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October 31, 2006

Of the people, by the people, for the people.

2973 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, which caused an estimated $83 billion in both direct and indirect costs.

America launched a full blown war against the Afghani Taliban in direct response.

As of today 2816 Americans have been killed in Iraq, a war of aggression based on cherry-picked "intel", and at least $6.8 billion/per month in American taxpayer dollars (current estimated tally is $335 billion) is being spent so that the Iraqi Prime Minister can order American forces around.

What ought America's response be?

Posted by Kevin at 07:46 PM |

Let Me Just Point You Over There ...

Hart Williams, aka Ed Waldo, has written a really good piece today that explains the thinking behind the libertarian efforts that are gaining ground in the country today (including the TABOR ballot measures). Please go and read it, even though it's really long, because when you are done you'll begin to recognize the philosophy behind the numerous shocking events that increasingly take place today under the leadership of the right wing, which has fallen under the libertarian spell in so many ways.

Posted by Becky at 11:51 AM |

Sex and the GOP: Theory and practice

The practice (USA Today, 10/31/06):

The federal government's "no sex without marriage" message isn't just for kids anymore.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults.

"They've stepped over the line of common sense," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that supports sex education. "To be preaching abstinence when 90% of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health."

Abstinence education programs, which have focused on preteens and teens, teach that abstaining from sex is the only effective or acceptable method to prevent pregnancy or disease. They give no instruction on birth control or safe sex.

The National Center for Health Statistics says well over 90% of adults ages 20-29 have had sexual intercourse.

But Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the revision is aimed at 19- to 29-year-olds because more unmarried women in that age group are having children.

Government data released last month show that 998,262 births in 2004 were to unmarried women 19-29, the ages with the most births to unmarried women.

"The message is 'It's better to wait until you're married to bear or father children,' " Horn said. "The only 100% effective way of getting there is abstinence."

The revised guidelines specify that states seeking grants are "to identify groups ... most likely to bear children out-of-wedlock, targeting adolescents and/or adults within the 12- through 29-year-old age range." Previous guidelines didn't mention targeting of an age group.

The theory (George Orwell, 1984):

She began to enlarge upon the subject. With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness. Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way she put it was:

'When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simpIy sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?'

That was very true, he thought. There was a direct intimate connexion between chastity and political orthodoxy. For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force?

(Cross-posted at p3.)

Posted by Nothstine at 11:46 AM |

Dave Johnson is Full of Pig Shit

Color me shocked. The Huffington Post today has one of the most inane, inaccurate, Henny-Penny the-sky-is-falling entries that I have ever seen in the non-wacky blogosphere (thank you, Don Rumsfeld, for adding that delightful phrase to my lexicon). Dave Johnson is warning voters that eminent domain ballot measures in four states (California, Washington, Idaho and Arizona) will require taxpayers to pay people not to put pig farms next to their homes – and he is NOT kidding!

There is a law on the ballot in four states that says if I want to open a hog farm or a chemical plant next door to your house and you don't want me to do that, then YOU have to PAY ME not to -- you have to pay me ALL THE MONEY I MIGHT HAVE MADE.

I am not kidding. This new law says that if you want to stop a corporation from dumping toxic waste into the river from which you get your drinking water, or stop them from venting dangerous chemicals into the air, then YOU have to PAY that company not to. I am NOT kidding!

The far right says that a government stopping a company from dumping waste into a river is "taking" money from that company. I am not kidding. And you had better take this seriously or YOU will be PAYING companies to not harm you and your families.

Big sigh. Did he ever actually READ the measures? SERIOUSLY.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about California's Prop. 90, which I had initially believed was an Oregon Measure 37 on steroids, based on the radical scaremongering reporting I had read. But when I actually READ the measure, I found it wasn't like that at all. Here are a few excerpts from my previous post, and I would again ask anyone to PROVE ME WRONG (I really like this all-caps feature. WOW, it's so EXCITING).

[The language of the measure] provides an exemption for public health and safety, it seems very unlikely to me that the California Courts will determine that environmental protections (which fall under "health and safety" umbrella) or zoning restrictions (ditto) are in some way a taking for a private use in violation of the measure's clear eminent domain context. It seems to me Prop. 90 actually offers quite a bit less protection for private property owners than Measure 37...

It's the old "They'll put a pig farm next to your home" scare tactic, which is utterly ridiculous as no sane property owner would waste perfectly good residential real estate by building a pig farm on it - and he certainly wouldn't be successful in claiming that being prevented from doing so somehow reduced the value of his land.

Which brings me to another false accusation about this measure - that the State would have to compensate private property owners for all the lost money they could have made if they had fully developed their land to its highest and best use. It is simply not true. The measure doesn't say that and no state has ever compensated people that way. In Oregon, property owners are paid compensation for their property based on its value absent the regulation that restricts future development. In other words, if you lifted the restriction and then sold the property "as is," its fair market value would be the amount of compensation. In California, if Prop. 90 passed it would be even more simple. If eminent domain is used to take any portion of your property or damage its value in any way, then – and only then - you must be fairly compensated for your actual loss. Oh, and by the way, your property can't be taken from you and used for a non-public purpose.

If I'm wrong on this, give me a sound LEGAL argument as to why I'm wrong, not a terrified and irrational answer based on some anti-property rights group's WILD INTERPRETATION of the measure. And to Dave Johnson, please, have a drink, catch your breath, read the measures, and look at it from a rational, legal perspective. You may not like tying the hands of planners who want to impose utopia on the rest of us, property rights be damned - and that's fine, if that's how you feel. Make a RATIONAL argument for your position. Otherwise, SHUT UP with the freaking pig farm argument. It is SO STUPID.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the answer is YES, I am feeling particularly GRUMPY today. So what.

Posted by Becky at 09:42 AM |

The Fruits of Grover Norquist

One might be pretty thrilled to learn that Howard County has decided to give its elderly, limited-income residents a break on their property taxes. One might also expect that the king of tax cuts, one Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, would be supportive. Alas, no. He reasons that targeted tax relief only makes it harder to reduce the tax rates for everyone.

On its face, that might seem reasonable - if you ease the pressure to cut taxes across-the-board, then such tax cuts might never happen. One might, therefore, expect Norquist would then oppose any sort of targeted tax cuts. But that would be where one would be wrong. Because not only does he support a flat tax (which sadly will fall hardest on the poor and ease the burden of the wealthy considerably), he also supports eliminating the estate tax, capital gains taxes and dividend taxes - all tax cuts targeted to benefit the wealthy. Because they're the ones producing jobs, don't you know.

Perhaps Norquist forgot about the small business community, which employs half of America, largely on a shoestring budget. But I digress.

Norquist can talk nice all day long about tax equity and fairness and all that, but where the rubber meets the road, it's always the same old story. The poor and the middle class pay more and the rich pay less. His lovely words are worthless; it is by his fruits that you know him.

Posted by Becky at 09:37 AM |

You Know It's A Week Before The Election When...

The GOP trots out the 'gay marriage' card...again.

STATESBORO, Ga. -- President Bush has for months cast the midterm elections as a choice about just two issues: taxes and terrorism. Now, with polls predicting bleak results for Republicans, he is trying to fire up his party by decrying gay marriage.

"For decades, activist judges have tried to redefine America by court order," Bush said Monday. "Just this last week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and should be defended."

The line earned Bush by far his most sustained applause at a rally of 5,000 people aimed at boosting former GOP Rep. Max Burns' effort to unseat a Democratic incumbent. In this conservative rural corner of eastern Georgia, even children jumped to their feet alongside their parents to cheer and clap for nearly 30 seconds - a near-eternity in political speechmaking.

First of all, what New Jersey does is New Jersey's business. Remember when the GOP was the party of states' rights? I do, too.

Secondly, I'm disturbed that children are so indoctrinated by their parents there that they would jump up to applaud that line. Doesn't bode well for little Johnny when, 15 years from now, he's trying to come to grips with his sexual orientation.

But more interesting, apparently the economy and terrorism need to take a back seat to the idea of a couple of men getting hitched in Atlantic City. Because you know that will affect your life much more than those other two piddly things.

I hope that Americans can see through this, but my fear is that they won't.

It's Halloween, and gays have become the boogie-man for the the GOP. And it's disgusting.

Posted by Alan at 04:51 AM |

October 30, 2006

When Republicans Get Carried Away

I've been fairly awestruck by the Republican attacks on Michael J. Fox over the past week. I actually thought it would be a one-day story in which Rush Limbaugh would make the usual idiot of himself and everyone would say, "Don't pick on a guy with Parkinsons," and then it would be over. But wow. It just keeps on going. And today's entry by Ted Piccolo steps so far over the line of reasonableness it is downright hilarious.

The BIG DEAL today among Republicans is that Michael J. Fox has finally 'fessed up: he hasn't actually read the text of the Missouri stem cell amendment he spoke favorably about a few days ago when he maliciously refused to take his medicine in order to ensure he shook all over the place so people would feel sorry for him and vote to use stem cells to improve people's lives rather than throw them into the trash can.

Now you just have to read Ted Piccolo's take on this to believe it (warning: it's the classic case of a Republican getting so carried away with something that it no longer makes sense):

So, again, does it surprise anyone that Democrats are all about political power and really don't care about policy?

What it boils down to is political power for Public Employee Unions. Everything else... EVERY THING is merely a political tool for Democrats to maintain that power. Maintain an opening to that pipeline of money and power. I don't care if it is Social Security, stem cell research, oil or anything. It is all a means to an end.

I'm still trying to figure out what public employee unions have to do with this subject, but in the mean time I think it is worthwhile to point out that Congress is notorious for passing bills none of the members have ever read. Neither do their staff members. They vote on a bill based on "summaries prepared by the bill's authors, or by interest groups whose judgment they trust." And just for Ted, I linked to a Fox News story about that so he could know I'm telling the truth.

I would also point out that few voters read the actual text of a ballot measure they are voting on. They read the official summary in the Voter Pamphlet, maybe even just the ballot title itself, and rely on the judgment of groups and individuals they trust.

Did Michael J. Fox really need to read Amendment 2 in order to know whether or not he supported it? I think not. But just in case we all need to have read it ourselves to even comment on it, you can read Amendment 2 by following the link on the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures website. Or you can rely on their summary, like nearly all the voters will, and take what you will from the advice of Michael J. Fox.

Posted by Becky at 10:55 AM |

Radical Calls for Assassination of Half of Congress

Hal Turner, a radio talk show host who believes the Jews are ruling the world and advocates killing Mexicans as they try to cross the border has reached a new low. Now he says if you voters re-elect Congressional incumbents who he believes are ruining the country, half of Congress and at least three members of the U.S. Supreme Court will have to be assassinated. He even goes so far as to lay out plans for doing it using five-man strike forces. Because it's his country, not yours.

You can see his arrogance and lack of respect for the will of the voters in this statement:

All these things took place right under your nose, but YOU have done NOTHING about it. Well, you may be willing to give up YOUR rights, but folks like me will not allow you to give away OUR rights. … So again I say, if you re-elect the people who have committed these wrongs against us and our Constitution, then we may have to simply kill them!

I certainly agree with his list of complaints about Congress and what it's managed to do:

Curtailment of political speech through campaign finance law restrictions; killing innocent people in Iraq; that members of Congress don't read the legislation they pass; that elected officials ignore the will of the people; that politicians lie to get themselves elected; spending is breaking the nation's financial back; disapproves of USA Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act of 2006; and eminent domain ruling jeopardizing property rights.

But the problem with radical fundamentalist extremists of all stripes is their inability to modulate anything or keep anything within reasonable limits. If they don't agree with someone, that person must die. Yes, Hal Turner is no better than the terrorists.

Meanwhile, I wonder whether the Secret Service will come knocking at Hal Turner's door as they did 14-year-old Julia Wilson last year when she posted a drawing with the heading "Kill Bush" on her website.

Posted by Becky at 07:13 AM |

Losing The Evangelicals

The GOP has spent years bringing evangelical Christians into their camp. But they are beginning to lose their grip on them after years of riling them up for elections with promises that they can't keep.

Of the many disturbing trends for Republicans this campaign season, one of the most troubling is the drop in support among white evangelicals.

The number of conservative Christians with a favorable view of the party has plummeted from 74 percent to 54 percent between 2004 and this year, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Evangelicals comprise more than one-third of GOP voters.

The question is, where do they have to turn? The GOP is under the assumption that they have nowhere else to go, so they can keep going with the issues of division to keep them in the tent and voting, but that's not necessarily the case.

The complaints are familiar. Through every Republican victory since the Moral Majority was formed in 1979, abortion remained legal, gay couples won greater acceptance and prayer was still barred from public schools.

In 1999, Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, both veterans of the Moral Majority, examined these failures in their book "Blinded by Might," and concluded that politics was too corrupt to be used to spread Christian morality in America. A few other evangelicals suggested conservative Christians withdraw from politics and focus instead on faith.

The retreat never happened. Between 1999 and 2004, the share of white evangelicals identifying themselves as Republican grew from 39 percent to 49 percent, the Pew Center found.

It's unclear whether this campaign season will be different.

I do think its important that evangelical Christians retain their voice at the voting booth. However, I think it would be better for them as a whole if they didn't do it as a block, listening to their leaders.

Instead, I posit this - talk to your candidates about your spirituality and faith regardless of party. You may not get everything you want from them, but none of us do. But you may be surprised that there are people of faith and strong character on the other side of the aisle.

Posted by Alan at 04:34 AM |

October 29, 2006

A Racist or A Pervert?

I don't envy the voters of Virginia right now, trying to choose between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb for the Senate. Unless they have the time to really look into the facts, many are going to think they have to choose between a Racist Republican and a Pervert Democrat. Maybe I can offer some assistance.

Sen. Allen's racist past came to the forefront recently after his on-camera use of the denigrating word "macaca" to describe a non-white campaign aide of his opponent's. Other revelations include the fact that he had a noose hanging from a tree in his law office (think lynchings) and a Confederate flag displayed at his house. While governor, he called the NAACP an "extremist group" and, while resisting the establishment of Martin Luther King day, proudly announced "Confederate Heritage Month," the proclamation of which said not a word about the role of the slavery issue in the Civil War. Most damning of all, in my opinion, is that two former college football teammates have confirmed that following a deer hunt one day, Allen asked for directions to the part of town where black people lived and placed a severed deer head in the mail box of a black family he did not know, thinking it was funny. Oh, yes, and he is widely rumored to have used the "n" word on several occasions. Okay, so Allen is a racist asshole. What's the problem now with his opponent, Jim Webb?

Apparently, Webb has penned a few well-known, classic war novels, some of which were, shall we say, gritty and raunchy at times. They were based on what he actually saw during his service in Viet Nam and later as a journalist in Beruit in the 1980s: real-life horrors of war. Allen's campaign is excerpting the steamiest, most disgusting parts of these very adult novels, written for military men, and plopping them down on families' kitchen tables. Like one scene where a female stripper gets friendly with a banana. The most controversial, however, is a scene in which a man embraces his naked 4-year-old son and puts the boy's penis in his mouth. Matt Drudge's headlines have been screaming that Webb does not view a father's placement of his son's penis in his mouth as a sexual act – completely removing all context from the story. By western culture, this is obviously obscene. And while it is not widely accepted throughout the far East, where Webb claims he actually observed that very act, it is known to occur as a sort of affectionate or reverential act, more common when the child is an infant and more often performed by a mother or caretaker. Weird and gross, but then the world is full of weird and gross cultural quirks.

Another problem Allen's campaign is pointing out about the Webb books is that they are demeaning of women. Drudge writes, "Webb’s novels disturbingly and consistently – indeed, almost uniformly – portray women as servile, subordinate, inept, incompetent, promiscuous, perverted, or some combination of these. In novel after novel, Webb assigns his female characters base, negative characteristics. In thousands of pages of fiction penned by Webb, there are few if any strong, admirable women or positive female role models." I have to ask, was Webb portraying his own feelings, or was he showing the reader how life is "over there"? Many quotes from his books are listed, and certainly they aren't very "senatorial," but are we still living under the delusion that the halls of Congress are filled with moral men?

Let me ask you which is worse – that Webb wrote about demeaning women in the context of what he actually saw in a war-torn world, or that George Allen seems to have actually inflicted "harsh physical treatment" on his sister, who wrote a novel of her own that revealed that treatment. Allen responded, "Her book is a novelization. . . . I didn't write those passages in my sister's book." That's correct – he didn't write them. He actually lived them.

Personally, I find it amazing that anyone with political aspirations or an interest in being a political figure would ever pen a novel. Novels have smudged the reputations of a number of conservatives lately, and some of their writings are most certainly more offensive – even sick – than any of those by Webb. For example, Scooter Libby's book, "The Apprentice," made waves several months ago because it contained a scene in which a child was locked into a cage to be raped by a trained bear, bestiality with a dead deer, the rape of a girl by two men who had just murdered her father, and numerous sex scenes with underage girls forced into prostitution. Lynn Cheney's book "Sisters" includes lesbian love scenes, which really is only a problem if you are the wife of the Vice President in an Administration that opposes gay rights. Bill O'Reilly's "Those Who Trespass" features a repulsive drug dealer asking underage girls whom he has lured into drug use to get his "pipe up" – poorly-written, self-indulgent crap, really. It all makes me wonder whether maybe this Webb story is political pay-back for Democrats having had the nerve to out these Republicans' trashy novels.

Of course, no debate over whether the scum on the left is worse than the scum on the right would be complete without a weigh-in by Michelle Malkin, who thinks all the earlier to-do over Republican dirty novels was "pathetic." See, they were writing fiction. Since it came from the deep recesses of their imaginations, it's okay. Malkin then flings the good-old-standby Republican response in such cases: "If George Allen had written this book, not only would the left be going berserk, they’d be circulating lists of characters in his other books whom they suspect of being gay."

God help me. I want to punch something every time I hear that rationale come out of the mouth of a Republican, and it happens all too often. Usually, it's followed by the other good-old-standby that at least Republicans kick out their own when they find out about wrong-doing. Democrats rally around the bad guys. Look at Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton, for chrissakes. You know when this one gets thrown out there, the debate is over, and not because you're wrong, but because the person is so ill-informed they'll never believe you no matter how many examples you list to prove them wrong. For instance, I got into this discussion yesterday with someone and pointed out to them that Republicans have done nothing to oust Grover Norquist (the first example that popped into my head). The response was he isn't elected, so he doesn't count. And it would seem that will soon be a nice, easy response for Republicans wishing to brush off the Republican dirty novels, too. None of those authors were running for office; therefore, they don't count.

Webb, who is running for office, gave a pretty good response to Allen.

"I have lived in the real world, and I have reported the real world in my writings. I started working when I was 12 years old, and I fought in a brutal war. I saw its ugliness while George Allen was hanging out at a dude ranch."

So for all those confused Virginians out there, trying desperately to choose between a racist pig and a pervert, maybe this will help you sort it out. Forget all that stuff and ask yourself whether, in a time of war, you're best served by a man who didn't have to serve his country and instead lived a life of comfort and privilege, during which he could play "harmless" pranks on strangers after a day of hunting with his football buddies, or by a man who served his country in Viet Nam, spent years studying what life is like during war, and then wrote realistic novels about it that are today being recommended to soldiers as helpful reading by the military and being used in college courses all over the country. Personally, I'd throw that racist out on his ass every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Posted by Becky at 01:32 PM |

Theo-Conservatives Weakening GOP

A website I discovered recently, Faith in Public Life, lists daily links to articles that address the role of religion on politics. I found this article particularly well-worth recommending. Some highlights:

- Several Republicans are abandoning the party over theocratic influences. One of these is the former chairman of the Kansas GOP, John Parkinson, who joined the Democrats to run for lieutenant governor. His reasoning: "I'd reached a breaking point. I want to work on relevant issues and not on a lot of things that don't matter."

