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December 31, 2006

Uh...what?

As I'm surfing the internets tubes this evening, I noticed two headlines that caused me to scratch my head:

Poll: Americans see gloom, doom in 2007

and

AP Poll: Americans Optimistic for 2007

Wow...guess these guys were polling two very different sets of Americans, eh?

Only they weren't. These two stories are talking about the exact same poll.

Interestingly, the poll with the negative headline cites all sorts of positive stuff that are Americans are thinking, undermining their headline.

Posted by Carla at 05:16 PM |

December 30, 2006

Gerald R. Ford, the last great Republican President

I'll never forget the Summer of 1974. I was ten years old and had somehow acquired a crystal AM radio. One day late that Spring I happened across a local radio station in Medford, Oregon broadcasting the House Judiciary Committee hearings and later the Nixon Impeachment hearings.

I was instantly hooked on politics and avidly followed Republican politics in particular for the next ten years, starting with Gerald Ford's bid to be elected President in 1976, whom I enthusiastically supported.

The televised coverage of the Ford funeral on Capital Hill just finished. It was moving and I'm not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears.

More than anything else I was struck while watching and listening to first Senator Stevens, then Speaker Hastert and finally Vice President Cheney describe the congenial to a fault and steadfastly honest Gerry Ford how polar opposite this current crop of Republicans have behaved in stark contrast to the very qualities they praised Ford for possessing and practicing.

It made me angry. Particularly when the camera would pan across the image of Cheney. I kept remembering when he cursed out Senator Leahy on the Senate floor. In that exchange it was Leahy who followed in the path of Ford and refused to rise to the bait and respond in kind, later suggesting that Cheney was just having a bad day.

Once again our nation is deeply divided, just as it was in the aftermath of Watergate and the later years of the Vietnam War. Unlike President Ford, this current crop of Bush-led Republicans, particularly Cheney, have stoked the divisions in a cheap ploy to first strengthen and then maintain political power.

Ronald Reagan and later George H.W. Bush presided over and did everything in thier power to obfuscate the investigation into the patently unconstitutional Iran/Contra subversion. George W. Bush has... Well, you all know what he's done, the least of which has been to surround himself with alumni of Iran/Contra.

Gerald R. Ford was the last Republican President who, in my estimation, took seriously the sworn obligation and duty to uphold and defend the Constitution.

God speed, Mr. President.

You will be missed.

Posted by Kevin at 05:20 PM |

US Military: Not so much on the Iraq thing

A friend of mine who lives in Georgia has been reminding me in the last few days that those serving in Iraq support the invasion and occupation. She's a conservative with a social libertarian bent, who has regaled me with emailing pixels about how it was one thing for those who disagree with the war (like myself) to speak up here at home. But she believes that the troops know best because they're in country and know what's going on. She can't bring herself to disagree with them.

It would seem that now many if not most US soldiers, agree with me:

It's often written or said in the media that, despite public opposition to the Iraq war here at home, military personnel strongly back President Bush's handling of the conflict. But a poll for the Military Times newspapers, released Friday, shows that more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it.

It came on the day that at least four more Americans died in the war, pushing the monthly total to 107, the high point for the year -- and the total figure to 2,997, near the milestone of 3,000.

Barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the new poll for the four papers (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Times). In another startling finding, only 41% now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place.

And the number who feel success there is likely has shrunk from 83% in 2004 to about 50% today. A surprising 13% say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all.

I wonder if she'll change her mind at seeing this polling data.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Posted by Carla at 09:27 AM |

December 29, 2006

Barefoot and pregnant, Bitches!

We now have scientific evidence that women are doing themselves physical harm by not staying home to scrub toilets and get the pipe/slipper combo ready for the penis people of the house.

Researchers in the UK say that women who stay home and do housework are less likely to get breast cancer:

The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.

Dusting, mopping and vacuuming was also better than having a physical job.

The women in the Cancer Research UK-funded study spent an average of 16 to 17 hours a week cooking, cleaning and doing the washing.

No word yet on the release date of studies which show women who don't use their brains are less likely to get brain cancer.

Posted by Carla at 01:27 PM |

December 27, 2006

I'm just sayin'...

Lately many Democrats have, justifiably, taken Oregon Senator Gordon Smith(R) to task for his perceived insincere about-face from a staunch long-time supporter of President Bush's agenda on Iraq to a seeming critic.

But what of all those Democrats who similarly voted along with Smith? How many of them have been taken to task by the same Democrats who are taking Smith to task?

29 Democrats in the Senate voted on October 11, 2002 to give Bush a blank check which ended up embroiling us in the quagmire that is now Iraq. This after then Intelligence Committee Chairman, Senator Bob Graham, implored his colleagues to look at intelligence documents which sharply differed with the White House's assertions. And after Howard Dean argued that the administration hadn't backed up it's claims. And after media analysis revealed that Bush was stretching the evidence. And after a variety of military and intelligence experts, as well as former administration officials, publically disputed aspects of Bush's case against Iraq. 29 Democrats still voted to give Bush a blank check to wage war on Iraq only to later turn around and blame their votes on faulty intelligence given them by Bush. And a great many Democratic apologists have sung the same tune in a concerted effort to lay all the blame at the feet of the Bush administration. Which paid off this last November.

Posted by Kevin at 07:57 AM |

December 24, 2006

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas.

Happy Hanukkah.

Happy Kwanzaa.

And last but not least, Happy Festivus!!! Although the really hardcore contrarians among us may wish to eschew all of the above in favor of the Festival Of Enormous Changes At The Last Minute. One wonders if this last one might not more completely embody the philosophy of Preemptive Karma than any of the others...

Enjoy!!

Posted by Kevin at 10:36 AM |

December 22, 2006

Jezebel is as Jezebel does

I have an incredibly difficult time wrapping my brain around how conservatives can so easily compartmentalize their beliefs.

Case in point: Today over at the behemothly wretched Captain's Quarter's, Captain Ed (the blowhard of the backwater blogosphere) bellows about the cred of the New York Times:

However, I cannot help but be skeptical of any protest lodged by the New York Times on matters of classified material. They have spent most of the last two years leaking protected material, during which they showed much less concern for national security than they do in Leverett's pious essay here. The programs they revealed still have been shown to break no laws and all of them had Congressional oversight, including the ranking Democrats on the appropriate committees in both the Senate and the House. In the case of the SWIFT program, they even reported that the program had broken no laws, had no apparent abuses, and had been instrumental in catching an Al-Qaeda mastermind -- but they effectively torpedoed it anyway.

Jezebel may have spent some time as a truth-teller, too, but who would have trusted her? The Gray Lady has earned the same emnity on this point, and the same amount of trust.

Yeah...cuz truth-telling is a real high priority for conservatives.

Please.

Ed is a consistent supporter of the Iraq Civil War/Occupation and generally has his lips firmly planted on the ass cheeks of the current Commander In Chief, such as he is.

Its amazing how truth matters to the likes of Ed only when its filtered through his Heritage Foundation lens. If its a media outlet, any typo is a lie worthy of a cage match.

But if its Bush, all bets are off. Excuses, obfuscation and any other required mechanism to get his boy off the hook will do.

Certainly there are lefties who will look the other way when their guys do something bad. Hell, William Jefferson couldn't have been reelected otherwise.

But its the Captain Eds of this world that have turned this kind of ostrich action into an art form.

Posted by Carla at 02:24 PM |

Santa and Confucius

While we Americans fret over the "War on Christmas," in which secularists are supposedly attempting to purge the Founder of morality (Christ) from the seasonal celebrations, over in China the concern is that Christmas itself is wiping out tradition and morals from Chinese society because it is opening doors for the invasion of western popular culture. Several doctorate students are calling on Chinese to boycott Christmas and return to Chinese traditions, specifically Confucianism.

"We notice that many Chinese who do not believe or do not know anything about Christianity... would join in Christmas partying without much thought," said the students, all from elite universities. "This is a phenomenon of the collective loss of sense."

The students said they supported religious freedom but called on Chinese people who are not Christians to stop celebrating Christmas and not to give cards and presents or go to parties. They also urged government departments to consider regulating Christmas activities in public venues and in the media.

What I find most compelling about this is that it highlights the truth about Christmas: that it is an immensely appealing celebration, full of fun and gift-giving, and one need not be a Christian to enjoy Christmas. In fact, Christmas is really two different holidays in one. The Nativity Christmas is observed by Christians and celebrates the birth of Christ, while the Santa Claus Christmas, a secular winter holiday, is observed by people of many different belief systems.

Santa Claus is a unifying figure representing generosity, good deeds, the joy of children, and happiness for all, and one I believe can be added to anyone's yearly celebrations without eliminating or threatening their existing cultural and/or religious traditions. In other words, I disagree with the Chinese doctorate students who are calling for a Christmas boycott.

I'll be off for several days for Christmas, though I'll probably have to check in to see what's up, but I wish you all the happiest of holidays and yes, a very merry Christmas! And I particularly want to congratulate Governor Kulongoski on being placed on Grover Norquist's naughty list this year for refusing to sign his "No New Taxes" pledge.

Posted by Becky at 11:02 AM |

December 21, 2006

Christians Win Court Fight – As They Should

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that student-led Christian clubs must be treated the same way as other clubs at public schools. The school in question had been charging the Christian club a fee to use school facilities during after-school hours even though other nonprofit clubs and groups meeting on the premises, such as 4-H, band and athletic booster clubs, FFA and FHA, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts, did not have to pay the fee. The Court said that while the government has the power to preserve its property for the use for which it was intended, once it opens that property up to private speech, it may not discriminate based on the viewpoint of the speaker. The decision makes for very interesting and educational reading for anyone interested in the juxtaposition of free speech, public schools, and religion.

