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June 30, 2006

Criminalizing Christianity

A new book, Criminalizing Christianity, sounds to me like the most paranoid piece of garbage to have been published in the Christian market in a long time.

"This has become more than a seasonal witch hunt by the ACLU," said [World Net Daily] Editor and founder Joseph Farah. "The attacks on Christianity in America are alarming. We are witnessing more than religious bigotry now. We are entering the early stages of what could become persecution and outright criminalization of Christianity if it is not exposed and fought vigorously by all freedom-loving people."

It boggles the mind how these people can on the one hand be making such great strides forward in their goal to turn this country into a theocracy, and on the other hand be complaining that their religion is being outlawed because non-believers dare to fight the theocrats back.

In "CRIMINALIZING CHRISTIANITY," readers will learn how quoting the Bible, especially regarding homosexuality, can make you into a criminal offender.

Learn how standing up for heterosexual marriage, espousing Judeo-Christian morality, protesting against radical Islam – even delivering a sermon in church – can get you into serious trouble with the law.

Why do people actually believe that merely expressing one's opinion in this country will get you into trouble? Because people are lying about what really happened that got lawbreaking Christians into trouble. A classic example is when people claim the Nuremberg Files racketeers were convicted for "protesting outside abortion clinics," when in fact they were plotting and carrying out multiple murders. The book fleshes out its ridiculous thesis by supplying examples of religious suppression in other countries where freedom of speech and religion are not protected as they are in the United States.

Books like this urge gullible Christians to fight back against a war that isn't occurring and further develop the persecution complex that enables their leaders to lead them around by the nose. And guess what. Even though books like this are actually dangerous to our democracy, nobody is banning them. It looks as if Christians' rights to free expression are every bit as in tact as they have always been.

Posted by Becky at 10:59 AM |

Take This Under Advisement

As Carla discusses below, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision yesterday has right-wingers in an uproar claiming the US Supreme Court has put us in danger of losing to the terrorists. I'm thrilled they stepped in to protect the separation of powers and clamped down on President Bush's abuse of power.

But I have been quite taken aback by the President's arrogant response. His official mouthpiece, White House Correspondent Tony Snow, said the Court's decision would be "taken under advisement." And the President himself said, "We will analyze the decision."

Analyze it? Take it under advisement? President Bush may not like it, but, as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority, "The executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction." He was required to have the authorization of Congress – the people. He did not get that authorization.

We already know he has snubbed Congress – the duly elected representatives of the people and one of the three co-equal branches of government. And now he is snubbing the US Supreme Court – the representatives of lawfulness and protectors of the US Constitution.

I'm truly outraged.

Posted by Becky at 10:29 AM |

A Bongo-Banging Embarassment

The whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so complex and ancient that I will be the first to admit I don't understand it, nor am I able to even pick sides. It's a total mess in which innocent people seem to be killed nearly every day, and now we're facing the possibility that the execution of a single captured soldier could spark all-out war in the Middle East.

The seriousness and complexity of the issue is precisely why I am so annoyed by this story out of Israel. Apparently, a small group of nutty Christian pilgrims demonstrated nearby while Israel conducted its anti-Hamas military activity yesterday.

Strumming guitars and banging bongos, Christian pilgrims journeyed to Israel's dusty border with the Gaza Strip on Thursday to offer support to Israeli troops participating in the military action.

About 25 people, wearing white T-shirts that said "Your God is my God," waved Israeli flags and sang religious songs.

Hundreds of troops milled about in the distance alongside tanks and armored vehicles, seemingly oblivious to the group.

Now I know Christians have solid biblical reasons for supporting Israel, but holding a virtual "Kum-bah-yah" type sing-fest while Israeli airplanes are bombing people is reminiscent of that group of cult nuts in the movie "Bubble Boy," singing "Bright and Shiny." Really kooky.

Posted by Becky at 09:15 AM |

The jokes just write themselves!

I predicted late last week that the ever-so-scary Miami 7 story would carry us through July 4th. But then Santorum chipped in his "WMDs FOUND!" media moment. And I didn't anticipate Osama's latest video release* coming out quite so soon:

"Ukraine! gotta love those scrappy underdogs! Seriously, though, the referees better get their act together after those early rounds. What else? Oh, right -- I been telling you guys for years 'bout that 2nd hand smoke -- whatcha think now? Huh? Ya feel me? Guess that's about it for now. Peace out with love. Oh, and death to America."

*Letterman-style translation; accuracy not guaranteed; but who the hell in our intelligence agencies really knows?!?

Posted by Jeff at 09:09 AM |

But It's Just a Simple Kiss...

Everyone loves a kiss, and even more, everyone loves a good gossipy story about a kiss. This week has brought us a couple of good ones.

The first is one that made my eyes about pop out of my head. Russian Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, for no apparent reason, stopped on the street, lifted the shirt of a 5-year-old boy, and kissed him on the tummy. The boy was startled, but not nearly as much as the rest of the world, as the incident was captured by television cameras. Yesterday, the Russian blogosphere was buzzing, and the top keyword search for the day was "Putin kissed a boy."

Another controversial kiss occurred at last week's Heritage Foundation forum featuring, of all things, a discussion of whether the TV show "24" is realistic. The featured speaker was Michael Chertoff, special guests included Justice Clarence Thomas, and the panel discussion, hosted by Rush Limbaugh, included the very Republican co-creators of the show, as well as the actors who played CTU agents Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) and Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub). When Rush introduced "Chloe," he bent over and planted a big kiss on her lips, sparking the rumor that the two were dating. If true, then hopefully his weekend visit to the Dominican Republic put an end to it. In any case, on Rush's website a photograph of the kiss is subtitled, comically, "Chloe plants one on Rush." Of course, this display of manly confidence with a younger woman occurred before he lost his Viagra.

Back in February, President Bush put Sen. Joe Lieberman in hot water when he kissed the Senator on the cheek. The jokes still continue.

Bush put himself in hot water some time ago when he was captured on film holding hands and kissing Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah as the two strolled through a garden.

Why the controversy about all this kissing? It's really pretty simple. A kiss implies a certain level of intimacy. It seems a kiss is not "just" a kiss.

Posted by Becky at 08:56 AM |

The smell of fear in rightydom

Now that the Supreme Court has smacked down W's power grab on detainees, the righties have gone absolutely postal:

The liberals must be doing cart wheels right about now. They wanted the terrorists who chop off the heads of our captured soldiers, who bomb innocent people on purpose, who fly planes into buildings containing thousands of civilians, to be treated as POW’s. They received their wish today.

WELCOME BACK 9/10/01. (Don’t cite me as coming up with that one, saw it on a blog)

The court has decided that the war on terror will now go back to being treated as a “law enforcement” issue. Lets go get Bin Laden and put him in front of a jury of his peers….I know, ludicrous.

Ah yes. Law enforcement. We can't actually go after individuals who commit heinous acts that the world community finds illegal using tried and true investigation tactics. Then the righties wouldn't get to do the jackbooted thug bit. And they do look so fetching in their brown shirts and snappy jackboot accessories.

Not to mention that law enforcement is actually proved to work against terrorism. Bill Clinton demonstrated that when he brought the perps of the first World Trade Center bombing to justice.

Imagine that. Bringing them to justice instead of allowing them to remain on the loose and still planning acts of terror. All of a sudden that "jury of his peers" thing doesn't seem so ludicrous for Bin Laden after all.

But the real weenie of the rightysphere on this issue is Jeff Goldstein who appears to be sitting in a puddle of his own piss:

In fact, we may have just witnessed the SCOTUS overreach that loses us the war.

and

I don’t wish to sound too conspiratorial here, but it seems to me that a case can be made that under Lederman’s reading of this decision, we’ve now effectively empowered an alliance between the intelligence community and the press to determine our national security posture by setting up an atmosphere wherein leaks will be even more effective and more coveted by partisans who disagree with a given administration.

Beyond that, though, granting Geneva Convention protections to out of uniform combatants who hide among civilian populations completely devalues the Convention itself, and renders being a signatory a liability rather than a protection (beyond that, the judiciary has made us a de facto signatory to Protocol 1 by judicial fiat—which may be reason enough for Bush to refuse to honor the ruling; any lawyers want to comment?). By turning the Conventions into a moral judgment rather than a pragmatic treaty agreement, a SCOTUS majority has in one fell swoop destroyed the very nature of treaties as such. In this case, the US has assumed that “moral authority” Andrew Sullivan is after by SCOTUS fiat—but in order to reach that point, the Court had to essentially advocate for leveling the playing field between us and the terrorists, who are not required to sign onto the treaty in order to receive the protections granted by and through the treaty.

Jeezus. Why do these guys have to be such chickenshit assholes?

The idea that the United States of America should treat prisoners humanely is completely beyond the reach of Goldstein. He sincerely cannot fathom the idea that we're better than terrorists.

His entire post is predicated on the foundation of retribution because he's so damn scared. He's a coward--unwilling to hold on to principles of decency because it doesn't assuage his fear.

He's terrified of terrorists. Which means of course that the terrorists are doing their job.

Posted by Carla at 06:21 AM |

June 29, 2006

Abstinence Program Doubles AIDS Rate in Uganda

In 1986, Uganda's President " launched an ambitious HIV prevention campaign, which included massive condom distribution, explicit information about transmission, and messages about delaying sex and reducing numbers of partners. HIV rates dropped from 15 percent in the early 1990s to 5 percent in 2001."

Then Christian activists got involved and Uganda's success took a sharp turnaround. New HIV infections nearly doubled between 2003 and 2005.

[C]onservative think tanks and Christian right activists saw what they wanted to see. Uganda's balance of abstinence, being faithful, and condom use, or ABC, became abstinence, be faithful, with condoms "only as a last resort." It was common to claim, as Focus on the Family's James Dobson did in 2002, that, "Uganda has made great progress against AIDS by emphasizing abstinence, not condoms."

This rewrite became a mantra in Washington, as a third of Bush's global prevention money was set aside only for abstinence. Soon, players among Bush's evangelical base, from Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse to Anita Smith's Children's AIDS Fund, began to rake in millions in federal grants to spread the abstinence-only message in Uganda.

Thanks to the Christian influence, Uganda has removed the "C" from ABC.

"Uganda's new morality-based approach has unleashed a wave of stigma against condom use, because now, if you ask for a condom, it must mean you have failed to abstain or be faithful."

It didn't stop people from having sex. It just stopped them from using condoms.

It never ceases to amaze me how inevitably, whether the West interferes or refuses to interfere with the goings-on in Africa, it always seems to lead to the deaths of Africans. You'd almost have to believe it is intentional.

Posted by Becky at 10:32 AM |

Why Religion and Politics Don't Mix

William Shaw is appealing to Christians not to believe the notion that Christians must be aligned with the Republican party. "Such a position could be devastating for the authenticity of Christianity," he writes.

The problem with mixing the two is that Christians are called to change the world from the inside out and politics attempt to do so from the outside in.

It's the concept of winning hearts and minds.

Recently in San Diego, a giant concrete cross that stands in a public parking lot has made the news as violating the doctrine of the separation of church and state. Its permanence is being fought by people who think differently about the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson's famous "separation" statement. In all honesty, this dichotomy of separation is useless for the country, but for some it is a matter of America's survival. To have crosses on or off parking lots doesn't make the country more or less Christian. If some feel it is a threat to religious freedom in the nation, then perhaps they have misplaced the origin from which freedom comes. Such people ought to be helping the poor and feeding the hungry rather than fighting a cause that in the end will carry no eternal value.

Homosexuality, abortion, the War in Iraq and many more are issues on the Republican-conservative agenda. For Christians to try and correct these issues through the position of Republicanism misrepresents Christianity and its purpose. Adjusting a secular law to favor a certain Christian belief could cause Christianity to look more like a religion of political power driven by hate. No matter how well intentioned the end result may be, the means of getting there should be pursued with the same attitude. It seems it would be out of character for Jesus to ever have tried to change a nation by implementing laws, but he would have done it relationally - one person at a time.

The recently revealed details of the Abramoff/Scanlon scandal and Ralph Reed's involvement highlight the point that Shaw is trying to make:

The Reed story confirms what many devout Christians have argued since conservative social activists became a force in national politics in the 1970s: Engaging in worldly political maneuvering is ultimately debasing. … Hearts are better changed one at a time in the churches than through elections or legislation.

It would certainly seem that the separation of church and state is the best option for both the church and for the state.

Posted by Becky at 10:29 AM |

Gullibility of Americans Could Do Us In

Paul Craig Roberts has penned another thought-provoking article. Entitled "The High Price Of American Gullibility," it explores why Americans remain gullible to the neocons and how that is endangering our civil rights.

What explains the gullibility of Americans, a gullibility that has mired the U.S. in disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that promises war with Iran, North Korea, and a variety of other targets if neoconservatives continue to have their way? Part of the explanation is that millions of conservatives are thrilled at the opportunity to display their patriotism and to show their support for their country.

The threat to civil rights is incredible, and it doesn't take a great leap of reasoning to see that, though many seem unable to:

Many Americans have turned a blind eye to the administration's illegal and unconstitutional spying on the grounds that, as they themselves are doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear. If this is the case, why did our Founding Fathers bother to write the Constitution? If the executive branch can be trusted not to abuse power, why did Congress pass legislation establishing a panel of federal judges (ignored by the Bush administration) to oversee surveillance? If President Bush can decide that he can ignore statutory law, how does he differ from a dictator? If Bush can determine law, what is the role of Congress and the courts? If "national security" is a justification for elevating the power of the executive, where is his incentive to find peaceful solutions?

Roberts points out the obvious fact "that it is statistically impossible for the NSA's mass surveillance of Americans to detect terrorists." As one university professor has discovered, the "NSA's surveillance system is useless for finding terrorists."

The surveillance is, however, useful for monitoring political opposition and stymieing the activities of those who do not believe the government's propaganda.

Unfortunately, Roberts says, media consolidation and corporate ownership of the media has seriously limited Americans' access to non-propaganda information. The Internet, now under attack by Republicans who want to limit the information available to average folks, is one of the few places where people can now turn for the truth. Roberts fears before people wake up, it may be too late.

Posted by Becky at 09:38 AM |

Kinky Mr. Loofah Defends Kinky Mr. Limbaugh

Bill O'Reilly, the loofah and falafel king, is coming to the rescue of Rush Limbaugh after Rush was nabbed with an illegal viagra prescription as he left the child prostitution and sex tourism capital of the world, the Dominican Republic.

O'Reilly claims Palm Beach County, Florida authorities are "out to get" pool Limbaugh, to "unjustly…harm him," which they should not do because "he is an American."

Um, Bill, that didn't stop you from attacking Jeremy Glick. To quote your words to patriotic American Mr. Glick: "You have a warped view of this world and a warped view of this country." Now "shut up!"

Posted by Becky at 09:22 AM |

June 28, 2006

Christian Leaders AWOL on Violent Video Game

In his latest installment in a series of articles addressing the Christian killer video game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces," J. Hutson criticizes prominent Christian leaders who have refused to condemn the game.

One of the main reasons why the Rev. Jerry Falwell co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979 was to decry the corruption of America's values. For decades, the Southern Baptist pastor has hectored Hollywood, trash-talked TV, been het up on hip hop, and spouted vitriol about video games. But this once bold, big lion who strode the stage popping off about pop culture lately has been reduced to a peewee church mouse. On his claim to fame, Rev. Falwell's got no more game. When it came time to denounce Left Behind: Eternal Forces -- a Christian supremacist video game that one Republican attorney has characterized as "the worst example to date of how the corrosive pop culture has conformed the Church to its image" -- the broken down old culture warrior has cut and run. And he's not the only one to show such cowardice.

In fact, only one Christian leader has protested the game. No, it's not James Dobson or Rick Warren, who, like Falwell, have made a career of warning parents against violent video games and other pop culture dangers. And, of course, it isn't Southern Baptist Pastor Tim LaHaye, co-founder of the Moral Majority and author of the bloody "Left Behind" series. It's Republican attorney and video critic Jack Thompson.

Thompson wrote a letter to Falwell last week (and copied it to Dobson, Warren, and LaHaye) saying LaHaye had "lost his mind" and become "part of the problem," and saying the game "makes a mockery of the witness of all of us." He went on:

"This is dangerous stuff, not only because it legitimizes the use of violence to Christian kids, but also because the last time I checked we were in a War on Terror, in which the other side claims we are engaged in a latter day "Crusade" against Islam. Now we have a Tyndale House-blessed killing game that glamorizes just that. What a rhetorical gift to radical Islamists. I can hear Al-Qaeda now: `America is producing a video game that trains Christian children to kill Muslims and to enjoy doing so.' "

Falwell has not responded to the letter, nor have Dobson, Warren, and LaHaye.

Thompson also lists (and describes) "Seven Woes" (a term from the apocalyptic book of Revelation) that "unite gamers and Jack Thompson in agreement, and mark Left Behind Games as set apart for scorn by gamers and conservative Christians alike."

The First Woe: Pushed by a Bible Publisher

The Second Woe: Alienates Its Core Audience

The Third Woe: Spyware in the Software

The Fourth Woe: Exploitation of 9/11

The Fifth Woe: Left Behind Games Hurts the War on Terror

The Sixth Woe: The Game Offends People of All Faiths

The Seventh Woe: They Shoot Nurses, Don't They?

Yes, they really do.

Posted by Becky at 10:07 AM |

Barack Obama Talks Religion

Senator Barack Obama this morning gave a "Call to Renewal" speech in which he talked about the connection between religion and politics and urged Democrats to do a better job acknowledging the power of faith. It is a great read from beginning to end. Here is an excerpt:

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest “gap” in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don’t.

Conservative leaders, from Falwell and Robertson to Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that – regardless of our personal beliefs – constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, some liberals dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word “Christian” describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.

Such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when the opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people, and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

Obama discusses why people are attracted to religion, the power of African American churches to spur change in politics, how he became a Christian, religious morals and values and how they impact lawmaking on issues like abortion and homosexuality, and why it is so crucial for Democrats to recognize the religious beliefs of Americans in their role as political leaders.

It is, in my opinion, a brilliant speech.

Posted by Becky at 09:22 AM |

Groupthink Grope

In the ever shrinking bizarro world that Bush supporting Republicans continue to inhabit, the New York Times is the poop scooping birdcage liner whose staff should be group handcuffed and frog marched to Gitmo.

Their transgressions oddly have an identical match to the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal: printing stories about government abusing power and eroding the privacy liberties of Americans.

Yet somehow the LA Times and the WSJ have flown under the radar of the groupthink zombies. Apparently its only treasonous to out the government's nasty little antiAmerican spying programs if your geography has two Democratic Senators on the East Coast. Or perhaps its the fact that they no longer employ the hack who helped sugarcoat their improper war.

Whatever the reason, they've decided that the Times' reign of informing Americans that their government is intruding on them without cause must end. Or at least they're going to talk it up a lot.

James Wolcott believes that they're backing the Administration into a corner with this ridiculous bellyaching:

They want the administration to show the Times and the rest of the press who's boss. The neocon contingent is already dismayed with the tiptoeing around Iran's nuclear program, with Ledeen and Perle lodging protests. If the pushback against the Times peters out, if the posse disbands shortly after mounting up, the White House is going to look weak in the bugged-out eyes of its mutant defenders. It'll be interesting to see if the controversy builds or fades over the next few days, and whether or not the Times-bashers will be compelled to call their own bluff.

Naw.

This is a groupthink machine. And it isn't a trickle up contingent. Its trickle down. Bush can do pretty much whatever he wants and the cool kid keyboardists and pundits won't abandon him. Not for long. Not if they want to hold on to their wee little grip on power.

If they really cared about the release of this information they'd be going after all the papers and media outlets--not just the Times. These people have a boner to see that paper ended. Its personal--but not to the point that they'll dump Dear Leader and pull the rug out from under themselves.

Posted by Carla at 09:10 AM |

Prayer Won't Save Zimbabwe

Having spent a year in Zimbabwe back in 1983, when it was first emerging from a civil war and headed toward prosperity, I have watched with heartbreak the country's demise under the leadership of President Robert Mugabe.

And now, after years of the most idiotic decision making, resulting in the most amazing inflation rate I have ever heard of (quadruple digit!), Mugabe seems to believe that only prayer will save the country he has ruined.

The veteran leader, who has been Zimbabwe's sole ruler since independence from Britain, struck a spiritual note on Sunday, telling Christians who had gathered in Harare for a day of prayer that divine intervention could restore the country's position as a jewel of Africa.

He prayed for God to pardon Zimbabwe for sins committed that had brought suffering to the country.

"May Zimbabweans, as we work for the economy's turnaround in every way, reach the goal of being the jewel among other nations, pray for all this in the name of Jesus. Amen," Mugabe told the gathering in Harare.

Only one thing will save Zimbabwe now, and it isn't prayer. Zimbabwe has lost many of its best educated people, who have left the hopelessness behind in search of a better life. But its people are hard working and bright with a sincere desire to succeed, and given the opportunity, they can bring the country back on track over time. What Zimbabwe really needs major governmental reform and a new President.

I hope they find a way to achieve that before it is too late.

Posted by Becky at 09:06 AM |

White House Revealed Financial Monitoring First

President Bush calls it "disgraceful" and a "great harm" to national security. Republican Senator Jim Bunning calls it "treason" that "scares the devil out of me." Rep. Peter King wants Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to consider "criminal prosecution." And House Speaker Denny Hastert, that paragon of virtue, is calling for the revocation of the press credentials of The New York Times. All this because the Times ran a story about the government's monitoring of banking records through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT).

But a search of public records reveals that the government itself has, for the past five years, been openly describing that monitoring program for all the world to see.

"There have been public references to SWIFT before," said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003. "The White House is overreaching when they say [The New York Times committed] a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before."

Victor D. Comras , a former US diplomat who oversaw efforts at the United Nations to improve international measures to combat terror financing, said it was common knowledge that worldwide financial transactions were being closely monitored for links to terrorists. […] "Unless they were pretty dumb, they had to assume" their transactions were being monitored, Comras said of terrorist groups. "We have spent the last four years bragging how effective we have been in tracking terrorist financing."