- A Washington Post/ABC poll shows 10% of Republicans will be voting Democratic. The Pew Research Center says only 37% of moderate and liberal Republicans care whether the GOP controls Congress, and 46% of this group feels theo-conservatives have "gone too far in imposing their religious values."

- Dick Armey, the former Republican leader in the House, said "[James] Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies."

Let's hope all this unrest in the GOP ranks results in a major effort to return some balance to the party.

Posted by Becky at 12:12 PM |

Israel's Use of Enriched Uranium Weaponry in Lebanon

It seems that during the recent 33-day war between Israel and Lebanon, Israel used both enriched and depleted uranium weapons. Two soil samples showed "elevated radiation signatures," which scientists attributed to either a "novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ...[or it] was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium."

Reporters asked Israeili Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev whether the IDF had been using uranium-based weapons in Lebanon. The answer: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorized by international law or international conventions." Unfortunately, the weapons in question had not yet been invented when the Geneva Convention rules were written and are not, therefore, "not authorized." Is it, then, a stretch to assume they were used, particularly when a radioactive signature was left behind?

Posted by Becky at 12:03 PM |

:::ahem:::

Earlier this election season Democatic partisan made an effort to paint then Gubernatorial candidate Ben Westlund (I) as a conservative in progressive's clothing and strongly inferred that he only ran as an Indie because the GOP field was so crowded.

Westlund, along with former Governor John Kitzhaber (D), has officially endorsed Democrat Ted Kulongoski on Friday and appeared at a series of Kulongoski campaign stops on Saturday to stump for him against Republican Ron Saxton.

None of which surprised me in the slightest.

Posted by Kevin at 10:28 AM |

Stay In The Closet - But We'll Baptize Your Kids

The Catholic Church still wants LGBT folk to stay in the closet and not have sex, but they aren't going to punish our kids. Is Pope Prada going soft?

Children adopted by gay couples may be baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, even though the church does not support such adoptions, calling them "a pastoral concern," according to new guidelines for ministering to gay men and lesbians that will be presented to U.S. bishops next month in Baltimore.

The 23-page draft document affirms traditional church teachings on same-sex issues, such as forbidding the blessing of same-sex unions or marriages, and addresses some relatively new issues, such as discrimination against and harassment of gay men and lesbians.

An early draft of the guidelines welcomes celibate gay men and lesbians to take part in parish life while asserting the church's "right to deny roles of service to those whose behavior violates her teaching." Public announcements of one's sexual orientation "are not helpful and should not be encouraged," the draft cautions, and it says church ministers must not bless same-sex unions or marriages or promote them in any way.

I'm not too worried about it, though. I realize that people that challenge their authoritarian teachings (about Jesus' love, ironically) are a challenge to their power and wealth, so they're going to fight us all the way.

In the end, much like when they decided a few years ago that the Earth really does orbit the Sun, they'll come to see the truth. Or, more likely, admit the truth they already know. We are people that are just as good (and bad) as any other people.

Posted by Alan at 05:10 AM |

October 28, 2006

But We Are Being Sent To Iraq

Michael Grunwald of the Washington Post has a weekly column called The Zeitgeist Checklist. Overall, its a good rundown of "what's hot" in the news, and he adds a bit of humor as well.

Now, I'm usually not one to be nitpicky, but #4 stuck in my craw today.

JERSEY BARRIERS FALL Last week:-- Weeks on list: 1

[New]

4. Same-Sex Marriage. The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that homosexuals are entitled to the same rights and benefits as heterosexuals, while leaving it up to the legislature to decide whether those rights constituted "marriage." Gay-rights activists said they were pleased with the decision, and increasingly ecstatic that they still can't be sent to Iraq.

The truth is something different. LGB servicemembers are being sent to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places around the world. The only difference is that they are, by law, required to lie continuously about who they are.

The policy is officially called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", but the reality is that, in everyday life, you are "asked" any number of times, whether you know it or not.

"What did you do this weekend?"
"Are you dating anyone?"
"Want to go to a bar and pick up a couple of girls?"
"What say we go out to a movie on Friday?"
"Mail call. You got a letter from Dennis. Who's Dennis?"

The list goes on and on.

And what happens when you tell the truth? Or someone else decides to tell the truth for you? You are discharged. No matter that the military is lowering standards all over the place to try to fill the ranks. If you're gay, you're out. Period.

So, yes, we can and are sent to Iraq. We just have to be on guard 24 hours a day in order to be able to continue to serve our country.

So, while I applaud New Jersey and their step toward equality, our nation is far from looking at its gay citizens and treating us equally.

Posted by Alan at 06:38 AM |

October 27, 2006

Prineville Crybabies Don't Represent Measure 37 Supporters

Cheers to the City of Prineville for deciding its scenic rimrock views are worth paying for. And jeers to Grover and Edith Palin, who won't accept the money. The Palins want to build a home on their land on the protected rimrock (they could have done so when they purchased the property but subsequent regulations prevented it). They filed a Measure 37 claim, apparently fully expecting the regulations to be waived. Surprise. Prineville likes its scenic view so much it opted to pay to protect it rather than lose it. See, Measure 37 leaves that choice up to the government, not the property owner. So the Palins – nearly 80-year-old children that they are - have resorted to kicking and screaming on the floor and demanding they have their way. It means nothing more than the annoying child in the supermarket screaming because his mommy won't buy him a candy bar. Let's move on.

The only legitimate point of contention I can see here is whether the amount of compensation is just (though the Palins apparently don't want any amount of money). The Palins say the land is worth $200,000, while Prineville says it is worth just $60,000. This is not a novel matter; just compensation disputes occur all the time and they always get worked out. Nothing to see here.

Torrid Joe, whom I have never met but feel I would like and read daily, has taken a decidedly different view of this situation than I have. In fact, I was more than a bit surprised by his comments on this issue over at Loaded Orygun when I read them yesterday - where I'm rather phlegmatic about it all, he seems to have completely lost his composure. Now, I fully expected all the usual grumbling about whether people really understood what they were getting with Measure 37 and whether, when "educated" about its effects, people would still support it – and I wasn't disappointed. But Torrid took it further.

To all those supporters who said it's not about developing previously controlled land, it's about fairness: fuck you. If it were about being fair, the Palins would take their money and shut up.

I almost physically felt the slap and I will admit I am offended. I don't agree with the Palins' position on this, but none of it really matters anyway. So what if the only outcome they will deem as acceptable is that they be allowed to do whatever they want on that land, and so what if they simply will not take the money. It doesn't mean diddly squat. The law doesn't work that way now, it was never meant to work that way and it won't work that way in the future, and if the Palins don't like it, well, too bad for them. They can cry and scream all day and the rest of us should just move on without them. To say their attitude has any meaning whatsoever or is reflective of all supporters of Measure 37 is ridiculous. They represent no one but themselves. Torrid is simply making a straw man out of a crybaby.

And insulting potential friends.

Posted by Becky at 11:17 AM |

The Garden State Gays Are Coming!

Apparently forgetting that the Massachusetts court ruling allowing gay marriage was going to ruin marriage and our nation as we know it, social conservatives are now rallying around the recent New Jersey court ruling as their "wake up call".

The New Jersey court decision that gay couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual couples was bad news for social conservatives -- the bad news they were hoping for.

"Pro-traditional-marriage organizations ought to give a distinguished service award to the New Jersey Supreme Court," said the Rev. Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

From the reaction, I can only conclude that the leaders of social conservatives like Rev. Land are only interested in power, not in advancing their agenda. I know that when something happens that I don't like, like a war with no reason or a ruling from the court that said that I have no right to privacy, I get upset.

Not social conservatives. They see it as a way to rally their masses to go vote so they can continue to have access to power.

And that's all the social conservative movement is - a way for some old white men to have power over a bunch of people, using "fear itself" as a way to keep them in line.

This is the first time I've seen them so open about it, though. I wonder how long "the masses" will continue to listen to them.

Posted by Alan at 05:12 AM |

October 26, 2006

Christmas comes early!

Jackson's coming home Monday, we found out today. He's spent all 134 days of his life in the NICU.

Great quotes that have stuck with me throughout:

GOD DID NOT DESIGN YOU TO BREAK
-- church sign near the hospital

A baby is God's suggestion that the world should go on.
-- different church sign

Keep your eyes open for the moment when hope appears.
-- Gordon Atkinson, Real Live Preacher

Posted by Jeff at 12:43 PM |

Even Arrogant Bastards Have to Follow Rules

Howard Rich doesn't like being restricted by rules. Since his early Libertarian activist days, he has continually tried to do as he pleases, everyone else be damned. There is a certain arrogance about it – a sense that rules and procedures are fine for all those less-intelligent schmucks out there who need some guidance, but he's smart enough that no one should be able to tell him what to do. He's right and that's the end of the matter. I've found this is a very typical character trait amongst the "stars" in free-market, limited-government activist circles. And naturally, for the rest of us, it is delightful to see the "stars" fall on their asses once in awhile and be forced to follow the same rules as everyone else. I'm having one of those delightful moments now.

Howard Rich's Americans for Limited Government has funneled at least $2.5 million this year to fund ballot measure campaigns in several states and also hosted a three-day "ALG Action Conference" in Chicago earlier this year. The problem is, during the time the group was dispensing of all that money, it was doing business illegally. Its non-profit corporate status had been revoked. The reason – the organization failed to file an annual report. A mere "clerical oversight," is the response of the organization. Just paperwork. How arrogant.

I won't go into Bill Sizemore and his mess, because I don't feel like it, but I will say he displays the same attitude about "paperwork" and rules. So, too, does Washington's Tim Eyman. If you want a good belly laugh about his paperwork problems with a recent set of initiative petitions he turned in, check this blog out. Eyman has a lengthy history of refusing to follow the campaign finance reporting laws that everyone else seems to be able to follow just fine.

If you want my opinion, all of these individuals are simply displaying a contempt for procedures and rules – a contempt for authority. They truly are anti-government because they truly believe nobody has the right to tell them what to do, demand accountability from them, or discipline them in any way. Fortunately, our system of justice doesn't rely on whether people believe they are subject to it or not.

Posted by Becky at 09:41 AM |

New Jersey Court Ruling A Win For Equal Rights

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that gay couples have the right to equal protection under the law when it comes to our unions.

The New Jersey Supreme Court left the door ajar for the approval of same-sex marriage Wednesday, ruling that gay couples are entitled to rights no different from those of heterosexual couples.

The court gave state legislators 180 days to craft a bill offering same-sex couples the same rights as opposite-sex couples, though it appeared to leave open a choice between calling the status "marriage" or "civil unions."

There is much discussion already about what this means, if it leaves the door open to "seperate but equal", and the fact that it was a "4-3 ruling". I want to discuss each of these in turn.

First, the seperate but equal argument. I can see where this is coming from, but the reality is that the court ruled that gay couples must be granted the exact equal rights and responsibilities as their straight counterparts. The only difference is that it allows for it to be called something different.

I'm okay with this, and I believe that most people are as well. What's important is that we have legal standing with our partners.

I remember the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in our country, when gay partners weeren't allowed to visit their dying companions, and families came in after a death and cleaned out apartments and homes as if the partner didn't exist - all under the law.

As long as the rights are there, I don't care if you call it Civil Union, Domestic Partnership, or Marriage. Just make sure we have the same rights as everyone else.

As for the 4-3 ruling, the newscasts that I watched about this made it sound like it was 4 in favor of marriage and 3 against. That is not the case. It was 4 for "marriage or something else equal" and 3 for "marriage only". The reality is that all seven justices felt that we had equal rights as partners, which is a huge step for us.

Congratulations, New Jersey, on this big step to guarantee the rights of gay citizens under the law.

Posted by Alan at 04:40 AM |

October 25, 2006

Much Worse than Union-Busting

Probably one of the greatest truths to dawn on me over the past few years has been that wealthy and powerful individuals have managed to convince good, conservative voters to bit-by-bit dismantle the support structure of the middle class and free up the unscrupulous from regulations meant to prevent them from trampling on the rest of us in their effort to gain wealth and power. I know that sounds radical to those who are still wearing their rose-colored "free market" conservative glasses, but it is the truth.

Mary Beth Maxwell today writes about one aspect of this effort - union-busting (and as she says, the problem is much worse than just union-busting). Thom Hartmann has spoken and written eloquently on the crucial role of unions in building and maintaining a middle class and he has played a large role in my own growing understanding of the issue. But the wealthy and powerful have managed to capitalize on the human failings of certain individuals involved in the union movement and used the union corruption cases to devastating effect in their effort to turn upright conservative citizens against the entire union movement - thereby unwittingly harming themselves. Having been anti-union nearly my entire life, including working for the break-the-unions political machine, I know whereof I speak.

Every middle-class conservative who sees their wages, health care, and retirement slowly slipping away really ought to be asking the same question that Maxwell asks:

Who’s willing to invest millions to undermine the right of teachers, nurses and other workers in America to earn a decent living and protect their interests in the workplace? The answer … reads like a page torn out of Christopher Buckley’s bestseller, Thank You for Smoking.

The over-the-top mudslinging by the Center for Union Facts, the National Right to Work Committee and other anti-union groups is nothing more than an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes, hiding the real crisis in the American workplace. Too many workers in the U.S. still can’t adequately provide basic necessities for their families, protect themselves from workplace hazards or take care of themselves when they get old or sick. The firings, intimidation and harassment that often befall workers attempting to exercise freedoms of speech and association by forming unions are threats to our democracy. …

The motives behind assailing organized workers are both financial and ideological. Union-busting is big business. Just ask Center for Union Facts founder and D.C. mercenary lobbyist Rick Berman. ...

But the assault on unions goes deeper than the dollar. It is bolstered by a long-standing conservative political objective to eradicate unions. Right-wingers know something the rest of us seem to have forgotten: Workers still want unions because they are a powerful deterrent to poverty and unfettered corporate greed.

The rich are getting richer and the middle class and poor are getting poorer. Bush's tax cuts almost exclusively help the rich and deprive funding for services for the poor. The real value of the minimum wage decreases every year. Fewer people can afford health care every year. And the very same group of individuals currently working to free the market up for Big Insurance and Big Pharma, eradicate the minimum wage, protect tax cuts for the wealthy, and drown government services in a bath tub, is engaged in a concerted effort to destroy Social Security so we will all have to pay them to manage our retirement savings plans for us. The reason for all of these efforts is simple: The social safety net, the rules that protect the middle class, and a regulated benefit system to protect everyday people prevent the wealthy and powerful from becoming even more wealthy and powerful. They don't like being told "no." And they're throwing a very successful and devious temper-tantrum in an effort to get to "yes" at the hands of their victims in the naïve and good-hearted middle class.

Progressives have known this for a long time. Conservatives, it would seem, don't have a clue. They're still heeding the ideological siren song of the Grover Norquists of the world.

Posted by Becky at 11:05 AM |

Litmus testing democracy

One of the things that has really turned me off about todays GOP is how the rightwing litmus test fellow Republicans. That mentality seems to have perculated out into the general rank and file to the point that political issues and ideas are accepted or rejected not on their merits but on the merits of who advocated them in the first place.

Two of my favorite blogs are Blue Oregon which feeds the disgusted-with-rightwing-republicans in me and Centerfield which feeds the centrist/moderate-indie in me. Yesterday there was a post on Blue Oregon which kinda pushed all of those buttons at once. One of my favorite B.O. writers, Jeff Alworth's Room For Agreement, analyzed a recent poll indicating that moderate Independents are swinging Left in rejection of the GOP's "failed process of governance, wayward policies, and incompetent execution" and how the Democrats stand to gain from that rejection.

I agreed but pointed out that moderates aren't going to be any more pleased with litmus testing by the Left than we have been with litmus testing by the Right.

Jeff replied with agreement and restated his point that the Dems have an opportunity to retake the House and govern from closer to the center (than have the GOP)"to swing us back toward uncontroversial progressive change."

I don't disagree. But, I'm not sure that his suggestion will work out in reality. And I had to look no further than another post at Blue Oregon later in the day yesterday to find evidence to support my skepticism.

Another of my fav B.O. writers, T.A. Barnhart's post Just because I voted for M42 doesn't mean you're not a jerk, Bill is essentially a mia culpa where T.A. seeks to justify having voted for an Oregon ballot measure that he fully agrees with (as do I) but whose author is widely hated by Oregon Democrats. Rather than discussing why he voted for Measure 42, T.A., knowing that B.O.'s readership has shifted solidly to the Left over the last two years, and seemingly anticipating a backlash went on a tear against Measure 42's author. As if the measure's author has any bearing on the merits of the measure. Worse, T.A. indicated that he will never again vote for a measure brought by that same hated author.

That, my friends, is a reaction to an unspoken litmus test and is exactly the kind of thing that is going to hurt the Left in the near future.

Balkanizing the democratic process harms all Oregonians. It's what's wrong with the status quo and it's what's wrong with the leading alternative.

Posted by Kevin at 09:45 AM |

October 24, 2006

Democracy May not be for Everyone

Americans who still cling to the belief that we have made Iraq a better place by freeing women, ending the rape rooms, and ousting a brutal dictator might be surprised to learn that daily life in Iraq has become hell on earth. The rest of us, hopefully, know better. I don't number with those who blame this hell entirely on the United States because nobody is making these radicals brutalize each other, but it certainly leaves me hoping we didn't see this nightmare coming – it would be worse to me that we would expect it and plunge forward anyway than that we would be so idealistic and incompetent that we are now surprised by the mayhem.

The state of daily life in Iraq tends to lend credibility to the notion that in some parts of the world, people are so incapable of reining in their hatred of other sects or tribes or groups that only an iron-fisted dictator can maintain the peace. Probably not a sadistic dictator like Saddam Hussein and his sons, obviously, but I have my doubts as to whether democracy can succeed in a place where people hate each other so much that they will power drill dozens of strangers to death each day simply for interpreting the same religion differently.

Posted by Becky at 11:05 AM |

A Little Light on the Posting ...

It may be awhile before I can post as frequently as I usually do. Right now I am fighting iritis in both eyes, and reading is a serious challenge. I have been saving my eyes for my job and resting them as much as possible. Both eyes are very foggy and my right eye can't see anything in focus at all, though I am told in a few weeks my vision should return to normal. So until then, bear with me - and enjoy your vision!

Posted by Becky at 07:19 AM |

October 23, 2006

Stay the Course

The White House really, really doesn't want you to believe your lyin' eyes....

Posted by Carla at 04:35 PM |

The immigration conundrum

On the one hand we've got sleazy politicians like Congressman Sensenbrenner talking tough while making scads of money from undocumented immigrant labor both here and in Iraq, not unlike Oregon Republican Gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton. And on the other hand we've got farmers losing millions of dollars because they can't get reliable labor after immigration raids.

While I find the typical Republican politico's rhetoric on this issue to be bordering on racist because of how they blatently ignore illegal traffic across our northern border, at the same time I find the typical Democratic politico's rhetoric wishy-washy and contradictory.

Here's the thing that I am unable to get past when I consider both side's arguments: rule of law

The simple fact of the matter is that it is illegal to enter this country by just wandering across the border. It strikes me as more than a little bit hypocritical for politicos to on the one hand be pushing for illegal corruption by members of Congress to be investigated and prosecuted while on the other hand pushing for amnesty program after amnesty program for those who illegally enter this country.

Either we believe in (and do more than just give lip service to) the Rule of Law or we don't.

I submit to those who favor amnesty programs that your priorities are in disarray. Either fight to change the laws governing our borders or stop picking and choosing which class of inhabitants ought to be subject to the rule of law and which shouldn't.