Not everyone, of course, is happy about the Christian club's presence in schools. Jews on First, for example, points out that the club's entire purpose is to evangelize children. While I sympathize with their position, I never saw a kid who went to Bible classes with his friend be harmed by it. Exposure to Christianity and Christian friends at that age is actually important in helping children avoid irrational prejudice against religion later in life (unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Christian kids themselves, who often become antagonistic toward religion in adulthood, as some of us at PK can attest). Moreover, if kids don't have religion at home, they're not very likely to pick it up in any lasting way at school.

Ultimately, it all comes down to how serious we are about the First Amendment and its protections for all speakers. If school administrators were allowed to discriminate, we might not like their decisions. How would you feel if your children's school allowed meetings teaching kids how to raise farm animals for food or hunter safety, but banned meetings of an animal rights club? What if they allowed military recruiters to come talk to the kids, but banned peace activists? What if they allowed a club for kids who have taken a vow of abstinence, but banned a group that supports gay rights? Take any of these examples and imagine you live in a conservative community and the decisions were reversed. The unwanted clubs would not even have to officially be banned if they were charged fees that made it too expensive for them to continue meeting, as was the case with the subject Christian club. Like it or not, schools must make but one simple decision: whether they will open their facilities to the public - all the public – or only allow government speech to occur there. And that is as it should be.

Posted by Becky at 02:19 PM |

Google this: Pastor arrested

Becky noted earlier today that when one puts the words "pastor" and "arrested" into the Google search engine, it yields a stunning result.

See for yourself.

Posted by Carla at 12:58 PM |

Why Good People Break Campaign Finance Laws

The news that Oregon state Rep. Donna Nelson may find herself under criminal investigation for hiding thousands of dollars of contributions in her recent campaign does not surprise me – not because of anything related to Donna Nelson in particular, but rather to the fact that at least on the right in Oregon, there is little real appreciation of, or thought given to, the reasons for our campaign finance laws. They are often viewed in the same way we view speed limits – if you think no one is looking and it is expedient to ignore them (or if you can find a way around them), you will. Even good people on the right often seem to have a fairly lackadaisical attitude about campaign finance, and if those good people are, like Donna Nelson, a bit empty in the attic or easily influenced by less scrupulous members of the right-wing establishment, sneaky schemes like this can fly under their moral radar.

The complaint against Donna Nelson is that she signed a statement on October 1 stating she did not expect to raise or spend more than $2,000 on her campaign (even though she had $12,500 left in her campaign account from the 2004 election), but she had apparently collected and sat on thousands of dollars of contributions from various conservative PACs, some dated as early as July, which she then reported as having been received in October. Her story is that she didn't get around to going through her mail until then, so she did not know she had even received these contributions. I am a bit skeptical of her entire story because she had said she did not expect to have to run a tough campaign, and yet others knew better, witness a post by "sponge" on Cwech Blog on September 19, two weeks before her statement was filed: " You can hope Donna sits this one out, but she won't. She's sitting on a lot of money and will spend it liberally in a few weeks."

Donna Nelson claims she has very little help and that the reports take a lot of time. Having filed a good number of very lengthy and complex campaign finance reports, I find her argument that the difficulty and time-consuming nature of the reports was responsible for her failure to report these contributions to be ludicrous. Her report was only 18 pages long. A report of that length is pretty much a simple listing of names, addresses, occupations, and dollar amounts, as well as a listing of expenditures – which can be pretty much copied right out of a check register, and only a few items are listed on each page of the form. If it was too difficult, then we can only assume Donna Nelson is indeed the intellectual light-weight some have described her as being.

That said, by all accounts she is a nice person who cares about her constituents and works hard for them. As Ted Piccolo said back in October, "The biggest rub on Rep. Nelson is that she is kinda quirky. Big deal, we all have our quirks and at least hers are not illegal." Well, maybe they are, but this gets to my point. It is really easy in the climate on the right (and perhaps the left, but I don't know) for even good people to miss the real purpose of campaign finance laws and thereby fail to see what the big deal is in breaking them a little here and there.

Campaign reporting laws exist because the public wants to know who is supporting candidates and measures. This is, after all, government by the people and for the people. If the people are being asked to make a sound decision, they need complete information. Too many politicians do not respect the fact that the people are the governors. They want to keep information from the people and manipulate the people so as to achieve their own ends, which may not be in the best interests of the people.

But I am not so sure that is what happened in Donna Nelson's case. My bet is this never even occurred to her (though a conscious disrespect of the will of the people may well have motivated her advisers). She probably just thought she was going to pull off a clever maneuver and outwit her opponent. The problem here is that the culture within the political system, at least on the right, is so focused on strategy and the game of winning elections and so disassociated with the people that otherwise good and decent people will break campaign finance laws with no more of a thought than they would give to keeping a wary eye out for a police officer while occasionally driving too fast.

Posted by Becky at 12:19 PM |

They're dropping like flies

Its been a tough year for the high profile Christianists who've been talking moral smack from the pulpit.

My theory that those ministers who squawk the loudest about sex and sexual perversity are themselves closeted sexual pervs continues to pile on anecdotal evidence.

First there was the completely creepy Ted Haggard, whose exploits with a gay prostitute have been well documented now.

Then there's Paul Barnes, another mega-church founder who was schtooping the penises too--and resigned.

And now: Huge Southern Baptist Church rocked by sexual abuse charges:

A church whose former pastor was president of the Southern Baptist Convention has been rocked by allegations of child abuse, PageOneQ has learned.

Pastor Paul Williams, who directs prayer programs and special projects at the Bellevue Baptist Church outside of Memphis, has been forced to take a leave while a church committee investigates charges that Williams sexually molested a family member 17 years ago. Williams has been at Bellevue for 34 years, reports Agape Press, a news service run by the American Family Association.

In a statement issued by the church and obtained by PageOneQ, the church's personnel committee says that Williams has taken a paid leave of absence in the wake of "a past, but highly concerning moral failure."

The pastor of the church, Paul Gaines, apparently knew about the sexual molestation and didn't do anything.

Apparently telling other people how to be moral doesn't extend to himself for Pastor Gaines.

Posted by Carla at 08:55 AM |

December 20, 2006

Congressman Displays Outrageous Anti-Muslim Bias

I don't think I have ever seen such a blatant expression of anti-Muslim bias as that demonstrated by Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) in a letter he wrote to a constituent, which was accidentally copied to the Sierra Club:

When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”

It is so bad and so bald-faced that I don't even know what else to say about it other than that this man ought to be completely ashamed of himself, but obviously is beyond understanding why.

Posted by Becky at 10:24 AM |

Leave Santa Alone

I was a little annoyed to learn that a New York parent whose child is not Christian issued a complaint about the school bus driver's custom of wearing a Santa hat at Christmas time each year. If he had placed a manger scene on the bus, I could understand it, but for crying out loud, Santa is a secular, festive character who is all about fun, and has nothing to do with God.

Fortunately, Kenneth Mott, the bus driver, has been told he can go ahead and wear his Santa hat again (he threatened to quit over the matter), so the kids on the bus can have a few moments every school day to smile and enjoy the holiday season.

I don't blame non-Christians for wanting to hear "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and retailers who want to show their respect for all their customers by dropping the word "Christmas" from their décor, advertising and outreach are A-OK with me. I also agree that other seasonal holiday symbols should be displayed with equal prominence as Christian holiday symbols on public property.

But in the modern world, Santa Claus is no longer a Christian character. He is entirely secular. He's simply a symbol of the joy of giving and the anticipation of receiving special treats from the people who love you. That's something most Americans enjoy, religious or not. It's time for people to stop being offended by the secular Santa Claus and spoiling everyone else's fun just because they don't want to join in any reindeer games.

I really like the attitude of this site, which gives a brief outline of the history of Santa Claus:

Actually the old "cult" of Santa Claus incorporates many traditions: Christian and Pagan, Old Catholic, Scandinavian, Dutch, German and English.

Santa brings us all together! Kids all over the world know who Santa is... And although he may be a little commercial, who can help, but love the jolly old elf?

It's the Idea of giving that reminds us; we are all on this planet together, for the long run.

Posted by Becky at 10:16 AM |

Human Rights for "Conscious" Robots?

One of my sons just bought himself an i-Dog. For those who don't know, it's a little robotic dog that reacts to touch and to sounds – especially music – with different colored pulsing lights in its face, dancing motions, growls, etc. It is programmed to give signals when it is "hungry" for more music or for a certain kind of music. It "likes" to be caressed on its head and chin, but gets "angry" if you touch its tail. And I have noticed my kids are beginning to relate to it as if it is a living thing. For instance, last night at bedtime, the excuse for not going to bed was that the i-Dog was "hungry" and needed to be "fed" some music before bed. I, of course, reminded my son that his i-Dog is not alive and has no feelings, and I ordered him to turn it off. He felt sorry for the i-Dog and thought I was being mean to it. And he wasn't joking.

The reason I tell this story is because this morning I read that the UK government has commissioned, and its chief scientist has sponsored a number of papers looking toward the future of technology, and one of them is a paper stating that in the future, robots should be given full human rights if they are "conscious." In light of my experience so far with the i-Dog, I was particularly struck by one of the writer's comments: “Would it be acceptable to kick a robotic dog even though we shouldn’t kick a normal one? There will be people who can’t distinguish that so we need to have ethical rules to make sure we as humans interact with robots in an ethical manner so we do not move our boundaries of what is acceptable.”