Indeed, a report that Comras co-authored in 2002 for the UN Security Council specifically mentioned SWIFT as a source of financial information that the United States had tapped into. […]

Less than two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Bush signed an executive order calling for greater cooperation with foreign entities to monitor money that might be headed to terrorist groups. The executive order was posted on the White House website.

The article lists several other instances in which the information was made public, but the point is clear: Republicans are simply looking to clamp a firm hand over the mouth of our free press in order to reduce the flow of information to voters ahead of the Fall elections.

Posted by Becky at 09:03 AM |

June 27, 2006

Anger as a self-limiting motivator

Going back to my early days of activism, in a specific context that's a story for a whole 'nother day, with a group of friends and neighbors trying to organize around a neighborhood problem, I argued that anger, by itself, is self-limiting. If you can only move forward fueled by anger, you're eventually going to lose, because anger simply doesn't last. It's not in human nature for it to last. Eventually you get over it or you burn out, or those around you burn out on you--whichever, you're stopped.

So this comment yesterday by Kevin Drum interested me:

It strikes me that modern American culture rewards conservatives when people are angry and polarized and rewards liberals when people are united and forward looking. (Relatively speaking, of course.) This is why I don't especially think the left needs its own Ann Coulter, or its own Karl Rove. We need effective advocates and smart political operatives, of course, but they need to operate on an entirely different wavelength. Fanning the flames of anger, even in our own cause, produces a political environment that ultimately helps conservatives.

If he's right (and I think he might be), and if I'm right (and, well--do I have to say it?), movement conservatism can't last. Perhaps the sputterings we're seeing now are signs that it's running on fumes even as we speak; perhaps not yet.

But it's an interesting line of thought. Discuss.

Posted by Nothstine at 02:18 PM |

Court Right to Toss VT Contribution Limits

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday struck down Vermont's campaign contribution limits, bumping the state back from $200 contribution limits to its earlier $2000 limits. I think the Court made the right decision.

I do not believe the problem with our campaign finance system is the size of contributions funneled to a campaign. The real problem is that the already existing campaign finance reporting laws are either full of holes or not enforced so that the voters still do not really know whose money is backing the issues or candidates they are being asked to support.

Limits on contribution amounts only encourage donors into covert action that will allow them to continue their buying of influence. The stakes are simply so high it is worth it to them to push the (cash-stuffed) envelope (across the table). Two of the chief methods used to hide the sources of contributions are money laundering through various organizations (such as Americans for Tax Reform) and "issues ads" funded by independent, nonprofit groups whose contributions and expenditures are not open for public inspection. Nothing is being done about these means of circumventing existing campaign finance law. Instead, people continue to clamor for tighter restrictions.

When the public knows where campaign money originates, it affects their support for an issue or candidate, as evidenced by the great lengths to which political activists and candidates frequently go to hide the sources of their campaign funds. And in today's media-rich society, we have come to equate slick campaigns with worthiness so that those who don't have the dough really don't have an effective voice.

Posted by Becky at 01:52 PM |

Jesus Loves Porn Stars

A new Bible with a cover reading "Jesus Loves Porn Stars" is making waves.

This weekend at the erotica convention in Los Angeles, Pastor Craig Gross, who runs an anti-pornography ministry, handed out hundreds of "Jesus Loves Porn Stars" Bibles. Gross, in his "porn-mobile," is a regular fixture at porn conventions. His anti-porn Web site is provocatively entitled XXXChurch.com.

"I believe Jesus, he'd be in the show with us," Gross said. "He'd be mixing it up with these people. 'Cause he doesn't look at them as porn stars, or porn producers. He looks at us as all the same."

Gross is absolutely correct. The entire Christian message can be boiled down to this one thing: that all are sinners, that every single human being falls short of the standard set by God to enter Heaven, and that only through Jesus's substitutional death can anyone be saved. That pretty much puts preachers on the same level as porn stars in God's eyes.

But the American Bible Society thinks Gross's Bibles are unfit to print.

The [ABS] wrote Pastor Gross a letter refusing to print his Bible "out of a sense of propriety," saying the "wording … was misleading and inappropriate."

I can see why little old church ladies and those who print Bibles for them would be upset. After all, society was quite a bit different back in their day. Such things weren't spoken in polite company, let alone printed on the Holy Bible. But we're living in "interesting times."

Gross says his unconventional measures are what it takes to reach people today. "We're trying to reach a new audience and so we can't just do things like our parents did, like the generation did before us," he said.

After all this time it surprises me that many Christians still seem to believe clean-cut religious folks with King James Bibles could ever reach people in some segments of our society. And I find it sad that when someone does understand the language of the "sinner" and reaches out to offer them a message of hope, the response of the Christian world is rejection and scorn. But then, even Jesus faced harsh rejection when he ate dinner with a tax collector, allowed a prostitute to wash his feet with her tears, and actually touched an outcast leper to heal him.

Posted by Becky at 09:21 AM |

The great vomitous news mass

When I fired up the laptop this morning and cruised over to Memeorandum to see what's buzzing in the blogs, it was exceptionally depressing. Sometimes I simply can't face the nuttiness.

For example, there is just no way that anyone with two brain cells to rub together sincerely believes that the latest privacy violation of the Bush Administration is good policy. Going through the banking records of Americans with no probable cause is completely inappropriate. And Bush thinks its "disgraceful" that the Times reported the story.

Of course Bush thinks its disgraceful! He doesn't like being caught doing shit he shouldn't be doing. But its so tedious to see the massive list of "yes we'll kiss your ass" blogs defending this garbage. These bloggers don't think what Bush is doing is right and proper. I doubt they've bothered to put that much thought into it. They're merely cheerleading their team leader.

The alleged "war on terror" is in its essence an excuse for the government to expand its powers and then use them against political enemies. Its all wrapped up with a shiny, nationalism-colored-as-patriotism bow (see also ass covering with Old Glory).

Posted by Carla at 09:00 AM |

More Proof Sexual Orientation is Nature, not Nurture

A new study has found even more proof that sexual orientation is a matter of nature rather than nurture.

Previous research had revealed the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay, but the reason for this phenomenon was unknown.

Professor Anthony Bogaert from Brock University in Ontario, Canada, has found a link between the number of older brothers a man has, all sharing the same mother, and whether or not that man is homosexual. He also found that sexual orientation was not affected by the amount of time the man spent with the older brothers – it was purely a biological matter.

[Dr. Bogaert] suggests the effect is probably the result of a "maternal memory" in the womb for male births. A woman's body may see a male fetus as "foreign", he says, prompting an immune reaction which may grow progressively stronger with each male child. The antibodies created may affect the developing male brain.

It is just more evidence to support the "liberal" notion that all human beings should be allowed to pursue happiness and fully participate in all of the rights and responsibilities of our society.

Posted by Becky at 08:48 AM |

No More Nookie for Rush

That right-wing proponent of family values and virtue, Rush Limbaugh, has just been nabbed for possession of Viagra prescribed to someone else.

I'm shocked – not shocked he had a prescription made out to someone else, no. I'm shocked because Rush isn't even married and is (or was) apparently having sex anyway.

Poor Rush. First, no more pain killers and now no more sex. Not only did he get detained and questioned, but the mean sheriff took the prescription and may charge him with a second-degree misdemeanor.

***** UPDATE *****

A bit of humor, courtesy of Matt Drudge:

RUSH LIMBAUGH: 'HOW DID BOB DOLE'S LUGGAGE GET ON MY AIRPLANE? I TOLD MY DOCTOR I WAS WORRIED ABOUT THE NEXT ELECTION'... ...CUSTOMS DID NOT BELIEVE ME WHEN I TOLD THEM THAT I GOT THOSE PILLS AT THE BILL CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY'...

***** UPDATE #2 *****

And then there's this, which everyone seems to be unwilling to talk about. Eeew!

Posted by Becky at 08:36 AM |

June 26, 2006

Ted Piccolo's Fantasy World

The recent back-and-forth with Ted Piccolo at NW Republican over Grover Norquist has finally reached the point where I can only conclude that some Republicans are beyond hope. They are determined to believe whatever they want to believe.

In Ted's most recent post he refers to recent articles laying out how Norquist was the go-to guy for money laundering and buying "face time" with the President, and then claims poor Grover was "used" by Abramoff and didn't realize what was going on:

Abramoff was attempting to hide his motives from among others, the folks at Americans for Tax Reform. In an email correspondence to others inside his lobbying firm he had this to say.

"What is most important however is that this matter is kept discreet," Abramoff said in an e-mail on Oct. 24, 1995. "We do not want the opponents to think that we are trying to buy the taxpayer movement." Of course liberals will continue to try to paint folks like Norquist and Ridenour as culprits yet conveniently overlook the role that the aggressive politics of the gaming tribe (Choctaws). Conservatives such as Norquist and Ridenour maintain, basically, that they were played by Abramoff. …Norquist and Ridenour appear to be innocent political operatives taken advantage of by Abramoff who seemed to dig himself deeper and deeper into trouble. However even in innocence we see how liberals, and their willing cohorts in the MSM, can't help but try to portray conservatives as guilty of something. We know that liberals have never let the truth get in the way of good political spin.

Compounding the hilarity of Ted's post was this little comment:

While the details are much more complicated than simply the "bad-ol-Republicans" attacking Indians, the reality is that those details will get lost on future tribal leaders. Because we know that in the future the Democrats will certainly try to use this issue to drive a wedge between Oregon Indian tribes and the Republican party. Much like the liberals are trying to drive a wedge between Indian tribes and conservatives on the national scene in the Abramoff scandal.

I guess in Ted's eyes, I'm a "liberal" (everyone who knows me would be rolling on the floor in hysterics at that one). I write a post to the effect that Ted's favorite buddy Grover screwed over the Indian tribes; ergo, the "liberals are trying to drive a wedge" … It's almost too funny for words.

What isn't funny is the Abramoff/Norquist/Ralph Reed Shenanigans. Ted may have referenced the latest news about this bunch here and here, but he obviously read the articles through rose colored glasses. Because here is some of what they say:

The middleman: lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Blunt e-mails that connect money and access in Washington show that prominent Republican activist Grover Norquist facilitated some administration contacts for Abramoff's clients while the lobbyist simultaneously solicited those clients for large donations to Norquist's tax-exempt group.

To see the detailed evidence, go to the article. And ask yourself whether the following supports Ted's theory that Norquist was unwittingly used by Abramoff, or the view of the Senate investigators that Norquist was knowingly selling visits with the President:

"Can the tribes contribute $100,000 for the effort to bring state legislatures and those tribal leaders who have passed Bush resolutions to Washington?" Norquist wrote Abramoff in one such e-mail in July 2002.

"When I have funding, I will ask Karl Rove for a date with the president. Karl has already said 'yes' in principle and knows you organized this last time and hope to this year," Norquist wrote in the e-mail.

And here's another exchange:

After the tribes' 2002 event with Bush, Norquist pressed Abramoff anew for tribal donations. "Jack, a few months ago you said you could get each of your Indian tribes to make a contribution. ... Is this still possible?" Norquist asked in an October 2002 e-mail.

Abramoff responded that "everyone is tapped out having given directly to the campaigns. After the election, we'll be able to get this moving."

The e-mails show Abramoff delivered, sending one check from the Mississippi Choctaw tribe in October and one in November from the Saginaw Chippewa of Michigan.

Interestingly, the tribes did give Norquist's group $100,000 and did get to meet the President. Of course, Ted says Norquist denies wrongdoing, and this is all just a liberal attack on a good, honest Republican. It's true Norquist is denying it, but in the real world criminals deny their crimes all the time, so a denial is meaningless. Here's what Norquist's group says – an interesting contrast to the quotes taken directly from Norquist's own emails above:

ATR spokesman John Kartch said Norquist never offered to arrange meetings in exchange for money. Instead, Norquist simply wanted Abramoff's tribes to help pay for a conference where lawmakers and tribal leaders passed resolutions supporting the Bush agenda, ultimately securing a brief encounter with Bush, Kartch said. "No one from Americans for Tax Reform ever assisted Jack Abramoff in getting meetings or introductions with the White House or congressional leaders in exchange for contributions," Kartch said, suggesting some of the e-mails might be misleading.

Yes, that mean sneak Jack Abramoff set poor Grover up, and set him up good. It's not fair! And I'm sure Ted would also agree that Karl Rove is telling the truth when he says, contrary to the Norquist emails, that he had no idea "that Norquist solicited any money in connection with ATR events in both 2001 and 2002 that brought Abramoff's tribal clients and others to the White House."

You see, Grover has never done anything like this before. Oops, maybe he has (though naturally, Kartch is denying this as well):

Norquist did make a special effort — at Abramoff's request — to introduce a British businessman and an African dignitary to Rove at another ATR event in summer 2002. Abramoff bluntly told Norquist he was asking the African dignitary for a $100,000 donation to ATR and suggested the introduction to Rove might help secure the money.

"I have asked them for $100K for ATR," Abramoff wrote Norquist in July 2002. "If they come I'll think we'll get it. If he is there, please go up to him (he'll be African) and welcome him."

Norquist obliged. "I am assuming this is very important and therefore we are making it happen," the GOP activist wrote back, promising to introduce the two foreigners as well as a Saginaw tribal official to Rove that night.

A day later, an ecstatic Abramoff sent an e-mail thanking Norquist for "accommodating" the introductions. "I spoke with the ambassador today and he is moving my ATR request forward," the lobbyist wrote, referring to the donation.

And then there is this:

E-mails dating to 1995 show Abramoff solicited donations from clients to Norquist's group as part of lobbying efforts. "I spoke this evening with Grover," Abramoff wrote in an October 1995 e-mail outlining how Norquist and his group could help a client on a matter before Congress. Abramoff wrote that the lobbying help he was seeking from Norquist's group was "perfectly consistent" with ATR's position but that Norquist nonetheless wanted a donation to be made.

"He said that if they want the taxpayer movement, including him, involved on this issue and anything else which will come over the course of the year or so, they need to become a major player with ATR. He recommended that they make a $50,000 contribution to ATR," the lobbyist wrote.

Abramoff cautioned one of his colleagues that the donation needed to be "kept discreet."

"We don't want opponents to think that we are trying buy the taxpayer movement," he said.

Ted interprets the "discreet" comment to mean Abramoff didn't want Norquist to know about it – a complete denial of the context.

Ted also defends Amy Ridenour as a victim of Abramoff. Does this sound like victimization to you?:

In one instance, Abramoff's team wanted to send two lawmakers on a trip to the Mississippi Choctaw reservation in 2001, but one congressman's office had concerns about accepting such a trip from a gaming tribe.

"How about getting National Center for Public Policy Research to sponsor the trip?" Abramoff suggested. "Works for me," replied a lobbying colleague.

E-mails suggest Ridenour was well aware that Abramoff viewed her organization as a convenient pass-through.

In September 2002, Abramoff suggested to one of his associates placing $500,000 in client funds with the national center because the group "can direct money at our discretion, anywhere if you know what I mean."

The same morning Abramoff messaged Ridenour: "I might have $500K for you to run through NCPPR. Is this still something you want to do?" Ridenour was enthusiastic: "Yes, we would love to do it."

The two articles contain so much more damning information (particularly the second, which I have barely even touched on here) that Ted Piccolo ought to be ashamed of himself for ever standing up for Norquist and Ridenour. Ted ought to be outraged that people on his side are behaving this way. He ought to be saying, "Not in my party!" Instead, he derides me for giving the story a second thought and childishly points his finger at the unions, as if one side's lawbreaking justifies lawbreaking on the other side:

So, following your usuall MO, just because there is a story there must be "something" out there. Have you not been following the culture of corruption in the Union and Democratic parties?

Please stop throwing accusations around as if that makes someone immediately guilty of something.

Guess what. There were almost 200 convictions of RACKETEERING by union members in 2005. Perhaps we should make an accusation that "Our Oregon," is guilty of that as well? We would have a much stronger case than you would by your simply tying silly online news stories together.

It's truly a sad day for Oregon Republicans when someone with this poor intellectual capacity is their primary issues blogger.

Posted by Becky at 09:39 AM |

June 25, 2006

Sunday read ems

I'm headed off to the beach to escape the heat. Here's some good stuff to keep you engaged until I get back:

Why Can't Conservatives Govern? at the Portland Freelancer.

Whatever Happened to the United States? at Middle Earth Journal.

Write your own Norquist caption at Rox Populi

Winning the Real War by Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly

The Quiet Assault by The Heretik

Christian Lady Blogging -- Part One Of Travels in Wingnuttia by Echnide

Posted by Carla at 08:43 AM |

June 24, 2006

Branding fear

The nonWMD announced by Rick Santorum in order to boost his flagging Senate reelection bid is being pushed by a few lame assed rightwing hackospherians.

The new spin is that the government didn't tell the public about this "find" because they had to protect our soldiers:

If the United States were to have announced WMD finds right away, it could have told terrorists (including those from al-Qaeda) where to look to locate chemical weapons. This would have placed troops at risk – for a marginal gain in public relations. A successful al-Qaeda chemical attack would have been a huge boost for their propaganda efforts as well, enabling them to get recruits and support (many people want to back a winner), and it would have caused a decline in American morale in Iraq and on the home front.

Huh?

If we were to find WMD, wouldn't we secure it? How is it that we'd be telling Al Qaida where to find the weapons..if we already had them in our posession?

I find it tough to believe that this clown gives a rat's ass about troop morale as well. As if our guys would feel bad because we actually found some of the weapons the President used as an excuse to invade. Good grief.

The piece goes on to say that announcements of this find could have exposed informants and left open an intelligence advantage. Also ridiculous. These weapons are old, deteriorating material from the first Gulf War. Its not the WMD Bush claimed as authority for invading. We don't know if there was an informant who gave it up or if our troops stumbled upon it. And even if there was an informant..its someone who wasn't exactly giving up quality information.

The righty pundits and bloggers are constantly working to market this shit to Americans. They push their brand of foreign policy and dealing with terrorism like those who market consumer products in the US. As if their brand of soap is better than the other guy's.

We're so overwhelmed with their marketing messages that unless we're playing close attention--its truely tough to know who to believe. Especially when the Republicans work overtime at injecting fear into the discussion.

Its no different with the NSA spying and the government gathering Americans' banking records. They're marketed to us as tools to be used on the "War on Terror".

And we are unpatriotic terrorist lovers if we protest the compromise of American values which include those little things like "search warrants" and "courts" and "privacy". Or heaven forbid that we require the government to be open with the American people. That might give the terrorists a clue as to what we're doing to monitor them.

If the government decided to roll tanks into American suburbia with the excuse that martial law is required to capture terrorists--I swear these same assholes would go on the Sunday talk shows and thank the Bush Administration for beating back those pinko commie American liberals who dare oppose their fight to capture the terrorists.

There is no line that can't be crossed. Not when you're marketing that brand.

Update: Speaking of fearmongering, Roger Simon proves my point exactly. What a dick.

Posted by Carla at 08:11 AM |

June 23, 2006

Markos is snubbing me

Dammit. I'm a liberal blogger. How come I'm not getting my marching orders from Markos?

Posted by Carla at 03:47 PM |

Last throes (again)

Thinks aren't looking so rosey in Baghdad:

Iraqis call state of emergency in Baghdad:

Iraq's government clamped a state of emergency on Baghdad and ordered everyone off the streets Friday after U.S. and Iraqi forces battled insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles near the heavily fortified Green Zone. The military also announced the deaths of five more U.S. troops in a particularly violent week for American forces that included the discovery of the brutalized bodies of two soldiers. Twelve U.S. servicemembers have died or been found dead this week.

The fierce fighting in the heart of Baghdad came despite a crackdown launched 10 days ago that put tens of thousands of U.S.-backed Iraqi troops on the streets as the new prime minister sought to restore a modicum of safety for the capital's 6 million people.

Iraqi and U.S. military forces clashed with heavily armed attackers throughout the morning Friday in the alleys and doorways along Haifa Street and within earshot of the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and Iraqi government headquarters.

The most tightly watched city in Iraq is barely under control it would seem.

But oh those reporters. Why aren't they out among the people--writing all the good news from Iraq? All those schools in Baghdad must be doing supremely well with militia roadblocks and gunfire in the streets.

Surely they could get a quote or two from the cute little Iraqi kids trying to dodge bullets.

Posted by Carla at 03:36 PM |

Sears Tower Terrorists: Did You Know?

BuzzFlash has put together a fascinating analysis of today's announcement that seven terrorist plotting to destroy the Sears Tower had been captured by the Bush Administration. (For links to their sources, go to the analysis itself.)

Have you heard about this yet? And did you know these facts?:

- The group "never met Bin Laden or had any contact with the terror kingpin's henchmen… In fact, they had no connection to any known terrorist organization.
- "No bomb making materials were found in the raids."
- The "only overt acts described in the indictments were swearing oaths of allegiance to Al Qaeda and taking video footage of the F.B.I office."
- Six of the seven men indicted "are described only as driving (the leader) or the informer places or as attending meetings between the two."
- They "only devised a plot on paper."
- Chicago Police are saying there was "No credible threat… They had no capability to (destroy the Sears tower). They never got to that point – or could have."
- A Sears Tower executive said, "Law enforcement continues to tell us that they have never found evidence of a credible terrorism threat against Sears Tower that has gone beyond criminal discussions."
- A senior federal law-enforcement source says they had "no means" to attack the Sears Tower or other buildings. "There was no threat at all."
- The Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communication Executive Director said, "The plan developed in Florida was never an actual plan, and therefore, nobody was in danger."
- The suspects were largely American citizens, operating within our borders, and not even Arab.

Coming in the immediate aftermath of the announcement that WMDs had been found in Iraq (a bullshit story), this story struck me as very questionable. After learning of the above, I tend to agree with BuzzFlash's conclusions:

BuzzFlash is supportive of the FBI for arresting the group. We just don't think it is as important as Bush seems to want us to. The timing of the raid, given that there was no immediate operational threat, appears politically motivated. The Bush Administration wanted to scare Americans and tie the Iraq War to terror after a Senate debate on redeployment that very morning.

After listening to the breathless explanation by a rightie friend of the evidence presented on Sean Hannity's show yesterday for why the WMD find was so incredibly important (and repressing the urge to gag), I am convinced that all of this is being drummed up solely to comfort the increasingly restless right wing and get them back in the fold. Looks like good ol' Karl has found his sea legs again.