Posted by Kevin at 08:20 AM |

Prediction: cut and run Bush

I predict that by the end of this year, possibly even by the end of November, President Bush will propose a plan for Iraq which will effectively be a "cut and run" plan of the variety which he still attempts to pin on Democrats in hopes of turning public opinion against them.

Posted by Kevin at 07:53 AM |

October 22, 2006

Neil Bush Profiting from No Child Left Behind

Several companies wishing to have influence with the U.S. Government are buying up Neil Bush's educational products in the subjects of social studies, history and science and giving them freely to schools for use in the No Child Left Behind program, which is supposed to be focusing on math and reading.

The Washington Times Foundation, backed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the South Korea-based Unification Church, has peppered classrooms throughout Virginia with Ignite's COWs [Curriculum on Wheels] under a $1-million grant.

Oil companies and Middle East interests with long political ties to the Bush family have made similar bequests. Aramco Services Co., an arm of the Saudi-owned oil company, has donated COWs to schools, as have Apache Corp., BP and Shell Oil Co.

Neil Bush has also rounded up some interesting investors for his company:

By 2003, the records show, Neil Bush had raised about $23 million from more than a dozen outside investors, including Mohammed Al Saddah, the head of a Kuwaiti company, and Winston Wong, the head of a Chinese computer firm.

Most recently he signed up Russian fugitive business tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky and Berezovsky's partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.

Reading about the purple cow teachers wheel from room to room under Neil Bush's program to teach students a curriculum that negates teachers having to prepare for class themselves, as well as his recent program changes, from an individualized approach to a one-size-fits-all approach, has left me feeling less-than-enthusiastic about the program. It seems to me teachers ought to be rather insulted that the President's brother seems to think they can be replaced by a purple cow.

We all should be insulted at the underhanded tactics he has used to profit from a program put into place under his brother's leadership and at the expense of true quality education.

Posted by Becky at 02:44 PM |

Two German Chancellors: One Scary President

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel's public relationship with President Bush has been dominated by awkwardness, such as when he became inexplicably obsessed with a barbecued pig and later gave Merkel an inappropriate massage, it seems Germany's last Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, also had some deep concerns about our President. In his new book, he reveals how following 9/11, though he was fully prepared to stand beside his country's ally, the United States, he was very concerned about Bush's constant references to his Christian faith in connection with the response to the attack.

Schroeder said he could not reconcile himself with the feeling that religion was the driving force behind many of Bush's political decisions.

"What bothered me, and in a certain way made me suspicious despite the relaxed atmosphere, was again and again in our discussions how much this president described himself as 'God-fearing,'" Schroeder wrote, adding he is a firm believer in the separation of church and state.

Schroeder accused some elements in U.S. as being hypocritical when it comes to secularism in government.

"We rightly criticize that in most Islamic states, the role of religion for society and the character of the rule of law are not clearly separated," Schroeder wrote. "But we fail to recognize that in the USA, the Christian fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible have similar tendencies."

With so many voices out there whispering "theocracy," isn't it time people here at home started realizing that we're fighting an enemy in the Middle East that is, in fact, representative of where we ourselves are headed? Or are we too busy laughing at pig jokes and blushing at massages to recognize the very real danger bearing down on our democracy - that is, the Christian terrorist that we might produce someday if we continue down this path?

Posted by Becky at 02:22 PM |

My Recommendations on the Initiatives

I've made up my mind on all the ballot measures. Here are my recommendations, with links to editorials that explain why I made my choices.

Yes on Measure 39 (Stops Eminent Domain Abuse)
No on Measure 40 (Electing Supreme Court Judges by District)
No on Measure 41 (Sizemore/Freedomworks Tax Cut)
No on Measure 42 (see Patty's comments on Sizemore's Insurance Reform)
No on Measure 43 (Parental Notification)
Yes on Measure 44 (Expands Prescription Coverage for Low-Income Seniors)
No on Measure 45 (Legislative Term Limits)
No on Measures 46 and 47 (Campaign Finance Reform)
No on Measure 48, which I have previously written about here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (State Spending Limit).

Posted by Becky at 08:54 AM |

October 21, 2006

Bush Expecting War Crimes Prosecution?

Rumors are flying that President Bush has purchased a nearly 100,000 acre farm in northern Paraguay, where he apparently plans to settle after his term as President. The most interesting thing about this, in my opinion, is that last year, Paraguay granted U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court jurisdiction - meaning Paraguay may be the only safe refuge in the world for President Bush if he is tried for war crimes.

Posted by Becky at 11:13 AM |

October 20, 2006

Sour Grapes?

House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA), under federal investigation for corruption related to... financial appropriations he oversaw as committee chair, abruptly fired 60 of 76 committee investigators whose job it was to root out fraud, waste and abuse.

Me thinks this firing might have been of the self-serving variety.

But that's not what caught my attention.

From TPMmuckraker:

Lewis’ decision “has in fact stalled all of the investigations on the staff,” said one of the contractors, a former FBI agent, who asked not to be identified. “This eviscerates the investigatory function. There is little if any ability to do any oversight now.”
. . .

“In effect, no investigative function is going to be done,” said the contractor, who called the decision “misguided.”

“This staff has saved billions and billions of dollars, we’ve turned up malfeasance and misfeasance,” the contractor said. “It’s results justify the expense of the staff. I have no idea why the chairman would do this.”

Lewis' spokesman, John Scofield, told CQ that such complaints were "sour grapes," and assured the publication that "there is nothing sinister going on."

These investigators have saved the American taxpayers "billions and billions of dollars" and the REPUBLICAN Chairman's spokesman calls it "sour grapes"???

Any idiot can see that there damn well is something very sinister going on in Lewis' committee.

Not that anyone should find any of this surprising, mind you. This is just one out of many examples of the culture of corruption that has plagued Congress under Republican leadership.

(hat tip to Spyder for bringing this to my attention)

Posted by Kevin at 02:52 PM |

Vote Democrat and DIE!

Given that Democrats are highly likely to take over control of the US House of Representatives and have a pretty decent shot at the Senate, President Bush has a message for you:

YOU WILL ALL DIE IF DEMOCRATS TAKE OVER THE CONGRESS*

Earth to W: Its gonna happen, sugar. You'd better put on your pith helmet and gird your loins.

The good guys are back.

*Link fixed. Thanks, Kev.

Posted by Carla at 08:15 AM |

October 19, 2006

Iraq a "catastrophic blunder"

The war in Iraq has been a "catastrophic blunder" that has substantially increased the terrorist threat to Australia, one of the nation's most distinguished former diplomats said today.

Richard Woolcott, a retired foreign affairs chief who advised seven prime ministers, launched a sweeping attack on the federal government, saying that Australian democracy was not functioning as it should.

It's eerie how Woolcott's sentiments describe America under President Bush as well as they do Australia under Prime Minister Howard. Go read the rest and you'll see what I mean.

Posted by Kevin at 08:08 PM |

News by the Numbers

Just for fun, since there are so many news stories out there to talk about, I thought I'd just point some out that relate to my favorite number 11 and multiples of 11 (it seems at least a few other out there enjoy the same interest in numbers, so what the heck?). So here are a few of the many news stories from this week in which 11s dominate:

11 US soldiers are facing charges for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family; 11 more US soldiers were killed in Iraq; the federal courts have handled 11-hundred Katrina insurance lawsuits; Iraq attacks are up 22% during Ramadan; polio has returned to Kenya after 22 years; 22 Democrats have raised a record $1 million each to challenge incumbents in the most competitive House races; 22 civilians were killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan; 33 drowned when a bus plunged into a pond in India; 33 have died of dengue fever in India; former Senator Gary Studds died 33 years after his scandalous affair with a 17-year-old page; 33 Katrina victims still remain unidentified; only 33 FBI agents have even elementary Arabic language skills; 44 new waterways have been given special protection by the Dept. of Natural Resources; UK troops killed 44 Taliban; the Indonesian bird flu death toll has reached 55; there are now 55 million blogs; Tanzania's cotton output is down 66% this year; 66% of Israelis believe President Katsav should resign; flooding has severely damaged 66 miles of Alaska highway, leaving the port of Valdez isolated; Hawaii's earthquake registered 6.6 on the Richter scale; Southwest Airlines net income has dropped 77%; Capital Bank's profits rose 88% to 3.3 million for the quarter; after spending $11 million on California's Prop. 88 backers have all but abandoned it; 99 soldiers were killed by a blast in Sri Lanka; 110 were injured and 1 died in a Metro train crash in Rome; suicide bombers killed 110 around the world on the same day; and the Dow Jones has hit a 110-year high.

Posted by Becky at 12:08 PM |

Campaign Finance Reform - change the paradigm

I just read a post over at Blue Oregon on campaign finance reform and it got me to thinking...

I utterly reject any suggestion that spending money is a form of "Speech" in a constitutional sense of the word. Therefore I'm very partial to CFR approaches involving limited spending as well as voter-owned systems such as Portland has. But the reality is that there are ways around every approach. Big money will find its way into campaigns one way or another.

So change the paradigm!

Instead of trying to cap spending, why don't we instead force uberly strict disclosure of exactly who, where, why, when and how much money was given and used on any kind of election issue, whether it be for candidates or referendums or ballot initiatives.

Any type of campaigning (mailings, radio/TV/newspaper ads) would have to contain a disclosure akin to the Surgeon General's warning on tobacco products listing where the money came from, who gave it and what state that entity operates from. And make it the rule that this disclosure has to be in the same font size as the largest font used in the advertisement. The only exception should be private donations from individuals. Anything that came from another PAC or any sort of corporate or political entity would have to be included.

Further, we should institute a fee on any and all non-individual donations which would go to the Secretary of State's office and would be used to pay for broad dissemination of the who, what, where, when and how much data... to be published and posted in a prominent place in... say every publically-owned library in the state (including all school libraries) to make it as accessable as possible for the average citizen to take a peek at exactly who is trying to get them to vote a particular way on any given candidate/referendum/measure.

So for example, a group calling itself something innocent-sounding like Oregon Family Farm Association PAC which is being funded primarily by the timber industry and real estate developers to push Ballot Measure 40 (to create geographical districts from which Oregon Supreme Court and circuit court judges would be elected) should be fully identified as such using the above procedures. Who, what, where, when and how much.

Then let them all spend as much as they like.

Posted by Kevin at 09:38 AM |

More Spying on Americans

FBI Director Robert Mueller is now asking Internet service providers to record and retain records of users' online activities because "terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet." Last month Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asked Congress to pass federal legislation requiring private companies to record information about their customers for the FBI. They are also considering asking search engine websites to retain records of individuals' searches. The European Parliament has already approved a similar law that will take effect in 2008.

Posted by Becky at 09:19 AM |

Inexplicably Upbeat? Perhaps Not

A few days ago, after reading reports that President Bush and Karl Rove were "inexplicably upbeat" about Republicans' chances on election day, I asked the question, "Are Bush and Rove in denial? Or is it something else?" If this post at Daily Kos is correct, then they very definitely have something up their sleeves and it stinks to high heaven.

According to the post, a GOP insider close to Ken Mehlman has disclosed that losing either the House or the Senate will be "impossible" because of a GOP scheme that has purged enormous numbers of Democrats from four key states' voter rolls – including Ohio, where 1.2 million have already been purged. The dastardliness of the process will turn your stomach, but you must read it anyway.

Posted by Becky at 09:06 AM |

October 18, 2006

High School Color-Codes Students By Type

Sometimes you can't help but ask, "What were they thinking?" This is one of those times.

For some reason that I will never understand, Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, has decided that all students must at all times wear a color-coded ID badge. Senior badges are black, freshman are red, magnet students are white, future scientists are maroon, diplomats in training are purple, future entrepreneurs are dark blue, advanced students are brown and white, and students whose English language proficiency is lacking are yellow. The badges come in 11 different colors.

School officials thought the students would like the color-coding system, believing it would help build a sense of identity for various sub-groups. Have they already forgotten what high school is like, with most everyone wanting to just be like everyone else? Students are complaining that the badges only amplify their differences. No duh.

The student newspaper polled the students on their opinions about the badges, and more than 600 responses were received. Nearly two-thirds said the color-coded badges were a "hideous embarrassment," while only 6 percent thought they were "awesome." The badges, however, remain. Seems in this case the students are more American and more perceptive than their school administrators. I hope all the various sub-groups decide they should stick together and all at once throw off the badges in mass protest and refuse to ever wear them again.

Posted by Becky at 11:18 AM |

European Libertarian Advises U.S. Against Universal Health Care

Stephen Pollard, the director of the health policy program at the Libertarian Centre for the New Europe is advising Americans not to adopt a universal health-care system which, he says, is "ultimately flawed."

Pollard pointed to increasing taxes, decreased productivity and public services, as well as long waiting times. He said that those in need of cataract surgery or hip replacements must wait 18 months to two years to see a specialist.

I'm not sure why Pollard is called an "expert" in health care, seeing as how he is more a journalist than anything else, but then this was reported by CNS News (Conservative News Service), which is far from unbiased. Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy and public health at Johns Hopkins University (probably just a bit more of an expert than Mr. Pollard) disagrees, saying we need to reform the U.S. health system, which is already costing fed-up Americans twice what it ought to cost.

"We're not doing very well," said Anderson, noting that the World Health Organization ranks the American health system 37th in the world on overall performance. "We're spending twice as much, but we're not getting twice the results," he said. "You go to a U.S. hospital and you are basically spending 130 percent more than you are in another country."

I ask you, which is worse: rich and poor alike waiting 18 months for a treatment they need, or many people not being able to ever afford the treatment they need? Clearly, neither alternative is perfect. But as someone who lives a healthy lifestyle but has systemic health problems, and who has so many pre-existing conditions that I cannot get health insurance, yet who makes enough money that I cannot qualify for any public assistance with my health care, I have to agree with Prof. Anderson that something must be done.

The New Yorker had this to say about the problem (read the whole article – it's very good):

The U. S. health-care system, according to “Uninsured in America,” has created a group of people who increasingly look different from others and suffer in ways that others do not. The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is unpaid medical bills. Half of the uninsured owe money to hospitals, and a third are being pursued by collection agencies. Children without health insurance are less likely to receive medical attention for serious injuries, for recurrent ear infections, or for asthma. Lung-cancer patients without insurance are less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatment. Heart-attack victims without health insurance are less likely to receive angioplasty. People with pneumonia who don’t have health insurance are less likely to receive X rays or consultations. The death rate in any given year for someone without health insurance is twenty-five per cent higher than for someone with insur-ance. Because the uninsured are sicker than the rest of us, they can’t get better jobs, and because they can’t get better jobs they can’t afford health insurance, and because they can’t afford health insurance they get even sicker.

I have chosen to pursue natural approaches as much as possible because I believe they work better than western medicine in many cases. Few Americans these days understand proper nutrition and many can't afford fresh produce and organic food. Instead, they have no choice but to live on such fare as macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, and other cheap processed foods, all of which destroy their health. They either suffer with pain and illness or are pushed through the patient assembly line by doctors who won't take more than 7 minutes with them before prescribing pharmaceuticals.

As I was pondering universal health care yesterday following a one-hour in-depth conversation with my naturopathic physician, it occurred to me that naturopathic treatment most certainly ought to be included in any single-payer health care system we have. The last thing we need is to have the powerful, self-interested pharmaceutical companies monopolizing medical treatment for Americans. It that did happen, people like me, who actually want to get at the root causes of health issues rather than continually take the bandaid approach, will still have nowhere to turn. And worse, we'll be facing increased taxes to pay for a health care system that doesn't make people more healthy, leaving us less able to pay for the care we need.

And wouldn't it be wonderful if we had laws requiring organic, whole foods be served in our school cafeterias? Not only would it open up a huge new market for organic food producers and ensure their financial stability, it would also teach our children from an early age how to eat for life. Can you imagine the long-term savings for the health care system if more people were eating healthy food?

Posted by Becky at 10:56 AM |

You poor, self-deluded fools

When the city of Berkeley California denied the Sea Scouts free berthing rights at the city-owned marina there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth on the Religious Right. When the California Supremes sided with Berkeley there was even more weeping and gnashing of teeth. But then it got appealed to the US Supremes and suddenly the Religious Right felt they would finally get the horrible injustice righted. After all, aren't Seven of nine Justices on the SCOTUS Republican picks with four of those coming from Reagan and Dubya alone?

Ah, but the religious right found themselves holding something akin to the title to the Brooklyn Bridge when the SCOTUS declined to hear the appeal, as this Freeper exchange illustrates:

To: SmithL

"The justices on Monday let stand a unanimous California Supreme Court ruling that the city of Berkeley may treat the Berkeley Sea Scouts differently from other nonprofits because the Scouts bar atheists and gays."

Have the President's two "conservative" appointees ruled conservatively on a single case yet? This sure looks like the same old liberal SCOTUS to me.
5 posted on 10/16/2006 8:10:29 AM PDT by TheCrusader

You poor, self-deluded fools. Can't you see that the GOP has only used you? Like Representative Foley dreamed of doing to underage Congressional Pages, they bent you over and rode you to electoral victory time after time. But each time once the deed was done they wiped themselves off and left you right where they'd found you... Oh sure, they've figured out which special catch phrases get your motor running. But can't you see that it's nothing more than foreplay for the upcoming election?

The thing is, those two Justices that Bush nominated to the bench are political idealogues not social idealogues. They don't give a flying fig about your desire to recreate a theocracy which never existed, much less your larger fantasy of waging world-wide crusades against all those godless heathens out there. They do want a new world order, but one in which a future Republican achieves world hegemony. Why do you think they've got such a hard-on for that whole "unitary executive" claptrap?

I know that the revelations by David Kuo of the barely contained contempt that Karl Rove et al have for you rightwing types has caused a lot of consternation and lame attempted denials by your political leaders. But wake up and smell the coffee, guys. Your leaders are in on the scam. Dobson clearly puts politics before principles. Ralph Reed sold you out to Jack Abramoff and mocked your gullibility in private emails to Abramoff when you blindly followed his directions. And look at Abramoff's other partners in crime. Tom DeLay sure couched his words to sound wonderfully Christian. But he too was more than willing to use you to further pad the foreign back accounts of his powerful clients, including at least one wealthy Chinese communist. Isn't that the same Chinese communist government that's persecuting those home churches all over China? But just look at how loyally you fools signed up every time DeLay wanted something done.

You've been used.

Worse, you were a willing partner to the deed.

You've got nobody to blame but yourselves if you keep dropping your knickers every time a Republican winks at you.

Posted by Kevin at 08:45 AM |

October 17, 2006

Juicy Gossip About Mark Foley

I know what I'm about to tell you is pure speculation, but I'm a woman; therefore, I have a license to gossip. And this one is just too good not to pass on. Sanho Tree at Counterpunch is speculating that perhaps the Republicans sat on the Mark Foley scandal because they were able to use the information they had against him to win a last-minute change in his vote on Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) – the key swing vote, as it turns out.

On the night of the vote, President Bush had called Foley to pressure him to change his anti-CAFTA position. The South Florida Congressman was not only under pressure from the White House, but also from the House Republican Leadership to support the bill. But Foley received huge campaign contributions from the Florida sugar lobby, which bitterly opposed CAFTA and Foley had loyally followed his benefactor's wishes in previous votes. That he would flip his position under pressure raises some serious questions.

It was a very curious turn-around for Foley.

Just a month before the vote, he told the House Ways and Means Committee, "I have heard some of my colleagues say we can't turn our backs on people in Guatemala. Well, I can't turn my back on people in South Bay and Canal Point, Lewiston, and LaBelle, whose lives are closely linked to this industry. Not the big growers, not the thousand-acre plantations, but the mom and pop [growers] who have 50 acres, 100 acres in production. That is all they have."