If a scientist is actually proposing that we must in the future allow robots to vote and engage in all the other rights and responsibilities given to humans simply because some people will be so enamored with the machines' ability to mimic humans that they begin to believe the robots are actually alive, then we are really in trouble. After watching my children "interact" with their i-Dog, however, I fear he may be right.

Posted by Becky at 09:50 AM |

December 19, 2006

The Profitable "War on Christmas"

Christian groups are raking in the dough - and hoping to expand their membership lists - this year by playing up the supposed "War on Christmas." Buttons, bumper stickers, pins, magnets, and "Christmas packs" are selling in the hundreds of thousands. Anita Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, says Christmas is a good time for Christian groups to do outreach because people "sit up and take notice" when something is affecting Christmas. The hope is that those people will then "look at the other issues we're involved in," such as gay marriage and abortion. The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, calls the "War on Christmas" a "fund-raising scam … in the worst sense – it's fighting something that doesn't even exist." Groups plan to repeat their effort this spring when the country takes up the "War on Easter."

Posted by Becky at 10:49 AM |

Amusing Mud-Slinging at Norquist

It's a highly entertaining spat that never ceases to result in some of the best insults in Washington, and it looks like the ongoing feud between John McCain and Grover Norquist isn't about to end any time soon despite Norquist's claims over the past several months that McCain is secretly trying to make amends. In the latest round, McCain's political advisor, Democrat John Weaver, has taken Norquist to the woodshed for making that claim, and has exhibited a level of enthusiasm that has surprised even his fellow McCain staffers. "I think [Norquist is] just lonely with Jack Abramoff gone to prison," Weaver told the Roll Call newspaper. "I think he's probably just sad and lonely and delusional. . . . Only when he has pimped himself enough with reporters does his name even come up."

That is probably less outrageous than when McCain's staffers accused Norquist of being Abramoff's gay lover, but equally amusing. Clearly, the McCain camp has exhibited exceptional creativity in its ability to hurl insults. I can't think of a single funny line that's come out of the Norquist camp.

If you remember, Norquist claims he wouldn't be in trouble in the Abramoff scandal if not for McCain's grudge against him. It was McCain's investigation that uncovered Norquist's dirty dealings with Abramoff, laundering at least $1.5 million in funds to help Abramoff's clients. So obviously, it's all McCain's fault.

The feud between the two actually began years ago when McCain took up campaign finance reform, which is strongly opposed by Norquist. McCain's staff at the time said the reason Norquist opposed it was because it threatened his profits, which of course we now know is true. So Norquist personally organized the campaign against McCain on behalf of Bush in 1999, and he almost single-handedly ended McCain's presidential aspirations. Norquist's group of allies, who sided with him against McCain, included the NRA and the Christian Coalition, which still had clout at that time.

No doubt about it, the ill-will runs deep on both sides here. I for one am looking forward to many more fistfuls of mud being slung at Norquist in the coming years. He has more than earned it.

Posted by Becky at 10:21 AM |

December 18, 2006

Working overtime to offend the majority

I'm definitely gonna hafta get this card for Christmas next year

More of this kind of good stuff here.

(Via The Merc)

Posted by Carla at 03:35 PM |

Greg Byrne is a Liar

Just so you know, Greg Byrne is a liar. He has knowingly lied about me and about Sizemore's culpability in his letter to the editor of The Oregonian.

I won't respond to the details in Byrne's letter because I've already addressed them in my previous posts:

How Can You Tell When Bill Sizemore is Lying?
Response to Anonymous at NW Republican
The Oregonian Compares Sizemore to O.J.
Sorry, Ted, You're Wrong on Sizemore Again
Rich Man, Poor Man – Which Is It?
Bill Sizemore Says the Darndest Things
Sizemore: The Black Knight
Will Sizemore Let Another "Friend" Twist in the Wind?
My Forging of Signatures on Petitions
Whiny Billy Comes to Mannix's Rescue
Poor Billy Sizemore and His Poor Friends

Perhaps Byrne is assuaging any guilt he may have ever felt by clinging to that wonderful lawyerly attitude that every client, no matter how guilty, deserves vigorous representation - including in the court of public opinion. Perhaps he is concerned because he may have gone a bit further over the years by providing hands-on assistance in covering Sizemore's butt. Perhaps he is even as much a predator as Sizemore, looking only to bleed off as much cash and fame as he can from this epic fight against the big bad unions.

Whatever he is after, I'm awfully glad he didn't win his bid a couple years back to serve on the Oregon Supreme Court. It is comforting that Oregonians do pay attention to the character of the people they place in that important position.

Posted by Becky at 10:45 AM |

Conservatives Admit Judicial Bias (Sort Of)

There is only one way to interpret the fear conservatives have about losing the majority in the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals: they know "their" judges are biased to the right and they fear a neutral or even leftward bias. With three or four impending openings in the Court and Democratic control of Congress, "one of the nation's most conservative and influential courts could soon come under moderate or even liberal control." The Court covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and North and South Carolina. But many of its decisions have affected the entire country.

Some of the 4th Circuit's best-known rulings, upheld by the Supreme Court, include striking down a law allowing rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court and preventing the Food and Drug Administration from regulating tobacco.

In 1999, the 4th Circuit overturned the requirement that police read suspects their rights before interrogating them. The Supreme Court later reaffirmed the Miranda rights.

During the Bush administration, the 4th Circuit has been the court of choice on national security, issuing key rulings that backed the government on the detention of enemy combatants and the prosecution of Sept. 11, 2001, conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

I'm glad some moderation could soon be coming to this clearly biased court. However, it's high time we all stopped buying into this charade that judges always set aside their personal biases in the courtroom or that they are any less susceptible to catering to special interests than any other human being. Conservatives are the most vocal about activist judges, but their side is equally guilty of judicial activism, as evidenced by their fear of a potentially moderate 4th Circuit Court.

Posted by Becky at 10:00 AM |

"They hate our freedom"

Or so Bush and his officials have told us repeatedly when explaining their rationale for waging this vast war on terrorism.

Bullshit.

Today's NYT has an extremely compelling account of American Donald Vance's experience as a detainee in Iraq.

If they'll treat an innocent American citizen like this, how much worse do they treat innocent Iraqis? And how in the name of God can anyone expect that similarly detained Muslims could fail to bitterly hate Americans because of it?

How many of our soldiers over there have been killed or will be killed by relatives of a wrongly detained and badly treated Iraqi looking for revenge?

They hate us for our freedom?

Bullshit!

Posted by Kevin at 09:54 AM |

Fear Everyone!

We can no longer afford to be afraid only of Arab Muslims. Now we have to be afraid of everybody. Al Quada has just completed the year-long training of a 12-man team of westerners in Afghanistan in preparation for future terrorist attacks on their home countries. They include two Norwegians, one Australian and nine Britons and they have been prepared to act as underground recruiters and organizers back home. And some, if not all, may have succeeded in traveling from home, through Pakistan and into Afghanistan without ever leaving any official trace – in other words, there is no evidence they ever left their home countries.

Britain cannot possibly watch all the people it knows are traveling back and forth to Pakistan each year, where terrorist connections are being made, let alone those it does not know left the country. This is a problem for the U.S.:

One particular worry is that under current practice, British visitors to the States are not required to apply in advance for temporary visas, which are routinely granted to any British passport holder who is not on a watch list. In other words, the door is wide open for Britain's growing ranks of young jihadists, even those who have attended Qaeda training camps, if they are unknown to intelligence agencies.

This is certainly a serious matter, and one which I hope will actually be the focus of all that wiretapping, library use-checking, email-reading, and other intrusive attention being doled out by federal anti-terrorism officials. That is, if they can squeeze some time to track real terrorists into their busy schedules.

Maybe it is finally time to accept the need to screen Grandma at the airport. You just can't know for certain whether she was secretly trained by al Quaida or perhaps even recruited to serve as a suicide bomber. Speaking of which, perhaps we should also screen all persons seeking to enter crowded areas. And to really be safe, everyone should just stay home as much as possible, watch sporting events on television, wait until the PlayStation 3 is available by mail-order, telecommute, and get one of those handy home-delivery services for groceries. Otherwise, not only are you risking becoming a victim of a terrorist attack, but you are also behaving suspiciously like a would-be terrorist.

Remember, people. We must all be very afraid.

Posted by Becky at 09:52 AM |

Throw another Yule Log on the Christmas War fire

As if the irresponsible blatherings of the hate-mongering John Gibson weren't enough, columnist Mark Steyn stokes the War-on-anyone-who-wants-to-say-Happy-Holidays:

That's, in effect, an ancient pop song that alludes to the birth of the Savior as a call to communal merry-making: No wonder it falls afoul of an overpoliced overlitigated "diversity" regime. Speaking of communal songs, they didn't sing "White Christmas" round the manger. A Jew wrote that. It's part of the vast Jewish contribution to America's common culture.

Seattle Airport could certainly put up a menorah. And maybe a commemoration of Eid, and Kwanzaa, and something for solstice worshippers, and perhaps something for litigious atheists. But to do that is to turn society into a kind of greater airport departure lounge -- to say it's no more than an assemblage of whoever happens to be in it at any particular time. Successful societies (unlike plastic trees) have deep roots: Nobody should be obliged to believe Jesus is the son of God, but likewise nobody should take such umbrage at trees and tinsel and instrumental versions of "Silent Night" that he would deny the reality of the land he lives in to the vast majority of his fellow citizens. Because the logic of that leads not to a diverse secular society but to an atomized ersatz non-society. And, as those other touchy types the Islamists well understand, once you put reality up for grabs, all kinds of pathologies suddenly become viable.