Posted by Becky at 02:45 PM |

Take That, "Coyote"

A just-released Senate report on Jack Abramoff's influence-peddling reveals that Grover Norquist was Indian-tribe screwing Abramoff's "godsend."

Moving money from a casino-operating Indian tribe to Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition founder and professed gambling opponent, was a problem. Lobbyist Abramoff turned to his longtime friend Norquist, apparently to provide a buffer for Reed.

The result, according to evidence gathered by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, was that Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform became a conduit for more than a million dollars from the Mississippi Choctaw to Reed's operation, while Norquist, a close White House ally, took a cut.

Those Republicans who continue to defend Norquist say he is telling the truth and just being set up by nasty, partisan Democrats. Not so. Norquist is lying. He claims the money the Choctaws gave him was to support his anti-tax efforts, which he says matches the tribe's own goals.

Nell Rogers, a planner for the Choctaws, told the Senate that the arrangement was never intended as a contribution to support ATR's general anti-tax work. Rogers said she understood from Abramoff that ATR was willing to serve as a conduit, provided it received a fee.

And indeed, Norquist did charge a fee for his laundering of funds from one Indian casino to the Christian Coalition to use to outlaw that casino's competition – two other Indian casinos. Norquist on two occasions skimmed $25,000 off the top of the total $1.2 million he laundered for the tribe. In addition, he charged multiple Indian tribes $25,000 each to arrange meetings with President Bush.

Great guy, that Norquist. No doubt Oregon's TABOR-backers are very proud to have him on their team.

Posted by Becky at 12:47 PM |

Soledad Cross Should Stay

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has tragically refused to stay a federal judge's order that San Diego must remove the Mount Soledad Cross. The cross, 43 feet high, is a memorial to fallen American soldiers buried on the site, but an atheist has successfully argued in court that the Christian symbol violates the separation of church and state. The case has been going on since 1991.

Supporters of the effort to keep the cross are hoping the federal government will use its powers of eminent domain to take the property and keep the cross in place, but so far no movement in that direction has occurred. Congress already did what it could to save the cross by designating it and the land under it a national veterans memorial and authorizing the Department of the Interior to accept the City of San Diego's donation of the land. Unfortunately, the City declined to donate the land.

After supporters of the cross collected 100,000 signatures to petition the City Council to save the cross, the question was put to the voters, and 76% voted in favor of the proposition to keep the cross. But a State Court ruled the proposition was unconstitutional.

I agree with Rob Muise, attorney with the Law Center, which is trying to save the cross:

"Friends, comrades, and family members of thousands of our fallen veterans have chosen the Mt. Soledad memorial as a place to honor and remember their fallen heroes," he said. "As a former Marine officer and veteran of the first Persian Gulf War, I am sickened by the thought of the pain that these court decisions must be causing for these grieving families. Our veterans deserve better than this."

It's a real shame that this case has gone on so long and wrenched so many hearts. I don't support the display of the Ten Commandments on public property, but the meaning of the cross extends far beyond Christianity to include the general reverence people feel for sacrifice.

One would be hard-pressed to find any symbol on public property that is free of religious or mystical meaning. The hyper-atheism that calls for purging all religious symbols from public property, no matter how long they have been in place, so as not to exclude some Americans in reality spits on our nation's diverse heritage.

Posted by Becky at 12:09 PM |

Playing God

The L.A. Times has an interesting article looking at the various end-times beliefs and how believers of various faiths are working to hasten the end of the world.

According to the article, many mega-churches are using global communications and aircraft to spread missionaries around the world. They believe that once the whole world has heard the gospel and been given the opportunity to accept Jesus as their savior, the messiah will come. Their goal is to reach every nook and cranny in the world with the Christian message within two decades.

Shiite Muslims also believe a messiah will return. Theirs is known as Mahdi. When Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was mayor of Tehran he spent a fortune fixing up the city to prepare it for Mahdi's return, which he expects within two years. He believes Mahdi and Jesus will both appear and will lead Muslims in ridding the world of corruption.

Some Jewish groups in Jerusalem believe the messiah will come when they have built a temple on a spot where a holy Muslim shrine now sits – and many Christians also see this as a necessary precursor to the second coming of Jesus. Some Christians are adopting traditional Jewish practices so as to be more aligned with Jews and thereby hasten the second coming. Many believe all the Jews must return to Israel and are expending vast resources to move populations of Jews there, such as those from Russia. Others are working to convert Jews to Christianity before it is too late.

Mississipi cattle rancher Clyde Lott believes that the Old Testament book of Numbers requires a perfect, pure red heifer to be sacrificed before the messiah can come. He is working to breed just such a red heifer. He actually has had one of his red heifers found by rabbis to be worthy. Unfortunately, he isn't being allowed to fly one of his perfect cows out to Jerusalem to be sacrificed.

All humor aside, the article lays out the basic Christian apocalyptic countdown:

Jews return to Israel after 2,000 years, the Holy Temple is rebuilt, billions of people perish during seven years of natural disasters and plagues, the antichrist arises and rules the world, the battle of Armageddon erupts in the vicinity of Israel, Jesus returns to defeat Satan's armies and preside over Judgment Day.

The article then asks an interesting question:

But are all of these efforts to hasten the end of the world a bit like, well, playing God?

None of these actions are particularly harmful, in my opinion. The real danger is with those who are not discussed in this article – the end-times believers who are actively seeking to bring about Armageddon. These people are taking the lives of the entire world into their own hands – so convicted of the rightness of their views that they are truly playing God.

Posted by Becky at 10:08 AM |

June 22, 2006

Debate Over Creationism Cranked Up to New Level

Scientists around the world are engaged in an all-out Creationism vs. Darwinism debate.

More than 600 scientists have signed the "Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" statement published originally in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, the leading promoter of Intelligent Design.

Meanwhile, the national science academies of 67 countries yesterday attacked Creationism, saying the origins of life are being "concealed, denied or confused" and warning parents and teachers against teaching the Bible version of creation as literal truth.

Personally, I believe the Biblical account of creation is nothing more than mythology. That said, I also believe in a divine force that has instigated and guided the development and evolution of life in the universe. I also know that I cannot prove my belief; it is something I feel is true.

Biblical creationism denies provable facts and should not be taught in public schools. It is entirely appropriate, however, to teach children everything that science knows to be true and the evidence for why scientists theorize as they do about the origins of life. Most people are increasingly awe-struck as they learn new scientific information about life. The divine aspect of it all is something many people intuitively feel, but is not provable; it is a matter that is best taught at church and at home.

Posted by Becky at 12:17 PM |

Notorius Drunk Driver Gets Another DUI

About 18 years ago, I witnessed a head-on crash in which a drunk driver crossed the median and hit an oncoming car. We immediately pulled over and I rushed to the car that had been struck, only to find the driver, who turned out to be a much-loved grandmother in the area, dead. The drunk's car was upside down in the ditch, and I remember feeling furious with him as he blathered on about how his arm hurt. I have felt very strongly about drunk driving ever since.

The other day a friend started going off on MADD for their militant anti-drunk driving activism. I was truly shocked. Drunks behind the wheel of a car are extremely dangerous. And typically, it seems, they are not the ones who get hurt when they lose control of their vehicles.

That is why I was disgusted to read today that a notorious repeat drunk driver has re-offended, and nothing seems to have been able to prevent her from continuing to endanger the public. Nine years ago, the "human bomb" hit and killed Mary Johnsen as she and her husband were walking along the side of the road. The drunk killer had already been cited for a DUI four times.

When a Bellevue officer pulled over Susan Lynn West early Sunday morning in a Newport Hills shopping center, the officer says her "speech was slurred and her eyes were bloodshot and watery"; she had a "difficult time keeping her balance"; that she "refused field sobriety tests...." and breathalyzer tests, and in the passenger floorboard were two empty, and still cold, 24 ounce cans of beer.

They were Steel Reserve - one of the highest alcohol content beers you can buy.

West's killing of Johnsen spurred Oregon to lower the legal blood alcohol level for driving from .10 to .08 and required repeat offenders to use ignition interlock devices. That didn't stop West. She was pulled over while driving without a license (she isn't allowed to drive, even sober) or a device.

I don't know what we have to do to stop this senseless endangerment of the public, but clearly our enforcement of the law against these repeat offenders needs to be reexamined.

Posted by Becky at 11:52 AM |

Twisted wingnuttery

For those who think there aren't some serious problems within the US military, think again. When there are groups of our soldiers murdering innocent civilians, something has obviously gone terribly wrong.

But in a weirdly pretzel twisted fashion--conservatives are using these wretched acts to justify acts of torture against detainees:

The Pentagon yesterday announced the names of seven Marines and a Navy corpsman charged with the April 26 kidnapping and murder of a 52-year-old Iraqi man in the town of Hamdania. The accusations are grave and, if proved, will almost certainly lead to severe sentences. We suspect no parallel process is taking place among Iraqi insurgents for the weekend murders near Yusufiya of U.S. soldiers Thomas L. Tucker and Kristian Menchaca.

That's a distinction worth pondering the next time you hear Iraq war critics carp at the U.S. refusal to apply Geneva Convention privileges to enemy combatants. The Convention extends those privileges to combatants who abide by the laws it sets for war, including the treatment of prisoners.

Combatants who fail to obey those laws--by not wearing distinctive military insignia or targeting civilians--are not entitled to its privileges. If they were, the very purpose of the Convention would be rendered a nonsense. And this is why the U.S. has refused Geneva privileges to the enemy combatants at Guantanamo, which we hope is an argument heeded by the Supreme Court as it decides the Hamdan case.

This is what the bloodlust war crowd is now reduced to. The twisting it takes to justify this is crazy.

This person is actually saying that its perfectly acceptable for the US to engage in barbaric treatment of detainees because when it happens outside the chain of command--our guys are harshly punished. But as long as its done through orders and policy, there's no problem.

If this was applied equally--it means that no person who's beheaded or tortured Americans can be tried for war crimes as long as they did it as a matter of policy or within their chain of command.

In the name of defending the President and the whacked out "war on terror" policies, these nutters are willing to justify this murder.

Posted by Carla at 08:21 AM |

Holy Grail Found in Iraq

Senator Rick Santorum, in a hastily called press conference late yesterday, proudly announced to the world that we have found WMDs in Iraq.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

"This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Obviously, the first question one would ask is why, with WMDs being the reason we went to war and with all the criticism Bush has received for not having found them, would we not have been told about this sooner?

Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq. Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

Something stinks here. Reading on, we learn what that stinky thing is.

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

From now on, however, whenever anyone says we haven't found WMDs in Iraq, the "Christian" liars like Santorum will say they are the ones who are lying. You lose your audience when you have to start having to give caveats and explanations, and these guys know that (remember the hay made over "I voted for it before I voted against it"?). Santorum is already gloating undeservedly over the find.

Santorum pointed out that during Wednesday's debate, several Senate Democrats said that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, a claim, he said, that the declassified document proves is untrue.

"This is an incredibly — in my mind — significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," he said.

And so another brick is laid in the wall between wingers and thinkers.

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

Marty Kaplan at the Huffington Post offers a related editorial that is well worth a read.

Posted by Becky at 07:28 AM |

June 21, 2006

Bend's Crazy Commercial

KPTV has posted on its website a link to a new "controversial" commercial that was created - using taxpayer dollars - to encourage tourists to visit Bend, Oregon.

It's a sort of take-off on the "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" theme. Only much worse.

Go to the site and watch the commercial - with your speakers on. I don't know if I'm old and out of touch (I doubt it, as I love South Park humor) or if the people who put this campaign together don't get the difference between crude and funny, but to me this ad says, "If you like to get drunk, sleep around, sleep with your sister, smoke pot, sleep with sheep, or anything else, you'll fit right in here in Bend."

Posted by Becky at 12:43 PM |

Last throes

Or not:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunman abducted about 85 workers Wednesday as they left an industrial plant north of Baghdad, police and a witness said.

The workers were thought to be mostly Shiite and the plant is located in a predominantly Sunni Arab area.

The witness said that about 85 workers were taken near the parking lot of the al-Nasr General Complex in Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, while police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said they filled up a bus and a minivan. Taji is predominantly Sunni Arab area that has seen much insurgent activity.

It would seem that the Iraqi police aren't exactly helpful, either:

The Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, which oversees police, denied its forces were behind the kidnappings.

Suspicion fell on militias, which are believed to have infiltrated police forces and have killed hundreds in sectarian violence, personal vendettas and kidnappings for ransom.

Exactly what was the "Bush Iraq One Point Bounce" about? Things are better and safer in Iraq because we killed Zarqawi and weakened the insurgency?

Not so much.

Posted by Carla at 12:15 PM |

June 20, 2006

Norquist's Fake Property Rights Group

My interest was piqued today when I came across this recent article by Tom Bethell, a senior editor of The American Spectator about his first-ever visit to Grover Norquist's Wednesday group meeting. Bethell gave a glowing report about the group's discussion of property rights and their impact on economic development around the world.

I'm a believer in property rights for that very reason, but I'm also very skeptical about anything that has Norquist's name associated with it. So you can imagine my consternation to learn that Norquist has started another affiliate group, the Property Rights Alliance. PRA is headed up by Scott A. LaGanga, former Federal Affairs Manager for Americans for Tax Reform.

I had to check this group out. Here's what I have learned so far.

A quick glance at the home page for the site shows that the group is not focused on the needs of squatter families or Mexican small businesses, as Mr. Bethell wants his grassroots readers to believe. The front page has three stories on it: "Microsoft's Judge Applies Ebay's Patent Rule," "Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore," and "Symposium on Intellectual Property Rights to be Held." It's mission statement reads thus:

PRA stands as an advocacy organization dedicated to the protection of physical and intellectual property rights. PRA’s efforts to protect property will be all encompassing, including land rights, small landlord fights against rent control, and intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical, recording, movie and software industries.

Okay, so it's fairly easy to see what the plan will be here. They'll win grassroots hearts and minds by hiding behind the perception that they're out to protect everyday people, but in reality they'll be screwing us all and serving the needs of powerful corporations.

Issues Norquist's PRA will be watching include compulsory licensing and drug importation (both big pharma issues), eminent domain, the Endangered Species Act, federal government land and building ownership (think privatization and selling off of national parks), government mandated multicasting (better watch your cable bill), legal downloading, National Environmental Policy Act, and patent reform.

I was amused to see that PRA went to all the trouble to issue a press release praising the Oregon Supreme Court's decision to uphold Measure 37 (which, by way of disclosure, I strongly support) and in this interview seems to imply PRA had something to do with the initiative. But PRA does not list Oregonians in Action, the Initiative's sponsor, in its database of state pro-property rights groups. Considering the fact that OIA has successfully won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on behalf of private landowners and has many other important successes under its belt, this oversight smacks of PRA's lack of sincere interest in private property rights for individuals.

But then, it's a Norquist group. What did I expect?

Posted by Becky at 06:15 PM |

Libby Pardon in the Offing?

To pardon now or to pardon later, that is the question.

Scooter Libby just won't quit asking for sensitive information in his defense. And even though his case is typically the sort that earns a Presidential pardon (an icky norm, in my opinion), it seems he's pressing for sooner rather than later.

But the President is looking at some sticky politics. Sure, Karl Rove seems to be in the clear, and pardoning Libby could stem the steady flow of embarrassing information reaching the public. It could also keep the Vice President from having to take the witness stand.

But mid-term elections are coming up. If Republicans hold on to control, then the President might move quickly to stop the pain. On the other hand, if Democrats take over and start digging into the rats' nest, Bush might need the trial to serve as a continuing excuse not to cooperate with congressional investigators.

I'm betting on the latter.

Posted by Becky at 01:38 PM |

"Lie and die"

It's the framing, stupid

"KERRY: "Stay the course" is not a plan. And what this administration wants is to have a fake debate, as usual. Uh, they're--you hear the drumbeat on every television show from every commentator, "cut and run, cut and run, cut and run, cut and run." That's their phrase. They've found their three words, they love to do that, and they're gonna try to make the elections in November a choice between "cut and run" or "stay the course." That's not the choice. My plan is not "cut and run." Their plan is "lie and die."

Every friggin Dem needs to be on TV, radio and newspapers using that phrase. That's exactly what Iraq is.

Posted by Carla at 01:14 PM |

Safavian's Hilarious Excuses

David Safavian, former chief procurement officer at the White House, has just been found guilty of lying and obstructing justice in connection with his dealings with Jack Abramoff. Safavian had funneled insider information to Abramoff, helping him make a lot of money, in return for some nice perks, such as a weeklong golfing trip to Scotland and London. We'll have to wait until October 12 to learn how long his sentence will be.

Safavian has quite a background of interacting with powerful people. Prior to moving into the White House position, Safavian and Grover Norquist founded a lobbying firm together, Janus-Merritt Strategies. Norquist has refused to release tax records of the firm for the period during which he and Safavian owned the company, which was sold in March of 2002, and I don't wonder why. Clients included several Indian tribes and the National Indian Gaming Association. But their most interesting clients were the American Muslim Council and Abdurahman Alamoudi (now in jail on terrorism-related money-laundering charges), a fierce supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. But I digress.

Safavian's obstruction of justice charges stemmed from his work helping Abramoff, Norquist, and Ralph Reed rip off native American tribes in a money laundering scheme that pitted the tribes against each other while lining the pockets of the players who were manipulating them - as well as a whole lot of Republican candidates. Back in September of 2004, John McCain promised the Indian tribes he would get to the bottom of the $82 million lobbying scandal. His investigations became so dangerous to the Republican party as a whole that Norquist and the party began to mercilessly attack him. McCain, who was looking toward the future of his own career, confused everyone when he responded by transforming from a maverick into a butt-kissing Bush apologist.

Interestingly, native American Oregonian Ted Piccolo over at NW Republican continues to stand by the Norquist-funded and inspired TABOR initiative, part of Norquist's multi-pronged plan to shrink state governments down until he can drown them in a bathtub, despite Norquist's helping thoroughly screw the Indian tribes. Go figure.

Back to Safavian. His lame excuses for the part he played in the whole sordid Abramoff scandal are quite entertaining. For example, Safavian gave Abramoff inside information about government properties he wanted to buy or lease. Safavian also served as the mastermind of some of the strategy for developing pressure on Congress that would be financially favorable to Abramoff and his clients. Safavian, however, claimed he just gave information that was generally available to his old friend and the government didn’t even know yet what it would do with the properties. He said he was inexperienced and didn't know there was anything wrong with what he did.

Right after Safavian gave the information to Abramoff, he went on the golfing trip. Despite the fact that the trip cost more than $130,000 and included $500 a night hotels, $400 rounds of golf, and $100 rounds of drinks for nine people, Safavian claimed he thought he had paid Abramoff back for the trip with a check for $3,100. That little, "unintentional" miscalculation was made by the White House's chief procurement officer – the guy in charge of buying stuff. I guess they'd prefer we believe they are incompetent than thoroughly crooked.

Posted by Becky at 01:09 PM |

Pentagon Clinging to Outdated Psychology

Somehow, more than thirty years after mental health experts have determined that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, a Pentagon document outlining discharge policies is still listing homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders. A spokesman says the document is under review.

In addition to this bizarre classification, military enforcements of "don’t ask, don't tell" are on the rise.

There were 726 military members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at 1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004.

At a time when we're facing a shortage of soldiers, so that the men and women who have volunteered to lay their lives on the line for this country are being ordered to serve multiple tours of duty, it's disgraceful that our leaders are continuing to impose their religious views about homosexuality on the military.

Maybe they're just afraid we might end up with a gay military hero one of these days.

Posted by Becky at 09:51 AM |

June 19, 2006

TABOR Resource Site

While conducting research I discovered this excellent site all about the TABOR initiative that is currently circulating in several states, including Oregon. "TABOR" stands for Taxpayer Bill of Rights, but here in Oregon, the initiative's backers have changed its moniker and now prefer to call it "The Rainy Day Amendment" so it will sound more palatable.

Interestingly, TABOR backers everywhere, just like here in Oregon, are claiming the issue is a spontaneously local one, but all are being funded by the same group of organizations.

At the forefront are Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Limited Government -- an organization closely associated with U.S. Term Limits and the Club for Growth, a PAC famous for its nastiness in fighting for a right-wing economic agenda.

A publication from the Heartland Institute a year ago highlighted these organizations, as well as such high profile far-right institutions as The Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council as being the major players behind the pro-TABOR movement, notwithstanding the local puppets' claims that the idea is homegrown.

The site has state-by-state informational links and great explanations of why it's a bad idea to link the growth in government spending to increases in population and inflation. I highly recommend you take a gander. It's quite an enlightening clearinghouse of information.

Posted by Becky at 06:00 PM |

"Betting on Failure" in Iraq

John Fund belabors the mystical pile of bullshit that is the shallow run of reasoning for the war in Iraq. Given that his excuses and source citations have been toppled multiple times at blogs and media outlets more substantial than PK, I'm not going to waste time doing it again.

But one small part of Fund's diatribe is worthy of mention. Its the subtitle for his headline:

Trying to Get Even: Democrats keep betting on failure in Iraq.

Fund uses this phrasing to set Democrats up as America hating nation bashers who want to see Bush lose.

What Fund (and others who use this phrasing) fail to articulate is what victory in Iraq actually looks like. What is the threshold for "winning"?

I'm betting it has little to do with Iraqis being able to hold their own nation together and move forward--and everything to do with the timing of the 2006 elections. All of a sudden there'll be a victory in Iraq somewhere between August and October. Bush will decide to power down the US military presence just in time to try and help the GOP keep the House.

When John Murtha wants to set up troop withdrawals its "cut and run". When Bush decides to do it, it will be "victory". The situation in Iraq won't have changed.

People like John Fund will just write about it differently.

Posted by Carla at 10:01 AM |

My Forging of Signatures on Petitions

I have kept my mouth shut for four years now about Bill Sizemore's false implications regarding my forging of signatures on petitions, but recent discussions have made me realize that his characterization of what occurred is facilitating his smoke and mirrors effort to worm his way back into the core of the Republican apple.

