose Bush Administration lies on Social Security like only an economist can:
The average worker - average pay now is $37,000 - retiring in 2075 would face a cut equal to 10 percent of pre-retirement income. Workers earning 60 percent more than average, the equivalent of $58,000 today, would see benefit cuts equal to almost 13 percent of their income before retirement.
But above that level, the cuts would become less and less significant. Workers earning three times the average wage would face cuts equal to only 9 percent of their income before retirement. Someone earning the equivalent of $1 million today would see benefit cuts equal to only 1 percent of pre-retirement income.
Continue reading "Gut Punch to the Middle".
On election night 2004, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) boasted:
"The Republican Party is a permanent majority for the future of this country. . . . We are going to be able to lead this country in the direction we've been dreaming of for years.",
Today: Little John on Social Security privatization, answering Focus on the Family by the busload, Denver's new jail going to the voters, and no guns in Western Slope courtrooms (duh).
Plus: your widening Daily DeLay, Castro says extradite all terrorists (even when inconvenient), and Maureen Dowd asks why the heck Ahmed Chalabi has a job in the New Iraq.
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Yes, milquetoast liberals like me can celebrate it, too.
I'll be giving a brief speech today at the City and County building rally, about 11:30AM. In case you're not there (weather is a little nasty today), here it is for posterity.
Continue reading International Worker's Day.
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