To be clear, I'm not in favor of telling carolers to put a sock in it or raze Christmas Trees just because it might offend someone. But I think Steyn's point goes well beyond that.

To add context, Steyn is objecting to carolers being asked to stop singing Christmas songs while skater Sasha Cohen (a Jew) is doing her gig in California. Steyn is also objecting to a Jewish rabbi threatening suit against SeaTac airport near Seattle for having Christmas trees without a menorah.

The core of Steyn's argument rests on the notion that the majority of the United States is Christian so therefore the rest of us should shut up and take it. We must stop expecting diversity during the Christmas season. Without this we'll have to deal with an Islamic extremist type set of splinter groups that aren't tied by a common thread.

This is of course premised on the notion that at some point the United States was based on a commonality of culture from the outset--nothing could be further from the truth.

The original thirteen colonies were extremely culturally diverse. When the Irish emigrated to the US in the mid-1800s, they brought their very own distinct cultures with them, including Catholicism--which was unwelcome to many Americans (not so different from the way Latin American immigrants to the US are treated now).

We are not a common culture kind of nation. Our strength as a nation doesn't stem from any sort of false cultural commonality. Our strength comes from the ability to come together DESPITE our cultural, spiritual and racial differences as Americans.

Individuals like John Gibson and Mark Steyn work to divide us and in doing so weaken us as a nation. Their attempts to force a common culture on those of us who don't seek it or want it only serves to set us against one another--rather than to work together to vanquish our common foes.

This will inevitably bring about the undoing of our nation unless we push back against it. Hard.

Posted by Carla at 08:33 AM |

December 17, 2006

Newt Needs First Amendment Lesson

Newt Gingrich needs a lesson in First Amendment law, and he needs it now. In responding to outrage over his comments a week ago on the need to reconsider the First Amendment, he is only digging his hole deeper. He acts as if he is being quite reasonable, and he does not hesitate to play to the right wing on the issue, in hopes that he will win their support for his presidential bid. His argument is that the threat of a terrorist attack that could wipe out a city is so serious that we must be willing to give up some of the breadth of the First Amendment – and that anyone who would disagree must be an evil leftist.

"Our friends at the 'ACLU left,' of course, were staggered at this concept," Gingrich told an audience of Republicans at a Christmas banquet. "How could we talk about anything less than 100 percent free speech? How could we consider in any way thinking about this issue?"

I know some here will be particularly outraged at his thoughts about free expression with regards to the six imams who were thrown off an American Airlines flight a couple of weeks ago. He used the incident to underscore his belief that the government can tell the difference between terrorists and non-terrorists in its effort to fight "threatening expression."

"Those six people should have been arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists," Gingrich said. "And the crew of the U.S. airplane should have been invited to the White House and congratulated for being correct in the protection of citizens." …"If you give me any signal in the age of terrorism that you're a terrorist, I'd say the burden of proof was on you," Gingrich said.

Here's the part where he is most off-base. Under the First Amendment, the government is not allowed to regulate speech differently based on who the speaker is OR what they are saying (with a few notable exceptions). Further, the burden of proof is never an easy thing to overcome, and speech is considered of such extreme importance in this country that in free speech cases, other than strictly commercial speech, the burden of proof is always on the government. Thus, if Newt wants to mess with the burden of proof or change the rules for "terrorists" and "terrorist speech," he would be doing so for everyone and for all speech, not just "terrorists."

This ought to be completely obvious to Newt, which is why I think his true motives are different than he is portraying. He is acting as if his suggestions are no big deal, joking that he "must have hit a nerve" and saying "the 1st Amendment is not a suicide pact." He says detractors, who are engaging in "knee-jerk hysteria," are refusing to acknowledge the real threats to this country and says even the words of terrorists are weapons (what ever happened to "words will never harm me"?). Last I heard, people in this country could say whatever they wished, and they were held accountable for the results of their speech. Rather than prosecute people for saying, "come join me in terrorism" we should conduct surveillance to find out whether actual recruitment, training, or planning are occurring.

Newt even goes so far in his deceitful rhetoric as to claim that we should be particularly afraid and willing to give up our free speech because two weeks ago Iranian President Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to us in which he "threatens to kill Americans in large numbers if we don't submit to his demands," something I certainly did not see anywhere in the letter. Did you? If Newt is willing to lie about something so easy to check out, why should we trust him with our most sacred right – the right to speak freely? I say we should hold him accountable for his abuse of free speech by squelching his presidential aspirations for good.

Posted by Becky at 04:38 PM |

Stem Cell Nightmare in Ukraine

The BBC is reporting that many "healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells." While elsewhere in the world stem cell harvesting and research has been restricted or banned, Ukraine moving quickly to fill the gap, potentially utilizing practices that would never be allowed in an environment of proper certification and oversight. In other words, it may very well be that the lack of availability of stem cells from legitimate sources is allowing the development of an underground supply system that relies on the gruesome harvest of stem cells from murdered healthy newborns, stolen from their parents by the hospitals in which they are born.

It certainly seems that whenever a broad demand for something exists but that thing is banned due to questions of morality, the unscrupulous will seek to make their fortune by providing it illegally. We've seen it with alcohol and drugs, among other things. Sometimes banning a thing is the right thing to do, such as child pornography, because the price of the activity is unbearably high, whether legal or illegal. But often the result of the banning is even more immoral than the thing that was banned in the first place. I tend to think that is the case here.

It seems that many industries around the world that profit from the harvesting of any sort of material from living creatures, whether animal or human, whether legal or illegal, tend to succumb to cruel behavior in an effort to increase profit margins. China, for example, is known to harvest organs for transplant and collagen used to enhance the lips of European women from executed prisoners, as well as to skin animals alive for the worldwide fur industry. We even see cruelty in the commercial fur, meat and poultry industries within the United States. Those who benefit legally from such products are also culpable for the cruelty involved in bringing the products to them and must begin to demand humane and moral practices in all industries that rely on products derived from living creatures.

Posted by Becky at 03:07 PM |

December 16, 2006

Allowing "God to restore his favor to America"

Rude Pundit writes about the Family Research Council's latest Prayer Team marching orders courtesy of FRC head honcho Tony Perkins. It seems that Perkins is deeply concerned about the results of this year's Congressional elections. Presumably all those who voted for Democrats were defying God's will because "The next two years may bring the most profoundly anti-faith, family and freedom initiatives in the history of Congress." And Perkins wants his Prayer Team to "Pray that God will multiply His prayer army during the next two years. May He train men, women and young people to be disciplined, focused, faith-filled and equipped to challenge whatever may come." The point of this effort is clearly the 2008 Presidential elections. "Pray that God will intervene to give America a President who knows and fears Him, who will lead our nation in righteousness and call Americans to the kind of prayer and to repentance that will allow God to restore his favor to America."

Allowing God to restore his favor to America implies that sometime in the sainted past America was under divine favor. But when?

Was America under God's favor when black slavery was officially condoned? When a white man could rape his black slaves when and where he wished? When slaves could be whipped to within an inch (and well beyond) of his life at the sole disgression of the slave owner?

Was America under God's favor during the so-called "nigger hunts" which claimed thousands of lives in the 1860s and 1870s?

Was America under God's favor in 1904 when black sharecropper Luther Holbert and his wife were chained to a tree and an audience of 600 white spectators enjoyed treats like deviled eggs, lemonade, and whiskey in a festive atmosphere while Mr. and Mrs. Holbert had first their fingers chopped off one by one, followed by their ears, followed by a severe beating that left Mr. Holbert with one eye dangling from it's factured socket, followed by "spirals...of raw, quivering flesh" being extracted from both Holberts via a corkscrew before the couple were finally burned alive?

Was America under God's favor in 1951 when black sharecropper Matt Ingram was convicted of "rape by leer" for oogling a white women 75 feet away from him?

Was America under God's favor when ethnic cleansing led to an estimated four thousand Cherokee deaths on the infamous Trail of Tears in 1838?

Was America under God's favor in 1890 when L. Frank Baum, editor of South Dakota's Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer newspaper (later to become famous as the author of "The Wizard of Oz"), advocated the extermination of all America's Indians just one week prior to the slaughter at Wounded Knee, which history books conveniently describe as possibly having been started by the very natives who were slaughtered?

The nobility of the Redskin is extinquished and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The whites by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced, better they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are. - L. Frank Baum

Was America under God's favor during any of the numerous other acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing from it's earliest days throught the end of the 19th century?

Was America under God's favor during the Salem Witch Trials when 20 were executed and between 175 and 200 were imprisoned (five of whom died in prison)?

Was America under God's favor when Abrahan Lincoln was murdered? When John F. Kennedy was murdered? When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor? When the Civil War shed more American blood than any other war in our history? When the KKK roamed the South and terrorized blacks?

When was America "under God's favor" and what events demonstrate that favor?

Posted by Kevin at 12:45 PM |

Cuz we're gay loving, God-hating sin machines

Storm Slams Pacific Northwest:

Wind gusts of up to 100 miles per hour were reported in some areas, downing trees and power lines. The National Weather Service issued high wind, blizzard and flood warnings for counties along the coast and inwards in both states. Two people died in traffic accidents caused by the weather and a third person died when she became trapped in her flooded basement.

Check out the name of the source: Disaster News Network

Just in case you weren't up to date on your disaster news, these guys have gotcha covered.