First some background. While Sizemore was running for governor, we discovered that OTU's bookkeeper, Kelli Highley, had forged whole sheets of petition signatures on a campaign in Newberg. The investigation took a couple of years, during which time she also forged whole sheets of signatures on petitions to file several initiatives. What she did was attach people's names to issues they may not have supported by copying their signatures on petitions they had never seen.

Sizemore is telling everyone I sought immunity in the OTU racketeering lawsuit because I, too, had forged signatures on petitions. His implication is that I did the same thing Kelli Highly did. That is false. Now what I did was illegal and wrong, and I am ashamed of it, but it was nowhere near what Sizemore is leading people to believe.

Petition sheets have a section for signatures of those who support the petition and a space at the bottom where the person circulating the petition is supposed to sign stating they personally witnessed the collection of the signatures. OTU sent out a set of petitions, during the time Sizemore was running for governor, to its membership list and many people signed and returned them. Unfortunately, a few people didn't follow the instructions. An individual, being the only person to sign the petition, would often not realize they had to also sign as a witness to their own signature and would leave that portion blank.

What I did was on a few of these – probably a dozen, though I don't recall precisely – I copied the signature of the lone individual who had signed the petition into the space where they were to sign as a witness to their own signature. Every one of these petitions had been mailed to us by a contributing member of the organization in an envelope with their own return address and was obviously a matter of improper completion of a form for an issue the individual supported. Yes, what I did was illegal. But it isn't fair to say that I "forged signatures on petitions."

It's time for Republican activists to wake up to a very important reality. I had to spill my guts and provide evidence to federal investigators BEFORE I was given immunity. I was taking a very big risk. If I had been the only lawbreaker at OTU, they would have been idiots to give me an immunity deal. That is why I again ask the question: why was the federal investigation called off? The only answer that makes sense to me is that to prosecute Sizemore would have meant they would have had to prosecute Grover Norquist, a very powerful and well-connected man who certainly doesn't give a rat's ass about little activists in Oregon except as he can use them to accomplish his own purposes.

Posted by Becky at 08:28 AM |

The Truth Comes Out

Joe Lauria has penned a very disturbing piece about Jason Leopold and his report that Karl Rove was about to be indicted.

Another cautionary reminder that some people are gifted at being liars while convincingly swearing they are not. If what Lauria says is true, and it sounds like it is, Leopold should be ostracized immediately before he further taints the respectability of left-leaning news sources generally, and Truthout.org specifically.

Posted by Becky at 06:22 AM |

June 18, 2006

Yes I took their money. Yes they're full of shit.

[For the duration that the internet ad runs on PK, I'll be shoving this back to the top.--Carla]

This evening, PK accepted a blogad from a bullshit techno company. See the right hand sidebar. The ad is deceptive. They dress up like a net neutrality ad..then go for the jugular for anti-net neutrality. Your proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing.

I trust our readership is smarter than that..and that you'll enjoy the concept of PK's ad coffers making money off of people stupid enough to send us an ad where we out their deceptive practices.

Posted by Carla at 09:47 PM |

Teach Gay "Cure" in Schools?

Anti-gay activists who disagree with the introduction of the "gay agenda" in schools are looking to bring their own agenda into the schools.

Angered by what they see as the promotion of homosexuality in schools, thousands of American parents are banding together to demand that their children be taught that it is possible to stop being gay. […]

A high school in New Hampshire allowed an "ex-gay" activist to address pupils on Civil Rights Day last year. In Colorado, education officials are pondering whether to hand out a pamphlet to teachers suggesting that "conversion therapy" - a combination of prayer and counseling - can reform homosexual tendencies.

It's ironic that parents who don't want the subject broached in school would respond by advocating that their take on it be taught. Personally, I am opposed to elementary and middle schools teaching kids anything about the morality of homosexuality at all. In a perfect world, it's an issue that should be addressed at home by parents offering moral guidance to their children. I've spend a lot of time with my children helping them overcome bigotry and understand civil rights.

Parents who are concerned about what their children may be learning about this subject in school ought to have developed a relationship with their children such that they would know what their children are exposed to and be able to respond appropriately. The world is full of conflicting and varied ideas and high school is a good time to begin exposing children to those ideas. With appropriate parental involvement, children will develop a critical mind and be better grounded in their own beliefs.

Posted by Becky at 09:25 AM |

Christian Group Wants to Dump Marriage

Ekklesia, a Christian think tank in England, is saying that "marriage should be abolished and replaced by a variety of civil partnerships."

Under their proposals, couples would still be allowed to marry if they wished but the legal aspect would be removed from the ceremony and they would then have to register their partnership under law in a separate process. . The group believes the current situation is confused by attempts to fuse Christian and civil concepts of marriage into a "one-size-fits-all" arrangement.

Jonathan Bartley, director of Ekklesia, says that legal marriage isn't working and points to the relatively high divorce rate as proof.

"At the moment there is only one form of marriage defined under law, which everyone has to take or leave. It does not reflect Christian ideas of marriage, which are based on a covenant before God, rather than a legal contract and agreement between individuals. And it does not properly acknowledge the reality of the existence of other, secular viewpoints, either. Religious communities are entitled to have their own ideal of marriage which they offer to the wider society. But requiring others to accept this definition by law benefits no one. It is confusing and counter-productive."

I've considered the same option as a solution to the gay marriage debate. One way to handle the conflicts could be to have couples enter legal, contractual agreements with each other if they wish, and to let marriage itself be a matter of ceremony, which could be conducted in a church or by some other means if couples so desired it.

The one real drawback of this approach might well be to reduce the perceived seriousness of marriage and thereby result in even more broken families. On the other hand, if two individuals want to make a lifelong commitment to care for each other and build a life together, we need to find a way to honor that.

Posted by Becky at 09:23 AM |

June 17, 2006

More Conservative Media Bias? No Way ...

Chip Berlett writes that the real scandal with the Christian supremacist video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces "is that the demonization of enemies, bloodthirsty dualism, and murderous rampages on the computer screen are accurate reflections of the apocalyptic theology espoused by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins in their Left Behind series of novels which have sold more than 70 million copies."

Few in the mainstream media have dared confront the fact that the best-selling Left Behind series is a primer valorizing bigotry, paranoia, and guerilla warfare against those who promote tolerance, pluralism, and global cooperation.

The bad guys in the game – the ones the Christian soldiers kill - are the U.N. peacekeepers, just to give you some idea of how tweaked these people are. Vanity Fair several months ago lifted the curtain on the brutality that is rampant in the "Left Behind" books.

Far from being a Prince of Peace, the Christ depicted in the "Left Behind" series is a vengeful Messiah—so vengeful that the death and destruction he causes to unconverted Jews, to secularists, to anyone who is not born again, is far, far greater than the crimes committed by the most brutal dictators in human history. When He arrives on the scene in Glorious Appearing, Christ merely has to speak and "men and women, soldiers and horses, seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin." Soon, LaHaye and Jenkins write, tens of thousands of foot soldiers for the Antichrist are dying in the goriest manner imaginable, their internal organs oozing out, "their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ."

After the initial bloodletting, Nicolae Carpathia gathers his still-vast army, covering hundreds of square miles, and prepares for the conflict at Megiddo. As the battle for Armageddon is about to start, Rayford Steele climbs atop his Hummer to watch Christ harvest the grapes of wrath. Steele looks at the hordes of soldiers assembled by the Antichrist, and "tens of thousands burst open at the words of Jesus." They scream in pain and die before hitting the ground, their blood pouring forth. Soon, a massive river of blood is flowing throughout the Holy Land. Carpathia and the False Prophet are cast into the eternal lake of fire.

But the main stream liberal media – or is that the conservative media? – has given the books a pass.

Posted by Becky at 10:52 PM |

Petition Signers Database Goes Too Far

A church in Florida has posted on the Internet the names and addresses of 400,000 Floridians who support banning same-sex marriage.

The petitions these individuals signed are public record. So the Christ Church of Peace, which supports freedom for gays to marry, created a searchable database called "Know Thy Neighbor."

While I support their cause, I find this tactic disgraceful. Particularly since it makes me have to side with that slimeball James Dobson.

"It's a gross invasion of people's privacy," said John Stemberger, president and general counsel of the Florida Family Policy Council, an offshoot of James Dobson's national Christian conservative group Focus on the Family.

Stemberger argued that, if Christian conservatives published the names and addresses of gay-rights activists, they would likely be condemned as hatemongers.

"A lot of people would be outraged and say it's a hateful, un-Christian gesture," he said.

I agree. Intimidating people for their opinions goes WAY too far. Even when they're wrong.

Posted by Becky at 10:30 PM |

Conservative Media Bias

Steve Young has an opinion piece you must read: "If the Media Reported on Democrats the Way they Report on Republicans."

Even though the media keeps saying Bush is feeling his oats after last week's killing of the bogey-man Zarqawi, his trip to Iraq and his "bump" in the polls, the reality is Democrats had one hell of a good week.

Posted by Becky at 10:13 PM |

What Do They Have Over Patrick Fitzgerald?

In a fantastic article entitled, "Karl and George: The Teflon Partnership" Evelyn Pringle explores how the outing of Valerie Plame began as an acknowledged serious problem and ended up with Karl Rove walking away.

Shortly after Valerie Plame was outed, Joe Wilson received a long handwritten letter from the first President Bush expressing his "outrage at what had happened and his understanding of the seriousness of it," according to Wilson. The elder Bush, a former CIA Director himself, is known to have said in 1999, that "those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources" are "the most insidious of traitors."

How must the father feel now that he knows his son is the leader of a gang of the "most insidious of traitors?"

The American taxpayers who paid for the investigation to determine the identities of the insidious traitors deserve to know what happened to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald between October 28, 2005 and June 13, 2006. Back when he announced the Scooter Libby indictment, he said Valerie Plame [was] … "a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years."

Pringle offers an incredible, concise narrative of what happened and how the situation evolved. It is truly stunning that the Administration has been able to move this story to where it is today.

For 3 long years, Bush engaged in this type of a cat-and-mouse game at the expense of the American taxpayers, and most taxpayers emphatically say they are not amused.

John Dean, former White House counsel to President Nixon during Watergate, wrote an open letter to Fitzgerald and warned that the Bush gang was using the same tactics the Nixon team used during Watergate and said in part:

Indeed, this is exactly the plan that was employed during Watergate by those who sought to conceal the Nixon Administration's crimes, and keep criminals in office.

Republicans have convinced cheerleading party loyalists that Plame wasn't really under cover and that the leaking of her identity was no big deal. But that isn't true:

On July 22, 2005, former CIA agent, Larry Johnson testified at a Senate hearing and said the matter was not just about Plame. "We're talking about an intelligence resource, a United States national security resource that was destroyed by these White House officials…And they have harmed the security of this country."

On October 30, 2005, former CIA agent Jim Marcinkowski told 60 Minutes that one of the worst things about the leak is that it gives America's enemies clues about how the CIA operates. […]

After watching this dog and pony show for 3 years, who among us is going to expose the truth when we know this gang of thugs has done something detrimental to the country when it means our entire family is fair game for destruction and there is nothing we can do about it.

I have to concur with Pringle's conclusion:

We will no doubt have a Democratically controlled Congress in about 8 months and they had better do their job in exposing this corrupt regime because this gang of thugs is ten times worse than the Nixon administration.

We need to be prepared for more dirty tricks if Democrats take Congress. What happened to Clinton will be child's play compared to what these guys will do when faced with the possibility of prison - or worse, as traitors. Are there more David Brocks out there, hovering on the brink of lucidity, potentially able to wake up when the dirty tricks finally go too far? Or has this bunch made it abundantly clear that such behavior will not be tolerated?

Posted by Becky at 09:51 PM |

Paranoid Delusions About Grover Norquist

Republicans over at Ted Piccolo's blog are saying I'm basically a paranoid delusional with regards to my assertions that if Grover Norquist is involved in funding something, you can be sure illegal activity is also involved, particularly money laundering. They're also saying I'm projecting guilt from my own illegal acts while in the employ of Oregon Taxpayers United onto Bill Sizemore. That's a topic for another day. For now, let's look at Norquist.

One assertion by heads-in-sand Republicans is that TABOR-backers would know if illegal activity on Norquist's part was occurring. First, let's look at Norquist's laundering of money from a Mississippi Indian tribe to the Alabama Christian Coalition through Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) in 2000. $850,000 of money, and he admitted it.

Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles confirmed Friday that his organization received the donation from Americans for Tax Reform in 2000, but he said he was not aware it came from a Mississippi Indian tribe.

Norquist's ATR also gave Citizens Against Legalized Lottery $300,000 in 1999.

Jim Cooper, ex-chairman of Citizens Against Legalized Lottery, said his organization received the donation in 1999 during the campaign leading up to the defeat of the lottery proposal in a statewide vote. He said he had no reason to believe the donation was connected to Indian gambling.

Norquist told the Boston Globe he said he sent money to the two groups "because the tribe wanted to block gambling competition in the state. He said he and his staff never informed the Alabama Christian Coalition about the original source of the funds." Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has asked the IRS to investigate. (I doubt they will – the IRS was also given evidence of Norquist's laundering of money for Bill Sizemore and did nothing, but time will tell.)

The head-in-the-sand Republicans also question my assertion that Norquist involvement = criminal activity. So let's look at his history.

Norquist has had a close relationship with Jack Abramoff since the early 1980s. This relationship continued when he worked with Abramoff to keep the awful status quo in the Mariannas Islands sweatshops. (Abramoff billed the islands for thousands of dollars for "discussions" with Norquist and airfare to the islands for ATR staff members). One of Abramoff's clients, Raul Garza, chief of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, gave $25,000 to ATR so he could atend a reception with President Bush on May 9, 2001, which both Norquist and Abramoff attended (a photograph of Garza with the President showing Abramoff in the background is one of the pieces of evidence showing despite Bush's denials, he had met Abramoff on several occasions). Isidro Garza (unrelated to his boss, Raul Garza) said he arranged for the payment although he saw little direct connection between the tribe's interests and those of Americans for Tax Reform. "Another Abramoff client, a leader of the Louisiana Coushattas tribe, has said he also paid $25,000 and then attended a separate event sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform with Mr. Bush."

A Jack Abramoff timeline offers some more interesting details of the relationship between Abramoff and Norquist – and others. Here are a few interesting tidbits:

- In the Indian gaming scandal, money for Ralph Reed was laundered through ATR, then through Robin Vanderwall (Faith and Family Alliance), who was later convicted and sentenced to 7 years in prison for soliciting minors on the Internet.
- Tom DeLay's Chief of Staff, Tony Rudy, passed inside information to Abramoff about the gambling bill.
- Abramoff sent money through a group called "Toward Tradition," where Rudy's wife worked. (A former top aide to Norquist at ATR transferred to Toward Tradition during the time I was asked to call ATR on several occasions to find out when they would be sending money they had received from Oregon back to Sizemore.)
- Abramoff later hired Rudy after he left Delay's office.

Why would Norquist launder money for everyone? Paul Kiel seems to have pegged it: Norquist charges for his laundering services by keeping a cut for ATR. I seem to remember he kept some of the Oregon money he moved through ATR, too.

As I wrote about a few days ago, Tom DeLay is one of the Co-Chairs of US Term Limits, which is also currently actively involved in Oregon's initiative process. [UPDATE: This is incorrect. See my previous entry for correct information.] Norquist and DeLay launched the K Street Project together (and if you click through and read, you'll find a lot of other dirt on these guys). Including close connections between Norquist and David Safavian, who worked as a principal at Janus-Merritt Strategies, where Norquist was a consultant, and was one of the founding members Norquist's Islamic Free Market Institute (the Institute shares an office with ATR).

Norquist was also involved in the Enron scandal. Ed Gillespie was paid $75,000 a month by Enron to lobby Congress and the White House against energy price controls. "At the height of the California energy crisis, Gillespie formed the 21st Century Energy Project. It was generally acknowledged that Gillespie initiated this project in conjunction with the Bush White House." Newsweek claims that ATR laundered $50,000 from Enron to Gillespie, who used the money to run ads in July 2001 "attacking Jimmy Carter and environmentalists and supporting the Enron-supported proposals found in Bush's energy plan."

Perhaps the most troubling of all the information I've seen on Norquist is his 9/11 terrorist connections. Read more about it here.

There is much more on Norquist. This article looks at Norquist's money laundering, including for Sizemore and nearly $5 million for the Republican Party. The author says, "Norquist is so dirty, so sleazy, that even pugnacious conservative pundit Tucker Carlson dumped a drink on his balding head in a DC bar one night. Norquist seems to defy gravity, spinning above the compass of Attorneys General from Washington, DC to the state of Oregon -- and appears to enjoy the protection of the White House, specifically that of Karl Rove, Junior Bush's top political advisor. …He's tainted and he likes to taint others."

I'll close by dishing a little dirt on the holier-than-thou Piccolo. I love how Don Yocham put it in an opinion piece in January:

"If you are a politician associated with crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff and you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, your standard statement appears to be: 'I didn't know it was a cookie. And I was just putting it back."

When Don McIntire realized that his contribution to ATR would be laundered back to Sizemore, he put the cookie back by asking for his money back. Ted Picollo didn't give the cookie back when I called to his attention that his laundering of a contribution through OTU for a campaign he was working on was illegal. He just took his check and walked out the door.

*********

UPDATE: This article is a must read for all doubters as to the involvement of Norquist in money laundering and other sordid activities.

Posted by Becky at 01:01 PM |

June 16, 2006

Coulter Lies about Lying

Ann Coulter is claiming that Newsweek lied about what she wrote in her book, Godless. On Hannity & Colmes last night (on Fox News) she said:

"I'm sitting in a Fox studio in L.A. I don't know why there's a copy of Newsweek here rather than Human Events. Here is Newsweek describing Ann Coulter as saying "9/11 widows enjoyed their [husbands'] deaths." That is simply a lie . . . That is a lie. If you can't deal with the facts and you refuse to say what the argument is, I think that's a total lack of confidence in your position and it certainly shows a complete lack of understanding [that] Americans can find out the truth these days - that it's not the mainstream media monopoly it was 10 years ago."

But Ann is lying about Newsweek's lie – and conservative news source "Newsmax" is aiding and abetting her in that lie by picking at nits:

What Ann wrote about the so-called "Jersey Girls," and not all the other 9/11 widows in "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," was "these self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them, The whole nation was wounded, all our lives were reduced. But they believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process. These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzies. I've never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much."

So I guess the "Jersey Girls'" husbands weren't 9/11 victims? What a pathetic attempt to make the witch look good.

Posted by Becky at 07:22 PM |

"Fixing" the Initiative Process in Oregon

All the talk all of a sudden seems to be about the initiative process in Oregon. So this "wacky conspiracy theorist," as some see me, will go ahead and continue my ranting on the subject and see how many more people I can piss off.

I am really tired of the incessant efforts by some to impose all sorts of restrictions on the initiative process in the hopes they can stop the right-wingers from putting measures on the ballot. Each time a new law is passed, these anti-wingers complain about how the process still isn't working and how they will have to pass yet another law to fix the problem. Here's a message for you guys: the law changes aren't working because you don't understand the problem.

The recently passed law requiring petitioners to be paid by the hour and not by the signature did not fix the problem, as everyone can now readily see. For one thing, the law doesn't – and really can't – prevent bonuses and performance incentives. A company's handbook for petitioners can actually say flat out that you will make "x" amount if you collect 8 signatures per hour, "y" amount if you collect 15, and "z" amount if you collect 20 and it isn't against the law. What the law does accomplish, however, is it keeps the more professional signature gatherers from bothering to come work in Oregon.

You see, the law was a response to a false premise: that paid petitioners are somehow inherently corrupt. Not so. Some people actually choose petitioning as a career. Yes, it's true. And they're very good at it. They travel around the country and interact with people all day long and collect a lot of signatures (24 states have the initiative process, so there is plenty of work available). There really are a number of these people who are clean cut, honest, and reliable – professionals who can be counted on to accurately explain the measures to signers and to follow the law. They do a good job because they want to be hired back next time a petition is being circulated. These are the people who don't want to come to Oregon anymore.

Now Oregon initiative drives are more likely to attract petitioners who like making their year's income under the table in three months and partying the rest of the year. They'll tell you whatever you want to hear to get your signature. They're also more likely to go through the phone book and make up signatures so they can get paid more. They don't really care about their reputation because they're not thinking about a long-term career – they're thinking about making a quick buck and moving on.

The new solution: ban all paid signature gatherers. Some people are absolutely convinced that if only "true believers" are circulating petitions and no one is getting paid to do it, then suddenly the process will be wonderfully clean and we can have only good petitions like Death with Dignity and Medical Marijuana. Get the money out of the system, they say. But that is still not going to fix the problem.

Imagine inexperienced true believers out there circulating petitions. If anyone has a motive for gathering your signature as quickly as possible, these are the guys. They only have a little time to donate to the cause. After a few hours and only twenty signatures, they're likely to modify their hook to try to up their numbers.

And it's not like using volunteers will cut out the money from the process. It can actually be more expensive to put a measure on the ballot using volunteers than it is using paid signature gatherers. Someone has to organize and educate all those volunteers. Besides, progressives ought to consider that outside the union structure, volunteer efforts are next to impossible. If there is one thing I know, it's that volunteers are very hard to come by. Even the most dedicated can often give you only a few hours once a year. Many, many more people will tell you, "I don't have time to do it, but I'll give you some money and you can pay someone else to go collect them for me." Ah, so we're back to paid petitioning.

Most of the complaints people have about the initiative process fall into one of two categories – either they are problems that relate to not liking the issues or the number of issues (in which case, welcome to the world of free speech), or the law is being broken (in which case the answer is enforcement). As to the issue of enforcement, it is clear that the Secretary of State's office has little authority or financial ability to do anything about many of the laws already on the books, and free speech rights tie the hands of the Court in many other cases. But some of the most important problems – including improper reporting of contributions and expenditures, forgery, violating employment laws, and lying to or bribing people to increase signature collections – are already against the law and can and should be prosecuted. That would fix the problem.

Thanks to the "Thugette" Patty Wentz and her "union thugs" at Our Oregon (as Ted Piccolo likes to call them), people like Tim Trickey and Brian Platt are facing the music. And that's how it should be.