It's all very interesting, particularly in light of the fact that Republicans knew about Foley as early as 2001, by some accounts. And it certainly wouldn't be the first time prominent politicians were sexually blackmailed.

Posted by Becky at 09:16 AM |

October 16, 2006

In Defense of California's Prop. 90

Today my Mom, knowing the depth of my support for private property rights and my disdain for Howard Rich's campaign of subterfuge this election season, asked me to advise her on how to vote on California's Prop. 90 – the so-called "Kelo-plus" initiative placed on the ballot using Rich's money. My first reaction was to repeat what I've been hearing and believing all along – that the eminent domain abuse portion of the measure was simply a convenient cover for a Measure-37-on-steroids just compensation measure. I'd read excerpts of the measure before, but decided that before giving my opinion, I would read the full text of the measure. What I found surprised me.

Now I will readily admit I'm no lawyer, and in fact, that's why I'm offering this post – because someone out there is and can correct me if I'm wrong. Because after reading the measure, I think the horror stories are a bunch of crock.

One of the claims opponents make is that if Prop. 90 passes, then any regulation whatsoever that in any way since time immemorial damaged private property, no matter how minutely, must be revoked or compensation paid. The pertinent section of the measure is in item 8, way down under section (b), and it reads:

8. Except when taken to protect public health and safety, "damage" to private property includes government actions that result in substantial economic loss to private property. Examples of substantial economic loss include, but are not limited to, the down zoning of private property, the elimination of any access to private property, and limitations on the use of private air space. "Government action" shall mean any statute, charter provision, ordinance, resolution, law, rule or regulation.

The catch, however, is the context, all of which has been set long before arriving at item 8. Under the "Statement of Purpose," which guides the interpretation of the measure, it is made very clear what the measure is intended to do and it says nothing whatsoever about takings unrelated to the application of eminent domain for public use:

(c) Whenever government takes or damages private property for a public use, the owner of any affected property shall receive just compensation for the property taken or damaged.

The key phrase here is "for a public use." The measure itself defines "public use" in no uncertain terms in section (b):

1. "Public use" shall have a distinct and more narrow meaning than the term "public purpose;" its limiting effect prohibits takings expected to result in transfers to non-governmental owners on economic development or tax revenue enhancement grounds, or for any other actual uses that are not public in fact, even though these uses may serve otherwise legitimate public purposes.

Seeing as how section 8 above provides an exemption for public health and safety, it seems very unlikely to me that the California Courts will determine that environmental protections (which fall under "health and safety" umbrella) or zoning restrictions (ditto) are in some way a taking for a private use in violation of the measure's clear eminent domain context. It seems to me Prop. 90 actually offers quite a bit less protection for private property owners than Measure 37, which, as I've said here before, I still support (yes, I know many of my readers do not, but I love you anyway). As for the term "substantial" in connection with property "damage," interpretations of that term in connection with property rights have long been an extremely subjective matter.

Finally, after reading news reports from California newspapers about the imminent danger posed by Prop. 90, I'm convinced the press has lost all sense of rationality about this measure, just as they did here in Oregon when we passed Measure 37 - and they're also way overstating the negative repercussions of our Measure 37 to try to scare California voters away from Prop. 90. It's the old "They'll put a pig farm next to your home" scare tactic, which is utterly ridiculous as no sane property owner would waste perfectly good residential real estate by building a pig farm on it - and he certainly wouldn't be successful in claiming that being prevented from doing so somehow reduced the value of his land.

Which brings me to another false accusation about this measure - that the State would have to compensate private property owners for all the lost money they could have made if they had fully developed their land to its highest and best use. It is simply not true. The measure doesn't say that and no state has ever compensated people that way. In Oregon, property owners are paid compensation for their property based on its value absent the regulation that restricts future development. In other words, if you lifted the restriction and then sold the property "as is," its fair market value would be the amount of compensation. In California, if Prop. 90 passed it would be even more simple. If eminent domain is used to take any portion of your property or damage its value in any way, then – and only then - you must be fairly compensated for your actual loss. Oh, and by the way, your property can't be taken from you and used for a non-public purpose.

Can someone explain to me what I'm missing here, without launching into an anti-Measure 37 tirade, seeing as how it's a moot point anyway?

Posted by Becky at 09:55 PM |

God Hates Fags (and Little Amish Girls, Too)

In yet another shocking display, Pastor Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, which has made headlines over the past year picketing soldiers' funerals (claiming their deaths are America's punishment from God for tolerating homosexuality), have decided to picket the funerals of the five Amish girls killed last week by a mentally disturbed man in Lancaster County, PA. What, you might ask, could Phelps possibly find to celebrate in the deaths of five innocent little girls? After all, there wasn't anything homosexual about it, was there?

Actually, yes there was, but you probably just missed it. You see, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has committed "blasphemous sins" against the church by mocking, ridiculing and condemning it on national Fox television. God used the madman to punish the whole state of Pennsylvania for Rendell's horrid rebuke of His chosen people. God's first planned punishment didn't quite turn out as evil as He had hoped, however. The madman was unable to follow through on his plans to rape the little girls because he ran out of time and had to kill himself. Not to worry - the ever-loving Pastor Phelps and his blessed congregation have assured the public that they are "continuing to pray for even worse punishment upon Pennsylvania."

If you are like me, you don't quite understand what can go wrong in a person's head that they will believe in or worship a God who would do such things. That the man has an entire congregation following him around is even more puzzling. But, if his "God Hates Fags" website is correct, the reason I can't understand is because I am not one of God's Elect (the chosen, true followers of Christ). If I was, then I would certainly understand - and probably be kept busy praying for that predicted Pacific tsunami to wipe out the gay-loving Northwest.

Posted by Becky at 08:19 PM |

Gays and Christians in Tug-of-War for GOP

You would have to be blind not to notice the tug-of-war going on in the Republican Party between those who support gay rights and members of the Christian Right, who don't. The latest chapter in this ongoing saga involves the furor over Condoleezza Rice's swearing in of an openly gay man, Mark Dybul, to serve as global AIDS coordinator. The problem was that Dybul's partner and his partner's mother attended the ceremony, and Rice had the unmitigated gall to refer to the woman as Dybul's "mother-in-law." There followed an explosion.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council said Rice's comments were "profoundly offensive." He then said something that made me sit back in shock: "We have to face the fact that putting a homosexual in charge of AIDS policy is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse." What does he mean by that? Does he think Dybul will run around the world using his ambassadorial position to find other gay lovers? I'm trying hard to figure it out, but I can't come up with any logical explanation.

Sprigg then went on to connect Dybul's appointment to the Foley scandal, with the point being that the Republican Party is being taken over by those pushing what is commonly called the "gay agenda." Those who resist what science has discovered about homosexuality (that it is not a matter of choice, but rather is a matter of birth), have been horrified by the number of gay Republicans that have been pushed out of the closet in recent months. Tony Perkins, also of the Family Research Council, believes the influence of all those gay Republicans is what has prevented the Party from being proactive on conservative issues that the religious right wants. Of course, it couldn't be that religious voters have merely been used and abused by this Administration for political purposes that have nothing whatsoever to do with morality.

Republicans know they need the support of the so-called "values voters," but many also want to run from the bigotry label. It's a pretty tough bill to fill. Until now, Republicans have been able to get away with talking one way in public, and hiring their staff another way. That all seems to be changing now. The anti-gay activists are hot under the collar and they want the "perverts" expunged from "their" party. Whether Republicans give in to the Christian Right or move away from homophobia, their party will lose an important voting block – and that is an eventuality the Party seems to be desperately struggling to avoid.

I think in the end, the Christian right will wind up without a major party with which to affiliate - unless they are willing to acknowledge that the United States is not a theocracy and the rest of the country just isn't going to agree with them on every issue. The result will be a weakening of the power of both the Republican Party and "values voters."

Posted by Becky at 10:49 AM |

Those Darned 11s Won't Leave Me Alone

I've decided to come out of the closet about something that's probably pretty weird. I have an obsession with the number 11. It started very early in my life, actually. My Dad was born on 11/11/33, which I though was about the coolest thing ever. Shortly after my Dad passed last year, my brother found out he and his girlfriend were having a baby; his adorable daughter, who looks just like my Dad, was born on 11/22. Wow, I thought, that is just super-cool.

About that same time, I ran across all the conspiracy theories about the number of 11s associated with 9/11, and began noticing that 11s were often associated with other major events. It was absolutely fascinating to me.

Now, my dad was a fantastic statistician. He literally wrote the book on statistics for all the casino games during his years working in management at various casinos in Reno, Nevada. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit his grasp of statistical probability, so I cannot say whether the relationship between 11s (and multiples thereof) and noteworthy historical events is statistically significant or not. And I'm not certain I really care, as 11s fascinate me. Unfortunately, of late my fascination with 11s has begun to freak me out. Here's why.

I swear to God, every time I glance at a clock anymore, the time is a multiple of 11. It doesn't matter if it's the clock in my bedroom, on my stove, on my computer, in my car, or at my office, 11 times out of 12 it seems the time is a multiple of 11, and it happens dozens of times a day. Truly. Now, I'm not a real believer in "messages from beyond," as some are. And though I find it fascinating that others out there share my obsession, I think there has to be a rational explanation for this.

I have concluded that the human brain is capable of astonishing things. I believe that my brain is subconsciously tracking the time on all these clocks that I see regularly and prompting me to glance at them at the appropriate moment. Of course, that doesn't explain the fact that the other day when I went to fill up my tank at the gas station, the nozzle automatically shut off at $11.33. And then again at $11.66.

Maybe, this blog commenter has it right: "They say that noticing the number 11 in everyday circumstances is a sign that you are gifted with wisdom and extraordinary perception of things physic and/or spiritual." Yeah, I like that.

Posted by Becky at 10:14 AM |

Clinton Tells Dems How to Win Congress

Former President Clinton yesterday gave a speech that I couldn't agree with more. He told Iowa Democrats that the country is "profoundly divided" because of the actions of "an extreme sliver" of the Republican Party. That is absolutely true. The political divide has always been there, but the combination of Rush Limbaugh and the other right-wing talks show hosts that have followed after him, as well as the involvement of the Christian Right have really done a number on this country, demonizing the term "liberal" and fomenting hatred of the left. He also gave some excellent pointers on what Democrats can do to woo disaffected Republicans.

Clinton said Democrats should reach out to disaffected Republicans. As a disaffected former Republican, I completely agree with that statement. But Democrats need to understand how hesitant Republicans are to associate with a party that their own has demonized for so long. It is an unfortunate truth that a relatively small slip-up, such as the Florida Democratic Party effort to block Republicans from gaining information about the substitute for Mark Foley on the ballot, can entirely undo any chance to win their votes. They'll end up sticking with the bad guys they know.

Clinton's advice to Democrats:

"Forget about 2008. Forget about the politics. Just go out and find somebody and look them dead in the eye and say 'You know, this is not right'...This is America. We can do better and this year, it's a job that Democrats have to do alone. … People know things are out of whack, that fundamentally the order of, the rhythm of public life and our common life as Americans has been severely disturbed. …You cannot blame the entire Republican party for this reason. The entire government of the United States, the Congress, the White House and increasingly the courts for the last six years has been in the total control not of the Republican party but of the most ideological, the most right wing, the most extreme sliver of the Republican Party."

Democrats – and disaffected Republicans – should take heart in the latest AP-Pew poll. Americans' interest in the election this year is at its highest level in a decade. The surge in interest is nearly all Democratic – Republicans are about as interested as usual. Higher interest could well mean higher turnout among Democrats. Moreover, the poll found that the Foley scandal may repress the religious vote, which is key to keeping Republicans in power. Women, in particular, are interested in the election because of fears for their children – that they will be required to fight in a war and that they won't be able to find a good job. As a mother of two boys, those issues have definitely been foremost in my mind.

Posted by Becky at 06:30 AM |

October 15, 2006

This is stupid

FOX fired their number 2 on-air baseball analyst, Steve Lyons, Friday night for making "inappropriate" comments earlier that night during the ALCS.

While I agree that his comments could be construed as racially insensitive, I don't see how they were any worse than Lou Piniella's on-air comment to which Lyons was apparently responding.

The incident Friday began when Lou Piniella, a guest analyst working with Lyons and Thom Brennaman, noted the Oakland Athletics could not expect shortstop Marco Scutaro to continue to produce runs as he did when he drove in six during the division series against Minnesota.

Piniella said expecting similar production would be "like finding a wallet on a Friday night and looking for one on Sunday and Monday, too."

Four minutes later, they had moved to different subjects and Piniella said something in Spanish.

"The bilingual Lou Piniella," Brennaman said.

Lyons said: "Lou's habla-ing some Espanol there, and I'm still looking for my wallet. I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit close to him now."

A Fox spokesman said the company found Lyons' comments "inappropriate."

Lyons later issued a statement saying that he was joking and apologised if anyone had been offended by it.

Taken in a vacuum I agree that Lyons' comment was inappropriate. But in context he was only using an analogy that Piniella had introduced.

If Piniella, a hispanic, can use an analogy of finding and keeping someone else's wallet (something that I consider unequivocally dishonest and dishonorable under any circumstances)... in reference to a baseball player who is also hispanic and everything is peachy, then what other conclussion can we reach except that Lyons' sin was that he is not hispanic? Clearly Piniella had already established the hispanic/wallet stealing meme which Lyons simply, albeit stupidly, tried to turn into a joke.

Maybe someone can explain this to me in a way that puts it in a different light. But my initial reaction to the entire thing is that it seems remarkably like how black people can call each other "nigger" and nobody bats an eyelash, but if a non-black uses the same word in the same kind of context then that person is somehow the spawn of the Devil himself. It's absurd! Either race-based epithets and stereotypes are wrong, at all times and for all people... or they're not. The picking and choosing who can use them is in itself rank hypocritical racism, IMHO, and only serves to continue racial insensitivity.

Posted by Kevin at 08:15 PM |

It's Hitler Again! He's Everywhere!

Brace yourself for the next Hitler: North Korean president Kim Jong-Il is reportedly obsessed with racial purity. All babies born with defects are quickly killed, and babies fathered by Chinese men are forcibly aborted. According to one western diplomat, "These Koreans genuinely believe they are a master race." This may be true, I don't know, but it does seem rather amazing to me that every time someone is supposed to be hated, immediately we hear how they are just like Hitler.

For example, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was accused of planning to require religious emblems be sewn on clothing, reminiscent of Hitler's forcing Jews to sew yellow stars on their clothing and homosexuals to sew pink triangles on theirs. Prior to the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein was frequently compared to Hitler. And of course, whenever Israel is at war, including its recent war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, its enemies are always characterized as another Hitler. Bill Clinton was accused of using Hitlerian tactics every time he got into trouble. George Bush, Karl Rove and Arnold Schwartzenegger, Milosevic, Japan's Koizumi, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro have all shared the Hitler label. And there have been plenty more. Frankly, I'm just sick of it.

Isn't there another bad guy we can compare these people to? Perhaps Chavez was onto something when snubbed the Hitler label and compared Bush to Satan.

Posted by Becky at 11:10 AM |

Bush and Rove: In Denial? Or Something Else?

Michael Abramowitz of the Washington Post editorializes today that President Bush and Karl Rove are "inexplicably upbeat" about Republican prospects in the upcoming House races.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats -- shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush's second term.

Is it denial, or do Rove and Bush have something up their sleeves? It is difficult to imagine someone being so out of touch with reality, which makes me suspicious. Yet Bush does have a reputation for demanding he be protected from having to hear any criticism. That appears to be the case here, too; Abramowitz says, "Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions." And demonstrating a crassness that is hard to fathom for a man banking on keeping the religious right in the fold, Bush will start off the week with fundraisers for overt racist Sen. George Allen and Rep. Don Sherwood, who recently admitted having cheated on his wife. It must be denial. Then again, Rove can be awfully devious.

Posted by Becky at 09:19 AM |

October 14, 2006

I'm Beginning to Hate Voting

I used to be so happy on Election Day. I knew all the right answers. Republican: good; Democrat: bad. Tax cut: good; Tax increase: bad. I was easy. I remember where things started to go wrong for me. It was when President Bush, Sr. was running for re-election. I was turned off by his insincerity. I felt he didn't care about getting my vote. So I gave it to Ross Perot instead. I haven't voted for a major party candidate for President ever since.

For the longest time, my disaffection remained with the Presidency and I still had it all figured out in other races. That is, until I started meeting candidates and political players and realized they weren't any smarter than I was and only a few seemed to have moved beyond knee-jerk partisan politics and actually thought through their positions on the issues. Now the only thing I feel confident about is a vote on a ballot measure. Ask me to choose between candidates - this year's gubernatorial race is a good example - and my brain simply freezes up. I don't like any of the options.

Of course, there are a few exceptions. I have no problem voting for Ron Wyden. I believe he's a thoughtful, honest person who is working hard for this country and Oregonians. I happen to like most of the State legislators I've voted for, too, some Republican and some Democrat. But when it comes to Governor, it's a question that seems to get harder every year.

Admittedly, I had Demophobia until very recently, so my growing disaffection with Republicans usually resulted in a protest vote for a Libertarian. But now I really want my vote to count, and I honestly don't know where to cast it. I'm dreading the 2008 Presidential election. But for now, my big question is who should get my vote for Oregon Governor?

I'd never hear the end of it from my husband if I vote for Kulongoski. But Saxton strikes me as a partisan phony who doesn't have a clue about how government works and I'd sooner not vote than vote for him. On the other hand, Kulongoski's attitudes toward property rights, which I value VERY highly, and his support of the planning community, which is a bunch of little self-appointed kings who don't respect private property rights, have pissed me off. And I don't really like his rubber stamping approval of all things supported by the unions, nor his proclivity for turning to new taxes as an answer for everything, without showing us why other options might work better. I don't know if my ambivalence is because he's done less than his predecessors or because he's led the state during the difficult post-9/11 time period or because he hasn't done enough to toot his own horn about the good things he's accomplished. The best I can say is I really love living in Oregon and I'm not having all that much trouble with my life here except that gas prices are killing me, and that's not his fault. He really ought to have hired himself a proactive PR person a long time ago. Even The Oregonian editorial board writes in Sunday's edition that it doesn't see anything substantial that he has accomplished.

Speaking of that editorial, my response when I read it was, "Say, what?" How can someone blame Kulongoski for school funding that has fallen below the national average when it was the Republicans who have pushed the tax law changes and budgeting to cut school funding back – over Kulongoski's objections, no less? The same is true for the lack of state troopers and our "mess" of a public finance system. Republicans have done this, The Oregonian doesn't like it, and they recommend you put a Republican in charge. Pure idiocy. And I'm not really thrilled with the subtle nod to the "Rainy Day Amendment" – decrying the lack of a "rainy day fund" as a reason to install Saxton, who has said he would "gladly" implement Measure 48, at Mahonia Hall. Even The Oregonian admits Saxton's budget numbers won't add up if Oregonians take his advice and vote for Sizemore's (oops, I mean Freedomworks's) Measure 41. And Measure 48 is much worse.

The Oregonian devoted a fairly good deal of spacing listing things it liked about Kulongoski, but still support Saxton. Why? And I can talk all day long about why NOT to vote for Ron Saxton, but I can't think of a good reason to vote FOR Kulongoski. Why? I think maybe it's because he hasn't done enough to brag about his accomplishments. Yes, I've heard his ads. No, they haven't erased my sense of blasé. But somehow I don't think Ron Saxton would fix Oregonians' lack of enthusiasm, either.