Heh.

(via Chuck Currie)

Posted by Carla at 10:49 AM |

December 15, 2006

Matt Drudge: A Liberal Accomplice

Alicia Colon, in "The Mendacity Of the Liberal Press," states her belief that Matt Drudge, intentionally or not, is an "accomplice to the [liberal] distortion of news reporting" and "must be held responsible."

[T]he propaganda of the enemedia — an excellent descriptive term coined by one poster to Lucianne.com — continues to sully news coverage, thanks to Mr. Drudge. A study of press bias by a professor of political science at the University of California-Los Angeles, Tim Groseclose, listed the Drudge Report as one of the most liberal sites on the Web because it consistently posts articles from left-of-center sources.

Colon blames Drudge for President Bush's low approval ratings because he consistently biases headlines to enhance the failures in Iraq. She also blames him for sullying the reputation of the Pope.

I read the Drudge Report every day and I will agree that I see bias there. But certainly not left-leaning. Drudge frequently links to articles and editorials that favor the views of the far right. I think Colon is exhibiting behavior that is all-too-typical of the right – using threats, denigration, and intimidation in order to keep the flock from straying anywhere near rationality.

Posted by Becky at 03:17 PM |

Death in 34 Minutes

If we have the technology to put a 100 pound dog to sleep peacefully in seconds, why the hell should it take 34 minutes to execute a human being by lethal injection? Are people really that much more difficult to kill than dogs? Or have we found some sick way of torturing criminals for a little while before they finally die? I ask this because my father's last day of life was spent under the influence of heavy doses of morphine. He appeared to be non-responsive unless you were watching closely, but I could see that he heard everything we were saying and was fully aware, but unable to move. Is this what we're doing with lethal injection? Why must it take so long?

Posted by Becky at 12:38 PM |

Putting the Corporate Fox in Charge of the Organic Hen House

The Bush Administration has made an unprecedented, blatant attempt to place as many corporate agribusiness and industrial farming representatives on the National Organic Standards Board as possible. That Board is responsible for advising the USDA on interpretation and implementation of federal organic laws, among other duties. It is supposed to be made up of a cross-section of experts in the organic field. But at least three of the four new appointments to the Board are anything but organic industry representatives. These three new USDA appointees are: Katrina Heinze of General Mills (Heinze was already forced to resign from the Board once because of consumer protests, and General Mills has long fought aggressively against labeling genetically engineered foods); Tracy Miedema of Stahlbush Farms (a primarily non-organic operation that uses Monsanto products); and Steve DeMuri of Campbells Soup. For more on why this matters, check out the Accidental Hedonist's post on Labels and Standards.

Posted by Becky at 11:39 AM |

A letter from God

Via an email from a friend:

A LETTER FROM GOD

Dear Children,

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of you're predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival; although, I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth just, GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now, having said that let Me go on.

If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can and may remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching that explains who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks are. If you have forgot that one, look at John 15:1-8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it.

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing George W. complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile it could make the difference. Also, you might consider supporting the local Hot-Line: they talk with people like that every day.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary, especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name. You may already know someone like that.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them (and I suspect you don't) buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Marines, the Salvation Army or some other charity that believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

P.S. Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those you love and, remember, I LOVE YOU.

Posted by Kevin at 11:11 AM |

December 14, 2006

Is McCain a Dark Horse?

Buried in the middle of a news report on McCain's visit to Baghdad is a very interesting quote.

"I do not know where (additional troops) will come from. I am told time after time that United States can handle other contingencies like North Korea and Iran so it seems to me that we can come up with troops to have here."

Could McCain be playing a high-stakes game of bluff with the Bush administration here?

When asked how many additional troops would be needed, McCain floated the suggestion of between 5 and 10 brigades. A brigade can be anywhere from 1,500 to 3,500 personel. So if we average it out at 2,500 soldiers per brigade we see that McCain suggested between 12,500 and 25,000 additional troops would be needed.

Interestingly enough, General Schoomaker, the Army's top General, today warned that his force "will break" at current deployment levels if the Army can't get thousands more troops as well as greater ability to call up reserves to active duty.

Noting the strain put on the force by operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the global war on terrorism, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said he wants to grow his half-million-member Army beyond the 30,000 troops already added in recent years.

Though he didn't give an exact number, he said it would take significant time and commitment by the nation, noting some 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers could be added per year.

Also out today is a report in the WaPo about the Joint Chiefs of Staff urging a change in war strategy.

The chiefs do not favor adding significant numbers of troops to Iraq, said sources familiar with their thinking...

If what General Schoomaker said is accurate then wouldn't it stand to reason that the Joint Chiefs don't recommend adding signifcant numbers of troops to Iraq because they don't have significant numbers of troops to spare???

So what is McCain's game? Was his statement about not knowing where the additional troops will come from a strategic comment or just a throw-away reply?

Posted by Kevin at 12:58 PM |

How Can You Tell When Bill Sizemore is Lying?

Answer: His lips are moving.

Bill Sizemore is over at News with Views whining about how The Oregonian compared him to O.J. Simpson and saying that he didn't do anything wrong. It was all me and Kelli Highley – oh, yes, and that corrupt evil liberal Judge Jerome LaBarre. And the evil liberal unions were politically motivated and the evil liberal media hates him so they helped the evil liberal unions and it has all been just one massive effort to stop him from giving Oregonians the right to vote on good conservative issues that matter to them. Having just responded to "Anonymous" I'm not really in the mood to have to respond to Sizemore, but being that I'm "confrontational," I might just as well.

Sizemore is a master at obfuscation and deception, and his approach in this article is really classic. He begins by saying some things that are true, and then he cleverly twists the reader into believing things that are not true. For instance, I will give Sizemore the point that LaBarre had a conflict of interest in the case and should not have been presiding over it. He did suppress evidence that might have helped Bill on some points, but by no means all. That said, I could read it in the jury's faces that they knew I was telling the truth about what happened, and the evidence was so overwhelming, while Sizemore's response was so obviously untrue, that I don't think he ever had a chance. So I don't believe the outcome would have been any different with another judge.

Sizemore also correctly notes that the less-than-stellar reporting in the media may have led the average person to believe Sizemore himself forged signatures. That, too, is not true, as I have said repeatedly. And, as I have said repeatedly – and testified in court – Sizemore not only did not forge signatures, he also did not encourage or even tolerate it.

But here is where the twist begins. The case was not just about forgery. It was about a pattern of illegal behavior. He doesn't tell the reader that. Rather, here is where he hopes to create a sense of outrage over the red herring he has placed in the forefront so that the reader will be blinded to the rest of the story (though he cleverly promises to tell the rest of the story, but doesn't).

As for the other charges against OTU, never in this country have such legally absurd claims ever even gone to trial. Who ever heard of a political entity suing a political opponent for all of their campaign money back tripled, because the other side’s tax returns were allegedly inaccurate?.

In case you can't see it, here is what Sizemore left out. First, the "allegedly" inaccurate tax returns were, in fact, inaccurate and deliberately falsified in order to hide the true purpose and activities of the organization. Second, that was not even close to the entire reason the OEA and AFT sued Sizemore's groups. And third, both with regards to the suit and even outside the reasons for the suit, Sizemore personally was involved in a number of activities that were unethical at best and in many cases probably illegal.

Here are a few of them:

1. Sizemore refused to turn over records the Court ordered him to produce, claiming they had been burned in an arson fire at the OTU offices. I personally cleaned up after that fire and noted that it did not affect any of OTU's records, including those requested by the Court. All the records were safe and sound in the filing cabinets in the other end of the building when I quit, and remaining staff knew exactly where they were. All that was lost in the fire were old petitions and other such papers that had no real value.

2. Sizemore laundered $5,000 for the Portland term limits campaign in the summer of 1998.

3. Sizemore skimmed a quarter of a million dollars out of OTU during the 1999-2000 signature drives by running the contributions through his own signature gathering company and then subcontracting the work. The purpose Bill stated for having formed his own signature gathering company was to "protect" OTU from any future problems he might run into with the Employment Division. But he structured his relationships with subcontractors such that they bore all that liability, not him, meaning his own petitioning company had but one purpose – to serve as a means by which he could siphon money off the petitioning process for himself.

4. Sizemore worked out an arrangement with a major contributor to buy stocks in his petitioning company rather than contribute to it so the money would not have to be reported on contribution and expenditures reports but could still be used to collect signatures (or go into Sizemore's pocket).

5. Neither Sizemore nor his subcontractors kept detailed or even general records of their income and expenses so that proper reports could be filed with the Secretary of State according to law. Instead, they relied on me to try to reconstruct what had happened and use creativity to fill in the many blanks, essentially filing reports that were entirely bogus. Despite my repeated requests that proper records be kept, they never were. Sizemore fully understood that the reports he was asking me to produce were bogus, he gave me substantial bonuses for doing them, and he approved turning them in.

6. Sizemore failed to gather sufficient valid signatures to get an anti-crime measure on the ballot for Steve Doelle, and he had guaranteed he would make it or pay back to the money. So long as I was involved, that money never was paid back. (Sizemore also took out a short term $80,000 loan from a political friend, but last I heard had still not paid it back, long after he had promised he would – once it was in his hands, it became "his" money and you were the bad guy if you wanted it back.)

7. Sizemore had several entities through which money could be moved to render it untraceable and he asked us to transfer money from one account to another to another on the same day on numerous occasions in order to hide its source. He pressured me to make up phony groups with good-sounding names that we could use in advertisements and materials as having endorsed us in order to sound more impressive.