Posted by Becky at 01:23 PM |

So the one point Bush "bounce" isn't soothing the savage beast

Somebody seems to have pissed in the collective Post Toasties of the righties. Their little corner of blogdom is absolutely seething with anger and frustration.

[Fair warning: all the links below lead to specific spew-laden pieces they reference. Click at your own risk.]

I think Michelle Malkin popped a blood vessel over Keith Olberman. What a crybaby. If she wasn't such a flaming hypocrite, she wouldn't have so much to be defensive about.

Allahpundit is pissed at Andrew Sullivan because Andrew Sullivan is pissed about goings on at Gitmo.

Lorie Bird at Wizbang is venting a spleen over the fact that people keep calling out Karl Rove. Lorie uses the fav conservative label "unhinged" and goes straight into "attack the messenger" mode. I hafta give her credit though--at least she's consistent. No substance, all blowhard.

Captain Ed isn't pissed. He's doing a happy dance. He's thrilled that the SCOTUS says evidence obtained extra Constitutionally is admissable in a court of law. Score one for the fascist state, eh Cap'n?

Blue Crab is bleeding out its eyeballs over the fact that Harry Reid supports US troops. Bummer, dude (or dudette--whichever).

Oak Leaf at Polipundit skips humanity and just goes straight for being an asshole monster. Again, consistent.

Posted by Carla at 08:53 AM |

Dionne sees a shift in evangelicals

In today's WaPo, E. J. Dionne writes:

The mellowing of evangelical Christianity may well be the big American religious story of this decade. The evolution of the evangelical movement should not be confused with the rise of a religious left. Although the margin of the Republican Party's advantage among white evangelicals is likely to decline from its exceptionally high level in the 2004 election, a substantial majority of white evangelicals will probably remain conservative and continue to vote Republican.

But the evangelical political agenda is broadening as new voices insist on the urgency of issues such as Third World poverty and the fights against AIDS and human trafficking.

Dionne points to some examples of these topics getting play beyond the usual evangelical agenda of gay-bashing, prayer in schools, controlling women's reproductive activities, tearing down the church-state wall, and so on. I don't dispute that they're out there, but if he finds a trend there, not just a couple of blips, he sees a lot more than I do.

Comments?

Side note: Concerning the upset at the recent Southern Baptist Convention, at which the "staunchly conservative" slate of candidates was defeated by a merely "conservative" candidate from outside the power structure (an event Dionne considers proof of "mellowing"), he writes:

One other force was at work in this year's Baptist voting: the rise of the blogosphere.

Over the past several years, an active network of Baptist bloggers has opened up discussion in the convention and given reformers and moderates avenues around what Parham called "the Baptist establishment papers" and other means of communication controlled by the convention's leadership. Thus may some of our oldest and most traditional institutions be transformed by new technologies.

Posted by Nothstine at 07:29 AM |

June 15, 2006

Congratulations Jeff!

Our coblogger Jeff and his wife are parents again! Their little guy Jackson was born June 14. He's a preemie..coming out after only 23 1/2 weeks.

More over at Jeff's other blog Red Hair and Black Leather.

Send good thoughts and wishes their way.

Posted by Carla at 09:01 PM |

Bush Running From Theocracy Label?

As part of his housecleaning, President Bush has rid himself of another staffer. This time, it's Michael Gerson, one of his top policy advisers and his former chief speechwriter.

Gerson has been on board with the President since 1999, putting an evangelical Christian tone into the President's speeches. Time magazine even named him last year "one of the 25 most influential Evangelical Christians in America."

Gerson got his start working for Chuck Colson (of Watergate fame), founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries. According to The Washington Post's Mike Allen, "The hallmark of Gerson's speeches is the invocation of the vocabulary and literature of faith, and that only increased after Sept. 11, 2001 ... The result is a president whose public words are laced with biblical undertones."

Gerson himself said, "We have tried to employ religious language in a way that unites people. Martin Luther King, Jr. did it all the time during the civil rights movement. He was in this long tradition, going back to Old Testament prophets, that says God is active in history and, eventually, he's on the side of justice."

So why is Gerson being ousted by the President? Too many complaints about dominionist theology, theocracy and apocalyptic policies in the Middle East, perhaps?

Or is the President taking the one-fundamentalist-to-another advice of the leader of an al-Qaida-linked group of terrorists (who have been busy bombing the heck out of Indonesia) to convert to Islam in order to find "salvation and peace"? You know, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

(That was a joke.)

Posted by Becky at 02:15 PM |

Our Soldiers are NOT Homicidal Maniacs

On the way home from work last night I listened to Randi Rhodes. She was talking about a video that has surfaced on the internet of a soldier singing about killing a woman, her little sister, her brother, and her father to a cheering crowd of other members of the military.

This story comes on top of a story about unaccountable contractors posting a video of themselves indiscriminately shooting innocent Iraqi citizens while laughing about it and being completely immune from any prosecution for it. And that comes on top of the massacres in Haditha. And then, of course, we have the atrocious torture scandal.

Naturally, I was shocked that American soldiers would be whooping it up over a song about slaughtering a civilian family. And as I have repeatedly been reminded, when something seems too shocking to be true, it probably isn't. This time, it was Michelle Malkin, that otherwise horrible right-wing commentator, who set me straight.

Yesterday she posted an article on her website entitled "Military Musical Double Standard" in which she rightfully points out two things that changed my view of this particular singing video.

First, she showed other far more horrible songs by members of the military that had been published prior to the current political climate and been praised by the mainstream media as expressions of the soldiers' experiences in war. Go to her site and read the transcripts of these songs and experience the shock of it – see for yourself how war is a hell that changes people.

Second, Malkin printed the complete lyrics of the currently scandalous song, so the offensive wording could be seen in context. Guess what. The context changes everything. The song isn't about indiscriminate killing of a civilian family. It's about a soldier who gets lured by a beautiful woman into a trap and how his quick thinking saves his life. It shows how war is hell, but what it doesn't show is any sort of evil, homicidal tendencies developing in our soldiers.

I'm a little irritated right now with Randi for this. It smells to me like she's building up a very bad image of our soldiers to try to stimulate an anti-war sentiment. There are plenty of reasons to oppose this war without hiding some of the truth so as to create a false impression. In my book, that's lying.

We really need to be careful, even when listening to people we trust, to check out the facts behind what they are saying. As I have learned from listening to Air America and other liberal media, the Republicans aren't giving us the full story and quite often they're outright lying to us. But I guarantee if you listen to right-wing media you'll quickly learn that Democrats aren't always telling us the full story, either.

Politics is a dangerous, deceitful game. If you, as a voter, want to know what's really going on, you have to listen across the spectrum and go to the source. You have to think for yourself. And you have to be open to the possibility that even someone like Michelle Malkin can bring you an important nugget of truth now and then.

Posted by Becky at 09:20 AM |

To Mommy or not to Mommy?

That is the question:

Hundreds of people have written demanding an apology and a retraction for the "disgusting," "offensive," "hurtful," "appalling," and "shocking" reply I gave in a recent Dear Prudence column. The letter I got was from a woman in her 30s who was about to marry a wonderful man, and they did not want children. What should she tell friends and family members who were asking when they were going to have kids? I gave some advice on how to fend them off—then added five sentences to this effect: Now that her life circumstances were changing, I wrote, she might want to re-examine this decision not to have kids.

I expected my answer would annoy people, but I was surprised by the fury of the response. You would think my reply was the equivalent of running around the streets with a turkey baster full of sperm, impregnating happy childless women.

What I didn't say in the column was that I understood exactly how the young woman felt. In my 30s, I, too, was comfortably committed to being childless. I, too, had never felt the maternal imperative everyone promised me I would. I, too, looked at my friends with children and concluded, "No, thanks!" Then my circumstances changed when I fell in love with a man who wanted kids. I had to decide whether to let him go, or marry him and agree to have a child.

They eventually had that child and lived happily ever after, so it seems. Or at least that's the way the author couches it as she completes her tale.

Not everyone finds their way to motherhood. Struggling with the idea that you give up several decades of your life to nurture and grow the next generation isn't without its daunting prospects. "Happily-ever-after" isn't in the cards for most of us--and we know it.

I can only write this from the perspective of my femininity, but I imagine that men go through a version of this too. I've been oft reminded that women sometimes forget to remember the man as the other half (and sometimes way more than half) of parental responsibility. But I can't have empathy for that role--because I don't live it.

When I married the summer of my 23rd year I expected we would have children. It was this sort of unspoken part of the larger contract. I never doubted that I eventually wanted to have babies.

I remember feeling scared of the idea of going through with it, though. I was too young to remember my mother's subsequent pregnancies after having me. We didnt live close to any relatives whose pregancies and babies I could recall. All of our friends and neighbors had children around the same time as my parents. I hadn't had a lot of meaningful exposure to pregnancy, childbirth and babies.

But as with many things I did in my 20s (many of the others regrettable), I dove in.

I've loved being a mom. Not that every day (or even most days) are sugarplums and fairy dust. Far from it. But the rewards and joys of loving and raising my kids have made my life richer and fuller.

Its tough for me to walk in the shoes of other people deciding not to have children. But I don't presume to tell these individuals to reconsider their position. Any more than I would want them to presume to tell me to reconsider mine.

I don't find myself in agreement with some of the militant responses the author received for her trouble. But I understand them. I'd snap back at someone who told me that I shouldn't have kids because they chose not to.

My next door neighbors are childless by choice. They're a few years older than I am and we've talked some about their decision not to have kids. Its simply not the life they wanted. They have somewhat adopted my children as their surrogate grandkids--sometimes slipping them little gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. But they aren't anxious to have them stay over longer than a few hours. Children just aren't their thing.

We accept them for who they are and they accept us.

That's where the author of this piece went astray, in my view. Perhaps if we spent less time telling other people that they're doing it wrong and accept them for who they are--we'd have fewer messes to clean up after.

Posted by Carla at 07:40 AM |

June 14, 2006

Knob polisher

I wonder if it ever gets tedious, polishing Bush's knob all the time?

US President George W. Bush's triumphant return from his unannounced visit in Iraq found opposition Democrats more divided than ever on US policy in the wartorn country, and how best to capitalize on administration missteps there.

Bush came back in a "triumphant" way from the "wartorn" country he created? His approval numbers are in the toilet. But its Dems who are divided.....?

But Democrats -- who have disagreed about the war since the invasion more than three years ago -- continued to be riven by internal dissent, particularly on the critical question of an exit strategy from Iraq.

One of the party's most prominent figures, Senator John Kerry, is expected to introduce a resolution this week calling for a pullout of American forces by the end of the year.

"No matter how brave our soldiers are, no matter how valiant, no matter what their caring ... our soldiers cannot bring democracy to Iraq at the barrel of a gun," Kerry said Tuesday at a gathering of progressive Democrats.

"The Iraqis themselves must build democracy. And it will never be done if Iraqis' leaders are unwilling to make the compromises necessary that that requires," the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate told hundreds of activists at a convention entitled "Campaign for America's Future: Take Back America."

But at the same forum, another top Senate Democrat, Hillary Clinton, insisted that it would not be a "smart strategy" to create a timeline to leave Iraq.

Hillary Clinton's run for the Presidency has nothing to do with rank and file Democrats or progressives supporting her. Its a fiction of the media, Beltway pundits and Hillary Clinton.

All Americans are divided on whether or not to pull out of Iraq.

But of course had the author of the piece in question wrote that, he/she wouldn't get their stipend from the RNC.

Republicans are divided on what to do about Iraq, too. That's why Bush scurried over there like the rat he is.

Posted by Carla at 05:09 PM |

Would we be having this conversation if she were a guy?

The spew that oozes forth from the mouth of Ann Coulter makes her, in my opinion, one of the ugliest creatures on Earth.

But would MSNBC be taking the time to have a roundtable discussion on Coulter's physical appearance if she wasn't a woman?

Posted by Carla at 11:44 AM |

Parental notification initiative calls to churches for support

The wall of separation continues its erosion:

Catholic Sentinel:

Organizers of parental notification petition call on churches for support 06/08/2006 Ed Langlois SALEM — Organizers of a drive to require parental notification before abortions on minors are putting out an 11th-hour call to qualify their proposal for the November ballot.

The Committee to Protect Our Teen Daughters is asking churches, expected to be the major source of petitions, to turn in sheets by June 20. By July 7, the campaign must give 76,000 valid signatures to the Secretary of State.

The campaign is not specifying how many signatures have come in so far.

“We still need more. We are doing well,” says Gayle Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life, the group leading the effort.

Because about 7 percent of all petition signatures in the state are usually nixed because of authenticity problems, organizers want to buffer their offering to elections officials with an extra 50,000 names.

The campaign will accept signatures up until the last moment in July, but prefers to have them by June 20 to have time to verify.

Starting early in May, the organizers began hiring paid signature gatherers. Before then, the focus was on churches. Many Catholic parishes have circulated petitions.

If this isn't illegal, it ought to be. Churches are exempt from paying taxes because they aren't supposed to be using their resources to exercise political power.

This appears to be directly in conflict with that separation.

Its interesting to me that the story in question also notes that roughly 65% of those asked to sign the petition are doing so. That number seems high for Oregon--unless they're focusing outside the metro areas. Oregonians have a tendency to take a hand's off approach with social issues like this, in general.

One step closer to theocracy.

Posted by Carla at 10:23 AM |

Smackdown on Ted Piccolo

Ted Piccolo over at Northwest Republican seems to have zeroed in of late on "the Union Thugs and especially Thuggette Patty Wentz and their dupelicitous [sic] attacks on the taxpayers through shadow organizations like 'Our Oregon.'" What's got his panties in a knot is Wentz's successful attempts to shine a light on the lawbreaking that has heretofore permeated the conservative signature gathering efforts in Oregon.

Piccolo has particularly been gloating about the Oregon Secretary of State's recent rejection of Wentz's official complaint that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights backer, Taxpayer Association of Oregon (TAO), was less-than-truthful in its statements about the effect of the measure. Specifically, the backers are naming their initiative the "Rainy Day Amendment," and claiming it will establish a rainy day fund for Oregon while limiting the growth in the state budget. Their website currently states, "With the Rainy Day Amendment, surplus funds can’t be spent by politicians—they form a rainy day fund for Oregon’s future."

Piccolo, in a blog entry entitled, "Secretary of State Lays Smackdown on Patty," states:

The TAO press release correctly states: "The Secretary of State investigated her claims and quickly determined that McIntire’s statements about creating a rainy day fund were entirely permissible as a plausible effect of the measure. Secretary of State Compliance Specialist Norma Buckno wrote that a rainy day fund could be a natural outcome of the amendment, because it would prohibit the legislature from spending surplus revenues (revenues collected over and above the expenditures allowed by the spending limit each biennium). Those surplus revenues would accumulate and be available to offset revenue shortfalls."

I just received an email from Wentz's group, Our Oregon, today. They explained the Secretary of State's position a bit differently:

Elections official says petition's claim is OK ...AFTER the TABOR campaign changed the way it was talking about the measure. That's a point that gets missed in this headline and silly, silly subhead. Take this headline writer out to the woodshed. Also, the lead of the story is incredibly, well, misleading. Let's rewrite it:

"After the TABOR campaign changed language on its website and literature, the state elections department closed an election law complaint against the chief petitioners for making false statements about the outcome of Initiative Petition 6. A spokeswoman for Our Oregon was well-pleased." The Oregonian. June 7th, 2006.

So what else could I do but call the Secretary of State's office myself? Secretary of State Compliance Specialist Norma Buckno was kind enough to send me the letter she wrote on May 9, 2006 to Kelly Clark, attorney for TAO. I was actually expecting to find some middle ground. What I found, however, was that not only had the TAO conveniently ignored the clear message of the letter, but also it appears to me that Our Oregon is not adequately explaining why their complaint was thrown out.

Here are the key points that came to light after reading Buckno's letter:

1. The Chief Petitioners admit that their initiative "does not specifically address what is to occur with revenue taken in by the State in excess of the biennial spending limit" and "acknowledge that there is no way to tell if the Legislature might send the surplus back to taxpayers, or create an 'official' 'rainy day' fund." In fact, "one of the Chief Petitioners, Don McIntire, stated in his comments that while 'in and of itself, the amendment does not create a ‘rainy day’ fund,' the 'carry over' funds 'could constitute a de facto ‘rainy day’ fund.'" That's a heck of a lot different than the matter-of-fact statement on the official website.

2. After the complaint was filed, the backers of the initiative realized they were in the wrong and made several changes "to the website postings on www.sosoregon.com and www.OregonWatchdog.com in regard to the references to a rainy day fund. For instance, the original sentence, 'The Taxpayer Association of Oregon has carefully crafted a perfect SOS constitutional amendment that seamlessly connects both a spending limit and rainy fund,' is now, 'The Taxpayer Association of Oregon has carefully crafted a perfect SOS constitutional amendment that creates a spending limit and allows for a rainy day fund.' The original sentence, 'The monies above the cap cannot be spent – therefore creating a rainy day fund,' has been changed to 'The monies above the cap cannot be spent – those funds can either be returned to taxpayers or set into a rainy day fund.'"

3. The Secretary of State's decision was made after the backer's statements were changed, and those changes were acknowledged in the SOS's response. Additionally, the SOS stated they supported the efforts to "make changes in the information to clarify this issue" and, as Buckno told me, the Chief Petitioners had been "overstating the legal effect of the measure."

4. Once an initiative petition is certified to the ballot as a measure, the applicable election law changes, and the Secretary of State no longer has jurisdiction to investigate complaints such as the one filed by Our Oregon. The only recourse in such cases is the "appropriate circuit court." In other words, as soon as TAO has turned in sufficient signatures and the measure has been certified for the ballot, Jenny bar the door. They can say whatever they want to, and the only recourse anyone will have is to sue them for damages.

5. False election statements are prosecutable in Oregon courts only if the statements are neither partly true nor a matter of opinion or interpretation. In other words, the Court would have to determine intent of the speaker – read their mind and pass judgment on whether they believed what they had said was true.

My take on this is that the Secretary of State acknowledged Wentz was correct and the initiative proponents were overstating their case, but recognized that the law would not allow them to do anything about it. That is a far cry from a "smackdown." And the fact that TAO changed its wording in response to the complaint shows they, too, realized they were overstating their case.

Posted by Becky at 10:22 AM |

June 13, 2006

Chickenhawks

Helmet and Flack Jackets: $2000

Barf Bag $1.50

Escorting Bush through democratic Iraq: Priceless

(Tony Snow on the left, Dan Bartlett on the right)

Via (Shakes Sis)

Posted by Carla at 08:17 PM |

Progressive evangelicals--not necessarily a contradiction

Noemie Maxwell of Washblog has a fascinating interview with Pierce County Conservation District candidate Rose Ehart. Ehart is a progressive Evangelical:

Rose Ehart I'm who I am and that's that! I'm a Born Again, Charismatic, Evangelical Christian. People who believe as I do are seen as the ones who are sucking up the money and buying all the broadcast airtime and being spectacular and getting all the attention. People from other countries must think that Evangelical American Christians are all covered up in makeup. But those people on TV and radio do not represent the Evangelical Christianity that I am part of. They're just the ones who have gained control over the main media outlets.

Noemie
I struggle with the judgment aspect of Christianity. I feel that Christians look at me and see a doomed soul.

Rose Ehart
I believe in a literal Hell. This is where people who hate God will be. Even so, I cannot say who is going to heaven or hell. Even a person who hates God today may one day have a change of heart and love Him. When Jesus was on the cross, he said to the thief next to him that he would be with him in paradise that very day. I know that people who don't look or believe like I do will be in heaven with me. Nobody knows the human heart except God and He judges the heart. We can see compassion and mercy and love in action. But we cannot presume to know what God knows or how He will judge another person. Jesus told us very clearly that we should not judge. Simply because we can not begin to judge accurately or justly. He said, he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone. The only person in that story who had no sin was Jesus. Did Jesus cast a stone? No.

People who preach hate do not know God correctly. God doesn't say, "Honey, I'd love to let you into heaven, but sorry, you didn't get baptized." Human beings are quick to judge and define others' relationship to God based on their own knowledge or ignorance. For example Native Americans who served "the great white spirit" I believe were referring to the same God I speak of. Early settlers did not always make that connection. Well, some people call their mothers, "mom" and others might call their mothers, "Nana". They're all calling their mothers. They know who their mothers are. Loving God in a different religion is like living in another country and paying the taxes there. Each culture is unique. Let us keep our cultural differences. Let us keep our uniqueness. We don't need to judge. We don't need to put our egos into wanting to be God or setting ourselves up against anyone else.

It's what's in our hearts that matters. Words don't always express it. God is not going to ask us, did you go on TV and wear lots of makeup? He's not going to ask us, did you stand in front of an abortion clinic with a sign? He's not going to ask us, did you hate gays? What does matter is how we treat each other. It's not easy to treat other people well. It can be easier to hate. It can be easier to stay in the place where you think you are having a little bit of success hating gays or whatever and to not make the effort to live according to what the Bible teaches.

I got liberated from other people's opinions and judgment because I read the Bible. God tells us; seek out your own salvation. Love one another. Be good to one another. Bless each other. That is not negotiable. Life is too short for anything else.

Even with this large excerpt you're only getting a taste. This is a side of evangelicals that doesn't seem to hit the radar very often.

Take time to read the whole thing.

Posted by Carla at 03:07 PM |

Paul Craig Roberts is Freaking Me Out

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Unless he's just whacky. God, I hope he's just whacky. I don't think he is, though.

Posted by Becky at 12:01 PM |

We Need Major Surgery, Not a Bandaid

As I have written before, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform has been laundering Oregon money for Oregon initiative backers, making it appear the efforts are receiving support from the national organization when in reality the money is all local. Circumstantial evidence has led me to suspect that Freedomworks may be doing the same thing, though I cannot prove it. Whether I am correct or not, it is interesting that the same web of individuals moving funding to Oregon initiatives is also providing funding for initiatives in Washington state, but under a different organizational name.

Currently, petitioners are collecting signatures in Washington on three initiatives that bear close resemblance to efforts we have seen here in Oregon. One of them has received $150,000 in recent weeks from "Americans for Limited Government."