I heard the two men debate yesterday evening on the radio. I was hoping Kulongoski would do well, and he did score big when he let loose a long list of accomplishments. But as bad a public speaker as Saxton is, he's better than Kulongoski. Both are on par with Jayne Carroll, who always sounds like she has mush in her mouth. It was a painful thing to listen to. I know being a poor public speaker has nothing to do with statesmanship or intelligence, but somehow it's come down lately to whether someone can give an inspiring speech. And I think that may be what it comes to for me in the Presidential election in 2008. None of the candidates on the horizon are very promising so far as I've seen, and you know at some point, no matter who is elected, there will be a speech you'll need to listen to. It would be nice to have a few moments in which you can feel good about your country – even if those feel-good words come from the mouth of the creep who messed it all up.

Yes, I'm jaded right now. But then, it would seem the whole country is jaded. I'd love to feel good about the votes I cast. I don't want to skip out on voting. But I just can't make myself vote for either of the options placed in front of me. I think it's because I'm still hoping for the brave knight on the white steed. Politicans just don't come that way, and I'm going to have to find a way to live with it.

Posted by Becky at 04:47 PM |

Florida Dems Lose the Moral High Ground

With all of America in an uproar over Mark Foley's overly-friendly relationships with under-age pages (not to mention the Republican ethics scandals bringing down political stars right and left) Democrats have a tremendous opportunity to lay claim to the moral high ground in America. But right when they could perhaps win some Republican votes in Mark Foley's district, the Democratic Party has gone and screwed it all up. Rather than trusting the people to choose their own new state Representative, they have filed suit to try to stop the County Elections Supervisor from posting notices at the polls telling Republicans that if they vote for Mark Foley on the already-printed ballots they will actually be voting for his replacement, Republican Joe Negron.

The Florida Democratic Party claims the statutes don't say it's up to the Elections people to post this notice, which, incidentally, also clarifies that a vote cast for the other candidates on the ballot (each named) will count toward those particular candidates. But it's as obvious as the nose on your face that the Democrats want voters to think it's either disgraced Mark Foley or their candidate. When faced with a choice between stinky politics as usual or allowing voters to make an honest choice, the Party has done what political parties always seem to do – played politics. Republicans who might have considered voting for the Democrat will now be repelled by just another display of partisan behavior. What a shame, and what a lost opportunity.

Posted by Becky at 12:08 PM |

October 13, 2006

Five Republican Groups Get Nailed

A Senate investigative report released yesterday said that five conservative nonprofit groups "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on the taxpayers by selling their support to Jack Abramoff. How delightful that bit by bit this nest of criminals is being placed under the spotlight. And how amusing that Norquist, supposed friend of the taxpayer, is being accused of perpetrating fraud on the taxpayers.

The Senate report … states that the nonprofit groups probably violated their tax-exempt status "by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff's clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff's clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff's clients … including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey."

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the five groups that engaged in illegal activity with Jack Abramoff, they are:

Americans for Tax Reform: Headed up by Grover Norquist, whom Abramoff described in an e-mail as a "hard-won asset." According to the Senate report, ATR's activity in support of Abramoff "appears indistinguishable from lobbying undertaken by for-profit, taxable firms." Not surprising to me, of course; Norquist is well-known for laundering money for conservative groups and taking a "cut" for himself.

Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy: co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became secretary of the interior. The group received about $500,000 of Indian tribe money the tribes were told would cultivate favor for them in the Dept. of the Interior. True Republican environmentalists refer to this group as a "green scam." The group is sponsored by mining, chemical and chlorine industries.

Citizens Against Government Waste: A corporate front group that campaigns on behalf of the tobacco industry, in favor of Microsoft, and against open source software.

The National Center for Public Policy Research: Another corporate front group, with projects that include Project 21, a conservative African American organization that opposes affirmative action and the minimum wage and has issued news releases in support of genetically modified foods. Project 21 has been funded by R.J. Reynolds, and it has lobbied in support of tobacco industry interests, opposing FDA regulation of the industry, excise taxes and other government policies to reduce tobacco use. Also actively opposes environmental movement. On its website, it has released numerous fascinating papers on such things as how CAFE standards are killers, as well as the following statement about how UNFAIR the Senate report is:

The National Center for Public Policy Research is terribly disappointed that the Senate Finance Committee’s minority staff has issued an entirely unfair and inaccurate report as it relates to the National Center. We believe the report is grossly unfair.

The National Center for Public Policy Research has fully cooperated with all Congressional and federal investigations. The institution has been extremely conscientious at all times about complying with all regulations governing tax-exempt organizations. We are confident that those who are fair-minded and in possession of all the facts are reaching fair conclusions about us. The full committee report of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is an example of this.

Toward Tradition: a Seattle-based religious group founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, whose brother David was involved in the Marianas Islands scandal. Jack Abramoff was a director for the group from the early 1990s until 2004, and served a few terms as chairman of the board. Staff member Elie Pieprz worked for Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform until joining Toward Tradition in approximately 2000.

I'd love to see this bunch in jail, and they certainly do deserve it, but the way Republicans stick together it's probably more likely they'll be claiming tomorrow that they have a drinking problem and head off to join Bob Ney and Mark Foley in rehab.

Posted by Becky at 02:58 PM |

Bush Administration's Betrayal of Christians

A former Bush Administration official and fervent Christian, David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the President and second in command at the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, has come forward with the inside story about how the President's newly-created office was purely a Republican campaign tool and is exposing what the Administration really thinks of Christians. His tell-all book, "Tempting Faith," is scheduled for release October 16.

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

In most of those races, the effort had the desire effect and Republicans won. As to the treatment of Christians, Randi Rhodes on her show yesterday played several audio clips and read from other interview material that explained how the loyalty of Christian right leaders was purchased by handing out trinkets, such as pens and pads of paper, but not by actually taking steps to address Christians' concerns. When Christian leaders would begin to express dissatisfaction, the Administration would explain to them that they understood Bush's heart and that he was moving as quickly as he could, but that change would take time. However, it was a lie intended solely to placate Christians and keep them in the Republican fold.

Kuo describes how the Bush Administration prioritized the search for any possible instances of religious discrimination that could be used to create the appearance of widespread problems that did not actually exist - for political purposes, of course. Kuo said such instances were so rare that they were not a real problem. He tells how spin and deceit allowed the Bush Administration to claim it was allocating vast amounts of new funding to help the poor when in fact the funding for these efforts was less than had been spent in the Clinton Administration. Worse, much of this money was used to advance a political agenda rather than to fulfill the purported mission of the Office.

A transcript of last night's interview with Kuo on "Countdown" can be found here. Some highlights:

[W]hen Senator Chuck Grassley tried to rewrite Mr. Bush's 1.7 trillion dollar tax cut to include six billion in tax credits for groups helping the poor — tax credits that Mr. Bush himself had publicly proposed — Kuo says Bush's assistant told Grassley to drop the charity tax credits. The White House had no interest.

The cuts Mr. Bush did want made things worse for charities. Kuo claims that the estate tax cuts discouraged charitable giving, costing charities an estimated 5 billion dollars.

The ultimate impact of Mr. Bush's tax cuts, he says, was to brutalize the very charities Mr. Bush once identified as his top priorities. After only a year, charitable donations were down dramatically, and some charities had shut down.

For any Christian who trusted this President, Kuo's book will likely be downright appalling and even disheartening. Many thought the President was very serious about his Faith-Based Initiatives program. Kuo says that is not true.

He says the Faith-Based office wasn't even set up during the 2001 transition until Mr. Bush took office and Karl Rove gave a transition volunteer less than one week to roll out the entire Faith-Based Initiative.

The volunteer asked how he should do that, without staff, without an office, or without even a plan.

According to Kuo, "Rove looked at him, took a deep breath, and said, "I don't know. Just get me a f–ing faith-based thing. Got it?"

And there's even a little tidbit about that wonderful Christian leader, Jerry Falwell. At a 9/11 memorial service at Ground Zero, Falwell didn't exactly display Christian behavior.

While others wept, Kuo says, Falwell laughed about something with another conservative leader. Spotting Barbara Bush, Falwell remarked on how "frumpy" she looked.

There's much more, and I think I will have to add Kuo's book to my reading list. But for those of you who can't wait until Monday, David Kuo himself pens a story of hope and then betrayal in his service at the Office of Faith Based Initiatives on on Beliefnet.com, where he is a contributing editor.

Many Republicans seem unable to wake up to the truth about this Administration because their core belief system is based on a partisan identity. Christians, on the other hand, have at their core a Christian identity that is deeper and stronger than any partisan affiliation. This group of voters may well be the ones who can save us from the neocons, if they can be woken up in time to be steered away from voting for the Republicans who have used and abused them for so long.

Posted by Becky at 09:17 AM |

A Million Casualties and Counting

In his latest editorial, Can we call it Genocide Now?, Paul Craig Roberts takes the Bush Administration to task for blowing off a new study that has found the War has cost the lives of 655,000 Iraqi civilians. The study uses the same techniques that are widely relied upon to determine the number of dead in situations of upheaval all across the world, whether war, disease or genocide. The scientific community considers the techniques to be very reliable, and normally politicians do, too, but the President is rejecting the trustworthiness of the techniques now that the results are politically damaging.

Roberts writes:

What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents or "terrorists"? Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war on terror" is, in fact, a war on Iraqi civilians.

And that's just the Iraqis.

The New York Times (October 11) reports that Department of Veterans Affairs documents show that about one in five US soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have suffered at least partial disability. … Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, says that the current rate of injuries will produce 400,000 American veterans suffering 30% to 100% disability.

Roberts asks, "What kind of government would destroy the lives through death or disability of over one million people for no valid reason?" His answer is about as depressing as anything I've read lately, because it's true. They don't care.

After the number of times I've seen the President choke up in tearful speeches when he speaks of the losses of 9/11 and the war, I could, like most Americans, accept that he believes in what he is doing and that he must know of dangers that I don't. Except there is too much evidence of calculated lying and disrespect for the people, and too much financial gain by his associates. It's an uncomfortable fact that someone can look very sincere and be simply putting on an act. Funny, we see actors do this all the time, but we're so reluctant to believe it is possible for politicians to do it. We'd better wise up to it, though, before the next million fall.

Posted by Becky at 06:38 AM |

October 12, 2006

Bill Maher is Right - and Wrong

Bill Maher poses an interesting thought in a brief entry at The Huffington Post, entitled, "Americans Love Torture," an assessment he bases on the popularity of the "Saw" movie franchise. "Saw 3," the third in a series of gory and disgusting horror movies that began with "Saw" and continued last year with "Saw II, is scheduled to hit theaters soon. I haven't seen either one and don't plan to see this one. "The Passion of the Christ" was more than gory enough for my tastes (though I'll admit I saw all the Freddy flicks and read a lot of Steven King back in my youth).

Upon first reading Maher's opinion, my knee-jerk reaction was to agree with him.

Movies where people get tortured have been around for a long time, but they used to be made by Z-grade exploitation producers and they only ran at the drive-in. (They called them exploitation pictures because they exploited areas that mainstream Hollywood wouldn't touch.) Now we've got all these movies like Hostel and the Saw movies that are literally nothing but torture, and they're at the local Cineplex and advertised on prime-time TV.

Remember that term Moynihan coined, "defining deviancy down"? These movies are mainstreaming deviancy. Deviancy now opens nationwide in 3,000 theaters. How can you expect a nation to abide by the Geneva Conventions when 80 percent of our teenagers spend their idle hours playing ultra-gory video games?

But on poking around, I found some pretty reasonable alternative opinions, and realized they rang true from my own experience. Some slasher fans swear by the life lessons in slasher movies like "Saw." And rather than seeing horror films as degrading to society, Wes Craven, of "Nightmare on Elm Street" fame, views them as a "mirror" of society. "It's all about confronting your worst fears and the worst things you feel are out there, and seeing a central character you identify with getting out of it, somehow - getting through it. Because horror films are kind of like the boot camp for the psyche, of young people, especially."

Craven explains the boom in the horror industry in the 1970s this way:

"Well, for the 1970s, especially the first half, the most publicly noted element was the Vietnam War," Craven said. "I think that war was devastating to the national psyche. It was probably the deepest division since the Civil War. And because of television, the average American saw more violence just in the news. . . . I think it was deeply, deeply shocking and kind of dislocating. And it was also coupled with an enormous amount of lies from the government.

"It informed the horror films of that period because it was all about not trusting authority figures and that there's a lot more violence out there than Americans care to admit."

That explanation is certainly apropos today, too. Perhaps the fascination with torture movies is a reaction to the horror of the real torture we've inflicted - and may someday face as a result.

As for my personal journey through the movies, back in 2000-2002 when my life was pretty wild and stressful, I watched an awful lot of intense, adrenalin-packed action movies, which were a great emotional release for me. These days, however, I find that I'd much rather have a pleasant escape from reality in my entertainment, and have become a big fan of American Idol and the Discovery Channel, where the worst you see is a lion taking down a water buffalo. Maybe I'm just getting old, but there's enough brutality in the news every day. I don't need to go see "Saw" to learn to value my life. But maybe today's jaded teens, facing the prospect of the reinstitution of the draft and the life-threatening potential hazards of global warming, do.

Posted by Becky at 12:10 PM |

Two Events for Progressive Political Junkies

Two fun events next week await all of you who love politics so much that you actually consider political events a social occasion (I'm one of those people). Though I won't be attending either of these, I pass the information on to you.

Your first opportunity for fun is the Ballot Measure Roundtable, part of the Candidates Gone Wild event, next Monday night, Oct. 16 at 7:00 pm at the Roseland Theater (cost: $4). Here's the description passed on from Patty Wentz of Our Oregon:

On Monday night Steve Novick and I will be going up against the forces of darkness in a wacky and wild "Ballot Measure Roundtable." For those of you who have never been, Candidates Gone Wild is a crazy game show of an event with candidate talent shows, multi-media presentations, high hijinx and many surprises. It's a great way to get to know the candidates up close and personal. (For those of you who like that sort of thing.)

This year's special guest is Storm Large. And this year for the first time they are including a ballot measure event and Novick and I have been tapped to speak for Oregon's progressives. We aren't sure yet who is speaking for the other team, but we know that the dark side will send someone equally insidious to speak for the bad ballot measures that have been put forth by those who would destroy Oregon for their personal gain.

The second fun time awaits you at Governor Kulongoski's campaign office on Tuesday night, Oct. 17, when you can join other Kulo-supporters and watch the Governor kick Ron Saxton's sorry ass (well, you can always hope) in a live televised debate. The place to be: 128 NE 7th in Portland. The campaign will be serving free beer and pizza.

Posted by Becky at 10:39 AM |

Measure 48 an Unhealthy Choice

Chalk up one more reason to vote NO on Measure 48: The need for government health care assistance in Oregon is rising faster than population and inflation.

Over the next ten years, the number of people who will be needing the State to pay for their long-term health care will increase 23%, and due to rising health care costs, the State's costs to care for those citizens will likely increase 25% to 30%. Meanwhile, Oregon's population is only expected to grow 11.6%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and incomes are increasing just 3% to 4% per year (as compared to health care costs, which are increasing 8% to 10% per year).

According to Dr. Bruce Goldberg, director of Oregon's Department of Human Services, the increasing disparity between income and health care costs is driving more people to look for government assistance (which, under Measure 48, would be less and less available).

If the state responds by cutting people from health plans, increases copays or reduces benefits, he said, more people end up going to emergency rooms for free treatment, which is reflected in higher private insurance premiums, which means Oregonians "pay, pay, pay."

Making the matter worse, Oregon will be particularly vulnerable to demographic shifts that will leave income-earners with an ever-increasing burden. According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Oregonians who are classified as "elderly" will see a dramatic upturn. In 1995, the figure was 13.6. By 2025, it will be 24.2, putting Oregon in 4th place among the fifty states in terms of greatest percentage of elderly population. Meanwhile, for every 100 people of wage-earning age in Oregon, the number of youth (under age 20) and elderly will reach 90, up from 71.4 in 1994.

In short, proportionally more people will need the State's help to pay for health care that is increasing in cost two to three times faster than income growth while proportionally fewer people will be working and paying taxes to pay for that care, forcing the needy to seek care in emergency rooms and shifting those even higher health care costs back onto the shoulders of wage-earners who increasingly will be unable to pay for their own health care.

And we want to make this situation worse by limiting the resources available that could mitigate that desperate shift to higher-cost emergency room services? Are we nuts?

Posted by Becky at 10:28 AM |

The Palace Guard

The House Ethics Committee seems to be zeroing in on Hastert's staff, specifically his Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, and his Counsel.

The three -- chief of staff Scott Palmer, deputy chief of staff Mike Stokke and counsel Ted Van Der Meid -- have formed a palace guard around Hastert (R-Ill.) for years, attaining great degrees of power and unusual autonomy to deal with matters of politics, policy and House operations. They are also remarkably close. Palmer and Stokke have been with Hastert for decades. They live together in a Capitol Hill townhouse and commute back to Illinois on weekends.

Outside of the salatious innuendo that the Post seems to be putting in at the end of that paragraph -- DC housing is expensive, especially when you live here part time, and it is not at all uncommon for staffmembers of the same or different Members to be roommates -- it is beginning to look as though Hastert gave too much power to staffmembers, and they may have "protected" him from information he should have had.

Within Hastert's operation, some staff members appear to point accusingly at Van Der Meid, who is in charge of ethics matters and is widely believed to have steered Hastert wrong before.

Van Der Meid, a former chief Republican counsel for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, helped engineer the failed effort to change GOP ethics rules to allow an indicted lawmaker to remain in the leadership. The power play was designed to keep then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) at his post, but it backfired spectacularly, embarrassing many Republicans and leaving a blemish on Hastert's record.

One House leadership aide said Van Der Meid lacks the personal connections with the speaker that Palmer and Stokke have, making him the most vulnerable of the three.

The staff issue will be front and center today, as the ethics committee takes the testimony of Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, who is to testify that in 2003 he alerted Palmer to Foley's behavior. A source with knowledge of the events said Fordham will detail repeated efforts by then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl to raise alarms about Foley's interest in young pages, and Fordham's own confrontations with Foley.

Regardless of whether its true or not, and my guess is that it probably is true that the staff tried to handle it at the staff level, it looks like Van Der Meid is the one that is being set up as the fall guy.

Posted by Alan at 05:29 AM |

October 11, 2006

Cliff Kincaid Attacks Gay Sympathizers

Cliff Kincaid, in editorials posted on the mis-named right-wing Accuracy In Media website, has been writing for several days now about the Mark Foley scandal. And throughout his editorials, he repeatedly blames tolerance of homosexuals for the fact that nobody stopped Mark Foley from putting the moves on young boys entrusted to the care of members of Congress.

For example, in Republicans Protected Foley, Not Kids, a title that might lead one to believe some sane discourse would follow, Kincaid wrote:

House leaders say they were misled by Foley about his contacts with young boys. But they knew that Foley was a homosexual, or at least they were aware of reliable reports to that effect that had not been denied by Foley. They stood by him nevertheless. This is the "big tent" theory taken to an absurd and dangerous extreme. …

House leaders contend that they only knew about one set of emails, in which Foley asked for a page's photo and age, and not the other more offensive ones. This position concedes that House leaders knew that Foley had been corresponding with a former page with personal questions of a sensitive nature but that because Foley contended the exchange was "innocent," they are off the hook. They insist that they raised the issue with him and couldn't do anything more, except recommend that he terminate contact with that particular page. This position is not tenable because the Republican leadership knew—or should have known—that Foley was a homosexual. His homosexuality was the subject of stories back in 2003.

Yesterday, Kincaid took his anti-gay rhetoric even further in Who Protected The Pervert Congressman?.