8. Sizemore on several occasions lied to big donors in order to convince them to give more money to our efforts. The lies might be what the money would actually be used for, as well as how much money we had already raised. For one very large project, he raised the money several times over, telling each donor that they were paying for the entire project.

9. He frequently had his employees work on projects for one entity while being paid by another in violation of the law. For example, his 501(c)(3) at times paid the salaries for employees working on signature gathering, political campaigning, his gubernatorial campaign, his radio station, and even his toy business.

10. He repeatedly ordered projects listed as having been completed on his 501(c)(3)'s tax return when those projects had never been done. Once, when we were about to be caught by the evil liberal Oregonian, he had me drop everything and create research papers we had claimed to have done the prior year. He never even read them.

12. He lied to the evil liberal Oregonian during an interview while he was running for Governor, telling them he had not filled out a particular portion of a loan application which, if he had filled it out, would have been fraud. The section included a number of yes or no questions with boxes in which to mark your answers. He later told the staff that the reason he knew he had not filled out that portion of the application was because he always makes neat little "x"s that stay inside the box, but whoever had filled out that portion of the loan application had made big "x"s that strayed outside the boxes on the form. Having seen other forms he filled out, I knew that was true – he does make little "x"s. Unfortunately for Sizemore, however, that interview was tape recorded at his own request, and he had given me the tape. When I listened to it, I heard him tell the reporters the exact opposite of what he told staff he had said – he told them he always makes big "x"s and because the form had little "x"s that stayed inside the box he know he had not filled out that portion of it (a psychoanalyst might have fun considering the self-delusional aspects of this incident). Later, when I saw a photograph of the loan application in the paper, I could clearly see that he also had forged his wife's signature on the form. He made me call her to tell her about it.

13. Sizemore on numerous occasions wrote checks from various OTU entities to a mysterious company called "JLC." When I would ask him about these checks he would tell me to mark it down as printing expenses, but he never produced printed material or receipts. Eventually, I learned from a story in The Oregonian, that evil liberal rag, that Sizemore had once tried to sell fishing club memberships to a supposedly well-stocked private lake called Jeffrey Lake that was owned by Sizemore (the fishing club idea had not even come close to being approved by the proper authorities, nor was the lake stocked, and it and the property on which it was located was purchased with money he had conned from fellow church members for a toy company that unsurprisingly went belly up, information I also gleaned from that evil liberal Oregonian newspaper). Hence "JLC" was Jeffrey Lake Company – in other words, Sizemore himself. The JLC checks were money he took out of the organization and put into his own pocket.

14. Sizemore once came to me at tax time and told me he needed a charitable deduction for his tax return. He asked me to write him a check from the 501(c)(3) for the amount he needed to deduct from his return, we would call it travel expense reimbursement, and the check would be back-dated to the previous December. He then signed the check back over to OTU and took it as a contribution to the organization.

Trust me, there is more. Sizemore was by no means a victim here. And yet, he concludes his martyr piece:

In the final analysis, here’s my sin: I have placed measures on the ballot that have given Oregonians the opportunity to decide for themselves what kind of government they want and how much taxes they want to pay? That’s it.

Sigh.

Posted by Becky at 11:42 AM |

December 13, 2006

Guantanamo Prisoners Abusing Guards

This is unbelievable: Insight Magazine, a conservative publication of the Rev. Moon's Washington Times, is reporting that "al Qaeda" inmates are abusing military personnel at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the military personnel are not allowed to respond. Moreover, the military personnel nonetheless must meet the religious, cultural, health, and entertainment needs of the inmates. Believe it or not, they've even been forced to provide "Harry Potter" in Arabic. Oh, the horror! Give me an a round of anal probing with a light stick any day over that.

Forget all about the abuses Coalition forces have inflicted on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, because what is really important here is that the prisoners are now throwing feces at soldiers, spitting at them, and calling them names. But never fear, the guards "maintain a professional attitude in the face of provocations by al Qaeda inmates."

"It's humiliating," the guard said. "A guy throws feces on you, and you've got to turn right back around and walk down a block that might have 40 people on it. They're making their little comments, and you go home and you change and you come back to work. Take a shower. Go to medical, get your screening."

Fortunately, we now have a brand spanking new $37 million prison over there that has been specially designed to prevent the travesty of guard abuse by prisoners. I wonder if it works the other way around, too.

Posted by Becky at 12:40 PM |

Soy Beans: A Devil Food

The soy bean contains natural estrogen (a female hormone) and has been shown to throw the natural hormone balance out of balance if eaten regularly. So while it may be good for the prostate, it's not good for the libido, which is why monks in Buddhist monasteries ate so much of it (maybe they should force feed the stuff to Catholic priests). The huge amounts of soy that have crept into the American diet are also having some frightening impacts on our children's sexual development. Some are theorizing that soy is responsible for the fact that girls are entering puberty earlier than ever, that many boys are experiencing delayed puberty, that infertility is increasing, that we're all getting fatter, that testosterone levels in American men are falling, and even that homosexuality is on the rise. The latter supposed effect of soy is why some are calling it "a devil food."

Of course, these problems could also be at least partially attributable to environmental estrogens like plastics and pesticides, but that would mean pointing a finger at corporations rather than at the "devil food" that turns your kids into homosexuals. It was the Seventh-Day Adventists (a Christian denomination) who were responsible for the introduction of the soy bean into the American diet. Being a former Seventh-Day Adventist myself and knowing how people of that faith feel about health and homosexuality, not to mention their deep belief that God guides all things and blesses their church, I find it particularly ironic that in their quest to move meat out of the diet they ended up possibly being responsible for a lot of precocious pre-teen girls, gay boys, and women who ended up needing fertility treatments, which resulted in all those extra embryos that people are now fighting over whether to destroy or use for stem cell research.

Back to the article about the "devil food."

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

I'm not a scientist so I won't even argue the point of whether soy makes people gay or not – it may or it may not, and I would find it interesting either way. But assuming the author is correct that soy milk in infancy so dramatically and irreversibly harms a boy's hormones that he truly turns gay, then why would Christians continue to claim people can be cured of being gay? Why would they continue to discriminate against them for something that is not their doing and that they cannot change? And when they understand the science behind something, why would they continue to blame it on the Devil?

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

Okay, maybe I will argue the point of whether soy makes people gay or not. Apparently, it does NOT, at least not that researchers have been able to verify. So go forth and enjoy your soy. It's not from the Devil.

Posted by Becky at 12:36 PM |

Liberal Christians Go After Christian Video Game

Thank God some Christians are speaking out against the violent new Left Behind video game in which players give non-Christians a choice to convert or be killed. The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, two progressive online political groups, are demanding that Wal-Mart stop selling "Left Behind: Eternal Forces." Their eminently moral and upright conservative counterparts in the Christian world have yet to make a fuss.

One aspect of this game in particular should be of interest to PK readers, in light of our recent lengthy discussions about Arab Muslims:

Players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on Carpathia's [the Antichrist's] side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics. Every character comes with a life story.

When asked about the Arab and Muslim-sounding names, Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But "Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ" -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game.

"That is so obvious," he said.

Of course, everyone who has any real sense of the Christian religion knows Christians believe only they will be saved, so this isn't a newsflash. But what is interesting is that Christians also believe Arabs who have converted to Christianity – and there are many – will be in Heaven. Why none of them show up in the game is a mystery – but then again, maybe it isn't.

Posted by Becky at 11:16 AM |

Afraid of the guy in the turban

A piece in yesterday's USA Today talks about fear among the American Muslim community. Fear of what their fellow Americans will do to them. Fear of being targeted by the government simply because they are of Arab descent and practicing Muslims.

DEARBORN, Mich. — The Arab Muslims who came here eight decades ago to work on Henry Ford's new assembly line believed their American future was limitless. But after five years on the home front in America's war on terrorism, many of their descendants are hunkering down, covering up and staying put.

...

"It's as bad as after 9/11," says Rana Abbas-Chami of the Michigan American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "A lot of people are scared. They've changed how they do things."

...

Some blend in. They Anglicize their names (Osama Nimer, electrician, is now Samuel Nimer) or change them (Mohammad Bazzi, nurse, is Alex Goldsmith). They trim their beards. In public, they speak English instead of Arabic. They display the flag. They wear the Tigers cap.

Some lie low. They won't contribute to a Muslim charity, at least not by check, and not if it works overseas. They watch what they say, especially on the phone. They think twice before trying to rent a truck, get a hunting license or take a flying lesson.

...

"Each crisis makes it more difficult. They're always insecure," Suleiman says. "They ask, 'When is it we actually become Americans? When is the hyphen dropped?' "

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations reports of anti-muslim incidents jumped by 30% last year.

Americans seem unsympathetic. Thirty-nine percent say they harbor at least some prejudice against Muslims, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll earlier this year. The same percentage favor requiring U.S. Muslims — citizens included — to carry special IDs. About a third say U.S. Muslims sympathize with al-Qaeda.

Another piece in USA Today just over a year ago looked at homegrown terrorism and it too reveals an American society obsessed with Arab Muslims and not so worried about what the white guy around the corner might be planning.

"Not a lot of attention is being paid to this, because everybody is concerned about the guy in a turban. But there are still plenty of angry, Midwestern white guys out there," says U.S. Marshals Service chief inspector Geoff Shank.

Angry Midwestern white guys not at all unlike Eric Rudolph or Timothy McVeigh. And much of the domestic terrorism threat is associated with organized hate groups. Contrary to popular opinion, hate groups are growing while we remain fixated with Arab Muslims. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, reported a 6% increase in known, identifiable hate groups from 2002 to 2004. There's absolutely no reason to believe that trend has not continued unabated.