Who are the backers of this "Americans for Limited Government"? Good luck trying to find out. We do know that it shares an office with US Term Limits and the Club for Growth in Illinois. LEAD Action (Legislative Education Action Drive Action) was for some time also located at the same address, but now has moved to Madison WI, though its website is registered to a K St. address. South Carolina activists learned that the group backing school choice there and calling itself "South Carolinians for Responsible Government" was actually a front group for this Americans for Limited Government. Of course, creating a web of multiple interconnected organizations is the hallmark of political schemers and racketeers.

The Club for Growth (which shares an office with Americans for Limited Government) is an offshoot of the Cato Institute (which was founded by the Kochs, who also created Citizens for a Sound Economy, predecessor of Freedomworks), and was originally headed up by Stephen Moore, former Director of Fiscal Policy at Cato. The Club for Growth has a history of funneling contributions to candidates hand-picked by Tom DeLay. Paul Jacob of US Term Limits (which also shares an office with Washington initiative backer Americans for Limited Government and has been involved in Oregon term limits efforts), Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform (which laundered money for Oregon's Sizemore), and Pat Toomey (and predecessors) of the Club for Growth are very clearly connected, both personally and philosophically.

The Club for Growth Founders Committee includes Brent Bozell, an in-law to William F. Buckley, of National Review, where former Club For Growth President Stephen Moore is a contributing editor (Moore also was chief economist and assistant to Dick Armey when Armey chaired Congress's Joint Economic Committee, and Dick Armey is Co-Chair of Freedomworks, formerly Citizens for a Sound Economy and backer of Oregon initiatives). Norquist's ATR offices were the weekly meeting place for Tom DeLay's K Street Project. Obviously, these groups are really the same characters operating through several interconnected entities. This sort of organizational structure makes investigation very difficult and limits criminal liability.

Here is why I would not be surprised to learn that the funding coming to the Washington initiatives from Americans for Limited Government is every bit as local to Washington as the money coming from Americans for Tax Reform is local to Oregon (but laundered through ATR): The people who have created this network routinely engage in money laundering.

Look at the Club for Growth, for example (the group that shares the same address as Americans for Limited Government): One board member, Lawrence Kudlow, came from the Bear Stearns investment bank, known for money laundering. (Incidentally, Kudlow also is the economics editor for National Review Online.)

These people have even spoken out on money laundering. Through an umbrella organization called the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, Jack Kemp (Co-Chair of Freedomworks), Dick Armey (Co-Chair of Freedomworks), Stephen Moore (former President of the Club for Growth), Citizens for a Sound Economy, and Grover Norquist (serial money launderer), among others published an article explaining "Why the War on Money Laundering Is Counterproductive."

And, of course, everyone knows about Tom DeLay's money-laundering adventures.

I bring all this to your attention for one reason. Currently, initiative process reformers are focusing a lot of attention on trying to prevent involvement by out of state influences on local initiative campaigns. I say addressing out of state involvement is a bandaid solution because it is not going to heal the real wound that is infecting our entire political system. Based on my own experience, I believe the money isn't coming from out of state anyway. An intricate criminal racketeering enterprise is the real problem, and it is actively corrupting local political activists with impunity. With impunity.

Why, I ask, are these individuals apparently immune from prosecution for their money laundering and other illegal acts? The answer to that question is very frightening, but it is, in fact, a clear indicator that we have a very deep wound that requires major surgery, not a legislative bandaid.

Posted by Becky at 10:55 AM |

Saddling graduates with Rand--just say no

Oregonian columnist Steve Duin spoke on his blog of giving gift books to his daughter's friend, a recent high school graduate headed off to college.

Duin listed a set of sports books to play to the interest of the graduate-in-question:

Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss Counting Coup, by Larry Colton Wishful Thinking, by Frederick Buechner And my collection of columns on family and parenting, Father Time. (Hey, he knows several of the main characters.)

The near misses? The Fountainhead. Vladmir Nabokov's Lolita. A boxed set of William Faulkner. All of which got me to thinking: What did I miss? What books do you wish you'd handed to the nearest high-school graduate? Which books deserve to be handed down, again and again, to the next generation?

I wouldn't wish The Fountainhead on my worst enemy. Ayn Rand is such a chore. And frankly, he'd be better off with a hot pot.

But if you have to give Rand--at least balance it with The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

Any other suggestions?

Posted by Carla at 08:48 AM |

Of Course Rove Was Cleared

For those of you who thought Karl Rove would be going to prison and later be pardoned by the President, today's announcement that Rove has been cleared is a wake-up call. We're not dealing with amateur criminals here. We're dealing with a racket.

Many people have reasonably concluded that he should be headed to prison. But, like Grover Norquist, Rove has friends in all the right places.

In fact, Norquist and Rove have both been key to this case all along. A quick Google search of Rove and Norquist will bring up all sorts of interesting connections between the two - clearly the Plame affair was not their first joint venture.

In the end, Scooter Libby is playing the fall guy. He will either be cleared, pardoned, or lightly slapped and subsequently greatly rewarded. Everyone else will go free. And Patrick Fitzgerald will spend the rest of his life trying to forget whatever it was that kept him from pursuing the truth.

Posted by Becky at 06:04 AM |

June 12, 2006

Those Horrible Liberals

I just received one of the most depressing messages I have ever received.

After all the long conversations I have had with my mother over the past few years, it's as if I've been talking to myself all along. She just went out and bought "Godless" and then seemed to honestly believe her review of the book would pique my interest:

She's so funny. We think we have to check some of her facts, but she gives the liberals back in their own style, only most of her stuff is factual and actual, and she's so funny that I just laugh and laugh. The liberals can't stand it when they're treated as they treat people.

Bear in mind this comment comes from a 100% dedicated Christian who goes to church at least twice, if not four times, per week and studies the Bible every day. You'd expect she'd be pretty irritated at the cruelty being voiced in the name of her belief system. Alas, it is not so.

I think she spent too many years listening to Rush Limbaugh every day. You can always tell a ditto-head because they equate the term "liberal" with anything and everything they find despicable. If I asked her what liberal ever said the sort of horrible things about others that Coulter says, she wouldn't be able to come up with one. But ten minutes later she'd be back to believing it anyway.

The psychology of belief is as confounding as it is fascinating.

Posted by Becky at 02:37 PM |

The war lives on (no, not that one)

As I've always maintained, if defending free speech doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable every now and then, you're probably not doing it right.

Take this somewhat peculiar story:

Members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups rallied Saturday at the Antietam National Battlefield, believed to be the first time a group was given permission to demonstrate at the site of the bloodiest day of the Civil War.

About 30 people, some in white robes and others in the military-style clothing and swastika armbands of the National Socialist Movement of America, stood next to a farmhouse on the battlefield. Some delivered speeches attacking immigrants, blacks and other minority groups.

Here's a sentence I haven't gotten to type often in the last six years: Thank goodness the government official appreciated the free speech implications of what was going on. Although counterprotestors were offended that the white supremacists had been allowed to demonstrate "on sacred ground" such as the Antietam site,

"The Supreme Court has ruled consistently that national parks in particular are places of freedom of expression," said park superintendent John Howard.

One more time, just so we're all straight on this: Defending the right to speak of attractive people with popular causes isn't that much of an achievement. The real test comes when it's pathetic losers like the Klan or the National Socialists Movement.

And, as longtime correspondent Doctor TV, who passed this story along, noted, it's not the ones you can see that should worry you. At least we know where these guys are (the sheets help, of course--imagine how hard it would be to find those guys attacking immigrants, blacks and other minority groups if, say, they wore Brooks Brothers suits and roamed the halls of Congress).

The truly, genuinely odd part of the story was that it apparently took 200 officers to make sure that the 30 Klansmen and neonazis didn't come to blows with the 30 Semites on Bikes.

Posted by Nothstine at 12:23 PM |

Hola Alberto!

And so it begins, for 2006. For some largely-forgotten people, 2005 still isn't over: Gone to Mississippi by Ben Greenberg.

Posted by Jeff at 11:55 AM |

That sh!t troubles me mightily, pt. 1

Militia members wielding modern military weapons shout "Praise the Lord!" as they blow infidels away. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.

Posted by Jeff at 10:12 AM |

Not Your Daddy's Summer Camp

As a child, I went to Christian summer camp for a week every year. I learned how to saddle and ride a horse, explored the natural world, did arts and crafts, went swimming, and enjoyed singing gospel songs and hearing stories around the campfire. It was good, light-hearted fun. Apparently, however, like all things Christian, summer camp these days is a bit different than when I was a kid. More militant, you might say.

A new documentary, "Jesus Camp," takes a look at a North Dakota summer camp called "Kids on Fire." Like much of today's Christian youth movement, this camp is teaching kids (as young as 6) that they are soldiers in God's army.

The film, by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the duo who also directed the critically-acclaimed The Boys of Baraka, opened to an appreciative and flabbergasted audience at the 2006 TriBeca Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Award. The directors skillfully captured the daily interactions of a world that would be foreign to most viewers: children speaking in tongues and talking of being "born again" at age 5.

The star of the film is Pastor Becky Fischer, who explains the startling mission of her "Kids on Fire" camp: "I want young people to be as committed to laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are in Pakistan." At the camp, the children are asked: "How many of you want to be those who will give up your life for Jesus?" Little hands shoot up from every direction. They are told: "We have to break the power of the enemy over the government." At one point, Becky yells: "This means war! Are you a part of it or not?" More little hands.

While this Pentacostal summer camp represents the fringe of the fundamentalist Christian movement, it is still cause for concern. After all, at a time when the modern Christian youth movement is embracing "Teen Mania" and sounding the "Battle Cry", while promoting a Christian video game that has kids blowing away those who will not convert to Christianity while shouting "Praise the Lord," it is a bit disconcerting to hear that 6-year-olds are being asked to commit to giving up their lives for Jesus in an effort to "break the power of the enemy over the government."

Posted by Becky at 09:08 AM |

Big Hearts at the Oregon Coast

My family and I just returned from the most wonderful weekend at the Jetty Fishery Annual Crab Derby at Nehalem Bay. In a nutshell, the Crab Derby is an excuse to have a blast crabbing and playing while raising money for two very worthy causes: The Rinehart Clinic and the Wildlife Center of the North Coast.

Dr. Harry Rinehart left behind a successful medical practice to do what he could to respond to the country's health care crisis. His coastal health clinic provides affordable health care to those who could not otherwise have access to it. No one is turned away. The clinic relies heavily on donations, mainly raised through several fundraising events held each year, one of which is the Crab Derby. It is plain to see the locals hold Dr. Rinehart in high esteem.

The Wildlife Center provides volunteer first aid and rehabilitation for injured wild animals – such as those hit by cars, attacked by domestic animals, sickened by pollution, orphaned, etc. Representatives were on hand, along with several beautiful rescued birds, and spent a good deal of time talking with my boys about their work and the animals they save. The group's outreach also helps people understand some things they can do to avoid negatively impacting wildlife.

What a time we had. The Crab Derby was an absolutely delightful taste of un-citified America, with awesome fresh seafood, old-fashioned family entertainment, friendly people, and lots of great prizes. All the local businesses and a number of local people were extremely generous in donating items for an auction to support the Rinehart Clinic and the Wildlife Center. This was not a slick, well-organized event like the festivals in downtown Portland, where at the end of the day you've spent a lot of money and not met anyone new. Spend a weekend here, and you'll meet all kinds of delightful people, such as Kelly, the main guy at Jetty Fishery, who is simply too entertaining to miss. A real human being with a big personality and a big heart.

Our whole family just could not help but get caught up in the fun of the weekend's events. The cake walk, all-ages dance contests, and buoy-throwing contest were hilarious. But the highlight was the auction, where I learned just how generous Oregonians and the coastal business community really are. I bought my husband, an avid outdoorsman, an early Father's Day gift – a guided clamming expedition with Dr. Rinehart. My boys, of course, gleefully tagged along. So 4:00 the next morning, the alarm went off and the men hustled out to try their hands at razor clamming. Afterward, they scooped up a healthy catch of mussels and the good doctor even helped clean them. Next stop was picking up the crab pots we had laid out the night before. Needless to say, we feasted last night and will again tonight on fresh Oregon seafood and some fine Oregon wine. And we're feeling good about having supported two very worthy charities.

Posted by Becky at 06:08 AM |

June 11, 2006

Spy vs Spy

I'm not quite sure why its necessary to "infiltrate" a public event that the media is covering. Especially when you have to pay plane fare and endure the mess of Las Vegas to do it. But then I'm a liberal. Spying on law abiding Americans doesn't do it for me.

Posted by Carla at 09:00 AM |

An important marker along the way

Until and unless we get public financing of campaigns..money is going to be a constant issue. Without it, the political lifeblood of a campaign is nonexistant.

That's why this matters so much:

Democrats Closing Fundraising Gap With Republicans
Increase in Grass-Roots Support Buoys Party as GOP Efforts Falter

A surge in small, individual contributions is lifting Democratic campaigns this year and is helping close a Republican fundraising advantage that has existed for years in national politics, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Democratic House and Senate candidates and their two major campaign committees are enjoying stronger grass-roots support than at any time since the GOP took over both chambers of Congress in the 1994 elections, according to strategists from both parties who have reviewed the most recent FEC data released this spring.

At the same time, Republican campaign committees are stumbling. The Republican National Committee is lagging behind its totals from two years ago, though it continues to have a financial lead over the Democratic National Committee. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, headed by Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.), has raised more than $50 million this election cycle -- $6 million less than its Democratic counterpart.

On the House side, the National Republican Congressional Committee remains ahead of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But the gap is smaller than in the past, and the trends are in the Democrats' favor. The DCCC had raised 45 percent more through the end of April than it had at the same point in 2004. The NRCC, meanwhile, saw a 13 percent drop over the same period.

Especially with the rise in small, grassroots initiated contributions (vs large corporate and individual donations) this is a HUGE deal for the left.

This demonstrates that the Democrats are on the rise and the GOP is on the wane. Its one marker on the road to the election that should make the Republican Party extremely concerned.

Posted by Carla at 07:47 AM |

June 10, 2006

The Gloves Are Off

I was recently introduced to The Liberal Girl Next Door via my friendships with bloggers from Washington State.

LGND has thrown down the gauntlet against extremist rightwing Christians:

We have worked long and hard in this country to overcome our fears and bigotry and have even taken great steps, like amending our constitution, to better reflect our values as an open, free and fair democracy. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, when we knew better, we did better. We righted the wrong of slavery, we righted the wrong of excluding blacks and women from voting, we even tried to help desegregation along by bussing students and providing guidelines for college admissions and hiring practices. Now, because Christians were unable to stop this progress all along the way, they have found in George W. Bush an ally that will help them turn back time and roll back the hard fought progress we’ve made.

Make no mistake, it was Christians that killed “witches” in Salem, it was Christians that walked around in white robes and hoods while they lynched black men and burned down their homes, it is Christians that are willing to kill abortion doctors in an effort to get the rest of us under their God’s thumb and it is Christians that are continuing every day to promote homophobia that contributes to the violence toward, and discrimination of, gay people. Perhaps religious tolerance has outlived its usefulness in this country.

I take exception to the general terms in which this section is phrased. Obviously all Christians aren't properly characterized by these sentiments. I think she's going after the hard righty Christians who are our own version of the Taliban, and uses somewhat poor phrasing in doing so.

I also disagree strongly with the idea that religious tolerance may have outlived its usefulness. I say we continue to let these folks speak out and live with the repercussions of their words. Ann Coulter certainly had to do that this week--to her detriment.

The other threads of the points she's making have merit, however. Roadblocks to societal progress have been created, in many cases, by those who use the Bible as a bludgeon of tyranny. Certainly its been used to justify the subjugation of women and blacks. The current "cachet bigotry" of homophobia has its only Biblical bludgeon stemming from Leviticus and Paul of the New Testament.

As a society, we're under no obligation to tolerate bigotry when its used to physically or emotionally harm others. Rightwing Christians are entitled to their beliefs--as ugly or offensive as some of us may find them to be. But we can not and should not allow these bigoted individuals to create laws and set policy for our nation.

Intolerance means we don't allow extremist Christians to practice their beliefs. They're welcome to it. But in no way should they be allowed to foist those beliefs on the rest of us.

That's what I believe most everyone who speaks out against these folks are trying to get across.

Posted by Carla at 12:38 PM |

June 09, 2006

His Arrogance Knows No Bounds

Tom Delay, feeling the heat of investigations into his many illegal activities and questionable associations, gave his farewell speech to Congress yesterday, but the arrogant SOB acted as if he was leaving all of his own accord.

Political careers tend to end in one of three ways: defeat, death, or retirement. And despite the fervent and mostly noble exertions of my adversaries over the years, I rise today to bid farewell to this House under the happiest of the available options.

He took the opportunity to gloriously stomp on liberalism:

Liberalism, after all, whatever you may think of its merits, is a political philosophy – and a proud one with a great tradition in this country – with a voracious appetite for growth. In any time or place, on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? “More.” More government, more taxation, more control over people’s lives and decisions and wallets.

And to gloriously punch the left's tactics in the gut:

So – to their credit – they stood up to us. They argued with us. And they did so honorably, on behalf of more than 100 million people, just like we did against President Clinton, and they did against President Reagan.

What an arrogant, sarcastic jerk. He even blamed partisanship for his retirement:

Indeed, whatever role partisanship may have played in my own retirement today – or in the unfriendliness heaped upon other leaders in other times, Republican and Democrat, however unjust – all we can say is that partisanship is the worst means of settling fundamental political differences… except for all the others.

He credited conservatives with the "fact" that "more than 50 million Iraqis and Afghans [have been] liberated from tyranny since September 11, 2001." And then he invoked "the children":

Over the last 10 years, I have spent more time and energy on the plight and needs of abused and neglected children than on any other single issue. It’s an issue that transcends politics, let alone partisanship, and one that will continue to command a disproportionate amount of my time as a private citizen.

This was news to me. So was this:

I have scraped and clawed for every vote, every amendment, for every word of every bill that I believed in my heart would protect human freedom and defend human dignity. I have done so at all times honorably and honestly, Mr. Speaker, as God is my witness and history is my judge.

Once again, we are provided with proof that God does not interfere with our daily lives, else Mr. Delay would have been immediately struck with lightning. However, I do believe history will judge the man. Unfortunately, how it judges him will depend solely on who writes the history.

Posted by Becky at 11:39 AM |

Measure 11 Nails Another Bad Guy

Here's another example of why pedophiles should either be locked up for life or be executed.

A Salem man convicted of raping one of his daughters in 1992 was sentenced Thursday to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of raping another daughter and a stepdaughter in the past year.

Marion County Circuit Judge Tracy Prall handed down the sentence to Kelly Vosgien, 47, who pleaded guilty last month to 10 counts related to sexual abuse of the 14-year-old daughter and 13-year-old stepdaughter.

I can't believe after all this time there are still some who haven't figured out these guys can't be "cured."

Vosgien was convicted of six counts of sex abuse against another daughter in 1992 and was sentenced to almost four years in prison. He was released on post-prison supervision in 1995. That supervision ended in September 1998.

The previous conviction came before sentencing guidelines for sex abuse were strengthened by Measure 11, a get-tough-on-crime initiative.

It is cases like these that pushed Oregonians to pass Measure 11 (I am proud to have voted for that measure – to me, the costs have been well worth it). Our courts weren't protecting us before, and if they didn't have to protect us now, they would still be letting perverted child rapists back out with a slap on the wrist, even after repeated convictions, to prowl the streets and victimize more kids.

Posted by Becky at 10:08 AM |

Coulter Lies About Church Attendance

Anne Coulter is portraying herself these days as a Christian, wearing a crucifix necklace on the cover of her new book criticizing "godless" liberals. It's a nice touch for a good Christian girl.

Back in April of 2005, Times Magazine ran a story by John Cloud claiming Coulter regularly attends Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, and claimed "she brings a lot of people" to church there – including actor Ron Silver.

But now Raw Story is revealing that in fact, the church was unable to confirm that Coulter had ever attended services at the church. Redeemer Presbyterian's Communications and Media Director Cregan Cooke said, "The only thing I have heard is hearsay that she is an attender. Our database shows that she is not a member."

Cregan added that wealthy celebrities routinely asserted a dubious connection to his congregation. "People from Robin Williams to Diane Sawyer have claimed to attend services here but don't actually know if they have. And I don't know anybody that would have seen Ann Coulter. We don't really know her."

Perhaps if she had attended, she would recall that "Thou shalt not bear false witness" thing.

Posted by Becky at 08:40 AM |

Stupid Campaigning by TABOR Backers

Last night I picked up a copy of the Northwest Meridian, an apparently right-wing faux newspaper. I say this because the two articles on the front page were one about how the Secretary of State had ruled against Our Oregon, who had filed a complaint that TABOR backers were making false promises about what the measure would do; and a glowing report of how Ron Saxton is surging forward in his campaign for governor.

The TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) backers apparently paid the paper to enclose a copy of their initiative petition inside the fold of each paper, and along with the petitions a little "Taxpayer Questionnaire" for people to return. The questionnaire asked respondents to "select the three examples of government waste most frustrating to you."

Here were the choices offered:

- Illegal immigrants using state benefits
- CIM/CAM education bureaucracy
- Government employee growth
- Economic Development Dept.
- Lack of privatization
- Pork programs #1: Light Rails/Bike-Paths
- Pork programs #2: Art projects, tax subsidies
- Higher Ed. Tenure
- Too much regulation
- Lack of budget transparency
- Public employee pension costs
- Too much unused state property
- Prevailing Wage Law (Davis/Bacon)
- Oregon Health Plan Costs
- Not using timber lands

I found the list to be very enlightening as to the motivations behind the TABOR initiative. It is a list of changes they would like to see occur. Personally, I find much of the list very dangerous.

I'd like to see opponents make a common-sense argument against the simple message of the measure – that government is the right size now and should not grow any more, except for adjustments for inflation and population growth – rather than focus on attacking this as another anti-tax, anti-government ballot measure, a la Bill Sizemore. But if the Taxpayer Association of Oregon continues mailing out questionnaires like this, showing how far they are outside the mainstream, they may well defeat their own measure.

Posted by Becky at 08:30 AM |

June 08, 2006

One for the good guys!