The questionable line we already see emerging in the media is that Foley is guilty of inappropriate behavior toward young people but that it has nothing to do with his "sexual orientation."

In fact, the entire scandal might have been avoided if Foley's homosexuality had been exposed and confronted, rather than protected, over the last several years. Top Republicans and the media were part of this cover-up.

Kincaid then "outs" several Republican gay sympathizers who have "been associated with the Log Cabin" Republicans: "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senator John Sununu, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Gordon Smith, Senator Lincoln Chafee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Rep. Rob Simmons, Rep. Darrell Issa, former Senator John Danforth, and former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Some of the "Washington insiders" who have participated in Log Cabin events include Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, David Boaz of the Cato Institute, and writer Andrew Sullivan."

Kincaid is clearly an idiot. Being homosexual does not make one a child molester, and kicking Foley out for being gay would not only be wrong, it would likely be impossible. I think it's a good thing that Republicans respected Foley's privacy with regards to his sexual orientation.

Where Republicans screwed up was in not bringing the man down as soon as they saw the first, most "innocent" emails to underage pages – emails that were clearly anything but innocent. They could have told him to either resign or they would go to the media. They could have requested a formal criminal investigation. They could have done any number of things to protect those kids. But they chose to protect their own partisan butts (and as we've learned, the Democrats didn't do a whole lot better in the matter). But to oust him simply for being gay without any evidence that he had done anything wrong? That's just plain absurd.

Posted by Becky at 09:25 AM |

Evangelical Christian Takes on the Christian Right

Randall Balmer, a professor of religious history at Barnard College (at Columbia University in New York) has just written a book that is likely to garner him a good deal of attention: "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament." This recent interview with him is a great read. Here's an excerpt to pique your interest:

Q: The book takes the religious right to task on almost every hot-button issue in America today. Some readers might conclude that you are a liberal Democrat and not at all a traditional evangelical Christian. How would you respond to that?

A: I am a traditional evangelical Christian in that I honor the teachings of Jesus as well as the noble legacy of evangelical activism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Evangelicals throughout most of American history engaged in political and social activism on behalf of those on the margins of society. I'm thinking here of the antislavery movement, the temperance crusade (a progressive cause in the 19th century), public education, advocating equal rights for women and trying to mitigate the effects of predatory capitalism around the turn of the 20th century. Only relatively recently, with the rise of the religious right in the late 1970s, have evangelicals drifted toward the political right.

So, yes, I am a traditional evangelical; it is the right-wing zealots of the religious right who have hijacked my faith. They have taken the gospel, the "good news" of the New Testament, which I consider lovely and redemptive, and turned it into something ugly and punitive.

Posted by Becky at 09:22 AM |

The Blame Game

A little over a year ago, President Bush and his administration made a big deal over not playing "the blame game" when it came to the disasterous handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Apparently, blame for that was bad, but blame for North Korea becoming a nuclear state is good.

North Korea's claim that it had detonated a nuclear device rippled through U.S. politics Tuesday, nowhere more so than at a Shriner's hall in Southfield, Mich., where Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tried to blame former President Clinton.

"I would remind Senator Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration's policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure," McCain said, referring to his potential rival for the presidency in 2008, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

I'm not overly thrilled with the Clinton administration's handling of North Korea, either. However, President Bush has been president now for nearly six years. I would think that is ample time to work to defuse North Korea's ambitions.

The one thing the North Korean's asked for - and never received - was face to face negotiations about their nuclear program.

It was the Bush administration, not Clinton, that refused to work with them on this issue. In fact, I would remind Senator McCain that President Bush first brought North Korea to our attention as an issue in 2002 - more than four years ago.

Blame Clinton all you want, but remember that the finger you're pointing is being pointed right back at you.

Posted by Alan at 04:46 AM |

October 10, 2006

The New Christian Counterculture

Young Christians today aren't going in for the '60s-style free love and drug experimentation. But they are going distinctly counterculture, turning rock 'n roll and youthful rebellion into a worship platform, likely much to the dismay of both their rebellious baby-boomer parents and their traditional fundamentalist grandparents.

In a new book entitled "Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement," Lauren Sandler examines the new "Disciple Generation" – young people who are "obsessed with Christ" and display their devotion in "youthful or unorthodox ways."

[Sandler] went "on the road" with young evangelicals and dug into an exuberant subculture that is very different from the movement led by people like 73-year-old televangelist Jerry Falwell, but one that shares its political goals.

Those include capturing most if not all levels of government in the United States, running America along Christian lines, outlawing abortion, banning same-sex marriage, bringing prayer to public schools and the Biblical story of Creation to biology class.

Among them is Will Graham, grandson of the evangelist Billy Graham, who tells Sandler that he hopes to be president of the United States some day, because only a "Christ-led government" can reverse America's moral decay.

From Christian rock festivals attended by tens of thousands of screaming kids to "skateboard ministries," sometimes preaching to smoking and drinking congregations seated on bar stools, these tattooed rebels are spreading the gospel in an entirely new way.

Can you dig it? A counterculture movement among the youth, and it's goal is the establishment of a theocracy. Talk about rebelling against your parents. The '60s generation, it seems, is getting a major dose of its own medicine.

For a delightful read, check out Lionel Shriver's take on the matter in the UK Guardian. He doesn't quite see the point that counterculture today is a bit different than it was when he grew up, but he has some very interesting insights all the same.

Posted by Becky at 10:34 AM |

Eating the Earth

I remember back when I was involved in tax activism, we would make a point each year out of "Tax Freedom" day – the day when your tax bill for the year would be entirely paid and you could begin to keep the money you earned. Today I learned of a similar milepost that is marked each year: the day on which world-wide human consumption exceeds the level of renewable resources and humans begin to "eat the planet." This year, that day was yesterday, October 9. Back in 1987, it was December 19. That's a trend that doesn't bode well for the future.

Most places in the world never reach the level of consuming more than can be renewed, but highly developed countries like Britain and the U.S. more than make up for it. I've heard before that if everyone in the world lived at the U.S. poverty level, we would need four planet Earths just to produce the resources that would be used. The very depressing part for someone like me is that our society is such a machine that while well-meaning citizens can reduce their "ecological footprint," the fact is we Americans cannot survive in modern society in an ecologically sound way.

I don't believe technology is evil, however. If human ingenuity was focused on ecology, I have no doubts we could find ways to increase human comfort, health, and security without "eating" the planet. And people could make a fair profit doing it, too.

When I read about how child labor produces the Halloween candy our children collect in their plastic pumpkins and the toys they unwrap at Christmas; when I go to Wal-Mart and buy my family's clothes at a quarter of the price I would have to pay for them at a department store because they were made by virtual slave laborers in other countries; and when I buy inexpensive produce at the grocery store knowing that it was harvested by poverty-stricken Third World laborers, I struggle with reconciling the life I've come to expect with the costs it inflicts on the rest of the world. It takes the sheen off the comfort.

Maybe that's why the only time I truly feel content is when I'm gardening or when I'm out hiking through the wilderness hunting. I feel like a real human being at those times, rather than a part of a machine. The knots inside me disappear for a few blessed hours. The modern, civilized world races along at high speed and I struggle to keep up. I'll admit I like the excitement and the comfort of it. But my soul longs for a simpler life that is more in tune with nature and less punishing of those whose circumstances are not so fortunate as my own.

Posted by Becky at 10:02 AM |

October 09, 2006

Moonies Taking Over the U.N.?

It's a story that is so completely loony one wants to reject it outright as the brainchild of some B movie screen writer. But proving the adage that truth is stranger than fiction, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon seems to be able to buy himself all the power he wants. And for those of us who are watching, it is proof that something is terribly wrong with the human brain that so many people can fall under his spell.

Now that South Korean foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon is taking over as the new Secretary General of the United Nations (replacing Kofi Annan), rumors are beginning to fly that the Moonies are finally realizing their long-time dream of taking over the United Nations. This, of course, is a necessary precedent to their taking over the world, which also entails requiring all human beings to speak Korean and unquestioningly follow the many very odd teachings of "the Savior, Messiah and King of Kings of all of humanity," the man who was crowned the Messiah by several members of the U.S. Congress in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in 2004 – the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Some believe Ban Ki-Moon is a member of the Unification Church. I can't verify it, but there is some scattered evidence to indicate it is true. For instance, he calls himself a "non-denominational Christian," which is the term Moonies use to describe their religious affiliation. He also served two tours at South Korea's Washington embassy, an organization with long-time ties to the Unification Church. And his nomination and candidacy for the U.N. post was pushed by the Bush Administration, which itself has deep monetary ties to the Rev. Moon. Yes, as unbelievable as that sounds, it's actually true.

Ban Ki-Moon isn't the only likely Moonie in an important U.N. position. The Bush Administration has sent Condoleezza Rice and John Bolton on a mission to ensure the former editor of Moon's Washington Times and current Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs Josette Sheeran Shiner, a known Moonie, gets the position of Executive Director of the U.N.'s World Food Program. Sheeran Shiner was active in the Unification Church until 1996, at which time she went "into the world." That's missionary talk, plain and simple. Since then, she has spread her faith through William Bennett's Empower America organization and the State Department. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

It's a story that has all the bells and whistles to light up conspiracy websites. And as loony as you may think the conspiracy nuts are, they don't hold a candle to the people who believe in, support, or even tolerate that wacky nutcase Moon, who quite inexplicably continues to gain power and vast wealth. Am I missing something here?

*******************UPDATE*********************

For the sake of clarity for future readers who may not open and read the comments that have been added to this post, let me just say sufficient evidence has been brought forward to convince me that Ban Ki-Moon is NOT a Moonie. However, Sheeran Shriner IS a Moonie, and the Bush Administration IS way too cozy with the Rev. Moon. If you're interested in this issue, please do read the comments, where you will find excellent links to factual articles about the Rev. Moon.

Posted by Becky at 02:24 PM |

Jonah Goldberg Writes The GOP Script

Jonah Golberg today wrote an article about how the Foley scandal is going to blow up in the Democrats face, which is really a script for the GOP to follow to take the spotlight off of them and muddy the waters before election day.

I'm going to tear it apart, as it deserves to be, paragraph by paragraph.

The Democrats prayed for an October surprise and, like manna from heaven, a hypocritical, sexually disturbed Florida Republican dropped into their laps. They looked at the cyber-stalking ephebophile and said, ``Behold, this is good.''

First, let me say, I don't know one Democrat that thinks the Foley scandal is a 'good thing'. Everyone I know, Republican and Democrat, are disgusted by what happened.

Overnight, Nancy Pelosi has emerged as the nation's soccer grandmom, leading the mob alleging a GOP cover-up of a supposed sex predator and pedophile. (Former U.S. Rep Mark Foley may or may not be a predator, but pedophiles don't dig post-pubescent teens; ephebophiles do.)

Truth be told, Nancy Pelosi is a mother and grandmother, and this probably hit her the same way it did other parents across the political spectrum. And I'm disturbed by his attempt to make this not as big a deal by splitting hairs over the age of the children involved. Great, he was 16. That makes it better, somehow.

Almost as instantaneously, Democratic candidates denounced their opponents for taking money from Foley, as if acceptance of such funds constituted support for pederasty.

Okay, I'd almost give him this one, if it wasn't a standard practice on both sides when someone is caught in a situation like this.

Let me be clear: I carry no water for the House GOP. Less than a month ago, I wrote that it would probably be a good thing if the Republicans lost the House, so I'm hardly inclined to rally to their flag because of their handling of this Foley mess. But let me make a prediction: Despite the moral panic sweeping Washington right now, this will backfire on Democrats, liberals and the gay left.

See, he's not carrying water for the GOP. He once said something bad about the Republicans. So he must be impartial. That being said, he's going to explain why this is to problem of the Democrats, liberals, and gay left (but apparently not the gay right, who was mixed up in the middle of all of this).

Self-described progressives are great at whipping up a moral frenzy when it serves their purposes and hilariously indignant when moral-majority types return fire. Remember the national St. Vitus' dance over sexual harassment in the late 1980s and early 1990s? Liberals made sexual harassment their signature issue, rending their clothes and gnashing their teeth over Sens. John Tower and Bob Packwood and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, among others. The puritanical zeal of these inquisitions cannot be exaggerated.

And sexual harassment continues to be a progressive issue. We fight for protection from it in the workplace, and I believe it is one of our cornerstones. I bet Monica Lewinsky is going to make an appearance here soon....

Then came Bill Clinton, who was, by any fair measure, a worse womanizer than Thomas or the rest of them. The Paula Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit led, inexorably, to revelations of alleged rape and scandalous behavior with an intern.

Paula Jones was always allegations, and the story continued to change. As for scandalous behavior with Lewinsky, I'm still disturbed by it. But she wasn't 16 years old, either.

Whereas once feminists insisted ''women don't make these things up,'' accusations of rape were dismissed instantaneously. Whereas once zero tolerance was the rule (''No means no''), feminist deity Gloria Steinem suddenly advanced a one-free-grope rule for powerful men. Whereas once even the appearance of impropriety was unacceptable, feminists suddenly argued that everyone should lighten up. Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, elected in 1992 -- the ``Year of the Woman'' -- as part of the anti-Thomas backlash, argued that female interns should count themselves lucky in the Clinton White House. After all, she said, ``30 years ago, women weren't even allowed to be White House interns.''

Somehow I'm not shocked that the Republicans are going to try to make Bill Clinton the issue here. But the comparison makes no sense. The truth here is that Monica Lewinsky was an adult. The pages are not adults. They are children. There is a big difference here. But wait, I bet you that Gerry Studds is making an appearance here soon.

It would be unfair to suggest that liberals have been clamoring for gays to have an unfettered right to hit on teenage boys and are only reversing themselves out of partisan opportunism. Although the fact that liberals hardly objected to Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds' continued service in the House for 13 years after he admitted to having had actual sex with a teen page -- as opposed to the less harmful cyber variety -- and after an investigation revealed his advances were not always invited does cast a harsh light on those screeching about Foley being a sexual predator.

Ah, there he is. But there's one huge difference here. First, there was more than one. There was a straight member also caught with a girl. But that doesn't fit what he's trying to say, so he gets forgotten.

But I want to be clear about all of this. When the leadership learned about Studds, they immediately turned it over to the Ehtics Committee. When the current GOP leadership learned about Foley, they not only did nothing, but the encouraged him to run for reelection and allowed him to have unsupervised visits with pages.

Remember - this was after they learned about the emails. Not before, but after.

Tip O'Neill was a leader and did what was proper. Dennis Hastert and his group tried to hide it. That's the difference, and one we shouldn't forget, or allow to be forgotten, every time someone like Jonah brings up Studds.

What liberals don't understand is that social conservatives actually believe their moral rhetoric, even when it's politically inconvenient. That's why GOP Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana had to resign when his marital infidelities became public during the Clinton impeachment, much to the chagrin of Democrats who wanted to advance the ''everybody does it'' defense of Clinton. And that's why vast numbers of social conservatives now want House Speaker Dennis Hastert's head on a pike.

We'll see if this is true when they go to vote. If they continue to vote for this leadership, I'm not buying the purity argument. But we won't know until November 7th.

Meanwhile, the only moral lapse that consistently offends all liberals is hypocrisy. As Howard Dean declared on Meet the Press last year: ''Everybody has ethical shortcomings. We ought not to lecture each other about our ethical shortcomings.'' But he continued: ''I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy.'' This is a convenient principle insofar as it can indict only people with actual principles.

There is a difference between ethical shortcomings and hypocrisy. When you claim to be the party of moral values and family values, when you cover up someone in your tent being a predator toward teenagers, you don't just have "ethical shortcomings", you are a hypocrite. And the two together mean you shouldn't be in a position of authority in the House of Representatives.

Fanning the flames of righteous fervor over Foley will probably reap electoral benefits for Democrats. But the time will come when something like the ''Foley standard'' will be inconvenient to Democrats. In response, liberals will hold another fire sale. And yet, they will be stunned again when people claim the Democrats don't stand for anything.

Chances are that something will hit the Democrats like this in the years to come. And they'll deserve to be put out to pasture when it happens. In the meantime, its time for the GOP to own up to what their leaders have done, and take their coming loss of power as they should.

Posted by Alan at 01:28 PM |

Politics First; Religion if it Helps with Politics

If you’ve ever wondered just how honest James Dobson (of Focus on the Family) really is about his religion, his comments on the Mark Foley scandal should put any questions to rest: it's politics first, and religion as convenient for politics.

Paul Krugman asked a question many of us have been asking in a recent column for the New York Times: "Does the failure of Republican leaders to do anything about a sexual predator in their midst outrage [Dobson] as much as a Democratic president's consensual affair?"

Dobson's response says it all:

We condemn the Foley affair categorically, and we also believe that what Mr. Clinton did was one of the most embarrassing and wicked things ever done by a president in power. Let me remind you, sir, that it was not just James Dobson who found the Lewinsky affair reprehensible. More than 140 newspapers called for Clinton's resignation. But the president didn't do what Mr. Foley has done in leaving. He stayed in office, and he lied to the grand jury to obscure the facts. As it turns out, Mr. Foley has had illicit sex with no one that we know of, and the whole thing turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages.

You got it. For Dobson it's still all about Clinton the womanizing Democrat, and by the way, the Republican really didn't do anything to fuss about. Dobson has signed on with the right wing propagandists spreading the untrue rumor that Foley was "set up" as a "joke" by one of the pages (which prompts the question why would a loyal Republican rising star former page try to screw the party right before an election by releasing "prank" emails? Answer: He wouldn't.).

Dobson never mentions the number of Republicans who knew literally for years that Foley was "too friendly" with these young boys. Nor does he mention the at least one other unidentified Republican who is likewise misbehaving with the pages.

Dobson also tries to excuse Foley's behavior saying he never actually had sex with an underage page. This is sort of like the definition of "is." Does Internet sex count as sex? Does asking underage boys to describe the size of their penis and tell him whether it's hard and describe to him how they masturbate sound like not having sex? If Foley happened to be into 16-year-old girls and had internet sex with them, would that make this any different? If he did exactly the same thing and was a Democrat, would Dobson be out there ranting about how only the Republicans really care about children? I think we know the answers to these questions now. Most important, we know that when Dobson focuses on the family, he's really focusing on the family's Republican votes.

Posted by Becky at 11:56 AM |

The "Get Motivated Seminar Series:" Buddha is in the details

. . . and Jesus is in the fine print.

If you work in a Portland office of a certain size, and you notice that several of your co-workers are missing today--and not necessarily, it must be said, several of your more irreplaceable co-workers--I may have the solution to this mystery.

A lavish traveling show hits the Rose Garden Arena in Portland today. If you read the Oregonian in the last couple of months, you've probably seen the full-page ads that have been running several times a week:

GET MOTIVATED
Attend This Dynamic Seminar to INCREASE Your PRODUCTIVITY and INCOME
Motivation! Inspiration! Career Skills! Wealth-Building!
All speakers live and in person --All in one day!

The featured speakers include Zig Ziglar ("America's #1 Motivator"), Dr. Robert Schuller ("America's Best Inspirational Speaker"), Steve Forbes (President and CEO of Forbes, Inc."), Tom Hopkins ("America's #1 Authority on Selling"), and Don Shula ("Miami Dolphins Legendary Football Coach").

But wait (as they say in the biz)--there's more!

The show has two other scheduled speakers: Gen. Colin Powell (speaking on "Take-Charge Leadership") and Rudolph Guiliani (speaking on "Courage Without Compromise").

Quite a deal, actually--even for the $225 admission price.

At this point, I should probably come clean about a couple of things. First, I saw this show when it came through town about three years ago. And second, it didn't cost me $225 to get in.