Potok, director of the center's Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups, says, "I don't mean to minimize the work of groups with ties to al-Qaeda. Obviously, there's a huge external threat as well. But there's a tendency to want to externalize the threat and say the people who want to hurt us don't look like us, they don't worship the same god and don't have the same skin color."

A piece published a little over a year ago by U.S. News & World Report describes how in the ten years following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, "roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots have been uncovered in the United States." These were actual terrorist plots, not simple hate groups being investigated. Plots! By right-wing terrorists! The left-wing terrorists, such as ELF, get plenty of media coverage. But we rarily hear about the right-wing terrorists. It seems to me that this is due to at least two factors. 1, it's more politically correct to laugh off or otherwise dismiss right-wing extremists. And 2, our government, and the media, focuses more on left-wing and Muslim terrorism at the expense of right-wing terrorism.

The DHS was criticized by hate-group experts in April when an internal planning document on domestic terrorist threats was leaked to the press. The DHS report listed radical leftist groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, which have been involved in numerous arson cases, but not violent right-wing militia and skinhead groups.

I submit to you that both our government and the media largely reflect the priorities of the American people as a whole. Which puts the onus of responsibility ultimately upon you and I.

Lastly here I want to quote a version of the infamous poem attributed to German Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984):
First they came...

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me.

Which is really nothing more than another way to state the truisms penned by Thomas Paine,

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself."

and Benjamin Franklin,

Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.

Posted by Kevin at 11:02 AM |

For your holiday reading list

Based on the discussion in comments to this post, I wanted to draw your attention to a book that will probably open a can of worms--if not minds.

The Good Book by Reverend Peter J. Gomes (Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University and a professor of theology) penned this book in 1996.

The top review on Amazon offers an extremely apt description of the book:

Although a Republican and an ordained Baptist minister, Gomes spends the first part of the book debunking the damage done by conservative Protestants, who in their moral certainty have at times appeared to hijack the Bible as their own. Gomes effectively makes the case that conservative Christians are wrong in their estimation that the Bible is anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and anti-feminist. I haven't seen a more effective argument anywhere else, and this section will be soothing antidote to much of the misinformation that is pervasive in the media. (Where are the liberal Christian voices in the media?)

Gomes' book disabuses many notions on the Bible, including the idea that there's some sort of overwhelming hatred of homosexuality by God.

Its out in paperback. I highly recommend it.

Posted by Carla at 09:36 AM |

December 12, 2006

Response to "Anonymous" at NW Republican

In response to my reports on what the Sizemore "victory" in October (which was upheld last week) really means, an anonymous former employee of Bill Sizemore's, someone who "worked for OTU and on Bill's race for governor," wrote comments at NW Republican claiming that I am confrontational, that I was the only person at OTU who felt things weren't right, that I only cooperated with union attorneys because I was afraid of being prosecuted myself, and that the union attorneys weren't interested in what anyone but me had to say about what happened at OTU. Being the "confrontational" person I am, and considering that someone decided to call attention to the post again over at Loaded Orygun, I have decided I can't simply let those comments sit out there unchallenged.

I know exactly who "Anonymous" is, but I will not name that person publicly. He and I never did hit it off, and I've always chalked it up to his being a chauvinist, not that it matters. What does matter is that what he is saying is false, and if I'm being "confrontational" by saying so, then so be it. Moreover, he knows it is false. He was concerned about Sizemore's behavior, too, and joined me one time in a sit-down meeting in Sizemore's office to confront him about it – and saw the Spinmeister in action himself. He was hurt and upset when we caught Sizemore lying to us. Sizemore's unethical behavior got so bad that this person actually quit over it, or so he told me (though he later surprised me by coming back to work for Sizemore).

"Anonymous" was no innocent babe himself. He asked me to dummy up documents needed to convince radio stations that Sizemore's gubernatorial commercials were true when they were not. He asked me to invent an editorial that could be mailed out to supporters and look like it was actually clipped from a newspaper. He personally raided OTU supplies and furnishings to be used on Sizemore's gubernatorial campaign. He was involved in finding ways to make PAC money work for Sizemore's campaign effort. He knew that one of Sizemore's campaign employees was being paid by the OTU Education Foundation, a 501(c)(3). All of these things originated with Sizemore, not with me. That he could testify in court against my character, as if I was solely responsible for anything that was wrong at OTU, and now write as if nothing untoward was ever committed by Sizemore does not surprise me. He has put his "team" ahead of principle, as he did when he later advised Sizemore to let me go because he knew of my deep concerns, and to live with himself for doing that he has "forgotten" what he used to know.

This person says the three former employees who were called to testify at the trial were not cross-examined by the union attorneys. Did they expect a fishing expedition? Did they want a "howdy-do"? They would not have provided any information voluntarily, and the unions could have no real way of knowing what they did or did not know, so why waste the Court's time with questions? I wish now that I had told the union attorneys what I believed each of the other employees knew, but I didn't see any need to drag others through the wringer I was being put through. I know for a fact that one person the unions interviewed knew information that could have been helpful to their case, but they would not volunteer it and the unions never asked the right questions.

"Anonymous" also seems bugged that no reporters interviewed him or the other two employees who testified to ask about their version of events. The thing is, the reporters weren't then, nor are they today, interested in what really happened. Whether it was laziness or something else, I do not know, but their reporting of what happened was never very detailed – in fact, it never even came close in detail to the earlier story about Sizemore's having conned his former fellow church members and others out of tons of money. That has been a bit of a surprise to me, actually. Before the trial I was kept awake at night fearing the possibility of TV cameras surrounding my house and nonstop coverage. Thankfully, that never happened and nobody cared nearly as much as I had feared they would. In fact, it was quite easy to avoid reporters and only a few tried to telephone me. If "Anonymous" wanted to tell his story, he could easily have issued a press release or letter to the editor. Being an egotistical person, however, he probably really wanted the press to come chasing after him, and since they did not, he has spent that last few years feeling slighted about having missed his opportunity to get those precious 15 minutes.

One paragraph of the anonymous post really stands out for me:

We testified that we were not aware of any wrongdoing by Bill, but, rather, that we all had had trouble with Becky Miller. Becky was confronted many times by staff about things she had done that were unethical and in violation of the law. She did the books and filed all the reports and Bill was, for the most part, unaware of all she was doing. He trusted her and saw her as someone with a lot of ability and promise.

This is Sizemore spin if I ever saw it – particularly the notion that he was taken in by me and had no idea I was doing anything wrong. That is simply not true. First, everyone at OTU was aware of Bill's wrongdoing and my angst over being forced to do more wrong to fix it. Most particularly, Kelli Highly was aware of it and, like me, was pulled into actively participating in it, but like me, she was not one of the three he called in his defense. Unlike "Anonymous" and the other two witnesses from OTU, I actually was cross-examined and it was no fun. But because I was telling the truth, Greg Byrne's questions only served to dig the hole deeper for Sizemore. It was almost surreal. I left the courtroom actually wondering whether Byrne was on the take from the unions.

Most definitely not a single person at OTU or on Bill's campaign ever once confronted me about things I had done that "were unethical and in violation of the law." I have tried to think of anything even close to that which could have been somehow blown out of proportion in this person's mind over the years, but I am not coming up with anything. I know that staff knew what I was doing and they also knew that I was unhappy about it and did it because either Sizemore asked me to do it or because his actions and decisions necessitated it (unless we were willing to accept the consequences of not doing it). None of the staff ever told me I should not be doing it or said they were disappointed in me or did anything close to confronting me about it so far as I can recall.

Those of us that worked with Becky saw things differently and warned Bill and even suggested he fire her. Bill was so wrapped up in the measures and talking to people that he paid little attention to the financial details and what he, I think at the time, considered office politics. We all believed that Becky agreed to testify against Bill because she was threatened with possible jail time, along with Bill, by union attorneys and the fact that Bill had denied Becky a raise in pay.

I don't doubt that "Anonymous" warned Sizemore that I was uncomfortable with his way of doing things and was near the cracking point – in other words, I could be dangerous – and that he should let me go – in fact, Sizemore told me who it was who told him that, which is part of why I know who "Anonymous" really is. And I don't doubt that Sizemore dismissed the warnings because he knew that "Anonymous" and I were not fond of each other – "office politics," as he would have thought.

The notion that Sizemore paid little attention to the financial details because he was so wrapped up in the cause is inaccurate, however. Sizemore kept entirely on top of the things that mattered in the big picture, and he knew and expected that I would make the details "work out" for him. He always approved tax filings before they were sent in – he instructed me as to how the forms should be filled out, he reviewed them and edited them, and he signed them before they were submitted. He reviewed all bills and instructed how much should be paid on each. He made decisions as to when to transfer money from one account to another, when to make contributions, when to solicit contributions, what we would do with contributions, and how we would report contributions.

What neither Sizemore nor the staff at OTU knew was that I had been desperately trying to find another job for a year and would have welcomed being fired, but nobody would hire me because I was so politically tainted. I wanted to leave while Sizemore was running for Governor, but didn't want to bring even more controversy to the campaign. After he lost, he took about a month off, so nobody was there for me to quit to. When he came back he had a fabulous idea for doing seven ballot measures at once, so I resolved to stay for the sake of the measures and try to keep things on the straight and narrow. I was able to do so for awhile, but eventually, when signature gathering ramped up, I realized it was hopeless and decided to leave. I could not even get an interview, something that had never happened to me in my life before. I finally asked for a raise – knowing full well the answer would be "no" – because I was under a ridiculous amount of pressure at home to ask for one and I had finally decided if I was going to be stuck in Hell then why not ask for more money. But the "no" had nothing to do with my leaving.