Congratulations to Seattle uber blogger/activist David Goldstein of Horse's Ass blog.

David will be hosting his own radio show on KIRO NewsRadio 710 in Seattle!

David is a long time friend of Preemptive Karma and a kindred spirit of mine. He'll be a true liberal voice on the radio for Seattlites.

I wish him every success.

(h/t: Blatherwatch)

Posted by Carla at 03:46 PM |

Groundhog Day or another corrupt Republican is outed

As if Abramoff, DeLay, Duke Cunningham and the entire Republican Party apparatus of Ohio weren't enough to demonstrate the fundamental corruption of the Republican Party...

LA Times:

A political fundraising committee headed by a defense contractor has paid thousands of dollars in fees to the stepdaughter of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) at a time when the contractor has been lobbying Congress for funding.

Lewis' stepdaughter, Julia Willis-Leon, has been paid more than $42,000 by the Small Biz Tech Political Action Committee, according to campaign finance records. The PAC is led by Nicholas Karangelen, founder and president of Trident Systems Inc.

Records show the company received at least $11.7 million in earmarked funds in recent defense spending bills over which Lewis' committee has jurisdiction.

The entire LA Times piece outlines the incestuous relationships with these lobbying organizations, corporations and Republican Party interests. Long--but worth the read.

These reports of corruption within the GOP seem to be coming out on a daily basis..with the same pathetic, anemic Republican response. Over and over and over the same excuses are repeated.

There's also little to no recognition from the rightwing hackosphere or the Republican leadership that their party stinks of crooked deals and malfeasance. In contrast to the left--who are attempting to jettison interests who won't clean up their act.

Posted by Carla at 11:44 AM |

Why Isn't this Guy in Prison?

Grover Norquist, a person whom I see as being active at the very core of the evil in Washington, was a guest this morning on Thom Hartmann's radio show. He was spouting a line of bullshit about the "death tax" that left me shaking my head. As my Dad used to say, he was "slicker than snot on a doorknob." But that is only part of the reason why "Norquist is the man people are thinking about when they say they feel like they need to shower after a visit to Washington."

So many people have dug up so much dirt on Norquist that it is truly an amazing thing he is not in jail at this moment. The fact that he is not severely undermines any faith I might have in our government and system of justice. Here is just a sampling:

"Mrs. Panstreppon" reports on Norquist's shady financing here and here. One of the things she points out is that Norquist's political organization, Americans for Tax Reform, has loaned $6.5 million to his 501(c)(3) foundation that the foundation cannot repay. I have no doubt that something is being hidden in this process.

Norquist also gave $650,000 to an anti-union group, despite the fact that ATR has its own such group. The recipient group apparently does not actually exist, but by following the trail "Mrs. Panstreppon" found what appears to be convincing evidence that the real recipient was the National Association of Manufacturers, which is not allowed to accept contributions from corporations or foreign nationals. ATR, however, can accept these contributions, and the question is whether this was another of Norquist's many money laundering schemes. She also uncovers interesting links to Newt Gingrich, John McCain, and a lengthy list of conservative organizations.

She also points out Norquist's connections to David Safavian, and apparently both were heavily involved in the Jack Abramoff mess. And that brings me to what is perhaps the most horrifying Norquist problem: his (and Safavian's) links to terrorists. You can read about them here and here and see actual documentary evidence here.

Safavian and Norquist were partners in a lobbying firm that was in the employ of Abdurahman Alamoudi (a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah), and Safavian, at least, has links to al-Qaeda. He owns up to the fact that Jamal al Barzinji, the ringleader of a group suspected of aiding terrorists, was a client of the Safavian-Norquist firm. Safavian also admits to lobbying on behalf of the Islamic Institute, which received start-up money from a former Almoudi deputy and was co-founded by Norquist. Oh, and Norquist recently married a Palestinian Muslim activist. Norquist and Safavian made arrangements for various Islamic leaders to meet with top Bush officials, and obtained government jobs for several Arabs and Muslims.

The plot gets much thicker than that. Norquist is involved in an incredibly intricate web of organizations, activities and influential people. The more you research him the more you realize that though he isn't the spider at the center of the web, he is damned close to that spider.

Posted by Becky at 09:46 AM |

Dead Humans Venerated; Living Ones Attacked

The contrast between two stories today out of Russia leaves me feeling cold.

The first is a story about how thousands of Christians came to pray over the right hand of John the Baptist. The severed hand has been in existence at least since the late 1700s.

Even though I understand the symbolic nature of this "relic", I find it ignorant and crude that believers would be so moved by a dried up hand from some dead person while at the same time brutally attacking living human beings.

Police in Moscow stood down while approximately 100 Christians and skinheads kicked and punched the half dozen gay people who were simply making a peaceful statement that they are human beings and deserve to be treated as such.

Witnesses, some of them foreigners, reported that police made no effort whatsoever to prevent the ultra-nationalist thugs from attacking a handful of gay rights activists who had arrived at the Alexander Garden just outside the Kremlin wall to place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The Mayor ordered the gates to the garden locked, and women singing hymns and holding Orthodox iconography along with skinhead nationalists surged against the marchers.

One man was left bloodied after being hit in the face with a brick. The man said that instead of protecting them, the police prevented them from getting away from their attackers.

Homosexuality has been legal in Russia since 1993, but widespread homophobia, fuelled by ultra-nationalism and spurred on by the Russian Orthodox Church has seen violence against gays and lesbians increase, especially in Moscow.

I think there is something very wrong with a religious belief system that venerates the dead – humans who no longer exist – and abuses the living. If the god they worship is as they see him, I'd rather be in hell. Ain't no way I'll ever bow down to someone who supports that.

Posted by Becky at 08:34 AM |

Let the 4-hour erections commence!

Okay, so Zarqawi's been 86'ed. When do our troops come home?

Are we sure it's Zarqawi? Did they find his wooden leg? Does he really have a glass eye? Or was all that mis- or dis- or just-plain-bad information?

Will any of it really change the situation in Iraq?

It's going to be the talk of the weekend on TV, that's for certain. Insert talking heads video using metaphors about cutting the head off the snake, and so on. Cue beheading video bits and references. Much cheering and waving of the flag. Segue into "good news, see we report the good news, too! and this is sure to be good news and a huge victory for Bush...! Bring on them I-ranians, we'll kick their asses too! HOORAH!!"

And when do we nab Emmanuel Goldstein Osama bin Laden?

Posted by Jeff at 07:41 AM |

June 07, 2006

Fort Lewis officer refuses deployment to Iraq

It takes a very brave individual to stand up for what he believes in when he's certain to take a serious hit to his career (not to mention the vicious character assassinations sure to come from the righwing hackosphere):

A Fort Lewis soldier is poised to become the first U.S. military officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq, his supporters said Monday.

The news piece didn't have the man's name, but Dan at On The Road To 2008 is on the case. Dan picked up the name from the newly minted website honoring the officer's bravery:

Today, Wednesday, June 7th U.S. Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada will become the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to the unlawful Iraq war and occupation. He will announce his intention to disobey the illegal order to deploy to Iraq in coordinated press conferences in Tacoma, Washington and Honolulu, Hawaii.

This guy has some serious stones.

Posted by Carla at 03:15 PM |

Embarassing New Low for Eyman

Say what you want about Bill Sizemore – and you'd probably be right – but he's never been as completely idiotic as Washington's Sizemore-Wannabe, Tim Eyman. I mean, not even in my wildest dreams could I imagine Sizemore showing up at a press conference dressed up as Darth Vader.

Eyman says he wore the Darth Vader costume to "embrace the politicians' characterization" of him.

Eyman let the press think he was ready to turn in signatures on his anti-gay rights referendum Monday, so all the media showed up for the event. Instead, the "greedy ego driven douche bag" turned out to be a "huge nerd," bringing along a light saber and no petitions. Then, apparently unaware of just how foolish he looked, he gloated about having fooled the press.

I have long known Eyman was an idiot, but I almost have to feel sorry for someone who is this out of touch with reality. Almost.

Yesterday he showed up at the Washington Secretary of State's office with a mere 105,103 signatures – about 25,000 less than he would have needed to be fairly secure of a spot on the ballot.

Posted by Becky at 02:03 PM |

We have seen the Johnson

My wife is pregnant. We found out weekend before last. Placenta previa, for those who need to know. Bed rest till further notice. Is she climbing the walls? Wouldn't you be?

Yes, it's a boy. 22 weeks and counting toward Sept. 29th.

We now return to our semi-regularly scheduled snarky smart-assery.

Posted by Jeff at 11:54 AM |

Who is Actually the Godless One?

It's only been out one day, and already Ann Coulter's new book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism " is pissing people off.

The book lambastes the 9/11 widows group known as "the Jersey Girls," calling them "millionaires" who are "reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis" and labeling them "The Witches of East Brunswick."

"I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."

Coulter told Alan Colmes on Fox News that Jesus would approve of her book, even though, as Colmes put it, the book "belittles and ridicules a large segment of the American population.” Coulter said Jesus "was no panty waist.”

Jesus never would have belittled and ridiculed widows. His teachings, as well as those of the Old Testament, consistently call for compassion for widows.

Posted by Becky at 09:39 AM |

Consider the Source

Bill Sammon writes in the Washington Examiner today that Dan Bartlett, counselor to President Bush, is complaining that the press is ignoring the President's many "victories" and not giving the White House a "fair shake." He seemed to have some difficulty coming up with many, by my reading of the article, but here are the ignored victories:

1. The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden to run the CIA.
2. Brett Kavanaugh, who once worked for special prosecutor Kenneth Starr in the case against President Clinton, was confirmed to the judiciary.
3. The economy is "booming."
4. Bush has scored "some foreign policy advances."

Sammon may be writing favorably, but the rest of the press isn't buying Bartlett's argument.

Bartlett’s memo was dismissed as “happy talk” by Mark Halperin, political director of ABC News. And White House correspondent Ken Herman of Cox Newspapers noted that Barlett “found reason for optimism in Iraq ... on a day when gunmen rounded up 56 people at a Baghdad bus stop.”

For those who don't know, Dan Bartlett was once the Deputy to the former Counselor to the President, Karen Hughes. Before that, he worked for Karl Rove and Company, an Austin-based political consulting firm. It was Bartlett who, along with Ari Fleischer, pushed reporters to look into who at the CIA sent Joseph Wilson to Niger.

The article's author, Bill Sammon, is also a cheerleader for President Bush. His past includes being the senior White House correspondent for the Washington Times (owned by the odd-ball Rev. Sun Myung Moon) and working as a Fox News analyst. He was also with the president on 9/11.

Sammon has a history of biased reporting that includes intentionally distorting a campaign strategy report Al Gore gave to his staff in his book "At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried To Steal the Election." He also is known to throw biased, soft-ball questions to the President at press conferences.

So if you hear reports today about how the press is ignoring the President's successes, just consider the source.

Posted by Becky at 08:58 AM |

June 06, 2006

Fun with Sixes

I normally avoid discussing my fascination with numbers, but I'm afraid on a day like today it's too much fun to pass up. The day is full of fun stories of sixes, and for those who like that sort of thing, I thought I'd share a few of them.

Paul Porter, who is 6' 6" tall, is celebrating his 66th birthday today. According to a numerologist interviewed by his local paper, six represents love, harmony and balance. It is also basic to all life. "The carbon 12 atom, which is the basic form of all life, has six electrons, six neutrons and six protons. So in that way, 666 is built into every cell of our body. It's in our DNA."

Peter Spyche is also celebrating his birthday today. He's 66 inches tall, the middle two digits in his social security number are 66, his daughter weighed 6.66 pounds at birth, he spent six years in the Air Force, and he works as a lean manufacturing expert specializing in Six Sigma, a form of efficiency procedures.

The family of six-year-old Damon is throwing him a party that will begin at 6:06 this evening. He also happens to live in the sixth house on his street and six-tenths of a mile from the main road.

Christine Schweickert tells how she and her daughter decided to go shopping because her daughter had $666 in her bank account and wanted that status changed before today rolled around.

Then there is Hell, Michigan, which is having a hell of a good time today. Screams Ice Cream is selling ice cream cones for 66 cents and T-shirts with hellish slogans for $6.66.

The heavy metal band Viking Skull is performing in London today, and tickets are selling for £6.66.

Couples rushed to get married in Singapore today. The Registry of Marriages broke all records for marriages in a single day – and six times more marriages than the average number in a day. It is a good day for enduring love in China, where 66 represents a smooth way ahead and good luck.

It may not be such a lucky time for people who are still looking to buy a home. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, have risen to an average of 6.66%.

Posted by Becky at 01:11 PM |

Why All the Focus on Christianity?

As I look over my posts of the past few days, it certainly appears as if I am on some sort of anti-Christian rampage, but that isn't the case. There are three reasons why I've been writing so much about religion. First, the increasing stridency of the Religious Right has serious political implications for the times in which we are living. Second, I'm so utterly distressed by the news out of Iraq and the actions of the White House that I can't even discuss it as I am still trying to make sense of what I'm feeling. And third, thanks to my lifelong experience with fundamental Christianity, I'm just plain obsessed with religion and the crazy expressions of it -- and probably always will be. So on it goes.

Joseph Smigelski has written an interesting piece entitled "The Religious Right is un-American." And he isn't alone in believing it, though he is, perhaps, being more kind than some who share his opinion, myself included.

On the Christian Coalition of America's website banner, the group proclaims that it is "America's leading grassroots organization defending our godly heritage." This statement begs the question, "Is our heritage a godly one?" The answer is a resounding "No." The United States of America was founded as a secular nation with a firm "wall of separation" between church and state.

Smigelski then offers numerous quotes from the Founding Fathers, including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, demonstrating how their clear intentions are being perverted and undermined by the the modern Dominionist movement. The topic has been discussed here before, and the article probably contains little that is news to those with an interest in the subject.

I bring it up because it serves as a warning light for the unholy alliance between the Bush Administration and the Religious Right. Both appear intent on undermining the Constitution so as to enable the imposition of their will on the American people, who for some reason seem to believe they ought to have free will. At stake in this effort is not merely the loss of opportunity for every citizen to pursue happiness in a free country. Also lost as a result of this unholy alliance is the dream of world peace, which is being shoved further and further out of reach. By inflaming another group of religious fundamentalists and leading them to believe we are their fundamentalist enemies – and sinful, "godless" infidels, at that - the Bush Administration and the Religious Right have set up a world conflict that will inflict an inconceivable cost on us all if it is not reined in very quickly.

Posted by Becky at 10:36 AM |

June 05, 2006

Tony Snow: Vapid asshole

Being a shill for George W. Bush can't be an easy job. But someone in the Press Secretary's office probably should have prepared him better when they trotted Tony Snow out to tell the nation that the efforts to put discrimination into the United States Constitution are a "civil rights" effort.

Pretty nice try at a spin. As with much of what Team Bush and the GOP do: up is down, down is up. But Snow's feet of clay melted when held under the fire of reporters questions:

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY TONY SNOW: Whether it passes or not, as you know, Terry, there have been a number of cases where civil rights matters have risen on a number of occasions, and they've been brought up for repeated consideration by the United States Senate and other legislative bodies...

Q You mentioned civil rights. Are you comparing this to various civil rights measures which have come to the Congress over the years?

MR. SNOW: Not -- well, these -- it --

Q Is this a civil right?

MR. SNOW: Marriage? It actually -- what we're really talking about here is an attempt to try to maintain the traditional meaning of an institution that has maintained one meeting for -- meaning for a period of centuries. And furthermore --

Q And you would equate that with civil rights?

MR. SNOW: No, I'm just saying that I think -- well, I don't know. How do you define civil rights?

Q It's not up to me. Up to you.

MR. SNOW: Okay. Well, no, it's your question. So I -- if I --

Q (Chuckles.)

MR. SNOW: I need to get a more precise definition.

A more precise definition? A lame-assed effort to claim that discrimination is a civil right is the best that the President's new press boy can do?

Too bad Snow and the boys don't feel the need to have "a more precise definition" of other terms. Like....

Weapons of Mass Destruction
War
casualty
death
discrimination
debt
deficit
immigrant

There are hundreds of other words that the White House uses on a daily basis..spun around imprecise, vascillating definitions. If only they were held defining them precisely every time Snow opened his mealy mouth.

Posted by Carla at 05:28 PM |

Kicking God Out Didn't Cause Today's Problems

Here's an excerpt from an email I just received that is a good example of how people mix different unrelated things together to come up with something that supports their own beliefs:

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK. Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

I just have to shake my head at the whole first paragraph for its utter lack of common sense. If God actually cares about us and gets involved in our lives, why would he allow that level of suffering to fall primarily on the poor, mostly black residents of New Orleans simply because some of the rest of us "kicked him out" of our schools, government and lives? Why would God do that when he would supposedly have spared all of Sodom and Gomorrah for ten righteous men? Are there not even ten righteous men in New Orleans? It's just a tidy little pat answer to give believers a little something sweet to hold on to and quench their doubts.

The second paragraph is downright insulting, really. It starts out saying that without prayer and Bible classes in public schools, somehow our kids aren't going to be able to figure out that it isn't OK to kill or steal. Like the rest of us have no moral compass and no sense of empathy or concern for others.

I only see one thing in this post that I agree with, and even that only partially. I happen to believe in spanking, when done in a way that is thoughtful and controlled. On those rare occasions when other means of instruction fail, it serves as a good backup that gets their attention very effectively. I only had to spank my kids a few times (I could probably count them on one hand) before they knew that not only did I expect them to respect others, but if they were unable to discipline themselves, I would discipline them, so they might just as well pull themselves together.

My kids know that killing and stealing are wrong because early on they learned that other people's needs mattered and that for them to holler, run around like crazy animals, touch everything in the store, hit people, ignore or disrespect adults, etc. was simply not acceptable behavior. Through a lot of explaining and teaching – and the occasional spanking when necessary – I helped my children understand that.

Teaching my kids to respect others had nothing whatsoever to do with the notion that either I or some God would be watching them and would punish them if they sinned. They learned that considerate and respectful behavior was their responsibility as a member of society. They learned that other people have feelings, too, and that if you respect them and control yourself, the world is a much more fun and interesting place to be.

Posted by Becky at 02:06 PM |

Christians Ignorant About "666"

Apocalyptic fever is gripping the world ahead of tomorrow's "Devil's Day" – 6/6/06. One of the more interesting sites out there traces the numerology involved in terrorist attacks over the past few years. It notes that between the thwarted terrorist attack on the Sears Tower (4/19/04) and tomorrow there will have been 777 days, and points out the coincidence between the date (6/06/06) and the zip code of the Sears Tower (60606).

Christians in 21 countries are being called upon to pray for 24 hours, beginning at 6:00 pm tonight, to protect the world against the Satanic forces that they believe will affect the world tomorrow. Hopefully, the devil won't wait until 6:06 pm tomorrow, after the prayer vigil has ended, to unleash hell.

Revelation 13:16-18, the source of the prophecy, states of the "beast":

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with the understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

Growing up Seventh-Day Adventist, I spent a lot of time studying end-times eschatology. It always amazes me how unfamiliar Christians are with "666" prophecy and how willing they are to be fearful of anything numbered "666." You can find many interpretations of this prophecy, including the notion that the beast is the Pope, which, if you believe in the Revelation prophecy at all, is probably the most common-sense interpretation of it.

Read in context, you learn that the prophecy speaks of three distinct individuals: the antichrist, the beast, and the false prophet. Contrary to the movie "The Omen," 666 is not the number of the antichrist. It's the number of the beast. And the prophecy is very clear that the beast is a person, not a date, not a location, and not even the devil. So relax tomorrow. No prophecy in the Bible has anything whatsoever to say about the day.

Posted by Becky at 10:35 AM |

Faith is What You Want to Believe

"Exodus," a new two-hour documentary that seeks to prove the "historical accuracy" of the Bible, is coming out next spring. It will look at the evidence to support the biblical accounts in Genesis and Exodus of such stories as Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers and became second in command in Egypt, the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, and the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai.

"'The Da Vinci Code' is about fiction. We talk about reality," said Dr. Lennart Moller, a Swedish DNA researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who stars in the film. The film not only recounts what's written in Scripture, but goes on a multinational mission to document the evidence for the events recorded in Scripture. "We have been at places no one else has ever been. We have found things no one else has ever found," Moller told WND.

Among the evidence presented are a coral-covered objects that might be chariot wheels in the bottom of the Red Sea, which the film makers believe proves Pharaoh's army was covered by water as they chased the Israelites through the sea that Moses had parted. You can see a photograph of one of the supposed chariot wheels here.

Never mind the possibility of shipping chariots across the Red Sea, or even more likely the possibility that these are merely natural coral formations; the fact is this documentary is asking entirely the wrong questions. Just because evidence proves that particular cities existed, or that the events depicted in the Bible might actually have occurred, does not mean they occurred as described in the Bible or that God had anything to do with what occurred. More important, it doesn't prove the Bible is the infallible word of God. And isn't that really the question?

One of the most informative books I have read is Who Wrote the Bible? This book unravels the authorship of the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament, which tell the pre-history history of the Jewish people. It clearly lays out the political compromises and other factors that modified the text, as well as makes a case for why the text was modified – to create a framework of belief that would unify a previously disparate people. Many other books have been written addressing the history of the rest of the modern Bible, including the many myths of prior cultures that were adapted into biblical "history." This site provides an interesting overview.

In short, I don't see how any documentary can be any more convincing than The Da Vinci Code with regards to "what really happened." As always, it remains a matter of faith.

Posted by Becky at 09:20 AM |

June 03, 2006

Returning to the Real Good News

Here's a bit of truly "good news" on the Christian front. An interfaith group has launched a campaign to combat religious conservatives' divisiveness and intolerance. They are working to turn debate away from abortion and homosexuality and toward poverty, health care, education, and housing. And they worship a God "who loves, unites and embraces, not one who rejects, divides and excludes.”

Echoing the words of the Revs. Martin Luther King Jr. and William Sloane Coffin Jr. and the biblical prophets, the Rev. Otis Moss Jr. of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church said it was time to "break the silence” in the face of evil and to "further the welfare of the nation.”