The $225 door price is just for suckers and people with unmonitored expense accounts. The great majority of the people in attendance today will be on the "office plan"--for $49, ten people from your office can all attend. They hawk these ten-ticket blocks like girl Scout Thin Mints to the bigger employers in town.

You can't cover those speakers' fees and rent the Rose Garden Arena on $4.90 per person. So how do they pay for it, at that rate? Mostly through advertising in their glossy program, corporate sponsorships, and--most important--back-of-the-room sales of books, videos, and software. One of the sponsors listed in this year's ad is Success Magazine (their tag line: "Success: In Business. In Life."). Today's attendees will even receive a year's subscription.

So it looks like a win-win, doesn't it? Workers get to escape from the grind, spending the day being inspired and motivated, increasing their productivity, learning career skills, and hearing that they're the movers and shakers of Portland (and they'll be told that last part, a lot). And, all over town, and managers get to have ten of their least-necessary workers out from under foot for the day. And all for less than the cost of a Franklin Covey leather 3-ring binder from Office Depot. (I say this, again, fully aware that I attended this show on the "office plan." At times, the attendance list for the event reminded me of the Golgafrinchan "B" Ark. It was not a self-esteem-building association.)

And what does that $4.90 (or $225) admission get you? Assuming that they stick to the formula--and why wouldn't they? It certainly seems to be working--the emcee will come out this morning and pump up the crowd, assuring this mid-level group of wannabes for the first of several times today that they are indeed the "movers and shakers of Portland."

Then the speakers start. The Big Names were alternated with Lesser Names throughout the day. When I attended, the first up was in fact a protégé of Zig Ziglar, followed by Ziglar himself, the Dalai Lama of motivational speakers. If you've never seen him, he's a tall, slender, now-aged southern Christian gennulman with an amazing, Ol' Time Gospel voice. You either like Ziglar or hate him, and I think his on-stage presence borders on the reptilian. Your mileage may vary. When Ziglar finally got around to opining--apropos of what was not entirely clear--that this country needs more Christian judges on the bench, there was a smattering of applause from those seated in the auditorium floor, and in the upper decks where I was, the gasps were audible. I wasn't prepared to stand up and jeer--someone had invested $4.90 in my presence there, after all--but silence seemed too much like assent, so I walked out, hanging by the concession stand and making a few calls until Zig was over.

"Is this going to be a regular thing with you?" whispered one of the people I had to edge past to return to my seat.

"I certainly hope not," I whispered back.

The next speaker that morning--and I'd be greatly, greatly surprised if he weren't there this morning as well since he and his wife (the emcee) were apparently the organizers of the event--was Peter Lowe, a perky, redheaded fellow who talked to us about the miracle of compound interest, extolling the virtues of investing early and often to secure our lifestyles later on. But he didn't keep his hole card completely hidden: Part of the reason he was there was to witness for Jesus, not just for Alan Greenspan.

At this point, we can note some trends already emerging: The show is a merger of big-church Christianity and upwardly-mobile Republicanism--almost reminiscent of the old Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker "PTL Club" show, but far more polished and upscale. Buried in near the bottom of the of that full-page, in 4-point type that only someone with 30-20 vision could find, let alone read, is this message: "SPECIAL BONUS: One of the most popular parts of The GET MOTIVATED Seminar is a special optional 15 minute bonus session on the Biblical Secrets of success." (The perky, redheaded Lowe led that portion, too, a proper come-to-Jesus session in the afternoon during which I reacquainted myself with the charms of the concession stand.)

(It's interesting that Get Motivated Seminars succeed through very narrow and focused marketing. Both the Seminars and Lowe himself have a surprisingly low profile on the internet.)

A second thing that was hard to miss was that program proper was a Guy Thing, start to finish. The show I attended had two women taking part (Goldie Hawn, whose appearance was teased out in front of us all day like the weather report on the local news, and who finally made her appearance by videotape, and the emcee, who was the spouse of one of the other non-featured speakers.) The program for today's show mentions no women as speakers.

And so it went for the rest of the day: Most speakers were selling themselves as inspirers and motivators (most notably Zig and Rudy--but also 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, a last-minute replacement on the schedule who brought a football with him on stage just so we wouldn't lose the point). (Substitutions are allowed; that's also covered in the fine print.)

And some speakers were just selling. These were investment plans of one sort or another, some ranging into the several-thousands of dollars to buy into an investment service or a software product, available at the other end of the arena, major cards accepted.

A couple of these sales presentations were interesting on the merits, but packaged in a way I found most unappealing. One Phil Town, an afternoon Lesser Name, began his pitch for an interesting but expensive online investing system by telling us that he'd been a special forces soldier who, when his tour was up, landed at Sea-Tac airport--his first time back in the States--and (say it with me) was spat upon by a hippie. This was problematic on several levels for me, not least of which that it didn't seem to have much to do with investing--or motivation. But mainly, of course, it was irksome to hear him cash in on a tired, long-debunked urban legend. He might as well have told us that he met the Vanishing Hitchhiker or the Man with the Silver Claw. Love to know what inner need made him think that was a good opening gambit. Today he's probably a signatory on those Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads. His product must be good, because his approach seems to offend universally.

But of course, then as now, all of that is just the filler--the Spanish peanuts we have to sort through in the can to find the jumbo cashew that is Rudy Guiliani. TNR's Malcolm Cowley captures the moment from a couple of years ago, possibly the same tour I saw:

The scene has unfolded at least a dozen times over the past year. In some huge sports arena in a large U.S. city, a second-tier pop singer performs a series of patriotic anthems. After a pause, a burst of horns and the gossamer voice of Frank Sinatra fills the stadium. Start spreading the news ... A maelstrom of red, white, and blue confetti fills the air. Now, a roar surges through the crowd--Rudolph Giuliani has come into view. The standing ovation that greets him might last for a full minute before Giuliani finally cuts it off. After all, these people have paid good money ($225 at the door, $49 in advance) to hear him speak. Not just him, actually: At these "Get Motivated!" seminars, sponsored by a Tampa-based motivational speaker named Peter Lowe, a constellation of stars are on hand--Private Jessica Lynch! Zig Ziglar! Larry King! Goldie Hawn! Jerry Lewis! But no one is a bigger draw than America's mayor, the hero of September 11. As for Giuliani, he's come here (to Cleveland or Baltimore or San Francisco or any of the other cities visited by the Get Motivated! tour) to share his insights on "How to Lead in Difficult Times." This amounts to six principles: stick to core beliefs, optimism, courage, relentless preparation, humility and teamwork, and good communication. "It's not magic," Giuliani might tell his audience, as he did at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, last year. No kidding.

Rudy's stock isn't selling quite at its 2004 peak, in part because the approaching 2008 presidential nomination process (and he's always mentioned as a GOP frontrunner) is causing the old names to be dredged up again, including, Amadou Diallo, Bernie Kerick, Judith Nathan, and, most recently, George Allen.

But he's still got juice. And ever the multi-tasker (Memo to self: Was "multi-tasking" one of RG's six principles? Must check my notes.), Rudy will be slipping away from the festivities today for a Ron Saxon fundraising luncheon: $250 for lunch, $2500 for a photo with America's Mayor.

So when your co-workers (and you know which ones I mean) return tomorrow, perhaps a little more motivated, a little more inspired, perhaps a little lighter in the wallet, now you'll know what it's about. They've had a full-day tutorial on upgrading their mover-and-shaker status. Will they be "using creativity to increase & maintain motivation" (Ziglar)? Will they now be able to attain and exceed every goal" (Schuller)? Ready to "lead your team to victory" (Schula)? Will they have invested in life eternal with Jesus? You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Posted by Nothstine at 11:40 AM |

October 08, 2006

Bush gets his revenge

The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.

Just one more in the seemingly endless supply of examples of the hypocrisy of Bush alledging that the terrorists hate us because of our freedoms.

Posted by Kevin at 08:10 PM |

A Democrat In Katherine Harris' Seat

According to internal polling by the campaign, Democrat Christine Jennings is leading Republican Vern Buchanan 50-38 in Florida's 13th District. This is the district that Katherine Harris has represented.

If this holds, along with polling that shows Democrat Jack Davis leading NRCC chairman Tom Reynolds 46-33, I've got to say that I smell a Democrat landslide on the way.

Assuming, of course, Democrats don't screw it up in the next 30 days.

Posted by Alan at 12:21 PM |

Mike! Is Mad! At Maria!

Washinigton GOP Senate candidate Mike! McGavrick is upset that Maria Cantwell isn't campaigning face to face with him.

He uses phrases like "Rose Garden" and "recluse strategy" to describe Cantwell's above-the-fray, run-out-the-clock campaign. He trails in the polls - even before the Mark Foley scandal broke - and time is short. In just two weeks, voting by mail will be under way.

Poor Mike! He is learning the reality of today's campaigns. When you're a challenger, its up to you to force the incumbents hand. That comes from running a strong campaign and, to be honest, getting under the incumbents skin.

It's not always easy. I've worked on enough challenger campaigns to know that you're not going to be effective most of the time. But when you are, the incumbent comes to you.

The best example from my career was the Susan Davis vs. Brian Bilbray race in 2000 in California's 49th District. From the very beginning, Susan's campaign worked to but Bilbray on the defensive, sometimes with big issues (the environment) and sometimes small issues (a clean street program that Bilbray let go while his name was still on it).

So, Mike!, I'm sorry that Maria isn't coming to you. But what that tells me is that your campaign hasn't been effective up to this point.

Funny, I thought for sure the exclamation point would put you over the top.

Posted by Alan at 05:09 AM |

On Mark Foley And Other Matters

This post got a lot of comments over at Swede & Czech, so I though I'd cross post it here and see what you all thought.

Okay, I'm ready now to talk about Mark Foley, why I'm endorsing the Republican in Florida 16, and the Republican leadership.

First, lets start with former-Rep Mark Foley. May his higher power guide him to a place where he is not haunted by his demons, and may justice be executed in investigating any crimes that may have been committed. It's important that there be a full investigation into any possible crimes, and that Mark Foley be held accountable for those crimes.

However, I strongly disagree with the words of Democrat political consultant Paul Begala that "he would have taken him to the court of Smith & Wesson". That's all fine and dandy, Paul, and it sure does make you sound butch and all, but that's not the way our justice system works in this country, nor should it be.

Advice to Paul Begala - just because you're a Democrat doesn't mean you'll be confused with being gay if you don't come out and say that we should shoot Mark Foley. I'm disgusted by this comment, and generally becoming more and more disgusted with the inner workings of politics in general.

Which is a good lead in for my next subject - Why I have decided to publicly and strongly support Republican State Representative Joe Negron over Democrat candidate Tim Mahoney. Let me be clear, I know very little about Joe Negron. But I do know quite a bit about Tim Mahoney. Tim Mahoney is the only candidate in my entire political career that I actually refused to work with when I was at the DCCC. He's ignorant of politics and the laws around them, egomaniacal, and very anti-gay.

I also know people like Tim Mahoney that actually have been elected to Congress. They're the type of people that staffers, consultants, and even other Members cross the street to avoid when they see them coming rather than have to deal with a painful discussion with them. They accomplish little to nothing, go through staff like candy, and do stupid things that lead to scandal.

Democrats don't need to put forward candidates like this, and I am disappointed that our party actually recruited someone like this in the first place. I'd rather have a Republican who I disagree with but that I could stand to be in the same room with than Tim Mahoney. In my opinion, it would only be a matter of time before Mahoney broke the law in some way, probably out of stupidity.

But enough good words about a Republican. It's time to talk about the Republican leadership. The fact that Dennis Hastert is still Speaker of the House, while not surprising, is certainly disturbing. It's not surprising because the Republican Party has obviously lost touch with its humanity and is only focused on power. That's how someone like Hastert could learn of something like a very innappropriate email by a 52-year-old to a 16-year-old and do absolutely nothing about it.

Bay Buchanan spoke about this on CNN this week, and she got it absolutely right. (Did those words just come out of my mouth?) "That email had predator written all over it". That email was all that should have been necessary for the leadership that knew about it to do something. Instead, Dennis Hastert has a fuzzy memory. He had a chance to be a leader, and he failed that test. He needs to resign as Speaker of the House. The American people should be demanding it.

Tom Reynolds, chairman of the NRCC, tries his best to pass the hot potato. He thinks he should be off the hook because he told Hastert about it. Not so fast, Tom. After you knew about it and told Hastert, you recruited Mark Foley to run for re-election. You knew that he had sent this email and not only did you do (almost) nothing, you made the decision that Mark Foley was the best person to represent the people of Florida's 16th District! He needs to step down as Chairman of the NRCC. Republicans should be demanding it.

John Shimkus, head of the page program in the House of Representatives, tries to use the "Reynolds excuse" to get off the hook, as well. Sorry, John. You knew about this email and not only did you do as little as Mr. Reynolds, you allowed Mark Foley to host an unsupervised dinner with pages after you learned about this. You didn't inform others involved with the program in the Democratic or Republican Party. You sat on your hands. You couldn't even protect children that were put directly in your charge. How can we possibly think that he has the ability, or the ethics, to do what is best for the children of our country? He needs to be defeated in his re-election in November. The people of Illinois' 19th District should be demanding it.

Posted by Alan at 04:59 AM |

October 06, 2006

Bill Sizemore Says the Darndest Things

Imagine my surprise today to find out that contrary to all media reports, Bill Sizemore won his appeal. Wow. I guess the liberal media really got it all wrong.

Bill Sizemore, executive director of Oregon Taxpayers United, said today that he was appalled at the spin the teachers unions placed on the Oregon Court of Appeals decision handed down yesterday in the case of the OEA and AFT vs. Oregon Taxpayers United.

“It is unbelievable that the unions are claiming victory,” Sizemore said.

Well knowing a thing or two about Sizemore, I couldn't take his word for it, so I thought, hey, I'll read the actual court decision and see what really happened. That darned liberal media. Turns out Sizemore did win. Well, that is if you go by the lone dissenting minority opinion. If you're a liberal and you go with the majority (you know, the opinion that actually counts) Sizemore's ass just got kicked again. But don't expect his right-wing supporters, whose heads are permanently planted in the sand (or else whose morals are irreversibly perverted), to ever see anything but Sizemore's ever-charming spin (a.k.a. lies – yes, I'll call it as I see it, because his latest line of COMPLETE BULLSHIT just proves that he has not changed since I quit working for him five years ago, which actually depresses me a bit). Are you listening Tim Trickey?

Okay, so let's take a bit of a look at what Sizemore told the Court as an excuse for why the previous rulings should be thrown out:

First, the unions who brought the lawsuit had alleged that Kelli Highley forged signatures on statements of sponsorship for Measures 92 and 98, and as a result of those forgeries, the Secretary of State approved the measures for circulation, thereby causing the unions to have to spend a lot of money. It is true that the subsequent election cycle Sizemore bragged about putting so many ballot measures on at once that the unions would have to spend all their money fighting them and would be unable to be proactive. But that was a different election. Sizemore did not deny that Kelli Highley forged signatures – and, in fact, she did forge them – but he said that her forgery and the subsequent approval to circulate petitions wasn't sufficient link to the damage the unions claimed. I actually agree with him and so did the Court. The Court reasoned that the expenditure of funds was not required until the measures made the ballot. That logic seems a bit absurd to me – I agree with Sizemore for an entirely different reason. We did not know Kelli had forged the signatures until much later, at which time we had collected FAR more than the 25 required to file a measure; therefore, sufficient public support had been demonstrated for the measure to be allowed to proceed. And the forgery was definitely something Kelli did all on her own and had nothing to do with Sizemore or OTU.

Second, the unions said Sizemore's petitioners forged signatures on the petitions and without that forgery, the measures would not have qualified for the ballot. Without hesitation, I can say that such activity, while it seems to inevitably occur in petition drives all around the country, was never condoned by Sizemore and he did try, so far as I saw, to eliminate forged signatures and report forgers. This is right in line with Tim Trickey's current assertions that they do not tolerate forgery or break the law. HOWEVER, in Sizemore's opinion, proper paperwork for signature gathering be damned and if Sizemore was able to siphon off a couple hundred thou (at least) for himself in the process, well, that was no problem. It was fair reward for the risks he was taking by subcontracting to a fly-by-night petitioner who might skip town if the Employment Division ever came after the petitioner (of course, the fact that the signature gathering was subcontracted shielded Sizemore from any such risk, but it sounded good and allowed copius embezzlement opportunities).

Okay, so where is the problem with Sizemore? Well, it's obviously NOT in the issues that most people think – forgery on petitions. The problem is much worse, and can be found in events that most people don't really know about, thanks to lackluster reporting by the liberal media.

The real problem begins to show up in the third thing unions alleged: that OTU knowingly filed false IRS tax forms claiming educational work that never took place and hiding political contributions of non-profit funds (true) and that OTU PAC knowingly filed false C&E reports (also true). And for all you Sizemore-supporters out there, note this: Sizemore doesn't deny knowingly filing false reports to the IRS or to the Oregon Elections Division. Instead, he made a technical argument over definitions of words in the statute under which OTU was found liable.

The trial court erred in denying defendants' motion … on the ground that it failed to sufficiently allege cognizable predicate offenses of "unsworn falsification" …

"A person commits the crime of unsworn falsification if the person knowingly makes any false written statement to a public servant in connection with an application for any benefit."

Key word: "application." Sizemore basically said, "Yes, we filed false tax reports to the IRS, avoided paying taxes on money we raised for political purposes, and misled the public as to how much money we received and from whom, but it doesn't matter because those reports were not 'applications.'" Sizemore also claimed that it didn't matter that the false reports were filed because the unions couldn't prove that filing false reports would necessarily mean his educational foundation would lose its charitable organization status. Makes me feel so remorseful for ever questioning the man's character. Can you believe the judge didn't go for that? Those darned liberal biased judges. I mean, look at how those liberal judges described Sizemore's charity:

Sizemore… devised a scheme by which tax-deductible donations to OTU-EF could be secretly and unlawfully funneled to OTU-PAC and used to put Measures 92 and 98 on the November 2000 ballot. But for the unlawful scheme, the OTU-EF contributions could not have been used in that manner. The OTU-EF contributions that were unlawfully expended on OTU-PAC activities were significant. … Moreover, plaintiffs presented evidence that the unlawful scheme benefited the OTU-EF donors because they could take tax deductions and also could shield their identities as supporters of the initiatives, which would have been revealed on accurate C&E reports had the contributions been made directly to OTU-PAC. Finally, plaintiffs presented the testimony of an expert, Pancoast, that, if OTU-EF had filed truthful CT-12 forms, the Oregon Department of Justice "almost certainly would have followed up on that" and would have had a variety of options to pursue, including "the least of which * * * would have been a cease and desist order."

None of this really touches on his money laundering scheme with Grover Norquist, or any of the many other things that went on in his various entities. It's quite the interesting saga, actually. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't been a part of it.

Anyway, I think my favorite part of the Court's most recent decision was the following rant by the liberal majority (as opposed to the one dissenting judge who gave Sizemore a "victory") in response to the assertion that picking on poor Bill Sizemore like this is really going to have a chilling effect on the initiative process, which every good Republican knows the evil liberals are actively trying to destroy:

For generations of Oregonians, the initiative has been, and remains, a cherished legacy. It is not only part of our heritage but, as much, a vital, integral part of our political present and future. The initiative process was--as every Oregon school child once learned--adopted in 1902, as a feature of "the Oregon system," to remedy legislative fraud and corruption…. The citizens who ratified the initiative in 1902 certainly never intended that it would confer a license for fraud and a shelter for "money laundering." The citizens of Oregon did not intend to trade governmental corruption for private corruption by individuals and interest groups.