The timing on my leaving was due to a conversation I had with another prominent activist, one who was very good to me and for whom I have a great deal of gratitude, in which I told him that I felt like I was in prison and I was losing it because of what was going on at OTU. He advised me to leave right away rather than continue doing something that I felt so wrong about. I decided in his office that he was right and that I did have to leave, and the next day I gave my notice. Whether he advised me as a friend or as a politically astute person who saw a danger in my continued presence in Sizemore's operation, I do not know. I prefer to believe the former.

I think just about everyone who knew me knew I was on the edge at the time, spitting mad, terribly conflicted, emotionally exhausted, terrified, and seemingly unable to extricate myself from the situation. And Sizemore simply would not stop what he was doing, meaning I had to keep mopping up after him. I believed then and still believe that I was set up to take the blame for anything that we were caught doing, and Sizemore's insistence on ignorance of it all and his continued claims that I alone was responsible for the tax filings and the many other problems has only served to reinforce that belief.

Was I afraid of going to jail? Yes, absolutely. And yes, that did very much affect my decision to cooperate with the unions in their investigation. Over the months leading up to the trial, I acknowledged the extent of my own culpability, came to terms with it, and made things right with God. I then decided to make things right with Oregon. I literally did not know whether I would have immunity until the day before I testified, but after much soul-searching and, yes, prayer, I had decided to testify anyway because it was the right thing to do.

"Anonymous" says Sizemore "is not in this for the money," that he just wants people to see how the left "cleverly and sneakily" elect the "liberal candidates" that will "fund their liberal agenda." He "does not have a lot of money and we struggled to make payroll," he claims. Sizemore frequently had problems making payroll (though he always managed to work it out somehow). Once, when he was short of funds at both his radio station and OTU he convinced one donor to fund a radio advertising campaign about education. That person gave a large gift of money to the OTU Education Foundation for the advertising campaign, Sizemore instructed me to fudge the amounts spent on the ads so we could retain money for OTU payroll, and a good amount of the rest went to buy ads on his own radio station, thereby enabling him to pay the staff there. That was not unusual behavior for Sizemore, and that is something "Anonymous" ought to know.

More important, "Anonymous" knows very well that during several initiative campaigns we did not have money for payroll specifically because Sizemore was siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars through his petitioning company to pay for things for himself – a pool, appliances, additions to his home, etc. All the money raised would go from OTU straight to Bill's company, then Bill would hire someone else to actually do the work and pay that person only a portion of the money and keep the rest for himself. This was on top of his salary as Executive Director of OTU. Sometimes he had people give money directly, both on the books and off the books, to his company and, unbeknownst to them, keep all the money for himself. None of that money – which was in the hundreds of thousands – was ever reported to the state, either. And I doubt he ever paid taxes on it, though that is just my guess.

This is precisely why I do in fact believe Sizemore is in it for the money. Finding ways to scam people out of money has been his primary occupation for decades. Anonymous really ought to know this. He was there when The Oregonian revealed the truth about Sizemore and he was there when we all were insulted by Sizemore's lying to our faces and dancing around the story as we all tried to deal with its aftermath. "Anonymous" is being willfully ignorant.

And if I was so wrong about all this, there would be evidence of it. Instead, I would remind "Anonymous" that the evidence fully supported my story – a story the unions had pretty much already figured out all on their own before I ever spoke one word to them.

Finally, since the opportunity has presented itself, here is where you can find the latest updates on the Sizemore lawsuit. Republicans will tell you to consider the source. Being that most of my readers are Democrats, I doubt you'll have any trouble with that source being the OEA.

Posted by Becky at 12:08 PM |

December 11, 2006

Another One Bites The Dust

Pastor resigns over homosexuality:

In a tearful videotaped message Sunday to his congregation, the senior pastor of a thriving evangelical megachurch in south metro Denver confessed to sexual relations with other men and announced he had voluntarily resigned his pulpit.

A month ago, the Rev. Paul Barnes of Grace Chapel in Doug las County preached to his 2,100-member congregation about integrity and grace in the aftermath of the Ted Haggard drugs-and-gay-sex scandal.

Now, the 54-year-old Barnes joins Haggard as a fallen evangelical minister who preached that homosexuality was a sin but grappled with a hidden life.

I have friends who believe that many evangelical ministers who rail hard core against homosexuality are in fact repressed homosexuals themselves.

Based on the last few months, I think we've got ourselves some anecdotal evidence to support that conclusion.

Posted by Carla at 04:08 PM |

Listen to the Soldiers

I have run across two deeply moving stories about the experiences of soldiers in Iraq that I recommend you read. The first is the story of Damian Fernandez, a once happy, creative young man with big dreams for his future who was broken by his service in Iraq. Among his experiences there was the witnessing of the blowing up of a group of children, watching their body parts rain down around him, and accidentally stepping on one of their organs. He has been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and rated 70% disabled. He has even been hospitalized to prevent suicide. And now, believe it or not, he is being called back to serve another tour of duty in Iraq.

The other story is by Major Bill Edmonds, a true patriot who has tried to learn the customs of the Iraqi people and show them respect while he is in their country. His observations put a human face on the Iraqi people. He has also come to some interesting conclusions about what we are doing wrong in Iraq and how it could be better handled.

Posted by Becky at 11:21 AM |

The Oregonian Compares Sizemore to O.J.

Now this is funny. The Oregonian is comparing Bill Sizemore to O.J. Simpson.

In 1997 a California jury found O.J. Simpson liable in the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife and a man she was with, but Simpson got out of paying the $33.5 million civil judgment.

If that was a victory for him, it was a perverse one. And that's pretty much how Oregonians ought to look at the courtroom victory claimed by initiative peddler Bill Sizemore last week.

It's nice to see a newspaper just come right out and say clearly what Brad Cain didn't say in his AP report last week, so that it can't be ignored by the right wing fools over at Northwest Republican: "Sizemore's blustery attempts to paint himself as vindicated last week shouldn't fool anybody." And the most important part:

Let the man have his victory lap, but don't forget what he and his sham operation did. … [A] jury found that Sizemore and his crew engaged in a "calculated course of criminal conduct" and "cynical, criminal manipulation of the democratic process." That finding still stands.

I've had several people tell me that I should forgive Sizemore and move on, and believe it or not I would not only love to do that but am also fully capable of doing it. But here's what it would take. You see, even God won't forgive someone unless they ask forgiveness and repent. So I don't think it's too much to wait to forgive Sizemore until he owns up to his role in the OTU scandal, apologizes publicly for it, and then honestly changes his way of doing business. Should that ever happen, I will be the first to reach out a congratulatory hand, if he will take it, and welcome him back into the Oregon family. Until then, like O.J., he should be treated as a pariah and not allowed to get away with his attempts to weasel his way back into an unearned position of credibility and respect in the family.

UPDATE

Some points of clarification regarding whether or not Sizemore is "off the hook." First, defunct or not, the OTU Education Foundation still owes the unions $2.5 million. Sizemore is concerned enough about being forced to pay it that he has filed an appeal with the Oregon Supreme Court. He would not do that if he was home free.

As for any repentance on his part, it is worth noting that despite being under court injunction against violating laws in the process of gathering signatures, he violated Measure 26, by which voters ended payment by signature. Members of Sizemore's insurance initiative signature gathering crew very much appear to have been paid by the signature - so much so that the Bureau of Labor and Industries has already issued fines over the matter. Interestingly, the Secretary of State has not acted in the matter. Surely it is because Democrat Bill Bradbury has a tremendous liberal bias and is out to get Sizemore. Oh, wait. That doesn't make sense at all.

Posted by Becky at 10:01 AM |

Chuck Norris for President!

Chuck Norris has penned an article listing all the ways in which the ACLU is engaged in a war on Christmas and saying the organization should be renamed The Abolishing Christian Legacy Union. In response, WorldNet Daily is running a poll asking its readers whether Chuck Norris should run for President. His impressive qualifications for the job can be found at Chuck Norris Facts. Some of my favorites: Guns don't kill people, Chuck Norris kills people. There is no theory of Evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live. There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up. And just so you know he has something in common with our current President, Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants. And unlike Bush, who said things would be a lot easier if America was a dictatorship, according to Chuck Norris Facts, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship. Sounds like he's perfect for the job. He'll kick those terrorists' asses! Oh, and we'll all get to say Merry Christmas again!

Posted by Becky at 09:33 AM |

Cell Phones the Key to Ending Privacy

Most of us are readily able to be bugged remotely and don't even realize it. As ABC is reporting, if you have a cell phone, it turns out the FBI can remotely turn on the microphone, even if your phone is turned off, and listen to every word that anyone in the room is saying. They call this a "roving bug." The only way to prevent it occurring is to remove the battery from your cell phone. But if you're talking on your phone or have it with you with the battery attached, the FBI can listen to everything you say and you don't have to be told about it. They can also pinpoint your location within a few feet. And it has all just been upheld as legal in a court of law.

Of course, if you're a law-abiding citizen, you don't have anything to worry about, right?

Posted by Becky at 09:29 AM |

December 10, 2006

A Writing Lesson for Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Reagan Administration official and a Republican, has spoken out many times in recent months against the actions of the Bush Administration in Iraq and criticized the President himself quite harshly, recently even questioning his sanity. But his latest article is so fu