This group isn't just singing hymns and helping the poor. They are also taking on other Christians who are working against their Christian values – "kicking butt and taking names," and some are going so far as to call right-wing fundamentalists an "abomination" that is "destructive of the wonderful message of God." They are also taking the lawful steps to put an end to this abuse of the Christian faith.

Columbus clergy of We Believe have filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against two Columbus-area evangelical Christian leaders, the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church. Johnson's Ohio Restoration Project has enrolled nearly 2,000 evangelical ministers to be "Patriot Pastors,” exhorting congregants to vote for candidates with right-wing stands on social issues.

In their complaint, the Columbus clergy charged that Parsley and Johnson have violated IRS regulations, thereby jeopardizing their tax-exempt status, by promoting the candidacy of Ken Blackwell, secretary of state and Republican gubernatorial nominee, and other conservatives.

The attacks on Rev. Parsley (of the Center for Moral Clarity – an outspoken anti-gay group) and Rev. Johnson (Ohio Restoration Project) are apparently justified. The two are certainly insiders in the right wing political machine, connected to some pretty shady characters and operating contrary to law in Ohio, where Republicans recently focused their efforts to steal the Presidency.

Posted by Becky at 05:07 PM |

Ohio lessons

Over at Hullabaloo, tristero has a quick roundup of arguments that Kennedy's Rolling Stone argument that the GOP may have stolen the 2004 Ohio election is flawed, perhaps fatally so.

While I'm not yet convinced that Kennedy's wrong about Ohio, I want to clarify one point about my own post on the subject:

Whether Ohio was actually, legally, electorally "stolen" or not, the shenanigans that went on are un-American, and clearly the product of people who disrespect the system our country runs on. Putting a halt to it--regardless of whether we're talking about 2004, or '06 or '08--does not rest on the integrity of mainstream media. It does not rest on left/liberal/progressive bloggers. It does not rest on shouting at your television from your couch.

It rests on getting out there--being heard and being seen. Make the call. Attend the meeting. Give your time. Let your representatives know you're watching them and weighing your next vote.

I haven't mentioned money yet. Yes, money counts too, but one of the destructive misunderstandings of our age is the belief that money is speech. It isn't. Money is commerce, and campaigns need it. But speech is speech. Get out there and make yourself heard. Nothing else will do.

(Cross-posted at p3.)

Posted by Nothstine at 03:43 PM |

Big Eaters Beware

Watch out big eaters – the government is looking to get restaurants to cut portion sizes in order to fight the obesity epidemic.

Americans now consume fully one-third of their daily intake of calories outside the home. And as of 2000, the average American took in 300 more calories a day than was the case 15 years earlier, according to Agriculture Department statistics cited in the report. Today, 64 percent of Americans are overweight, including the 30 percent who are obese, according to the report. It pegs the annual medical cost of the problem at nearly $93 billion.

When there is actually a market for KFC's bowl of mashed potatoes, topped with corn, breaded and fried chicken bits, gravy and cheese, you know something is wrong with America's tastes in food. As someone who has spent a fair percentage of her life on a diet attempting to retain the svelt figure my husband married, I doubt portion size is as much the problem as the kind of food we are eating. Too much fried foods and high-carb, high-fat foods and too little whole grains, steamed vegetables, and salads - sans croutons, cheese, and ranch dressing.

When Americans dined out in 2005, the leading menu choices remained hamburgers, french fries and pizza, according to The NPD Group, a market research firm. The presumably healthier option of a side salad was the No. 4 choice for women, but No. 5 for men, according to the eating pattern study.

I blame kids' menus (typically chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, fries, pizza, and similar junk food) and school lunch programs, which are terribly non-nutritious. If we don't teach our kids how to eat well, they'll grow up preferring fatty, salty food over healthy, fresh food. Let's see the government do something about the school lunch program and teach our kids to want good food, and quit wasting time regulating restaurant portions, when restaurants exist to give customers what they want.

Posted by Becky at 09:41 AM |

Beware Racist "Christian Identity" Movement

David Lethbridge, in an article entitled "Aryan Nations: Christian Identity and Fascist Terror," writes about an interview by Klanwatch investigator, Angela Lowry, with ex-Aryan Nations officer, Floyd Cochran. An excerpt from that interview:

Q: "Where do you think the white supremacist movement is headed today?"

A: "I think it's headed toward Christian Identity. You're going to see Identity be the foundation. Identity says that it's okay to hate."

Q: "Do you believe Christian Identity followers are more dangerous than other white supremacists, such as the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazi Skinheads?"

A: "Yes. The rallying point for Identity is around race and God. It has no central authority. It's based on an idea. ... Identity gives its followers a sense of divine guidance to engage in racial hatred. Identity followers should be approached with extreme caution."

What is "Christian Identity"?

Aryan Nations is an Identity church. Identity, sometimes called Christian Identity, or Kingdom Identity, is a particularly perverse and racist variant of the Christian religion. … Identity believers are often much more devout and committed than many so-called "mainstream" Christians.

What do these Christians believe?

1) - The Biblical God, or Yahweh, created a single race in his own image - the White Race. These are the Chosen People. The message of the Bible, both Old and New testaments, is a message only for the White People. Only White People have souls, or have a hope of salvation. […]
2) - Before the creation of Adam and Eve, the God Yahweh created a second race. These are sometimes called "Mud People" in Identity literature, and are the ancestors of all people of color; Africans, Asians, Aboriginal Australians, African-Americans, and so on. These "Mud People" were intended by God to be the servants and slaves of the White People. They have no souls, are not truly human, and are not valued by God.
3) - The third race of people are the Jews. According to Identity, they were not created by God but by Satan. They are not the Old Testament Israelites, but have simply falsely assumed that ancestry in order to hide their evil origin, and as a cover for their Satanic purposes. […]
4) - Identity theology maintains that any intermarriage between Aryans and non-Aryans automatically yields off-spring who are spiritually, biologically, and mentally degenerate, and who are soul-less. […]
5) - Identity also maintains a strong belief in the Second Coming of Christ. Like many fundamentalist Christians, they believe that Christ will return soon and usher in the Millennium - a thousand years of God's Kingdom on earth. However, they also believe that Christ will not return until the Aryan people have done their duty and restored God's original plan; namely, the return of people of color to servant and slave status, and the genocide of the Jews.

Randy Weaver was an Identity believer and has become a hero to right-wing activists who likely know nothing of his beliefs. Identity believers see themselves as above the law because they believe they are acting on God's behalf. One faction of the group believes they are called by God to execute race traitors. Others have called for the death penalty for homosexuals.

Why should we be aware of this group, which also calls itself the "Church of Jesus Christ, Christian"? Because hundreds of them (at least 800 groups) exist throughout the USA and Canada. They are actively recruiting and their numbers – and fervor – are growing.

Posted by Becky at 08:56 AM |

June 02, 2006

BOGing down in an act of cowardice

This morning over at Jack Bog's blog, an act of complete cowardice took place at the hands of the blog's owner. With malice and intent to threaten, Jack outed TJ's (of Loaded Orygun) real life information.

Jack didn't do this outing as an act of self preservation because TJ was causing him any real harm. Jack did it because sometimes Jack posts things on his blog that are clear bullshit. And when TJ calls Jack on his bullshit--Jack doesn't like it.

Its certainly Jack's perogative to post things on his blog that have nothing to do with reality or fact. Its his blog. Its also his perogative to block people from commenting who have a tendency to contradict his stupid, inane, uninformed and predictable platitudes. Given how often Jack screws up the facts of various issues, its a wonder he has any commentors at all. Not to mention the obnoxious prickishness of his attitude.

But bullies do attend to attract a crowd. I suppose Jack Bog is no exception.

I can't speak for TJ, but I don't use my real full name and information because I've had threaths levied against me and my family in the past. It would be irresponsible of me to continue to write if I thought there was even a hint that someone could possibly do something to my children. I won't give anyone that kind of leverage over me.

That doesn't mean I'm anonymous. Nothing of the sort. It means I choose to keep my real life information confidential. When you read posts or comments by "Carla" who writes at LO/Preemptive Karma, you know who it is being referenced. You don't need my real life information to know who I am in the blogosphere.

Publishing someones real life information on the internet without their expressed consent is an act of of malice that's completely beyond the pale. It potentially puts them in harm's way and it undermines their privacy. In this particular case its done in a concerted effort to silence another person's point of view.

January 2005, I started writing about the gubernatorial election issues happening in Washington State. A big fight was brewing over the outcome and the GOP blogs were salivating. They were also posting things on their blogs that were complete bullshit. So I started making phone calls and fact checking. I wrote up my findings here at Preemptive Karma. In addition, I made comments about the inaccuracy of the posts over at one of the main perps, SoundPolitics blog.

Unable to refute what I was saying, the SP purveyors made some not-so-veiled threats about trying to out who I was. But I'm careful not to put my real information out there--so they couldn't. TJ's information is a lot easier to come by. They tried to use his info back then to shut him up. It didn't work then and it won't work now.

In addition, I've noticed the Bog bullies are in a froth over the fact that TJ might use his work computer to comment on blogs. Most workplaces allow employees to take breaks, lunches and to multitask. But then that isn't what this is about. If TJ were to constantly kiss Jack's ass--TJ's use of a work computer wouldn't be an issue.

People should also keep in mind that TJ and I have the ability to manipulate the time stamp on our posts. It can be done here at PK, too. Just because it says "9AM" on the blog post, doesn't mean it was written at that time. Sometimes we work to spread the post time out to be courteous of one another.

Jack Bogdanski's behavior in this matter is childish and unethical. But given Jack's reaction to being wrong so often--its unlikely that he feels any shame or that his conscience (if it exists) feels remorse. Playground bullies and their clusterfuck gang tend to be that way.

Posted by Carla at 04:48 PM |

It's Either Crazy or Terrifying

One month ago, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern got in Rumsfeld's face for lying about weapons of mass destruction. He was instantly a hero. But I fear he will soon be labeled as a looney following a recent interview on the Alex Jones Show in which he said he fears terror attacks will soon be staged across Europe and the U.S. in order to provide justification for the launch of a war against Iran this month or next. "I would put very little past this crew," he said. "Their record of dissembling and disingenuousness is unparalleled."

"There is already one carrier task force there in the Gulf, two are steaming toward it at the last report I have at least - they will all be there in another week or so. The propaganda has been laid, the aircraft carriers are in place, it doesn't take much to fly the bombers out of British and US bases - cruise missiles are at the ready, Israel is egging us on."

But why would President Bush take such a risk?

McGovern highlighted President Bush's all time record low approval ratings as a reason for launching an attack on Iran to again whip up false patriotic fervor. "I can see Karl Rove saying, 'Look, what you need to do is become a war president again, get us involved with something pretty big here and then strut around and say you can't vote for a bunch of Democrats to pull the rug out from under me while there's a war going on'."

[…]McGovern said that Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld, fearing impeachment and Enron-style criminal proceedings, are urging President Bush to launch a war in order to create a climate unconducive to lengthy investigations and impeachment proceedings.

I was rooting for McGovern a month ago, but now I hope to God he's just a nutcase enjoying his ten minutes of fame. It's one thing for regular people to wonder and whisper their fears that something like this is possible. But when someone like McGovern not only thinks it, but also verbalizes it, you have to either wonder what kind of crazy people the CIA is employing, or be scared half to death.

Posted by Becky at 12:49 PM |

Human Animals

It seems fighters from Saudi Arabia are leading foreign terrorists in an upsurge in attacks against British troops in Basra. "[C]ommanders on the ground are concerned at the level of sophistication and ferocity of the assaults."

I would imagine this is just the beginning of things to come. The reason is that 5 million children in 25,000 Saudi schools are being taught to hate us. One example:

An eighth-grade textbook on Monotheism describes non-Muslims thus: "The apes are Jews, the keepers of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christian infidels of the communion of Jesus."

Kind of reminds me of the radical language of Ron Luce and Lakita Wright to Christian children – including that non-Christians are "pigs" and non-Christian girls are "flea-males" because they "lie down with dogs."

Posted by Becky at 10:46 AM |

Yes to War, No to the Environment

Cass Sunstein asks an interesting question today: Why can't the US fund the Kyoto Protocol?

The arguments against participating in Kyoto have long been that at $325 billion, it would simply cost too much money and damage the U.S. economy. But as Sunstein points out, the Iraq war has already cost about $300 billion (and an awful lot of human beings), and will likely ultimately cost $500 billion or more. And by all accounts, the economy is doing great.

I see a common thread between the decision not to fund Kyoto but to go forward with funding the war: both decisions were good for Big Oil.

Posted by Becky at 10:35 AM |

Noe No Norquist

Tom Noe, a Bush "Pioneer" fundraiser and subsequent recipient of several federal and state political appointments has been busted for money laundering and has pleaded guilty on three felony counts. Sentencing guidelines call for 24 to 30 months in prison and a substantial fine, but the federal prosecutor is seeking a stiffer penalty due to the “potential loss of public faith” that has resulted from his crimes.

Noe apparently wanted the perks that came to big-time Bush fundraisers so badly that when his friends said they couldn't afford to contribute the $2000 apiece, he decided to give them the money himself, even though he knew it was illegal to contribute money in someone else's name. He gave $45,500 illegally to the Bush campaign via 24 “conduits.” All 24 individuals have cooperated with the investigation and will not be charged.

Each of the 24 individuals received varying amounts of money so as not to raise suspicions, and then signed donor cards claiming they were the original source of the funds. Noe instructed them to say, if asked, that the money was a loan. Once Noe realized he was being investigated, he tried to cover his tracks by calling some of the "conduits" and asking them to repay the "loans." He also created a "loan folder" long after the transactions had occurred in an attempt to make the transactions appear legitimate.

The story fascinates me because I have seen the same sort of activity first hand. In a money-laundering scheme that all participants understood clearly, numerous large donors in Oregon gave money to Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform during Bill Sizemore's late-1990s anti-union campaigns in order to avoid public reporting of their contributions. Norquist then sent the money to Sizemore as a contribution from ATR, and it was reported as such. Sizemore instructed the original donors to say they had given ATR the donation because they supported the organization's work.

In 2000, when Sizemore was working to put seven measures on the ballot, he received a $150,000 donation from Robert Randall, but in order to disguise that donation the two agreed to call it a "stock purchase" in Sizemore's petitioning company and it was never reported on contribution and expenditure reports. When the teachers' unions racketeering lawsuit was nearing trial, Sizemore tried to bolster the bogus transaction's credibility by "selling" the stock back to Randall for $100.

Numerous other instances of track-covering occurred, but two points interest me here. First, I have for some time believed that this activity is commonplace, as the participants I have seen have been casual about it and apparently experienced. For instance, the ATR money laundering for Sizemore continued at least into 2000, and possibly continues to this day. I do not believe the scheme was cooked up by Sizemore. Norquist has a long history of suspicion and accusations of money laundering for various conservative groups and efforts, including for the Republican Party.

The second reason this interests me is that despite evidence and confessions of the activity in the Sizemore case, as well as initial interest by federal prosecutors, no indictments have ever been forthcoming. Could it be that Norquist is simply more important and well-connected than Tom Noe, and therefore protected from prosecution?

Posted by Becky at 10:21 AM |

Heartache

It appears there may be another tape showing Iraqis massacred at the hands of American soldiers.

There are those who say that we must "wait and see" what investigations turn up--but some of the evidence is already obvious. Something over there has gone desperately wrong for our soldiers.

Their actions are inexcusable. But given the mortal danger, high stress, ill-equipped and overburdened way these people have been deployed--its absolutely not surprising.

The Bush Administration has done damage to the military in a way not seen since Vietnam. And the harm to America's reputation in the world may be irreversable.

I'm honestly at a loss as to what we can do in Iraq now, except redeploy elsewhere. This has gone so far beyond a quagmire.

Posted by Carla at 07:51 AM |

June 01, 2006

Robert F. Kennedy Jr: Was the 2004 election stolen?

According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the Republican Party kept 360,000 voters in Ohio from voting or having their vote count, which was enough to swing the election to Bush.

Kennedy outlines his theories and findings in this excellent piece in Rolling Stone.

Complete with endnotes and complete source citations, Kennedy give a compelling look at the GOP thievery of the 2004 election. And perhaps a road map to thwarting such events in the future.

Read it. Now.

Posted by Carla at 02:46 PM |

Christian Religion is Cloven in Two

Ever wonder why it seems there are two types of Christians these days: the gentle, peace-loving, Christlike type and the strident, fundamentalist type? One group of Christians seems to be found working in soup kitchens and donating time to disaster relief, and the other seems to want to hold militant youth rallies and press for anti-choice and anti-gay rights legislation. What explains this?

I think Philip Slater of the Huffington Post may be onto something as he tackles this very question, focusing on the affinity of one kind of Christian for the teachings of Jesus and of the other for the teachings of the ancient patriarchal Old Testament.

The reason why so many fundamentalist Christians are so notoriously "unChristian" is simple: for the majority of Christians (Quakers are among many notable exceptions) Christianity isn't about the teachings of Jesus, and never was. The early church fathers knew that Jesus' rather Buddhist message of nonviolence and voluntary poverty wouldn't fly in the Graeco-Roman world, let alone in the Middle East. The idea of a Redeemer on the other hand--someone who would voluntarily sacrifice Himself for humanity and their sins--was very popular. Instead of having to give up their worldly goods and espouse non-violence, all the Romans had to do was believe in the miraculous stories surrounding Jesus' birth and death, which was easy for them, since such stories had been told about pagan gods and heroes and were already familiar.

Christianity as it exists among fundamentalists isn't about behaving like Jesus. It's all about faith--about believing the story. The underlying message seems to be: you can behave any way you want as long as you believe the story and say you're sorry before you die. Following the teachings of Jesus is much too demanding, whereas with the Christianity of fundamentalists all you have to do is shut your mind off.

I think the Christian world could actually learn something from couple of Indian writers calling themselves "Phantomville" who are putting out a comic book to try to deal with precisely the same problem in Islam.

"The Believers" explores the rise of Muslim extremism in Kerala through the relationship of two brothers, one of whom is representative of the majority of Muslims, and one who has become a violent fundamentalist.

The 98-page English-language book is an attempt to promote another path, the author said, even as some turn increasingly to violence when religion, oppression and poverty collide. "The book is about tolerance," he explained. "I would like it to reach out to young people everywhere in the world."

The growing stridency of fundamentalist Christianity is certainly a topic we need to explore more fully as a society. A comic book might be just the way to reach today's young people before they get too caught up in the Battle Cry movement.

Posted by Becky at 02:07 PM |

Does Tony Snow Mind the Lying Now?

Think Progress is reporting today that Tony Snow has confirmed that President Bush lied when asked last Thursday whether Treasury Secretary John Snow had indicated he would resign. President Bush replied, "No, he has not talked to me about resignation. I think he’s doing a fine job."

In fact, not only had Snow indicated he was leaving, President Bush had already settled on his replacement. Today, Tony Snow said that Hank Paulson was offered the job on May 20 and accepted a day later.

When asked about it, Tony Snow looked for a good excuse and stumbled around about it. The reporter suggested, "You could have been direct and said: We’re expecting…" Snow replied, "Well no — with all due respect, I think there was some concern again about how something like that affects the markets. If you have uncertainty for an extended period of time, which would have been, at that point, four or five days, I think that is something that you’ve got to worry about and you’ve got to be responsible in dealing with it."

Without a doubt, the White House must be very cautious in what it says when the markets are involved. But surely there is a better way than the sort of sophomoric lying that continually pours forth from Bush's mouth. I'm a bit unnerved by his ability to look us straight in the face and lie, no matter how well-intentioned he may be.

Remember Bill Clinton's looking us in the eye and telling us he "did not have sexual relations with that woman"? And how outraged we were that he had done that? You could easily make the excuse that he was trying to protect the country from the effects of a sex scandal in the White House. But the fact was he looked at us and, without flinching, lied. And the Republicans had a field day with it - including Tony Snow.

Presidential lying bothered Snow then. I wonder, does it bother him now? Did he tell the truth about the President's lying because he hated the lying, because he couldn't think quickly enough, or because he was trying to send a message on behalf of the White House that lying is acceptable so long as it spares the markets?

Posted by Becky at 01:01 PM |

Teachers' Union Should Tell it Like it Is

I have come a long way in my feelings about unions over the past few years. For those who don't know, I used to work on anti-union ballot measures. I grew up steeped in anti-union rhetoric because when I was a child my grandfather's sawmill was burned to the ground by a union. But I've had a few epiphanies in recent years regarding the vital role of unions in protecting the middle class, and now I see them as important and valid.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm going to support whatever a union decides to do. And right now I'm pretty irritated with the Washington Teachers Association, which is threatening to sue over the state's effort to make high school available on-line. I'm upset because the union is insulting our intelligence by claiming its opposition to the program is because it's bad for the kids.

Unions exist for only one reason: to benefit their members. And just because teachers are wonderful people and love our kids and personally sacrifice to teach them does not mean their union is working for the interests of the kids. It simply is not. That's not to say it's working against the kids, either. It's just that the union isn't concerned with the kids and shouldn't be. Its job is to look after the pay, benefits, job security and working conditions of the teachers.

It annoys me to no end when a teachers' union claims otherwise in order to win public support for its efforts. Doing so wrongly switches the public debate from one over the wisdom of their effort to one over which side loves the kids the most.

Posted by Becky at 10:47 AM |

Is God Really This Mean?

Why would a real God who was really listening to a heartfelt prayer of a believer allow this to happen?

Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama. […]

She said 'Amen' and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. […] Firefighters said its likely she was hit by a bolt of lightning that apparently struck outside and traveled into the house yesterday afternoon. She was found lying on the floor by her 14-year-old granddaughter.

Gee, I thought God only struck hypocrites with lightening for saying brazen things like, "May God strike me dead if …"

Posted by Becky at 10:24 AM |

Bush: If Marines killed civilians, they'll be punished

Or at least that's what CNN is reporting.

One wonders if Bush will merely punish the grunts as he did during the Abu Graib scandal. Or if the higher ups who at best mishandled reports (or at worst were engaged in a coverup) will be punished as well.

Given Bush's history of big talk and little real action when it comes to dealing with corruption and bad behavior, pigs will likely fly out of my ass first.

Posted by Carla at 07:46 AM |