This case is not about innocent participation in the initiative process; it is not about good faith mistakes or errors in judgment in the course of such participation. Rather, as pleaded--and as ultimately found by the jury--this case is about a calculated course of criminal conduct perpetrated for the express purpose of crippling, and even destroying, defendants' political opponents.

For the Oregonians of a century ago, the initiative process meant pure, "open" democracy--and (at least) most Oregonians would like to think that it still does. But this case involves the antithesis of that ideal: It involves cynical, criminal manipulation of the democratic process.

That is the conduct that is subject to ORICO liability. That is the conduct that is "chilled."

Okay, so let's summarize. Sizemore didn't deny the accusations against him – and he really couldn't because the evidence was overwhelming. Rather, he argued that technicalities in the law should prevent the Court from imposing the punishment it had imposed on him. Now he's claiming victory because the Court's decision has made it virtually impossible for the unions to make him pay them what he owes them, because he is able to hide behind his now-dissolved (thanks to the "liberal" court) educational foundation, which will never be able to raise the money to pay the judgment against it. The next step will be his claim that the Court exonerated him.

Skating away from a $4 million debt doesn't make Sizemore a winner in my opinion. It just makes him a slick crook who has weaseled his way out of paying yet another debt he owes. Just like he wiggled out of paying back former fellow church members, friends and many others who have trusted him because of his effusive charm. See, most people don't expect someone to be able to look them in the eyes and very sincerely lie with big puppy eyes and a lot of good Christian words. It's unnatural and kind of freaky. But I've seen him do that many, many times. That's why no matter what sort of amazing things Bill Sizemore says, and no matter how reasonable they sound, I always look to see what's in it for him and what does the evidence have to say. 'Cause Sizemore will say the darndest things.

Posted by Becky at 11:33 PM |

October 05, 2006

Yet another reason why I remain an Independent

Jonah Goldberg's column in the LA Times today really struck a cord with me. Foley Flap Highlights Dems' Hypocrisy

Self-described progressives are great at whipping up a moral frenzy when it serves their purposes, and hilariously indignant when Moral Majority types return fire in kind. Remember the national bout of St. Vitus' dance over sexual harassment in the late 1980s and early 1990s? Liberals made sexual harassment their signature issue, rending their clothes and gnashing their teeth over Sens. John Tower and Bob Packwood and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, among others. The puritanical zeal of these inquisitions cannot be exaggerated.

And then came Bill Clinton, who was, by any fair measure, a worse womanizer than Thomas or the rest of them. The Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit led, inexorably, to revelations of alleged rape and scandalous behavior with an intern. Forced to choose between power and principle, liberals and feminists held an impromptu fire sale on principles.

Like Goldberg, I am of the opinion that the Republicans losing control of Congress in November would be a good thing. But I'm not naive. And as bad as my memory is at times, I still remember the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal well.

I remember the "it's just about sex" mantra very well. Of course the facts of the case and the legal points of the Impeachment were about vastly more than just the admitedly lurid sexual context. But that didn't stop Democrats from trying their damndest to spin the story away from the legal issues and trying to make Republicans look like sexual Puritans obsessed with the president's sex life.

The simple fact of the matter was that exposing the marital infidelity of folks like Representatives Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich, while entertaining and certainly revealing of a certain moral hypocrisy on the part of Clinton's GOP pursuers, had zero bearing on the legal issues. Legal issues which I might add Clinton was censored by the Arkansas Bar Association for after he ended his terms in office.

Yep. The House Republicans are knee deep in a cesspool of their own making and absolutely deserving of whatever judgement voters mete out this November. But that doesn't make their Democratic critics cesspool-free by any stretch of the imagination.

Posted by Kevin at 03:44 PM |

Common sense answers for uncommon times

Posted by Carla at 12:13 PM |

Capital Crimes - The Culture of Corruption

How many of you caught last night's Moyers on America show Capital Crimes on the Abramoff/GOP corruption scandal?

I found it both riviting and extremely appalling at the same time. The sheer scope of in-your-face corruption was disheartening to absorb. Particularly appalling to me was how both Tom DeLay and Ralph Reed went out of their way, and apparently continue to do so, to claim the mantle of being fine, upstanding Christians devoted to their religion.

Worse, IMHO, was watching footage of politicians like John McCain play along with the dog-and-pony show that was the Congressional hearings... as if they didn't know perfectly well by that time that a number of their fellow Republican lawmakers were knee-deep in the whole sordid mess.

From the show's transcript:

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): Those two men walked away with money that would have gone and should have gone to the children and elders of the tribe. Why? Because Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon were all about the money.

Clearly McCain was all too willing to scapegoat Abramoff and Scanlon even though Rep. DeLay, Rep. Ney, President Bush, Speaker Hastert and others were involved, both directly and indirectly. Indeed, the schemes of Abramoff, Scanlon, Reed and Grover Norquist couldn't have succeeded even a fraction as well as they did without the willing and even eager complicity of a whole host of elected Republican officials.

And what has been the response from the GOP-controlled Congress? Next to nothing. Oh sure they made big promises about cleaning it up and tightening the ethics rules for Congress. But they haven't beyond the usual smoke and mirrors BS.

At the end of the show was a roundtable discussion and Thomas Frank made a stellar point which hadn't really occurred to me before.

THOMAS FRANK: Can I say two things about this question? First of all, the people who are in charge now have a vested interest in increasing our cynicism. They are the party of cynicism against government. And when they do these things, that's just an added benefit that they've managed to get the cynicism numbers up where they have. That's good for the Republican Party, the party that tells you that what? Remember what President Reagan used to say about government, you know? It was a joke, the idea that they were here to help you, all that stuff.

In essence this whole scandal has been a win/win for Republicans. Indeed the anemic and almost farcical reaction by House Republicans in particular only further helps their own cause. They WANT the public to be disgusted! That disgust merely preconditions the public to thinking that it's some sort of profound wisdom when Republicans want to further privatize government.

Posted by Kevin at 10:47 AM |

Randi Rhodes and Jeff Gannon Cage Match

I know that there are some PKers who don't appreciate Randi Rhodes as much as I do. I think she's amazing. Mostly because she speaks truth to power--and that pushes all kinds of buttons for someone with an overdeveloped sense of justice. Like me.

This afternoon in the third hour of Randi's show, she'll be interviewing faux White House reporter and gay male prostitute Jeff Gannon.

This could possibly be the most entertaining hour of radio in a loooooong time. LOL

Or it could give you a headache.

Posted by Carla at 08:15 AM |

October 04, 2006

Who's Crowing Now, Ted?

I know I don't have time to write any entries right now, but sometimes the news is just so good you have to set everything else aside and have a glass of celebratory wine. You see, not too long ago, Ted Piccolo at NW Republican was crowing about the supposed impending exoneration of Bill Sizemore. His entry, complete with a photo of a crowing cock (how perfect is that?):

The transom is sending the signal to the Coyote that Bill Sizemore is on the verge of winning his civil suit on appeal. Stay tuned to this website for breaking news.

So will the left back off and apologize for all the garbage they have spewed if Sizemore is in fact exonerated?

I am not holding my breath because they have continued to act as if he was actually convicted and found guilty of something. Remember that the state found him innocent.

The truth is, most objective observers of the Sizemore/OTU ordeal believed that the civil suit would eventually be tossed out.

We shall see just how consistent the liberals are. Oh and the news media. Let's see if there is a big fat OOPS.

How are ya feeling today, Ted? Can I hear a big fat OOPS?

************************* UPDATE ***************************

In case you relied on The Oregonian's anemic coverage for news about the Sizemore trial back in 2002 and want to know why Ted is completely deluded about Sizemore's innocence (not to mention poor Tim Trickey), the unions that brought the trial have re-posted their daily detailed reports covering it here.

Posted by Becky at 05:15 PM |

October 03, 2006

Scott Moore is my hero of the day

Scott Moore is a journalist who writes for the Portland Mercury. Scott's beat is politics and political news--and he does a damn fine job. In fact when I grow up, I want to have a job like Scott's.

When Scott isn't busy writing bang-up news stories for the paper, he contributes to the Mercury's blog.

In today's offering, Scott slays the anti-16th Amendment tax dodgers in a smackdown worthy of Jon Stewart:

[apologies for the large excerpt-but its just too good for a small snippet]

Normally, I'd be hesitant to engage arguments as sheep-minded as these, and a local tax attorney warned me that "there's no reasoning with these people," but this is simply too easy. So, here's my response to the specific challenges presented in the flood of emails we got:

1. Prove that the 16th Amendment was ratified. Ok. Without a time machine, I won't be able to witness each individual vote by the 36 state legislatures who voted to ratifiy it, nor the signing of the ratification by Secretary of State Knox. But every Supreme Court decision that has touched the 16th has done so with the assumption that it was ratified legally, and there was no outcry at the time of its ratification that would hint that there were questions about its legality. In fact, it's only been in recent history, as tax dodgers have attempted to find new ways to shirk responsibility, that the legality of its ratification has been challenged. There were a few minor grammatical flubs in the copies of the amendment that each state ratified, but none were deemed to be substantive enough to have corrupted the process. That was upheld in 1986 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th District in a case called U.S. v Thomas. So to say, as many of the people who emailed me said, that the federal government has been challenged on this and not found any proof to back up the amendment is, in a word, horseshit.

2. Stanton v. Baltic Mining. Tax protestors claim that this Supreme Court case proves that Congress didn't have the authority to impose income taxes because the decision says the 16th Amendment gave Congress "no new power of taxation." That's true--the court in Stanton wrote those words, but if you read the rest of the text, the court says that the power isn't new, because Congress always had that power. All the 16th did was move income tax into a different category--a non-apportioned direct tax of sorts. Further, the Stanton case, and the Brashear case before it, upheld Congress' ability to impose the tax.

More comprehensive and better informed info can be found at Daniel Evans' Tax Protestor FAQ sheet and in David Cay Johnston's exquisite article on the film and director Aaron Russo in the New York Times. Even the libertarian magazine Reason has an excellent article about the kookiness of the tax honesty movement, and their resistence to, well, reason.

While Scott is very likely engaged in an exercise in futility with the tax dodging America haters who don't want to pay their dues for living in a free society (okay, not as free as it was before Bush took over, but you get the point), its still a worthy exercise. These nutballs will gather a following without the sort of solid refutation people like Scott manage to publish.

Posted by Carla at 11:08 AM |

Poor Mark Foley and all the Other Bescandaled Republicans

Here's a good one for you: The Redder They Are, The Harder They Fall, in which it is argued that people expect more from Republicans; therefore, when they are involved in a scandal they're more likely to be forced out of office. It's a pathetic excuse for Mark Foley, but worth a few good laughs all the same.

Meanwhile, I'll be unable to post for the rest of the week due to a heavy work and travel schedule. I'm definitely looking forward to next Monday!

Posted by Becky at 07:46 AM |

October 02, 2006

Rice versus Rice

Condi Rice, disputing accounts in Woodward's new book, says that it is "incomprehensible" that she would have ignored warnings about an imminent threat.

This of course is the same Condi Rice who dismissed the August 6th, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing(pdf) as merely historical and background info even though it clearly warns of ongoing "suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for highjacking or other types of attacks" a month before 9/11.

Posted by Kevin at 05:52 PM |

How to Get Pastors to Break the Law

Ever wonder how Republicans manage to get truly good, law-abiding pastors to break the law? Well, it's downright amazing the power of persuasion when someone can be convinced that God expects them to do it.

With a pivotal election five weeks away, leaders on the religious right have launched an all-out drive to get Christians from pew to voting booth. ... Their efforts at times push legal limits on church involvement in partisan campaigns. That is by design. With control of Congress at stake Nov. 7, those guiding the movement say they owe it to God and to their own moral principles to do everything they can to keep social conservatives in power.

Preachers "ought to put their toe right on the line," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm that supports conservative Christian causes.

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical in Texas, has recruited 5,000 "patriot pastors" nationwide to promote an agenda that aligns neatly with Republican platforms. "We urge them to avoid legal entanglement, but there are times in a pastor's life when he needs to take a biblical stand," Scarborough said. "Our higher calling is to Christ."

They've got a strategy for voters that invokes God's will, too:

One online guide to discussing the election in church, produced by the Focus on the Family ministry, offers this tip: If a congregant says her top concerns are healthcare and national security, suggest that Jesus would make abortion and gay marriage priorities.

At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson told a crowd of 3,000 that it would be "downright frightening" if Republicans lost control of Congress. If there's a good Christian on the ballot, he said, failing to vote "would be a sin."

Pastors have even been advised to "feel free" to endorse candidates directly from the pulpit because the IRS law is "unconstitutional." The effort is considered crucial, as 30 million regular churchgoers did not vote in 2004, and the Republican party wants their votes.

As we've discussed here, the religious left, though far behind in its organization and sophistication, is beginning to copy the moves of the religious right. To counter the left's effectiveness volunteers are being recruited at RatOutaChurch.org to report partisan activity from the pulpit that favors Democrats.

Combine all this with the efforts by Congress to remove the requirement that the government pay attorney fees of citizens who have successfully sued over violations of civil rights under the Establishment clause, and you've got an increasingly downward slide into theocracy developing at an astonishing pace.

Posted by Becky at 12:20 PM |

Yes. They Are Conservative.

Recently, Becky had a post entitled Republicans Today Are Not Conservative.

Becky's post was just a few sentences, which I'm purloining below:

Here is a great example of why I say the Republican party is no longer the party of conservatives. Read it and weep. Conservatives are thoughtful, prudent, and want the best possible outcome. Today's Republican party, on the other hand, is about profiteering, ideology, and cronyism. And the GOP's lack of fiscal responsibility is costing us dearly.

I can certainly understand why Becky might feel this way. And she's not alone.

I've read in a myriad of places that the GOP and their current policies aren't conservative.

On the contrary. The Republican Party in power today is conservative. They are the example of what happens to government when unchecked conservatism is allowed to grab the reins of power.

Conservatism says its about less government. It says its about status quo and tradition as the source of wisdom. Conservatism claims itself to be about slow, incremental change and a lack of interventionism. It boasts about an embrace of the free market and a laissez faire approach to governmental regulation.

It sounds great on paper. Actually, lots of things sound great on paper. I remember reading about the tenets of Communism and how it seems like a pretty good idea: a classless society based on common ownership of production as well as communal property.

But Communism doesn't factor human nature into its equation. Humans thrive when they work for their food and their property. Humans are generally a greedy bunch---and with Communist power, the rank and file were forced to work for the common good of the ruling government rather than the common good of the people. Unchecked attempts at Communism haven't met with spectacular success.

Conservatism has a similar incomplete equation. It forgets the general greed of humanity and allows it to run against the common good. Its not just a financial greed, either. Its the greed of ideas--the necessity for all persons to adhere to their conservative social order.

Small government can't exist under conservative rule. Government is needed to force the governed to do what conservatives require of it-whether it be to embrace their religion or their corporations or military industrial complex or its idea of morality.

Conservatism needs government to enforce its tenets and ideas.

Unchecked conservatism breeds a bloated government steeped in corruption and favoritism. It removes regulation and rule of law on the pretense of cutting government. But instead it allows government to shrug off law--to continue to feed its greed.

This isn't to say that conservatism doesn't have its place in society. On the contrary, unchecked liberalism is no better than unchecked conservatism. These ideas need each other to create balance. But make no mistake, the Republican Party that we're all watching in horror right now is a group of individuals that have dug themselves deep into conservatism.

And they're trying to carry all of us off that cliff with them.

Posted by Carla at 08:15 AM |

Forced Sterilization for Bad Parents?

A city councilman in Charleston, NC says he thinks parents that won't take care of their kids should be sterilized. But a state senator disagrees, saying the City should provide activities and recreational facilities so the kids have something better to do than commit crimes.

I disagree with both of them. For obvious reasons, moving toward forced sterilization is abhorrent, though I don't have a problem with offering free sterilization or birth control to people who want it and can't afford it. On the other hand, it's simply fantasy to expect that kids who are acting out because of severe lack of parental love and guidance will suddenly start enjoying activity that isn't provocative simply because the government offers recreational facilities. It takes a whole lot more than that.

Our society as a whole must be committed to children to the point that we are willing to invest the necessary resources in schools, counseling programs, family services, foster care, adoption programs, drug treatment, health care, and WIC. The social safety net must be strong enough to bear the weight of a jaded society that is increasingly turning to drugs and alcohol – and away from parenting responsibilities. Passing limits on government spending a la Measure 48 makes dedication to helping troubled children nearly impossible. So does wasteful government spending by people who aren't zeroed in on our priorities.

And it cannot be overstated the burden that falls on the only adults outside a child's dysfunctional home environment who can be nearly universally counted on to have a major impact on a child – teachers and principals. These individuals need all the support we can give them because they truly change children's lives every day.

Posted by Becky at 08:04 AM |

October 01, 2006

The GOP culture of corruption is alive and well

GOP House leaders knew about Rep Foley's inappropriate emails to a 16-year old boy in 2005... and did nothing, callously choosing political advantage over principles!

Now, as if to underscore just how little the House GOP learned from the Randy "Duke" Cunningham corruption case the Foley matter has only now, as of yesterday, been referred to the House Ethics Committee... after Foley resigned!! And even there they left it up to the ethics panel to decide whether to even investigate the issue, apparently feeling secure that their partisans can quash the issue quietly in committee.

Posted by Kevin at 12:30 PM |

Waaaaaaaaah

The recent decision by a Norwegian school district that schoolboys have to urinate sitting down rather than standing up has sparked controversy. Predictably enough the extreme rightwing have pounced on it to get some publicity.

Citing the original WorldNetDaily piece, TimeBomb2000 generated a thread which was emailed to my by a rightwing cyber friend of mine.

According to the news report, the rule was announced for boys at Dvergsnes School, prompting outrage from Vidar Kleppe, the chief of The Democrats Party.

He's accusing the school of "fiddling with God's work," and now he wants the issue discussed at the executive committee level of the area council, according to the newspaper "Dagbladet."

"When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God's work," Kleppe, whose group is a splinter group of former Progress Party hardliners, said in the newspaper.

"It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl," he said.

On Kleppe's contentious "stand" on making political waves, no comment was the response from school principal Lise Gjul.

But she did tell Norwegian Broadcasting NRK that the restrooms are used by both boys and girls, and the young boys are not "good enough at aiming" in order to have "a pleasant toilet."

First of all it needs to be noted that Kleppe's new far right political party suffered a stinging rebuke in it's initial attempt to gain seats in the 2005 national assembly elections, receiving a laughable 0.1% of the vote despite having run a fairly high profile campaign. Indeed, contrary to pop usage of the terms here in America, the Norwegian "Democrats" and "Progress Party" are in fact far right political parties with quite bigoted policy planks and who openly pander to Christian conservatives - which largely explains why WorldNetDaily and TimeBomb2000 picked up on the story.

Occam's Razor would seem to dictate that publicity rather than principle is the guiding force behind this Kleppe character's feigned outrage.

Secondly, it seems to me that excusing poor potty habits by boys as somehow their inherent right by virtue of God's supposed will is but a short slide from excusing inappropriate sexually aggressive behavior by older boys using the same excuse. I for one am insulted by such suggestions that the male gender is incapable of civilized behavior.

It's been suggested to me that the root problem here is that this school is trampling on parental territory by trying to force these young boys to learn new potty habits which their parents chose not to teach them. But, setting aside the whole toilet issue, aren't these same schools teaching things like reading, writing and math which the parents also declined to teach them? What's the difference? Are the school similarly violating sovereign parental rights by teaching the children how to read and write and do math?

The whole thing strikes me as nothing more than a tempest in a tea pot. It's an excuse for social conservatives to demonstrate just how illogical and unreasonable their root beliefs really are.

Posted by Kevin at 12:07 PM |